Court Of Owls Crew

This will be my first Court of Owls crew which I take to a tournament. I am looking forward to using a new crew with different qualities to my existing options (Poison Ivy, who I haven't really got to grips with; and Black Mask, who I would probably be sticking with if it had a few more affiliated Henchmen options).

• Benjamin Orchard (may swap at some point for High Council)
• Gotham Butcher
• William Cobb - Camo Vest (Stealth); Antidote (Immune to Poison, largely redundant);
• Strix - Magazine (+1 Ammo);
• Xiao Loong 
• Brandon O'Malley - Climbing Claws; C-4 (Explosive Gel)

The line-up comes to 350 reputation and $1100 Funding (these models cannot actually take any remaining Equipment options. I think that on first glance, until I get a few games in with them for better insight, there are a few inherent strengths and weaknesses:

Pros

• Good Defense on the whole (it will be nice to be playing with two-thirds of the crew at Defense 4, rather than most models at Defense 2!)
• A mix of defensive Traits for most Henchmen such as Stealth and Elusive; with Equipment all 4 Henchmen will have Stealth
• Cheap Large Free Agent
• Very cheap Leaders (but they are not front-line fighters)
• Blood Damage from all models, and decent weapon Traits with plenty of Sharp on 4+ Strength for most models, allowing 75% chance of Damaging in basic terms)
• Relatively low VP's conceded overall due to KO'ed (since mostly Henchmen)
• Recovery from KO'ed is very good

Cons

• Lacking ranged attacks (1 model with short range attack)
• Extra VP given up as Casualties
• Limited choice (no non-Court Free Agent or Henchmen fixes for apparent deficiencies; relatively few crew configurations at 300 and 350 Reputation due to the specific bands of Reputation values)
• Inability to fully utilise Funding above 300 Rep (if Funding is a mechanism of balance, then this increasingly limits the Court as Reputation limit increases)
• Limited vertical mobility (no Batclaws or Flight; Climbing Claws are available but are slower to access models which have used Batclaw to get onto higher elevations such as assault rifles and Riddler Bots)

In terms of combat it is looking like these 3 are my best and most efficient combatants:

• Strix: best overall as accuracy is joint second in the list, and potential damage output the highest
• William Cobb: is second due to accuracy based on Precise Blow with Combo
• Brandon O'Malley: looks set to put out some decent damage at the cost of reduced probability of hits

In terms of 'to hit' and 'damage' probabilities, the Butcher is simply not as threatening as he looks.

In terms of mobility, Strix and the Butcher are pretty evenly matched, while Brandon O'Malley offers Tireless for cheap Running.

Defensively Xiao Loong is hands down the best option, in close combat at least, while Strix has Acrobat (for Dodge) and Butcher has some durability with Tough Skin and Endurance 8. What may not be immediately apparent to opponents is that through a relative lack of Free Agents and Sidekicks, the crew gives up a relatively low VP total for KO models, but a relatively high VP total for casualties.