I remember seeing a rules clarification that because she's not a Villain Character card, Fanatic's Chastise works on the Operative. But Visionary's Wrest the Mind won't work, because she's still a Character card. But they both have the same wording, "next to a target, other than a character card." And in the digital version, neither card works on the Operative.
So what gives? If Chastise works on The Operative and Wrest the Mind does not, what is the distinction, give the cards have the same wording? Or do neither work?
The Operative is a villain card and a Character Card, but not a Villain Character Card. Villain Character Cards are character cards with the keyword "villain" on it.
Villain card: any card from the villain deck. Even unusual cards, like "Safe House", "Bloodsworn Arena", or "Shrine of the Ennead", which don't actually spend any time in the deck, count. The Title Deck... doesn't?
Character card: a double-sided card. Notable oddities include Kismet's Talisman and The Operative, both "character" cards and "villain" cards, but not "Villain Character" cards.
Villain Character card: a double-sided card with the "Villain" keyword. The nine members of the Ennead are each Villain Character cards, as are all the Vengeance-style villains.
I think the distinction of Villain Character card vs character card vs villain card is necessary, given the cards/card text we have, though my guess is that the need for that distinction is resultant rather than planned. From that standpoint, my guess is that given the opportunity to do it over, the card text might be tweaked such that the distinction weren't necessary.
Or maybe not. I think there's an interesting story element to be contrived (and maybe intended?) from the fact that The Operative didn't get the villain keyword.
I understand, mechanically, why the distinction needs to be made between two-sided Big Bads, two-sided bad guy helpers, and one-sided bad guy helpers.
I'm just stating that the nomenclature is counterintuitive; there's too much overlapping of terms (which, as you stated, might be emergent rather than planned). It is not at all obvious that villain card + character card != Villain Character Card; quite the opposite, in fact. I would give Villain Character Cards a different label than Villain to clarify.
By colosseum and favor being in Warfang's deck you avoid having to explain putting cards from a different deck into play, which saves a ton of space on Warfang's character card.
Huh…really? The talisman’s a character card? I always figured the character card was the card representing the character themself, and the rule card that would have been part of the oversized character card.
Are we getting an oversized Talisman with Villains?
Villain character cards are character cards with the “villain” keyword on them.
The Operative, for example, is not a villain character card because even though she’s a character card in a villain’s deck, her only keyword is “assassin”, not “villain”. this can be important when determining targets for certain cards such as fanatic’s “chastise”, which cannot be played on the villain character card. “Chastise” could be legally played on the operative.
