Bullet Paw is one of the latest expansions to one of my favourite games of all time, Bullet❤️. While I’ve covered the original game here, and the standalone expansion, Bullet⭐, but I’ve never covered the 3 character expansions, Bullet🍊 and the freshly delivered Paw and Palette. So here I am to start to rectify this situation.
Bullet🍊, Paw, and Palette are all 4 character expansions that you can just mix in with any of the characters that you already have. And as before, every character is both a playable heroine, and a boss to overcome.
Today I’m going to look at the characters and bosses that come in Bullet: Paw and share my experiences as I played them! For playing them as heroines, I’m going to pit them against Hyper Mode from Bullet🍊, as I find she is the most vanilla boss to run up against. Her quirk is really just “Dump 20 bullets into your bag every round. Good luck!”. As for the bosses, I’ll try to overcome them as Mariel Martin from Bullet❤️, as she’s one of my favourite characters to play as!
Beethoven – Heroine
Initially, her patters look incredibly intimidating. Each one has 3 to 5 requirements of specific colours, but after some examination I noticed they’re actually quite friendly in specific ways. Like, the colours always make sense, if the pattern is 5 across, the red will always be in the first column, and the pink will be in the last. In addition, Beethoven’s patters clear 4 bullets instead of the usual 3, making her quite well suited to my specific scenario. Finally, while Beethoven’s ‘move a bullet left, right, or down one space’ costs 2 energy, she does have both ‘move a bullet once diagonally up or down’ and ‘swap two bullets on your board’ for one energy each. This swap does wonders for satisfying some of the cards to maximize the patterns’ effectiveness.
Beethoven overcame Hyper Mode on my second attempt in the 3rd round. I missed the pattern in the first round but accomplished it in rounds 2 and 3. Actually, I managed to bust 3 shields in the 3rd round for a big win.
Behemoth
I like that all of Behemoth’s patterns are references to all the other heroines from Heart and Star. With 20 patters, and very few requirements, Behemoth felt like a cakewalk compared to Beethoven. The quirk here is that Behemoth can remove patters from her discard to clear bullets either from the centre, or from her sight. If you’re sitting at the end of the round, a single bullet away from breaking that next shield, it’s an amazing tool to have in your pocket. Similarly, removing two patterns to clear any bullet from your sight, is wonderfully handy to fulfill the patters that require specific empty spaces, and you just have one annoying bullet in your way.
Behemoth cleared Hyper Mode on her first try, no problems.
Eluros
Emotions are the name of the game for Eluros. She starts every round happy, and when Edelmar is happy, every bullet is considered to be a 4. On one hand, 4’s are usually terrifying, but if EVERY bullet is a 4, then all of your bullets are going to clump up really nicely at the bottom of your sight. And leaning into that effect, Eluros’ patterns all require there to be a 2×2 clump of bullets to activate. Very handy. But when a row has 3 bullets in it, that means ANY bullet of that colour will hit you, which really highlights the push your luck nature of Eluros. You can discard a pattern at any time to change Edelmar’s emotions, which have a variety of effects. When she’s scared, getting hit by a 3 just tosses the bullet back into the centre. Angry Edelmar lets you clear a #2 bullet after using a pattern, and sad Edelmar lets you move #1 bullets to any space on the board.
Eluros fell to Hyper Mode 3 times before I chose to move on from her. I found it very difficult to effectively manage my emotions, and once the board got messy, it was much more difficult to trigger the patterns well. Not to mention, she’s constantly in a pattern deficit as you’re discarding patterns to swap emotions.
Whimsy
Alright, Whimsy is super weird. Moons, Milks, Cookies, a moon exists when a blue bullet is in the bottom row, while a cookie is a pink bullet with an even number, then the patterns are all ‘if a sun is next to a cookie, clear 3 bullets next to a cookie’, or, if milk and money have different numbers, clear 3 bullets in a diagonal line.
Wow, was that ever difficult to wrap my brain around. On the plus side, Whimsy’s ability to draw and cycle patterns was unparalleled, also, often the clear bullets’ ability was separate and distinct from the conditions on the card, so just because you used a cookie on the far left side of your board, doesn’t mean that the bullets you clear are connected to the cookie that fulfilled the condition.
Whimsy does seem powerful if you can grasp the fullness of her power, but I struggled with this heroine. Perhaps with more practise she’ll rise up my ranks.
Beethoven – Boss
Beethoven’s boss patterns are identical to her heroine, in that they are incredibly specific and challenging to overcome. Failing those patterns will deplete your AP, making the next round difficult. Also, Beethoven is dumping 15 bullets into your bag per round, almost as bad as Hyper Mode. On the plus side, you can pet the kitty, which gives you the opportunity to spend 3 AP to put 4 bullets from your current into the centre, taking the pressure off your board, but not contributing to breaking the next shield.
With only 5 health per shield, Beethoven gives you all the ammunition you need to take her down. Mariel made short work of this little kitty.
Chaos Incarnate
Following up on Whimsy’s Thingy’s, Chaos Incarnates patterns draw on the very specific bullet placements to create Milks, Cookies, Suns, Moons, and Dollars, and not having the specified Thingys in your sight causes extra bullets to be placed from into the centre. Furthermore, breaking a shield triggers all Thingys of a specific type to automatically hit you. Extra risky if you fail her pattern, as failure results in two bullets being placed in your sight with no opportunity to mitigate them.
Chaos Incarnate’s fills your bag with an increasing number of bullets every time her shield breaks, but it’s not an unmanageable number. There is a huge element of luck in satisfying her conditions, as sometimes it’s “An even number pink bullet with no star in the bottom row”, which can be really easy, if you happen to draw a pink 2. But when you pull 4 pink 1’s in a row, it’s mildly infuriating.
All that said, Mariel sorted out Chaos Incarnate on her first try. On to the next challenge!
Elurophobia
Elurophobia (fear of cats) features a ghostly silhouette from all four characters in Bullet: Paw, and all 5 of her patterns are nearly identical, with slightly different effects. First, she has a fear card that offers a restriction on a certain number every round. Afraid of Beethoven, for example, causes you to get hit every time you clear a 4, while Afraid of Whimsy makes it impossible to move 3’s for the round. Elurophobia’s patterns, on the other hand, are a boon. If you can make a 2×2 square on your board, then one of the numbers will clear an extra bullet, so long as that square of bullets persists on your board.
I think the real danger of Elurophobia is that every time one of her shields breaks, you’re forced to place an increasing number of bullets into your sight. In the final round, I broke her last two shields in one attempt, and just had to cross my fingers that I would survive the onslaught of 9 bullets getting placed in my sight. Thankfully, Elurophobia only took two tries to overcome.
Mems
And last, but not least, is the wordy Mems. Mems’ whole theme revolves around fears. Spiders, ghosts, and the like. All of her patters are utterly trivial to complete, but when they’re satisfied at the end of the round, something bad happens. And you can’t even be sure what bad thing is going to happen, because you flip over the next pattern and apply that effect instead of the one that’s face up throughout the round.
Mems slow rolls the game. With 6 shield per round, and only 7, 8, then 9 bullets coming in each round, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to shatter two shields in a single round. Thankfully, the two times I failed to avoid the pattern, the flip had something that didn’t affect me at all. I can see Mems being a challenge, but I got lucky and won on my first try.
Conclusion
Bullet: Paw adds 4 unique characters, each one special in their own way. I don’t think any of these new characters are an instant favourite, nor do I really dislike any of them (maybe Whimsy). I don’t think I’d be comfortable giving any of these characters to a new player, but that’s not why you buy an expansion to a game. I liked the unique spin each of these new characters brings to the game, but I wouldn’t say that Paw is a MUST-BUY expansion by any means. Really, if you’re a fan of the system and want to play with new toys, Bullet: Paw is a no-brainer. But if you are looking for something to breathe new life into this system, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Paw gives players more of what they already have, which is exactly what I want out of an expansion. Double bonus points if you really like cats, I suppose!
