Cad Bane has an action listed on his card " Action - Play an upgrade from your hand on this character (paying its cost) . Then you may activate him." Does that mean that I must fulfill the requirements of that action in order to activate him? Or is it an additional special optional action that can be taken due to the text on his card?

Can I -

• Activate and roll out Cad's character dice (with no new upgrades played). Resolve those dice on future turns. Then play an upgrade on Cad, reactivate him, and roll out his character dice and the new upgrade. Can I reactivate Cad as many times as I can play upgrades on him in a round.

Or...

• Only activate Cad once per round only after playing (or replacing) an upgrade on him?

I feel like the action text is unclear, as it doesn't specially say I can't activate him without playing an upgrade on him first. I feel like you can interpret it either way. The way it reads, it sounds like I can activate him any time I play an upgrade on him.

Thanks!

"re"activate isnt a thing in this game, its only ready/exhausted/activate

If he is exhausted (already been activated) his ability does nothing unless you find a way to ready him. You cannot activate an exhausted character otherwise.

Cad's ability is basically to allow you to play an upgrade on him and activate him in the same turn without requiring Ambush equipment or some other multi-action stacking effect. You can still play an Ambush card on him and get the free action but you must fulfill the first action before you can do the bonus one -> that is, he must activate after you play the upgrade on him before you can do your ambush action.

You can activate him normally, its not a requirement to activate him.