300-Point Mixed-Competitive; needs tuning.

[[RacerX]]

For a serious 300-point Mixed tournament, I'm considering running this army:

V Bane 85
E Firelord 81
U Wasp 44
V Doombot 38
E Black Panther 36
E AIM Medic 16

Being an (expectedly) highly competitive environment, I have no guilt whatsoever about running Firelord, as most of the other people will be running him in some permutation as well.

I prefer a more ranged-combat oriented team than this usually, but with the preponderance of Outwit and Stealth at Mixed team events, having a good B2B character like Bane or Hercules seems to be at more of a premium. At the same time, would I be better off running a V Hercules over the Bane just to avoid getting his high damage potential Outwitted? E Booster Gold as a taxi instead of the V Doombot is another thought since he can move 10 and move Bane into B2B more easily.

This team does not have a very expansive or intricate strategy, obviously, but I am concerned with its viabiliy against more popular mixed teams like E Ultron + assorted MoD abuse, etc.

Thanks for reading, any relevant thoughts would be welcome.

[BAKID]

I would definitely switch out the doombot for Exp. Booster Gold. The 2 extra move is very important- you can hit someone 12 spaces away from your taxi with Bane then, and most importantly, fly far enough to drop bane behind Nightwing/Bullseye/whoever while they are sitting on the ledge. All the MoD ability is really giving the Doombot is a free move anyway, with this team.

Booster Gold also keeps toughness for more clicks than the doombot, and has a longer range. If you find your opponent is moving in close enough for you anyway, you can pair Bane with wasp and booster with firelord, since they both have 8 range. As far as worrying about outwit: If the first person you have bane attack is the outwitting guy in stealth, even at only 3 damage he will knock anybody he hits off their first clicks of stealth. Also, if they outwit his cce, that means they're not outwitting his toughness.

Personally, I'm not sure what U wasp brings to the table in terms of offensive potential, and I'm not sure you wouldn't prefer a rookie Black Panther, since otherwise you will be wasting a regular action (as opposed to an avengers free move) everytime you want to change his position. This is a major consideration if you are going to be flying bane 10 spaces to fight people.

[[RacerX]]

I agree with the Booster Gold point, actually. Recently I've been getting into a rut of running those same two taxis in different skill-level permutations (i.e. V Doombot E Wasp) without thinking about it. The Booster would serve a more important purpose in this army; I'll make the change immediately.

The U Wasp, however, allows you to save move actions repositioning Black Panther if you hit for leadership, for one thing, and its general percentage difference in being hit by an 11 attack makes it much safer as a taxi against snipers. Personally, I don't require a lot of offense out of my taxis.

I also prefer the E Black Panther since it can defend itself if it accidentally becomes based. Generally I'll be playing safely with the Panther, but let's face it, if someone wants to base your Black Panther bad enough, they probably will. I like the fact that it can "defend" itself and hit back.

If you have another suggestion about what the Wasp should be and what I would add if, say, the Wasp became a cheaper taxi and I dropped the Panther down to Rookie, I'm all for it.

Thanks very much.

[Xian]

Originally posted by BAKID
Personally, I'm not sure what U wasp brings to the table in terms of offensive potential,

With the Doombot gone, U Wasp is the only remaining source of leadership, which is always useful. Additionally, her double incapacitate is much handier than people usually credit it. While Incapacitate shouldn't be the basis of a team, used strategically, it can provide a great boost to an already sound team.

and I'm not sure you wouldn't prefer a rookie Black Panther, since otherwise you will be wasting a regular action (as opposed to an avengers free move) everytime you want to change his position. This is a major consideration if you are going to be flying bane 10 spaces to fight people.

E Black Panther does, of course, have a much higher damage potential, and with E Booster Gold free-moving, it shouldn't matter too much. With E Booster Gold, U Wasp, E Firelord, V Bane, and E Black Panther + medic; both of the taxis can free-move, both of the heavy-hitters can attack, and Black Panther can move (or attack) on one turn. With the Leadership roll, the medic can do something too.

Sounds pretty solid to me. V Hercules is also an option, and his stats stay pretty level, but I think that Bane is probably worth keeping. If someone Outwits his CCE, that person isn't going to be Outwitting his Super Strength, his Toughness, or, say Firelord's RCE, or Black Panther's BCF.


Xian

[malchyor]

in your mixed tournament, do wildcard teams allow cross universe team duping?

if so, missing out on the intergang and batman teams is gonna hurt you.

other than that, this team looks very solid. agree about the booster gold. funny that he's a second stringer in the comics but how he gets such use in the game (like black panther, vulture, firelord, and countless others.....).

[[RacerX]]

Cross-universe team duping is allowed; which is why I brought up the point about Ultron + MoD Abuse. Generally, in Marvel-only games, I run a similar army using U Nightcrawler as my "beat on random stealthed guys and support" piece. Unfortunately, Nightcrawler v. Stealthed Ultron or Stealthed Dr. Doom isn't going to cut it, where Bane is much better suited to smashing one of those pieces apart.
I know that, with the exception of the Black Panther I don't have any stealth or outwit, which matters a lot more in these games, but to be honest, I'm not really thrilled with Batman Team characters in general. E Batman and V Nightwing are both solid, but E Batman isn't hitting anybody relevant in mixed with his whopping 9 attack, and at the same time, Nightwing has about 2 clicks of usefulness before becoming total junk. At least with the Black Panther, I can only spend 36 points for that sort of "usefulness."
Thanks for posting, everyone, again.

[Shibitz54321]

talk about extra cheese

[[RacerX]]

Thank you for the intelligent response. In light of your comment, I'm pulling the Bane and the Firelord and replacing them with an army of Black Mantas.

[EvilGenius]

The only tuning I would consider is dropping Bane to Exp and then if you drop wasp to a cheaper taxi, you could add a probability controller.

I think in a serious, competetive tournament, being able to control the dice a little bit helps out tremendously!!!

Put Black Cat into a good position, backed up by Black Panther, just in case, and make your opponent reroll his hits on firelord or bane. Reroll misses by firelord or bane, reroll failed healing attempts or low rolls on the # of clicks of healing. Reroll low b/c/f rolls.

The fun hardly ever stops! :)

So, this permutation would give you:

Exp Firelord
Exp Bane
Exp Booster Gold
Exp Black Panther
Exp Black Cat
Exp Aim Medic
and for your cheap taxi, you have 21 pts. that gives you exp Vulture for 20 pts or even rookie vulture for 15 and you could upgrade your medic.

Or something like that. ;)

[dolemite199]

RacerX,

Another important point that you should look at when using Exp. Booster Gold is his deep dial. A Vet. Doombot is good because of his MOD team ability. But Booster starts with a higher move, and can survive a direct attack better than a Vet. Doombot because of his seven clicks of life. If your Doombot gets his toughness outwitted he will be KO'ed by five damage attack. Booster will still have two clix left. In these mixed games where damage can reach insane amounts consistently, you should never overlook the longeviety of a figure. You look like you have a strong setup. Be careful when playing though. One solid strike to your Firelord or Bane will cripple you immensly. These are your only heavy hitters and should be used with extreme caution. Your strategy is very simple, but do not overextend your self even if you can KO a figure with a range attack from Firelord followed by an attack by Bane. It is better to weaken his main attackers instead of killing them one at a time. Good Luck.

[[RacerX]]

I prefer my taxis to do something other than get shot, like Vulture generally does.

Other than that, yeah, I tend to agree that a probability controller would be fantastic in here, as, when it all comes down to it, rolling the sice is everything. Your suggestion is probaby the most efficient way to squeeze one in. Also, though, I think the V Bane is worth his points, and it would really make me sad to downgrade him.

I'd also have to buy a Vulture, though, which saddens me.

Thanks for the input, though, since I might be the worst die-roller in history and a PCer is more important to me than most.

[[RacerX]]

Also, very quickly,

Dolemite, you are absolutely correct about the fragility of my pieces. It's a simple strategy, but yeah, I'm aware I can't go plowing my pieces into battle.

Also, the Booster Gold has already been included, if you read up.

Just for simplicity's sake, the new team listing is:

V Bane 85
E Firelord 81
U Wasp 44
E Booster Gold 38
E Black Panther 36
E AIM Medic 16

[Lazy Nerd]

Its so fun to see the look on your opponents faces after they roll a double 6 and you make them re-roll! Its just so fun! Oh, and expecially when they need a 9 or better to hit, they get it, you PC, and they roll double ones. God I love PC.

Nice looking army, tell me how it does!

[BAKID]

Personally, I am a big fan of Vet. Man-Bat as a taxi. Charge, movement of ten, and a nine attack all for 31 points. He can take an enormous pounding too, and your opponent always thinks he is about to die because he has no powers whatsoever after his first click. However, I use him more when I'm going to put multiple close combat teams together.

I agree that U wasp is hard to hit, but if you don't put her in base to base with the enemy, that's not going to matter, because your opponents will be gunning for Firelord or Bane. Wasp works really well as a taxi for bane, except for that speed of 8 means you won't always be as mobile as you need to be. On the other hand, if you are going against Ultron-MOD teams, once you get enough hits on ultron to reduce his attack to something managable (how many clix does that take?) half your team will be essentially unhittable if wasp and firelord have taken no damage. Most of the nasty clix like firelord have strong atttack values deep into their dials, even when their defenses are eminently hittable, which is why I've always considered it very useful to have taxis able to smack them for 2 the turn after a heavy hitter starts to mess them up.

If you are comfortable with using wasp though, I would keep her, and keep the team as-is. I can offer a different setup if what you are looking for is a "Firelord and range + melee tie-up" team, though.

Veteran Man-Bat + Rookie Solomon Grundy is a wicked combination for attacking your opponents stealth pieces or tying up their better guys in melee. Grundy has 10 clicks of life, and keeps a 10 attack for his first several clicks, and has a bunch of toughness, and he LOOKS big and mean, so your opponent may simply fixate on him psychologically, too. Both of them together is 79 points, less than Vet Bane. If you think the melee will be less important damage wise than as a tactical move, you could put in Rookie hawkman for Man-Bat. He has one less click of life and lower av's, but he has JLA ability and 10 speed w/charge for only 1 point more. You would then have a 80 point team with 16 clicks of life and significant offensive potential and manuverability able to move and attack at 10 for only 80 points and 1 action per turn. You could then put in ranged attackers + taxis to complement your firelord. This would make the team much less of a firstt-strike team, and more focused on manuvering. Instead of trying to just pound ultron with bane while he's hiding in a bush, you'd try to pin ultron with grundy and blast all the other members of his team. Either strategy can work.

[[RacerX]]

Thanks very much for the input, I'll definitely take the 79-point tie-up idea into consideration. Though it reduces a lot of the raw power in the team, it definitely fits the theory.

The only problem I have with it is that Exp Ultron keeps at least a 10 attack until he dies, so he's going to hit pretty much anything he wants. My original strategy with a semi-different team was to smash the support pieces with Nightcrawler and then once Ultron loses his stealth, come in and blast him, etc. It was a solid team, but very methodical and not as quick as this team.

I wanted to at least try just hammering him with Bane, since if I can position myself into getting the first shot, Ultron loses Invulnerability and EE, and he goes down to 14 and Toughness. (He obviously loses more if the person playing him is a moron and isn't putting him into stealth, so BP can outwit.)

(And a quick aside on the Wasp; I prefer not to have my taxis shot up, especially if they're carrying a piece that doesn't like to move himself, like Bane. For this reason, I don't even OWN a Vulture of any type. Man-Bat, though, I must have overlooked, he's not too shabby at all)

Also, in case I do not get paired against Ultron-based teams or other well-constructed ones, I do have the potential to blow random opponents off the map with (hopefully) more blatantly powerful pieces. I like that.

At any rate, I'm going to test out the Man-Bat/Solomon Grundy thing. It seems like an efficient way to tie up someone's good piece and cause them unnecessary grief trying to remove it.

Thanks much.

[BAKID]

Be sure to post the details if you try it in a tournament. I would probably go with rookie hawkman if you just want to tie people up, since he's only 32 points and has the free move. I, unfortunately, don't have a rookie hawkman, but I do have two vet Man-bats, so I use him all the time. I actually won a 300 pt all figs 50 pts. or below tourney with man-bat + grundy as one of my main threats. The whole "look at the giant bat carrying the zombie into battle" visual effect is quite striking.

With regard to the "first strike" team, an Exp. man-bat could share bane's attack, since he is batman enemy team. His move is only 9, but he is cheap (27 pts.). I don't have one of those either, and the vet seems to work really well with bane, but its another thing to try. Most of my experience using them is in DC only though, where Bane is death incarnate and a 9 av can hit practically anybody reasonably well. As someone else said, probability control would also make it much more certain your first strike hits. I own much more DC than Marvel, but the 400 pt. Mixed team I am planning on using this weekend looks like this:

U Vision 112
V Nightwing 72
E Bane 76
R S. Grundy 48
V Man-Bat 31
E Booster Gold 38
V AIM Medic 17
Total: 394

Trying to figure out what to do with the last 6 points, but these figs. are all my favorites. Essentially, vision taxis in bane, picks up the object mr. annoying stealth guy is hiding under. Then booster gold taxis in nightwing to a convenient hiding place where he can outwit mr. previously hidings invulnerability or other defensive ability, and bane smacks him for 5 damage, assuming he hits. Man-bat then flies grundy in to tie up the most menacing enemy with a ranged attack, and hopefully beats on that fig or a support fig foolish enough to be standing next to them. Then nightwing smacks someone (probably whoever he outwitted) for 3.

What sort of Ultron teams are you going to be testing against? If team abilities cross worlds, there are a lot of options for Ultron power-ups

R Harley Quinn--perplex AND Batman team ability
E Boomerang--multi target energy explosion and sinister syndicate
V Puppetmaster MoD with either of the above lets him borrow Ultron's attack to mind control.

R Robin--Just for batman ally ability

V Nightwing--Strong Fig, outwit AND batman ally

V Hawkman--Super taxi and JSA ability, much cheaper than Defenders

E Man-Bat--taxi with move of 9 and batman enemy

I would be most worried about Boomerang. The multi-shot EE and (later) multi-shot incapacitate is tremendous. Besides the stealth teams, I would playtest against something like this
E Ultron
E Boomerang
R Avalanche
R Doombot x2
R Invisible Girl
V SHIELD Medic

Ultra Ultron EE Cheese

2 free move taxis that can SHIELD pump the EE attacks or make their own borrowing Ultrons AV, and which heal the Big U if they die. Invisible girl gets taxied up in the back, and pumps everybody's defense. Avalanche makes barriers wherever you need them. It's only lacking stealth, which you could get by trading the shield medic for R Robin or R huntress.

This is the most ruthless 300 pt MoD cheese I could come up with, I challenge everybody else following this thread to come up with something better :)

[dolemite199]

BAKID,
This is the most ruthless 300 pt MoD cheese I could come up with, I challenge everybody else following this thread to come up with something better

Here goes.

Exp. Ultron (139pts)
Exp. Dr. Strange (71pts)
Rok. Robin (17pts)
Rok. Doombot (27pts)
Rok. Shield Sniper (11pts)
Rok. Avalanche (19pts)
Exp. Aim Medic (16pts)

300pts Exactly.

Instead of using the redundant exp. boomerang/Ultron EE combo, this team is more focused at abusing Ultron and the Doombots MOD team. With the defenders team ability Dr. Strange and the Doombot can share Ultron's 18 defense. Robin gives stealth. Avalanche gives Ultron and the Doombot free movement. The shiled sniper gives Ultron and the Doombot the ability to increase each others EE attacks or Dr. Strnages ranged attacks. The aim medic is there for healing. I would recommend that you use Ultron to taxi Dr. Strange around so he can use his RCE on consecutive turns which will push him into enhancement. Then unload on a cluster of targets with an EE attack from Ultron. The Doombot can also be used to add +1 dmg to the EE attack via the sheild team ability. You could possibly have Ultron deal six clicks of damage to two adjacent figures with this setup because of the enchanced sheild aided EE attack. I have used this team before and my opponents had a hard time dealing with the MOD team ability abuse. I hope this team is on par with your challenge.

- Zeb

[[RacerX]]

Both those teams are about what I'm looking for. Between my friends and I, we can run all of those. It looks like I got the tournament wrong, though (DOH!) and it's going to be Marvel-only.

Still, thanks all for the help, but it looks like I'm back to running my standard couple Marvel teams, whichever one I decide on.

I would honestly like to thank 99% of those who posted for their intelligent responses and good discussion in general. I was almost loathe to post a team including E Firelord for fear of stupid flames from bags populating the site. I just learned how to play in December, but I've done a lot of research and play as much as I can, and it's nice to see others that have made an honest attempt to know what they're doing, instead of "MY MINI0nz TEAM RULZ0RZ J00!"

:)

[dolemite199]

[RacerX]

"MY MINI0nz TEAM RULZ0RZ J00!"

Man that is funny. Truthful, but funny.

Thanks for the laugh.

Good luck!

[BAKID]

Your team looks fine, Dolemite, sharing numerous team abilities. I don't think either of the teams we came up with would work where I play though, because lots of folks love using close combat figs.

Maybe I'm stuck in a rut with my style, but in playtesting I can NEVER beat the teams I normally play in tournaments with Ultron/EE based teams in mixed play. Ultron ends up fighting Bane or Grundy mano e roboto and his taxi gets based as well, so I'm always praying for breakaway rolls. Dr. Strange or a Doombot simply can't outmanuver Booster Gold or Hawkman.

I really like using Black Cat with ultron, since she can imitate SHIELD abilities AND probability control. Not for attacks, but break away or impervious/super senses rolls. She keeps on being the support fig. voted "most likely to be the first to die" in our games, though, for some odd reason :(

[dolemite199]

BAKID,

Dr. Strange and Doombot can't outmanuver anyone let alone Booster and Hawkman. The Doombot starts out with an 8" move, but drops to 5" after a few clicks. We all know how poor the 6" move on Strange is. I get around this mobility issue by having Ultron taxi Dr. Strange. This way Strange can be put into position to RCE an oncoming close combat attackers, or ranged pests taxi limiting there mobility. His four clicks of damage from range will put a hurtin on any taxi, which is what I always shot at first. Then my slow Doombot moves up behind Ultron dropping of Avalanche who creates a barrier in front of this cluster. The barrier really helps slow close combat down depending upon if my opponent places his guy B2B at a diagonal to Strange or Ultron. This way I can make instant blocking terrain between my guys and his close combat guy, which prevents an attack on me, and allows Strange or Ultron to move without having to breakaway. This is how I aviod a B2B mess with this team. If you can KO Avalanche then I am forced into that situation. The only thing that would make this team stronger would be an exp. Black Panther. This would help the close combat dilema emmensely. BCF is a nasty thing to walk into. A silly skrull might do some good to with its team ability cause a miss. These are just options. Try to play very meticulous with a team like this. It is fragile when putting all of your eggs in one basket, but this team can dominate a game when properly played. My buddy uses this team and when we play each other it is a very intense game. I might try adding Black Cat though. I have never played with her because I do not have one. From what I seen though she is quite annoying. Do not worry one day your Ultron team will get its rightful revenge.

- Zeb