I had some great eye-openers last week and my list is tightening up.
Current standings for my tournament list:
Green Goblin, Lizard, Venom, Kingpin, Kraven, Mysterio, Dormammu and Doc Ock remain, but I’ve now included Toad and Black Cat in the line-up. That’s right Felicia has made it off the build bench and into the team!
Tactics Cards: Advanced R&D, One-Two Punch, Fearful Symmetry, Well-Laid Plans, Brace For Impact, Med Pack, The Grand Illusion, Sinister Traps, Neogenetic Recombinator, Monkey Brain is Lizard Home.
I’ve put Med Pack in permanently now as it’s a pretty funky card. Fearful Symmetry made it into the list just for giggles. I plan to let it fly next time I play Web-Warriors to see if I can get it off as a personal achievement more than anything else.
Crisis Cards: Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (14), Research Station Attacked! (16), Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (17) / S.W.O.R.D. Establishes Base on Moon (14), Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses (16), Mutant Madman Turns City Centre into Lethal Amusement Park (18).
I’ve put Spider-Infected and Mutant Madman into the roster because I think my team can go wide quite effectively. High physical defence, high number of medium bases, regeneration and damage reduction built in too. I think this might just work...
Game 8 – 24th Feb ‘22
Vs David (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Worthy (18) / Mutant Extremists (18)
Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Lizard, Mysterio, Black Cat, Toad
Star Lord, Gamora, Drax, Groot, Rocket, Ghost Rider
This is it folks, the first game using the Tournament Pack for London GT! As mentioned in my previous blog post, David and I are entering the MCP GT together and this week saw the release of the pack for the event. The main point of importance is the 1 hour and 45-minute time limit, so moving forwards that’s exactly what we are going to do, we just need to know at what point the timer starts; before drawing and setting up or after... We went with the after as I was nervous about how much of the game we would be able to play.
As mentioned in the intro, I wanted to go wide with the Spider-Foes to really see what they could do. With 8 opportunities for scoring, I knew it would be all about bodies on the field and I was secretly hoping David would go Black Order for me to take proper advantage of the numbers. When Star Lord popped up I knew I was in for a fight...
Set-up went well with Sinister Traps playing on the left deep hammer. It's amazing how much of a road block this card can be and that hammer lay unclaimed for 2 turns! Lizard and Doc took the right flank, both playing exceptionally aggressive. Toad and Cat took the left flank and played more cautiously. Goblin and Mysterio took the centre, waving their arms in the air and making as much noise as they could. Guardians reacted pretty much as I wanted them too, Lizard and Ock caught the attentions of Nebula, Groot and Ghost Rider, Rocket and Star Lord went after the centre, and Drax sort of stumbled around the Sinister Trap to not set it off! By the end of turn 2, I had scored 10 points and David had 3.
Needless to say, this was a perfect game of two halves. The early scoring helped me no end as the Guardians REALLY hit hard. I was able to secure objectives only while I had models on the board though and by turn 4 Ghost Rider had turned Ock and Lizard to dust (very easily I might add...) on the flank leaving it completely uncontested, and Rocket and Star Lord had sniped away at the centre leaving Goblin and Mysterio very vulnerable. The score started to creep up and was at 15-10 at the end of turn 4, all I had to do was keep Black Cat alive holding a hammer...
Turn 5 was ALL about strategy. Goblin killed off Star Lord and sat uncontested on an objective (phew, 1 point right?), Mysterio was too far away to do anything other than Tricks and Traps. Toad had a terrible double attack at Drax which did nothing and left him out of the way of any point scoring with 1 health point left, which left Black Cat vs Drax. Fair fight right?
Black Cat activated first, slamming 8 dice into Drax and caused 5 damage! However "Troublemaker" only does a maximum of 1 damage... but did give the big guy a stagger token! Hardy quickly advanced away with the wild roll leaving Drax at least 1 move action to get into attack range, and thanks to the stagger condition he wouldn't be able to get near enough to end her! Hooray! With Goblin on one objective and Black Cat holding another I've absolutely won the game! Then David activated Drax...
First David played a Guardians card that removed a condition token from him, staggered was gone. Then, Drax threw Toad at Goblin dazing both of them. No scoring from Osborne, fine. David then had to decide to secure the objective or to go for the kill... Drax wanted to kill. He moved in to attack Black Cat and with his last activation managed to just do enough damage to keep the thief alive. Bad Luck kicked off stopping his Guardians' Re-rolls and Felicia sauntered off into the night with a mighty Asgardian hammer to add to her pile of plunder.
Final Score 16-14 to Spider-Foes Turn 5
An amazing game that really shows how much going wide can benefit any team. I really like the agility that Toad and Black Cat bring to the game, the physicality that comes from Lizard, Doc, and Goblin, and of course Mysterio's annoying-ness... I love my bad guys. A massive shout out to the Guardians though. David's first real run with them and they hit so hard! Ghost Rider is just filth, nastier than I remember him to be, and my eye certainly did wander to my model of him! When the Guardians' kick off, they REALLY kick off. There were some hard dice rolls for David, lots of blanks from a 36 attack really hurt him (not me!). Otherwise a really enjoyable tournament game and we had 20 minutes to spare.
Game 9 – 25th Feb ‘22
Vs Scott (Freedom Force)
Demons Downtown (19) / Research Station Attacked (16)
Dormammu, Doc Ock, Lizard, Mysterio, Kraven, Toad
Mystique, Toad, Juggernaut, Omega Red, Scarlet Witch
Scott and I are playing regularly now, and he is determined to test me with all sorts of affiliations and different cards. It's really helping me in understanding my strengths and weaknesses within my team. However this game I was on the back foot from the crisis drawing, never mind turn 1!
Scott lost the priority roll and, with a glint in his eye, very quickly announced a 19 threat mission making this the first time I had assembled such a high threat team. My thought process went along the lines of "Spider-Foes work well wide over lots of objectives, so I should play tall over small objectives", that's logical right? So thinking I was going against the Magneto Brotherhood (sound familiar?), I promptly built a tall list with the tallest fella in the game (Size 5?!) Dormammu for two reasons, 1) I wanted something that could dish out as much damage as it could. 2) He's immune to incinerate meaning he can secure portals with minimal risk.
As I said before, I was on the back foot from the beginning. Games like this don't come around too often but to have lost the game during the team set-up can be a reality. Because I had gone so Tall, I threw in as many little guys as I could to up the number of activations. I had 6 on the field but against Juggernaut they had no chance. This dude took out 3 of my team in one activation, it was harrowing to watch.
Rules question: Does Doc Ock get pierce for EVERY wild in the attack roll from arm lasers or is it only once? It happened against Scarlet Witch, 3 pierce results after modification that resulted in her being K/O'd. I actually argued against it saying that it was only 1 pierce, Scott was adamant that it was 3 pierce. What's your thought?
The real frustrating part about this game is that I felt that I had forgotten more than I had learned! I went against my past experience with the team and built badly. I rushed out Turn 1 with low defence characters against high attack/defence characters. It was a low scoring crisis which meant attrition was the key to success, not speed like in my earlier game with David. I came away from it not feeling great, through no fault of Scott at all! He played a fun team that smashed his opponent off of the field, scoring while doing so.
Final Score 10-3 Freedom Force. Turn 5 (timer ran out).
I am determined to not leave this week on a downer, so here are some key learning points and revelations.
Spider-foes are strongest together! Go wide when you can and enjoy the freedom of movement you get with medium bases and a medium move.
Play more Kingpin, I missed him this week and I plan on showing him off a lot more in future games.
Is Dormammu really worth it? He is really good at being an anti-big guy but he takes up SO MUCH ROOM in a list...
Black Cat is fun, really fun. Her and Venom in an anti-Web Warriors list will be hilarious.
So that's it from me! As always, a huge shout out to David and Scott for the games and support. If you want a game then get in touch or come see me at Duke's Gaming in Pontypool. Otherwise, leave your comments below and thanks for taking the time to read.
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