by Craig Landers
Welcome back Breaking the Meta, a series where I take a look at seemingly overlooked or undervalued Clix, and find new and interesting ways to break them. The overall goal of this series is that when you put a team on the board, your opponent will say “That shouldn’t work”, and at the end say “How the hell did that work?” A new piece will take spotlight each and every week so that everyone can find their own unique twist on odd Clix that shouldn’t be shoved into a closet and forgotten until you move, and then you forgot it was even made.
Week One: The Forgotten Turtle – YGO035 Catapult Turtle
Sadly, this little boy has gotten more hate than Venus de Milo (and trust me, that’s a lot of hate). Every time he is brought up, I hear the same argument “that’s way too many points for those stats”, but my argument is that you’re not paying for an attacker, you’re paying for an insane support piece. Now, pick your jaws up off the ground that I called a 120 point piece a support piece at least long enough to read his special Attack power.
“Catapult Turtle can use Telekinesis, but may only use it to place adjacent friendly characters with a lower point value. When it does, after actions resolve, that character may make a close or ranged combat attack as a free action.”
Sounds pretty good right? But if you’re going to rock with 120 points as your support, you’re going to need some back up around him. How can you turn a simple trebuchet into an attack turret of pain? Let’s look at ways of breaking that shell out.
- Ways to Enhance TK
RE052 Mister Oz – This is the simple answer. Essentially, you get the old TK distance, with the bonus of being able to get a little extra freedom of your placement.
XDPSG015 Magneto – You only get one square instead of 2 like from Oz, but he’s at a bargain of 15 points less, and also has colossal retaliation.
- Ways to Enhance Range
WOLR106 Power Battery (Star Sapphires) – Often the overlooked part of this Battery is just how much it can add to your range. Add on the Sniper Rifle, and a piece’s range very quickly becomes 13, which is very scary to deal with.
SHIELD TA – Considering how much they usually add to ranged figures anyway, the SHIELD team ability is a way of being able to save your perplex to make sure you hit as it adds to your range and possibly your damage as well.
TMTs009 Mjolnir – Old reliable when you’d rather come forward with those close combat attacks rather than ranged ones.
- Characters that Can make Multiple Attacks/Free Attacks
Duo Attack Symbol – Without the damage depletion modifier, throwing out pieces that can use the Duo attack ability with Catapult Turtle suddenly get another attack with their printed damage rather than having to keep taking one off.
M16-001 Doctor Octopus/STOS050 Lt. Sulu/STOS049 Captain Kirk/AD050 Batroc/WF037a Nightwing – This is just a taste of how many pieces can make free attacks in Bronze Age Play. When One Free attack becomes Two Free attacks, then you can start Perplexing a single piece and send them in as a bomb that can really nerf a team.
RE062 The Murder Machine – Kill a piece, then you keep going. Don’t have enough damage to kill a piece? Well you get a freebie shot first to damage them. Worried about missing? Hey, after you miss with your free string of killing attacks, then you get a power action to try again.
- Character That Won’t Let You Use Your Defense
EW049 Green Arrow – The go to for this role usually, but he’s usually thought of as a one-shot wonder when you need him. Giving him a second shot, and suddenly he can cripple an entire team rather than a single piece.
HDOS009 Bard the Bowman – While he doesn’t have the raw numbers of Arrow, he does have more mobility as well as two targets.
So what would a potential entire team look like? Let’s take a look.
Build
100 RE062E The Murder Machine
120 YGO035 Catapult Turtle
40 RE052E Mister Oz
2 WOLR106 Power Battery (Star Sapphires)
8 WOLR306 Star Sapphire Ring
6 WOLR206.14 Sniper Rifle (Violet)
5 XXSXID-019 Iceman
13 DP018 Blind Al
6 WOLR206.12 Spotlight (Violet)
300
You’ll have a piece that can shoot the other side of the board with either an 11-Attack/5-Damage or 12-Attack/6-Damage that can shoot the board turn two. He is guaranteed 2 attacks with those stats that turn, and every time he kills someone, he gets another for free. He also shoots through blocking, and will have two Probs on those attacks. A note of caution, most of the Catapult Turtle teams are not going to win initiative often, and need to have a counter against full alpha strike teams (in this case the Iceman ID card).
Now as always, this is meant to be one of the more fun teams rather than the soul-crushing competitive teams. But of course, how could you build a soul crushing competitive team with Catapult Turtle? It’s not like there’s a piece that could ID in Murder Machine or Green Arrow, who could then be TK’d out to shoot the board, and then do it again next turn. Right?
Uh oh….
