by Adam Friedman
There’s a Bronze Age Qualifier (online) so it’s time to talk about some cool tech (ie, my team!).
The list I am playing is
(Click to Buy!)
100 2x Spider-Man 1776
30 2x Marvella
30 Phalanx Drone
70 JLU Joker with bomb guys
30 Blue Power Battery with Net, Wall, Sniper
35 8 IDs, Student Iceman/Cyclops/Jean Grey/Chamber/Beast and Atom, Green Arrow, SHIELD Level 7
10 Power Gem
The first thing of note is that this strange combination is a Spider-Man Family theme. 1776 welcomes Soldiers, which Phalanx Drone happens to be, and Marvella brings in Celebrities which means JLU Joker and his bombs qualify.
The main trick of this team is a bit of tech I realized a little bit ago. Kobik has a criminally under-used trait: REWRITE HISTORY: POWER: Once per game, choose an adjacent friendly character on their starting line and a character on your sideline with the same name as the chosen character. If the first character is equal or more points than the second, replace the first character with the second on their starting line. (That character can’t have the same set symbol and collector number.)
I say criminal because it has been used 0 times in competitive play to my knowledge, which is a shame for how inherently powerful such an effect is. The problem with the trait is that the kinds of teams that want to play Kobik anyway don’t have much use for it, and 100 (or 115) is too many points to commit to just get that effect if it’s the reason you are playing her. However she has a little known secret that provides a steep point discount. She has the SHIELD keyword.
This means she can be obtained for a measly 5 points off of the Level 7 ID, opening up all kinds of possibilities for cool swaps.
One of the most interesting swaps is unavailable on this particular variation due to a lack of sideline slots. Due to some strange rules regarding parenthesis in names, the Phalanx, Age of Ultron, and Future drones are all named “Ultron” for nearly all game effects. This means they share a name with each other, even at their full 120 point lines. Due to using Kobik after the game starts (unlike the Teleporter which happens earlier), this means it is possible to trade out a 30pt Drone for one of the other two on its full 120 point dial. In some cases gaining as many as 6 clicks of life in the process. This of-course has the downside that the figure will score 120, but if the extra clicks mean survival this hardly matters.
On my team for Bronze however, the trick is instead to swap out JLU Joker for JW HAHA Joker. HAHA Joker is nothing new to Bronze as a powerful piece, but getting to on-theme him to a new keyword is a fantastic thing. Additionally the way the bombs on the strip work from JLU Joker means you get to keep the extra 2 low-dial Jokers who stay 0 points for all effects. This is reminiscent of the similar idea Kennie Pena used in the 2017 ROC Cup swapping out Loki with the Teleporter.
With HAHA and bomb Jokers able to go on a remarkably point-safe offense, this allows the Marvellas to stay at home alternating Barrier to maintain defenses for the backline. 1776 adds into the mix to limit opposing actions. Ideally, Joker equips Power Gem and gets assigned Sniper to become a “base” 30-ish click 11/3 10-Range attacker for the entire game along as an ID battery threat. Then on top of that once all the Jokers get assigned constructs there are three Perplexes to spread around the front-lines as well.
Added to this, the Blue Spectrum bonus plays insanely nicely with the bomb Jokers. Normally getting to reroll a Shape Change is just nice, an extra chance to not get attacked. But on the Bomb Jokers this is an extra 1/3 chance to get an extra Joker. This can have a huge swing turning an action that removed a piece from your force into one that adds one to your force.
If one of the Bomb Jokers happens to have Sniper, it is possible for unsuspecting players to allow you to infiltrate their position this way too, because the new Joker is generated within range and line of fire (or 10 squares with Sniper), not adjacent. Since the bombs have Plasticity Stealth and two rollouts, this is not a trivial problem in many positions, particularly with the action limits 1776 imposes.
Altogether the idea is to just slowly grind down opponents who end up unable to break through with the limited resources you allow them and find it hard to avoid wasting time and actions dealing with figures who don’t meaningfully increase their victory points.
There are also lots of minor tricks that can do interesting things. For instance when you call in Kobik, you can trade TAs with an opposing figure who has one that is copyable (say, Batman, Underworld, or Police) to get permanent access to it (since “use” of a team ability is all that’s needed to copy it, so any of your wildcards copying it during the one turn you actually “have” it permits it to be copied from that figure on later turns). In a similar way the one-turn SHIELD TA you get from Level 7 becomes functionally permanent by copying it with a Wildcard that turn.
I’m hoping this is a good debut to show that Level 7 ID doesn’t need to be just about attacking really well, but can serve a meaningful role as an effect that widens the teambuilding possibilities more generally.
