by Jeff Bullard
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The Team:
AVXR100 The Phoenix Force 12
AVXR101 Fragment – Cyclops 3
AVXR102 Fragment – Namor 3
AVXR103 Fragment – Colossus 3
AVXR104 Fragment – Emma Frost 3
AVXR105 Fragment – Magik 3
TMNT3 023 Shredder Clone 75
+Ocean Resurrection 10
+WOL 062 Ion 25 (Equip to Shredder Clone)
-AVXR100X Assigned Character 3
TMNT3 033 Mini Shredder 90
-AVXR100X Assigned Character 3
WI 043 Peace Machine 50
-AVXR100X Assigned Character 3
Black Widow ID 5
Green Arrow ID
Beast Student ID 3
TOTAL: 299Pts
Sideline:
TMNT3 034 Shark Shredder
ABPI 013b Black Widow
EW 049 Green Arrow
WCR 005 Beast
B:TAS 063 Batman
B:TAS 064 Robin
B:TAS 067 Wonder Woman
B:TAS 068 Flash
B:TAS 072 Firestorm
With Majestix Open Series $1k event a week away I am excited to share with you the Phoenix Shredders. It is in my humble opinion that this team is a contender for the Majestix Open Series Championship.
The Event is 300 Constructed Bronze Age with a Ban List. Bronze Age may be a name that you have not heard in Heroclix. It is a format that consists of figures and game elements from Superman Set to the most current set Wolverine vs Cyclops: X-men Regenesis. If you’re not sure, Superman was the set that all figures changed to the “Oreo” base. The Ban List consists of 10 figures that have a negative impact on the game (either play experience or degeneracy).
The Phoenix Shredders came about when my apprehensive self was unsure of what to play, if at all even play in a qualifier. It was during the Majestix Open Series Qualifier I held at my venue. Pat asked me to play, and I didn’t have anything ready for the format. So, I grabbed my Modern Age Shredders minus the IDs and few more colossal (I was in a rush). He played an alpha strike team, swinging with Venom Hulk (that I let him borrow). Venom did a lot of damage turn one. Fortunately, Peace Machine stopped most of Venoms damage. It was a well fought match on both sides and in the end, Pat was the winner and asked if I was going to the qualifier in Fresno, and at that time I hadn’t planned on going.
I had just started playing Heroclix when Joker’s Wild was released (less than two years), and only resource I ever played was Supreme Intelligence. All the other resources seemed very overwhelming and complicated. Pat suggested putting the Phoenix Force Resources on the Modern Shredder team. Equipping Ion on Shredder Clone, adding some old IDs and the team would ready to go.
Main Force
Shredder Clone and Ocean Resurrection is a formidable foe by itself. His Duel of Twisted Honor trait making him a hard target to hit for most attackers. The Phoenix Force Fragment assigned to Shredder Clone grants the Flight ability and Poison to go along with his Shredder Elite Trait. He also gains powers and increased combat value modifiers from the Phoenix Force Resource Dial. With Ion equipped to Shredder Clone he gains two powers showing on the entity dial, and an additional +1 modifiers for two combat values of Ions that are greater than Shredders own values. My goal was to pump his stats up and make him hard to kill, mission complete!
The next man in my Two-Man Army is Mini Shredder. The same as his partner Shredder Clone he is also assigned a Phoenix Force Fragment granting him Flight ability, Poison and all the powers and combat value modifiers of the resource dial. His Mystical Worms gives him at least 11 clicks of life, preventing him to be taken down in one shot. The Shredder Elite trait makes him a deadly force when getting in close to opposing characters. Mini Shredder has always made a great call-in battery.
Peace Machine is la resistance. In a format where (one arm) Green Arrow and Balls of (Nick) Fury are easily available, he is a must. As hard as it is to kill my Shredders, they are glass cannons. Peace Machine’s trait prevents any figure to take more than three damage at once. In order to kill anything, you must double tap him and Shredders to even think of killing them. Peace Machine also has a Phoenix Force Fragment assigned and is gaining powers, abilities and combat value modifiers from the resource dial. With a printed 19-Defense he is also hard to hit.
The Phoenix Force isn’t the most complicated resource, and it’s also not the easiest either. There is a lot to remember with this team. Shredder Clone is getting powers and modifiers from three things different sources, along with Mini and Peace gaining from two sources. My beginning of turn sometimes takes time, choosing powers and what modifiers are in place to use. The goal during this time is plan out the turn, make sure I have my stats where I need them, and powers picked correctly. Let’s break down the 3 “Sources” I like to call them.
Resource
Source one is the Fragments, I choose to play all five fragments on the resource. I have three assigned characters, so this starts me on the 2,1 starting line (more on that later). Deciding what fragment goes on which character can be a difficult choice. Here are my choices:
Fragment – Cyclops – Poison, Ranged Combat Expert and the Flight ability
Fragment – Namor – Poison, the Flight ability, and the Avengers, Defenders, and X-Men team abilities.
Fragment – Colossus – Invulnerability, Poison, and the Flight ability.
Fragment – Emma Frost – Poison, Telekinesis and the Flight ability
Fragment – Magik – Poison, the Flight ability, and the Mystics team ability.
So, the team gains Poison and the Flight ability even if they didn’t have it already. The Shredders having Poison on top of the Shredder Elite Trait, is the extra sting these Side-Stepping-Penetrating-1-damage dealing beast needs. With the Flight ability positioning the team is much easier. It just seems to keep getting better and better. I have never played a Resource like this or any Relics before, so this is all very new to me.
Now who gets what Fragment? The Cyclops Fragment felt like the right choice for Peace Machine. His 7-Range, 10-Attack was a perfect baseline to make him a tertiary attacker with RCE. Let’s skip down to the Magik Fragment, Mystics… that could be good on anyone right. I thought to myself who needs to get hit the most to die? Mini Shredder with his 11+ clicks of life fit this profile prefect. He is already a big target being the highest point character on my team and my main call-in battery. If you don’t have Invincible or Pulse Wave Mini Shredder will find a way to retaliate. There are three Fragments left to choose from. Now for the tough choice to give Shredder Clone Invulnerability or your whole team. Pat and I have gone back and forth on this a bunch. I lean towards giving it just to Shredder Clone and the team having access to TK when need. He keeps it on the resource dial and gives it to his whole team and gives Shredder Clone another Fragment. I tend to only do this when I can’t keep my team together and must split up. Being able to assign different Fragments each game makes it much easier to adapt to your opponent round after round.
The second source is the resource dial and attached fragments to Phoenix Force. Start on click 2,1, because two Fragments are attached to the resource dial. My starting powers on the dial are Charge, Blades, +1 Defense and Empower. For a close combat team this is great and after I kill a few things on the back-end of this dial section is much better than the lower dials in my opinion. With the Shredder able to kill small things very easy the dial quickly clicks up. Also, at the beginning of my turn I get to choose an attached Fragment. My assigned characters can use the powers it grants. Typically, I use the Namor Fragment benefiting from the Defenders Team ability (Defend) while keeping my team close together as I move out. Sharing Peace Machines’ 19-Defense with the +1 Defense from the resource dial makes it at least 20-Defenses for the whole team while together in a group. This keeps them relatively safe until I can move into positions to strike. The Emma Fragment has saved me quite a few times. Needing that last little bit of damage for a KO, I TK out Shredder Clone having him Sidestep in carrying Mini out. Mini then Sidestep in again dealing a second penetrating damage for the KO. With all the powers and combat values increased from the resource dial this team is shaping up nicely.
Equipment:
Now let’s look at our last source. This only helps Shredder Clone, because you know he wasn’t awesome enough already, he needs an entity or an equippable character. This is a new debate Pat and I have been going back and forth on. Ion, which was on my original build and Ophidian, recently off the Ban List. Ion instantly makes almost any character better. Being able to pick two powers showing and to +1 modify two combat values that are higher on the dial. There are 4 powers I’m going to focus on from Ion; Phasing/Teleport, Impervious, Outwit & FORCE OF WILL. The first three powers are all on first click, on second click FORCE OF WILL is the new Movement power with the other power staying the same. “FORCE OF WILL: Friendly characters can use Willpower. If they can already do so, increase their defense value by the number of action tokens on them.” This a huge plus to this team. The already hard to hit defense just got a little bit harder to hit. The Phasing makes Shredder Clone even more deadly being able to pop away and through walls carrying his little buddy Mini. Adding Impervious as a secondary defensive layer is never a bad thing. You Outwit one, the other takes its place. Lastly and ironically Outwit, it’s Outwit why wouldn’t you use it. I can +1 modify my Movement and Damage on click 1, every other click I can also modify my Defense. Being able to pick two of those powers and two +1 modified stats is hard to argue with, trust me I tired. There is another option in my opinion…
I was always fascinated with Ophidian, but it was banned. It wasn’t meant to be, until he was no longer taboo. Pat added the Omega Drive (which was going to be a new addition to the team, thanks Pat) to the Ban List and took off Ophidian. This opened a very interesting door I have been wanting to walk through since the Outwit rule change. Shredder Clone is a great figure to try this out on because, who doesn’t want to pick a power. This the main reason I want Ophidian. This sudo pick a power comes from the DESIRE OF GREED Trait. “DESIRE OF GREED: Ophidian can use Outwit. When it does it can use the countered power or ability for as long as it’s countered”. This means whatever standard power he chooses to Outwit and successfully does; he can now use that power. The keyword (no pun intended) here is “whatever”, even if the standard power is not on the dial, he can still Outwit it and use it. This also work for Special Powers that the Outwit target can use. The ability to have access to any one power, just might out weight the ability to pick two very useful powers.
IDs / Sideline
Now my IDs. There are not a lot of points here for IDs, 13 pts to be exact. That doesn’t leave to many options for me, when there are so many to choose from. What am I worried about? Un-Outwittable Invincible! That sucks for Shredders. Green Arrow ID was an easy choice, One-armed Ollie will pretty much will be able to hit anything for at least 3 clicks and there is no more Defense Powers on that character until my next turn. This leave my Shredders to do what they do best and shred. The Black Widow ID is a new addition, I used the Prime Black Widow from ABPI. After recently using her main force with the Shredders in a ROC Regional event and having her die before she could use her awesome power to negate a defense power she never got to shine. She will be much more useful as an ID call-in. Shape Change is so predominating in this format. In the Version 1.0 I had a Superman ID with Boxing Superman to deal with the Shape Change. When I first saw the Beast from Regenesis I knew his Student ID was going to be my new Shape Change killer.
Just because there was room, I used the Troubalerts as icing on the cake. There are 5 of them and only to be used in very rare and dire occurrences.
So, now we are here with Phoenix Shredders 2.0, it’s just different IDs. After a long story, I end up going to the Fresno Qualifier and placing third. This is a solid team with a lot of potential, in the right hands of course. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to practice rolling your dice.
