by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece?. This week, I’ll be taking a look at a piece that will be legal for ROC Age events, due to being Golden Age. This week, reserve a spot on your calendar, to read this article on Calendar Man!
Calendar Man has the Batman Enemy team ability, which reads:
When this character makes an attack, you may replace its attack value with the printed attack value of an adjacent friendly character that can use this team ability.
Calander Man also has 3 special powers, along with Mastermind as his only Defense power:
(Movement Special) ODD DAYS…AND EVEN: Calendar Man can use Stealth. When the game begins on a day with an even-numbered day of the month: Give Calendar Man a power action; halve the speed value and range value of a target opposing character until the beginning of your next turn. When the game begins on a day with an odd-numbered day of the month: Give Calendar Man a power action; up to three friendly characters adjacent to him can use Phasing/Teleport until the beginning of your next turn.
All of Calendar Man’s special powers come with a standard power, along with extra effects, which are based around the day/date/season, so playing him requires planning ahead. Whether or not you’ll get the result you want with this power (the even-numbered day of the month one) is about 50/50. If your event that you plan on playing him at gives him that particular ability, he can be quite a nuisance for your opponent, especially since no range or line of fire is required. Regardless, always having Stealth is nice, especially with Mastermind to go with it.
(Attack Special) WEEKEND WARRIORS: Calendar Man can use Energy Explosion. When the game begins on Monday through Thursday, Calendar Man can use Outwit; when he counters an ability he counters that ability on all opposing characters. When the game begins on Friday through Sunday: modify the attack value of friendly characters adjacent to Calendar Man by +1.
Unfortunately, since major tournaments tend to be on the weekend, it is likely that you’ll only have access to the +1 to Attack portion of the power, which is still good, but not quite as good, especially with how useful Outwit is now. Also, Energy Explosion is better on Calendar Man, although his 4-Range should limit how much it’s used. Even then, it doesn’t seem to add much to his cost, so it’s basically a bonus.
(Damage Special) CELEBRATING HOLIDAYS WITH A BANG: Calendar Man can use Probability Control. Give Calendar Man a power action and roll a d6. When the battle begins during the winter or spring, on a result of 5-6 give an action token to an opposing character within 10 squares and adjacent to or holding an object. When the battle begins during the summer or fall, on a result of 5-6, deal 1 penetrating damage to an opposing character within 10 squares and adjacent to or holding an object.
This power is useful with either effect, but the winter/spring effect is more useful, and winter/spring accounts for most of the time when ROC Age or Silver Age tournaments are allowed as alternate formats for ROC events. In either case, you’ll probably want Mr. Mxyzptlk to guarantee that you get the 5-6 on the D6, which is fine since you might not be running theme with Calendar Man.
Overall, Calendar Man provides a fair amount of utility for his points. Probability Control is always useful, as is being able to slow down opposing characters, assuming you can play him on the proper day. The team that I’ve made with him in mind assumes that he will be played on an even-numbered day of the year, although the other pre-requisites don’t matter as much:
52 SOG020 Calendar Man
70 AVAS044 Arcade
100 SFSM054 Devil Dinosaur
40 JW050 The Penguin
5 WFR100 Justice League Teleporter
-5 AOUAUID-103 Captain America
-5 WFWFID-004 Green Arrow
-5 NFAOSNFID-007 S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7
-5 AVASAVID-002 Hawkeye
-5 AOUAUID-008 Wonder Man
-5 WFWFID-001 Superman
297
Sideline: WKMP17-004 Captain America, tmt006 Captain America, EW049 Green Arrow, ADW067 Hawkeye, NFAOS024 Winter Soldier, ADW067 Hawkeye, AAOU009 Hawkeye, AOU032 Wonder Man, WKDP17-003 Superman
The point of this team is to have the pogs do the heavy lifting, while Calendar Man sits in the back, messing with the opponent. To start, if you don’t win map roll to choose Arcade’s Arena, you’ll use the Justice League Teleporter’s Better Suited For These Foes to switch out Arcade for Earth X Captain America, who will be able to use Leadership to pull tokens off of all your bystanders as well as both Devil Dinosaur and The Penguin, on a successful roll. Assuming that you do have Arcade, on his map with the good clicks, the game plan will be something like pop out pogs with both Devil Dinosaur and Penguin, leaving one of the Devil Dinosaur ones behind to be used as Mastermind fodder for Calendar Man. Arcade will be able to make attacks, drawing line of fire through the bystanders, as well as triggering The Penguin’s trait:
(Trait) THIS IS HOW I DEAL WITH THE BAT: Once per turn for all characters with this trait, if a character uses the Batman Enemy team ability to replace their attack value with The Penguin’s, after resolutions, you may give a Robo-Penguin a MOVE action at no cost.
This ability will decrease Arcade’s Attack by 1 overall, but will also give a Robo-Penguin the MOVE action at no cost. Assuming that this bystander has the +1 to all combat values, and is the Pulse Wave one, it will have Sidestep plus the at no cost move for 5, which should help set up a Pulse Wave, either 10-Attack and dealing 3-Damage, or attacking multiple characters for 1-Damage, with the further benefit of Arcade’s Probability Control from across the map. In addition to your opponent having to deal with pogs, Calendar Man will (ideally) be able to slow your opponent down, giving the slow
That’s all I have for this week. Come back in two weeks, when I take a look at another overlooked Fringe figure. Until then, remember, whether you’re playing an established competitive figure, or a Fringe piece, practice makes your team better.
