by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece?. This week, I will be looking at the chase Question from the Flash set.
The Question possesses Improved Movement: Hindering. He has one trait:
BOUND BY SIN: The Question can use Toughness and is a wild card. The Question may copy an uncopyable team ability from a character with the Detective or Trinity of Sin keyword.
Giving The Question a traited reducer is good, in addition to the wild card ability, adding to his versatility. Based on what pieces can and will be used competitively, The Question’s trait could allow him the ability to copy these normally uncopyable team abilities/ATAs: Kingdom Come, Spider-Man Family, Justice League Dark, Outsiders, and Quintessence.
The Question also has one movement, attack, and damage special power:
WHAT OF MY SINS?: The Question can use Charge, Shape Change and Stealth.
Charge works well with The Question’s other powers and close combat focus. Stealth is always nice to see, and of course, Shape Change works well with The Question’s Super Senses.
BINARY GAS: The Question may use Poison and Precision Strike. When he uses Poison or makes an attack, after actions resolve, he can use Smoke Cloud as a free action, but only to place hindering terrain tokens in a square he occupies or is adjacent to.
Poison for free damage is good, especially when combined with Stealth to force opposing characters adjacent. The free Smoke Cloud is also useful, especially when The Question uses Charge and does not need to be concerned about ending up in printed hindering terrain. Having Precision Strike as well as his Outwit will help The Question deal with multiple types of defenses.
PURGING MY SINS: The Question can use Outwit. When he does, remove an action token from him if he has 2 action tokens.
The Question has a full dial of Charge between his movement special power, as well as having it as a standard power. He also gains Blades/Claws/Fangs later in the dial, for some surprise high damage potential. The Question also has Exploit Weakness or Outwit to go with his Blades/Claws/Fangs, to ensure that the damage will stick. Defensively, The Question also gets Combat Reflexes and some end-dial Regeneration.
In addition to giving The Question the ability to use Outwit, it gives him a very rare ability, which is the ability to take non-free actions every turn. This ability takes the rest of the ridiculousness on his dial and turns it to 11. He is a threat on every click of his dial, combining his full dial of Charge with combinations of Precision Strike, Outwit, and Exploit Weakness, to ensure that he will be ignoring one or multiple defense powers at any one time.
Overall, The Question is a great package of close combat and free damage. Even if he begins the turn with 2 action tokens, he can theoretically Outwit an opposing characters’ defense power, remove an action token from himself, use Poison against that opposing character, use Smoke Cloud as a free action, then make a close combat attack using Precision Strike. If he is on a Mystical theme team, he can then copy Mystics, as the opposing character has to attack him with -1 attack, on his 18-Defense with Super Senses and Shape Change. Then he can repeat the last turn again. And again and again.
While the Detective and Trinity of Sin keywords are not viable competitively, The Question does have the Mystical keyword, which tends to be effective, and is very much so at the moment. The Question does not have access to any ATAs, but I would recommend that you take full advantage of what the Mystical keyword can offer you.
The team that I have built for The Question is Mystical themed:
140 Jakeem Thunder
100 The Question
37 Green Lantern w/All-Star Squadron ATA
20 Witch
2 Pym Particles
299
Jakeem Thunder can TK The Pym Particles into The Question’s square, to make him tiny and even harder to hit from range if your opponent’s characters ignore Stealth. Alternatively, you can make him a giant to help him ignore terrain for movement and gain giant reach: 2, and not be in danger of being targeted more easily due to Stealth.
Both The Question and Jakeem will be hard to hit, being able to use multiple rollouts, with the extra protection of free Barrier from Green Lantern. Jakeem’s range abilities will be maximised by Green Lantern shutting down Stealth. Witch will help all of the team hit better, even letting Green Lantern attack with an 11-Attack and 4-Damage.
The JSA team ability will ensure that almost all of the force maintains an 18 defense, while the Question will harass smaller targets as Jakeem does most of the heavy lifting.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my look at The Question, and remember that when preparing for a WKO with a fringe figure, practice makes your team better.
