by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece? This week, I’ll be looking at a more recent character, who doesn’t seem to be talked about much. This week’s article will discuss Title Character Harley Quinn.
Harley Quinn has all the standard combat symbols, 4-Range, and 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.
Harley Quinn is also a Title Character, starting with 3 Plot Points and having the following Title Abilities and Continuity Traits:
:closedbook: At the end of your turn, if the title character activated a Plot ability but didn’t make an attack, deal it 1 unavoidable damage.
This is standard for Title Characters, although the wording was recently changed from “didn’t attack an opposing character this turn”. This newer wording will matter a lot when building with Harley Quinn, but more on that later.
:closedbook: NO MORE PUMPKIN-PIE: When Harley Quinn is KO’d, for the rest of the game all opposing characters have “POWER: Heal 2 clicks”.
Harley Quinn has a negative effect when KO’d, like all other Title Characters. Hers is pretty drastic, but isn’t so bad as to make her unplayable. Harley has a decently long dial with at least one rollout on every click, and her dial length should make your opponent at least consider going after other characters first. Also, if your opponent is having their characters heal themselves, they aren’t attacking, which can be very important late-game.
(+1):blackopenbook: MAID OF MISCHIEF: FREE: Perplex until your next turn. When Harley Quinn uses it, she may instead modify a combat value other than damage +2 or -2.
Despite being an effect that looks like it should be a -1 Plot Point, this Title Ability is Harley Quinn’s way to get extra Plot Points. Being able to +2 any stat other than damage, or -2 if necessary, such as if facing Nighthawk prime, makes her a very effective support piece for her 60 points, while building up towards her Title Abilities that cost points.
(-2):whiteopenbook: UH, CANDYGRAM?: FREE: Energy Explosion this turn. When Harley Quinn uses it, modify attack +3 and after resolutions, give each hit character an action token.
While the damage that the Energy Explosion goes will not necessarily be effective, being able to give out tokens with it, and having a 13-Attack with it to guarantee a hit is good. It won’t be a more frequently used Title Ability, but more options are nice to have.
(-6):whiteopenbook: GET ‘EM, GANG OF HARLEYS!: FREE: Roll a d6. Generate a number of Harley Bystander Tokens equal to the result (Min. 2) into squares within 3 squares.
After a couple of turns using the +2 or -2 Perplex, Harley Quinn will be able to pop out between 2 and 6 bystander tokens with Flurry, 10-Attack, and 2-Damage, that also all have this trait:
THE GANG’S ALL HERE: Harley’s actions don’t count against your action total.
This trait makes these bystanders great, as they’ll not take actions out of your action pool, unlike some other bystanders, which don’t have their move actions count against your total. While their defenses aren’t great, their offenses compensate for it, especially with the possibility of getting up to 6 of them, making a total of 12 potential attacks that don’t count against your action total.
The team that I’ve made with Title Character Harley Quinn takes these bystanders into account, and is meant to use Harley to use the Perplex every turn, to generate the bystanders as quickly as possible, while also maximizing the effectiveness of the bystanders.
60 HQ049 Harley Quinn
25 FFJW004 The Penguin
40 JW050 The Penguin
75 WF059 Lex Luthor & Joker
50 JW051 The Riddler
15 HQ004 Big Tony
5 WFR100 Justice League Teleporter
5 WKMVID-009 Spider-Man
5 NFAOSNFID-007 S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7
5 WKMVID-010 Swordsman
5 WFWFID-001 Superman
5 NFAOSNFID-003 Ms. Marvel
5 WFWFID-003 The Flash
300
Sideline: TMT007 Spider-Man, WI038 Cosmic Spider-Man, ADW067 Hawkeye, FFNFAOS004 Fitz, ADW036 Swordsman, WKDP17-003 Superman, BVS016 Superman, TMTG005 Ms. Marvel, EW018 The Flash
This team does two main things, both using Harley Quinn’s Perplex and bystander making abilities, in addition to using other bystanders and Call-Ins. To start, the team has a +6 initiative roll bonus, which should all but guarantee map choice. The team also has a lot of modifiers, before even considering Harley, including Big Tony’s Perplex, and the Fast Forces Penguin’s Loyalty token, which will give the character with it a +1 to Attack and Range. Adding Harley to these modifiers will allow you to up a character’s Attack by +3, as well as Range and Damage by +1, or Attack and Damage by +1, and Range by +3, or a myriad of other options. Now that Uni-Mind has been Watch Listed and had his abilities nerf’d a bit, Nighthawk Prime should see a hit in how often he’s played. This makes all these modifiers worth playing without worrying about them becoming useless. While the ID cards on the team are not the absolute best, they augment the team more than act as the focus. The main set Penguin’s bystander tokens will be doing a lot of work on this team, especially thanks to all the modifiers and the Inspirations, which have been chosen with them in mind. Also, the Penguins serve another purpose. The Fast Forces Penguin will allow Harley to make attacks on him every turn, avoiding the Title Character 1 unavoidable damage for not making an attack. Also, it will allow you to use the Super Rare Penguin’s Batman Enemy trait (This is How I Deal with the Bat) to give a Penguin bystander a free move action after making the attack on the Fast Forces Penguin.
That’s all I have for this week. Thanks for reading, and remember that whether you’re playing an established competitive character, or a Fringe piece, practice makes your team better.
