by Joshua Earnest
Without further adieu, the report!
Swiss Rounds
Round 1
In round one I was paired up with Zach Coffee (3rd place) and he didn’t know it, but he brought as good a counter to my team as I faced all day. Add to that the fact that Zach is an excellent player and he piloted his team extremely well. The key figures from his build that made my team so ineffective were his Mr. Mxyzptlk and his Nighthawk Prime. At the start of the game to make things even worse I rolled a critical miss for initiative and even with my +5 scientist theme team Zach was able to beat it and got to select map. Zach’s first move was to spawn Batragan and moved Mxy and the colossal up so that they would be within striking distance. 
Because he advanced I was able to tie both figures up with two Ant Swarms and Ouwit Charge on Batragan using 205 Ant-Man. Zach decided rather than take damage from dealing with the swarms he would just use Phasing on Mxy to base my support figures still in my starting area. Since I also had 202 Ant-Man on the board I left one Ant Swarm next to Batragan and had the other follow Mxy after. If I had been more familiar with Mxy’s dial I would have moved both figures as this turned out to be my biggest mistake. At the start of my next turn I Outwitted Batragan’s Toughness and KO’d him with the Ant Swarm I left behind, and then I Poisoned Mxy for one with the Ant Swarm that followed putting him at a 17-Defense. Iron Monger tried to finish off Mxy with his printed 11-Attack since Nighthawk Prime was still in play. I needed to roll a 7 due to Mxy’s tiny size modifier, and if I rolled a 6 I could re-roll it up to two times thanks to I Thought I Fixed That from Weasel. I whiffed completely and this left me extremely vulnerable because Mxy was now on his Zeroing The Field special power. Limiting my attacks to printed values (or worse thanks to Rainbow Raider) with Nighthawk Prime was part of the reason I lost to Zach’s team, but Mxy’s Pulse Wave was worse by far. Since Mxy’s Pulse Wave deals no damage, and only gives action tokens (dealing pushing damage), it is not an attack KO’ing figures and will not trigger Iron Monger’s trait even. This would still be true if Iron Monger were outside of the Pulse Wave’s area of effect (which is massive). This game was pretty much over at this point, but since I was able to recognize this fact I parked one of my remaining Ant Swarms next the Zach’s H.E.N.R.Y. and did take 15 points before being swept.
0-1
Round 2
This round I played against a Metropolis Themed Team of SMWW 100 Superman, SMWW 050 Krypto, SMWW 047 Lois Lane, and SMWW 026 Clark Kent. I lost map roll again (my Theme Team is just NOT helping enough) and my opponent puts me on Ranx. He moves up mid map, but thanks to the way he places and modifiers from Weasel and my perplex from Hammer Industries ATA I am able to get an attack off on the 100 Superman for 5 and he takes 3 after Invulnerability. My opponent then warps Krypto next to Iron Monger using his trait and nearly takes him out with the combination of Superman’s Running Shot Psychic Blast and Krypto’s following 2-damage. Since he doesn’t want me to Outwit Superman’s damage reducer and potentially burst down Superman past his best clicks my opponent then reverts his LE into his Clark Kent form. At this point I start covering my opponent in Ant Swarms and basically ignore the LE Superman since I don’t want to turn him back into a dangerous attacker until I’ve dealt with the help. I’m able to whittle his team away until the LE is the last man standing, and even with his ferocious late dial he just cannot keep up with the pressure my team puts out and I score a clean 300 points.
1-1
Round 3
For this round I am paired up against another great player, Charles Garst, who is running another very good way to get around the gimmicks I built into my team. Charles is playing DP053 Speed Demon and double SMWW 021 Red Tornado. All three of these figures have the capability to avoid Iron Monger’s trait by KO’ing figures without attacking said figure. I finally win a map roll and put my opponent on Thebes Egypt, an outdoor map with plenty of blocking terrain. I chose this map specifically because the most common play is to move up mid field and hide behind the large squares of blocking terrain on either side of the map where I can use Giant Size granted by 003 Ant-Man to land an alpha strike. My opponent advances a little more cautiously, but by turn 3 thanks to my double Weasels and I am able to land the first big attack of the game taking out Speed Demon in one shot before he ever even takes an action of his own. After this point things start to go poorly for me. He moves up both Red Tornado’s and pincer’s Iron Monger into place dealing him 2-penetrating damage from their free action Force Blast. Iron Monger has two tokens, so I begin to converge on his twin Tornados with Ant-Men and Ant Swarms, but thanks to another round of force blasts and Outwitting damage reduces Iron Monger bites the dust. I’ve got his Red Tornado’s surrounded and out gunned, but this is where my lack of Probability Control starts to become a liability. I am unable to land solid hits on either figure, and he is able to keep pace despite being severely out-actioned thanks to the traited free action Force Blast from his two figures and their dial-long Sidestep. We continue trading damage, I’ve lost one Ant-Man and he’s lost one Red Tornado, and I’m slowly losing the war of attrition when it comes down to my favorite attack of the game, my opponent even gave me a high five when I declared it. I have an Ant Swarm 3 squares away from Red Tornado who is on click 5 and will need to take 2 damage past Toughness to KO. I Sidestep the swarm to clear his line of fire and move both my Weasel’s adjacent giving my lowly Ant Swarm 11-Attack, 3-Damage, and 2-Range with their Tech-Guru To The Underworld special power. One Weasel even still has I Thought I Fixed that so I need a 6 and if I roll a 5 I can try again. Of course I whiff completely. He takes out one Weasel and the game ends with my 205 to his 217. As far as losses go this isn’t as bad as it could be because I got a good amount of points. Plus it was an extremely fun back and forth game and I’ll take these kinds losses over most anything else every time.
1-2
Round 4
This was my least favorite game of the day. There are 5 Wichita players in a field of 44 and I get matched up with my good friend James Cintron from the home town. What makes it so doubly bitter is that we are both 1-2 with good points, so whoever wins this match, if they score well and win their next game as well, can still make the top 16. He is playing SMWW 066 Wonder Woman at full dial along with WoL 099 Despotellis, NFAOS 008 S.H.I.E.L.D Paranormal Investigator, and SLOSH 022 Gates. I win the map roll and there’s no way James can avoid me getting first shot on Wonder Woman, he just has to hope her opening 19-Defense (20 standing on an object) holds up. I cap Iron Monger at 14-Attack and actually manage to roll well, so I hit Wonder Woman for 6-Damage (3 after Invincible) and that was pretty much the end of this game. I must say that even deep down her dial though that Wonder Woman is a serious threat, James was using her free action Mind Control and turning my own weapons against me to great effect before I managed to bury her under a mountain of ants.
2-2
Round 5
For Round 5 I am on table number 8 with my record of 2-2 and good points, only one of us can make the cut to top 16. I’ve been reporting my progress all day to Patrick who has been rooting for my goofy little team to survive the cut in this broad field. My opponent’s team actually has a very cool gimmick, it was based around WXM 042 Fantomex partnered up with SMWW 028 General Lane, DP 018 Blind Al, FL 007 S.T.A.R. Labs Technician, FF:JLTW 007 Atomica, and DP 102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M. I win map roll and conservatively move my Ant Men up the field. My opponent rolls leadership and fails, which he then uses Atomica’s CSA Team Ability to re-roll giving the token to Fantomex. At this point Fantomex is free to spawn E.V.A. and still make an attack on turn 1. He uses Telekinesis to send E.V.A. across the map and KO’s one of my Ant-Men. It passes back to my turn, and just like he surprised me with turn 1 E.V.A. I surprise him and have Iron Monger make an attack on Fantomex taking advantage of the double Weasels. He misses his Shape Change, but does not miss his Super Senses. At this point our game slows down a bit as he takes precautions to keep Fantomex as safe as possible from my long reach moving Atomica up the field into range for her CSA Team Ability. Now that I am wise to his tricks I cap Iron Monger’s at 14-Attack and eliminate Atomica getting more ants in position for tie-up later. Since Fantomex cleared last turn he uses Perplex, Enhancement, and Running Shot to tag Iron Monger hard for the next two turns while. I start to surround his team with more ants while Monger is forced to clear. My opponent is now the one who now has two tokens and must clear, but he has several characters on his team that he can use to run interference and takes several minutes to deliberate his options. I am not too proud to say that I did express my desire to take another turn. During this time the 5 minute warning is called and my opponent does the right thing, he probably could have justified taking that much time to a judge, explaining about how he was considering options, but he does the right thing covering Fantomex as best he can and clearing. I know that the score is his 50 to my 25 so rather than try to hit Fantomex who is only on click 3 I sidestep my AoU 206 Wasp next to Weasel and use his two bolts to KO both Blind Al and S.T.A.R. Labs Technician. I am now up 71 to 50 with what is probably less than a minute left and I have one action to take. I am proud of the fact that in this situation I promptly moved an Ant Swarm next to Fantomex and passed turn. My opponent declares breakaway running shot with Fantomex, time is called, and I believe he rolls a 3 ending the game. Moving my Ant Swarm to tie up was the only real option available to me, even though I had other characters left on the board. This is not smart tournament play, if your only goal is to win a major tournament it is in fact a very very stupid idea, but if I had run down the clock pretending to think over another option I would have regretted it deeply. I believe that neither my opponent nor a judge would have been able to fault me for taking another 30 seconds in my turn, but I would have known I’d done it.
3-2
Top 16
I was at table 8 and won, but with only 71 points. This meant I just made the cut at 16th place (by 15 points, thanks H.E.N.R.Y. from round 1!) and would be paired up with the number one seed Jamie Jordan. He has been on fire and is 5-0 for the day with a perfect 1500 points. Luckily for me Jamie is fielding a team with the figure that I had in mind when I designed my team, NFAOS 056 Nick Fury. Jamie wins map roll and puts me on Attilan: North Atlantic Ocean. Jamie carries his team up using Jason of Sparta, but declines to activate his “My Early Adventures With My Ship” power since he did not anticipate my Iron Monger being able to ignore elevation. I cap my Damage at 7 with Perplex and turn Monger into a giant going for the 1-shot on Nick Fury, but he hits his Shape Change roll. I instead take out General Lane to remove some of his damage potential and the source of Outwit. Next turn he hits Iron Monger hard, but isn’t able to finish him off. On my turn since Jason had to clear I consider him to be the next priority target and I one shot him, after that I can base both Nick and Rocket with an Ant Swarm. Unless Jamie wants to risk failing a breakaway roll with Rocket he has to deal with the swarm, so he does and my Ant Swarm blows up in Rocket and Nicks face dealing them one each. To the best of my knowledge this is the only time all day that an opponent actually suffered damage from Iron Monger’s trait. Nick has Perplex now and Rocket hits Iron Monger for another 3 putting him on his last click. My turn I base both figures with more ants and Outwit the now Sidestep on Rocket Raccoon (Poison damage) thinking that I have this game in the bag. What I failed to realize is that Rocket can shoot out of adjacency so Jamie wisely takes out Iron Monger with Rocket. In the end I am still able to win out against Jamie thanks to Outwit and Poison damage, but it was a very close thing against an extremely dangerous opponent.
Top 8
I am now paired up with Zach Coffee again. I win map choice, and I foolishly put him on the WoL space map. Thanks to the wide area of effect on Mxy’s Pulse Wave he is once again able to handily deal with the pressure my Ant Swarms can generate and he knocks me out in 6th place. At the end of the game I was able to exact a small measure of revenge on Mxy by rolling a critical hit with my last Ant Swarm KO’ing him. Take that you 5th-dimensional pest! If I had this matchup again I would have put him on Ranx where I believe I would have been able to block line of fire to limited targets and been much more able to surround Mxy and put pressure on him with Ant Swarms.
Summary
Throughout the day I had two key advantages that I exploited to achieve victory. The first was pressuring opponents who were unwilling to KO my Ant Swarms after being based and secondly sneak attacks for huge damage from my Iron Monger 2.0. It was when one or both of those key strategies broke down that I had my most trouble. My record for the day was 4-3, but I only lost to two different teams. One of those two teams was an extremely close nail biter that if luck had gone my way would have turned out very differently. I do feel that the team may be too unfocused. What I mean by that is while Iron Monger can hit extremely hard thanks to Weasel, but he had a lot of trouble hitting reliably with no access to Probability Control and not always being able to count on having an answer to my opponent’s defense abilities. The Ant Swarm portion of the team did feel very viable, but the Ant-Men that generate the swarms are soft targets and I often ran into trouble locking down my opponents to the targets I was comfortable with them hitting. That being said I had a lot of fun and am very happy with the team and I recommend it to anyone who feels up to the not insignificant task of learning which ant-man to use and when, as well as prioritizing which actions need to be taken in a given turn. Thanks for reading!
