by Clay Wood
Since this is my first win at an ROC, a lot of folks probably haven’t heard of me despite having played with Patrick and the Majestix crew for a few years now. Pat is a bit like the Captain America of the Heroclix world. He’s been around for a long time, won a lot of epic battles and is an amazing mentor for the newer heroes. If that’s the case, I’m like Red Wolf; I rarely make it to the Avengers mansion because I’m too busy at home raising wolf cubs.
I was very excited by the recent addition of the Book of the Skull to the Majestix Open Series Ban List. To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of the resource due to the numerous free action attacks and very high attack values. I was hoping that removing it from the game would really open up the playing field to new teams and after playing on Saturday, I was definitely right!
The team I chose to field is an Avengers-theme Quinjet team. A few years back Pat piloted one to a World Championship, so I knew I had some big shoes to fill if I wanted to do the same. However, the build I played was quite a bit different than what Pat had played a few years, mainly due to recent low-point Avengers additions in The Mighty Thor and Avengers Infinity sets.
Here’s my build:
(Avengers Themed Team)
145 Quinjet + Resource Dial
40 Jarvis
30 Jane Foster
20 Giant-Girl
15 Eric Masterson
15 Ms. Marvel
5 Gamma Bomb
2 Bat Signal
28 ID Cards:
-Black Canary
-Nightwing
-All-New Wolverine
-Spider-Man
-The Atom
-Ronin
-SHIELD Level 7
-Hulk
-Green Arrow
Sideline: Chase Hawkeye 65, LE Black Canary 77, LE Nightwing 100, Venom Hulk 100, Cosmic Spider-Man 75, All-New Wolverine 100, The Atom 15, Chase Green Arrow 80, SR Nick Fury 120
Maps: Flashpoint Flood, Sporting Arena, Runaways Base
There’s a few good things I want to mention about this team:
- Being a theme team, I get +6 to my map roll. Throughout the day, I lost only a single map roll, which made a big difference in a few match-ups, that I’ll describe later on.
- The 5 theme team Probability Controls which really made a big difference in a lot of my games. Coupled with colossals on the team and difficult to kill pieces like Jarvis, I almost always had the line of fire needed and someone available to take the token. Furthermore, couple with the Quinjet’s 18-Defend, the low-cost figures were surprisingly difficult to kill.
- The Quinjet itself is basically like the Swiss-army knife of Heroclix. The call-ins allow you to have great flexibility in how you approach a game and provides a counter to almost everything you might see. Your opponent fields a Bizarro Green Arrow? Great – I have a Hawkeye for that! Uni-Mind? No problem – call-in Green Arrow! Want to base the Quinjet? Nightwing and Venom Hulk are going to make you pay.
- The Quinjet itself is a big target and takes damage quickly. Jane Foster is an excellent support piece, allowing the Quinjet to be healed even when adjacent to an opposing character. This allowed me to push the Quinjet, make attacks and recover from damage while staying on those crucial top clicks which provide 18-Defense Defend and Outwit to my team.
- The Bat Signal, which I typically moved my Giant-Girl next to, allowed me to summon my over-extended call-in units so that they couldn’t be killed for easy points. Unfortunately, my limited actions restricted me from utilizing this to its fullest potential.
- For 5 points, the Gamma Bomb causes a lot of destruction and puts pressure on the opposing team to act. It’s a risk for me as well because most of my team would be KO’d in its blast. Ultimately, it paid off in a big way and I won a few games by running out of range at the last second while it KO’d enough characters on the opposing team to put me over the top.
That said, the team does have a few weakness. First, a difficult-to-kill piece with Plasticity is a problem. The Quinjet doesn’t break away automatically and if my pieces get trapped in the Gamma Bomb explosion, I lose a lot of my team. Second, I didn’t have a great way to deal with the 4-Mystique team that had been played in the past few ROC events out here. I had one Pulse Wave, but that was about it. I was also worried about Yellow Lantern Battery-based tent-pole teams like the KC Flash team that Tony Rodriguez played. Lucky for me, I didn’t fight these folks.
My first game was against Kristian, a newer player who had a team built specifically to kill the typical Quinjet team. It was comprised of 029 Renet Tilley, 028 General Lane, 106e Hulk (x2), 069 Captain America, and Pandora’s Box. The idea is to give the Hulks Sidestep via the Box to repeatedly get free action, big damage single-target Quakes, leaving a pile of rubble in its wake. This team almost did the job and I was saved only by my theme team Probs, which I used up completely. Even with that the Quinjet was only 4 clicks from death. I called in Black Canary, real-boy’d The Atom, which I immediately used to hit his whole team. I followed up with Black Canary’s Pulse Wave, which hit only General Lane, but was enough to put me up on points when time ran out.
My next game was against Eric Clixer, a great player who took Top 4 at the last event I attended. He played a Monster themed team with Carnage, Bizarro Green Arrow, Lydea Mallor, Mini Shredder and the White Battery. We engaged in battle and I called in Hawkeye to deal with Carnage and Bizarro Green Arrow, who were adjacent. I made a horrible misplay by not Perplexing up damage, so when Eric used Bizarro Green Arrow to reduce it, it went to 0. I was so frustrated with myself, I immediately conceded. This was not only unsportsmanlike, but it also put me in a position where I had to win the remainder of my games in order to make the top cut because my points were too low.
I took the remainder of the time to regain my composure and in the next match faced a team with 4x Giant-Girls (one of which from FF), Black Panther SR, Loki clones, and Hela SR and the Avengers Round Table. The idea was to generate a swarm of Warrior Souls and Loki clones to overwhelm the opponent. I moved up and on the following turn called in Hawkeye to KO the Giant-Girls and pinging Hela for 1 before I attacked a Warrior Soul and my opponent rolled a 6, bringing Hawkeyes rampage to an end. I cleared, then followed up the next turn by calling in Green Arrow to finish off Hela then ran away before the Gamma Bomb went off, which wiped out most of the bystanders, time running out shortly thereafter.
The next match was against Peace Machine, Shredder Clone, Mini Shredder, Giant-Girl, Carnage and the Phoenix Force. I unwisely tried to play it defensively choosing the Runaways Base map, not realizing the Shredders would have flight and simply ignore my choke points. I sacrificed Giant-Girl and ran the Quinjet across the map to get to Peace Machine and the colossals while the Shredders slowly came back across the map. However, by then Hawkeye had killed Carnage and Giant-Girl, and maimed Peace Machine, allowing for a real-boy Green Arrow kill shot. By then, the Shredders were on top of me. My opponent called in Superman with Flurry followed by Poison and had my Quinjet down to its last few clicks. However, I called in Venom Hulk who was able to kill Poison, putting me in the lead. My opponent narrowly missed a last attempt to KO the Quinjet before time was up.
I was down to my last match-up before the cut and needed the win to stay in it. The team I fought was composed of Slate w/Proselyte, Lydea Mallor, Weasel, Wiz Kid, colossal Groot, Giant-Girl, and the Indigo Power Battery. The idea is to give Slate the Sniper Rifle, allowing him to place effectively pulse wave on the other side of the map. This was where +6 map roll really paid off and after winning the roll-off, I put us on the new Flashpoint Flood map, greatly limiting my opponent’s ability to protect themselves or place barrier tokens. I knew I had to get across the map as soon as possible, so that I could make attacks before the team was fully protected from the Battery. On my follow-up turn, I called in Hawkeye to kill the colossals and Weasel, but made the mistake of not increasing damage to finish him off. I was also not far enough across the map to get to the others, who were hiding behind the little blocking terrain the map contained. The game progressed slowly and I tied up my opponent with a real-boy Atom who managed to avoid a few pot-shots from Lydea before I retreated from the Gamma Bomb and time ran out with me up by only a few points. Phew!
I narrowly made it to the Top 8 and my first match here was against Chase, who was playing another Slate team. This build was more defensive, however and was a monster-themed team composed of Slate w/ Proselyte, Lydea, Carnage, Bizarrow Green Arrow, a witch, and the Indigo Battery. I finally lost the roll-off and Chase chose the Sporting Arena map, one that I was actually happy to see. The map has a small starting zone, which didn’t contain my force. In order to accommodate my team, the zone had to be extended out 2 more rows. I then used my two Perplexes to get right up my opponents face on my first turn. I luckily avoided taking damage before calling in Nightwing and Tony Zucco to Flurry, KOing Carnage and knocking Slate off Pulse Wave. However Lydea healed him back up, giving Chase a chance to KO my Nightwing who I had forgot to Bat Signal to safety. Chase rolled a 4, I breathed a sigh of relief and then followed up with Hawkeye, which I correctly utilized in order to KO Bizarro Green Arrow before time ran out, leaving me with a win.
When I saw the next match up, I was a bit unsure what to do. The team was composed of Deadman, HaHa Joker w/ Proteus, Lockjaw and Pandora’s Box. All of the pieces are very difficult to KO and because I didn’t have a lot of options other than to just start swinging, I ran across the map once again, trying to get to my opponent before the sins were fully distributed. I called in Hawkeye and managed to knock a token off Joker, but not hitting anything else. My opponent picked Pulse Wave with Lockjaw and moved him next to the Quinjet. After clearing, I called in Nightwing and Tony to Flurry off a couple more tokens and allowing me to real-boy in Nick Fury who took off a 3rd. My opponent called in Green Arrow, but only increased damage to 5, a miscalculation which allowed Nightwing to live. The bomb was about to go off, so I Running Shot with the Quinjet, moving my team back out of range of the explosion, hitting Lockjaw again and pushing Nick to give Lockjaw his 5th token. At the start of the next turn, the Gamma Bomb exploded, KOing Lockjaw and securing my win.
I was now in the finals match. The last match was against Emilio Gutierrez, who had thoroughly defeated me in a 
previous ROC with his Mystique team, came to this event with something completely different: Faust w/ Eclipso, Mr. Mxyzptlk, an Ultron Drone, KC Batman, the Bat Signal and the Power Plant. Emiio had made his way to the final round by using the Disintegration Beam to remove a wealth of resources. However, I wasn’t that afraid of it because I would still be able to call-in my big hitters even though I couldn’t real-boy them in. I won map roll and put us back on the Flashpoint Flood because his team didn’t have a lot of mobility. Alonzo placed the Bat Signal next to KC Batmap. I realized he was going to use it to get his team across the map, so I used running shot with the Quinjet to destroy the Bat Signal, dealing a major blow to Emilio. I was then able to call-in Hawkeye to KO Batman and ping both Mxy and Faust before running him out of the range of the Quinjet. Alonzo fired back with a Hawkeye of his own, KOing Giant-Girl, but not being able to make it through the 18-Defense and 5 PCs. I then called in Cosmic Spider-Man and with the help of the not-so mighty Avengers, KO’d Faust. We then traded dead Cosmic Spider-Men before the Gamma bomb blew up, finishing off the rest of his team.
The whole day was full of excellent competition and a very wide-ranging set of teams. There were a couple Mini Shredders and Slates, but even so, it’s clear that the field is wide open. My team was strong, but as evidenced above, hardly unbeatable.
In retrospect, I would have made one adjustment to the team. Afterwards, I realized that I had not used All-New Wolverine once the entire day. She’s a great call-in, but I had a lot of excellent, more predictable options. Instead, I think I would have replaced her with a Captain America, either WKMPS-003 or ADW011. They could be utilized as a real-boy to give me a very much-needed Leadership and in a pinch, they could pilot the Quinjet giving it Sidestep to help get away. The WKMPS-003 piece even has SHIELD keyword, so that the Quinjet would have SHIELD team ability and an extra target.
Alternatively, I could have used the space on my sideline to have a Thunderstrike chase or a Jane Thor, which could be used with Eric Masterson or Jane Foster’s traits, respectively. Besides being solid pieces, they are also Avengers and would meet the requirements as Quinjet pilots.
All in all, I was thrilled with the experience, and I’m very much looking forward to future events where I expect the meta to continue to evolve. Until next time!
