by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece?. This week, we will be focusing on the Prime Sunfire, a piece with the stats of a primary attacker, at only 40% of your build total. 
Sunfire has both the Avengers and X-Men Team Abilities:
AVENGERS – When you give a character using the Avengers team ability a move action, it does not count toward your available actions for the turn.
X-MEN – When two friendly characters that can use the X-Men team ability are adjacent to each other, give one of them a power action and roll a d6. Heal the other character of 1 damage. If the result was 1-4, deal the character given the power action 1 unavoidable damage.
While the Avengers Team Ability will not be very useful to Sunfire, the X-Men Team ability can be more useful, however, as it will allows Sunfire to be healed by your other characters with the Team Ability.
Sunfire Prime also has two traits:
AVENGERS UNITY DIVISION: When this character is given a move action, after actions resolve he can use the X-Men team ability as a free action.
While Sunfire will probably not be healing other characters with this trait due to the risk of damaging himself, options are good to have.
RADIATING INTENSE HEAT: Sunfire can use Energy Shield/Deflection. When Sunfire is hit with a close attack, after actions resolve deal the attacker 1 penetrating damage.
This trait serves as both ranged and close combat protection. As a ranged attacker, the Energy Shield/Deflection will be very useful, and the threat of damaging opposing characters who attack him in close combat will either make your opponent hesitate to attack him, or the damage will at least be something after Sunfire is hit by the close combat attack.
SOLAR FLARE: Sunfire can use Energy Explosion, Poison and Pulse Wave.
This power, along with Sunfire’s 4-Damage and two targets, makes him a ranged monster. Pulse Wave will also combine with Energy Explosion, allowing him to splash onto adjacent characters in addition to his Pulse Wave. His Poison is also useful for when opposing characters base him to stop his ranged attacks, especially in combination with the damage from his RADIATING INTENSE HEAT trait.
INJURED BUT STILL HERE: STOP. Sunfire can use Toughness.
This power will keep Sunfire in the fight a little longer, and works well with his X-Men Team Ability, to heal him back up again before the STOP click.
Overall, Sunfire is a very good package of ranged damage that can ignore powers and abilities, damage that does not need to be rolled for, dial length, and a team player, with his Carry ability and X-Men team ability to potentially heal other characters.
He has 2 keywords, Avengers and X-Men, both of which are competitively usable. Both keywords also have their share of possible ATAs, to go along with the great theme teams that they can make. The Heroic Age ATA gives the possibility of moving for free, as the action token for a move action may be removed. Avengers Response Unit helps characters hit in close combat. Secret Avengers can help protect the character’s powers and abilities from being countered, and Civil War gives characters the option of Sidestep or Plasticity on their top dial. The X-Men (Utopia) ATA, courtesy of Ross Yudis, can give characters Leadership. X-Men Blue requires the team to already have Leadership, but it can be useful in the right situations. Finally, the X-Men Gold ATA is not unlike Outsiders, and shutting down modifiers can be very useful in this age of Krang, Pandora’s Box and cheap utility characters for Perplex/Enhancement.
For Sunfire, I have decided to make an Avengers themed team, to make full use out of the many options that keyword provides. I feel that although X-Men is also quite strong, that keyword is better in 300 Modern, as opposed to the 300 Modern Limited that this build is for. Iceman is a very strong and notable X-Men ally, and he works best with Pandora’s Box for Sidestep for his Frozen Solid.
120 UXM043B Sunfire
5 Civil War ATA
75 UXM054 Quicksilver
5 Civil War ATA
50 FFOA006R Captain America
5 Civil War ATA
20 CACW007 Redwing
5 Civil War ATA
10 SFSM005 Thug
5 Civil War ATA
300
This Avengers themed team has a lot of options. The ATA will give your characters the choice of Plasticity or Sidestep on their first clicks. While Sidestep will be the better option most of the time, if you need to stop opposing Hypersonic Speed or tie down specific opposing characters, such as to use in combination with Sunfire’s full dial Poison. The Sidestep option will help your swing, especially in combination with Captain America’s “Avengers Assemble”. The basic game plan is to move either Quicksilver or Sunfire using Captain America and then attacking, using Redwing for Theme Team Probability Control. With Sidestep, the free move action, and his Running Shot, Sunfire will have a total move and attack swing of 12 squares, with 3-range for his Pulse Wave. Quicksilver will have a Hypersonic Speed swing of 22 squares. Captain America can also give either of the two X-Men free move actions to activate their With a +5 to the initiative roll, you will be able to choose a map that can be good for both Quicksilver’s close combat and Sunfire’s Pulse Waves. The X-Men Gold ATA could also be substituted, since Krang is a concern.
It is also worth noting that although he hasn’t seen so much competitive play, Sunfire can certainly hold his own. At the Canada Cup, Mike White ran a team using Sunfire, making it to 3rd place:
(Avengers Theme)
Sunfire Prime 120
Beast 100
Jarvis 40
Pandora’s Box (Full) 40
ID Cards
-Superman
-Nightwing
-SHIELD Level 7
Sideline: All Shifting Focus Superman, Superman Blue, LE Nightwing 100, FF Nightwing, Rare Nightwing 75, SR Nick Fury 120
Maps: United Nations, Gaming Convention, Jean Grey School Outdoor
Until next time, try out that fringe figure on your competitive teams, and remember that practice makes your team better!
