Welcome back to another Battle Report! Today I'll be going over my run at the 2024 edition of the Salt City GT. As a very last minute decision, I decided to change my regular Storm led X-Men list for a Cyclops led one, making do with the models I had on hand.
So here's what I ended up with
Affiliated Characters
Cyclops: The poster boy for this list. Because my explicit goal was to try and jam as many games of X-Men Blue as I could, Cyclops would have to be the de facto leader. With his leadership to hand extra power, a good suite of attacks and most importantly Field Leader, Cyclops is a strong a very capable leader for the affiliation
Storm: My secondary leader and an overall solid model for X-Men Blue, Storm brings an alternative leadership for some of the scenarios that Cyclops doesn't handle extremely well like Spider-Portals. Thanks to her R3 throw and the ability to pay 2 power to put out a 6 dice beam that stuns, she still is a solid model under Cyclops's leadership.
Honey Badger: Badger serves mainly 2 functions in the list I had. First, to help make some threat costs work. With a 4 threat leader and strong offensive models at 4 and 5 threat, she helps make squad building easier at 15 threat for the most part. Secondly, she's a solid character to divert attacks away from some fragile models like Cyclops, Cable and Bishop, which can melt somewhat quickly if you're not careful. She can also be Field Leader-ed next to a model to make them weaker and help Cyclops and his team push more damage through.
Domino: One of the all-stars of this list, Domino stands as one of the highest damaging 3 threats in MCP. Since she is also pretty self-sufficient for power, she provides a lot of opportunities to trigger the leadership without taxing the extra power, helping add power to your other models.
Iceman: Playing a dual role of having a beam to help trigger X-Men Blue (the more attacks you make, the likelier it is to deal damage and power up other models) and a model that helps on scenarios where mobility is key (like B and D shapes), he makes a lot of scenarios easier to handle and provide an option for a wider list if needed.
X-23: The last 3 threat in this list, X-23 is probably the second best damage dealing 3 in affiliation after Domino and has the ability to do up to 3 attacks in her activation thanks to Frenzy. She also brings a notable synergy with Honey Badger, letting each of the sisters reposition themselves after the other one has been attacked.
Bishop: The first 4 threat and a solid piece, Bishop is the first character in this list that needs extra power to help him function. Bringing a size 4 character throw, a good set of immunities and solid damage output that can reliably incinerate models. The extra power in itself can often feedback to your other models. With a move and spender, he can burn a lot of power and trigger X-Men Blue's leadership with a solid area attack.
Nightcrawler: Nightcrawler has been an all-star for all the X-Men lists I've played since his release. Thanks to his incredible mobility and a guaranteed stun on his builder, he can put out impressive scenario pressure and with the extra power from X-Men Blue, do more spenders and try to capitalize on it's trigger.
Cable: A very self-sufficient character that becomes, in addition to his excellent offensive output, a reliable support piece. Thanks to the extra power, he can reliably use his defensive shield on models like Cyclops and Bishop, which can use their respective defensive techs to out brawl opposing models.
Splashs
Pyro: My only splash character for the weekend. Pyro is bringing both an extract steal with Pyrotechnics, which, with Domino, Bishop and Cable makes it trivial to incinerate models, and a model that both scales very well with extra power as well as being solid at triggering the leadership. With 6 dice energy beams and the ability to Firewall to slow models, Pyro complements X-Men Blue very well.
Games
Game #1: X-Men Blue vs Winter Guard, Mayor Fisk/Skrull (16)
Teams: Cyclops, Domino, Bishop, Cable vs Crimson Dynamo, Bucky 2, Red Guardian, Widow1, Shocker.
Going into the game, I knew I wanted to try and control Dynamo, and bring high damage models to deal with Winter Guard. So I picked Cyclops, Domino and Bishop for a Skrull safe grabs and Cable. This gives me two good options to displace Dynamo while having high damage output. This ended up paying off very well as the extra power in round 1 let me move aggressively with my models and get 2 dazes in round 1, KOing them the following round. And with both attrition and scenario advantage, I managed to close out the game from there. Winning the game 19-11.
Game #2: X-Men Blue vs Invader's Shield: Deadly Meteor/Montesi (17)
Teams: Cyclops, Domino, X-23, Nightcrawler, Pyro vs Namor (Time Gem), Steve Rodgers, Captain America, Spider-Woman, Baron Zemo
Going into this game, I knew that with the slow scoring, it would come down to attrition. So I picked the combination of 3 threat that I thought could handle the match up the best, and Nightcrawler to complement that squad with the intention of crippling models like Zemo and Namor with Stuns and Firewalls from Pyro. So we fought back and forth, my opponent had good momentum from The Invaders's leadership early on, but the extra power from repeated attacks helped me wrap up the game by KOing models more aggressively letting my score out the board 16-12.
Game #3: X-Men Gold vs Spider-Foes, Spider-Portals/Alien Ship (18)
Teams: Storm, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Cable, Pyro vs Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist, Rhino, Lizard, Namor, Bullseye
Spider-Portals is one of the few scenarios that Storm's leadership is here for. With the tempo from First Class and a better ability to move models around the board to flip points. I picked both Iceman and Pyro so that I could slow my opponent's models without attacks to prevent the condition from being removed by the leadership. Early game I got the lead by having a majority of extracts because I had priority and then kept a majority of the Spider-Portals to outscore my opponent since my steal was only limited to Pyro as opposed to a combination of both Rhino and Namor. I managed to hold long enough to my points advantage to score out the game 16-13.
This was pretty different from what I would've fielded with a Storm list and something I'd like to improve upon the my next iteration. Here, the ability to go 6 wide with mobile 3 threats would've provided me with a solid alternative if I had brought a model like Shadowcat in my list.
Game #4: X-Men Blue vs Invader's Shield, Infinity Formula/Skrulls (20)
Teams: Cyclops, Bishop, Nightcrawler, Cable, Pyro vs Namor, Nick Fury Jr, Iron Man, Spectacular Spiderman, Baron Zemo, Bullseye
This game was a pretty tight one where I think I was lucky to win due to two mistakes from my opponent more than my own skills. The first was using Eyes in the Sky on a Hit and Run from Cyclops on his Zemo, which gave an additional action to Cyclops and let me fully pivot to the other flank in a single activation instead of two. Combined with playing a little too cagey, it let me collapse on a side and take the lead with the secures. I ended up being able to fight for parity and get a swing turn thanks to a Bishop spender to close out the game 17-12.
This concluded by day 1 of the event, going undefeated with a version of X-Men Blue I was surprisingly comfortable with, but that I could already see myself adjusting and changing models and tactics cards.
Game #5: X-Men Blue vs Midnight Sons, Mutant Madmen/Senators (18).
Teams: Cyclops, Iceman, X-23, Bishop, Nightcrawler vs Blade, Doctor Voodoo, Iron Fist, Black Panther, Chosen of Bast, Gwenom.
During squad selection, this was definitely the one I was least confident going into the match, as I feared Bishop would probably not be super impactful without any additional movement tech. I was very glad to be wrong, as Field Leader provided by Cyclops proved to be well enough to let him throw models holding extracts and limiting my opponent's ability to attack my models in return.
With the inherent mobility from the rest of my models, First Class and the extra power from my leadership, I thought I would be able to play to the Secures better and break parity with Iceman and Nightcrawler in round 1 which is what ended up happening. I managed to keep my models away from harm by hiding behind terrain, displacing opposing models with Cyclops and Bishop and keep going in and out of their Madmen traps with Iceman and Nightcrawler. This ended up letting me consolidate my advatage and take the game home 16-12.
Game #6: X-Men Blue vs Shield, Demons/Skrulls (19)
Teams: Cyclops, Domino, Bishop, Cable, Pyro vs Nick Fury Jr, Namor, Commandos, Baron Zemo, Crimson Dynamo.
Going into the semi-finals, this was the match up where I thought I was the least advantaged as Shield is a formidable gunline and, after only winning against my opponent because of their previous mistakes, I wasn't confident going into this game. With both Crimson Dynamo and Namor across the board, I knew my opponent had a better team than I did for this combination, as they had multiple models with the ability to go into my back point to disrupt me where I didn't have models with that ability. Combined with a few positioning errors on my part which were swiftly punished by my opponent, I couldn't keep fighting for parity on the VPs, losing the game 13-16. This was a very tactical game where, even if E shapes are not usually my preferred type of MCP, I had a blast with my opponent as we both knew this game was coming down to small positioning decisions and exploiting oppening in the other player's game plan.
Overall, I was extremely satisfied with my performance for this event, especially considering the list I went with. I ended up accomplishing my goals of both playing a lot of X-Men Blue and giving Bishop more well-deserved table time. After the weekend, I definitely see things I would change in this list and other models I would like to try in a similar setup. The inclusion of Shadowcat, who has excellent synergies with X-Men Blue while also playing to its strenghts by having another model that can shield allies while being very mobile.
As always big thanks to the tournament organizers and my opponents for playing solid games of MCP throughout the weekend, I had an amazing time and enjoyed hanging out with so many fellow MCP players.
Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to read this piece and as always, don't forget to have fun!
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