Strategic Initiative: Extract Plays #7

 

Welcome back to another edition of Strategic Initiative! Today, I'll be going over some of the options available to X-Men, mostly centered around X-Men Gold (with some being generically applicable) on some of the scenarios from the War of Kings Crisis Cards.

First and foremost, let's go over what we're working with.

Storm's leadership lets you take one of your characters, within R2 of another and place themselves within R1 of the other character as long as they're not holding an objective token at the cost of 1 power. This is a key tool to a lot of round 1 options available to X-Men as it gives enough additional mobility to a model to let them reach certain extracts or secures they otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. Combined with some Tactics Cards like First Class and To Me, My X-Men it opens up a lot of possibilities.

 

Let's look at the first scenario: Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding

One of the newest configurations of tokens, Unexpected Guests has very similar depths to B shape scenarios when looking across the board. Unsurprisingly, it has similar play patterns as well. In that regard, for the players who can remember a time when we had a B shaped extract, they'll also remember some of its play patterns. 

As we can see, with a character standing R2 in front of Beast (that also places them on the token on your side), Beast can move and already be in range of the opposing B point with one action left to come back home safely. As this set up can be somewhat telegraphed (and a knowledgeable opponent will not let you set it up so freely), there is also an alternative way to achieve the same goal in a single activation.

In this example, presuming Storm is deployed relatively centrally, with the Team Tactics Card, To Me, My X-Men, you can use any 50mm base affiliated character (like Angel, Beast or Iceman) and move them short towards the middle (leveraging the 90° angle) and have either another 50mm based medium mover (or a 35mm based long mover like Shadowcat) use the X-Men jump over the model that was target by To Me, My, X-Men, to move and pick up the back objective and move to safety. This lets you, first activation, both with and without priority, take one of the opposing extracts before taking the ones near your models. Being able to break parity by taking 3 out of 4 extracts while staying on your side of the board is a great way to put a lot of scenario pressure early on your opponent.

For the next set up, we're looking to gain an advantage without priority with help from both Storm's leadership and To Me, My X-Men! Additionally, you need at least a long mover with a 50mm base or a medium mover with a 65mm base that generate at 2 or more powers (characters like Namor or Abomination).

Once you've deployed, assuming you don't have priority, maximizing your options is very important to be able to react and adjust to what your opponent is doing. After your opponent has gone, you can have Storm use To Me, My X-Men on either of the other affiliated models deployed to the side, while making sure they're within R2 of your 50mm based character. Then, that character uses the X-Men jump over the affiliated model you moved, and, they can, in a single move action, go to the opposing side of the board, grab an extract, and move back to relative safety.

Now, let's move on to the second new extract configuration.

With 4 extracts on the midline, Inhuman Weaponry plays similarly to extracts previously available like Paranoia, Alien Ship and Legacy Virus but configured differently enough to warrant its own segment.

With the points being grouped closely together, I think having a flexible deployment that allows us to potentially grab either group of extracts safely. The first one works on most maps with extracts placed on the central line. You can use To Me, My X-Men on a model deployed on either side of the board, move short, then take a medium move to either token and move back to safety. 

Using either a 35mm or 50mm based model with a medium move (or any long movers) will give you ample room to work with. 

With the model benefitting from the To Me, My X-Men having an action left, you can move back to safety and set up a way to take the remaining extract on that side safely. With your remaining action, you can advance your model and place it within R2 of another model presumably deployed nearby and set up an X-Men Jump for them to grab the remaining extract on your next turn.

The other option available is the use the proverbial X-Men Jump to grab either one of the extracts on a given side. With a 35mm base, going over a 50mm base, you can grab either token but there is not much margin for error in either positioning or deployment.

Going with a 50mm based model, over a 35mm based one, gives you a lot of room to grab either tokens before moving back.

The strenght behind the plays for Inhuman Weaponry, lies in able able to threaten a to take an extract and move back on all 4 tokens, while you opponent is extremely unlikely to be able to match that.

As always, I encourage anyone to try thses out for themselves, figure things out, and experiment!

Thanks for taking the time to read this piece and as don't forget to have fun!