Hello and welcome back! Today, I'll be going over my recent performance at Battle for Breath, an event that aims to raise funds for research into Cystic Fibrosis. As usual, I'll go over my list and then into the games themselves.
Affiliated Models
Cyclops: As the only available leader in my list, Cyclops brings a very different flavor of X-Men than what has been previously successful. Historically, Storm has been the best and de-facto leader of the Uncanny X-Men, with Professor X pulling good numbers not too far behind her. While X-Men Blue is not the best leadership available to X-Men, it is attached to a model with interesting tools in Field Leader and Hit and Run, giving him and his allies additional movement. Having a size 3 push, before damage in addition to the ability to make up to 4 attacks in his activation, Cyclops has the potential to be a very imposing model on the table. With his leadership granting extra power every time one of your attacks deals damage, and you can leverage the extra resources to play the game more effectively than your opponent.
Domino: Always an excellent roleplayer, Domino's ability to make up to 4 attacks with a high probability of damage thanks to Probability Manipulation and Things Tend To Go My Way, gives her a lot of opportunities to deal damage and give power to your other models.
Iceman: Thanks to his Beam 3, he also brings a potentially high volume of attacks to trigger the Cyclops's leadership more often. Iceman's mobility and ability to reposition allies with Ice Slides fits in perfectly with what the list wants to accomplish.
X-23: As the final 3 threat in the list, X-23 brings an excellent combination of both mobility and attrition. Much like Domino, she doesn't really need much extra power to fully use her kit, which makes her a great provider for the more power-hungry models in the list.
Bishop: The first model that is mostly a beneficiary of this list, Bishop brings another R4 attacker that has a guaranteed incinerate on it, as well as a pretty potent spender. His biggest utility remains to be able to throw size 4 characters and terrain, as well as being immune to Stun (which is relevant since I am running Mayor Fisk in my crises). He benefits a lot from the extra power given by X-Men Blue, as well as the repositions from Field Leader.
Colossus: Having benefited from a recent update, Colossus was on my radar as a durable brawler. I had the opportunity to put him on the table a few games before this event, and he still struggled to build power effectively if he didn't have either additional mobility or power generation. With Cyclops, being able to have both lets him be a surprisingly efficient brawler on narrow scenarios.
Rogue: The last of the brawling 4 threats in my list, Rogue brings redundancy with Bishop, as a 4 threat that can throw both models and size 4 terrain. Having a charge and access to resource denial with Mutant Absorption, Rogue has very solid tools but can struggle to build enough power to use everything on her card, which, thankfully, X-Men Blue provides.
Jean Grey: The last of the affiliated models, Jean provides a few unique tools that allow her to shine in this list. Being able to throw a size 4 terrain every turn, denying displacement thanks to Shield Mind, and displacing both allied and opposing models makes her an excellent control piece and damage dealer, at the cost of not being very mobile and being somewhat fragile, which other models in the list can help mitigate.
Splashes
King Black Bolt: The model that, in my opinion, holds this list together, King Black Bolt brings a toolkit surprisingly similar to Cyclops with a Hit and Run of his own and Telepathic Command, a superpower very analogous to Field Leader. Thanks to his Beam 4 which pushes size 3 models, it gives the list a surprising amount of attacks with control at a high range. With innate rerolls and a very stable power generation thanks to his gainer, King Black Bolt brings a reliable all-rounder that can both put offensive pressure and is hard to knock down.
Okoye: The second splash in this list, Okoye serves two main functions. The first one is being able to protect some of the more fragile pieces in this list like Cyclops, Bishop or Jean Grey from opposing attacks. The second one is to help fit more models while maintaining the ability to deploy King Black Bolt on the field. At 18 threat, it lets me play Cyclops, King Black Bolt, Okoye and two of my 3 threats and still be able to be 5 models wide.
Games
Game #1: X-Men Blue vs Spider-Foes. Mayor Fisk/Unexpected Guests (17)
Teams: Cyclops, X-23, Colossus, King Black Bolt vs Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist, Electro, Mysterio, Shang-Chi, Toad
Going into this game, I saw that my opponent didn't have a lot of brawly models to play on Mayor Fisk and that most of their models also had a short-range band than those I was bringing. This let me get an early attrition lead while keeping my opponent's models away from the secures, which my opponent couldn't recover from, closing the game 19-5 in my favor.
Game #2: X-Men Blue vs Avengers: Wedding Party/Inhuman Weaponry (18)
Teams: Cyclops, Colossus, Rogue, King Black Bolt vs Steve Rogers, Shang-Chi, Hulk, Beta Ray Bill
Going into this game, my game plan was to try and control Hulk off the points and power through the surrounding model but I made two important errors, that should've informed my choice of Squad. The first one being that, with priority, it meant that I wouldn't have the last activation, which would let Hulk control at least one of the secures fairly easily. The second one was that with the list I had, I didn't have the firepower to go through Hulk if I needed to. Together, this let my opponent take a strong round 1 lead, from which I didn't have the offense to take back from them, leading me to lose 8-16 after taking most of his models off the board, but not fast enough to climb back into the game. With the benefit of hindsight, I think bringing Domino, X-23 and Okoye, instead of Colossus and Rogue, would've solved both issues by giving me a better offensive output and the last activation to better control the secures.
Game 3: X-Men Blue vs Servants of Apocalypse: Mutant Madmen/Senators (18)
Teams: Cyclops, Iceman, X-23, Okoye, King Black Bolt vs Apocalypse, Magik (War), Deadpool (Famine), Colossus (Pestilence), Toad (Death)
Going into this game, I liked my options as most of the models in my opponent's list were more on the fragile side. Usually, when playing against Apocalypse, I tend to try to remove his horseman from the board, because it also takes away a lot of the Evolution token generation and by extension, his rerolls. Thanks to both King Black Bolt and X-23, I manage to take both Magik and Deadpool off the board fairly early, which lets me score out my opponent 18-11.
Game #4: X-Men Blue vs Winter Guard: Wedding Party/Skrulls (20)
Teams: Cyclops, Colossus, Rogue, Okoye, King Black Bolt vs Crimson Dynamo, Red Guardian, Omega Red, Hood, Hulk
Sadly playing one of my locals in round 4, I go into this game with the perspective from my second round game, where controlling the Hulk wasn't my best option, and that bringing a wider team, would help me fight the secures. Unfortunately for me, my learnings from that game were not as accurate as I thought, and I also ended up not bringing models with enough firepower to deal with Hulk or Dynamo, which led to my opponent being able to control me more effectively and take the win 10-18.
Game #5: X-Men Blue vs Defenders: Intrusion/Skrulls (20)
Teams: Cyclops, Domino, X-23, Rogue, King Black Bolt vs Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Amazing Spider-Man
Going into this game, I was worried about playing on Intrusion, as the proximity of the scenario makes the range of my attacks and my repositioning tools significantly less impactful. Luckily for me, an early spike from Cyclops let me get a very commanding attrition lead in the first round, that my opponent couldn't recover from, letting me claim the game 16-2
Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this list in a larger tournament and even if I'm not particularly proud of my 3-2 record, I had important lessons and takeaways from the weekend. I don't think my losses were as much issues with list constructions as much as my squad choices. With the benefit of hindsight, Colossus plays more as a tech piece than I initially thought, where he mostly needs to come out in certain specific match-ups instead of a more general piece. I also think I underplayed my 3 threats in the event and should've been more inclined to bring them in if only to have more models on the board to trigger Cyclops's leadership.
I would like to thank the TO and players for making the event as nice as it was and hopefully, we'll be back again next year to take home the event!
Thanks for taking the time to read this piece and as always, don't forget to have fun!
Comments
Post a Comment