The final “piece” in this “Top Ten” list of figures Heroclixin’ will miss in retirement is a whole team:
#1
Aaron Stack, Elsa Bloodstone, Monica Rambeau, The Captain, Tabitha Smith (Giant-Size X-Men)
Equaling a perfect 500-point named keyword team, the Nextwave squad never really got on the field the way I wanted it to. Maybe it was the lack of good top-dial moving attack options in a game which still boasted, at the time, plenty of ranges 8 or longer. A pity that almost as soon as the support powers Outwit and Perplex, which could easily nerf Nextwave before, were themselves nerfed, Nextwave gets relegated to the pasture. Speaking of which, Nextwave didn’t have any of those support powers, either — not without taking a lot of damage. And even though the crew had a decent ATA, it was unusable on a full-power Nextwave themed team in Modern Age unless one doubled up on the weakest member to make a 600-point team.
Nextwave: Not Getting Played In Force Since Q1 2011.
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Retirement has a silver lining though, because this:
Aaron Stack, Elsa Bloodstone, Monica Rambeau, The Captain, Tabitha Smith (Giant-Size X-Men)
The team with the Nextwave ATA added up to 525 points. Now that the team’s in Golden Age, we can throw on the full 50 points of Feats to make this a proper 600-point themed team at last!
First, spend 25 points on Warbound on all characters with the Nextwave keyword. This feat, which really kinda fits this close-knit team that’s more like a family, eliminates some of the movement/action challenges the squad has at this point level. The taxis, which are also the big hitters, can shunt tokens off to the cheaper passengers (only Tabby is too inexpensive for them to Warbound to). Or the cheaper ones, when finally in position to do something, can dump their tokens off to the others, as in this illustrative pic:
Tabitha Smith (Giant-Size X-Men 015) makes a close combat attack and uses Warbound to give the token to an adjacent friendly character more than half her 58-point cost, Aaron Stack (Giant-Size X-Men 016). He then pushes to make a close combat attack of his own because he’s Indomitable and can use Willpower. Tabby will be free next turn to act — say, setting her Timebombs in distant squares or just making a ranged attack, because no generic cop HeroClix figure is standing up after getting kicked for 3 damage twice in a row.
(Don’t worry, parents, it’s OK— it’s a BAD cop they’re kicking.)
That leaves 25 more points left for feats in the 10% allowed for feats. Each character’s gonna get one.
Monica!
Lacking Special Powers or Traits, she will microwave the buttocks off most of the newer figures in the game thanks to Not So Special giving her an AV boost against those that do have SPs. That’s 3 points. 22 to go.
Tabby!
Her no-attack-roll-necessary SP only deals a low 1 or 2 damage. So feat her with Armor Piercing, which has always put teeth into multi-target Energy Explosion, which Tabitha (aka Boom Boom aka Meltdown) has in spades on her non-SP clicks to give foes the explodo with this clever use of 10 points.
Aaron!
The robotic hero full of useful devices and sock-drawer-organizing skills would have the Inside Information on other Avengers, Heavy Metal, Nextwave, Robot, S.H.I.E.L.D., and West Coast Avengers-keyworded foes for a healthy AV boost against them for just 4 more points. Play it!
Elsa!
The English-accented monster hunter can further her monster hunting ways with the 3-point Monster Hunter feat.
The Captain!
In an appropriately gonzo sort of way, Alias is actually a pretty fitting feat for a guy who’s called himself just about every Captain [insertwordhere] in the Marvel Universe. Gameplay-wise, as he’s liable to lead the charge with his Impervious hide and potential Outwit/Perplex immunity, it gives him a little protection.
Feat total comes to 48 points, 2 under the cap, bringing the team to 573.
So let’s put a Resource on Aaron Stack, who, as noted before, is full of very useful devices approximating the powers of a half-complete Infinity Gauntlet:
- Soul Gem (or “Death to fleshy ones!”)
- Power Gem (Close Combat Expert on early dial. Range Combat Expert on 2nd half)
- Space Gem (using extendible arms to Carry pals and stride past foes with his extendible legs akin to giants)
And, of course, his time with the Celestials means he can access robot godhood … eventually.
The most useful aspect of a Gauntlet on Aaron is the early Telekinesis he offers the team. He is the pilot of Nextwave’s ship, the Shockwave Rider, after all.
Finally, some Battlefield Conditions will round things out:
- Mistrust. Nextwave have no team symbols to share, so they’re unaffected by this card. (And, as noted before, Nextwave is Love.)
- Overconfidence. There’s no Perplex on the team, either, unless Aaron picks it later via Gauntlet (Assuming he’s not actually complete and utter ****). Conversely (because I may not actually have the above card in my collection anymore) I could use White Noise because, again, I have virtually no Outwit on the team.
- Extraordinary Day. This just fits Nextwave’s penchant for **** and **** and people getting kicked. ESPECIALLY PEOPLE GETTING KICKED.
- There’s also Debris. The Captain and Aaron both start with Super Strength, so it might be worth having a bunch more objects to use.
598 points. Can’t wait to try this out!
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Next week: back to regular features.