It’s been some time since the last team build, and with Earth X right around the corner, I thought it would be fun to build around a figure that I really enjoyed from Secret Wars: Battleworld with Iron Goblin.

I really enjoyed the Battleworld comics back in 2015. Jonathan Hickman is a hell of a writer, and Spider-man was still being written by the amazing Dan Slott. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the Spider-Island Battleworld book to save my life, but I do know that Iron Goblin is one hell of a figure.

By this time next week, Earth X should be fully spoiled, and Battleworld will be another previous set that fades into obscurity. That’s a bummer for me since I heavily enjoyed this set and it had some of my favorite figures since I’ve come back to the game. I feel like Secret Wars: Battleworld and Batman: The Animated Series have pushed for supremely good rare figures, and we’re seeing that trend continue with Earth X (hello, Spider-Man!). So to close this set out, let’s look at one last rare.

Then again, who knows if this’ll be the last Battleworld figure team build! I sure do like that rare Iron Man and never got around to him!

Iron Goblin comes in at either 150 or 100 points with 8 or 5 clicks of health respectively. He has 7 range with two targets, Flight, Indomitable, and improved targeting: ignores characters. Goblin Tony has some great Keywords with Armor, Avengers, Battleworld: Spider-Island, and Scientist, and comes with one trait and one special attack power.

Tony’s dial looks pretty mediocre on paper; his movement is strong (as most Iron Man dials usually are) with 10 Running Shot, swapping to Hypersonic Speed on click three, dropping to a 9 on click five, and finishing on 8 Charge for clicks six through 8. Attack values are the big loss on this dial with a singular 11 Energy Explosion up front which immediately drops to 10 on click two, jumps to Precision Strike on clicks three through five, and then shifts over to his special attack power for his last three clicks where he actually climbs back up with an 11 on click seven and a big 12 on click eight. His defense is very steady with 18 Impervious for clicks one and two, 17 Invulnerability on clicks three through five, and 17 Toughness for his last three clicks. Damage is consistent as well with a vanilla 3 until his last three clicks with 2 Exploit Weakness.

This gives Tony three distinct styles of play; ranged attacker on his first two clicks, Hypersonic harasser on clicks three through five, and pure melee on his final three clicks.

As I mentioned, his attack values are a big dud on this dial. That is until you take a look at his trait:

SLOW DESCENT INTO MADNESS: At the beginning of your turn, you may roll a d6. Iron Goblin can use the resulting effects until your next turn. [1-2]: Battle Fury. Modify attack +2. [3-4]: Perplex, Probability Control. [5-6]: Outwit. Modify his combat values +1.

Since this is a trait that will happen on every turn no matter what click Tony is on, you can guarantee he’ll always have a +1 to his attack value, assuming you use Perplex on a 3-4 on his attack value. So off the bat, this is a huge boost to his attack values and makes him a lot better than he seems. What I love about this trait is that it’s always giving bonuses, and quite bit ones at that. Battle Fury might suck since you can’t use Running Shot thanks to no ranged attacks, but +2 attack which gives you a big 13 on top-dial is pretty significant. You only regular Perplex on a 3-4, but you pickup Probability Control which will both help you hit and make it harder to hit him. If you manage to land that 5-6, you’re golden sitting at 11 Running Shot, 12 Energy Explosion, 19 Impervious, 4 damage, and 8 range.

You don’t get to see Tony’s special attack power much, but it’s absolutely worthwhile when you’re there:

LAST STAND WITH THE EBON BLADE: Blade/Claws/Fangs, Steal Energy.

Short, sweet, and quite fantastic. This power pairs very nicely with his Charge and Exploit Weakness, plus once he gets to this point on his dial, there are no downsides to his trait. You’re only getting a benefit. And with those large attack values, like that massive 12 on his final click, you can almost guarantee that Tony will stay in the fight for a long time while dealing a ton of damage.

I love figures like this because they don’t have any bad clicks. Every click works and his entire package makes for an honestly dangerous figure that’s scary if he rolls the right number for his trait. With the Indomitable and ignoring characters for lines of fire, Tony seems pretty powerful for his point cost. That brings us to a good question about Iron Goblin:

Do I play him at 150 or at 100?

Most characters with two different point values will give you a little more for the higher cost, but Iron Goblin is pretty different in that his starting power shifts and dramatically changes how he’s played. At 150, Iron Goblin starts with Running Shot which can be completely ruined if you roll a 1 or a 2 as I covered back in the trait breakdown. If you decide to run him at 100, he starts with Hypersonic Speed which makes his trait more powerful because you can’t roll something that completely negates your dial. Sure, you’ll be limited to melee attacks if you roll that 1 or 2, but at least you can still attack and your value will be 12 for 100 points.

The other big difference is dial length and survivability. At 150, you get two clicks of 18 Impervious, which can be buffed by your own 3-4 roll on the trait to a 19 with Probability Control to make him even harder to deal with. At 100, you start with 17 Invulnerability, which I don’t know how you feel personally, but that’s not nearly as god-like as it used to be way back in the day. 10 might still be the average attack value, but more and more figures are judged poorly if they only have a 10. The perception is that 11 is the new average, even though the numbers tell us that isn’t the case. Because of that, 17 feels a lot softer than 18, and Invulnerability is nice, but there’s no way for Tony to dodge attacks or get out of trouble. He’s a sitting duck and’s most likely going to get knocked off that Hypersonic setup after one hit.

That’s why I think it’s imperative to think about what you want out of Iron Goblin before choosing which value to play him at. Thankfully, WizKids did some of that thinking for us by giving him a fantastic dancing partner in Avengers: Infinity that happens to theme with Iron Goblin:

Mantis is 50 points and has a pretty brutal dial for a melee figure, but I won’t go into her detail as this article is about Tony, not her. Instead, I’ll cut right to the chase; Mantis has an incredible trait that synergizes amazingly with Tony.

I WILL HELP YOU CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS: Friendly characters within 4 squares have “FREE: This character can’t use Battle Fury or Earthbound/Neutralized this turn.”

Yep, Mantis has an off-switch for Battle Fury, and she has the Avengers keyword. That’s some pretty great team-up potential!

Now I know what you’re thinking; “doesn’t that mean that you’re paying 200 points for Iron Goblin in reality then?” Well, not really. Mantis is quite a badass herself. If you play her in this way, an Avengers theme team, her other trait will boost her attack to a 12 and her defense to an 18 which is pretty fantastic for only 50 points. Mantis also has a very long dial with 6 clicks, and she has some fantastic options like Support at the end of her dial to keep Iron Goblin healthy. Tony can also carry her around with his Running Shot to make sure that your melee figure isn’t left in the dust. Iron Goblin isn’t 200 points because you aren’t adding 50 points for one purpose. You’re bonusing off of a 50 point figure more than you normally would.

If you don’t like this route, then simply play him at 100 points and load him up with Perplers to mitigate that defense value! For the purpose of the rest of the article, I’m going to be playing Iron Goblin at 150 points with Mantis.

Tools for Success

Tony brings a lot of his own needs with him via his trait; he’s already mobile and has number boosting up the wazoo, so we can cut a lot of corners here. But there’s still things that can make him better.

While Perplex isn’t necessary, it still works well with him to make him either an unhitable tank, or help him out in the damage department as he’s only going to be hitting for 3 damage himself unless you roll a 5-6 (or use the Perplex from 3-4 on damage which you should never do). A hyper-efficient Perplex figure would work quite well for him. For example, Red Leader who can dish out a ton of number buffing can make Tony deal some serious damage.

You could also achieve the same thing with the much cheaper Enhancement. Since attack value are always going to benefit from his own trait, Enhancement is a great way to boost his damage values, and support characters with the power are usually cheap enough that you can double up on them. Scientist is a great Keyword to achieve this (although you’ll lose theme with Mantis).

Probability Control is always a good idea to include on teams, so if you have a cheap Avenger who can do this like the LE Brother Voodoo, that’s a good route to take.

Tony flies, so a taxi isn’t going to do him much good unless it’s via a giant or colossal figure. Luckily there are some great retaliators with the Avengers keyword, so you could take this option and play a safety game until the right moment. TK however is a great option for him, serving as a way to get him further into the fight and increase threat range, or pull him back out of trouble after his Running Shot. Placement effects via characters like Infinity will work here too.

Perhaps the best option though for Tony is a figure to block lines of fire. Iron Goblin can see through characters, so you have no dangers in carting around a useless figure (that maybe has Enhancement) to block other characters from hitting him. Someone line Tony Stark, Inventor from the same set works amazingly here as he has his own immunities to lines of fire (but again, you’ll lose Avengers theme).

Finally, map choice is very so-so with Iron Goblin; he has great mobility and flight, so he can easily get around anything but indoor blocking terrain. It could be nice though to pick a map with very little hindering terrain to prevent Stealth figures from bursting his bubble.

Let’s get into the team build to see what I came up with.

300 Point Modern Iron Goblin Team – 18/19 Modern

SWB034 Iron Goblin | 150 Points

EAX037a Spider-Man | 90 Points (not in units section at time of writing)

(not in units section at time of writing) AI030 Mantis | 50 Points

FFAIG001p Giant-Girl | 10 Points

Avengers Theme Team: +4

Build Total: 300 Points

This team is fairly light and easy with just 4 members on the build and no chases, super rares, equipment, or ID cards. It’s just a fun way to play and abuse Iron Goblin.

I’ve already gone through the interaction with Iron Goblin and Mantis, so there’s no reason to go through why Mantis is on the team again. Instead, let’s talk about why Spider-Man made the cut.

I was originally going with Eric Masterson but was having trouble filling the rest of the team out and giving Iron Goblin a good secondary/tertiary attacker to where all of our damage wasn’t coming from him and Mantis (but mostly him). I looked at the Baron Spider-Man from Battleworld and while I did like the constant +2 Perplex to Iron Goblin, I didn’t like that he has to sit for 2 turns, basically giving your opponent board control while you wait for your Spider-man to take action.

Instead, I ended up with the fantastic new Spider-Man from Earth X that will undoubtedly get his own Team Build article. Basically, Spider-Man adds a lot to this team that it needs; a very strong secondary attacker to pull heat and cause a choice on who the opponent guns for, and he has Probability Control and insane mobility to make him a constant threat. The real reason why I like Spider-Man for this team, aside from how efficient he is, is because of his Web Shooters that come equipped with him:

Effect: Incapacitate with a maximum range of 4. When this character uses it and hits, instead of giving an action token you may have hit targets gain Immobile until your next turn. (They still tale 1 penetrating if they had 2 action tokens.

Spider-Man comes with Running Shot and 2 targets, so he can choose between plinking for small damage like Iron Goblin, or he can go for the control route and completely lock down targets. This gives us a great interchange between our two big guys and the timing with their own action tokens. If Spider-Man plays more like a tempo control piece, you can lock them down for Iron Goblin the following turn, or for Mantis so that she can charge in on a target that was positioned poorly.

I went with Giant-Girl because she’s a great taxi for anyone on the team for just 10 points, and her Keep it Moving, Avengers trait gives her free mobility when a teammate uses a MOVE action. She might be a little easy to KO, but she has a lot of utility.

With this team, a map with a lot of elevation would be great. Something like Harley’s Apartments is a good call since Spider-Man gets to blink around the map after combat, allowing him to jump out of harms way and Iron Goblin can just fly over everything. It ditches the idea of number boosting and a body shield for Iron Goblin, but I think it works well. Thankfully with Avengers, you have a lot you can do with 100 points. If you want a great meat shield for Iron Goblin, I would suggest Shifting Focus Vision as he’s incredibly tanky or hard as hell to hit for just 50 points (and the dense version doesn’t fly so he can be carried while the intangible form does so he can carry Mantis).

What have you tried with Iron Goblin? Do you like him? Which point value do you prefer to play him at outside of sealed where he should only be played at 100 points? Let me know in the comments section!

I’m working on a huge set review for Earth X with an added bonus this month, so depending on when we have the full set spoiled, I’ll post it either here or on Two Clicks From KO; whichever week we’re on. It’s looking like a surprisingly good set with some gems, although I still like Secret Wars: Battleworld better overall.

See you guys next week on Two Clicks From KO!