Hey there Clix Fix’ers, I’m back with another team build for ya! For today’s menu, I figured it would be fun to talk about the star of the recent Harley set as we’re quickly approaching yet another set release. Let’s build around that awesome Title Harley!

Title characters are quite the trend as of late, and every set seems to be getting at least one. Deadpool started us off almost a year ago, and still holds as one of the best candidates for this mechanic. If you aren’t familiar with Title Characters, you can read my article from last year all about Title Deadpool and how they work here. If you’re familiar with Magic: The Gathering, they’re pretty much Planeswalkers in Heroclix form.

Anyway, we’ve gone from getting one Title character a set like Deadpool and Doctor Strange, to two per set with Thor (Thor and Loki, which everyone seems to forget Loki was in there), and three in the Star Trek set. Who knows how many we’ll see in X-Men: Xavier’s School (yes I know my header is wrong because they changed the name from original solicits, and yes we know of two already and that’s probably all there are, but work with me here!). I digress; we did get two Title characters in the recent Harley set, and sure enough they were The Joker and his Puddin’, Ms. Quinn. Today is about Ms. Quinn, because honestly she should be built around first when the set is about her.

Harley is 60 points, and much like Primes, has the typical healthy dial for her points with 7 clicks. She has 4 range with a single target, standard combat symbols, the Batman Enemy team ability, and four Keywords, including Arkham Asylum, Gotham City Sirens, Gotham City Underworld, and Suicide Squad. Like all Title characters, she has the Title trait, and no special powers.

Her dial is okay with fairly low numbers, but decent powers. Movement is her weakest value starting with a 7 Running Shot, moving to 6 Sidestep on click four, and Stealth on click six. Her attack isn’t much better, and has no powers whatsoever. She starts with a 10, jumps to an 11 on click three before going right back to 10 on four, and her last two clicks have a 9. Defense jumps around even more with a 17 ES/D, jumping to an 18 on click two, dropping back to a 17 on three, swapping to Super Senses on four, BACK to an 18 on five, and then plummets to a 16 on her last two clicks. Her damage starts with 3 Shape Change, moves to Exploit on click four, and 2 Enhancement on her last two clicks.

Needless to say, it’s a little chaotic, and there really isn’t a true sweet spot on her dial, unless you really want that single click of 11 attack. Regardless, there really isn’t a bad click on her dial. Even when her stats are weak on the end, she can be a great team player with Enhancement and Stealth.

Regarding her Title abilities, Harley starts the game with 3 Plot Points, which is pretty standard. She has all the typical hallmarks of not being able to activate an ability unless she attacks (lest she takes damage), and punishes you if she goes down. Speaking of which, let’s see how she hurts you:

NO MORE PUMPKIN-PIE: When Harley Quinn is KO’d, for the rest of the game all opposing characters have “POWER: Heal 2 clicks”.

Ouch. That one really stings. Giving your opponents the opportunity to pretty much negate your force and heal back up to full is pretty much a game-ender if she goes down. If you really want to be ruthless, it’s a great idea to pair her with someone like Flash, God of Death who prevents healing so that you have an insurance plan, but man is that expensive to build. For KO effects, this is about as ruthless as they come. You’ll want to keep her safe.

Now then, let’s get into her Title abilities. First up, the increase:

(+1) MAID OF MISCHIEF: FREE: Perplex until your next turn. When Harley Quinn uses it, she may instead modify a combat value other than damage +2 or -2.

That’s a really nice ability, and doesn’t urge her to not take action. On the contrary, it pushes Harley to be a team player. What I really like about this power is that because it’s so passive, you can bump her into her 11 attack on purpose while you buff the rest of your team and get into position. It’s a great ability, and giving someone +2 to attack or giving herself a +2 to defense is really nice. I also like that you can choose to modify damage, but you just get a regular Perplex whereas a lot of these double Perplex powers specifically say you can’t touch damage.

Next up, her smaller decrease power:

(-2) UH, CANDYGRAM?: FREE: Energy Explosion this turn. When Harley Quinn uses it, modify attack +3 and after resolutions, give each hit character an action token.

This is a really good ability that is a little deceptive in how much control it brings to your team. If you can manage to get a group of enemies together, Harley is almost guaranteed to deal 2 damage to each of them and token them down (which if they have a token for any reason under the new rules, they’ll take pushing damage). That +3 attack is brutal and really makes this power.

Last, let’s see that ultimate!

(-6) GET ‘EM, GANG OF HARLEYS!: FREE: Roll a d6. Generate a number of Harley Bystander Tokens equal to the result (Min. 2) into squares within 3 squares.

Generating bystanders is a very strong power. We’ve seen what Carnage can do to the meta with his Symbiotes, and while Harley is a bit slower to build up to this, she isn’t stuck as a retaliator. What’s even better, this doesn’t require her to have line of fire to where she places the bystanders, so she can be behind a wall or on different elevation and still place these peeps. And it’s not like the bystanders are bad; they have 5 Flurry, 10 attack, 15 Combat Reflexes, and 2 damage, AND they’re actions don’t count against you. A potential 4 damage on each of those tokens that don’t cost you anything to use is fantastic, and I think this gives her an edge over her Puddin’s ultimate. My only complaint here is that you could potentially roll a 1 or 2 and only get two of these suckers for that 6 Plot Point cost, so there is some risk involved, especially when you could have done two Energy Explosions. That’s a nit-pick though.

Harley has a very nice kit of a Title character. Sure, she isn’t as absurd as Deadpool, and she doesn’t bring the insane map-advantage that Strange does, but she’s cheap and easy to build around. She has more tricks up her sleeve, which I really like.

Time for that brief analysis on the Positives VS. Negatives table!

Positives: Typical cost-to-health ratio is great. Good powers with lots of options. Fantastic Title abilities. Deceptive of how good she is. Doesn’t take up a huge point total. Very pushable. Handing out tokens.

Negatives: Brutal KO effect that essentially loses the game for you. Very squishy. Wacky stats. Not very mobile. Easy to KO if the gap is closed. Outwit destroys her.

Out of everything on Harley’s dial, the worst thing about her is that KO effect. Unless you really plump money down on the team and make it about someone else, that power you give your opponent’s force is just going to bury you. However, Harley has so many tools at her disposal that I honestly think it’s worth it.

So what does our gal pal need to succeed out on the fields of battle? More than anything, I think Harley needs a lot of allies to draw attention and stop your opponents from getting to her. The best way to keep her around is to clog the map. A high-priority target is also going to be a huge plus for her as your opponent will have to deal with the threat instead of her. Make the build less about Harley and more about the other people on your force. Harley also benefits from moving enemies around so that her Energy Explosion can achieve maximum value, so Mind Control is a great tool to utilize. Equipment is also a good bet to keep her healthy or give her more teeth. Transportation is also a great idea since Harley is rather slow.

For today’s team build, I’m going to go with 300 Modern with no resources. I was going to run Limited, but there’s a colossal on this team and I think it’s pretty necessary for what I’ve done, so I opted for regular Modern. I think I’ll stick with no resources moving forward because once rotation hits in June, we lose pretty much everything except the Punisher Van, and that’s not valid unless you’re playing The Punisher.

300 Point Modern Title Harley Team – No Resources

First up on our team is Enchantress. I’ve found that the more I play this piece or the more I play against her, the more I appreciate how insanely good she is. The ability to move pieces around the board for free is brutal and can setup so many good plays. She can group the enemy team together so that Harley can get that Energy Explosion off and token down the entire team, or most of it, and greatly increase our efficiency. She also brings another Perplex to the table, so we have a lot of values we can raise. If push comes to shove, Enchantress does have Mind Control, so she can force our opponents to fight for us.

I mentioned that a primary target is a great choice to field to take focus off of Harley, and Quicksilver does a great job of that. This guy is the bane of a lot of people’s existence with how insanely efficient he is for his points. With Harley and Enchantress, we can boost his numbers to incredible levels, up to a 13 attack with 4 damage with his Flurry. While he doesn’t have Willpower which will slow us down a little, the tokens we can place with Harley can help in that department. Pietro will be the core of our damage.

Next up is Overdrive, and he’s pretty crucial to this team. On the first turn, he carries Enchantress into position while dropping Harley and Quicksilver onto items, which I’ll get to. As he moves up, he’s a great piece for Quicksilver to return to and gain another +1 to damage thanks to Empower, and his ability to make attacks through his Speed Shadow token. He’s also a transport for the gang of Harleys we can make, and also gives them a +1 to damage, making them capable of dishing 6 damage a turn. That’s a ton of value for 35 points.

Carnage rounds out our team, and like I said, he’s pretty necessary. Carnage gives us a way to crowd the board with his Symbiotes that have Plasticity, Blades, Super Senses, and Shape Change. Now we’re only playing two of those Symbiotes, but if the opponent deals with them (which they kind of have to if they want to progress anywhere), he’ll just make more. While I said that Overdrive can carry Enchantress to where she needs to be, it’s much more likely that he carries the two Symbiotes, along with Harley and Pietro, and Enchantress moves up on her own. Carnage gives us a lot of damage and board control for just 30 points.

Regarding items, I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to give Harley. I didn’t want to use the Mirror as this build would then require you to own two, and most people don’t. Instead, I wanted to work around her survivability, so I went with Thunderstrike, and man is there some sick tech here. Leap/Climb doesn’t do much (but does allow her to get ANYWHERE for that Energy Explosion), but giving her Force Blast and free healing does. The tech part is that if Harley uses that Energy Explosion and hits let’s say three opposing figures, she’ll heal for each one she knocks back! That gives her insane healing capabilities and makes her a much bigger threat. With that +3 attack, you’re almost guaranteed to heal up, as long as you don’t target people with Charge or Combat Reflexes.

For Quicksilver, I went with Frey to give him the ‘ol Dark Angel combo. Since he can use Flurry, that lifts the limitation of regular close attacks, and he can use powers that trigger off of Flurry, like Precision Strike, or Blades/Claws/Fangs, so let’s give him said Blades! Now Quicksilver can potentially swing for 12 damage a turn, and he has literally no gamble to do so since Frey will always deal at least your printed damage. So you’re guaranteed to deal 6, but can double that for 7 points? Sure, I’ll take that. Of course if you’re playing an aggressive team, you probably won’t want to lock yourself down for 4 turns to pick it up (get there turn 1, pick up turn 2, clear turn 3, act turn 4), but it gives us options. If you want to switch things up, you can always give Quicksilver Thunderstrike and heal up to 2 clicks each turn to keep him healthy.

This team looks like it doesn’t have a lot of teeth, but once it gets up and running, there’s so many pieces that can deal a ton of damage. It has the capability to generate a ton of bystanders that can each hit for 6 damage on a perfect day. It’s got lock down and tons of control. Pretty much the only thing it can’t do is reroll dice, but we can’t have everything. Regardless, I really like this team, more than I usually do when I build these, and it’s really kind of pushed me to track this Title character down.

What are your thoughts on this Title character build? Is there a different route I could have taken with Harley? What success have you had with her? I’d love to read your comments, so list ’em below!

If you haven’t seen it, I discussed the watch list results and the new Darwin piece coming out at Two Clicks From KO last Tuesday, so make sure you check that out if you’re more of the competitive player. I’ll see you guys there next Tuesday and back here again in two weeks! I promise I’ll review the Star Trek set soon; I haven’t forgotten about it and a good friend asked me to do that so I will.

Take care!