We’re hitting 88 mph and traveling back in time, to the 1940’s and picking up our Golden Age Wade Wilson. What fun shenanigans can we get into with this old-chum?

In case you weren’t aware, this is the third article in my Deadpool & X-Force Chase series, and you can find the first two articles here and here. April is Deadpool Chase month, but you’ll most likely see some other stuff too (bonus articles?!) like a follow up report on the Majestix open that took place on April 1st (oh hey, that was posted yesterday!). Meanwhile, I’m going to continue the fun with more Deadpool’s!

Golden Age Deadpool (herein called Goldie) is a sleeper pick of the chases in my personal opinion. His dial is incredibly strong for the points and he’s easy to fit onto teams. Although he, like a few of these chases, doesn’t have much history in comics (he was only in Deadpool Kills Deadpool), he’s a fun pick and his sculpt and theme is neat. It is kind of weird that all links I can find online show his real name as Fredrick, yet the card says Weezy Wilson… I suppose I’ll go with Weezy? Maybe just W.W.

Goldie here comes in at 75 points, which is the cheapest Chase of the lot. He’s got 4 range with a single target, 6 clicks, no team ability, and Indomitable(!). His keywords are kind of poor in that he just has Deadpool Corps and Past, which makes him a little tricky to add to theme teams, but Past is probably one of the strongest generic keywords, so that’s good at least. He comes with two traits and no Special powers.

His dial is really strong and certainly earns his point cost. 10 Charge on top, swapping to Sidestep on click two and three, where he drops to 9 movement. Click four picks Charge back up, and his last two clicks go to 8 with Phasing/Teleport. Attack is naked all the way through, but he’s got an 11 on top, 10 on two and three, back to 11 on four, and 9 on five and six. Defense is pretty strong as well, with 18 Toughness up top, dropping to a 17 for two clicks, and jumping back up to 18 on click four. His fifth and sixth click both have 17 Regeneration. His damage is quite heavy for 75 points, with 4 on top with no powers, going to 3 Ranged Combat Expert on two and three, and then shifting to a naked 3 for the rest of his dial. It’s a pretty simple click, but it’s terribly efficient for the points

For traits, he’s got two; one that all the regular chases have and one that’s only his. First up, the one we all know and love, that bumps every chase up in value:

DO YOU SEE THE COMIC PANELS TELLING ME WHAT TO DO?: At the beginning of your turn, if Golden Age Deadpool has no action tokens, you may attach a comic panel to him, removing an already attached one. He can use the listed effect.

No surprise here. W.W. especially digs these panels because unlike the other chases, he doesn’t really have a shtick. He’s just an efficient fighter. Stealth is great to help him on his approach and Combat Reflexes is going to help him once he gets into the fray.

Second is his unique trait:

STAND BACK, CITIZEN!: Golden Age Deadpool can use Defend. Golden Age Deadpool can use the Carry ability, but only to carry up to two friendly characters with lower point values.

Defend is always nice, but it feels like a small gimmick when you have that on top dial, especially on a combat piece. Traited Defend is where the money is at. With his 18 defense, which isn’t huge but it’s still better than the average of 17, Goldie here is going to be a nice protection service with his buddies… that he can carry. Yes, Goldie here can carry two friendly characters with lower point values. It doesn’t say that he can ignore speed symbols or size, so you’ll be relegated to carrying standard boot-symbol characters or tiny characters, but that’s still pretty neat. Having a 75 point melee piece that can carry two of his buddies with him is really good and instantly adds more value to him. Now that 18 Defend seems pretty good since he guarantees that anyone he brings with him will have that same value. I like pieces that buff others just by doing their own thing.

That’s all there is with Golden Age Deadpool; he’s not complicated or a riddle to solve of “how do we make him good?” like D.E.A.D.P.O.O.L. was. He’s just a very efficient fighter. It might seem strange that he’s got Ranged Combat Expert on two clicks immediately after his Charge and with only a 4 range, but I like that this gives him options. The Indom is what really makes him a worthwhile investment as it’s becoming more and more rare for cheaper pieces that can actually do work. Keep in mind that in order to swap Comic Panels, he’ll need to be clear, so take that into account before pushing him. It might be more advantageous to grab Stealth on first turn and move him and two buddies up, clear on turn two, swap to ES/D or Combat Reflexes on turn three and go ham rather than attacking as soon as you get the chance. He requires a little finesse to offset his rarity as Toughness isn’t going to keep him alive for long.

Let’s do a quick analysis of his Positives VS Negatives so we know briefly where he stands.

Positives: Incredibly efficient dial. Comic Panels give him a 20 defense or help him avoid damage. Indom on a low-cost attacker. High damage all the way through. Very friendly play with fellow low-point attackers.

Negatives: Only Toughness to keep him alive. Short range. Lack of Keywords. 6 clicks is decent, but a little short considering the reducer.

Goldie was honestly a little tough to come up with negative aspects as his only real downside is the lack of Keywords. The rest are fine for his point cost, and the ability to taxi in his support or other attackers offsets those negatives almost completely.

So what does W.W. need in order to succeed? He’s already pretty mobile, so a taxi or TK actually aren’t very good for him. TK totally counters his trait as he can’t bring anyone with him, and he’s already the taxi for your team (albeit not for bigger guys). He’s probably going to want some friends to run into combat with, folks with either Empower or Enhancement to take advantage of the fact that he’s already got a high damage value. A better reducer or some kind of avoidance would probably be great with him, perhaps the Symbiote which gives Shape Change and Plasticity, so he can easily Sidestep breakaway on clicks two and three to hammer some ranged damage. Possession might be nice, but his starting values are so strong that it’s almost a waste in points. Proteus could be a phenomenal option bumping him to a 12 attack with 5 damage and 19 defense, but the ticking damage could really hurt him. Still, it’s worth exploring. Lastly, any kind of support piece that isn’t too squishy could be great with him, like an Outwitter that needs help getting into the fight.

300 Limited seems like it could be a great format for Goldie, and since he has a great 75 point cost, I don’t want to venture into higher-point builds. I do want to explore the Proteus effect though, so we’ll do a 300 Limited and a 300 Modern No Resources build (I’m sick of resources and Pandora’s Box!).

300 Point Modern Limited Golden Age Deadpool Team

There’s a lot going on with this build, so let’s jump right into it. As I mentioned above, the Symbiote seems like a natural fit for Goldie as it’ll give him more control and defense, along with the potential to raise his already amazing stats. No surprise there. How about the others?

The first step I took was looking for folks under 75 points that Goldie could carry, and I came up with a few good options. Solo and Slapstick from the new Mercs for Money Fast Forces seemed like great options, as did the Uncommon Magneto and Namorita. All of these were really good picks, but I had to stop with the two I chose; Klarion and Wiz Kid.

Klarion is undoubtedly the best attacker in the game for 70 points. I was eager to find pieces that could either immediately capitalize on being carried or could Flurry the next turn. Klarion here gives us everything. Teekl can pop off on the same turn so that you get two attacks out of the action while Klarion can act the following turn (and since he’ll most likely already by next to Teekl, it keeps the cat safe) with Pen/Psy. He’s also got Prob which is a big piece of the puzzle, and the Perplex from Teekl can make Goldie hit harder.

Wiz Kid was another instant pick. Although this team is focusing on melee, there’s no reason to pass on a 25 point +1 to attack and damage to your entire force. Now we get the effects of Proteus giving W.W. 12 attack and 5 damage without risking the poor roll every turn. He also gives Teekl a better attack meaning he can save his Perplex, and Klarion gets a substantial buff. My favorite thing here is that we’re once again finding a way to get around how difficult it is to position Wiz Kid. Goldie seems like the perfect solution (EDIT: after shrinking him to tiny size via the particles).

I still wanted some piece to bring Empower or Enhancement and my options were few, so I opted for Dr. Fate. He’s another great taxi with high movement and decent defense, and will buff the rest of our team. With Dr. Fate, we can move our entire team with only two actions as Goldie carries Klarion and Wiz Kid and Fate carries our last player.

For the final piece, I knew I wanted Outwit and I also needed a third attacker. Klarion and Golden Age Deadpool are both very strong, and although Teekl does count as a third attacker, he typically dies in one or two turns. No, I needed someone who would give the team some deception, and Doc Oc is the ideal candidate. Sure, Goldie can’t carry him, but Dr. Fate can. Wiz Kid can also buff his attack to an 11 (and Teekl can bring it to a 12). With his Outwit and Dr. Fate slowly creeping up with him in tow, there’s going to be a ton of damage coming from Otto. He can sit back and be the dedicated Outwitter until he’s needed to march in and wreck shop.

Lastly, I added Harley’s Hammer which can be picked up by Doc Oc. This will allow you to position two squares away while W.W. has the opposition all tied up thanks to his Plasticity, making sure you can swing when the time is right. Quake isn’t a bad option either, although he probably won’t ever use it with no move-and-attack.

I’m dumb and forgot that Doc Oc already gets giant reach from doing his thing, and W.W. can’t carry Wiz Kid as he has flight, so I swapped the Hammer to the Pym Particles. Derp.

For Comic Panels, I would opt for Stealth on Goldie to start to keep him safe, and swap over to Combat Reflexes since your goal is going to be to get in there with your team and go all roadhouse on ’em.

With this setup, you can deal an awful lot of damage. Goldie can Charge in with Wiz Kid and Klarion, attacking for 5 damage with 12 attack. Teekl can then pop off next to Wiz Kid and hit for an average of 3 for Blades (but you could get lucky with 5 or 6). Then Otto can do his thing and unleash 12 clicks when it’s his go. That’s 20 damage in a single turn, or 22/23 if you get lucky. I realize that you’ll need to use two actions to get Otto into the fight; this is just talking numbers. If you split it into two turns, you actually get much more thanks to Enhancement/Empower from Fate and Klarion able to make an attack.

Solid! Let’s do the 300 Modern No Resources build next.

300 Point Modern Golden Age Deadpool Build – No Resources

I really wanted to try Goldie with Protues as it pushes his stats into a much higher point division. Now he’s got 11 Charge, 12 Attack, 19 Toughness, and 5 damage. With the Comic Panels, that’s going to give him a 21 Defense after Combat Reflexes which will make him much harder to take down and he now serves as our main source of damage.

For the pieces he carries, I wanted to go completely different from the last build. Although Klarion is the best option, I didn’t want to use him again as it’s kind of a cop-out. Instead, I went with Chameleon and Peggy Carter.

Why have an Outwit when you can have a team-wide power counter that doesn’t draw line of fire? That seems really strong, and since Goldie is going to carry Peggy into battle, she’s most likely going to be closer to their starting area, meaning she’ll get Stealth and Shape Change, and since she’s next to Goldie, she gets that nice 18 defense (remember that Defend only works on printed defense, not raised). She’s also a really nice ranged piece.

Chameleon was a piece I really wanted to shoe-horn into the build because of his extreme versatility. For his disguises, I went with Slapstick (a pain-in-the-ass tie up piece or Flurry monster), original Mikey (Flurry with token giving and Empower for Goldie), and Sunfire (Running Shot Pulse Wave seems good). However, if you don’t need any of those, or they’re playing a big one man army with Shape Change and other dumb defenses, keep Chameleon out and use his trait that says people within 3 squares can’t use Shape Change or be replaced. No more Shifting Focus and no more dodging Goldie’s attacks. Combined with Peggy, this lets us nerf any defense standing in our way. He’s also got Perplex so he can raise our damage to a 6.

For the last bit of points, I went with Fenris who is quickly becoming one of my favorite new ranged attackers. There’s so much that this piece can do for its points, and with a melee-heavy team, they can punish from afar while the opposition is tied up in the fight. Chameleon can help them out with Perplex if he stays himself to make them hit for even more damage if you absolutely need range to break the ice. Knockback on the other hand will allow you keep the enemy team corralled and next to Goldie so he can do his work.

This team might not be as flexible as the previous one, but it seems to adapt a little better to different situations with the addition of Peggy and the changing of pieces with Chameleon. I’m not sure which I like better, but I’ll be sure to try both.

That’ll do it on the third installment of my Deadpool & X-Force Chase series! I hope you enjoyed this look at Weezy and his efficient dial. What pieces would you play with him? It seems low-point power pieces are his deal, so I’d love to know what you’ve come up with. Also, how are you enjoying the series?

Join me on Thursday as I take a look at one of my favorite chases; the agent of Smash that is Hulkpool! See ya then!