Regenesis is coming to a close this month, and just a few weeks ago, I threw together a team utilizing one of the prize figures. I quite liked that so I figured I would do that once again now that all the figures are available, and XMADPS is literally around the corner. Let’s look at that Month 3 Magneto prize figure!

This was a decent Storyline Organized Play event. It didn’t have the aches and groans that Civil War did thanks to keeping what you open rather than being forced to give away great pulls to someone else, and it did a pretty decent job of keeping things fresh by allowing you to bring back previous figures and an increasing point cost to make the games more interesting. It wasn’t perfect; some of the figures were drastically too strong and completely dominant if someone played multiples, but overall it was well done. I hope we get more like this in the future.

Of all the Regenesis figures, I think the overall best and most versatile are the Month 1 Cyclops prize figure for his amazing ability to piece together massive X-Men teams, and the month 3 Magneto prize figure. While Cyclops feels too massive and overreaching to build around (just plug in “X” figures = profit), Magneto is a stellar primary attacker that does require some thought on how you maximize his potential. Even better, one of his only two Keywords is getting a massive boost in the new Animated set, more on that later.

Unfortunately many of the figures I’m looking at today aren’t in the units section of HCRealms right now, so I’ll include screenshots for various dials. That means the team build section will be a little bulky, but at least you’ll have the information without having to hunt it down.

Magneto is a 125-point monster with 7-clicks of health, 6-range, Flight, and Indomitable. He brings the reworked Brotherhood of Mutants team ability with him, and has just two Keywords with, you guessed it, Brotherhood of Mutants and Hellfire Club. There isn’t a lot of either of those in Modern currently, but that’s about to massively change in a couple weeks. His dial is also mostly vanilla, sans one Special Attack Power.

Let’s get one thing out of the way; this is not Erik Lensher/Max Eisenhardt/Magneto. This is Joseph, a clone of Magneto. If you want to know more about him, feel free to look up his history. For simplicity, I’ll still refer to him as Magneto throughout the article as that’s what his dial says.

Note: The dial was not coded with the correct Improved Targeting. See later in the article.

Magneto has a large range-heavy dial, just like the real deal. His opening clicks kick off with 10-Running Shot, 11-Special, 18-Impervious, and 4/3-Leadership giving him some serious potential at hitting first for a decent chunk of damage. What makes Magneto so special is that once he does take a hit, he has this golden third click with 9-Running Shot, 12-Special, 18-Invincible, and 4-damage. Quite the hiccup in his dial that your opponent is not going to want to see.

At this point, his “phases” start bleeding into each other a bit. Click four turns him into a slower cannon with 9-Sidestep, 11-Pen/Psy, 18-Invulnerability, and 3-Outwit, which slightly changes on click five (8-speed, and 17-Energy Shield/Deflection). His last two clicks standardize with 8/9-Running Shot, 10/11-Special, 17-Energy Shields, and 3/4-damage.

What’s incredible about this dial are his incredibly steady 18-defense value with massive reducers for four clicks, and his stellar attack values with just one 10, five 11’s, and a mid-dial 12. Most figures these days might hold a couple 11’s but diminish into 10 territory unless you’re paying 200 or more points. Magneto does this for nearly half their points and backs that up with great defenses to make him a solid package. But it gets soooo much better.

Unbelievable Destructive Force: Pulse Wave, Telekinesis, Improved Targeting: can draw a line of fire through one piece of Blocking terrain. Immediately after the attack resolves, destroy that piece of Blocking terrain.

All but two clicks on this dial have this insanely strong attack power giving Magneto access to Pulse Wave but with the added ability to shoot through one wall each time he does so. One of the biggest counterplays to Pulse Wave is keeping someone next to you at all times so that it’s much harder to single-target your main attacker. Magneto doesn’t care about that because he’ll gladly play on a map with tons of walls and Pulse Wave you from the other side. This also gives him protections as a character that might have Probability Control on a Protected: Pulse Wave click, or outside his 3-square range, can’t see him as the wall won’t be destroyed until after the attack resolves.

Oh yeah, and Telekinesis is there, too. I suppose if you really need it, it’s there.

There’s not a lot to unpack on this dial – it’s powerful and efficient, and I cannot wait to start using this guy. He doesn’t have the Keywords that more recent Magneto’s have (X-Men), but for a single-base version of the character, this is potentially the strongest we’ve ever seen him. Pulse Wave on five clicks, an overwhelming average 11-attack, great maneuverability, and huge reducers. It’s all here, and it’s deadly.

Keys to Success

Without a doubt, the biggest factor for Magneto is going to be map choice. His greatest strength is shooting through walls which will be used to help single-target opposing characters using Pulse Wave. Indoor maps with lots of walls will also keep him safe as he can shoot as much as he wants while opposing ranged characters can’t. That means a theme team is practically a must.

For support powers, Probability Control is good, although with his high values, I don’t think it’s totally necessary. Instead, I would prioritize Perplex as you can increase his damage value for more nuking potential, or his range for larger Pulse Waves.

Outwit is a good option as well, but again not as much of a deal-breaker since you’ll be hitting first most of the time without your Outwit figure seeing the target. Good counter-play power though to neutralize Charge.

Support is a decent power to bring along so that you can heal Magneto once he gets on those last three clicks, though he’s still rocking a 17-defense, so you’ll need someone with Defend to have a decent chance at healing him up.

Body blockers are going to serve Magneto incredibly well. Once he blows a hole in a wall, it should be relatively easy for your opponent to mob through said hole and come right at him. Plug those hole’s with body blockers! Use them to block lines of fire! Magneto’s Leadership will help to offset their action cost.

Mobility isn’t an issue for Magneto, but Telekinesis could be a great option to help him rocket 6-squares out, then have him Running Shot 5 more squares to hit someone with Pulse Wave from 14-squares away. Not a must-have, but a good option if you can bring one onto the team for low points.

A taxi is going to be a little difficult since Magneto flies, so you’ll need either a vehicle or a giant/colossal, though we’re getting a lot of big guys in this new set, so this could work out well. Again thanks to Magneto’s Leadership, we’re able to pull tokens off of whoever carries him.

As always, Equipment is a great option to boost him to stupid power levels. It’s dealer’s choice here; go with something defensive to make him much more annoying to hit, or push him over the edge so that he’s one-shotting most figures.

Let’s jump right into the build and see what kind of nonsense we can come up with. Remember, a lot of dials that I’ll be using aren’t in the units section, so there will be a lot of dials in this post. That also means I can’t link most of these dials.

300 Modern Magneto LE Team – 19/20 Modern

WCR106 Magneto | 125 Points

XXS023b Magneto | 75 Points

XDPS23b Sabretooth | 45 Points

XDPS005 Guard Command | 25 Points

XDPSG015p Magneto | 25 Points

WKMP19-S105 Nightbringer (Mandarin Ring) | 5 Points

Brotherhood of Mutants Theme Team: +5

Build Total: 300 Points

I realize that there are three Magneto’s on this team, and I’m not sorry at all because in my opinion, this is the strongest line-up for a Brotherhood of Mutants team for the LE.

First up, the Prime Magneto:

I will fully admit that I hated this dial when it came out because it didn’t work well within it’s own set. However, this guy is incredible with other Hellfire Club members, which the LE happens to have. Not only does this Magneto have incredible stats for his point cost making him a powerful secondary attacker, he has two powers through his dial that bring a ton of firepower to our team.

White King Of The Hellfire Club gives us another Leadership, but also gives all other friendly characters with the Hellfire Club Keyword a FREE action to increase their attack or defense +1. This is much better than Perplex because it gives it to multiple people each turn. Sure, we lose out on the ability to increase range or damage, but a team-wide boost is pretty great. If he manages to take a hit, Grey King Of The Hellfire Club switches this FREE action to +2 instead making him a terrible target to go after first.

That’s great, but we need a good body blocker, right? Toughness and ES/D aren’t going to stop melee attackers. That’s cool because the Brotherhood has one of the best body blockers EVER:

Wait a minute, isn’t this a Prime? No, friends! These constructs are b dials, but they are not Primes, so we’re free to use this with Prime Mags! These guys are just stupid and possibly the best value tanks in the game. No matter what’s coming his way, Sabretooth only takes one damage from attacks and has a roll-out with Super Senses and has a final click of Regeneration making him so much harder to take down.

The double-edge to that trait is that he’s not going to be pumping out much damage since he’s relegated to 1 damage until he rolls three 1’s on attack rolls. That’s fine though because the goal of Sabretooth is to soak and body block the holes we open up. And with 12-Charge and improved movement: hindering and elevation, there aren’t many places he can’t get to. Oh yeah, and since he has Flurry traited (along with Toughness), he has double the changes to roll 1’s and “unlock”.

Next up, a generic for the Brotherhood? What?

These generics aren’t the strongest figures, but they actually have quite a nice dial for only 25 points. Their 10-attack Incap will be an uphill battle against mostly 18-defenses today, but if they do manage to connect, they also hand out -2 attack making it so much harder to counterattack. They’re great follow-up attackers once Magneto takes his shot, before Sabretooth runs in to block shots. They also have Toughness and end up with a pretty decent Defend/Support combination, and thanks to their 25-point cost, most people will probably try and hit them for 3-damage, 4-max, and realize it’s not enough to KO them.

Finally, let’s look at the last Magneto for the Three Amigos:

This looks massive, but we only need to look at the last click since we’re playing him at 25 points, which means ignore his special attack and defense as they won’t ever come into play.

This is one hell of a 25-point figure; Flight, Sidestep, TK, 18-Toughness, and Indomitable with a massive 8-range. Unlike other retaliators, Magneto is both standard size and lacks Colossal Indifference, so he’s free to make attacks which will do a fair bit of damage for his low cost. However, he also brings yet another Leadership to the table, and has a FREE action to conveniently choose any character within range and line of fire and place them in an adjacent square. Need to break away? Place. Need to move someone into your Pulse Wave? Place. This is a killer passive ability that when combined with his TK, makes him worth his weight in gold. And if he does manage to activate his retaliation, you’re getting a free 3-damage attack which can immediately be followed up with another attack since he doesn’t have rules against regular attacks.

Oh wait, is that the Hellfire Club Keyword again? Oh man, so you’re telling me I can pump two Magneto’s up to 19-defense every turn, or give them both +1 attack so that this 25-point figure is hitting with 11-attack? Geez, that seems pretty nasty.

With just 5 points remaining on the build, we’re forced to go with a defensive equipment as most offensive ranged pieces are more, but that’s fine:

You can pick any Mandarin Ring at 5 points, but I like Nightbringer the best. This gives us Stealth for Magneto which is really good, but it also gives him the ability to give himself cover. The reason why I picked this over any other ring is because not only does Stealth prevent ranged attacks; it also stops Outwit from hitting our defensive powers so that it’s that much harder to even try to hit our primary attacker. Stealth no matter where you are on the board (and giving -1 attack to anyone coming near you) is very powerful, especially for only 5 points. Again, you can sub in any Mandarin Ring you wish with this build as I know not everyone has Nightbringer (including me).

Brotherhood of Mutants is going to explode with options, and there’s so many different routes you can take with this guy; the new Juggernaut looks incredibly promising as a duo with some great support lined up for them. This build might not have too many big attackers, but it should be very problematic to deal with on the right map. I’m looking forward to giving it a try once the new animated set is released this month.

What are your thoughts on this build? Are you looking forward to building a Brotherhood or Hellfire Club team with Joseph Mags? Are you even planning on getting this guy, or perhaps I’ve persuaded you? Let me know in the comments!

Next week I should have the full set review for XMADPS including sealed, fast forces, and release day figure. It’s going to be m a s s i v e and I can’t wait. Then we can start getting into some discussions about that set which will be fun since there’s some really good stuff within.

Until then, take care everyone!