It’s time for a little fun, mon ami! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Gambit in Modern and now we have two (with more on the way). Isn’t it weird building an X-Men team before a massive set drops? Not if this thief doesn’t have the Keyword!

Having run two Regenesis events and playing in one, this is certainly an interesting set. While some of these dials seem like they’re pretty strong within the set itself, they’ll undoubtedly take a hit when they can’t use those fancy .1 dials as you’ll almost never build a Jean Grey or Utopia theme team in your typical constructed event. However, the prize figures are a different story as they don’t rely on any theme team gimmick to be good.

The regular Gambit is actually quite good, but it’s the month 2 prize LE that makes me excited. The Horseman of Death, who doesn’t actually have the Horseman of Apocalypse Keyword for some reason, is stellar and was tied as my top-want from the set with the other figure being the month 3 Magneto prize. While this figure doesn’t move or play like Gambit does as he lacks the traditional hallmarks of the rogue, he has some serious teeth that I can’t wait to try. So I figured let’s go for a different team build today and start to dip our toe into the X-Men well once again.

The first thing that comes to mind when looking over Remy’s dial is that he’s slow. No Charge or Sidestep on top-dial means that it’s going to take some time for him to get into the fight. Thankfully, his defenses are very good with Stealth up front to keep him safe from range, a single click of Shape Change to give him a second layer of protection, and then four long clicks of Invulnerability to chew threw with some solid values. There’s two stages of this dial; the first half is calculating aggression while the second half is Gambit finding any way he can to heal back up and stay in the game. With three clicks of either Steal Energy, Regeneration, or both, there’s a very good chance he’ll do that, especially with Close Combat Expert at the end of the dial. Pretty sure he’s going to hit you with a 12-attack on click 4 and heal back up.

Thankfully Gambit retains some of his rogue training with improved movement: hindering to make sure he isn’t tripped up in bushes.

The all-star part of his dial is his first trait and namesake:

Avatar of Death: Gambit deals penetrating damage.

Short, sweet, and extremely potent. No matter how Gambit deals damage, it’s penetrating. 6 clicks with healing at the end and big reducers with penetrating damage the whole time is very scary. Gambit is one of the few figures in Modern that can use Flurry and completely disregard any reducer (sans Invincible). If he gets Pulse Wave and hits someone that has Toughness/Invulnerability/Impervious tied to a STOP click, he doesn’t care because he’ll just go right through it.

This links up with his second trait quite well.

Noxious Gas: Poison. When Gambit uses it, opposing characters within 3 squares are considered adjacent.

Remember, all his damage is penetrating, so Gambit has a 3-square aura that doesn’t care about terrain, elevation, or lines of fire that dings every opposing character for 1 damage every turn. Poison is among the best powers in the game and often overlooked because it doesn’t break through reducers so newer players tend to not think about it, but when you reduce protections to one power, Invincible, you’ll be chewing through teams. With Gambit’s Stealth up top, he can stride into the middle of the field making ranged attacks against anyone who doesn’t get into range and breaking down anyone foolish enough to get close.

Finally, let’s look at Gambit’s special attack power to finalize his kit:

YOU GOT TO TAKE WHAT’S COMING TO YOU, HOMME: Incapacitate. When Gambit uses it as a CLOSE action, hit characters are given 2 action tokens instead and gain Immobile until your next turn.

I love this power because it has two uses. One might look at this and think that Gambit needs to be in melee to use his Incapacitate lest he doesn’t get that sweet bonus to it, but with 6-range and two targets, remember that Gambit is perfectly happy throwing out tokens to lock people down and advance the following turn. Now if he does get to use this as a CLOSE, good god is he going to make life hell for your opponent. We’ve seen how brutally strong Kobik and Trader are in their ability to completely lock someone down for the entire game and while this isn’t at that level, Gambit can still do this all by himself, as long as he can keep hitting. The best part is that they gain Immobile as well which means unless his target has Colossal Stamina, Gambit is making them skip their turn completely and then taking some free penetrating damage from his Poison.

Gambit’s dial basically feels like Death. He’s slow to approach, but once he gets there, he’s never stopping and he’s going to take down numerous figures. Your choices are to run from Death which probably won’t end well, or to confront him and hope you can roll through that Shape Change and hit him far enough into his dial that he doesn’t just lock you down completely the following turn.

Tools for Success

The biggest issue with Gambit is his lack of Keywords with Marauders basically useless in Modern. Thankfully he has the Monster Keyword, so building a theme team with him is not only easy but very potent. I highly recommend going that route as map choice will be crucial since you’ll want a lot of hindering terrain to keep him safe.

On the dial, Gambit’s biggest issue is mobility, so I would suggest either running a Taxi or bringing Telekinesis to the party to help him get into the fight. It’s not necessary as he’s perfectly fine wading in on turn 1 since he has Indomitable, but it’s always nice to keep tokens off a big character if you can.

Support powers are a great option to help Gambit out. While his stats are pretty good on the dial, they do drop to fairly average levels mid-dial. Perplex is good power to bring to keep him on a 19-defense most times, or buffing that attack/damage depending on your target. Probability Control is always recommended, but I would push for this more since you won’t be getting theme team prob unless you have the spicy Captain Venom. Outwit works as well, but I don’t think it’s as necessary to cram into the build if you don’t have room.

Support itself is a great power to bring as well. Sure, Gambit has ways to heal himself up, but a healer could provide that 1-2 punch of Gambit either hitting with Steal Energy or rolling Regen, and then your healer topping him off. Nothing is going to feel more defeating than finally getting this guy low and then watching him heal back to click 1.

Equipment as always is a great option to help Remy around his kit and make him perfect. These are pretty much the solve-all in today’s game, so there’s no reason to exclude something on your force to help out.

If you wanna be a maniac, go with Exospex as you can easily abuse him with powers like Flurry, Pulse Wave, and Charge. If you’re looking for more defensive options, I would go for the Mirror of Mysolljh to give him massive Shape Change on every click, or the Venom Symbiote for the Plasticity to make him frightening to engage. If you want sheer power, I would go with the Venom Harness or the Power Gem.

There’s not much else Gambit needs honestly. His kit is very good and baring the rather slow approach, he does well on his own which is one of the reasons I like him so much.

300 Modern Gambit Team

The very first thing I did when building around Remy was rifling through Equipment to see which I liked best for him. While I liked the options I mentioned above and almost went with Exospex, I didn’t like that I lost either Stealth up top if I picked Charge, or his Incapacitate power if I picked something in that slot. Instead, I went with Mjolnir as I think this is the best option for him. With the hammer, Gambit can now use his Incap power from 6-squares away and if an enemy doesn’t have Stealth-busting or has to get into melee with him, he gets that hefty +1 to attack and damage. Mjolnir is better at the end of his dial, too, giving him a 6-square swing for both Steal Energy and Close Combat Expert.

If you’re building a Monster team, there’s no reason to leave out the whales. There’s a reason why Tylor wins a lot with these guys, and playing them myself has shown me how brutal and efficient they are. Not only does this bring us two Leaderships to our team and a way to get Gambit to his hammer on turn 1, they also provide movable cover that can Quake like crazy. What I really like about them and what pushed including them on the team is the fact that they break walls like crazy creating tons of hindering terrain for Gambit to hide in. With his Poison that reaches through walls, we have a lot of playability and can react to whatever map we play on.

Raven seems like another great option for support powers and gives us a fantastic taxi for Gambit so that against some teams we can be a little risky, placing Mjolnir on square 10 in hindering terrain and just carrying Gambit there on turn 1 and setting up shop with whales in tow, waiting to strike. Raven brings the extremely important Perplex and Probability Control and a dash of Support, along with a great top click that should punch some 1-damage holes in opponents.

Finally I went with Dr. Frankenstein as another cheap Perplex figure along with some free Support for anyone on our team. Since this is a FREE action, Raven can easily carry the doctor around and let him heal anyone on our team no matter where they are rather than sitting in the back of the map like most medics do.

With 10 points to spare, I could either go with 3 Student ID’s or 2 regular ID’s, and I opted for the later. Wolverine is not only the most aggressive melee character to call-in (and tough to kill for his low cost), he also gives a click of healing when he’s called in to everyone around him giving us another way to keep Gambit (and the whales) in the game. Professor X gives us a way to counter turtle teams as he can draw people out and bring them to Gambit, or put them in a place where both whales can easily get to them. If you play against a big retaliator team, choose the Prime instead and gun them all down in a single turn. What’s important about both of these ID options is that they’re both 50 points to call-in meaning 4 characters on our 5-man team can summon them.

If you’re looking for a different option for Gambit, maybe utilizing some range, I would look at figures like Murder Machine and Dawnbreaker. Captain Venom is an obvious pick if you have him to grant you that Theme Team Probability Control and an easy substitution for Raven if you want. Finally, Barbatos is a great option for more lockdown and brutality.

I realize that this team might not be the strongest and is quite slow to get into the fight, but there’s a ton of healing and so much threat once they do get there. It’s very dangerous how much damage can come through making the team quite unassuming. I’m looking forward to trying this one out! I think it’s nice to do something a little fun and obscure every once in a while.

What are your thoughts on this build? How would you build around Goth Remy? Are you looking to break him with Meta elements or play something a little more fun? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for joining me for another team build! I’m hard at work writing up the review for the new X-Men set, so once that’s finished you’ll be able to find it here on Two Clicks From KO. I haven’t decided what to write about for next week on Clix Fix, so if you have some ideas, go ahead and throw them in the comments as well!

Until then, remember that the real fun begins when you’re Two Clicks From KO!