We’re quickly running out of time to talk about some of the wonderful figures we received in ABPI before the new X-Men set comes out in just a few weeks, so it’s another new team build today. This time I want to cover one of my favorite figures that happens to be an uncommon – Thor!

Every time I go back and look through this set, it’s astounding to me how much good stuff there was. While a majority of it isn’t great to pick a certain character and say “yeah, that’s who I’m gonna build around this time”, ABPI changed Avengers and Cosmic teams a lot. There’s just so much you can do with a lot of this set and it makes Avengers: Infinity look fairly bad in comparison. What was amazing about this set in particular were the commons and uncommons.

Today I want to talk about the Uncommon Thor because this guy is awesome. For one, I love the costume because it’s one of his more Modern looks rather than the typical bowl helmet golden age sculpts we almost always get. I also love this figure because most Thor’s we’ve had in recent years that had any sort of power have been extremely high in points. The best Thor ever in my opinion, Thor Odinson from The Mighty Thor, is 175 points, which you can’t build too much around in a 300-point setting. This guy is amazing and his cost is actually quite low for what you get, and allows you to do some fun things like potentially pairing him with the Avengers B.C. Odin, which has been difficult without running into point issues.

Let’s take a look at what makes this Thor so much better than others we’ve seen recently.

Thor comes in at a discounted 120 points, which as I mentioned above is very cheap for this guy. While you would expect him to possibly have a shallow but strong dial, that isn’t the case as he has 7-clicks full of fantastic powers. He brings 6-range to the table with two targets, the Avengers team ability, Flight and Indomitable, and an array of great Keywords: Asgardian, Avengers, Cosmic, Deity, and Warrior. Yep, Thor was gifted Cosmic once again which gives him a lot more playability as he has two of the strongest Keywords in the game.

Like most figures today, Thor goes through phases on his dial. For his first two clicks, he’s all about ranged combat with 10-Running Shot, 11-Energy Explosion, 18 or 17 Invincible, and 4-Enhancement. Those are some meaty first clicks and even though he dips to a 17-defense on click two, two up front clicks of Invincible is very strong at this level. I really like the Enhancement here as it gives you a natural spot to build your team with – you want Thor to carry someone around that can take a shot the following turn.

Once Thor does take some damage, he’ll shift into melee-mode with 10-Charge, 10-Quake, 17-Impervious, and 4 or 3 Empower for his third and fourth clicks. Thanks to his range, he’s not limited to just melee, but the Empower and Quake make it clear that Thor doesn’t want to back off. Now he’s all-in and wants to take as much of his opponents down as he can. The two clicks of Impervious is impressive as his first four opening clicks are incredibly hard to hit through, another great win for an Uncommon this cheap.

His last three clicks are pretty much the same except for a bleed-over Charge click. 9-Charge into Sidestep for his last two clicks, Super Strength with mostly 10’s and a 9 on back, Invulnerability that kicks back up to 18 but drops each click finishing up on a 16, and 3-Battle Fury. I love the uptick in defense, and Thor finishing out his 7 clicks with more huge reducers makes him very impressive and rather hard to take down.

Chances are you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of Thor, unless his Invincible is countered and he’s hit for one big attack. This also means that Thor is going to demand attention from heavy hitters. Characters without the means to deal with his mighty reducers the whole dial through will have no choice but to go for other targets which will be a problem since Thor can hit like a truck on any click. I also like that there’s no empty slot on this dial; every click is jam-packed with powers, so you feel like you get a ton of value playing him.

Two traits round out his kit, the first shared with others from the set as Thor is a bearer of an Infinity Gem, but he can only choose Time.

Bearer of the Time Gem: Thor starts the game with the [ABPaI] Time Gem equipped.

Like almost everyone with one of these traits, it’s a good idea to just bump his cost by 5 points and assume you’re always going to use it. That’s especially the case when you look at the Time Gem.

INDESTRUCTIBLE

EQUIP: ANY

UNEQUIP: DROP

EFFECT: Modify range +1. Probability Control. When this character attacks, if the attack roll is 10 or higher, opposing characters can’t use effects to reroll attacks this turn. Light Object

Now Thor has 7-range and picks up Probability Control. I always have an issue with big bricks that have something that doesn’t do much for themselves in their damage slot, and while I do like the team interaction with Enhancement, one could argue that it doesn’t do anything for Thor. Okay, so how about you pay 5 more points and you get Prob on this guy? Does that work? How about you go from having a power that doesn’t help him in any way to the best power a brick can have? That seems like an incredible value for 5 points. If you manage to swing with a big enough roll, you also get to neutralize re-rolling on the enemy team for the rest of your turn, but I wouldn’t count on this happening.

Thor’s other trait is a nice effect when you need it.

LEGENDARY GOD OF THUNDER: Once per game, when Thor hits a single opposing character with a range attack, you may choose to make the damage dealt penetrating.

It doesn’t seem like much, especially since he can’t turn an Energy Explosion hit into penetrating damage, but this is a great option to have as it gives you a one-time go at destroying an opposing tentpole that didn’t bring Invincible to the party. Single-use powers or abilities aren’t much fun in the long run, but it’s nice to have the option.

Thor’s stats might dip a bit once he’s hit off his top clicks, but this guy has a crazy dial and fantastic powers and aggression for how low he is in points. With Probability Control added in, Indomitable, Flight, and Enhancement, he’s also a fantastic team player that can cart people around while he takes shots. He’s the God of Thunder we want but at a much cheaper and more playable position without sacrificing the power that makes him who he is. When I want to play Thor in cheaper games but I don’t want to spend virtually my entire point budget on him, I’ll reach for this guy 100% of the time.

Keys to Success

Transportation isn’t an issue for Thor since he has great movement with Flight throughout the dial, so a Taxi isn’t necessary. Someone like Voyager is still good though as she can carry Thor regardless of his symbol and does keep your action economy down. Telekinesis is a good option though as it extends your threat range and can help Thor with mobility issues later in the dial if he can’t close the gap.

Support powers are always good, but we can be a little more picky here since Thor brings his own Prob. Perplex is going to be the power you want most of the bunch to either make Thor a little more tanky, or make it easier to hit. Outwit is also a big want so that you don’t have to rely on that once-per-game penetrating hit, or in case you encounter Invincible.

Support is also a great option as Thor does decline in stats a bit once he takes some damage, mainly with his 10-attack values. While it might be a little tough to land a Support roll thanks to his decent defense values, you’ll probably have a few chances to heal him back to full thanks to how hard he is to put down.

Secondary attackers are a must-have to make use of Thor’s Enhancement and Empower on his dial. I would prioritize ranged attackers as the goal is to keep Thor healthy as long as possible, and you don’t really want to build around powers he might skip completely.

Since Thor has no improvements to his targeting, a theme team is a must so you don’t get stuck on a map that has a ton of walls or hindering for cover. Thankfully you can build a massive team with either Avengers or Cosmic, so you should have this covered pretty easily.

Equipment is completely passable as Thor comes pre-equipped, so you can jump right into the action which gives you a bit of an advantage as you can get right into the fight while your opponent is busy spending their first turn equipping.

Team abilities are also a great option to bring with Thor, preferably those that interact against opposing characters like Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D., or PD. These will give Thor either greater reach, lowered defenses on his target (basically giving you Perplex), or even more damage if you need it.

I tried my best to keep today’s team build fairly budget-friendly with no figure higher than Rare, and only one of them. While I did use some big Fast Forces pieces, and the Time Gem is technically rare as well, this is still a pretty easy team to build, and it’s downright mean.

300 Point Thor Team – 19/20 Modern

My priority for this team was finding a great ranged attacker that Thor could carry around and provide a fantastic one-two punch over the course of two turns. The rare Nick Fury from the Captain Marvel Movie set is remarkably good, even if his points seem a bit high.

Nick has 11-Pen/Psy with 3-Outwit meaning he can provide some fantastic counterplay once Thor drops him off (after Thor makes his attack) to neutralize whoever poses the biggest threat, be it speed powers like Hypersonic or Charge, or something else for the rest of the team, and then take out a big defense power the following turn. Nick also has Sidestep and Stealth, so Thor can fly into hindering terrain, drop Nick behind him to take the shot, and then have Nick Sidestep in front into hindering himself to make them both practically immune to ranged attacks. Since he can see through hindering himself, that 4-damage hit the following turn is going to feel just as strong as the God of Thunder.

I didn’t want just two attacks, especially since Nick is slow and rather brittle once he’s hit. With not many points left since Thor and Nick eat 225 points of the build, I went with Hulk. Without the Exospex, we aren’t breaking Hulk like a lot of teams do, but that’s fine because Hulk is still probably the best 50-point attacker in the game still and he brings a monstrous opening attack that has to be dealt with which takes the focus away from Thor and Nick. 10-Leap/Climb with a 12-Quake afterwards is not good for opponent’s as there’s not many places they can hide from the jade giant, and if they refuse to go after Hulk (or can’t break that 18-Impervious), Thor will have no issues using his Empower to make Hulk hit for even more. Even without the Empower, we have 3 attackers that each swing for 4-damage, and two of them are very good at dealing with swarm teams.

Before diving into the support lineup, let’s talk about the rest of Nick’s kit that I didn’t cover. His Tradecraft tokens. Nick (and Coulson from the set set) have these traits that give them Tradecraft tokens, 5 at the start of the game, that let them each do different things. Here’s Nick’s:

ESPIONAGE: THE SPYMASTER: Leadership. Nick Fury starts the game with 5 Tradecraft tokens. FREE: Remove a Tradecraft token to choose an opposing character within line of fire. That character can’t have their combat values positively modified until your next turn.

This is really good as we can neutralize things like Energy Shield/Deflection or Combat Reflexes (on top of Nick’s Outwit), or even shutdown super Perplex figures that give out +2 to combat values. But this isn’t where the real power is. It’s Nick’s special movement that also interacts with the tokens:

GOING DARK: Sidestep, Stealth. FREE: Remove a Tradecraft token to move Nick Fury or an adjacent friendly character up to half their speed value.

Giving adjacent characters FREE movement at half speed is incredible and gives us some serious threat increases for all three of our attackers.

With Thor, you’re moving 5 squares for free, which then you can use your Running Shot for 5 more squares and hit with 7-range. 17 squares is a pretty good threat range, and that’s without carrying Nick which would only drop this down to 16 (4 movement, 4 Running Shot, 8-range; +1 range from S.H.I.E.L.D. team ability).

With Nick himself, now you basically have Running Shot.

But the real gold is with Hulk. Remember that Hulk gets to use Quake at no cost whenever he moves. With Nick pulling a Tradecraft token, Hulk gets to move 5-squares, use Quake, then he can use his own movement of 10-squares and Quake again. Now Nick isn’t just giving you movement; he’s giving you another attack with 12-attack and 4-damage – FOR FREE.

Of course Nick can always use these Tradecraft tokens in a defensive way by giving Thor the chance to run 9-squares carrying Nick along with him to reposition or gain the advantage based on your opponent’s board.

Just in case you’re worried about Nick going down first, he also has that amazing STOP click that heals him once per game, though it does eat his tokens.

With just 25 points left, I could go one of two ways; A.I.M. Red Squad, or more numbers. I went with more numbers because Thor already has someone to carry around making the A.I.M. guy just eat into our action economy and limiting our threat range.

Eric Masterson got the winning vote as he provides the same Enhancement as the A.I.M. guy but at a discount of 5 points. More importantly, Eric also has Perplex as a POWER action which kind of hurts, but we aren’t taking many actions each turn anyway. While he can’t Perplex Hulk up as he’s not 75 points or more, he can Perplex Thor or Nick which should help a lot.

For the final 10 points, I went with a Fast Forces Giant-Girl as she’s just the best 10-points you can spend with an Avengers team. She’ll provide fantastic transport services for Eric so that we can still use his Enhancement and gives a great counter-attack once Hulk gets hit or is KO’d. If you don’t have her, you can easily swap her out for the Uncommon Giant-Girl for the same point cost.

This team doesn’t look like it has a lot of moving parts and might seem fairly easy compared to some of the others I’ve built and posted, but believe me, the threat is real. With Nick on your team and no need to equip anything, you can rush either Hulk or Thor out and snatch an opposing piece of equipment on turn 1 (it’s exactly enough squares), or you can go ham immediately and hit basically anyone you want on the map assuming the enemy team isn’t turtling. There’s so much damage coming from just 3 figures, and all of them are fairly easy to get and play. This is a team that you can easily sit down and run without needing to know how things work or interact; everything is clear and easy to understand. That’s a great way to play this Thor.

What are your thoughts on this team? What would you run with Thor or how would you build around him? Do you have all of these figures and if so, will you give this one a try? Let me know in the comments section!

I’m working hard on the set review for X-Men The Animated Series: The Dark Phoenix Saga (hereby known as XMADP because these long names are killing me), and I’m hoping to have it finished up for our article next week over on Two Clicks From KO, but there’s still a decent amount of dials missing, so it might be a bit later. I’ll try and have something different than another team build next week if so, but it depends on what’s around. Perhaps I’ll discuss the new WWE powers?

Until then, take care and I’ll see you all next Tuesday!

Huh, it just occurred to me. This article is releasing on my birthday. I suppose I should have done something wacky? Oh well, a missed opportunity I suppose 😛