Last year I had a fun little article for Halloween, and I want to continue with that as I think holiday events and games are really fun and flex that creative muscle. Today I’ll be covering the recent event I ran at my LGS and what I played.

Since I’ve become the judge at my LGS, I’m really pushing to run events that celebrate regular holidays here in the U.S., and not just the big ones. Next year, I plan on running events built around like President’s Day, Black History Month, and many others. For October, there’s nothing bigger than Halloween, and it marks the end of the ‘regular year’ as we spiral into holiday season and everyone loses their crap over the rush to buy stuff. Seriously, Christmas decorations were out in stores here back in August…

But let’s forget about the ‘holidays’ as we put them. Today is Halloween, and I’m guessing you’re probably reading this article in a funny outfit or something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Well I’m here to bring a little more comfort to you with a nasty team build!

I wanted to do something a little different than typical Halloween events for our LGS. Most themed events will be something like “Monster Theme Team”, or something along those lines. Instead, I went a step further and created this scenario where each person picked just one Monster on their force and the rest of the team was sort of experimenting on them, giving them different powers each turn. The chosen Monster was granted Shape Change as a way to show their constant transformation throughout the game, and I generated a neat little table to indicate how the Monster changed through the game, which they would roll a d6 for at the beginning of their turns:

Werewolf – Leap/Climb, Blades/Claws/Fangs Vampire – Wing Symbol, Exploit Weakness Mummy – Mind Control, Mystics Team Ability Frankenstein’s Monster – Super Strength and Invulnerable Zombie – Steal Energy, Invincible Creature From the Black Lagoon – Dolphin Symbol, Hypersonic Speed, Regeneration

I felt like this allowed your Monster to shift through the different ‘legendary’ monsters we have in society. As for the actual requirements of the game, it was 400 points, Oreo Age (new base style only), with Equipment, Colossi, and Possession all legal.We typically give out Gravity Feeds for participation, so any team that was themed to match Halloween (in style rather than keywords) received an additional gravity feed. In retrospect, this was a bad idea because not granting one or two people the prize made them feel left out, so everyone got it. Maybe next year I’ll extend this to showing up in costume.

Anyway, I knew that as judge I didn’t have to worry about really feeling bad about beating the people I played because they got the win no matter what with half the build total. So I decided to play a team I’ve been wanting to run for a while. Here it is:

400 Point Halloween Build-A-Monster Team, Oreo Age

Carnage is one of my favorite characters, and I’ve been wanting to build around him since I pulled him back in August. I set about making the nastiest theme team possible for him.

Shriek is what made this team come together. Her trait takes Carnage to another level as it’s specifically built to make him better:

A TWISTED MOTHER: Adjacent friendly characters with the Maximum Carnage keyword modify their attack and defense values by +1. If Shriek took damage from an attack since your last turn, one friendly character with the Maximum Carnage keyword can use Charge as a free action, but while using it may only attack a character that damaged Shriek since your last turn

This takes the 200 point Carnsge and gives him a 13 attack value, and the cheaper ‘retaliate-only’ Carnage to a 12 attack value. Their defenses are pretty low to balance out the insanity of the rest of the dial, so the +1 helps there a lot as well. Empower on her damage slot also boosts us so that we’re effectively getting +1 to attack, defense, and damage as long as we stick around her.

The real reason I wanted Shriek though was for her incredibly stupid movement power that she gets on her second click:

CARNAGE IS THE BATTERY, AND I’M THE RADIO!: Characters within range that do not have the Maximum Carnage keyword possess Battle Fury. Shriek can use Mind Control, and when she does she can target any opposing characters within range regardless of line of fire or Battle Fury, and she isn’t dealt unavoidable damage from Mind Control.

I know what you’re thinking: “almost your entire team has Shape Change. Why grant Battle Fury?” It’s simple. Colossi have a huge weakness in that everyone can see them, but when a character has Battle Fury, they can’t make ranged attacks. This stops a TON of characters from doing whatever it is they do, and it forces players to walk around my symbiote army, all while I make more. This also lets Shriek take control of people anywhere within her range to position them where I want them (say, in a spot where Carnage can Charge to).

This is where Stormbreaker comes in. Since Shriek only has a 6 range, it’s not too difficult to just stay outside that radius. A lot of newer players don’t know Shriek and that she ‘turns on’ on click two, so they’ll usually spend their first turn moving up while Shriek moves into the Boxing Ring where I’ve placed her hammer, and then pushes to pick it up. The trap is sprung and there’s not much they can really do.

Speaking of the Boxing Ring, this thing really pulled the team together. Symbiotes can line the edges making people stop once they get in (protecting Shriek and my big Carnage), and then my big boy would go to town with that fresh +1 to attack for melee inside the ring, bringing him to a 14 attack with 5 damage. I really don’t care about the hindered movement that the ring provides because I would just set it up as close as I could to my starting area and then make the enemy come to me to fight on my terms.

This was a really nasty team, and it only ended up losing a few symbiotes through the three games. What really makes Carnage disgusting is that the symbiotes have to be dealt with to get to the rest of the team, but they don’t provide any actual points for KO’ing them. Because they add to Carnage’s cost, you have to KO him to get those 50 extra points. This makes them highly disposable and risk-free. There were a good handful of times I rolled 6 on Blades on these suckers and it made the entire team worthwhile.

So how’d you like my Halloween build this year? I know last year I came up with some fun teams to match different themes and takes on the holiday, but this year I wanted to focus on what I actually played instead.

Did you have a Halloween themed event? If so, what was it? I’d love to hear ideas and potentially run those at my LGS! If you had one of these events, what did you play?

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween. Stay safe tonight, and I’ll see you all next week!