There were a few figures that everyone is talking about from What If…, and I want to talk about Peter the Hunter in the first Team Build here on Two Clicks From KO! Let’s see what this alternate version of Peter can do.

If you’ve read my articles on Clix Fix before, you should be familiar with my team builds. For those of you who haven’t read them, I like to look over pieces that are either well known or possibly not as exposed and build teams around them to help you think about what you want to accomplish with them. Today I’m kicking off the first Team Build since the soft relaunch of the site. I figure we’ve had enough articles about different things that it’s time I get to something a little more mellow and normal.

Before I jump into the article, there’s something you should note about my builds. These aren’t meant for you to need every figure or piece that I use. Instead, use these team builds as a primer to build your own team based on the decisions that I make. I also don’t really focus on cost too much as I want to make a really interesting team with the best pieces that the situation calls for. That means that possession will often pop up, as will special equipment. I do tend to stray away from Resources though as a lot of Local Game Store events usually don’t allow them, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see them at all. Okay, let’s get into this article!

Peter the Hunter is a melee assassin-type hero with a small spec into range. He costs 90 points, has no team ability, 5 range with a single target, and 6 clicks of health. Rather than going into the dial in detail, let’s just have a look at his kit.

As you can see from the dial, Peter is quite the melee machine. Let’s break him down piece by piece so we know what exactly we’re working with, beginning with the first trait.

ENSLAVED KRAVEN FAMILY: At the beginning of the game, place the 4 bystanders listed on this card into your starting area. These bystanders can use the Carry ability this game, but only to carry each other. The first non-free action you give one of these bystanders each turn doesn’t count towards your action total.

Any piece that generates bystanders automatically is already a strong contender, and at only 90 points, this makes Peter very efficient at gaining map control. On top of getting these free pogs, Peter grants them the ability to carry each other to save your precious action total, and the first non-free action that one uses in a turn doesn’t count against your total. To really get a feel for these, we have to know what they do. Rather than showing the actual pieces from the cards, I’m just going to quickly jot them down.

Ana Kravinoff – 7 Flurry, 9 Precision Strike, 17 defense, 2 damage, 0 range.

Sasha Kravinoff – 6 Stealth, 10 attack, 16 defense, 1 Ranged Combat Expert, 6 range.

Alyosha Kravinoff – 6 Sidestep, 9 attack, 17 defense, 0 Outwit, 0 range.

Vladimir Kravinoff – 9 Charge, 9 Blades, 17 Toughness, 1 damage, 0 range.

That’s a lot of utility you’re getting for free. You get the rather slow Ana that will be a butcher if she gets to you, the sniper Sasha that can pull some surprising hits, the golden boy Alyosha with his Sidestep and Outwit combo (hello, Outwit buff!), and Vladimir with his potential 6 damage in melee. When combined with Peter, this is a very nasty package for 90 points.

Next up is Peter’s second trait.

FROM AN ALTERNATE EARTH: If this character is on your sideline, you may give a free action to a friendly character named Spider-Man or Kraven the Hunter that’s equal or more points. Replace that character with this character on the same click number.

While this trait won’t help you if you’re main lining Peter (which you probably will be as it’s the only way to get all of his tokens), it’s important to note that Peter should be sidelined on any team that has a Spider-Man of 90 points or more. The reasoning behind this would be his next trait.

KILLED MY GREATEST ENEMIES: When Peter the Hunter KO’s an opposing character of 50 or more points, after actions resolve heal him to click #1 and place a Trophy token on this card. When Peter the Hunter would be KO’d, you may instead remove a Trophy token and turn him to his last non-KO click.

We’ve seen a lot of free healing mechanics in Heroclix before, but to my knowledge, we’ve never seen a piece that can automatically heal back up to their first click in a single action before. If Peter manages to get to a back line and take out those secondary attackers or bigger support pieces, he’s jumping back up to his first click. He’s also picking up a Trophy token that effectively gives him a stop click against everything but Pulse Wave.

This is the reason why you want him sidelined on every team that has a high-cost Spider-Man. If you’re Spidey gets knocked down to his 5th or 6th click and isn’t really of any use, you can swap him over to Peter the Hunter, KO a 50 point weenie, and heal back up to click 1, where you’ll continue this onslaught. Not only is this piece amazing to field, he’s also amazing as part of your overall collection. I can only imagine turning Handstand Spidey (Superior Foes of Spider Man 049) into Peter the Hunter on his last leg and morphing into a whole set of new problems for my opponent.

Peter also has some great keywords with Animal, Spider-Man Family, and Warrior, making him pretty easy to theme with. In Golden Age games, Alyosha Kraven from Amazing Spider-Man will have a field day with him, moving him up for free to get him into the fight more easily and start executing.

If you’re familiar with my team builds, I like to do a Positive Vs. Negative analysis of them so you can easily see how they measure up, and I’ll be continuing that trend.

Positives: 4 free bystanders with diverse powersets. Auto healing built-in. Hard to KO. Blades + Exploit means high damage potential. Can be swapped to in order to save a Spider-man on your force.

Negatives: Low mobility. Squishy with no reducers. Lacks Willpower. No improved movement or targeting. Only gets his bystanders if he starts the game on your force. Have to risk him in order to ‘turn him on’.

I would say the biggest negative for Peter is his slow movement and the fact that he doesn’t ignore any type of terrain for movement. This makes him very slow, but if you manage to keep him safe on his approach and get him into the fight, he’s going to be an absolute terror to deal with.

In order for Peter The Hunter to win your game, what does he need? A lack of good defense is a problem for Peter with a lower average and no reducers, so a possessor or the Hulkbuster Torso would really help him. Mobility is an issue, so giving him flight, TK, or a Taxi will help him out. With all these pogs, even with one of their actions being free, Leadership can really help him out to add actions to your total. These would all be positive things to add to your checklist.

For the build today, I’m going with 300 points, Modern, with no Resources, which is pretty much my staple format. This has the most options over something like limited, and a resource can easily be added by cutting some points.

300 Point Modern Peter The Hunter Build | No Resources

Although Peter is already 90 points, Brainiac makes perfect sense on him. Sidestep can help him get into the fight easier (increasing his threat radius to 6 squares from 4), Impervious will keep him safe, and Outwit can provide some power countering once he gets into the action. Later in his dial, we get a way to remove tokens from him to keep him active. The big synergy here though is on his 6th click, which Peter resurrects on. This gives Peter Regen so that if there isn’t any way for him to KO someone of 50 points or more on that turn, he can heal himself back up and get to a safer place dial-wise.

Leadership is something that the team really needs to help your gigantic pool of characters move around, and the LE Captain America is the best there is. If you manage to land his Leadership, you get to pull tokens off of a cumulative 150 points on your force anywhere on the map. That means in one turn, you can clear Peter and all his tokens and still have 60 points left to play with. Cap also serves as a decent ranged attacker, helps protect your team from Mind Control, and can steal opposing equipment.

Mobility is another big problem for Peter and his enslaved family, and Peace Machine delivers (along with the help of Overdrive). With Flight, TK, and Indom, Peace Machine is everything we need for 50 points. Need to get Peter into the fight without carrying him? TK him in. Want a mobile double Outwit? Have Alyosha tool around with him. How about some backup for Cap to keep him safe? Run touch-and-go missions with him. Peace Machine’s trait also helps us out a ton.

SUPPRESSION FIELD: If a character would take 4 or more damage, it takes 3 instead.

While this might look like it’s a double-edged sword since Peter and Vladimir both have Blades, the damage value across the board on our team is 3 or lower. Our dials aren’t that long either, so this will help protect Peter so that he can’t go down without having a chance to heal himself back up, and keeps Cap around to continue pulling tokens. It also completely nerfs Hypersonic Super Strength attacks.

As I mentioned above, Overdrive is another way to deal with the transit issue. Able to carry all four of Peter’s pogs, or move any of your ‘real’ pieces, his huge movement will allow you to set up where you want rather than where your opponent wants to fight. If terrain is an issue, take off the ID card and run Vanisher instead!

I figured that while we’re limiting damage with Peace Machine we could bump up attack values to high levels, especially since the pogs have rather lower attack values, so I opted for Karen Page. She’s got a great movement power that gives her Sidestep and if she’s within 3 squares of an opposing character, she buffs all your attack values by +1. That should be pretty much a guarantee with both Overdrive and Peace Machine. If that doesn’t work for you, push her into Perplex and just have a safe number bump.

Rounding out the last 15 points is the Hulkbuster Torso and a single ID card. I figured Cap is a little squishy, so Invulnerability on him with Peace Machine’s trait will make it so you get plenty of chances to use his Leadership, and you can easily TK it to him with Peace Machine on turn 1. For the ID card, I kind of wanted to go with Spider-Man for Cosmic Spidey at 75 points as he’s just incredible, but I felt that Peggy would be a safer bet. Since both Peter and Cap can call her in, she’s a little more accessible, and she can completely screw up plans that your opponent might have. ID cards are great though because you can easily swap this part of the build for whatever you think is more effective.

This build has a lot of figures that you have to manage, and can surprisingly make it difficult for your opponent to score any real points on you. It should be nearly impossible to put Peter down as he has so many fail safes in place that he’ll probably butcher everyone else before a concerted effort is made to take him out.

That wraps up the first Team Build here on Two Clicks From KO! How did you like this article? Did I completely miss out on an obvious choice for someone to hang out with Peter and make him stronger? Were you hoping to see Devil Dinosaur on the team for maximum pog generation? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

I’ll see you all next week and remember, the real fun begins when you’re Two Clicks From KO!