Janet Van Dyne got quite the treatment in Avengers: Infinity, and she gave us our first non-standard Title Character. Today is all about said figure, and all the dumb things you can do with her.

Title Characters have been pretty popular since their introduction with Deadpool last year, and there seems to be no end in sight with them. While we haven’t seen any spoiled for Batman: The Animated Series (at the time of this writing, June 25th, 2018), I see no reason why WizKids would discontinue this idea since there are so many characters they can run through.

Wasp is a different animal than previous Title Characters in three ways. First, the fact that isn’t a Standard character is very different and in some ways does limit her abilities since she can’t pilot vehicles or be equipped, nor can she be played in Limited. Second, she’s the first Title character to have more than one point value making her a lot easier to run on a team regardless of the point total. Lastly, Wasp has four different Title abilities with two ways to increase her plot points rather than the typical one that other characters have had. That gives you a lot more bang for your buck for your only Title Character that you can have on your force.

Wasp, Heart of the Avengers has three different point values at 300, 150, and 50, and respectively has 20, 12, or 6 clicks for those points. She has no range with a single target, and comes with both Indomitable and obviously the Colossal damage symbol. Keywords are extremely light with just Avengers, but WizKids has done a fantastic job making this Keyword worthwhile. Like all Title Characters, Janet has no special powers. She starts with 5 Plot Points.

Dial-wise, Janet has a lot of similar power combinations, as well as values. Because this is such a massive dial, I’m not going to break it down like I normally do. Instead, take a look at the back of her card:

Since I mostly write about 300 point teams, today’s article will be geared towards her 50 point value, making her the cheapest Title Character yet.

I always like to review the KO effect first on Title Characters to see how detrimental they are to your team just for running them, and since Janet doesn’t have a very safe dial at 50 points, this is a lot more important than normal.

When Wasp, Heart of the Avengers is KO’d, deal 1 unavoidable damage to all friendly characters within 6 squares of her.

To be honest, this is a very manageable KO effect. Because of her abilities (which we’ll get to), it shouldn’t be a problem to keep Janet away from the rest of your teammates if she’s in any kind of danger. And even if this does end up hurting some of your characters, it’s not a game-changing effect like Deadpool where you basically lose a turn.

Wasp’s first +1 ability is neat, but nothing special:

(+1) KEEP THE AVENGERS WORKING TOGETHER LIKE CLOCKWORK: FREE:Each time an opposing character is hit this turn, after resolutions modify that character’s defense value by -1 this turn.

If you’re playing a large-scale game or with a lot of smaller characters, I could see this ability being decent. However, with the right setup, you can make this ability work overtime for you. Figures with Flurry are exceptional with Wasp as they can quickly nuke down opposing characters defenses to a -2 if they manage to hit on both attacks. Keep in mind, it doesn’t check if they dealt damage, just that they hit.

Her second +1 ability is the big reason why Wasp is such a terrific character:

(+1) TRY PICKING ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!: FREE:Choose an opposing character that attacked Wasp, Heart of the Avengers or damaged a friendly character since your last turn. Place Wasp, Heart of the Avengers such that she can make a close attack targeting the chosen character, then do so. If her target has Colossal symbol, modify her attack and damage +2.

This might look incredibly familiar, and that’s because it is! It’s the same wording as Colossal Retaliation, but there’s one key difference; it’s not called Colossal Retaliation. That means that if you have another retaliator on your team, you can activate both because retaliation only checks to see if another power called “colossal retaliation” was activated. We’ve already seen that these guys are a big deal, so how about getting one that doesn’t have colossal indifference and generates Plot Points for doing so! This also means that Wasp can basically build her Plot Points every single turn, which makes her ultimate ability much easier to use.

Next up, her first negative ability:

(-3) PYM PARTICLE RELEASE: FREE: Choose Tiny Symbol, Starburst symbol, Giant symbol, or Colossal symbol. Wasp, Heart of the Avengers and adjacent friendly characters (that aren’t vehicles) gain that symbol until your next turn.

This might not seem like it’s that strong of an ability, but in the right hands, this can be a devastating play. Say you’re on an outdoor map and your characters don’t have Charge, but you want to smack someone over the wall or higher up. Easy; Wasp just activates her Pym Particles, makes everyone Colossal (giving Giant Reach: 3), and you’re solid! Even better, let’s say you want to make a single-based giant or colossal figure smaller so they aren’t an easy target. Easy enough; shrink them to normal size and equip them with Frogjolnir! Since the tiny hammer states that it ignores size for equip purposes, the character now becomes a permanent tiny character! There’s so much tech here!

Last up, her ultimate ability:

(-10) JANET, YOU’RE THE BEST CHAIRPERSON THE AVENGERS EVER HAD: FREE: Remove all action tokens from each friendly characters with the Avengers keyword and heal them each 2 clicks.

Again, another ability that might not seem like much, and it doesn’t really do anything if you aren’t playing an Avengers team, but if you are this ability is just insane. Since Janet starts with 5 Plot Points, it’s pretty easy to get to 10 by utilizing her retaliation power or simply popping the ability to reduce defenses on hits. Also, because she has Colossal Stamina, Janet can attack every turn so she doesn’t suffer the feedback from Title Abilities (and she doesn’t even need to use Stamina if she retaliates!). That means that for a -10 ability, Janet can probably pull this off at least twice each game, if turns go that far.

So what’s the payoff? How about your Avengers team not only getting to heal up 2 clicks, but also pulling all their action tokens, meaning you get a huge second wind! Imagine pushing with everyone to chunk in some damage and then pulling all their tokens for free the next turn and attacking with your whole force yet again. Basically, Janet can allow your whole team to act for 5 consecutive turns, or can just be used for a board-wide burst heal.

Wasp, Heart of the Avengers offers a ton of value at any point level you’re playing her at. If you’re playing an Avengers team, she’s pretty much a 50 point piece that you can’t leave out.

Keys to Success

At 50 points, Janet’s biggest weakness is her 9 attack up front. While her Close Combat Expert does help get around this, it makes it a lot harder for her retaliation to actually land a hit (and then follow up with a Close Combat Expert hit for hopeful KO’s). Perplex is going to be Janet’s best friend, so I would start there for team building.

Next up, you’re going to want an Avengers theme team. Wasp is undoubtedly worse without her teammates backing her up, and you’ll sacrifice her insane ultimate ability by not going that route.

Really aside from these two aspects, Wasp doesn’t need a whole lot to make her playable. She’s best used as a smaller character on your force that doesn’t garner a lot of attention and just catapults forward with her value. This means that Probability Control (which you’ll get from a theme team), and Outwit aren’t particularly necessary with her than other pieces I build around.

Now if you really want to play her at 150 points, you’ll absolutely want some Perplex in the mix to deal with how low attack values are on her entire dial. You’ll also probably want some characters that can serve as tie-up pieces that she can carry with her so she can hit them, but they can’t hit her back. Again, I don’t recommend this route, but I’m sure some of you would prefer it.

Just like with my Adam Warlock build, I’m going with 300 Modern, but I’m going to give you guys two builds today! One will be the more budget-friendly build that most you will probably have access to, or is easy to purchase, while the other pulls out all the stops.

300 Point Modern Wasp, Heart of the Avengers Team

So which Avengers do you run with Wasp? My choice is for the tanky variety, or characters that are hard to take down in a single hit. These characters will be able to take a hit to activate Janet’s retaliation, survive, and then benefit from the healing she’ll provide.

Fist up is Ms. Marvel from the Thor set, and no this isn’t Carol Danvers but Kamala Khan. While she might only have 5 clicks on each portion of her dial, she has Invincible to start out for only 90 points, and if she changes which click set she’s on, she gets to heal 1 click giving her a lot more longevity. She also has Leadership to boost our actions to four. If she switches to her blue click numbers, she brings Outwit and Perplex to help Wasp make retaliatory strikes. I’m a big fan of this dial, and this seems like the perfect home for her.

Next up is the super Perplex figure with Yellowjacket. True, he doesn’t pump numbers like Red Leader does, but he does increase any value (including damage) on all your characters he can see within 4 squares. While he’s delicate, he has his own form of healing when your allies are KO’d, so he’s a bit more tanky than he seems.

If tanky Avengers is what you want, Shifting Focus Vision is the bees knees. I’ve included him a lot in my team builds, and this dial is super solid for 50 points. 2 Clicks of Invincible with 3 clicks of Impervious means that Vision is most likely absorbing 3 hits or more while providing a taxi service via his Uncommon Shifting Focus dial, and he has two very good ways to chew through his targets with either Exploit Weakness and Pen/Psy.

Rounding out our team are two Giant-Girls, one of which is the Fast Forces and the other is the Uncommon from the same set. Yep, we’re tripling down with Janet!

The main set version is very strong and is pretty much the best fill-in Avenger we’ve ever seen. True, her dial is a little shallow, but with the ability to heal up passed where she started, she can end up being a monster. Yes, I realize she can’t heal except via her trait so she won’t gain the benefits of the ultimate, but she’s still very useful. I added her at 30 because this is the best click she can start with under 50 points (8 Sidestep, 10 attack, 18 Toughness, and Close Combat Expert). She’ll be our regular retaliator so that we can drop tons of attacks in a single turn. Oh, and she can attack whomever she wants at any point value, so bonus!

The Fast Forces dial adds yet another retaliator to our force, and what’s even better, she can be activated in the same turn as the others thanks to her trait:

COLOSSAL RETALIATION: I’M MY OWN WOMAN: FREE: Choose an opposing character that attacked Giant-Girl or damaged a friendly character since your last turn. Place Giant-Girl such that she can make a close attack targeting the chosen character,then do so. (She may activate this in addition to any other Colossal Retaliation used this turn.)

The key here is to make sure you activate this retaliation last since the main set version does care if another retaliation power has been activated. So basically, you go Main set/Wasp first, then Fast Forces Giant-Girl. In addition, she rocks some pretty solid stats and Sidestep to help carry your teammates around. Oh, and if one of your characters hits an opponent, you get to move her two square for free. Score!

Finally, I included the Enchanted Crowbar for Vision so that he can be our bunker buster and eliminate Invincible threats with any of his attacks, but it’s dealers choice when it comes to those last 10 points. Heck, if you wanted to, you could run another Fast Forces Giant-Girl and have four retaliations in a turn!

Next up is the team that isn’t afraid of funds and goes for the total nuke on your opponent.

300 Point Modern Wasp, Heart of the Avengers Team

If you really want to maximize Wasp, the chases from Avengers: Infinity are the way to go. These six all have traited Flurry to sync up with Wasp’s ability to change sizes to they can hit from far away, and their STOP clicks allow you to really extend their longevity even further with her ultimate.

Up first is Moondragon and her incredible ability to hit hard from either melee or range. On an outdoor map, growing her to colossal size will make her a true terror since she will be able to either Flurry from 3 squares out, or hit someone with Pen/Psy if they aren’t hiding in Stealth. Moondragon also can increase damage on anyone’s dial regardless of line of fire, so she can make sure that whichever attack you’re making, it will hit hard.

Starfox is pretty much the must-have chase of the set, and he brings a ton of value here as well. While he does have a lot of the same tools as Moondragon, his dial-wide Steal Energy will make him even scarier if Wasp pops her ultimate. The big benefit with Starfox is that his special damage power is a +2 Perplex on anything but damage, so he can really make Janet able to hit when she retaliates. Lastly, his virtue of life trait is yet another layer of healing in our team, so we’re really stacking the deck of unkillable in our favor.

The regular common Moondragon joins the party as she’s currently the cheapest Avenger with TK, and her kit actually works quite well for our team. Indom will allow her to use TK back to back and reposition the chases for maximum damage, Mind Control will help out if you play against an aggressive team (or you want to make her huge with Wasp and snag someone), and Close Combat Expert makes her a threat if they close the gap on her. I’m seriously amazed at how good this piece is for 60 points.

For the remaining 30 points, I went with two Fast Forces Giant-Girls so that we have just a stupid amount of free retaliation and free movement. They’ll give us ways to move our primary attackers around and act as movable blocking terrain. I summed her up in the last team, so no need to go any further.

Finally, Mjolnir had to make a showing with the chases. There’s no way you include them on a team and not Mjolnir. Now we have access to 8 square Flurry, and that can really make Wasp’s first Title Ability melt an opposing tentpole’s defenses. My recommendation is to throw this on Starfox as he gets more value than Moondragon, but either work well.

This team is a lot more dirty than the previous build, but it’s also a lot more expensive money-wise and doesn’t have as many tricks. You’ll be lucky to pop Wasp’s ultimate more than once, but this team is more about utilizing everything Wasp has in her kit, not just the retaliation and ultimate.

Whew, that was a big team build article! I just had to give Wasp the credit she deserves; she’s seriously an amazing figure and I hope you have fun with her or that these teams gave you some inspiration.

What are your thoughts on these builds? Do you think I missed a figure that works incredibly well with her? What have you tried that has run away with the game? I’d love to hear about it!

I’m working hard to have reviews done for both TMNT: Unplugged and Batman: The Animated Series, so look for those soon (once all the dials have been revealed). Also, things might slow down in July since my wife and I will be attending San Diego Comic-Con (in our backyard no less!), and then we move the two weeks after. I’m going to try my best to not have any blackouts, but they may come; just saying.

See you guys next week on Two Clicks From KO!