Heroclix is an expensive hobby, there’s no getting around that. Boosters with 2 maybe 3 good figures in them go for $15-18 dollars where I live, and that insures you’re getting pulling some chaff from those. So here’s my plan, I’m going to try to create strong, competitive teams to play in semi-competitive events that are less than the price of a booster (which i’m going to set at $15). Can it be done? We’ll see, but it won’t stop me from trying.

First up is X-Men because I’ve just had so much fun playing around with the lower rarity figures, and X-Men teams are definitely hot in the competitive scene, (though those teams might as well be Wolverine themed).

If you checked out my X-Men Xavier’s School Set Review you know that I love 001 Cyclops. He’s a cheap 50 point attacker that can put out a tremendous amount of damage with both a trait that increases damage on all X-Men if he makes the first attack of the turn and hits, and a special power that gives him Penetrating/Psychic Blast and allows him to modify his attack or damage by 1, giving him up to 4 damage. As for monetary value, Cyclops has a very cheap price tag, taking out very little of our budget.

We’re going to be playing 3 of these Cyclops, taking up half of out build, and that may seem like a lot, but it brings 3 separate instances of Leadership to our team insuring that we’ll be able to keep moving.

Next we’re going to be adding the backbone of any modern X-Men team, Moira MacTaggart, who brings an intense amount of value for 25 points with Perplex, Leadership and Outwit after being pushed (something you’re going to want to do ASAP). Moira (also a common) is only $0.25 to $0.45 leaving us a lot of room for a ringer.

That ringer is going to be the 34a Professor X for two reasons. The first is his 18 defend, which pushes the Cyclops’s defense from ranged to a massive 20, forcing most enemies to get close. Paired with that is his excellent Mind Control power that lets him grab any enemy that’s within 8 spaces and move them half their movement, hopefully into the path of an optic blast with one of your Cyclops’s. The only problem with that is that Cyclops’s trait won’t activate if Prof makes the first attack. Professor X is the most expensive of the bunch but he’s more than worth it, and will find a place on many of your future teams after you see what he can do here.

So right now you’ve got 300 points spread throughout 7 characters, all of whom have Leadership and 4 who have Perplex. Since it’s a theme team you also have 5 theme team Probability Control uses and finally, with the remaining dollars we have, we’re going to pick up a Skids ID Card and a Skids. The reason I’m choosing Skids (besides the low price) is her double value with Defend and Barrier. If Professor X is killed, Skids can back-up your Cyclops for a turn, and Barrier them in to insure protection from figures with Hypersonic Speed or long range.

So finally, here’s what our team build is going to look like.

Team Build

XXS001 Cyclops 50 XXS001 Cyclops 50 XXS001 Cyclops 50 XXS007a Moira MacTaggart 25 XXS007a Moira MacTaggart 25 XXS007a Moira MacTaggart 25 XXS0037a Professor X 75 w/ XID 005 Skids 0 (3)

SIDELINE

XXS015 Skids 40

When I first tried this team, I was worried about a lack of mobility without a taxi, but when you get to roll 7 separate Leadership rolls on a turn, you rarely need to rely on any other figures for movement, it’s why I choose to use three of the Cyclops instead of three different 50 point figures, it’s the reason this team runs like clockwork. The biggest weakness in this team is powers that work well against swarms, and since these figures don’t have reducers, Energy Explosion can easy get through a lot of clicks. That being said, having Cyclops’s on the front lines force them to hit a 20 defense from range, though Quake can still be an issue. Luckily you have a lot of figures to theme prob with, and lots of Outwit (4 if you can push all your Moira’s) you can potentially stop any dangerous powers before they get a chance to be used.

Offensively, you have three Cyclops’s with a swing of 10 to rely on, and that’s before the multiple Perplexes (4), giving them a lot more reach than your opponents will expect. Professor X’s range can also be Perplexed up to reach a massive 11 squares out with his Mind Control, bringing all your opponents figures to the party. Skids is for protection on turns you need it, allowing you to Barrier up to defend from Hypersonic Speed or other long range characters, giving you another turn to protect yourself. I find that Skids is a fantastic budget call-in figure who can knock-back adjacent enemies, give your own team an 18 defense and provide clutch Barriers when needed.

The weakness of this team comes from its fragility, no figure can take a hit from a Hypersonic beat-stick figure like Superman and walk away unscathed, but luckily, every part of our team is self-replacing, making attacks from characters like that easy to weather a couple of times. In response to figure like that, insure you’re far enough away from them that they’re going to be forced to leave themselves semi-vulnerable to your remaining Cyclops’s, than it’s as easy as positioning Moira to Outwit and letting loose with a flurry of optic blasts. The other big weakness this team faces is retaliators, and there’s not much to do against them besides moving a Moira up to Outwit their retaliation power, or moving Professor X up and Mind Controlling them into position. Depending on the severity of the retaliators you’re facing, you can force their hand with a buffed up Cyclops (sitting at a 20+ defense with Perplex’s and Defend), trying to avoid the retaliation in that way. The reason why this team has worked so well for me in my practice games is because of the massive amount of support powers you have access to. 5 uses of Probability Control, 4 Outwits, 4 Perplexes, 7 Leaderships and the X-Men team ability to keep your Cyclops’s working hard. In fact, that’s my favourite trick on this team, Moira using the X-Men team ability, pushing herself to Outwit and healing a Cyclops.

Price

Depending on where you’re buying your team from, it’s going to be around $15-16. At coolstuffinc, it’s going to cost $14.75, and at trollandtoad it’s a little more at $17.60, mostly due to the Skids ID Card, something that can be lowered by replacing it with the Skin ID card saving you $1.40. I think Skids is a far superior options for both this team, and future teams.

Upgrades

There are a ton of upgrades available for this team, the first and easiest being adding three more student ID cards. For budget options, Skin can help slow down Hypersonic Speed characters, and make some decent close attacks of his own. Sprite can do some impressive disruption with Exploit Weakness and the ability to give out action tokens. Leech shuts down figures like Uni-mind and Jakeem Thunder (which you’ll hopefully not be seeing a lot of at a semi-competitive level) and Jubilee can help deal with opponents swarm teams.

In terms of figures, any of the Cyclops’s can be replaced with the Super-Rare Cyclops or Wolverine from the same set (though the Wolverine won’t be spending much time adjacent to his friends), as they also provide Leadership, but come with Perplex as well. Professor X can be replaced with Gateway or Storm if you’re not feeling the Mind Control and would prefer a more standard taxi instead. Both of those options will also give you another 25 points to spend on X-Student for TK or another Moira. Finally, if you have access to one, the wizkids open Forge provides an enormous boost in power for the Cyclops’s as well as being able to remove powers from a hit character once per game, giving you a little more strength against teams that rely on beatsticks.

Wrap-up

I get that this team isn’t tremendously exciting from a team-building angle, as it has a lot of duplicate figures, but I promise you it’ll make some dents in your local games (unless your local games are at really competitive level). Hopefully this team does you some good! Take your time, utilize your Perplexes the best you can, and always prepare for your opponents turn. Count out their range, and always know who’s able to make attacks on you!

FINALLY

If you liked this article, send me a comment about what team you’d like me to make next, some options I’ve been working on are a Golden Age Police Team, or a Modern Police Team.