So you like a character, but don’t like the particular piece I focused on? I hear ya! Spotlight is a new Team Build article series focused on building around a particular character rather than piece. First up, Wonder Woman!

Welcome to Spotlight, a new article series that goes over a certain character rather than a specific piece, and builds teams around them. The men have had their run in the team builds, so for the first Spotlight article I’m focusing on the badass that is Wonder Woman.

Why Wonder Woman: Diana is a pretty important character, not just from a comic book standpoint, but what she represents. She was heavily inspired by the early feminism movement in the 1940’s and she’s been a prominent character in the DC pantheon for a long time. Even though I’m not a DC fan, I’ve always liked Wonder Woman.

In modern Heroclix, Wizkids has done a great job of keeping Diana powerful and most of her pieces are fantastic for the points. Let’s go over each Wonder Woman piece in modern and see what we have to work with. I’ll rate each one on a scale of 1-5, and then I’ll make some team builds. This can be quite long depending on how many of these pieces we have in modern, so feel free to skip to which pieces you like.

1. D-022 Wonder Woman LE – 180 Points

A pretty good dial, sporting both the Mystics and Superman Ally team abilities. Starting with an 8 movement with Charge and Sidestep and Flight, 11 attack with traited Super Strength, 18 defense with Impervious, and 4 damage Outwit, this Diana can certainly bring the hurt. He attack values stay strong, while her defense gets a little soft. On her 7th and final click, she does have a Stop click which is quite nice, and it comes with its own little heal built in (once per game). That gives her quite a bit of staying power, and Outwit on that final click is nice to nerf attackers. Overall a solid piece. Score: 4/5

2. BVS 003 Wonder Woman (Gravity Feed) – 105 Points

Now this is a great Wonder Woman! Sure, she doesn’t have flight or any traits, but the raw power she brings to the table is awesome. Sporting 7 clicks, we’re saving 75 points on health alone from the LE. Top click, she’s got a quick 11 movement with Charge and Flurry, 11 attack with Blades, 18 defense with Invulnerable, and 3 damage with Battle Fury. Mid dial, she switches things up with Charge and Quake, and picks Flurry up for her last two clicks. While her numbers decay a bit, the sheer damage potential of this piece is astounding, and she would be down-right maddening with possession. Score: 5/5

3. FF BVS 003 Wonder Woman (Fast Forces) – 125 Points/75 points

Okay, who’s idea was it to make both the Wonder Woman’s in BvS 003? Anyway, this version of Diana gets Flight back, along with the Superman Ally team ability, and she has a single trait that ups her defense for every token on her. She has a short 6 click dial, or 4 clicks for 75 points. On top click, she’s got a speedy 11 movement with Charge, 11 attack with Super Strength, 17 defense with Invulnerable, and 3 damage with a special attack that grants her nerfed Super Senses and punishes an attacker if she succeeds. She does get a neat Incap power that uses Precision Strike on every other click, and picks up supprt at the end of her dial, but I just don’t like this figure. She’s overcosted and doesn’t accomplish much. Score: 3/5

4. WF 063 Wonder Woman – 140 Points/25 Points

Do we really need to go over this one? Kingdom Come pieces aren’t fair because of the insane value you get for such a low point cost, and Wonder Woman is no different. 13 Attack. 13. Attack. At 140 points. That’s nuts. Who cares what the rest of her dial looks like (it’s amazing). That’s an automatic hit and the fact that you can’t Perplex her down is just brutal. Close Combat Expert on that 4 damage just adds fuel to the damage fire, and her Isolation click makes her the best medic in the game. We’re done here. Score: 5/5

5. SMWW 002 Wonder Woman – 100 Points

Not a bad piece for 100 points, but not great either. Sporting a totally vanilla dial with no traits, she’s kind of a blast from the past. Her top click is pretty good with 10 Charge, 11 Super Strength, 17 Impervious and just 4 damage, and she does pickup Perplex for the next three clicks, but she’s just okay. Nothing great here or new. Probably the best thing about her is the fact that her defense goes from 17 to 18 her entire dial. She’ll always be had to hit. Score: 3/5

6. SMWW 018 Wonder Woman – 125 points

Look what 25 more points and a higher rarity gets you. Bringing the wonderful Odds Are Against Me Trait to the table, and the possibility of Willpower makes her a scary piece if left alone. This Wondy gets Flight along with 10 Charge, 11 Super Strength, 18 Impervious, and 4 damage. Like the common, she picks up those three Perplex clicks, but keeps an 11 attack for three damn clicks. Nice! Once she hits 10 attack, she gets a power much like the BvS FF piece but with Energy Shield instead of Super Senses so it’s a bit more reliable. I can’t see an instance where I would rather play the 100 point version than this. Score: 4/5

7. SMWW 033 Wonder Woman – 200 Points

When you absolutely need to kick some ass with a one woman army, this is your piece. 9 clicks long. 12 attack. Odds Are Against Me. Divine Aura preventing Outwit and Prob. Mystics. Flight. There’s just so much here. Her dial is just a massacre at all levels, but nothing beats that top click: 10 with Charge, Flurry, and Sidestep, 12 Super Strength, 18 Impervious, and 4 damage. This chick is hitting turn one for 10 freaking damage. My absolute favorite Wonder Woman. Score 5/5

8. SMWW 066 Wonder Woman – 165 Points/125 points

Red Son Wonder Woman is a monster in her own right and I love that she’s a team player rather than just a big brick. Whenever a lower point friendly is targeted with an attack, the attacker gets a -1 to attack and damage which makes her great with somewhat flimsy secondary attackers. She’s the only Diana in modern to have Hypersonic Speed, and she’s got a 12 at that. She’s also got 11 attack with Super Strength and 19 Invincible with 4 damage (which goes to 5 on click 2). Her special movement later in her dial is fun as you get Plasticity and free Mind Control which is funny for a brick like her. Her once-per-game Stop click is pretty cool, but it’s a shame that it’s only once. Score: 5/5

9. JLTW 052 Wonder Woman – 200 Points/100 points

The new 52 Wonder Woman is pretty great, as are her buddies Bats and Supes. She’s got really solid numbers; 10 Charge with Flight, 12 with Super Strength that accumulates heavy objects from walls, 18 Invincible, and 4 damage with a Mystics ability that hits if a ranged attack misses her. The fact that she turns off Outwit, Perplex, and Prob for a round on anyone she hits is awesome, and granting support to any Justice League member lower points than her is freakin’ awesome. What’s better than a tentpole and a cheap medic? How about a tentpole that turns a theme team into a bunch of medics?! She’s got pretty great numbers throughout her dial, but I honestly feel that if I’m going to reach for a 200 point Diana, the rare from SMWW is my gal. Score: 4.75/5

10. JLSG 003 Wonder Woman – 150 Points/100 Points

She’s got a decent dial that has some nice offense to it, and some cool traits that up her natural defense for hitting people (which she will), and give Super Strength/Ranged Super Senses. She brings 11 Charge with Flight, 11 with her traited Super Strength, 18 with Invulnerability, Combat Reflexes, and Willpower, and 3 Close Combat Expert. For 150 points, she can certainly dish damage, but I feel like she has to have quite a bit to make her worth that investment. She’s certainly not terrible, and her late dial gets damn aggressive which I like. Maybe I’m skewed because of how hard she is to find. Score: 3/5

Okay, whew, that was a lot of pieces! Thankfully we didn’t go with Superman or Batman, who only have like a million pieces (seriously, Superman has 22 pieces in modern). Maybe I’ll cap these at 10 pieces to save article length. I digress. So which pieces am I going with for team builds? Well a lot of these pieces are nearly identical in what they accomplish with almost everything using the combo of Charge, Super Strength, and Impervious/Invulnerability. Based on that, I’m going to be building around BvS 003 (Gravity Feed), WF 063 Kingdom Come, SMWW 033, and SMWW 066 Red Son. I think these are the most unique Wonder Woman’s, or celebrate what she does the best.

Spotlight is more about just using these characters, so there’s less of an emphasis on competitive here. These are going to focus more on LGS play, so we’re going to set some ground rules for the builds: 300 Points, No Resources (unless otherwise noted). This will keep things consistent as a LOT of LGS’s opt for no resources to keep things on a level playing field.

BvS 003 Wonder Woman (Gravity Feed) Build – 300 Points, No Resources

BvS 003 Wonder Woman (GF) Possesssed by Eclipso – 130 Points

– 130 Points NFAoS 024 Winter Soldier – 95 Points

AoU 201e Hank Pym – 50 Points

NFAoS FF 099 H.E.N.R.Y. – 15 points

Nightwing ID card – 5 Points

AVAS 100 Pym Particles – 2 Points

Sideline: D15-008 Nightwing LE (100), All Morph Hank Pyms

Build Total: 297 Points

We don’t get too much in the way of helpful possessors for melee in modern if your piece is over 100 points (bye, Proteus), so Eclipso is going to be our best bet. He does grant some good powers (Impervious, Prob, Outwit, etc.), and on click 7, he gets that sweet B/C/F Steal Energy click while Wonder Woman has Flurry, so that’s good. Winter Soldier is a wonderful sniper that ignores characters, and can use Ranged Combat Expert and Outwit on the same character with a 10 range. He’ll be in the back line picking off Diana’s attackers while she’s in the thick of it. Hank Pym serves as multiple roles; starting off, he has TK to get Diana into battle, and can morph the following turn throwing ant swarms into the mix to tie people up. He also gives all ants Empower which is awesome with Wonder Woman’s top click Flurry. Henry can boost either Wonder Woman (if you don’t feel like gambling on Blades) or Bucky so he can dump a point of RCE into attack. Pym Particles let us either shrink Wonder Woman for carrying by the ants, or grow her giant if there’s lot of hindering on the map. The last points go to Nightwing for his double use of Charge/Flurry and the Tony Zucco pog.

WF 063 Wonder Woman (Kingdom Come) Build – 300 Points, No Resoures

WF 063 Wonder Woman – 140 Points

M16-001 Doctor Octopus – 80 Points

SMWW 015 Hat – 45 Points

SFoSM 029 Overdrive – 35 points

Build Total: 300 Points

KC Wonder Woman already has an incredibly deadly dial, so we get to spend less points worrying about number tweaking and we don’t need a possessor since their raise in values won’t do anything. I think a lot of people forget that she doesn’t get a -2 to carry because of her trait because it’s a game rule, so she ignores this (just like hindering terrain bonuses to defense). That makes her an incredible taxi for Doctor Octopus. Now you have 6 attacks that you can make in one turn with an Outwit to boot, and the first two of those can be with a 13 attack to ensure they’re weak for Doc to slaughter. Hat is our universal support piece, taking TK in case we need to alpha strike badly, Perplex to boost Doc, or Prob to make sure we don’t crit miss. Overdrive will get Wonder Woman and Doc Oc close enough so they can go ham on the following turn and can adapt to where our opponent goes.

SMWW 033 Wonder Woman Build – 300 Points, No Resources

SMWW 033 Wonder Woman + Justice League ATA – 201 Points

JLTW 051r Batman + Justice League ATA – 86 points

S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7 ID – 5 Points

Hawkeye ID – 5 Points

Sideline: NFAoS 007b Peggy Carter, AAOU 106 Hawkeye

Build Total: 297 Points

200 points is a lot for one character, and with this Wonder Woman, we want her to be outnumbered, so she accumulates free attacks. I can’t think of a better single piece to pair her with than TW Batman. He grants her Stealth which is huge, can TK her, Prob for her, Outwit for her, Perplex her, Support her, or call in ID cards to keep the opposition down. The Justice League ATA will make them both harder to hit and is just too good to pass up for a single point. For the two ID cards, I kept them lower than Batman’s cost so he can be the designated helper. Peggy can be called in to flat out “can’t use” their defense so Wonder Woman can wail away, or Hawkeye can be called in for stealth busting, penetrating damage.

SMWW 066 Wonder Woman (Red Son) Build – 300 Points, No Resources

SMWW 066 Wonder Woman – 165 Points

WF 060r World’s Finest – 75 Points

SFoSM 029 Overdrive – 35 Points

SMWW G004p Solaris – 25 points

Build Total: 300 Points

This team heavily plays on Wonder Woman’s trait. Everyone on the team has at least an 18 defense (the Charged Up bystander has 18), so it’s going to be really tough for your opponent to score a hit on your characters. I was going to go TK, but the fact that Overdrive can carry Wonder Woman around and grant Empower for her and the duo is pretty sweet. Also, if his vehicle is destroyed, he can just choose to let them use the heavy as more damage. World’s Finest is awesome, but their short dial is an issue. However, now with their 18 defense that can’t be lowered with Combat Reflexes and a -1 to attacks against them, they’ll be really tough to put down. Plus, Stealth! Lastly, we’ve got Solaris rocking the big 19 defense with 10 range Outwit. This guy makes me happy. Try taking him down now!

I hope you liked this first, rather long installment of Spotlight! I think it’ll be a great new way to highlight some characters, and perhaps make people think about pieces they haven’t thought to use. Have any recommendations? Have a character you want to see next? Let me know in the comments below!

Join me next week as we take a look at what went down at ROCtober and what pieces emerged as overall top dogs!