I have returned, and today I’m bringing you a hot new team build around a character that I really like and I haven’t seen much of from ABPI. Kang, The Conqueror looks tremendously fun and I’ve been meaning to toy around with him.

July is over, and so Comic-Con sets sail for another year. But the good news is that I’m back to my regular schedule! Unfortunately there was a lot of cool stuff in ABPI that I still haven’t gotten to play with, and since it’s the summer there’s no shortage of new product to work with. I might have to write some team build articles that are centered around multiple characters in the coming weeks to catch up – I wonder how that would work?

Anyhow, I wanted to get back into the swing of things with a character that I think a lot of people looked at with anticipation but haven’t quite figured out how to play him or build around him. Kang looks like he could be perhaps the strongest and most well-rounded Title character we’ve gotten, but he requires some very tight planning to make sure his experiments don’t blow up in your face.

Kang costs 80 points, and has 7 clicks of health. Decent, but usually we see Title characters with a bit more value to them. He has standard combat symbols and 7-range with a whopping 3 targets. While he has no team ability, he has potentially the most Keywords of any character I’ve wrote about with Avengers, Council of Kangs, Future, Past, Ruler, Scientist, and Young Avengers. 7 Keywords and a lot of those are very good for building around with a highlight on Avengers, Future, Past, Ruler, and Scientist.

Remember that I’m going through dials a little differently now by covering each phase of a dial. Since Kang is a Title character, we’ll get a little old school with his plot points at the end since they don’t work into his dial as they’re available at all times.

Kicking things off, Kang is a mobile fighter (though not too mobile) with Running Shot, Penetrating/Psychic Blast, Energy Shield/Deflection, and Probability Control. Aside from his movement, his values are quite good for his cost, and while it’s a little worrisome to have that massive soft spot for defense, the namesake power of Probability Control (which I feel Kang should have traited on every dial) will save his bacon as long as he can keep his distance. If he can, he’ll be shooting some big hole’s in his targets though, and his three bolts gives him some options.

When Kang hits click three, he shifts to a more calculating and slower attacker with Sidestep, Precision Strike, Super Senses, and Perplex. Still very good as he has the same offensive capabilities thanks to the Perplex, and a bit safer with the roll-out. Ideally you want to stick to top-dial, but these clicks aren’t too bad. Unfortunately he won’t be able to use that Precision Strike with 3 targets. Can Kang turn back time to the original Precision Strike?

Finally, Kang ends on survival mode for his last three clicks with Phasing/Teleport, Incapacitate, Invulnerability, and Outwit, again with good values, especially for late in the dial. I like this ending as it makes him a bit harder to KO once he’s taken a couple hits rather than most figures becoming goo when they’re wounded. There’s some good opportunity to get Kang to safety and possibly heal him back up, or keep those points safe.

When we talk about Title characters, it’s a completely separate kit that needs to be covered, and unlike others before him, Kang’s abilities are completely self-centered and fundamentally change how he plays. Let’s get the starting stuff out of the way first; Kang starts with 0 Plot Points, so you’re going to need to build him in order to do anything special.

The downside to Kang and all Title characters is his KO effect:

When Kang, The Conqueror is KO’d, at the end of each opposing player’s turn, that player rolls a d6. 4-6: That player may remove an action token from one of their characters.

That’s pretty brutal and I have to admit one of the most painful loses of a Title character we have. Giving your opponent a permanent 50/50 shot of removing an action token from any of their characters at the end of every turn is very dangerous and could very well cause you to lose the game quite easily.

So what do we get in return from a character that has NO starting Plot Points, has Energy Shield/Deflection to boot, and gives a massive advantage when he’s KO’d?

(+1) YOU ARE WATCHING HISTORY BEING MADE!: FREE: Generate a Time Portal marker in a square within range and line of fire.

Huh. So far not much. Not a promising start and this is totally not selling him. Next up?

(-1) TIME AND TIME AGAIN: FREE: Place Kang, The Conqueror in an unoccupied square within range that has a Time Portal marker and then heal him 1 click.

Here’s the other piece to that +1 puzzle. Kang is all about the long game, right? While he’s moving around the board taking shots, he’s setting up his strategy and placing markers so that he has the tactical advantage. This gives Kang so many options on mobility that once he starts setting up, it’s going to be very difficult to stop him from carrying out his plan. What’s the worst thing for a ranged character? Being based, especially with Plasticity. Kang doesn’t care because he’ll just conveniently teleport away, heal 1 click, then he can use Running Shot and shoot whoever he wanted anyways. I italicized healing because this is the silver lining that makes this ability so powerful. Sure, Kang might have a glass jaw, but if he’s got portals on the board and he hits those lower clicks, he’s got a way to heal himself all the way back to full, or at least keep himself in the game.

Last up, his “ultimate”:

(-X) KANG WARS: X is any number up to the number of unoccupied Time Portal markers on the map. FREE: Place Kang, The Conqueror in an unoccupied square with a Time Portal marker then give him a CLOSE or RANGE action at no cost. After resolutions, remove that marker. Kang, The Conqueror may be given this FREE action up to X times.

I think this is the reason most players don’t play Kang as this is really confusing and takes some serious control to pull off correctly. Basically if you manage to put out a bunch of portals on the map can build up Plot Points, Kang can remove as many PP’s as he wants and activate a chain of teleportation attacks. I’ll give an example if you don’t understand it.

Let’s say you have Kang chillin’ out with 5 Plot Points meaning you have 5 portals on the map. You can remove any number of those tokens to teleport him to one of your portals and then give him a CLOSE or RANGE action at no cost. The more PP’s you pay, the more triggers you get. So if you pay your 5 PP’s, you get 5 triggers of teleportation and attacking.

There are two catches to this ability; 1. you remove the Portals after making the CLOSE or RANGE so you can’t come back to them, and 2. you have to decide how many times you’re going to activate this before doing so. You can’t remove 1 token, and then decide to do it again; because the cost is -X, you have to pay up front for the amount of teleports you want to make.

But think of the possibilities! Go back to my example where you have 5 PP’s and 5 portals on the map. Let’s say for argument sake that Kang is top-dial and has Running Shot, 11-Pen/Psy, and 3-damage with Prob. That means you get 5 uses of Running Shot and in between each one, you get to teleport around the map. Assuming you hit all your attacks, that’s 15 damage you’re dealing with an 80-point figure by himself. Add in Perplex or Enhancement and things get a little crazy.

Kang is a very different Title character, but the possibilities you have available to you are endless and can break the game if you play him well enough. So, how do we do that?

Keys to Success

When I look at Kang, the two things I see that he needs are protection and map control. Since he needs line of fire to place portals and he has that fantastic 7-range, it’s a good bet to try and win map roll so that you can abuse him. That means a theme team is practically a must with this guy. Thankfully as I mentioned earlier, his Keywords are insanely good and his low cost of 80 points means this is a very easy task. Building something like an Avengers team can basically give you +X to your team depending on how many Giant-Girls you have.

Buffing Kang’s stats are going to be a huge windfall for you. When he goes on the offense, you can make sure he’s shooting massive shots rather than just 3-damage, or boost his movement to give him more reach. Upping his defense might not be great against ranged attacks, but even a naked defense is pretty safe sitting at a 20 or 21. Perplex is going to be your go-to power, but Enhancement is a good option as well, though it will be tough as you’ll need to keep the Enhancement character adjacent to Kang which could be difficult.

Since he’s squishy and ranged, I would recommend some tie-up figures, or a melee figure with good defenses to get into the fight and soak some damage. Plasticity is a great option as you can tie someone up while Kang runs around shooting them.

Kang already has Probability Control, though bringing more is nice, but I would focus on some Outwit for your team. While the Pen/Psy is great, powers like Shape Change, Super Senses, Invincible, and ES/D are going to make life difficult for him.

Mobility is probably the last thing this guy has to worry about, so I don’t think you need a taxi or TK. Though you might want one for other team members.

The other big issue with Kang’s kit is his lack of Willpower which greatly slows down how many portals he can throw down. You need him to get into the fight fast so that you can start building Plot Points without taking unavoidable damage. Leadership comes into play here, although you do run into the same issue that you’ll need to keep that character adjacent to a guy that teleports around the map.

Support is also a good option. You can easily drop a portal at your starting area next to your medic, take the unavoidable damage, and then heal up on turn 2 to give you an exit plan and a quick way back with an auto-heal of 1 click and then more based on your luck with the medic.

Last up is Equipment, and I think this is 100% necessary for Kang. There’s a lot of options here of what you can do and how you can make Kang either way more offensive or defensive. Items like The Venom Symbiote or the Remaker Ring give Kang some great Shape Change options with other powers to help his kit, while Stormbreaker makes him much scarier with +2 range and mainly Energy Explosion for even more options with damage (3-targets with EE? Yes please!). The Soul Gem is of course one of the best items you can use right now and gives Kang even more healing potential along with a static +1 defense. The options are limitless. Just make sure you have someone with Sidestep to get Kang that item on turn 1.

Okay, we’re only 1,970 words in, so maybe we should get to that team build? That’s what this article is about, isn’t it? Remember that my teams are now just Modern with no restrictions.

300 Point Modern Kang, The Conqueror Team – 19/20 Modern

I went with a Scientist theme for two reasons; they have a LOT of support powers like Perplex and Outwit, and I’m frankly tired of building Avengers teams with the damn A.I.M. squad members. And before you yell at me for “coping out” with a lot of Trek characters, specifically the same people, give me a chance to explain.

Kang is awesome, but he can’t do all the heavy lifting. I needed another attacker and three candidates were in the final running: ABPI045e Spider-Man (85 Points), RE047 The Flash (70 Points), and the Lex Luthor I picked.

I went with Lex because of his wonderful kit to help protect Kang no matter where he is and how difficult Lex is to take down on his own for how low in points his experience dial is. His trait gives him PROTECTED: Outwit and gives you a chance to protecting any allies no matter where they are on the map the same. Lex also brings Leadership and Outwit with a chance at gaining a second use of Outwit if he succeeds at Leadership. His armor gives him Impervious but also makes sure that the first hit he takes only deals 1 damage, so he’s quite beefy. Finally, he’s a wonderful secondary attacker with Flight to taxi, Running Shot, Pen/Psy, 4-damage, and 6-range. I really liked the idea of Spider-Man being a tanky Perplexer that could deal tons of damage and took focus, or Flash being a secondary character that could move anywhere on the map regardless of terrain and make attacks (again with Perplex), but Lex won out because of all the tools he brings, and because of his Leadership.

Data fills the slot of “tank” on our team and for 50 points, he’s not too shabby. He has Sidestep so he can get Kang his item on turn 1, and if Data does become based, his Close Combat Expert with 10-attack and 3-damage is pretty scary for his cheap cost. However, the real reason for Data is so that you can cheat in the Super Rare Shifting Focus piece that doesn’t have the Scientist Keyword.

Super Rare Data is one hell of a support figure with Stealth and Sidestep to keep him safe, along with Probability Control that stops any further re-rolling. He’s the end-all Prob figure. The best part about Data though is his trait that gives you a pretty good chance at countering out all uses of opposing Outwit, Perplex, or Probability Control within 6 squares of him and becomes easier the more times he succeeds. You’re losing your tanky character (which you don’t have to depending on the force you’re playing against), but you’re gaining a lot of support.

Next up is one of two Wesleys; Ensign Crusher. 25 points for Perplex is pretty good and it’s a cheap way to add another +1 to our theme team as well. However, The Ensign seems like the best figure to ride shotgun with Lex as he gives a re-roll on Leadership on our turn and Impervious on their turn. If Kang is hit down to Super Senses, we get a re-roll on that if the Ensign is adjacent. I dig this dial and while I would have liked to play him at 50, I don’t think it’s that necessary.

Finally for our regular force we have the named version; Wesley Crusher. 25 points for Perplex is nice, but 15 is even better. Wesley gives us yet another cheap +1 to our map roll and provides a potential way to remove action tokens from Kang. He can’t be carried which is a bummer, but there’s no problem running him around with MOVE actions, especially since his team ability gives him a +1 to speed during MOVE, just like Avengers and Justice League. Sidestep on his top dial actually makes him a better pick for getting equipment to Kang than Data.

I opted for probably the best piece of equipment in the game right now to fill out the team – Kobik’s Cosmic Cube. This thing as been featured on almost all winning teams lately and is stupid with Kobik and Trader, but I think you get a ton of value with Kang, giving him so many more options than any other equipment would bring to the table.

Place this character up to 3 squares away – don’t want to burn Plot Points to teleport and just need to get away to shoot the guy that just based you? Maybe you want to Running Shot in and then just teleport behind some walls for safety so you never need to worry about attacks. This was the biggest reason why he gets this cube.

Improved Targeting: Elevated, Hindering and +2 Range – Now you can turn Kang into a true sniper with a deadly 9-range that sees through most everything. Perfect against Stealth-heavy teams so that you aren’t stuck.

Give an action token to an adjacent opposing character. If you can’t, deal them 1 penetrating damage – A brutal option to make people incredibly sorry for basing you, or even using this on Kang’s last clicks with Phasing to cause some general chaos. With this build, we’d utilize this option the least, but it’s great to have.

The issues with the Cube is that we’re still dealing with ES/D as our only protection. If I had to pick a different object, I would opt for some of the examples in the Keys to Success section. The Symbiote is probably the best protection you can give him so that he’s never locked down, and the Soul Gem might not give the best defense but the second form of healing is great. I do love Stormbreaker though to make Kang truly disgusting. The Power Gem could also be fantastic as you could continually use Ranged Combat Expert after activating Kang Wars to pretty much nuke the board, but that’s a long-term item that might not give you much use to start with.

I really like this team and unfortunately the only thing I own from it is Kang so the odds of playing it are quite slim, especially with how expensive the Star Trek stuff is (read: SR Data). I’m sure I could build a similar team with with other options, but I love how much potential you have to swing massive attacks, remove tokens from Kang, and just completely shut down opposing support powers that try to muck up your strategy.

What are your thoughts on this build? What would you change? Have you built a Kang team that did well? Throw it up in the comments section!

Thanks for joining me on this rather long-winded team build – it’s good to be back! Next week I’ll be posting again on Two Clicks From KO, and if you haven’t visited, I did post a Star Trek review last week over there as my first return article. I’m also hard at work writing up the next X-Men set review as new figures are spoiled.

Until next time, take care everyone!