Uncanny X-Men: Marauders vs X-Men

The next few entries in our Head to Head series are going to be X-Men related since the release of Marvel Heroclix Uncanny X-Men gave us a ton of X-Men to sift through. I randomly selected character cards to make a 300 point team for each side, and the first battle is against the Marauders. Just to reiterate, the X-Men team was made based off a random draw excluding those with Clix FX markers as I made them into a separate team to spotlight them later. I'm stressing this as I know these build will not be optimal. This was done to test out the figures and see how they play and to better learn how to utilize them more efficiently later. The Marauders were built the same way except that Mystique and Vanisher were taken out so they can round out the Brotherhood of Mutants for a future match against the X-Men. With that said, here are the teams:

X-Men

50 UXM002 Nightcrawler

125 UXM005B Emma Frost

120 UXM039 Juggernaut

295 Total

Marauders

50 UXM009 Arclight

50 UXM011 Harpoon

35 UXM013 Prism

45 UXM014 Riptide

60 UXM017 John Greycrow

55 UXM046 Vertigo

295 Total

The map chosen was the "China" outdoor map from the Fear Itself set. Since the teams were random the strategies had to be somewhat improvised on the spot. The X-Men moved first despite the Marauders getting +6 to their roll, and their plan was to tie up the ranged attackers with Nightcrawler so that Juggernaut and Emma wouldn't take so much damage while they closed the gap as none of these X-Men have range. The Marauders didn't have Vanisher or Mister Sinister to help with moving around the board, so Riptide, Harpoon, and Vertigo would have to utilize their Sidestep to keep up with the other 3.

John Greycrow made an early weapon with his Making Weapons to Hunt trait, and used up a light standard object. Since Emma only takes a maximum of 1 damage from range attacks and Juggernaut is not affected by Psychic/Penetrating Blast (among other things) Precision Strike seemed like the logical choice for John Greycrow to have. This paid off huge. When Nightcrawler got hit and put on his Super Senses/Shape Change clicks, John Greycrow took him out with relative ease and triggered the Mutant Massacre trait early on. This allowed the Marauders to choose the +1 speed, attack, and damage, and that turn was huge for them as Emma took 2 damage due to a failed Impervious roll, and Juggernaut got hit for 2 as well by Harpoon's Ranged Combat Expert and Enhancement assist from Prism, which consequently knocked off Juggernaut's helmet. Vertigo also hit both Juggernaut and Emma with an Incapacitate when they already had two tokens, so they both took 1 unavoidable damage.

Even though Emma Frost had Outwit early on she wasn't able to utilize it effectively as Arclight blocked her line of fire to use it on the tougher Marauders. Juggernaut did knock out Riptide when he got close enough, but kept getting tied up by Prism so he couldn't move around that much. They eventually got worn down and overwhelmed with attacks, even though they'd only do 1 or 2 damage the Marauders kept hitting consistently and eventually took Emma and Juggernaut down too.

Lessons Learned:

* Push It. The Marauders have to keep the pressure on and know when to push. John Greycrow, Vertigo, and Harpoon pushed at crucial times to keep Emma and Juggernaut off some of the deadlier clicks.

* Strength in numbers. It's been a while since I've played a game where one team was outnumbered 2 to 1. So while Juggernaut and Emma Frost hit hard, it doesn't mean anything if they keep being tied up by the weaker opponents and they miss an attack. For every attack they both missed they had 3 or four hitting them back, so the math eventually kills you.

* Mutant Massacre. This trait is good. The turn Nightcrawler got knocked out was even worse on Juggernaut and Emma. Choose wisely though, Arclight was on her last click pretty much the whole game, but she kept choosing to get the stat boost to keep attacking rather than backing off and healing.

* Have range. I know the teams were random, but games like these remind me how important range is in the game. This also serves as an important reminder for players still getting the hang of the game to always build a balanced team with both range and close attackers.

Suggestions:

* As I mentioned range is important. This X-Men team can easily be spiced up by replacing one of these characters with someone that has range.

* If this trend of having plenty of low-cost figures continues teams need to have at least four characters unless they have a really good tentpole. The X-Men got overwhelmed once they closed the gap, and replacing Juggernaut or Emma Frost with two cheaper characters (with range) like Storm and Sunfire would have helped keep some of the Marauders off their back.

* Every time I legitimately build a real Marauders team either Vanisher or Mister Sinister are in it. Why? Because they help with positioning. Vanisher can carry up to 3 characters which definitely would have made this team a lot better.

*Please feel free to comment if you have any questions, thanks for reading!

#themeteam #uncannyxmen #headtohead #heroclix #marauders