Do you like Wolverines backstory? Well this is the faction for you then.
On the board Weapon X offers the ability to play a wide attrition game which is rather uncommon but also strong.
How to start the affiliation
PSA: If you want to get into this game for a low money investment, this is the wrong place sadly.
You have to start by swallowing the price tag of the Logan, the Wolverine and Sabretooth, Apex Predator rivals panel. It’s very expensive but here at least the terrain is fully usable, it comes with TTCs you absolutely need and both characters are really good and often splashed in many other places too. Next up I’d grab X-23 (leader option) and Honey Badger. The new Maverick and Weapon X (the character, who is also a leader option. Don’t worry, there’s a TTC with (almost) the same name too, so that surely won’t confuse anyone…) pack should also be high on your priority list. And then you’ll have to swallow another big price tag because a character pack randomly comes with terrain in Deadpool and Bob, Agent of Hydra (unaffiliated). At least the taco truck is a good size 3 terrain piece. Cable (unaffiliated) and Domino is the last pack for the affiliation.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan?
So you have four available leaders (one of them unaffiliated) but only one leadership in It Was YOU!!!. Is it good at least? Not really? Importantly it has two parts: while only affiliated models can benefit from the additional defense dice, splashes that daze or KO do trigger gaining a Memory token.
Now only fairly recently it was ruled, that, since the memory tokens are placed on the character and not on the leadership card (which would be more sensible) the leadership can’t be used or triggered when your leader is dazed.
Seeing as the affiliated models are mostly claws-for-hands people WX is more of an attrition affiliation. Leadership and the very prevalent Healing Factor make it more of a “fight and outlast them” faction than a glass canon one.
Type 1: Pure Scenario team, as many VPs on the table as possible and try to win by scoring out as early as possible and with as little engagement Type 2: Midrange Scenario team. Similar to Type 1 but can fight and chase if necessary Type 3: Midrange Attrition team. Wants to be the beatdown but can shift to scenario play if the other side is clearly the beatdown. Type 4: Pure Attrition team. Wants to murder you as quick as possible. Tabling is a possible and achievable goal here, but not the only way to win (they mostly score their points and deny yours by virtue of your models being dazed or KO'ed)
Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as leaders?
Weapon H, even though I know basically nothing about the character.
Rating every affiliated TTC and Character
Team Tactics (5+1) Are You Sure You Want To Remember?
C+. Yeah I really don’t like the leadership, sorry.
Call The Pack
A. It is very conditional but “free” movement is always great and this can move multiple of your models.
Dossier
B. Creates a fun and thematic mini game for the character you played the card with. The danger in that is that getting the Dossier back might require you to in a way they might be detrimental to your overall game plan. Also: Don’t bring the card if your opponent has Ant-Man or Wasp who can just drop the token on their board edge, effectively killing the card.
Implanted Memories
C-. It is a Baron Zemo like Counter Strike for a TTC slot of which you’re already a card down for your leadership. It does count hits, too but every Skull hurts your character. No thanks.
Weapons Stash
A-. Gaining Cover on a secure is a good effect and adding two dice to an attack can be helpful too.
Instant Recovery (unaffiliated)
B. While it’s nowhere near the power level of X-ceptional it’s still a good card here where 7 of 8 affiliated characters have Healing Factor.
Characters (8+1) Deadpool (3)
A-. Aside from dying rather quickly on his front side, Deadpool is just a great, mobile, damage dealing 3 threat.
Domino (3)
A-. Domino lacks mobility but is surprisingly tanky and has enormous damage output.
Honey Badger (2)
B. Gabby is decent to just throw into the enemy and take some hits while hopefully helping your other claw people get more damage through with her pseudo Incinerate bubble.
Logan, the Wolverine (4)
A-. Logan is one of your leader options and a great, mobile, killing machine. He needs to be on his own to really get the most out of him, so maybe don’t being him on central fighting secures.
Maverick (3)
A-. Bonus points for being a German 😅 Maverick has good damage output, mobility, throw, hit and run and his reactive S move and brings a unique anti Healing Factor (and some other versions of removing damage from themselves) tech, as well as Healing Factor himself. What he lacks is any tech to actually survive attacks against him outside of his base 3/3/3 stats and 5/5 health.
Sabretooth, Apex Predator (4)
A-. Apex is a fantastic all around killing machine with action economy through primal pounce, a throw on top of it, good defensive stats and Healing Factor as well as great attacks. What he needs is power to really use his kit and WX doesn’t really help him with it.
Weapon X (3)
B+. Threeverine has the highest damage potential of the 3s available here but pays for it by not being able to pick up, interact with, or secure Extracts. He is a leader option, but probably wouldn’t be my pick unless he’s the only option. Healing Factor 3 means he’ll really punish the opponent for not putting him down, but he doesn’t have any means to stop that in the first place.
X-23 (3)
A. Laura is going to be your every game piece and more often then not the leader for you here. Just a great all around damage 3 threat.
Popular Splash Characters for the affiliation
Since splashes can't really benefit from the leadership and only trigger gaining memory tokens there aren't any particularly great splashes here honestly. You can stick characters in that also have Healing Factor to keep the theme, get bodyguards like Okoye or Luke Cage in or a Grunt model.
Example Roster
Characters (10)
Deadpool (3)
Domino (3)
Honey Badger (2)
* Logan, the Wolverine (4)
Maverick (3)
Sabretooth, Apex Predator (4)
* Weapon X (3)
* X-23 (3)
Werewolf by Night (5)
* Shadowland Daredevil (4)
Team Tactics (10)
Are You Sure You Want To Remember?
Call The Pack
Dossier
Implanted Memories
Weapons Stash
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Gotta Get Some Air
Happy Birthday, Runt!
Phases of the Moon
Secure Crisis
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Deadline to Destruction (P, 16)
Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style (M, 17)
Extract Crisis
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding (N, 17)
Scientific Samples Found in Discovered Universe (D, 17)
The first film is one of the best overall in the MCU, Black Panther is an awesome character and diversity is always great.
On the board Wakanda offers a whole bunch of affiliated TTCs and a small but strong crop of characters with no less than four different leaderships.
How to start the affiliation
You start with the excellent Wakanda affiliation pack, which comes with four of your nine available characters in Black Panther, Killmonger, Shuri and Okoye. It’s by far your best purchase for the affiliation because from now on it starts to get much more difficult. M’Baku and Klaw (unaffiliated) is probably next on your shopping list. If you want to run Storm (who isn’t bad here) you can either look for the X-Men affiliation pack or her old pack with just Cyclops. The affiliation packs are much better value so I’d look for that one myself. Black Panther, Chosen of Bast and Namor is also a good pick up. It gives you another decent 3 threat (that you can’t play with Black Panther as your leader of course) and Namor (unaffiliated ), who is a 5 threat you can slot in here very well.
And finally you’ll have to decided if you want to invest in the rivals panel with King T’Challa and Killmonger, Usurper. Both are additional leaders and they come with many TTCs but the price tag is extremely high especially as terrain is not really usable for playing.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan?
Wakanda is super weird here as four out of nine affiliated characters are leaders and they are also only six different alter egos in total.
King of Wakanda is just a generically strong leadership. Don’t be too precious with spending for it, but also keep your total power economy in check when using it.
With this leadership you can tune your game plan basically anyway you want to.
Where King of Wakanda is a good “pay for” leadership, Blessed by Gherke offers a flat offensive upgrade for no power cost but much more conditional. The part about not getting placed or pushed is neat when it happens but absolutely not the key to the leadership here. If you run this leadership you’re looking for characters who need a wild, hit or wild, Shield trigger, like M’Baku himself.
As the boon is only while attacking M’Baku Wakanda is definitely more on the fighty end of things.
Strength of the Ancestors is just a bit weird. You simply lack affiliated characters, who can reliably push (a certain Black Panther would be great here but can’t ever be) to make the leadership worth it. You have also really build your list around it which means a lot of splashes. King T is a killing machine and this leadership turns displacement into a source of damage meaning it has a pure kill game plan usually.
Strength of the New Generation is a really interesting leadership. It rewards you for playing really tall as you only get to hand out three tokens. In round 1 you’ll often use them to power up your characters (hurting them in the process) and then adding the die from round 2. It is especially good with characters who can reroll a lot or even any amount of attack dice. Ms. Marvel and original Captain Marvel are supposed to be especially good here according to Lexa White from the Morlocks Podcast.
Type 1: Pure Scenario team, as many VPs on the table as possible and try to win by scoring out as early as possible and with as little engagement Type 2: Midrange Scenario team. Similar to Type 1 but can fight and chase if necessary Type 3: Midrange Attrition team. Wants to be the beatdown but can shift to scenario play if the other side is clearly the beatdown. Type 4: Pure Attrition team. Wants to murder you as quick as possible. Tabling is a possible and achievable goal here, but not the only way to win (they mostly score their points and deny yours by virtue of your models being dazed or KO'ed)
Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as leaders?
Someone not named T’Challa or N’Jadakka would be the most important part. I’m really not an expert on Wakanda in the comics, but Nakia is pretty popular from the movies and would probably be the most obvious pick for a new character.
With almost half of the characters here already being leaders I don’t think we can expect (or need) a new leadership soon.
Rating every affiliated TTC and Character
Team Tactics (9+3) Bast‘s Blessing
C. Rolling two wilds on six dice is only a 20% chance without any rerolls and the attack is definitely not worth the power and TTC slot if you trigger the additional attack at least once.
Jabari Chieftain
B. Spending four power on M’Baku is a lot but you get the extra dice for the entire activation meaning it can be in for example Black Panthers turn when he already played Mantle. Out of activation movement for M’Baku can also be very good. Would be an A if the cost was a bit lower.
King‘s Command
C. Turns one attack per affiliated characters activation into a gainer. Meaning it can only every gain a maximum of six power if you somehow manage to fit every affiliated alter ego into a squad (possible at 19 and 20 threat) which would be a total gain of 2 power. Having to spend four on your leader is just much too high a price here. Especially as every leader available has great ways to spent their power on their stat card already.
K‘liluna‘s Glory
C. The damage of the attack still gives out power so you can’t really drain an enemy character with it. And I don’t really see what the point is then.
Spirit of Wakanda
A. It isn’t abusable anymore in turn 1 like it was when Advanced RnD was still legal but it’s still a supreme card and can be used in multiple different ways.
Strength and Cunning
D-. This is on contention to be the worst card in the game. It is all: expensive, super hard to set up and not worth the investment. I really don’t know what went wrong during the design of this card.
Trial by Combat
A-. This is absolutely awesome. Is it something you should do competitively? Probably not, but this is one of the most creative cards in the game. It is awesome with Killmonger, Usurper because his leadership can’t be turned off with it (neither can Star-Lords, so don’t bring it against Guardians), because the tokens are already been handed out when you play it. It can absolutely cripple any team that relies heavily on their leadership like Steve 1 Avengers or Professor X X-Men, but it is very hard to set up and dicey on top of it.
Vibranium Shielding
B+. AoE damage reduction is great. You just have a lot else to spend power on with Black Panther and Shuri usually isn’t central enough in your team to make it work. Sometimes it is just good to pay one with Panther to give him damage reduction for the round.
Wakanda Forever
A+++. Plain and simply the best card in the game.
Usurp the Throne (unaffiliated)
A. If you play Killmonger, you play this card. It’s especially good here because you can use it in combination with Wakanda Forever to really make sure you get the kill.
Wisdom of the Ancestors (unaffiliated)
A. It gets kind of insane when you play it with King T, but it’s great with the other two T’Challas as well. I wouldn’t bother with it for Shuri though.
Synthetic Heart-Shaped Herbs (unaffiliated)
C+. Giving either Killmonger a throw is great in theory but you have no in affiliation way to get rid of the Poison which can really cripple them.
Characters (9)
Black Panther (4)
A. For a long time Panther was regarded as the best 4 threat in the game. While that throne has nowadays been usurped from him he’s still an excellent piece. He is fast, has action economy, reroll any dice for the entire actication for two power which is kind of insane and on his front side he is durable on top of it all. His backside is much worse though, so try everything you can to keep him from flipping.
Black Panther, Chosen of Bast (3)
B. Bast Panther is the only T’Challa with a Medium move but making up for it with a Medium base and Wall Crawler. Which depending on terrain can be faster then the Small base Long movers. He has decent attacks and a pounce but relies on Stealth for his defenses while his attacks are all only range 2.
Killmonger (4)
A-. A heat seeking missile that will explode if the opponent spends some resources into attacking him.
Killmonger, Usurper (4)
B. Plays just a bit different than OG Killmonger, with his pounce being the strongest argument for him. He can’t play Usurp which for me kills him except you play him as a leader when he is fine but not great.
King T‘Challa (5)
A. King T is an absolute murder machine but be careful he isn’t focussed down too quickly.
M‘Baku (4)
B+. M’Bakus ceiling is that of a 5 threat. His floor is that of a 3 threat. He’s very reliant on hitting his triggers but if he does that at least semi regularly you’ll be happy with him.
Okoye (2)
B+. Okoye lacks power generation but once she can bodyguard you’ll won’t regret having brought her. She’s at her best in A-Force but being an affiliated, good, 2 threat is reason enough to bring her here too.
Shuri (3)
B+. Shuri is a displacement machine and can grant rerolls to your team. A good opponent will focus her down quickly and she can’t do too much about that which is her biggest weakness.
Storm (3)
B. Storm is a much more interesting pick here after her 2023 update made her a much more threatening character. She’s your fighty option at 3 threat (disregarding Bast Panther who you often can’t even run because he’s T’Challa and there’s a 50% chance your leader is too.)
Popular Splash Characters for the affiliation
This really depends on who you've chosen as your primary leader.
Black Panther just gives a flat buff to anybody who can afford his leadership. Under M'Baku you can look for characters with wild+hit triggers like Cyclops. King T wants characters that push a lot. Hulkbuster is probably rather interesting there. And finally as mentioned above Killmonger, Usurper likes models with multiple rerolls where the extra dice really matters like Ms. and Captain Marvel.
Example Roster
Characters (10)
Black Panther (4) Killmonger (4)
M‘Baku (4) Okoye (2) Shuri (3) Black Panther, Chosen of Bast (3)
Storm (3) Namor the Sub-Mariner (5) Beast (3) Wolverine (4)
Team Tactics (10) Jabari Chieftain Spirit of Wakanda Vibranium Shielding Wakanda Forever Usurp the Throne Wisdom of the Ancestors Weapon X Program Brace for Impact (R) Fall Back (R) Recalibration Matrix
Secure Crisis Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17) Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate (F, 20) Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses (H, 16)
Extract Crisis Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18) Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19) Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
The premise here is that you get a semi competitive roster out of just four boxes in total: the Wakanda and X-Men affiliation packs as well as Black Panther, Chosen of Bast and Namor, the Sub-Mariner and M'Baku and Klaw. I especially like Fisk here because the 16 of Panther, Killmonger, M’Baku and Wolverine sounds like a tonne of fun especially considering M’Baku and Wolverine are Stun immune. They’ll hold the middle while Panther and Killmonger go hunt extracts grabbers.
X-Men are far and away the most popular Marvel part after the overall most popular character in the world (Spider-Man). They are not only a favourite of the community but also clearly of AMG being the faction with the most build options for their characters.
On the table they are super flexible, have a huge list of affiliated models and very strong TTCs.
How to start the affiliation
Update: At the he Tradeshow GAMA AMG announced single Person starter sets for X-Men and Spider-Foes. For the Mutants it will at least include the members for the Affiliation Pack, Rogue, Gambit, dice and measuring tools, maybe more.
The X-Men affiliation pack is the perfect starting point giving you two of your three available leaders in Storm and Cyclops along with good affiliated models Beast and Wolverine. Just note that Beast is the only one who hasn’t had this stat card updated. From there you have a lot of options for packs with two X-Men in them:
Nightcrawler and Bishop
Shadowcat and Iceman
Magik and Colossus
Rogue and Gambit
Emma Frost and Psylocke
Cable and Domino
All of these are good value packs to get sooner or later so you can decide based on personal preference how you want to order them.
The biggest decision you’ll have to make is whether or not you want to invest in Professor X, who comes in a box with Shadow King (unaffiliated), one of the coolest looking characters that you’ll basically never play here.
A newer pack that is a bit weird is Angel and Archangel (unaffiliated) as both are the same person so they can’t be played together on the board (outside the TTC that turns Angel into Archangel). Probably not the first pack you should grab after the affiliation pack.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan?
X-Men Gold is a very good defensive leadership with the once per round “Storm Hop” really being the selling point here. Action economy is the name of the game and this creates a wide range of additional movement for one of your models per round.
The leadership and Storm being a 3 threat herself (for whatever reason it was decided to create her as one) favours a wide scenario build and that’s what Storm teams really excell at. They do lack some in affiliation extract control so it’s more of a type 2 plan than a pure scenario list but they’ll want to outscore you most of the times.
X-Men Blue is interesting. It has the potential to give you a lot of additional power over the course of the game but it is very unreliable and triggering it will usually have given your opponent additional power, too. It’s X-Mens fightiest leadership but they lack the affiliated models to go on a full on type 4 murder plan.
Xavier’s School for the Gifted Youngsters is one of the most synergistic leaderships in the game. If you want to run it you have to make the decision before adding even a single other character to your roster. It creates tonnes of power out of thin air and you should have a plan to trigger it in everyone of your activations and as much as possible in your opponents turns, too.
Xavier is playing a mostly type 2 build like Storm but with a different course of actions during the game and some different characters too.
Type 1: Pure Scenario team, as many VPs on the table as possible and try to win by scoring out as early as possible and with as little engagement Type 2: Midrange Scenario team. Similar to Type 1 but can fight and chase if necessary Type 3: Midrange Attrition team. Wants to be the beatdown but can shift to scenario play if the other side is clearly the beatdown. Type 4: Pure Attrition team. Wants to murder you as quick as possible. Tabling is a possible and achievable goal here, but not the only way to win (they mostly score their points and deny yours by virtue of your models being dazed or KO'ed)
Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as leaders?
We know Phoenix isn’t far off and there’s at least a possibility that she’ll have a leadership too. It’s confirmed that she’ll be 6+ threat so there’s your spring/summer Kaiju already taken care off. Aside from her there’s basically an infinite number of Mutants that could be added but I think we can first assume they’ll stay with the 90s cartoon/ Comics for some more characters before we’ll get something like Krakoa versions of existing characters. By far the most obvious missing person of the era is Jubilee who is bound to come out rather sooner than later.
A personal favourite of mine, Legion, from the excellent TV show would be a cool new character though he might be hard to design for the game while Multiple Man is a favourite from the comics side of things that’d be really interesting on the board with Dupes Grunts probably.
Rating every affiliated TTC and Character
Team Tactics (7+1) Cerebro
B+. The effect here is really strong especially when you face teams like Web Warriors that love their Stealth and hate Mystic attacks. It can only be played by Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Professor X though. If you plan to run one or even multiple of them in most of your games you should absolutely take it. The biggest struggle will be to find room in your 10.
Children of the Atom
A. Removing special conditions and even getting power for it is more relevant than ever with Apocalypse, Dracula and Abomination running around. Remember that Shick said Crew of the Milano was rotated because the card was written before Guardians had an affiliated Kaiju? Well I have a feeling Children of the Atom might not be long for the world once Phoenix releases.
First Class
A+. A faction defining card. You’ll play this in at least 95% of your X-Men games. And if you really wanted you could run the original First Class members on the board together now.
Headmistress
A. When you bring Emma here you also bring the card. Action less movement is king and this offers a lot of it (but beware that the characters moving can’t carry an extract).
Mind Wipe
B-. In magical fairy land you use it to end a Kaijus activation after s/he hurt your little mutants but the amount of dice you can roll with it to fish for the damage you need to trigger the activated token is rather limited. It’s also pretty hard to fit in your 5.
To Me My X-Men
A+. Another card you’ll play in basically every of your X-Men games. It is more tricky to use than Avengers Assemble but still on the same power level.
Xavier‘s Dream
A+. And here’s another affiliated card you’ll basically play every game. See where the issues of finding room in your 5 for more niche cards comes from?
Instant Recovery (unaffiliated)
B-. With a whole range of characters with Healing Factor affiliated I thought it would be fitting to talk about this card here too. I think the card is better than many people give it credit but also not good enough to bring it if you only have one target for it on the board. If you plan on using multiple HF models in your squads definitely give it a try before you discard it.
Characters (22) Angel (3)
B. Angel ist fast, can displace, has Healing Factor and brings a Sacrifice like TTC which is always super useful. Not an All-Star but also someone you usually won’t regret having in your squad either. An affiliated 50mm base is also great for the Storm Hop.
Beast (3)
B. Beast is just as fast as Angel and has the cheap size 2 throw and access to defensive rerolls. Another affiliated 50mm base for Storm.
Bishop (4)
B. Bishop is a very good damage dealer that is super dicey on defense sadly. He can randomly just live through a whole bunch of attacks but also fall over dead quicker than a 4 threat has any right to. He brings an affiliated size 4 character throw which is a huge boon. He’d be at least B+ maybe even A if he wouldn’t wake up from daze with only 4 HP because of the bad and unnecessary “ability” Overload.
Cable (5)
A. Cable is one of the most reliable 5 threats and overall damage dealers in the game.
Colossus (4)
B-/C+. Don’t use Colossus if you need your 4 threat to do more than not die. He’s really good at that and then sadly not much more. If you love the character and can be persuaded to it I heard his real good in Servants of the Apocalypse (better than I rated him there especially).
Cyclops (4)
B/ B-. Cyc has one of the coolest superpowers in the game with Field Leader but he is completely reliant on his (decent) builder to connect to fund his kit. He’s very sad when he has no power.
Domino (3)
A. Domino is deceptively tanky and can shoot down targets that are much higher threat than her. Her biggest weakness is that she has no action economy. Storm leadership can help with that a bit at least.
Emma Frost (4)
B+. Emma brings access to great TTCs (not just My Hellfire Club) and good long range Mystic attacks. Her biggest issue, aside from having to carry an extra model you shouldn’t really use (her Diamond form), is, that the role of backline shooter is pretty well covered by each available leader already.
Gambit (3)
C-. Mon Amí I’m so sorry to say this but Gambit is close to unplayable here. The best thing he can do is play his TTC Dark Past, which he is expressly prohibited from doing in X-Men. Without the card Gambit is a close range fighter that absolutely can’t take a punch back. He looks freaking awesome (of course he does he is Gambit!) on the shelf at least…
Honey Badger (2)
B-. Gabby could help with math but not being able to secure or interact with objectives is pretty unhelpful if your main plan is to score out like it is with at least two of the leaders here. If you want to push it to a Cyclops attrition list then maybe?
Iceman (3)
B+. One of my trademarked controversial takes but I think Bobby deserves much more love than he gets. He’s just a pest to throw in your opponents face and have them take the consequences for attacking not just him but anybody when they’re near him.
Jean Grey (5)
B. Jean can throw size 4 terrain in turn 1, has great attacks and a very weird superpower to manipulate the board state. What you’d want for a 5 threat would be some more defensive tech. What she does bring is Shield Mind to ruin a certain mind numbingly boring villains day and who doesn’t like a sad Thanos in this game? Not even his players like him most of the time.
Logan, the Wolverine (4)
A-. Logan has had his heyday and has cooled off in use recently. The biggest issue he has in official play is his price tag of course. Otherwise he’s very much a killing machine but does have good mobility and the stats to be a great P2F player as well.
Magik (3)
B-/ B+ under Xavier. Usually Magik is a decently fast damage dealer 3 that can struggle to stay on her feet. Under Xavier she becomes a much more important piece as she can always get the power train rolling there by spending one to place herself in 1. She also brings an excellent TTC in Journey through Limbo which you’ll find hard to fit in your 5 again.
Nightcrawler (4)
A+++!!! (realistically A-). If you don’t like Nightcrawler what the Hell is wrong with you?! The only German character currently in the game who is not a straight up bad guy (Red Skull, Sin, Zemo) or at least very in the greyish collum (Maverick) Kurt Wagner is incredibly fast and his ability to hand out Stun like candy is super strong when Asgard is running rampant in the meta. Don’t chase the dream of the never ending spender but instead use Kurt’s speed and defensive abilities to score constantly with him while destroying your opponents power economy through Stun.
Professor X (4)
B-. If you play Xavier you play him as a leader and for his leadership. He brings rerolls for your team which is good but he needs his own leadership to fund them. He isn’t so bad that you should stay away from running him. He can just very quickly die to terrain being thrown into him.
Psylocke (4)
A. Psylocke has very good action economy, great attacks and inbuilt rerolls, while having Stealth and Martial Artists. She should be splashed way more than she is (Shang-Chi kind of steals her thunder at the moment).
Rogue (4)
A. Everybody’s favourite Southern Gal is very good in MCP, too. But she needs help in the power department. Luckily two of the three available leaders here help her with that.
Shadowcat (3)
A-. Kate (don’t call her Kitty anymore!) Pryde is Viper with better attacks and superpowers. Which makes her a supreme objective runner that packs a deceptively hard punch as the enemy not counting Crits as successes and not exploding them is a huge increase in expected damage. She brings an affiliated steal TTC. That no one has the guts to try and play because the objective drop needs a wild trigger (I’m also not playing it so who am I to talk? 😅)
Storm (3)
A. Despite her leadership taking a nerf (it is still very good) Storm came out of her 2023 update as a clear cut winner. She is a much scarier model now that can boost her entire Beams or Area attack pretty reliably. Super stealth and a range 3 throw round out her very good kit for a 3 threat. I’m still hoping we’ll get a true goddess power Kaiju Storm one day but this one won’t disappoint you on the field either.
Wolverine (4)
B+. Wolverine mostly fights with Logan for spot. This version has the higher damage ceiling especially against a single target but he can’t carry extracts on his injured side. He’ll go off and murder people then though.
X-23 (3)
A. Wolverine in cheaper and with additional action economy. If you want a fighty 3 threat look no further.
Popular Splash Characters for the affiliation
Doctor Voodoo (4)
A. Especially in a Storm led team he brings a reliable extract steal which is very important for the faction.
Example Roster
Storm:
Characters (10)
Angel (3)
Domino (3)
Iceman (3)
Jean Grey (5)
Nightcrawler (4)
Shadowcat (3)
* Storm (3)
Wolverine (4)
Doctor Voodoo (4)
Beast (3)
Team Tactics (10)
Cerebro
Children of the Atom
First Class
To Me My X-Men
Xavier‘s Dream
Mental Domination
Ultimate Sacrifice
Weapon X Program
Brace for Impact (R)
Fall Back (R)
Secure Crisis
Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park (B, 18)
M‘Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home! (G, 19)
Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style (M, 17)
Extract Crisis
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (F, 17)
Struggle For The Cube Continues (F, 17)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
While the characters might not be the complete standard set this is a pretty classic “grab and run” style list that wants to win on points as fast as possible.
Cyclops:
Characters (10)
Bishop (4)
* Cable (5)
Colossus (4)
* Cyclops (4)
Domino (3)
Emma Frost (4)
Logan, the Wolverine (4)
Psylocke (4)
Rogue (4)
X-23 (3)
Team Tactics (10)
Children of the Atom
First Class
Headmistress
To Me My X-Men
Xavier‘s Dream
Gotta Get Some Air
Mind Transfer
Psionic Constructs
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Secure Crisis
Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (I, 17)
Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park (B, 18)
M‘Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home! (G, 19)
Extract Crisis
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
The Montesi Formula Found (E, 18)
This list focuses fighting above anything else. It could easily play as X-Force too but it tries to make the most out of Cycs leadership by powering everyone up.
Professor X:
Characters (10)
* Cable (5)
Magik (3)
Nightcrawler (4)
* Professor X (4)
Rogue (4)
Shadowcat (3)
* Storm (3)
Domino (3)
Beast (3)
Juggernaut (5)
Team Tactics (10)
Brace for Impact (R)
Cerebro
Children of the Atom
Do You Know Who I Am?
First Class
Fall Back (R)
Hold Still
Journey Through Limbo
To Me My X-Men
Xavier‘s Dream
Secure Crisis
Mutant Madman Turns City Into Lethal Amusement Park (B, 18)
M‘Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home! (G, 19)
Guardians Save Shi‘ar Empress in Style (M, 17)
Extract Crisis
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (F, 17)
The most synergistic list of the field here. I added Hold Still as a steal for Shadowcat here because if the card works it is the longest reaching steal (the farthest range to get it and to run away again after you’ve taken it) in the game. And with Professor X handing out rerolls the chance to hit that wild is pretty high. It is 59% without any rerolls and increases to 64% and 66% with one or two rerolls. Three rerolls don’t mathematically make the trigger more likely but of course you have the information if you need to still hit it before deciding to spent the power on Charles. It is still dicey which feels awful for a play that is supposed to be a big impact. But then again you could also just kill the person holding the extract(s) with the 6 dice attack even if you don’t get the wild. Nothing for competitive tables but fun to try in casual games at the very least.
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