Why should you play the affiliation?
Do you like kids that are in way over their head's? Did you like the New Mutants movie (I did !)? Did you like the New Mutants comics (haven't read them personally but I hear they were quite good)?
Then maybe this is the affiliation for you.
On the table it offers a very cool leadership but at the moment a very short list of affiliated models. It honestly does feel rather incomplete at the moment.
How to start the affiliation
Update: Magik, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Bishop will be combined into a four character pack in Q4 2025. This isn't particularly great news for New Mutants as only Magik is affiliated here and she's your only leader option.
If you can find it your first purchase here is the Magik (leader) and Colossus (unaffiliated) pack. It's apparently been sold out for some time now sparking speculations about a repackaging into a four character pack. The most likely box partners would be Gambit and Rogue though and that wouldn't good news for the New Mutants as neither is affiliated.
When you somehow have gotten your hands onto a Magik your necessary next item on the shopping list is the Sunspot and Warlock pack. It contains all the currently available New Mutants TTCs, including the leadership.
Every other member here comes with an unaffiliated box partner. All of them are X-Men and many X-Force though and it's probably a good idea to start out dualing with X-Force here as you definitely want Cable for New Muntants and he's the X-Force leader (where Sunspot and Warlock are also affiliated).
What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan?
Cry for help is a very cool leadership that can be incredibly strong but also has the issue of your opponent having some agency about it.
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?
Cannonball, Danny Moonstar (Mirage) and Wolfsbane are the ones really standing out here. They all appear right on the leadership card for example.
Danny is coming in the X-Factor Investigations pack in 2026.
Rating every affiliated TTC and Character
Team Tactics (4)
New Mutants
A. The leadership is very good even if costing a slot in your 5 does hurt.
Practice Round
B+. It's a good card that gets better the bigger your dice pools are. Since you can only use it when you haven't had a crit in the roll you can't abuse it for super spikes, which is also a good thing for the game overall.
Survive the Night
A. The best affiliated card. What makes it strong is the automatic size unrestricted push. The biggest downside of the card is that the original target of the opponents attack has to survive the attack, which the affiliated New Mutants aren't always great at.
Tomorrow‘s Soldiers
B. The effect is nice enough because your kids will get dazed or KO'd and free power is free power but right now you probably won't have too many affiliated New Mutants on the table to actually profit from it.
Characters (7)
Cable (5)
A. Cable is just a good character. What he brings to the affiliation is a reliable middle and long range damage dealing, defensive shields for himself and his friends and good action economy. He likes the leadership to get in range 3 for his rerolls and to increase his area to hand out shields. And as we’ve said multiple times already none of the New Mutants is particularly durable on his own so having defensive help is really necessary.
Cable is just too good on his stat card alone to not have him in the roster. He also opens up the very real possibility of a dual affiliated roster.
Emma Frost (4)
C. This inclusion feels pretty weird honestly. I’m not aware of Emma ever being in the New Mutants but here we are. She doesn’t jump out as someone who wants to teleport around to her acquaintances, but having someone jumping in to protect her might be helpful. What she offers is long range mystic attacks which can be very helpful in for example the Web Warriors matchup.
Seeing as how the affiliation list is quite small I don’t see a big enough reason to not include her for her silver bullet role currently but she might find herself on the cutting block sooner than later. Dual affiliating with HFC seems too high an opportunity cost with MYHFC now being restricted and the affiliated New Mutants all not really being great in there.
Magik (3)
B+. Magik has really good attacks and got a bit more survivable with the new update. She also has pretty good action economy with her Range 1-3 place and a fantastic TTC in journey through Limbo. But with how much your opponent will go after her it might be too much to have another character specific card for her in your 4 remaining cards. Definitely something to try out.
Ilyana can be a good user of the leadership to maybe get out of the range of enemy attacks when they do you the favour of attacking someone who is a bit more out of the fight. If she lives through an attack she really likes teleporting a (splash) bodyguard or taunter to her.
Shadowcat (3)
B. Kate is great. She a fast objective runner that hits surprisingly hard. She also helps with the teams overall survivability. Kitty is already really fast and the access to the leadership just doubles down on this. She definitely makes it into a New Mutants Roster for now.
Sunspot (4)
B-. Roberto hits like an absolute truck and has decent Control of you can keep him flared up constantly which is rather hard here. The leadership does let him place but being pretty fragile for a 4 means him getting attacked is not really what you want to motivate your opponent to do.
Warlock (3)
B. Warlock as a character in the comics is absolutely awesome. It is extremely difficult to represent him as a mini as he constantly changes his form and the one we got doesn’t exactly sit atop of what AMG has produced but that’s really his only minor downside (he does look way better in person than first thought though). Otherwise he appears to be an extremely cool 3 threat that is great at guarding a home secure. Which honestly makes him probably a better X-Force Member than a New Mutant at first glance as he isn’t super likely to be in range to use the leadership. He also doesn’t want to ever get close.
He’s not super synergistic with the leadership in my opinion but he’s a really good 3 threat overall that you aren’t mad at for having on the board.
X-23 (3)
A. Laura is one of the most killy 3 threats in the game and the leadership increases her already good action economy, which has just gotten better with the latest update. I think she’s an every game piece here.
Popular Splash Characters for the affiliation
In my opinion (your milage may vary) Black Dwarf is basically an auto include in a new Mutants roster. He gets so much out of the jump due to his large base. And seeing as the affiliated list doesn’t scream durability at first glance having this massive ball of health teleport around to taunt and take attacks seems pretty legit.
In the same vein there are two 2 threats worth considering here. First and probably obvious (and a bit weird that she isn’t affiliated) Honey Badger. Gabby brings another taunt and a bubble of basically incinerate (that stacks with it). On her small base it will not be as easy to get her in taunt range as it is with Black Dwarf though. That’s why I would also take a look at Okoye. Okoye has the problem of having to somehow make three power for the ideal play pattern but once she’s gotten it she can teleport and bodyguard regardless of where the enemy is attacking from keeping a key piece of your team alive. She is also pretty good at surviving attacks and can then be used to teleport to her to maybe get to a secure or in better position to attack. Also placing in 1 of her when she survived an enemy turn means she can definitely bodyguard an attack into the character that ported to her. (As long as she has 2 power and the opponent didn’t use resources to split the characters up with a push or throw).
Example Roster
Characters (10)
* Cable (5)
Emma Frost (4)
* Magik (3)
Shadowcat (3)
Sunspot (4)
Warlock (3)
X-23 (3)
Black Dwarf (4)
Honey Badger (2)
Logan, the Wolverine (4)
Team Tactics (10)
New Mutants
Practice Round
Survive the Night
Tomorrow‘s Soldiers
Sacrifice (R)
Fall Back (R)
Gotta Get Some Air
Journey Through Limbo
Mind Transfer
Instant Recovery
Secure Crisis
Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth (D, 16)
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (D, 17)
Extract Crisis
Paranoia Pummels Populace! (K, 16)
Struggle For The Cube Continues (F, 17)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
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