Why should you play the affiliation?
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?
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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)
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Thank you for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻
I have come to spread the good word of Cable in Weapon X. Honestly, it kinda shocks me that I never see anyone talk about him in Weapon X, because he has so much synergy with the affiliation, and while he is a fairly lowkey five threat, he definitely earns it here, imho, and given the low cost and high quality of a lot of the other models, you can still go comfortably wide.
ReplyDeleteThe two big things Cable does for Weapon X:
1. He turns Memory tokens up to 11. Plus two defense dice isn't much to write home about... until you have two sources of it that can both be applied at once, or that can be spread out to reduce your opponent's builder damage and power gain. I cannot tell you how many times Cable + Leadership have given a character on 1-2 health +4 dice and let them tank a hit that should've dazed/XO'd them and let them instead Healing Factor back up and daze the offender. Its not going to turn your Weapon X character into tanks by any means, but they will have many more instances of surviving on 1-2 health when they otherwise should've been dazed, and that's absolutely crippling to anyone facing a Weapon X team, when they suddenly bounce back to 3-4 health and daze someone as payback. Its especially brutal when it happens to Weapon X himself.
2. Think about how many affiliated characters have Rapid Fire. How many have Pierce. How Incinerate stacks with Honey Badger's Too Dangerous to Ignore. Cable hands out Incinerate on his range five builder. Just one little incinerate is a death sentence when almost every character in this roster can either attack you four times in one activation, blank a successful defense die, or reduce your defense even further just by giving you a hug. You wanna Daze a full health 6-8 threat in one round? Bring Cable and Honey Badger and watch the defense pool shrink as you attack 12 times with three characters.
Plus, Cable's no slouch himself. Bodyslide to make sure you're constantly pumping out two builders. Omega Level Mutant is a brutal Big Red Button when someone makes a run at him, and his builder will sometimes just roll good and do more damage than it has a right to, which just lets you use Telekinetic shield even more.
I do take Brace for Impact and First Aid as my Restricted cards with Cable, though. He actually gives the team a substantial boost in longevity, mostly in the first couple rounds, and Brace keeps that party going that much longer, and First Aid is for if someone tries to rush him down and gets a little too close to KO'ing him, or if he just has a heap of power and wants to boost a Weapon X character who's a little battered and far from Healing Factor-ing.
Honorable mention to Shadowcat, who has a similar ability, though a shorter range. I think she could be cool on the virtue of being a good extract runner/point scorer who also just has a baby telekinetic shield as gravy.