Where will Gladiator fit?

So we're getting a strong beater character that's unaffiliated with the War of Kings pack in Gladiator:

I really like his confidence mechanic. 

If he's already punching with good success he will just continue to punch harder. His clear cut counter play with this is to chip away at him. In theory. Having 9/9 health will often mean that while taking away his confidence you will power him up. And his spender is also no joke. At least it is appropriately costed and needs to hit the wild trigger to be worth it. The other thing to slow him down is drowning him in conditions which he will absolutely hate. 

Being unaffiliated is locking him out of any powerful affiliation TTCs (Thor 2 is at least a bit easier to play against when he doesn't have access to Odins Blessing and Rainbow Bridge for example). 

Instead Gladiator brings two cards of his own: 

Fluff win; game play fail? It's pretty expensive and the question is if you want to spent the power on Gladiator for it at all. But it starts to come out to a net power gain once you've got 3 Confidence tokens so you've already got a bit of damage through. It appears to be a win more card which I don't like. 

B. 

B. 3 Power for Got Your Back style relation attack and an M move is fair. And with his medium base and range 3 Builder he can cover a lot of ground to get to the offender. Is it worth a TTC slot? That depends on which affiliation you plan on bringing him in. Some will be stacked with their own powerful TTCs and not have room for it, some, like Winter Guard, are desperately craving for characters that come with decent personalised TTCs to even fill out their 10 slots. 

Where does Gladiator fit then?

As he's unaffiliated we'll quickly go through every affiliation in the game to see if there's something there for him: 

A-Force: Making your core 12 threat and unaffiliated with him also not being able to contribute to Special Delivery makes this combination not super diserable. He does love the leadership though as it makes his charge easier and the incentive to chip him down is counter acted by him powering up his allies when he takes damage. B-. 

Asgard : Thor, Prince of Asgard loves him and vice versa. It gives you a route to have a big beater character on the board and still use the best affiliated 5 threat. Gladiator also loves Thor's leadership very very much. Probably the route I will go with Ol' Glady myself. A 20 threat squad of Jane, Thor 2, Gladiator and Valkyrie seems.. all right, too. A. 

Avengers: Classic Steve is good for him for obvious reasons. He has to beat out affiliated Hulk though. B. 

Black Order: He will get you kills and likes Death Decree but fitting in a splash 6 in BO is incredibly difficult. C. 

Brotherhood of Mutants: He likes extra power well enough and can throw a lot himself, so Magento leadership is nice for him. Another 12 threat package though. B-. 

Cabal: Either Red Skull is great for him as he wants to attack a lot and if you can somehow fit him in Malekith Cabal he's also a good trigger person for the leadership as well as a benifitior. B+. 

Convocation: Bumping around reactively is pretty good for him. No direct synergies otherwise. B. 

Criminal Syndicate : He is fast and pretty tough so that's good for Kingpin. He also wants to make as many attacks as possible so Shadowland Daredevil leadership is also good for him. MODOK leadership will not be as good for him I think as he doesn't want to camp on a secure but rather go hunt your opponents extract carriers but it's not a bad leadership for him either. He should not contribute at all to a Klaw plan however or something has gone very wrong. The biggest downside here is that you commit 6 of your threat that can't be protected with Shadow Organisation and can't contribute to All According To Plan. B.

Dark Dimension: Thor 2 in Dormammu is the new hotness so it doesn't appear to be impossible to fit in a 6 with Dorm. B. 

Defenders: Kallarak wants to be in the fight permanently but his superior range to any pure melee characters means he shouldn't be in Range 2 of multiple enemy characters if he can help it. So DDs leadership probably isn't the best for him. In all honesty Doctor Strange leadership feels very interesting for him. His extra dice means it's more likely that you'll actually get the damage through to trigger it and on his scalable Beam that can be absolutely devastating in potentially handing out Hex and Incinerate to multiple enemy models in one action. B+. 

Guardians of the Galaxy:: You know what affiliation is great for making a splash Kaiju shine? Yes Guardians are fittingly a very good home for Gladiator as he'll make a lot of the Wingin It tokens. A-. 

Hellfire Club : Extra power and healing is absolutely great for him. A.

Hydra : I don't think he gets used over Sleeper Agent Hulk here. Not having his throw permanently online makes it not worth as much. C. 

Inhumans : Passing him power for more Beams and Spenders seems very good. Black Bolt may also be able to Body Guard a key attack on him. A-. 

Legion of the Lost: Gladiator is certainly not a character that you want Mephisto to sacrifice into and the additional power only comes starting round 2 so it doesn't help him charge turn 1. Not a good fit for my money. C-. 

Midnight Sons : Medium base bump is very good for this guy. He even becomes a safe grab though that is probably not the role you want him to play. Elsas leadership is also interesting for him. No access to Bats and Siege is rough for such an high impact model in your squad however. B+

New Mutants : Bringing him in to punish your opponent seems good at first view, but he of course can't punish them right away. B-. 

Sentinels : Under Your Skin helps him immensely. Bleed is the bane of his existence and getting immunity to it is fantastic. The Sentinels can also pull in targets for Gladiator to kill, which in turn can trigger the leadership (if he dazes them, for inexplicable reasons not if he KO's them). A. 

Servants of the Apocalypse: He can't be a horseman and you don't want to spent 6 threat on a splash that boxes out actual Horsemen of your squads. Probably his worst home. D. 

SHIELD: Invaders is certainly a nice leadership for him and as is Fury's. Even iTony is decent for him. Sitrep also brings him in punching distance in round 1. Overall a really good fit. A. 

Spider-Foes: Extra power and condition removal is good for him under Doc Ock. Rerolling a defense dice of the opponent can help get the damage through for a confidence token. Not his best home but also not his worst. B+. 

Thralls of Dracula: Healing is a good way to counter act the chip damage your opponents will want to put on him. Not sure how often he'll get to use the leadership as he likes to stay outside of Range 2 usually. A decent spot for him. B. 

Uncanny X-Men: Storm Hop is great if it means he can save the power he'd usually spend on charge. A defensive reroll is also worth a lot for him. He does like to put out hurt and makes great use of power so Cyclops leadership is also good for him. He's also a fine contributor in Professor X though not having any active superpower available from the get go and no reactive superpowers at all means it's his worst spot amongst the three X-Men leaders. Overall a good spot for him anyway. A-. 

Wakanda: Classic Black Panther leadership is fine for Gladiator, M'Baku probably good while neither of Killmonger, Usurpers or King Ts leaderships are desirable at all for him. B. 

Weapon X: Fighting with Servants to be his worst spot. D.

Web Warriors: A defensive reroll and a skull unlock from Miles is pretty good,though I think the SHIELD version of it is better for him for the other synergies there. Gladiator is not really a character for the typical WW play style. Might be interesting if you want to play them more aggressive. B-. 

Winter Guard : Automatic condition removal is very good for Gladiator and here you definitely also have space for one or both of his personal TTCs. B+. 

X-Force: An offensive reroll is good for him and ignoring cover also helps get the important damage through. Cable can also help him with shields to prevent him from taking damage. B+

So theres some places where I think he'll really shine, very few where he has absolutely no home and in the vast majority of places he'll be fine to good. Which in all honestly is a pretty good place to see a 6 threat land these days. 

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