The Book of Iron Man (Avengers)

[IAmBatman]

280's looking good.

[Tornado]

If we are going to Re-eval Red Skull, perhaps we should not be using him for playtests.

That second build does not look that good. A little surprised they won that one.
Did the CRB suggest army builds here?

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

280's looking good.

I don't know... most of that damage was on low rankers... I'm wondering if he's falling a tiny bit weak right now? Not horribly, but he's feeling more like 260/270 to me than 280/290. (270 would be fine by me, though... 260 feels a bit low.)

Originally Posted by Tornado

If we are going to Re-eval Red Skull, perhaps we should not be using him for playtests.

That second build does not look that good. A little surprised they won that one.
Did the CRB suggest army builds here?

Natasha and Wasp were awesome! That was a fun game.
I'm trying to go through pairing him with every other Avengers leader. Never played Wasp before, so...



Red Skull's never given me major problems, and he's not been enough of a problem to be placed as a 'no test figure' in the Playtesting forum the way figures were in days of yore... I'll consider him fair game until told otherwise.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

I don't know... most of that damage was on low rankers... I'm wondering if he's falling a tiny bit weak right now? Not horribly, but he's feeling more like 260/270 to me than 280/290. (270 would be fine by me, though... 260 feels a bit low.)

His first game was against a figure we're leaning towards reevaluating and his second game (a win) was without the figure he's most designed to work around. Even if you want him to be viable without Cap, his cost is ultimately going to be based on armies with Cap, because that's just his most solid, competitive pairing.

I'm not seeing reason to move off of 280 from what you posted.

[Arkham]

I'd stay 280 for now. A botched/low defense roll happens for every figure. That's no reason to be concerned on him being weak, IMO. I also agree with the above sentiments. He's supposed to work best with Cap, and still be decent without him, which he seemed to have been.

I'd also stray from using Red Skull until he's figured out.

[Scapemage]

The Red Skull test is no problem for the moment, but I wouldn't advise further uses for the time being. I just recently used Mad Thinker in a test right before we started the heavy talk about him.

280 does seem to be holding up.

[Yodaking]

Even though Robot has been recommended to me for testing, I'm staying away from him as he appears to be under priced to me and I don't want the fact that he's too good for his points to result in the card be tested needing to be overpriced to balance the two together. I don't have as big a concern about Red Skulls price, but the Cosmic Cube does make it hard to test some units since it is a hard counter to just about everyone. Auto-Wounds and moving figures against their will can really hurt a designs' performance to a point where you don't learn anything about the figure you're testing.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Even though Robot has been recommended to me for testing, I'm staying away from him as he appears to be under priced to me and I don't want the fact that he's too good for him points to result in the card be tested needing to be overpriced to balance the two together. I don't have as big a concern about Red Skulls price, but the Cosmic Cube does make it hard to test some units since it is a hard counter to just about everyone. Auto-Wounds and moving figures against their will can really hurt a designs' performance to a point where you don't learn anything about the figure you're testing.

To be fair, I sincerely doubt Red Skull skewed test one - the cube was effectively kept out of his hands most of the game by Stark hitting him with an explosion, only really getting used when the Masters broke through the Avengers front line and he managed to reclaim it for a little use against Cap before being taken down. I'd actually say that the Man of the Match for the Masters of Evil was Jason rather than Johann - he just kept harassing the Avengers, forcing them to waste their time putting down someone who's going to come back, and allowing Schmidt and Bucky to wear them down through conventional means with limited reprisal.

I won't use him in Test Three though - anyone have any ideas for solid builds with C3G Thanos that don't use Red Skull?

[dok]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Did the CRB suggest army builds here?

I did suggest one slightly silly high-point build:

Originally Posted by dok

In high point games there's some silly opportunities to leverage a huge initiative bonus.

280 Iron Man (Avengers)
240 Captain America (C3G)
300 Martian Manhunter (I)
190 Joker (I)
90 Angel
90 Vulture
135 Blob
100 Armor
120 Zombie
1425

Everybody gets an Avenger marker, for a nice fat +9 to initiative (that means you win about 86% of the time). On all your initiative wins you get Joker OM rearrangement and Tony taking Steve's turn. Martian Manhunter moves your dudes around like crazy on OM2 and OM3, with Angel and Vulture helping him.

Setting that aside, more generally speaking, Cap+Iron Man is kind of a no-brainer combo. After that, I suggest picking some sort of budget bonding option, possibly with sidekicks or the like. This allows you to fill up on cheap heroes who build up your Avenger marker total and gives you the chance to get double activations on your OM2 and OM3.

For example, I'd consider Wild Child and Armor/Yukio, along with a couple Healing Factor Mutants (X-23 and Marrow, maybe). That's a bit over 1200, but the bottom line is that these Avengers builds are going to be on the expensive side.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by dok

I did suggest one slightly silly high-point build:

Setting that aside, more generally speaking, Cap+Iron Man is kind of a no-brainer combo. After that, I suggest picking some sort of budget bonding option, possibly with sidekicks or the like. This allows you to fill up on cheap heroes who build up your Avenger marker total and gives you the chance to get double activations on your OM2 and OM3.

For example, I'd consider Wild Child and Armor/Yukio, along with a couple Healing Factor Mutants (X-23 and Marrow, maybe). That's a bit over 1200, but the bottom line is that these Avengers builds are going to be on the expensive side.

I'd definitely like to see that build used in public, but I don't really feel comfortable using Joker for tests myself - I test solo, and Reorganised Chaos is a tricky power to replicate in such a setting.
Cap+IM is a no brainer combo, which is why it was the first I used. I'm going to be trying him with Ms. Marvel next, to try to see if he's worth taking which each of the other Avenger hubs solo (which is my goal).

[Tornado]

I thought this IM is designed to work with Cap. Any build without Cap feels like a waste of time right now.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Tornado

I thought this IM is designed to work with Cap. Any build without Cap feels like a waste of time right now.

It is, but they shouldn't need to be joined at the hip. There have been enough tensions between them and enough times that Stark's had a leadership role in an Avengers team without Cap that if he needs Cap to be worth drafting and isn't worth playing with the other Avengers leaders, that's, IMO, a failed design.