She-Hulk (Avengers)

[Arkham]

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Oh, I thought you wanted the Hawkeye interaction here. If that doesn't matter then I'd just make her cut the attack phase itself yeah.

I did, yes. Because I love encouraging best builds being in faction, and I've read several issues where they've all interacted, even if not considered iconic pairings, per say. Also just a very well intricated combo, IMO, that feels slick. Especially when you finish it off with Spider-Woman, or support them with Quicksilver. Truly feels like a solid team working together, giving up this to have a teammate step in and do that etc.

[Arkham]

Version tested:

NAME = SHE-HULK
IDENTITY = JENNIFER WALTERS

UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
SPECIES = MUTATE
CLASS = DEFENDER
PERSONALITY = IMPULSIVE

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 7

MOVE = 7
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 7
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 370

AIDING AVENGER
Before an ally in the Avengers faction or Hulk Family faction's ordered activation, you may activate She-Hulk. If you do, that ally skips its attack phase during its activation, and She-Hulk cannot be activated again this turn.

SENSATIONAL SMASH!
Instead of She-Hulk's move phase, you may choose She-Hulk and/or 1 adjacent ally. Place the chosen figures on connecting spaces within 6 spaces. If you place 1 figure, you may roll a damage die against 1 figure adjacent to it and, if She-Hulk was placed, she has -3 Attack for the rest of this activation.

"OBJECTION!"
Once per game, if a figure adjacent to She-Hulk is activated, you may end that figure's activation.

FACTION = AVENGERS
PUBLISHER = MARVEL
KEYWORDS = Gamma
SYMBOLS = SUPER STRENGTH, TOXIC RESISTANCE

She-Hulk(370), Wasp(160), Hawkeye(220), Quicksilver(250) (1000)
vs.
JLA Trinity (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

She-Hulk notes:
-2 wounds on WW
-She-Hulk objects to WW's activation.
-1 wound on WW, kills her.
-3 wounds on Superman.
-1 wound on Batman.
-1 wound on Batman.

Wasp notes:
-Wasp kills Batman

Notes:
R1: JLA win init.
-Hawkeye replaces She-Hulk's attack, since she can't reach anything, putting 1 wound on WW.
-Hawkeye puts 1 wound on Superman.
-Batman puts 2 wounds on Hawkeye.
-Superman takes 1 wound instead for WW.
-Superman puts 4 wounds on She-Hulk.
-Hawkeye puts 1 wound on Superman.

R2: JL win init.
-Superman avoids swipe, puts 2 wounds on Quicksilver.
-Quicksilver saves She-Hulk from being defeated, putting 2 wounds on WW.
-Superman puts 2 wounds on Quicksilver.
-Quicksilver kills Superman with MD.

R3: JL win init.
-Batman kills QS
-Hawkeye puts 1 wound on Batman.
-Batman kills She-Hulk.

Results:
Hawkeye with 2/4 wounds. (2 life)
Wasp unwounded.

Felt like anyone's game and fairly evenly matched. Came down to the dice.

She-Hulk definitely felt noticeably more restrained/weaker. Couldn't quite leap to where she wanted to a couple times, and forcing the carried figure to also be placed within 6 spaces(meaning not getting that extra slingshot space), kept it further in check. Her attack subtraction made you have to think more about using her in the leap, too. Quicksilver had to save her from being defeated early by Superman. All of to say, she's been defanged IMO, but still felt fun & usable.

I do have possible concerns that we're effectively making Wasp solid on her own without She-Hulk, as she can now choose to get up into the mix with some insurance in Quicksilver if you choose, or instead keep her back while Hawkeye moves and attacks on her activation. That's good. But I'm not sure She-Hulk would be very great, without Wasp? Can anyone shed some light on other possible decent pairings that maybe I'm not thinking of atm?

Wonder if its worth considering letting the one she's bonding with still get their attack phase, but if they take it your turn immediately ends? So she can effectively choose to bond with 1 other figure fully, but it cuts off right after their attack phase, or they do skip it, your turn carries on as normal?

[MrNobody]

Maybe it's just a matter of adjusting for cost? In that build you're moving with 4 figures and attacking with 3, every turn, until someone falls. I don't really think we want to push turn efficiency harder than that, y'know?

Is it that Sensational Smash isn't pulling its weight anymore? Her bonding is obviously buffed and it seems like she was one of the last figures to fall, so the defense drop didn't seem to have a huge impact. Maybe tweaking Sensational Smash back up and then just lowering points until she feels good is the way to go?

Maybe try her with Iron Man, btw. That combo doesn't leave many points left for other figures, but 3 full turns a round seems nasty.

[Arkham]

For context, without Quicksilver, She-Hulk would have been dead on turn 1 of round 2. Her being one of the last figures to fall is irrelevant, given that context lol. Quicksilver absolutely played a major role in keeping their team together. Had he not been there, the whole game would have played out differently. Including opening up Wasp to a blitz from Superman, or Hawkeye being finished off.

As for moving 4 figures... Movement isn't the be all end all. It also needs context too. Sure, Wasp could move, but why would she? She can't use her attack. So putting her closer to danger doesn't add any value. So really, it's more like 3 figures being moved. But, that would also rely on She-Hulk having an ally to toss every turn, which isn't realistic or easy to do, either. So I'm not following the logic of your first statement there.

Iron Man + She-Hulk would leave 360 points. So you could get 1 other heavy hitter...or 2 lower pointers, so his bonding would be done in a single turn. Keep in mind, if Iron Man were one of those activations, he would still not be able to use his attack phase.

I'm not sure what the answer is FYI. I'm cool with how things played in that army. I still like the pairings there. Every person pulled their weight in that build, and it was fun, which is great. My curiosity is whether She-Hulk can be used effectively outside of Wasp builds, or if these changes simply allow Wasp other options but not her?

[MrNobody]

Fwiw when I was counting movements, I was counting (1) She-Hulk, during her activation, (2) Wasp, during her activation, (3) Hawkeye, moving 3 spaces during his attack swap-in, and (4) Quicksilver, during his activation. So counting She-Hulk's pseudo-carry gets you up to 5 (or in this case, 4 with 1 figure getting double-moved.)

R2 death for Shulk is fairly rough.

Keep in mind, if Iron Man were one of those activations, he would still not be able to use his attack phase.

This is muddy and probably worth clarifying?

The Avengers have a lot of bonding option stuff, so even if Wasp is still ideal, I feel like there's plenty of other options? Cap + Winter Soldier, Avengers Spidey, sticking someone in the Hulkbuster, etc. Heck, stick her with Avengers Logan and any of the bajillion units that bond with him, and just go wild with his d20 flurry thingy. I personally think she'll be good on options.

[IAmBatman]

Do any of the faction bonders (Iron Man, Ms. Marvel) work? Do Captain America and Winter Soldier?

[IAmBatman]

The tested version skips the attack phase, so the Hawkeye swap in shouldn’t work as a third attack

[MrNobody]

Ahhhhh, thanks for pointing that out Bats.

[japes]

Yeah the change to skipping the attack phase fixes that.

Personally it looks like this latest version tested works. They hung with the Trinity which is a known entity as far as power level and Ark said they were fun so I think that was enough of a tweak here.

As far as outside of a Wasp build, feels like there could be some good trickier builds out there without Iron Man, Ms Marvel, Wasp types of bonding and finding some figures that have more transition phase wounds that don't mind skipping their attack phase to give Jen an activation.

[IAmBatman]

If nothing else, you have the Cap pairing, where you can reveal an OM on Cap, then activate She-Hulk and then activate Cap (with no attack phase). I'm not sure what wording we have exactly on Winter Soldier and sidekick Spidey, but there may be possibility for another activation in there.

[Arkham]

Version tested:

NAME = SHE-HULK
IDENTITY = JENNIFER WALTERS

UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
SPECIES = MUTATE
CLASS = DEFENDER
PERSONALITY = IMPULSIVE

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 7

MOVE = 7
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 7
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 370

AIDING AVENGER
Before an ally in the Avengers faction or Hulk Family faction's ordered activation, you may activate She-Hulk. If you do, for the remainder of this turn, that ally skips its attack phase and She-Hulk cannot be activated again.

SENSATIONAL SMASH!
Instead of She-Hulk's move phase, you may choose She-Hulk and/or 1 adjacent ally. Place the chosen figures on connecting spaces within 6 spaces. If you place 1 figure, you may roll a damage die against 1 figure adjacent to it and, if She-Hulk was placed, she has -3 Attack for the rest of this activation.

"OBJECTION!"
Once per game, if a figure adjacent to She-Hulk is activated, you may end that figure's activation.

FACTION = AVENGERS
PUBLISHER = MARVEL
KEYWORDS = Gamma
SYMBOLS = SUPER STRENGTH, TOXIC RESISTANCE

She-Hulk(370), Cap(240), Spider-Man(280), Oracle(110) (1000)
vs.
JLA Trinity (1000)

Spoiler Alert!

She-Hulk notes:
-2 wounds on WW. (-3 from leap, +1 from Cap, +1 hit from Oracle)
-Objects to WW's activation.
-Tosses Cap into Superman for 1 wound.
-Tosses Spider-Man into Superman for 1 wound.
-3 wounds on WW, kills her. (+1 from Cap, +1 hit from Oracle)
-2 wounds on Superman.

Notes:
R1: JLA win init.
-Batman puts 1 wound on Spider-Man.
-Spider-Man puts 1 wound on WW.
-Superman puts 4 wounds on Cap.

R2: Avengers win init.
-Spider-Man puts 1 wound on Superman.
-Superman kills Cap.

R3: Avengers win init.
-Spider-Man puts 2 wounds on Batman.
-Superman puts 4 wounds on She-Hulk.
-Superman kills She-Hulk.

R4: JLA win init.
-Superman puts 3 wounds on Spider-Man.
-Superman kills Spider-Man.

R5: JLA win init.
-Oracle puts 1 wound on Superman.
-Superman puts 2 wounds on Oracle.

R6: JLA win init.
-Superman puts 1 wound on Oracle.
-Superman kills Oracle.

Results:
Superman with 6/7 wounds. (1 life)
Batman with 2/4 wounds. (2 life)

Felt really close in the end. Oracle almost killed Superman, but he got just enough blanks to block it. Though she still had a half life Batman to contend with, who could have tried kiting her. The rest of the match felt fairly even.

It felt decent. I'm not sure she adds a lot to the build, as Spider-Man could just bond the whole match with her anyway, but getting the slight upgrade of her attack vs. Cap's on turn 1, isn't nothing I suppose, assuming she didn't leap. Extra movement is a little nice.

Overall I think we're good here on the sanity testing. She feels weaker, but still playable and fun in certain builds.

[IAmBatman]

Figures who can do stuff on just a move (Spider-Woman, Archangel, etc.) will probably be good pairings. Seems good to go forward.