C3G Unit Discussion - SSE S1 ; Part 2

[FreshFoods]

Squad #2, The Street Thugs

[IAmBatman]

They are, obviously, all about the bonding. Here's the list of released Crime Lords (lots of options!):

Red Mist
Ventriloquist
Black Mask (I)
Penguin (I)
Owl
Two-Face (I)
Penguin (II)
Black Mask (II)
Crime Master
Two-Face (II)
Hun
The Hood
Blockbuster
Kingpin (II)
Hobgoblin
Black Tarantula

[FreshFoods]

Scrolling through the Crime Lords, Hobgoblin and Penguin (II) seem to work pretty well with the Thugs. Hobgoblin lowers defense for the player turn, letting the Thugs do a little more with their 2 attack, and Penguin's Criminal Syndicate is pretty easy to activate with Thugs, since they're cheap and you can bring a lot of them.

[Lazy Orang]

One of the things about the Thugs which frustrated me for a long time is that... a large number of existing Crime Lords don't want them. So many of them have synergy powers that mean you want the OMs on the Crime Lord's card. The Hood, Two-Face and Black Mask's second versions, you name it - even Penguin II's more keyed into passive support, though they do like Criminal Syndicate and he works well with a lot of the bonding options they do like, he's just not the best bonding option for them. Of the others, Red Mist is cheap and fairly crap, Ventriloquist isn't that good either, Two-Face (vI) is a lot of fun but one of the swingiest figures in the game and Penguin vI is a liability a lot of the time (although would probably not be so bad if you put him with the Thugs as your first strike unit, to get him killed before Self Importance becomes a problem). Black Mask vI is often maligned as well, though I feel unfairly - I did an entire article on that actually!
Owl, Blockbuster, Hobgoblin and Black Tarantula are all great looking front line bonding heroes for them with different strengths and power-levels, though, as is Hun, though you'll probably want to take some Ninja if you're going with him. Owl, Blockbuster, Hobgoblin and Hun are all recent additions, and I feel have done a lot to finally bring the Thugs back to relevance and give them some decent options, at last! Kingpin's an odd one, since he really isn't a front-line fighter at all, but I've often found that taking a single squad of Thugs as bodyguards for him a lot more capable of fighting off the last few enemies if your army's gone and the game's gone to the wire. I imagine the same is likely true for Crime Master?

[FreshFoods]

Good point on Kingpin and Crime Master. I could definitely see one squad helping either of them squeeze out a victory, either tying a scary unit down in melee, or just throwing some ranged shots at someone.

Just read through your Black Mask article, and you've completely flipped my view on him! I considered him straight up worthless, but I can see him with some Street Thugs being pretty scary, or horrifying on the right map. Nice write up L_O!

I could see some thugs (2-3), Black Mask I, and Hobgoblin being a solid start to an army.

[IAmBatman]

I think the biggest issue the Thugs have competitively, other than that they are pretty swingy based on the map (concrete/asphalt, yes please) is that the combination of the Hired Guns and Bodyguards is often a lot more effective with Crime Lords than the Street Thugs are.

[Dysole]

Kingpin (II), Street Thugs, Hobgoblin, Two-Face (II) and making Speedball a criminal seems like a super interesting way to play since Speedball will be ignoring attacks at least 80% of the time.

~Dysole, who could probably gerrymander around something else but she likes the basic premise

[FreshFoods]

C3G's first form of The Man of Steel, Superman

[MrNobody]

I used this guy in my (2nd-place winning ) army in the C3GCon tourney. Superman I, the unreleased Jon Kent Superboy, Zatanna II, and Liu Kang. With Zatanna along, Liu Kang more or less outclasses Superman in attack power, so Supes is basically there to tank attacks with his boosted defense from Liu Kang and Zatanna. Position him correctly and he can block most ranged attacks against your allies, and you can use Zatanna to reposition him as you please.

[IAmBatman]

He's no Hulk (II), but Superman (I) is our OG tough guy! If anyone was setting the tone of the metagame from the get-go, it was this guy, and he can still tank an entire army's offensive output by himself (especially if it's mostly 6 attack or lower normal attacks).

He definitely has some (by design) holes in his game (special attacks, auto-wounding, auto-destroy, mind control, Order Marker manipulation) and Heroic Duty is as much of a negative power as a positive one (due to using it to set him up for leaving engagement attacks).

He's a good value as a beat stick for the cost, though, so I typically find him most effective as a torpedo to take out lynchpin pieces on the other side while absorbing lots of attacks before falling. This is especially true if you can complement him in such a way as to cover his weaknesses or take out figures that would exploit his weaknesses before sending him up.

Krypto and Superboy (Jon) are good additions if you want to run him as the core of the army, and as a Champion he fits well with Justice League armies as well (Wonder Woman (III) and Green Arrow (II) are good pals). But mostly I think it works to build a 600 point army separate from him and then tag him on as a heavy to deal with some difficult to kill pieces on the other side.

I'll say this, though: Soundwarp once said (half in jest, but not fully) that if you don't have auto-wounding, your army isn't competitive. 7 Defense + Man of Steel is a huge reason why I find that to be true.

[FreshFoods]

I really like how simple this Superman is. X-Ray Vision is very situational, Man of Steel is simple but makes him really durable, and Heroic Duty is great for covering your squishier allies.

His stat line is pretty bananas, 7 Life + 7 Defense/Man of Steel means he needs some high firepower to bring down. He's a bit more impressive defensively than he is offensively due to his powers, but 8 Move/7 Atk is still crazy, crazy good.

Kryptonian synergies are pretty limited at the moment, but Superman doesn't really need synergies to shine. Park him beside a ranged attacker, laugh as your enemy is forced to attack Supes with their range, and use him to beat down anyone that comes into melee.

He doesn't have any way to get around powers that affect his movement, so locking him down and cleaning up his allies is my preferred way to handle him. There are a good amount of units that can stop his movement, so it's usually not too tough for a faction to bring someone to slow him down.

[Tornado]

You can also swarm him and force him to take a bunch of LEAs.

The Kryptonian synergy is getting better as well as Champion.