edit: Might've posted this in the wrong place, dug so deep in Combat Reviews. Attempting to post in an area with a broader audience.

With my hours at work piling up and no end in sight, I decided I would be starting a new weekly for y'all trapped at work with me.

Allow me to give you a little background as to why I'm doing this.

Having being around ever since Hypertime hit the shelves, I actually went rogue on my DC-only group and started to amass Infinity Challenge and Clobberin' Time figures. I recall the day I unleashed the *ROOKIE SABRETOOTH* on them and rolled a 6 on the first attack I ever took with B/C/F...needlessly to say, foul was called

Ever since then, we've gone multi-universe, collecting every last single piece ever created for the game of Heroclix. Then we started to lament about the lack of theme cohesiveness amongst the figures.

Then came out Avengers and a load of keywords. Our dreams had become reality. Until we saw the generic keywords...to this day, I still have yet to run a single team using generic keywords. I'm all about the actual teams we've grown to love in comics. I've gone out of my way to fit in a certain figure, even if it weakened the team overall...it's all about accuracy with me, baby!

With that as the basis for my articles, I'll be talking about teams I intend on running during that weekend's matches, the reasons I chose specific figures, and the strategy I'm hoping to employ.

The goal with this is to encourage team building based on non-generic pieces and to provide feedback to those seeking pure comic-like teams.

Most times than not, I will be strictly in-universe. As in, every last single element of a team will be from a single universe. In very rare cases, I will be using feats from another universe if only to optimize a team's performance, but I usually bristle against that. I'm that much of a purist

So, without further ado, here's my entry for this weekend's battle!

The People of E2 - 400 points DC
E2 Superman w/ Fortitude/Damage Shield/Unstoppable
Lois Lane BY (Crisis, the old Lois)
Martha Kent BY
Jonathan Kent BY
Jimmy Olson BY (it's OlsEn, WizKids!!!)
Lana Lang BY
Perry White BY
Maggie Sawyer BY
Paperboy BY
Security Guard BY
Businesswoman BY

edit: at the suggestion of Puuka and Simon's correction regarding Carr, I've swapped him and the Scientist/Driver for Maggie Sawyer

BFCs: Ordinary Day, Isolation, Communication Breakdown

The reason I chose this team and theme is the fact that I had never run E2 Superman ever since I opened a booster with him in it. Danged 300-point booster battles! The rest of the team are Metropolis-affiliated, especially with Clark Kent/Superman.

Clearly, this is DC-only, and what a team at that! Definitely starring a tentpole in E2 Superman, he is surrounded by the bystander versions of the citizens of Metropolis. Lois, his wife; Jon and Martha Kent, his parents; Jimmy, his trusty shutterbug sidekick; Lana, a good old friend; Perry, his boss; Snapper, a Metropolis regular; and the unassuming everyday people of Metropolis in the Paperboy, Scientist, Security Guard, Metropolis Transit Driver, and Businesswoman.

Obviously, those bystanders server no other purpose than LOF-blocking, tie-up, keeping them strategically positioned to give Superman the maximum protection from the opposing force. And perhaps the rare sucker punch here and there with a good roll.

The strategy evolving around Superman is to keep him away from harm, picking his targets carefully, especially those who can cleave through his dial quickly using penetrating attacks.

Fortitude is there to ignore those pesky cheap Outwitters, leaving only the Psychic Blast figures for Superman to focus on at the beginning, if any at all. Coupled with his Superman Ally TA and 10-space Charge, said PB figures are in for a world of hurt should they choose to stay on the fringes and within range.

Damage Shield is a great feat to encourage the opposition to stay away; should they choose to come in close and smack Superman anyway, they'll take a click of damage in retaliation...even if Superman hits his Impervious roll. The awesome thing about Damage Shield is that it works on 8 of his 10 clicks, so 80% of the time the opponent hits him up in close combat, they're taking a click if they don't have at least Toughness.

Lastly, for 5 points, I couldn't find anything that served better than Unstoppable. Allowing me to bust down walls with a free action as part of my move action and placing bystander fodder in the opening is quite invaluable as it saves you time and actions busting down a wall and moving into position. You now can move, bust down a wall, and get into position all for one action.

Don't forget the fact that Superman can attack for free in close combat, yet another deterrent to stay away from him, benefiting me and his 10-range capability. Resisting the urge to Charge into the thick of things would be crucial to the success of this team. Take your time, position Superman for one killer shot, move in the bystanders for protection, and eventually your opponent will overreach trying to get to Superman. This is when you bring down a world of hurt.

The BFC choices are pretty straightforward: Ordinary Day to get rid of anything that works against my team, especially Protect the Innocent; Isolation to slow down those Defenders/JSA/Spider-Enemies/Bat-Enemies team and not allow a pump of AVs to hit Superman's high defense; the same concept is applied with Communication Breakdown, usually choosing Attack to deny any boosts towards figures attempting to hit Superman with a lower AV. A 9AV stays a 9 against Superman's opening 18, rather than having the opposition pump up the stat and hedge their bets.

And this is all in a 400-point ceiling/scenario. Not a team to scoff at, that's for sure, especially when the opponent uses up all of his 4 actions to get rid of...4 bystanders, barring misses.

Thoughts, feedback, suggestions, whatnot...POST HERE!

BATTLE RESULTS: It took all of a couple of minutes, a few dice rolls, and it was over. My pal laughed when we called out our bonuses for the map roll and I told him I was running a one-man army and he proudly displayed his Legion of Doom team, all from AA: Bizarro w/ Drag, Solomon Grundy w/ Move Through, and Black Manta. He easily won map roll and chose the outdoor Doom Castle map. I ask him if he is playing a BFC and he doesn't so I slap down Communication Breakdown, choosing Attack so Black Manta doesn't pump himself up on his Psychic Blast clicks.

Then I brought out E2 Superman and his entourage; promptly, he hands me the victory but we go through the motions for the heck of it.

Going first, my pal splits up Grundy, grabbing a HO, and Bizarro, putting them both within E2 Superman's full Charge range. I choose to smack up Grundy and he fails the Impervious roll, landing on his 10AV Flurry click...oh, great. I move up a couple of bystanders for posterity's sake but especially setting up Sawyer and the Policeman for a few potshots on whoever came into range.

Come his turn, he flurries up Superman, landing the first attack with the HO but Clark rolls and hit Impervious; Grundy lands the follow-up Flurry and Superman fails the Impervious roll but I gladly take this click, getting a bit closer to HSS. He sets up Black Manta for a PB shot on Superman, not really checking for LOF, clearing Bizarro. My turn, I mostly clear but not before taking the free smack on Grundy, which puts him on his Regen click but with two tokens.

Gleefully, my pal quickly Perplexes his Damage but I check LOF and sure enough, Grundy's blocking it and he groans massively, knowing that his chance has totally slipped away. Instead, he sets up Bizarro smack dab in the middle of my bystanders, sensing the end. Sure enough, the free action attack drops Grundy and I charge up Manta, hitting him off the PB/Perplex clicks. It's all downhill from there although we took sheer fun in seeing whether Sawyer, the Cop, and several Bystanders were able to hit Bizarro and his insane late-dial DVs of 18-20 before Clark, now on his HSS click after being miraculously hit once by Bizarro (that doubles = 5/5 sure is nifty as he rolled a 4/4 at the time for a "miss"), handed him his reverse butt back to Bizarro World.

Luckily, I brought a back-up theme team (a GENERIC keyword theme team, at that!!! *shocker* ) that took a good while to finish up; check back on Thursday for what team I ran and what I faced in the second installment of Theme Team Weekly Spotlight!

If you wanted to put a BST on there with a bit of a bite on her, Maggie Sawyer was part of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit and she's a 10 point BST. There are also the REV Metropolis SCU figures from HT at 16, 18 and 21 points.

Great idea for an article. I like how you will sacrifice team strength in the name of fun comic accuracy. Hopefully you will be able to make this a weekly article.

That team is missing Origin Batman...he's from Earth-2 as well (although from E2 Supes' youth).

It's odd to see someone talking about how excruciatingly exact they are with themes... only to end up with "Snapper Carr" on an Earth-2 team. Bwuh?

I'm also not positive that the Earth-2 Kents were Jonathan and Martha, since the Golden Age Kents kept changing names.

Great thread.
Great team.
Not "theme" by the rules.
I hope this works, any help with this game is appreciated.

Carr isn't from Metropolis? Admittedly I'm not too familiar with the character but I could've sworn he was from Metropolis?

As for the Kents, they were the next best thing.

As for Origin Batman, I wasn't sure if he was E2 indeed...that just might change the make up of this team, all right.

Fun's the name of my game and I usually win while having fun, so that combo can't be beat!

Definitely weekly as Thursdays at work is the most longest for me...7:30a - 9:00p!

Battle results now posted in the 1st post. Here it is, quoted: