It's been almost two and a half years since I wrote the first, “Build for Everything” article. The point and purpose of the article is to explain how to build your teams in a way that prepares you for any strategy that your opponent brings to table without hampering your fun. As the first article was very long, this second edition of it will be, too. There will be a lot of reiteration of points made in the original article as well as some new points that will be made due to changes to the game over the last two years. Since I'm making some new points and reiterating some old points, this is the same article as before, at its core, but there are significant changes. Since that's the case, this article is simply called...


As before, I have to say that knowing the rules, errata, clarifications, faqs and other rule-based material is the first and most effective step to building forces and playing them effectively. "Build for Everything" definitely comes after that.

I always tell people that they should "build for everything". It often comes up in discussion after our games. I hear players make excuses like, "There's no way to deal with that", or complain about how impossible it was to win. Granted, there are a few broken builds out there that are nearly impossible to get through due to loopholes in the rules, but if you build your force right, you'll have a chance against 99% of all strategies.

"What do you mean by 'build for everything'?"

Well, there's a lot of discussion about how to beat specific strategies and there's always the counterpoint that if you build to beat a specific strategy then you won't be able to deal with any other strategies. That is often, but not always, true. Don't build for one thing or for two things. Not for one fish or two fish. Not red fish or blue fish.

Build for Everything
"Build for everything" means to build your force to include all the tools you need to deal with anything and everything that comes up without zoning in on anything specific. You don't need to (and probably shouldn't) think about playing against specific strategies while building your force. Instead, build the basic idea of the force you want to run then find its weaknesses.

Examples:

• If you have a lot of characters with low damage on your force then your weakness is damage reducers on opposing characters. You'll need to either increase your damage, use penetrating damage or prevent your damage from being reduced to zero.
• If you have a lot of characters with little to no damage reducers then opposing characters with high damage are your weakness. You'll need to either decrease their damage, find ways to prevent the damage or keep opposing characters away from your characters altogether.
• If you don't have any characters with the Superman Ally team ability, Ultimates team ability or other ways to ignore Stealth or hindering terrain then characters with high range and Stealth are likely to be a big problem for you. They'll deal a lot of damage to you before you can get close enough to hit them.

The problem is that most people think about what they might play against rather than thinking about what they are playing with. People get too worried about the strengths of other forces rather than the weaknesses of their own. That, in my opinion, is the most ineffective approach. Sadly, this reminds me of something parents, teachers and bosses tell their employees all the time, “Don't worry about everyone else. Just worry about yourself.” I hate when they're right.

Staples
There are certain things every force should have or, if you can't fit them on your force, find alternatives. These things are frequently referred to as "staples".

Canceling, Countering and Ignoring
Personally, I would consider canceling, countering and ignoring effects to be the number one staple on a force. It's an extremely versatile answer to many problems.

Examples

• If your force has problems against opposing characters with damage reducers then you need to cancel, counter or ignore those damage reducers.
• If your force has problems against opposing characters with high damage due to objects and powers then you can counter their Super Strength or the power that is increasing their damage value (Ranged Combat Expert, Close Combat Expert, etc).
• If your force has problems against opposing characters with Stealth then you can cancel, counter or ignore the Stealth before the character gets onto hindering terrain. That's a little trickier and there are more efficient solutions to it. I'll get to them a little later.

That's not all of the specifics that canceling, countering and ignoring are good for. That's just a few. You can counter or ignore any power that's visible on a character's dial.

It's useful to remember that if you counter a power that is a prerequisite for a feat then the character can't use that feat while the prerequisite power is countered.

Speaking of stopping feats, you can also use Thwart to ignore a feat. There are many feats that give people a lot of trouble and Thwart is a good answer to all of them.

"I don't have room on my team for another character just for a specific way to cancel, counter or ignore!"

That's fine, but you'll need to adjust. Find alternative ways to cancel, counter or ignore. If you can't fit Outwit on your team to counter damage reducers then get some Exploit Weakness or Psychic Blast. If Pulse Wave isn't a good idea for your team then get a character with Outwit. Sometimes, countering is better for your team than ignoring and vice versa. You need to be able to look at your team and figure out which method is better for it (and it could be both).
You can also run more than one way to cancel, counter or ignore to really cover your bases. You can run Exploit Weakness and Psychic Blast with Outwit so that you can use your Outwit on something other than damage reducers (like "move and attack” powers and abilities).
Exploit Weakness, Outwit, Pulse Wave and Psychic Blast are the most readily available ways to counter or ignore effects, but some feats, battlefield conditions and team abilities allow character to counter/ignore effects as well.
You can even use Mind Control to take control of an opposing character, cancel its powers and abilities then lay on the damage after it returns to its owner's control.

Reroll
Secondly, coming from a guy who is perpetually cursed with low rolls, I believe every force should have some way to reroll dice rolls. The most well-known and used method is Probability Control. If you have a character available that can use Probability Control and fly, use it. Many characters with Probability Control do little more than use Probability Control so you can give them the secondary role of taxi for your nonflying characters.
Avengers Super-Rare Rookie Scarlet Witch and Justice League Rare Rookie Dream Girl are great examples of this. They fly so they ignore most terrain for movement purposes, have Probability Control and they both have versatile team abilities.
But, yes, Scarlet Witch is a Super-Rare and Dream Girl is Rare so that makes them hard to come across. No worries. You have plenty of other options. Just use the Units section to search for characters with Probability Control and wing movement.

"I don't have room on my team for another character just for Probability Control!"

Again, find alternative ways to reroll dice. Some feats (such as Lucky Break and Pummel) give you a degree of reroll for some of your characters. There are also characters with the CSA team ability that lets them use Probability Control as long as you give a token to a character on your team. If you run a theme team then you get a limited number uses of Probability Control as well.

To get cost-effective reroll, you can also combine efforts. Instead of using one character for one purpose, you can combine purposes. Get a character who has Probability Control along with another power or ability that you want on your team. You might find one character with Probability Control for 40 points and another character with Psychic Blast for around the same amount of points. Look closer and you'll probably find one character with both of those for less than the cost of both of them together. That's not the only way to combine purposes. Play around with ideas and use the Units section to see which combinations you can find on characters.

Move and Attack Powers and Abilities
Hypersonic Speed, Move and Attack ability, Running Shot and Charge. That's what people generically refer to as "move and attack powers". Every force should have "move and attack powers", but if you don't then look for alternatives (See Telekinesis and Taxiing further down). These powers allow you to move a character and attack within a single action. Without "move and attack powers" (or some alternative), you would move the character close to opposing characters on one turn, followed by either clearing on the next turn or pushing to attack on the next turn. If you choose to clear then you have to wait yet another turn before you can attack with the character. That gives your opponent way too much time to assault your character before you get a chance to do anything useful with it. If you choose to push then you might be taking pushing damage. That's not always worth it. "Move and attack powers" (or their alternatives) are most definitely staples on any force.

Combat Value Modifications
Not what I would consider a "staple", but it's a versatile solution to many problems. If your characters have low values that would normally make it hard to reach opposing characters, combat value modification makes it possible. Too far away for a Charge, modify your movement. Too far for Running Shot or Ranged Combat Expert, modify your range. Only have a 2 damage character available to hit an opposing character with Invulnerability, modify your damage. Have a high chance of missing an attack, modify your attack. If an opposing character has a high defense then you can modify their defense negatively so several of your characters can have a good chance of hitting that character (but keep in mind that the modification goes away once one of your characters finally does damage to the opposing character).
Combat value modification is the little brother of canceling, countering and ignoring and while I don't consider combat value modification a staple, I always hate to break up families. I usually have some on my teams.
Perplex is the most well-known and used way to modify combat values, but there are powers, feats, team abilities and other game effects that modify combat values. It's up to you to decide what is most cost-effective for your force.

Telekinesis
Telekinesis useful to get your characters next to any opposing character when you don't have any other way of doing it (such as "move and attack powers"). Sometimes, your characters who do have "move and attack powers" can't get close enough to attack so someone with Telekinesis can be a great aid in getting them to their destination.
However, while I wouldn't call Telekinesis a "staple", it's very useful for forces that have little to no characters with powers or abilities that allow them to move and attack in a single action. If you're lacking characters with Running Shot, Charge, Hypersonic Speed or the Move and Attack ability then Telekinesis can be a great alternative to getting your characters close to opposing characters and attack in a single turn. Moving then waiting around to attack can get your characters eliminated very quickly so you want to hit as hard and as fast as you possibly can.

Taxiing
A character who is referred to as a "taxi" is a character who has some way of carrying another character and that is one of its primary roles on your force. Lockjaw is probably the most well known "taxi". If you don't have move/attack powers on your team, you can use Telekinesis, a "taxi" or both. However, the disadvantage to using a taxi is that the character who was carried by the taxi cannot take an action in the same turn it was carried.

"Well, how is that different from just moving the character on its own, without a taxi?"

You're keeping the carried character from getting an action token from moving. You pawn that off on the taxi so that your carried character can take an action the next round without having to push. The taxi can also act as a shield for the carried character, preventing the carried character from being attacked or taking damage until it has a chance to make an attack of its own.

Visibility and Mobility
It's a big pain in a lot of sides so I'll go ahead and talk about dealing with Stealth. There aren't many ways to deal with it, especially in the restricted environment. In restricted, the easiest options are Superman Ally team ability and the Ultimates team ability. (We now also have Elite Sniper and a few characters who ignore Stealth or hindering terrain via special powers.) Characters with those team abilities ignore the effects of hindering terrain when moving or using powers, feats and team abilities. Now, if you can't squeeze that onto your force then you've also got a few tricks up your sleeve.

Many players will strategically place objects on the map to place their Stealth characters in the most advantageous position. Against characters who are using Stealth in this manner, you can use characters with Super Strength to move by and grab the object they're standing on. Now, everyone can see the Stealth character.

You can also just use a ranged combat attack to destroy the object with 3 damage or more. A Stealth character does not block line of fire to an object that is occupying the same square as the Stealth character.
You can use Telekinesis to move the object out from underneath a Stealth character. The movement of the object has to stop as soon as it enters a square adjacent to the Stealth character, but you've at least made the Stealth character visible.

You can use Telekinesis to attack with the object the character is using with Stealth. You get two birds with one stone in this way because you reveal the Stealth character and you do some damage.
You don't always have to do things to specifically reveal the Stealth character, though. Characters who have powers and abilities that allow them to move and use a close combat attack of some kind in a single action can get next to the Stealth character and damage them until they are eliminated and/or they no longer have Stealth. If your characters with powers that allow them to move and attack aren't close enough then you can use Telekinesis with another character to move your “move and attack” characters closer to the target.

If the Stealth character isn't actually on hindering terrain, but just behind it then you can get your characters onto elevated terrain in order to ignore the hindering terrain for line of fire purposes.
Dealing with Stealth is really a combination of your opponent's strengths and your weaknesses. I know I said it's a bad idea to think about your opponent's possible strengths when building your force, but thinking about your force's weaknesses trumps that. Your ranged attackers become useless if they can't see their target. Visibility (or lack there of) is your force's weakness. You give them visibility by using the methods listed above.

Stealth isn't the only reason to consider using things like the Superman Ally team ability and the Ultimates team ability. These team abilities ignore the effects of hindering terrain for movement, line of fire, powers, abilities and team abilities.

Nonflying characters with these team abilities don't have to end their movement when they enter hindering terrain from nonhindering terrain and they don't have to halve their movement when they start their movement in hindering terrain.

When a character with one of these team abilities makes a ranged combat attack against a character who is in or behind hindering terrain, the target does not get the +1 to its defense value when attacked by a character with these team abilities.

So consider using them and treat the ability to handle Stealth as an added bonus just in case it comes up during a game.

High Damage
There are many characters out there that you won't be able to touch with Outwit for various reasons. That means you can't counter their damage reducing powers. Instead, you'll have to do it the old fashioned way: Straight-up high damage dealing. There are many ways to do this and you don't have to spend insane amounts of points to get it. While running a character with Hypersonic Speed, Super Strength, Impervious and 5 damage is buckets of fun, it's also extremely expensive. Odds are, if you run that then you won't have room for your staples. This is a great opportunity to find alternatives.
Perplex, Ranged Combat Expert, Close Combat Expert, Enhancement. All great options, but there are others. I'll let you find'em.

Healing
Healing is anything that turns your characters' dials towards their starting clicks. While Support and Regeneration are the most readily available sources of healing, there are many feats, team abilities and even special objects that heal characters as well. I do consider "healing" to be a staple for a team, but I do not consider any one kind of healing to be a staple. Sometimes, Support is more appropriate (and cost-effective) than Regeneration and sometimes it's the other way around. You just have to decide what's right for your force. Explore your options and figure out what's best for your team.

Battlefield Conditions
The battlefield conditions you choose to play should probably fill in any gaps that you weren't able to fit on your team. Since people who play theme teams can ignore a battlefield condition, it's better to play BFCs that help everyone rather than hinder everyone, but you.

Examples:
If you have low attack values and little to no Perplex or other powers or effects that raise your attack values then you can play BFCs like Assembled, Back Alley Brawl and Internal Strife.
If you have a lot of grounded figures then you might play Astral Plane.
If you don't have any move/attack powers or you do have move/attack powers with high damage then you could play Inertial Interference Field.
If you're worried about your powers being countered (or just can't find anything else to play) then Resistance and White Noise are good choices.

Once your force is built and you've done everything you can to "cover your bases" then start looking for a BFC that can help you get what you couldn't fit onto your force. However, it's never a good idea to build around or rely on a battlefield condition. Theme teams have become very popular which makes it very easy for an opponent to deny you your battlefield condition.

Building for everything definitely takes a great deal of thought and effort, but it's worth it. It's not about building to win or building to annoy. It's about building to fulfill your reasons for playing the game. You want to build what is fun for you, but it's never going to happen if you're not prepared for the things that could stop you.

Alternatives
I mention alternatives to each mechanic a lot. Remember to always explore special powers when looking for alternatives. You may find something that's not as obvious as using Psychic Blast instead of using Outwit to counter defense powers or vice versa. You may find a better version of a of standard power that fits your team better.

Now, after all that, I'm sure some people are thinking, "How am I supposed to fit all that into a 300 point team?" Like I said, it takes some thought and effort, but it's possible. With the introduction of special powers, absolutely anything has become possible in HeroClix. Also, the way of the 300-point game in a tournament is starting to go the way of the dodo bird. I encourage all of you to encourage your judges to raise their standard build total to 400 points. The game is no longer tailored to anything less, but build totals should be kept at reasonable levels.

Feel free to post some ideas for teams built using, "Build for Everything".

When you linked your old version to one of my strategy articles, I thought "well, that's one topic I don't need to cover."

While my articles are trying to avoid teambuilding generally, I did have one slotted called "cover your bases."

The old one was excellent-- comments to follow when I read this one!

Thanks. I just added a little section about alternatives and I had to add a honorable mention of Thwart in the countering, canceling and ignoring section.

I really hope that new players in particular give this a read. I also think it could be a really useful read for people playing in a sealed tourney for new sets, as knowing powers and balance can really trump picking what looks like a power piece.

Nice work.

good info here I agree with building to counter as many possible threat's as you can. One small problem I have found is certain teams, have much harder time dealing with certain threats than others. * just my thinking* example to this most of the spiderman team have very few damage reducers but most does have leap climb which makes them easy to get out of dangerous combat, most have super senses to also get out of trouble. But the majority of spidermans members have very short range. So on distance attacks you have to be pretty close, which also means you can be based pretty quickly. Just throwing this out there.

It's appreciated, but the point is to stay away from specifics.