Ever face a figure or team you can't seem to take down? Then this is the series for you. We take a deeper look into those problematic pieces and Exploit their Weaknesses! In this edition, we take a look at Felix Faust, the Father of Sebastian Faust and doer of evil (as opposed to his son)!

Click "Full Story" below as we analyze this awesome figure and Exploit its Weaknesses.

Thanks for joining me in another installment of Exploiting Weaknesses! As with the other articles' precursors, Pulse Wave will not be discussed as it is almost always effective. If it isn't effective, I will point out why.

Here is the dial for reference.



Things that tell me I need to have my mystical guards ready...again:

- Mystics TA
- Improved targeting
- Slightly higher than average defense
- D20 of Magical Mayhem
- Psychic Blast

Exploiting Faust's Weaknesses

This guy is like the New England Patriots, everyone hates them except for those in New England. In Felix's case, everyone hates him except those using him. Looking at the dial is less daunting but should be covered anyway to help you succeed. Let's dive in!

We see an 18 defense up top and a perplex. Let's assume we have to face a 19 defense. We have average attack values of 11 so we need to roll an 8, not super great. We can use our own perplex to increase our attack, we can use RCE/CCE to do that same thing, we can use Outsiders against him, and we can bring some Prob Control to make sure we hit. Why is this so important, more so than any other time in the game? Because he needs just 5 damage to KO him! He has no reducer so we need to hit him hard and fast - be super aggressive. The reason for hard is you don't want him to stay on the map. If you do, he gets back dial Poison, Super Senses, and Shape Change along with still rolling his D20. Don't let him stick around! I know I have said don't throw caution to the wind when dealing with sub-100 point pieces. Here is the exception to the rule. Take him out before he gets going on the D20 because you are a couple turns away from extinction if he rolls well. We can go about doing this by sitting outside 8 range. I say 8 range because if he perplexes up his range we are still safe with his lack of a move and attack ability. We also are out of range of some of his D20 powers. We need to keep away from the Psychic Blast too so getting out 9 or more spaces is key. Meat Shields and stealth DO NOT WORK as he has IT: Characters and Hindering. Use Blocking or elevated to help shield you if you need to get in close. Mystics will be a hindrance and deal you some extra damage but if you one shot him or use pulse wave, the impact will be lowered. Beyond these things, the dial itself is not that hard to deal with. Its the D20 that hinders your ability so you will need to strike when the D20 rolls poorly.

Delving into the D20 powers, I won't cover them all but will focus on the difficult to deal with powers. Firstly, every turn the Felix Faust (FF) user must roll a d6. On a 1-4 he must re-roll the D20, on a 5-6 he may choose to re-roll. If he rolled a special symbol power then he must re-roll next turn. Now lets look at the rough powers to deal with. With 20 sides you would normally have 5% chance to get a given power but there is one side that says "Any" and can pick any power on the die so in reality it is 10% chance of getting a given power.

Colored powers wise, we have a few that give us issues: Red, Orange, Yellow, Dark Blue, Brown, and Grey.

Red sends every figure back to its starting zone. Dials and other game effects remain in their current state but all figures are placed back to whence they came. Characters that cannot be placed ignore this. There is no way to avoid this but to hit FF as quickly as possible.

Orange gives out Energy Dampener tokens to all opposing characters which denies those characters the use of Power Actions until they take another non-free action (like a move action) to remove the token. So no Running Shot, HSS, Charge, etc. This can really hamper being able to run in and hit him. You can't even TK since that is a power action (even if used as a free action like Jean Grey). Best way to get rid of these is a move action to position/re-position to hit him the next turn. If you are already have an action token or 2, this is really difficult to do and it delays your turn sequencing by 1 or 2.

Yellow allows FF to strike from anywhere to anywhere and does so with an area of affect of 5 squares (it doesn't say area of affect but uses similar verbiage). To avoid this, you will need to spread your forces out by more than 10 spaces. This sound logic but absolutely useless to your force. Ideally, we don't want to split up the force and that can be detrimental as the opposing force could single out a character and hit it hard. However, if your force can handle being separated, it is a good idea to keep them far away from each other. Now, he cannot use Psychic Blast with this power, it just deals 3 damage. No perplex or enhancement will change that. So if you have a bunch of reducers and can take a hit, no need to split up and just take it like a man .

Dark Blue replaces our speed values with 3. This more than likely means we aren't going to move far enough to strike the opposing team. Best you can do is just wait it out until next turn.

Brown tells us we can't modify or replace combat values unless it is in half (as with Running Shot or Charge). No defend, perplex, RCE, CCE, ESD, CR, Bat Enemy/Sinister Syndicate TA, no Defenders/JSA TA, etc. It is basically a suped-up, map wide Outsiders TA. No way to avoid this one either.

Grey tells us FF's team gets as many non-free actions as wanted (providing they have the characters to do so) and when taking actions outside of the 3 they are granted, they reduce your actions by the same number. So they take 6 non-free actions, you get 1 (min 1) non-free actions (unless you are successful in leadership rolls). Again, this isn't anything you can avoid - see a trend? Just wait for the special powers below.

The symbol powers are probably the most annoying and detrimental. If he rolls the , opposing characters within 7 can only take range combat actions. If he rolls , opposing characters within 7 can only be given move actions (sidestep isn't a move action). If he rolls a , opposing characters within 7 can only be given close combat actions. If he rolls a , opposing characters within 7 can't remove actions tokens. If he rolls a , opposing characters within 7 can only be given free actions. As you can see, there is nothing you can do about this except one thing which we were already doing - stay outside 8 squares. The only difference here is he can move in and take a free action to limit you. He can be carried in and do it too. Either way, there isn't much you can do about it except take it in stride and hope you survive until next time.

So, what are we doing to Faust?

- Hitting hard and fast so he can't get the D20 rolling.
- Bumping up your stats to increase the odds at hitting his 19-ish defense for 5 damage.
- Staying out of 8 range and behind elevated or blocking to keep you safer.
- Spread your forces if you can handle it or keep them close if you have good reducers.
- Pray to whatever god you worship you survive long enough to KO this guy.

That's all I have this time! Until next time, always look for the chinks in the armor and Exploit your opponent's Weaknesses!

You can use Shape Change. The opponent chooses a square, but then makes an attack that TARGETS all characters within 5. Shape Change activates on targeting.

I nominate the new Jakeem Thunder Prime for a future entry!

Oh shoot dang!!! I knew I had mixed something up! Thanks yonder Canuck!

I know a couple Yankee fans that loooove Felix. Maybe there's a connection??

That's not true


.....I'm running him on my WKO team and I still hate him and support banning him

ugh. Nice write up but a waste of time. This piece is a broken crap sandwhich. It's not even a piece, that implies a game. This is one guy playing by himself while you stare at you watch

As per your signature
"Impossibility is not an excuse for failure."

In the units section it says minimum 1, so at least you get 1 non-free action on your turn.

Missed that, thanks

Great article! When will the next one be out ?

NO figure should be described in this fashion. Thanks, WizKids.

i got him because i saw him super cheap(12 bucks free shipping) have only used him once and felt kind of like a jerk for doing so... i played him with the tw black adam(possesed by ophedian) ended up roiling the " send everyone back to their starting areas" on the d20 right as i was somewhat close to my opponents main attacker. ran up using hypersonic with black adam holding an ultra heavy did 6 damage to his tentpole then sent everyone back to their starting areas... kinda made me feel dirty to do it, lol

the game was downhill for my opponent from there

Dont get me wrong, there are several ways to destroy this figure. My favorite involves a sledgehammer