He benefits the most from Armor piercing and vendetta

I like starter Lightning Lad a lot (70 points for running shot with a huge range, and push him to pulse wave is awesome though), but I don't think he's top 5 overall. top 5 in wild card abuse maybe.

My problem with saying he's a top figure is his low defense and WC TA. The Wild Card TA forces you to invest in other figures to use with him (and let's face it, if you don't own Lois, you're spending a lot of additional points to get him anti-stealth). SO at that point you're paying 70+ X for him, where X is an anti Stealth piece.

As far as cheap Anti-Stealth goes, you're looking at Ult Wasp, who's a whole lot of meh, aside from the TA. Ult Quicksilver & / or Scarlet Witch who don't bring enough to the table for their points IMO. You're almost better served using Ult Iron Man rather than investing in Lightning Lad & Ultimate X (assuming you don't have Lois).

Back to Lightning Lad - every game I've played him in, he's served as a first strike piece, that ultimately, 80% of the time or more, gets KO'd thanks to his super soft defense. He's very good, but not great. He needs to be on a map that compliments his range, otherwise if someone gets in close to tie him up, he's just a chump.


I had very good luck with Lightning Lord equipped with Armor Piercing and managed to bust up a soldier team that included 2x starter Things. My opponent felt he needed to cluster to make use of YELP (Your Ever Loving Pal). Boy did he YELP when I dual targetted both Things and pushed to do it again!

What I like about Lightning Lord is his poison. On more than one occasion I've surprised someone who thought hitting him up close was a good idea.

Yea I agree with top 5 in wildcard abuse, probably top 3 in wc abuse. That's pretty much his 1 team use, is WC abuse. Not much room for him elsewhere. I do think Ult Quicksilver is really good though, if you throw Maneuver on him. He would be the 2nd best next to Lois. I've used Lord a couple of times, he is deadly with AP. They both are.

I've used Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy from the LS starter very effectively teamed with Uncle Sam, Wildcat, and Liberty Belle. He's not terribly expensive for some double target running shot/flyer, and the wildcard team ability makes him very useful with a broad array of figures.

In defense of the old Rookie Lightning Lad, that 0 damage w/ RCE was a much more viable back when fliers could always make ranged attacks.

As for the starter Lightning Lad...
You might not think much of EE, but when it comes with 10 range, two targets, running shot, and a wildcard TA it can be devastating. Even without the Armor Piercing, LL is capable of dishing out lots of damage. He is a frequent thorn in my side.

Other possibility : using the alternate 'Legionnaires' TA : it's less good than being a Wildcard, of course, but helps in getting a more 'focused' team, and you avoid being forced to invest in another fig to make your LL fully playable...Not mentionning that, at 70 pts, LL is one of the most expensive legionnaires so far (with a bunch of few others), which made the alternate TA all the better if he get the first shot.

Certainly there's a lot more expensive Legionnaires, but for the sake of the alternate TA, Lightning Lad and the other 70-pointers are about as far as you want to go. You can do a team of LL, Cosmic Boy and Element Lad and fill out the rest with figures that cost less, giving you three options for setting off the ATA.

OTOH, the ATA doesn't provide you with ways to build the strongest Legion teams. Sure, you could try the ATA using one of the bricks like Mon-El or Ultra Boy or Supergirl, but unless it's a really high-point game, if you lose one of those figures, you've pretty much lost the game and you're just removing tokens off of figures who can't seal the deal.

Yup.. He kind of has Kang Syndrome. Kang's 1 damage RCE was a lot better too when he could make ranged attacks to an adjacent person.

Out of curiosity, how does the wildcard TA (aside from anti stealth) really help LL with his EE? Without armor piercing I don't think EE is really worth much of anything since so many pieces bring toughness. Sure there's the exceptions with willpower and such.. But let's face it on a tent pole style team there's really little to no use in EE

Aside from pointing out the obvious on what a wildcard can do, I really don't think that that helps bring LL into the top 5.. even of wild card abuse pieces..

Plus you've pointed out that I don't specifically post "what piece is best to use with him." But come on..
We all know a wild card functions better with a bat ally (yes I mentioned alfred). Certainly if they've got range they're gonna benefit from an anti stealth TA, but probably 90% of people who read these reviews don't have Lois Lane..

Arachnos is ok, but what's the deal there? You want Alfred and GW? Or just one or the other. Because with the rules changes, If I recall correct, you can't flip flop in the middle of a turn. So it's really one or the other.

Yes he benefits from Armor piercing.. So does the rookie thug from infinity challenge.. Do I need to put that on any piece that has EE or low damage?
Same goes for Vendetta.. Arguably a rookie thug gets more use out of it since there's more pieces of higher point value.

Suicide Squad.. Good.. But no better than any other WC abuse character.

There's no arguing that the WC helps bring up this character.. But just because it's there doesn't make him top teir of WC abuse pieces.

The WC abuse isn't going to help him when it comes to poison. It's certainly not going to help him against pulsewave.. Hello 16 or lower defense.

Pairing Batman (especially OOS) seems to benefit just about any team. Not sure (aside from the WC) how that makes him so much better.. Once again based on the fact that there are plenty of other WC pieces that would gain the same benefit..

To me, No offense to you but this is just my personal opinion, Larthosgrr8's suggestion to pair him with Psycho man is a fairly outside the box suggestion that wouldn't of occurred to me (or other readers).

Pointing out that a WC character can be made better with other team abilities.. Well that's just pointing out the obvious..

DemonRS - I liked the review.

Not everyone has a Brainiac 5's grasp of the game system, or a huge collection to choose feats/pogs/figs from. Sometimes a nice basic review of a figure is just what we need.

The legion are pretty much the only DC heroes I have any time for (with the exception of Bats). I loved them as a kid and have only recently re-read some TPB's and really enjoyed them. I bought the starter set from ebay last week so I will look forward to your future reviews.

Good work

Cheers
HB

I'll echo the value in rookie Live Wire. 22 points for a wildcard flyer is really not bad. The 37 point exp gets a big price hike for not enough of an upside, and he's a more tempting target.

I think the Batman Ally suggestion would've been better received if other TA's were included in the discussion. ES/D isn't terribly useful with Bat Allies, but it's fantastic with Defenders/JSA. The way it's presented, Bat Allies sound like your crutch, rather than a strategy.

I wouldn't call it a crutch. I would call it 90% of the thought (of most people) that goes behind playing a team with wild cards.

Yes JSA/Defenders works too but generally aren't used as much as a 6 pt alfred..

It is always good to see heroclix reading material, thanks for the review
I thought Id throw an example of a 400pts team abusing Lightning lad

70pts Lightning lad (WC TA)
89pts Captain America (Us TA)
59pts Black Widow (Us TA)
47pts "starter" batman (BA TA)
79pts Nightwing (BA TA)
55pts Merlyn (IL TA)

This team has done me well. What do you think??

I'm not terribly familiar with Merlyn.. What's he adding?

Nice review.

As for the above comment, my understanding is that you can declare the TA you are copying once after an action is announced. If your declared wildcard TA makes the intended action illegal, if the attacker can still attack you via another means you can't switch again.

For example: I have Lightning Lad on a team with a Bat Ally and a Mystic. My opponent has a character with the hypersonic ability and a ranged attack. He declares his character is going to make a hypersonic attack against Lightning Lad. If I declare I am using Bat Ally to negate his ability to make a hypersonic ranged attack, he can still close for a close combat attack (assuming he has the movement to do so). I cannot then say I am copying the Mystic TA as I have already declared my TA for the action.

If he then attacks Lightning Lad with another character, though, I could declare I am using Mystics for this new action.