DEEP DISH THEMES:

ORIGIN: Oroku Saki was a harsh embittered youth who sought to avenge the death of his older brother Oroku Nagi who was killed by Hamato Yoshi in a feud for a woman Tang Shen. Saki enrolled in the Foot Clan and soon rose up the ranks becoming their most skilled warrior, he was chosen to lead the American branch of the Foot in New York. The eighteen year old Saki seized the opportunity for revenge and in New York he adopted the identity of the Shredder and murdered both Yoshi and Shen leaving only Yoshi's pet rat whose cage had broken during the struggle.

Fifteen years passed by and Saki had built up the New York Foot into a formidable criminal empire involved in drug smuggling, arms running and assassination. While arranging protention for a business, a sai blade came through the window with a note attached to it. The note was from the student of Hamato Yoshi challenging Saki to a duel to the death. Arriving to the address in the note as the Shredder he saw that his opponents were four giant talking turtles and had his Foot Ninja battle them. The turtles managed to beat the Foot Ninja but not without some injuries, Shredder then took on the turtles themselves.

The four battled the Shredder individually and together not faring well until the turtle Leonardo scored a lucky shot by plunging his sword through the Shredder's torso. Asking the turtle to "finish it", the turtle said that Saki could regain his honour by taking his own life. Taking out a thermite grenade the Shredder swore if he must take his own life he would take the turtles lives with him. Quickly, Donatello used his Bo Staff to knock Shredder and the grenade off the rooftop, the resulting explosion tore the Shredder to pieces...Like any great villain, though...the Shredder would find ways to return...again and again.



PROS: This is the look they went with for the first Shredder figure and that was probably for the best as the good majority of us that grew up in the 80's knew this look the best. The dial is a really good one, too...and you get it all for 80 points. One his coolest abilities is his attack special power called "Retro Mutagen Ray" where he gets to not only use Outwit, but the targeted character also gains Earthbound/Neutralized so he takes away combat abilities as well. This will get even cooler after the rules change and assuming that they keep the part where Outwit can no longer cancel out combat abilities. It will make his stock go up that much more. His damage special is a pretty straight-forward Leadership and Empower. Great powers to have, but nothing that will likely make him "Broken" as a piece. His trait is also one of the best things about him. It can be a bit situational, but it says: "Give Shredder a free action and remove an action token from him. If you can't, heal him 1 click. Activate this ability only if another friendly character missed an attack targeting a single opposing character this turn." You could potentially have this guy be acting EVERY turn without stopping. If you don't have an action token to remove, you can heal a click of damage from him. It's a win-win either way. I've even seen people use Probability Control on themselves to intentionally miss an attack to keep the Shredder's batteries charged. On the latter half of his dial he gets a lot more hands on, but he will still enjoy his trait while on those clicks and there is more than enough bad-guy cannon fodder in the TMNT sets for him to use that Mastermind on. A VERY solid use of 80 points if you're so inclined to do so.

CONS: Though I'm a little impressed that he managed to score even a click of Invulnerability at the top of his dial (I think I would have only given him Toughness at best), he does seem a little squishy to me. He sports a solid 17 defense down his six click dial and that is pretty good for a human that is just very well trained, but I would have maybe given up that Invulnerability top dial to get him a few more clicks of Toughness. Maybe if those last three clicks had been a special power that gave him Mastermind AND Toughness. I don't think it would be unheard of. At least he has that trait that can hopefully either keep him moving or keep him healthy.

THEME: I would love to just go all out sometime and play him and just HORDES UPON HORDES of Foot Soldiers in a Foot Clan theme. MAYBE throw a Bebop or Rocksteady in there, but just the concept of an unstoppable wave of Ninjas is something that has always made me happy both as a lover of comic books and a player of this game. In a standard 300 point game you should be able to fit all manner of Foot Ninjas on your team be they the Robot, Human, or Stealth Suit variety. Mix and match and create a great combo. They all have something great to offer and this Shredder makes a good General for them.



PROS: The Convention exclusive Shredder is somewhat the precursor for the "Heroes in a Half-Shell" version of Shredder with the way he "Blows Up" when he is KO'd. This version destroys walls and blocking terrain when he gets KO'd, though. He also grants all of his teammates the ability to ignore hindering terrain for both movement and targeting purposes. It's also of note that this Shredder starts with Charge and can get into a fight just that much quicker than the 80 point original. He's also Indomitable. Though he could have used a trick to pull tokens off of himself like the original, this one will be to get in a lot of attacks as well and won't need an ally to miss an attack first. He's defensively stout as well having added a click of Invulnerability and another click of Toughness. Those last two clicks can afford him time to hide and heal as well as allow him the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory should the former not be an option. Overall this is a very solid figure that got eclipsed by the newer hotness before people really had a chance to give him a try.

CONS: I wish his Perplex power was top dial. That would have made a HUGE difference as to whether people found him "Playable" or not. It didn't help that this guy was barely on the scene when Heroes in a Half-Shell came out and there was a Shredder that could now do a similar trick but have it effect the game outcome even more and for half the points. He was VERY quickly out-shined in that regard. The Ninja Turtles sets in general kind of stepped on their own toes with their release schedule. He has some tricks that are rare for the Ninja Turtles stuff, but because of the existence of those other Shredders that happened so quickly, his five range with Running Shot and Penetrating/Psychic Blast are glared over...which is unfortunate since he exists within a set/category of figures where range isn't that prevalent. It's not incredibly impressive in the game as a whole, but if you're playing ONLY Ninja Turtles stuff, he's going to pull MORE than his weight in a team.

THEME: He can be STUPID good on a TMNT Villain team. Want to give Krang a +2 bonus to something and NOT have to give him damage afterwards? Con Shredder may be for you! A simple 300 point team could be this Shredder, SR Krang from the first TMNT set, and a 30 point foot soldier. Granted, it's likely that Krang is going to be doing a majority of the heavy lifting in that team, but with a SOLID back-up attacker like this Shredder and a generic piece that can still carry his weight like any of the Foot Soldiers, I could see this build performing VERY well.



PROS: This version of Shredder is just BONKERS good for 50 points. I would gladly pay DOUBLE that for all the things that this one has. Lets just look at his dial and ignore his special powers for the moment. He has a nine movement with Charge and an 11 attack with Blades/Claws/Fangs to start out with. Should you opt NOT to use his B/C/F (Or if it's been countered), he has a printed three damage to work with too. Having a 17 defense isn't too shabby for what is essentially just a regular dude in light armor. Continuing down his dial you'll notice that the three damage never wanes. He stays just as deadly on every click. Now, looking at his special/trait abilities and you'll see him in a whole new light. Lets start with his damage power and continue to get ever impressive. With it he is "Head of the New York branch of the Foot." It says: Shredder can use Leadership. When he does and succeeds, instead of removing one action token, remove an action token from up to 2 adjacent friendly characters with the Foot Clan keyword regardless of point value. This not only allows him to have more actions for his team, but it also keeps his team mobilized. These are both VERY important concepts for running swarm teams like the Foot Clan (Assuming you're running a ton of low level ninjas). Next up on the list of impressive abilities is his defense special power. It's called "YOU CANNOT BEAT ME, EVEN FOUR TO ONE" and gives Shredder a +1 to his defense for every opposing character within three squares of him. This caps out at a +3, of course, but that gives him a top dial defense of 20 if he's in the thick of your opponent's team. That is exactly where you'll want him to be, too. He's far too deadly to keep alive so your opponent is going to want to take him out of their misery ASAP. That's where his "Thermite Grenade" trait kicks in. It says: When Shredder is KO'd from an attack, deal 3 penetrating damage to all characters within 3 squares, and on the same elevation, of the square that he last occupied. Note that this has to be an attack. A smart opponent will do ANYTHING to keep him away from them when they try to get that kill shot in there, but he will not be an easy one to shake, and that is a DEVASTATING amount of damage for an opponent to potentially take. I've seen and experienced this Shredder absolutely crippling teams before...and you get it all for 50 points...THANK GOODNESS this guy is unique...

CONS: He's just too good. Plain and simple. There's no way this should be a 50 point piece. His effectiveness is mitigated only slightly (And not enough) by the fact that he is unique, but if you're playing a theme team that he could be on and you're NOT using him? You're missing out on a piece that can pure and simple win games. Now your faced with the duality that HeroClix presents. Do I love using a piece like him when he's on my team? YOU BET! Do I love seeing super under-costed pieces like this regularly across from my team on the battlefield? ALSO, BET! The Shredder in this iteration is just too powerful. This is a guy that could do some major damage to celestial beings...and that's a bit too hard of a pill to swallow.

THEME: I wish there was a character with the Green Lantern team ability that also had "Martial Artist" among their keywords. I would love to put together a new version of an old favorite type of team of mine. I called it the "Lawnmower" team. Basically you have a low point GL character that carries around a whole mess of low point/high attack Blades/Claws/Fangs people. You fill up every possible adjacent square to the person that is doing the carrying with these characters and then you go and put one side of that mess against an opposing character or two. They chew threw them, and if they start to take damage, the flying character picks everybody up and then puts a new row of characters facing the enemy allowing the back row to heal if possible. Shredder about to die? Evac the whole team on out of there. Leave Shredder behind...BIG Badda Boom. Anybody know of a Martial Artist that can carry multiple characters out there?



PROS: This Shredder is just a marvel of incredible stats and well combo'd standard powers that culminate in a VERY deadly 75 point piece. He doesn't blow up like Shredders before him, but he DOES turn into a Shark if you pay 10 extra points for his optional trait (And are lucky enough to HAVE the very hard to get Shark Shredder). Like Shark Shredder (And the other Shredder clones) he has the "Shredder Elite" trait that allows him to deal one penetrating damage to any opposing character that he becomes adjacent to after moving and that he wasn't next to when he started moving. This trait also grants Sidestep which can be a killer thing to have in combo with this ability. He also has the "Duel of Twisted Honor" trait that says: At the beginning of the game, choose an opposing character that isn't the lowest point character on that force. Opposing characters that weren't chosen modify their attack value by -2 when attacking Shredder Clone unless the chosen character has been KO'd. He already has an impressive 18 printed defense with Energy Shield/Deflection and now opponents that AREN'T the chosen character get an even bigger deficit to overcome should they try to attack him. Had he paid the ten points for the optional trait he gets to become the monstrous Shark Shredder on click #4 after he gets KO'd. Anybody who has played against that thing can tell you that this is not a good thing for your opponents. He's big, mean, and nasty. Do what you can to get rid of him QUICKLY.

CONS: He's very squishy and susceptible to damage from sources that aren't attacks similar to Poison. Yes, he is very defensively sound stat-wise but with no damage reducers to speak of, he's that much more susceptible to that kind of damage. No dice roll even needed. His dial is wholly dependent on him getting to keep his Blades/Claws/Fangs also. Should that get countered, he's not able to do much beyond flailing and hoping he doesn't come up against too tough an opponent or else he'll have quite the uphill battle on his hands. It's also unfortunate that his other half (Shark Shredder) is so hard to get. People would love to be able to pull off his transformation, but that piece has been going for upwards of $100 recently (With a few spikes even higher than that) and it's just not possible for your average player. It's not the fault of the piece but more the fault of the rarity scheme in collectible games, but it feels like an incomplete piece either way if you're not able to get both parts.

THEME: He's the only Shredder with the Mystical keyword so I feel as if something should be done with that. Perhaps all characters that have mystical abilities linked to changing into or using animal or monster powers? There are a ton of those types of characters out there. Pick your favorite ones and get to work. Your team will be glad to have a guy who was brought back to life using mystical worms and who eventually becomes a giant Sharktopus on their side...better with you than AGAINST you!



PROS: Here we go...the first of the Shredder Elite Chases...Claw Shredder. Without even looking at the dial, I have to say that I love the way that this figure looks kind of creepy and menacing with his tall and lanky frame combined with those giant Popeye arms. It's definitely got a unique look to it. Now to focus on the dial I'm seeing a pretty solid attacker with some opening Charge that gives way to Flurry for the rest of his six click dial. He starts out his attack power track with his special power called "Claw Disarm" which says: Claw Shredder can use Giant Reach: 2. Give Claw Shredder a free action and choose a character he's hit with an attack this turn. The chosen Character can't make an attack until your next turn. It can be a potentially devastating thing to be able to do to an opponent...especially if they have a lot of points tied up in one or two large point pieces. When he has Flurry it's even better because you can make two separate attacks on two different figures and then choose one of those two to shut down for a turn (Assuming of course that you hit one or both of them). Note that it says that you just have to hit them, too. No damage has to be done in order to activate this ability. His last two clicks feature my favorite power combo ever with his two clicks of both Flurry and Blades/Claws/Fangs. He doesn't have his special attack power at this point, but he might be hitting for more than enough that his opponents that are hit might get KO'd anyway and then they REALLY can't attack. He also has the Mystical Worms and Shredder Elite traits that all of the chases and the Shredder Clone from this set have. I'll gush more about those later since I've already gone on pretty long in this particular "PROS" section.

CONS: His defense powers and stats are just kind of average. It's helped by the fact that he gets an extra dose of life after going through his dial the first time thanks to the "Mystical Worms" trait, but if you concentrate your efforts a little bit, he's not going to be hard to put down (Even WITH the need to essentially double-tap him). All you need is some ranged attackers that deal at least two damage and he could potentially never even land a hit on you by the time you've taken him out. Now...a smart player isn't going to just sit there and let you ping him to death, but it's a weakness in the figure that I feel needed to be pointed out. Ultimately he is a ferocious melee combatant that you do NOT want getting up in your face. If you've let him do that, it may already be too late for your team.

THEME: The four chase figures together all have the same keywords and all come out to a nice and handy 400 points together. If you're lucky enough to have them all, pick one of their named keywords to benefit from the theme team probability control and play all four together. It is a team that is frightening enough with how good their dials and powers are without even taking into account how much free damage they could potentially do. Your opponent will NOT like you...fair warning.



PROS: One of the reasons that this figure is so sought after is that tiny size that he has. You can have any of the other Shredder Elite carry him around and put him two squares away from a target, and after the other Shredder Elite character has caused his click of penetrating damage from his "Shredder Elite" trait, you can then do a free action with Mini Shredder and have him Sidestep next to the same target and get ANOTHER free click of penetrating damage. Given the indomitable that they all have, they can both lay into that same character or characters on the following turn provided that they aren't already pushed out and that you have the available actions to do so. His defense is also very high when it tops out at an 18 on his opening click and only ever drops down to 17 at it's lowest. His tiny size is going to protect him from range as well by adding a +1 to defense against ranged attacks...that is if you can even attempt a ranged attack with his full dial of Stealth. He also keeps you tied down with that Plasticity that he has for most of his dial should you decide to go toe-to-toe with the miniscule menace.

CONS: Being just a little guy, Mini-Shredder doesn't move very fast and he doesn't do a lot of damage with attacks. He only tops out at a seven movement at his highest, and he doesn't have anything better than his traited Sidestep to help him get to where he's going. He's 90 points with essentially no move and attack ability. I am certainly of the mindset that not every figure SHOULD have move and attack capabilities, but a little bit could have gone a long way here. His attack values are very high and his consistent, but even as nice as that is, his damage values are equally consistent but very low. He never deals out more than two damage throughout his dial. This is helped by that opening Precision strike and the ending Exploit Weakness, but most of the time he's only going to be chipping away at your opponent's heels.

THEME: The Shredder Elite is the easy go-to answer for these guys, but I want to try something a bit different this time around. How fun is it for you guys to read me saying the same thing over and over again? Not a lot of fun, I'm assuming. With this. Let's use the Monster keyword and play him alongside Iron Nail and Mini-Shredder. Mole Man uses Mind Control to have Iron Nail pick up and carry Mini-Shredder and then goes and stands next to an opposing character. Mini-Shredder now uses Sidestep to get next to them. They take that one penetrating damage and Iron Nail can make his own attack using Blades/Claws/Fangs and Exploit Weakness. At the end of the turn put a drain token on all opposing character that are adjacent to Iron Nail making them all -1 to all combat values (Assuming there is anything left standing, that is).



PROS: This guy is all offense. He's in your face and flailing wildly trying to get hits to land. As if it's not bad enough that he's getting free penetrating damage just by stepping up next to you, he also hits for a ton and can even take a close combat action to activate his attack special power called "MULTI-ARM MENACE" (Which DOES combo with Charge, btw!) On his own that may be a bit weak since it does lock his damage value at two, but if you can get him Precision Strike somehow, he's going to be something that you can't AFFORD to ignore. If your opponent doesn't have anything better than Toughness for a damage reducer you're already not going to be able to afford to ignore him, but that would put him over the edge of effectiveness in nearly any situation. I personally think this is perhaps the best Shredder Elite figure in terms of how effective his Mystical Worm trait works. It's going to bring him in on a spot where he has Flurry, Combat Reflexes, a decent attack value, and Perplex to help shore up any deficiencies that exist in any particular situation.

CONS: I feel as if this is the worst of the Shredder Elite chases. That's not to say that he's bad...oh, heck no. It's basically like saying that you have one figure that's only a demi-god among full-fledged gods. He's still going to wreck you and wreck you good, but he just doesn't seem to be as good at it as his fellow Elites do. His attack values are just a bit higher than average and even seem a bit low for a character like this. He can get a lot of attacks in, but when he's using his attack special power, it locks his damage value at two. That's great if you're facing opponents that are lacking heavy damage reducers, but even ONE of them has Invulnerability or higher you might as well be in a slap fight. If his attack power had an extra effect that went along with it, it might be different, but he might just be better off with one good punch to the jib of one opponent. I feel he's actually a little bit more effective on his last three clicks than he is on his top three, and though it's nice to have that kind of effectiveness late dial, I'd prefer it closer to the top. At least his Mystical Worms will put him on Click #4 when he would be KO'd that first time.

THEME: I would want to again do something different with this piece. I'd use the Monster keyword again to play him with other characters that also have multiple arms. A quick skim through the keyword and I found Man-Spider, Knife Head, and Shiva Shredder to be the ones that added up to the quickest almost even point total. Playing Knife-Head at his low value puts that team at a 390 point total. I also saw six armed Spider-Man, but it seemed more monstrous without him. Unfortunately Spiral doesn't have the right keyword. Anybody that I missed?



PROS: Here's the money right here. This guy has had and retained a stupidly high value since he came out and there's multiple reasons why. For one, you can turn into him when using the Shredder Clone figure and after the clone gets KO'd you get to put Shark Shredder in his place on click #4. Secondly, it's because he has the highest stats out of all of the Shredder Clones and can hold his own quite well in a battle. One of the biggest reasons, though, is that he has the Mystical Worms and Shredder Elite traits, but he can also carry around any of the other Elite with him since he is a giant. That thing I talked about doing with the Mini Shredder piece where you drop him off and then he uses Sidestep to ALSO get free damage? Yep...he can do that with ANY of them. He also has a power that gives him Steal Energy and Blades/Claws/Fangs that could possibly deal out massive damage while healing him back up to full health (He also has Regeneration to help with that). FINALLY (As if that wasn't enough for the meager 130 points), he has his damage special power on his top three clicks called "Spell of Reversal" that says: When an opposing character within 6 squares and line of fire makes an attack with an attack value or damage value greater than its printed value, roll a d6 that can't be rerolled for each greater value.
3-5: That character uses its printed value instead and it is locked.
6: That character uses its printed value -1 instead and it is locked. He is a one man...shark?...Octopus?...SHARKTOPUS wrecking crew and it's no surprise that his value is as high as it is since he has become quite a meta level piece.

CONS: He does fact the same problem a lot of other figures of his stature do...he is quite the easy target for ranged attacks. He kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. There are ways to help that, of course, but he's going to already be drawing fire since opponents will NOT want to let him have his run of the board, and without some major help, he's going to be sniper bait a lot of the time. To be a complete jerk, I've paired him with Bizarro Green Arrow a few times which is totally dirty and totally meta. It's also totally a theme team if you can get other monsters on the team that work with his abilities. Other than that, there aren't a lot of problems with this figure. He's much squishier on the back end of his dial than he is top dial, but he's still pretty solid. I've seen FAR squishier.

THEME: One of the nastiest one-two punches I've ever played in this game was using Shark Shredder on a TMNT Villain team with his sharky pal Armaggon. They come out to a perfect 300 point team together, and holy crap are they powerful together. They both hit like a ton of bricks, both are really hard to put down, and both are aquatic movers so be sure to pack that water map that most characters will have a hard time getting around on while these two go on an all-out feeding frenzy that will leave the water red...


#TP17-001 Limited Edition Cyber Shredder
Real Name: None
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 125
Keywords: Foot Clan, TMNT Villain, Ruler

9 11 17 3

8 11 17 3

8 10 17 3

7 10 17 2

7 10 16 2

6 11 16 2

6 11 16 2

6 10 16 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Fools, You Cannot Escape My Reach... Or Force Field: Cyber Shredder can use Energy Shield/Deflection and Giant Reach: 2.
Cyber Brainwashing: Cyber Shredder can use Mind Control with a range value of 6 and 4 targets. If the hit characters total point value is more than Cyber Shredder's point value, this Mind Control instead misses all targets except one of your choice.
Miss and Parry: Cyber Shredder can use Impervious. When an adjacent opposing character attacks Cyber Shredder and he takes no damage from the attack, place a Counterattack token on Cyber Shredder. At the beginning of your turn, remove all Counterattack tokens and Cyber Shredder may make a close attack, increasing his attack value by 1 for each removed marker.
I Control The Lights And Mainframe: Opposing characters can't target other characters that are 5 or more squares away from themselves.

**Special thanks to AEnimaVII for sending me the coded dial for this figure so I didn't have to do it myself!

PROS: There is just a crazy amount of things going on with this dial. There's a trait that grants Energy Shield/Deflection and Giant Reach: 2...tip of the iceberg stuff. He has a ton of offense going on in the form of top dial Charge and Blades/Claws/Fangs that gives way to FOUR straight clicks of Flurry and BCF. That's a lot of damage potential we're talking about. Some of his offense is even tied to his defense. He has a special power for his first four clicks of life called "Miss and Parry" that does this: Cyber Shredder can use Impervious. When an adjacent opposing character attacks Cyber Shredder and he takes no damage from the attack, place a Counterattack token on Cyber Shredder. At the beginning of your turn, remove all Counterattack tokens and Cyber Shredder may make a close attack, increasing his attack value by 1 for each removed marker. Basically, he is being potentially rewarded the more he either reduces damage to zero by rolling a 5-6 on Impervious or if an opponent is foolish enough to attack him knowing that they won't be able to damage him by building up tokens every time his damage is reduced to zero on attacks against him. He can then get free attacks by removing those tokens with a +1 to attack for each token removed. On his late dial he gets a potentially crazy Mind Control special power and a damage special that keeps people close to him if they want to be able to attack. He's going to be a beast on the battlefield once he starts becoming available on this side of the pond.

CONS: Other than defense values that are fairly average, I don't really see a big problem with him. Considering he has traited Energy Shield/Deflection he's only going to be susceptible to close combat attacks really. I suppose that's kind of a complaint itself. He has that traited ES/D going for him, but then he gets a power that encourages people to get in close to him to make attacks. It doesn't make him a bad figure, but I would hope for a bit more synergy...something that would make people want to TRY for those ranged attacks that he would be defensively more capable against. His Mind Control power seems incredible at first, but if you manage to use it on the four characters that you're allowed to, chances are the figures will add up to more than 125 points and will effectively make it's "Special-ness" moot. Still...having it on the dial is better than having a blank power slot, I suppose.

THEME: How does he NOT have the armor keyword?! Also, and I'll admit that I don't know much about the character, but I would have thought Robot keyword would have been something to expect as well. Instead we only have Foot Clan, TMNT Villain, and Ruler to work with. I could see him being a part of a really nasty Ruler team, though. Maybe play him with other Robotic despots like Brainiac and/or Ultron. Maybe he's not a robot at all, though. Anybody out there have any info for me on that subject? Either way, those are still two of my favorite "Ruler" characters to play him with...robot or no.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Now that we have had a little glimpse into the aspects of all the different versions of this figure, let's take a quick look at their keywords and I will tell you my number one picks to use for each keyword theme available (Named keywords are bolded):

Foot Clan: tmnt2018 Shredder
Martial Artist: tmnt2018 Shredder
Ruler: #TP17-001 Limited Edition Cyber Shredder
Scientist: tmnt021 Shredder
TMNT Villain: tmnt2018 Shredder
Mystical: tmnt3023 Shredder Clone
Warrior: tmnt3023 Shredder Clone
Monster: tmnt3035 Shark Shredder

WHO NEEDS KEYWORDS?!

In this section, I'm going to list some possible theme teams that you could play this figure on that are definitely comic accurate but don't require keywords and provides links using Comic Vine and/or Wikipedia to tell you more about them. Unfortunately, using these teams mean you are going to forego keyword bonuses, but every once in a while Judges might let you slip by with one of these teams:

There really aren't many theme teams that you can play any of the Shredders on that aren't already covered by their keywords. It's a fairly self-contained universe and rarely do they jump around or cross over with anything that would make for something suitable for this section. I am far from an expert on Ninja Turtles mythos, though...if anybody out there has something that could fit in this section that I don't know about, PLEASE feel free to highlight it in the comments section!

This wraps it up for this edition of Deep Dish Themes! Thank you for reading! Feel free to post what you think about the article and feel free to nominate a character for an upcoming edition of Deep Dish Themes. Join me on 5/24 when I drop the bomb on HCRealms with Deep Dish Themes: Boom-Boom! Why so long between articles, you ask? Well, stay tuned to find out!

I would think League of Assassins would be a good non-keyword theme to represent the Batman/Tmnt mash-up. Plenty of Batmans have martial artist to go along with the turtles. You could probably go martial artist for a league/foot team though. Great Job!

I'm very happy with the love the TMNT pieces are getting on the front page articles.

Just ordered up the Con Shredder on the cheap after seeing his dial on here. Thanks, HCRealms, for helping me spend my money.

I'm glad you were able to include Cyber Shredder, though as a point of order the missing keyword is probably "Robot" and mayyyyyybe "Ultrom" but not "Armor" since Cyber Shredder is a digital entity.

Personally, while I'm pleased we got the Shredder Elite, I'm a bit surprised that with the focus on the Nick series that we haven't gotten the Tengu Shredder, or the original Ultrom Exosuit Shredder (Ch'rell) despite getting the cyber-memory-thing based on him. The permanent Sidestep on the Elite would be gross even without the other part of their trait dealing damage. When combined with Claw Shredder's IM: Elevated he can be an even nastier surprise.

While the 50 point Shredder is indeed super efficient, I find myself gravitating toward the initial 80s version for 80 points most games. When building, I find the loss of a single Foot worth the benefits. The top dial sidestep allows him to keep pace with an army of Foot without taking an action to move, and the synergy with the first Bebop/Rocksteady granting them Willpower makes them VERY effective. As frustrating as misses can be, when these two stack their own effect and let Shredder keep acting or healing it stings a lot less.

All that said I REALLY want Cyber Shredder. While lack of Indom slows it down, the abilities packed onto that dial definitely feel like something that shreds things.
How cheep we talkin'? I may need to follow up as well.

Just under 14 at a place that sells cool things. <_<

Keep in mind, roderic is likely talking about the first con le black and white shredder... Not cyber.

Also... Isn't it Utrom not Ultrom?

Also, I forgot to mention one of my favorite teams. Ninja Body attack

The Hand
The Foot Clan
The Demon's Head (League of Assassins led by Ra's)

Eh, still, under $15 is a nice reduction for that particular piece and I need it too.

If I was worried about looking up exact spelling before doing things, my forum handle wouldn't be Arokosaki (think about it in the context of this article, it'll come to you) But yes, it's Utrom, I have a bad habit of adding stray letters when I type too fast

I've always known that as what your screen name was supposed to be and wasn't even aware of it's misspelling until I did this article, actually.

Nice article! I only have the first Shredder from TMNT1, but damn if I am not satisfied with that single figure. He and my Foot Clan swarms have taken out quite a few teams! I think I'm 12W-3L with him as my leader. (I have more success with Krang's robot swarm team, but I feel like a jerk using Krang.)

Honestly, the only other one to have is the TMNT2 Shredder, but he's so good that I wouldn't feel right using him! Should have been 100pts.

One thing I've wanted to try is taking advantage, or at least theming, on his TMNT2018 Shredder's self-destruction. Put him next to figures that actually like taking damage, or run a theme of other figures that self-destruct. Offhand, I can think of Man-Eater Bug & Kuriboh from Yu-Gi-Oh. Sengenjin illustrates the kind of figure that likes taking damage, though I'm sure there must be other, better examples.

Tengu Shredder? Qu'est-que c'est? But yes, we haven't got the Nick Shredder whatsoever, and that's a tremendous bummer. I sort of assumed they were waiting to see how things shook out with him (and, unrelatedly, with April) on the Nick show before making those characters in clix... well, that time is now!

Seconding the idea of some Batman villain team-ups to represent the Batman/TMNT crossovers (which I haven't read yet... #fakegeek)

"A smart opponent will do ANYTHING to keep him away from them when they try to get that kill shot in there,".

Yes but what if your opponent is incredibly dumb? Then he would be me.