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Team Builder Series: Luthor

There are some pretty powerful figures in Icons; the set finally gave us a playable REV Superman and a beast of a Darkseed to go up against him, but the 200+ point figure that stood out to me the most was the Unique Lex Luthor. I don’t know what it is about him that’s so attractive. I guess it’s that after all these years of being one of the worst Clix figures out there, Luthor’s finally decided to stop taking crap from everyone and show everyone what a true psychopath can do. And boy does he succeed.

The Players:

Name	Rarity	Points	Amount
Lex Luthor	Unique	212	1
Lex Corp Battlesuit	Rookie	27	1
Jinx	Experienced	48	1
Armor Peircing	Feat	10	1
Total: 297

Breaking down the team:

Making the change:

When you have less then 100 points to work with it can be hard to come up with a good support team. While this team has plenty of Outwit, it doesn’t have any Perplex, though I feel Probability Control makes up for this, since Luthor has good attack values. If any changes are going to be made I suggest only messing with the battle suit and feat and leaving Jinx alone since she really helps out the team. One thing you can do is drop the feat and upgrade the Battlesuit from its Rookie version to the Experienced one. This gives it a starting damage of 2 and a movement of 7 plus one more click of life. Another option is to add Unstoppable to Lex instead of Armor Piercing and after Armor Wars comes out you can add Protected, which will put you at an even 300 points. Protected will probably become the new must-have feat card, since for only 8 points it allows you the one-time ability to ignore any damage from one source. Another option, also from Armor Wars, would be placing Life Model Decoy on Jinx; this would grant her Toughness.

There’s no Superman Enemy that’s cheap enough to grant you a Perplex for this team. If you wanted to add it, you could move Jinx to her Rookie version (44 points) then add the Icon’s Starter Set Joker for only 41 points instead of the Battlesuit and Feat. The Rookie Two-Face is the same price and has it on the first click, instead of the second, but only has one click of Perplex while this Joker has three. If you are playing unrestricted so you can use retired figs you could use the Veteran Riddler, who’s 47 points and has three clicks of Perplex, or Veteran Harley Quinn for 42 points, and get Outwit added to the end of the dial as well as front-loaded Perplex. Lastly is the possibility of a medic; you could add an Ingergang Medic for 20 points or a Checkmate Medic for 13, but Luthor’s got such a high defense for all but his last two clicks (and even then it’s a 14) that it won’t be too useful having them. I’ve tried it in one of my test plays and never got a heal off on him; your points are better spent somewhere else.

This isn’t your typical Luthor; instead of being behind the scenes running things, he’s out in the front dealing with all his problems head on. Now, some people may cringe at the thought of paying 212 points for a figure with only one click of Impervious, Running Shot, and Charge, but he’s got the Superman Enemy Team Ability, which is quite expensive but equally useful if you build your team right—since it grants figures Outwit when adjacent to another figure with the same Team Ability. Luthor’s stats start off quite good: 12 movement, 11 attack, 18 defense, and 5 damage, but degrade quite fast; this is, after all, a normal human in power armor. While his damage and attack value degrade slower, his movement drops very fast and his defense progresses fairly normally. Power wise, Luthor’s your typical bruiser: a full dial of Super Strength and damage-reducing powers, mostly Toughness, and a click of both Running Shot and Charge at the start of the dial. All this further enforces that while Luthor’s got staying power, he’s really only on par with others his point total for the first few clicks. But to get the most out of him you need some figures to take advantage of his Team Ability which gives him a full dial of Outwit!

I’ve added Armor Piercing to Lex here for another 10 points; this is a good card that guarantees he’ll do damage against anyone he hits with the exception of figures with Super Senses. Even though Lex has the possibility of having Outwit his whole dial there may be a point where you need to remove a non-damage reducing power or aren’t next to another figure with the Superman Enemy Team Ability.

That brings us to the Lex Corp Battlesuit, which is the cheapest, non-retired figure with the Superman Enemy Team Ability. At 27 points you’re paying mostly for the Team Ability here since the dial is only 4 clicks deep with nothing all that important stat-wise, and no powers. Why use him, then? He’s a backup if Jinx, see below, gets killed; you still have someone to grant Luthor Outwit. Plus, if Jinx gets too hurt you can let her stay back and get Outwit from the Battlesuit and support Lex.

I’m so glad that DC finally got a villain Wildcard Team Ability, and even happier that Jinx is one of the figures with it. At 48 points, her Experienced version is a steal with front-loaded Psychic Blast, Phasing and Probability Control! After that you move to Pulse Wave and Energy Shield, and finally end her dial with Energy Explosion. Stat wise, she is what you’d expect from someone less then 50 points: an 8 movement, 9 attack, 16 defense and 2 damage. Her damage stays the same for all 5 clicks, so even near the end she can still hurt people with Toughness and her attack and movement only drops a total of 2 while her defense drops one each click. She’s a useful figure that stays playable for the whole course of her short dial, and a great support piece. Plus she’s got the Wildcard Team Ability, which means she can grant Lex Outwit while using Probability Control to help make sure the game goes your way.

The Plan:

With only 3 people in the team, this isn’t anything too complicated; basically, make sure Luthor gets into battle quick, and you deal first blood. Since Jinx is carry-able have her always move with Lex at first, it doesn’t matter if she can’t attack—that’s not what she’s there for. What she then can do is grant Outwit to Luthor (the Outwit always goes to the higher point total figure), and then make sure he can hit with Probability Control (not going to be a huge factor at first with his 11 attack), and make sure he doesn’t get hurt by making your opponent reroll, as well.

The Lex Corp Battlesuit is quite slow with only a 6 movement, so it’s best to move him up and then get him adjacent to Jinx when you can. The cool thing about Superman Enemy Team Ability is if you have three people next to each other you can get more than one Outwit, so if Jinx is next to Lex, he gets it, and then if the Battlesuit is also next to Jinx, she then gets it. This requires some good placing to make sure you have line of sight to everyone that’s possible, but if done right you can really control your opponent's powers effectively.

There are two things to watch out for with the Superman Enemy Team Ability. The first is, since it grants a power by name, it can be outwitted (but only when two figures are in base contact, and as soon as the two figures separate Outwit is lost, which acts just like losing Outwit by pushing so it doesn’t happen until after the action). In other words, you could have Jinx and Luthor adjacent and Outwit Superman’s Invulnerability. Then Luthor charges and hits. Since Lex and Jinx are no longer adjacent they lose Outwit, but Superman doesn’t immediately get his power back since Outwit is still around until the end if Luthor’s action. So make sure you keep your figures close to each other, or you’re just wasting the points. But this also make your team quite vulnerable to Energy Explosion—while it’ll do nothing to Lex, both Jinx and the Battlesuit can be hurt by it, and you want to try and keep that from happening.

Summation:

This is a team that focues on one person, Lex Luthor, doing most of the work, so like any team with one expensive figure piece, whoever gets the first damage in wins. This team works best against other huge figure teams like Shazam or Superman. It can do well against smaller teams as well, but you need to watch out—if your opponent manages to get to Jinx or the Battlesuit first you’ll be significantly less effective.

Discuss it in our forum.

Written by Spriggan on October 16th, 2005