Team Builder Series: Brilliant Batman Badguys

It’s been over a year since I sat down and wrote up any of my Heroclix teams, and the release of the new DC set Origins deserves the credit for me doing so. I was going to start with a team from that set, but realized that there were a few of my old teams I’ve never shared so I figure I’d start out with my favorite team I’ve ever built—and it wins, too, so it’s not a crazy concept team I sometimes tend to make (look for one of those in my next article). From reading my regular team builder articles a year ago, most of you know I like teams. When I create them I look at the actual character as well as the stats, and use both when deciding if I should use a figure; the actual character has to have some connection to the others in some way or another. I also like villain-based teams.

This is my new Batman Villain/Joker team. I’m no stranger to making such teams as you can tell by looking at the Team Builder archives, and I’m sure it won’t be my last. But unlike my other teams this is a really balanced team and has been through a lot of play testing in tournaments, and wins more often then not. And while most of the figures are tournament legal, the key figure, LE Harley Quinn from Hypertime, isn’t so you won't be able to play it regularly, but when you can it’s a fun team.

The Players:

Name	Rarity	Points	Amount
Bane	Veteran	85	1
Dr Harleen Quinzel	LE	49	1
Man-Bat	Experienced	58	1
The Joker	Veteran	41	1
Victor Fries	LE	54	1
Ambush	Feat	5	1
Brilliant Tactician	Feat	20	1
Protected	Feat	8	1
Total: 300

Breaking down the team:

Bane is the main attack figure and main tie up piece. When I first started playing Clix years ago I thought Bane was a horrible figure—no charge, only had toughness and was too expensive. Boy was I wrong. Once I really understood the game Vet Bane became a chase figure for me, and once I got him I put him to quick use. True, the lack of charge is a huge negative in today’s game environment, but this team negates a lot of that due to how it works (explained in the next section). So what’s to like about Bane? How about three clicks of a 10-attack followed by three clicks of a 9-attack with a minimum of 2-damage for most his dial if not using Close Combat Expert, which you will be, so it’s more of a minimum of 4-damage but staring with 5-damage. He’s got Toughness and Close Combat Expert for 7 clicks each, as well as Super Strength for most of that. Once he gets to his 8th click, though, he loses everything, which is true to how the comic character is. The only real negative I see on Bane is a very low defense. It starts out at a 16, which isn’t bad, but drops to a 9 eventually; but he’s meant to be hit in this team and he’s got a lot of life, so unless you're fighting against someone who can do the same amount of damage, he’s going to be around for a while.

Dr. Herleen Quinzel is one of my favorite figures in all of Clix. She’s got front-loaded Perplex, Outwit, Incapacitate and Smoke cloud with an 8-range, all for 49 points. That may not seam a lot when for one point more you can get a Ravager, but the Hypertime Quinn is a great support piece made even better by her Team Ability and the Brilliant Tactician feat. Her stats are fairly low, 8-attack that drops each click, same with a 16-defense so she’s not a sturdy figure, but her 8-range keeps her out of most direct combat and her Team Ability makes up for the low attack if played right (explained more in the next section).

The Icons Start Set Man-Bat is one of the best cheap flying figures out there, at least on his first click—but that’s all you need him for. He starts with a 10-movement Charge and Blade/Claws/Fangs, but loses everything until he gain Toughness for his last two click, he’s also only got a starting 15-defense (as you can see defense isn’t this team’s strong point), but it never drops below 13 in his 5-click long dial. Now before you laugh, there’s a reason for every one of these figures, and Man-Bat’s is to be forgotten about: he’s almost taken down Vet Darkseid on his own before (would have, too, if Darkseid hadn’t run off to a medic).

The Joker from the Icons Starter is another great low-cost figure. With starting Stealth, Leadership, and Willpower he’ll help get your figures where they need to go with that extra action this team needs. He keeps Stealth for 1 click and Willpower for 2, but trades out leadership for 3 clicks of Perplex and ends with Toughness. He’s got a great attack at 10 and an ok defense of 16 that, like everyone else on this team, drops quite fast. His attack does get bumped up to a 9 on his last click, which is a nice surprise for your opponent.

Lastly is the LE Victor Fries from Legacy. He’s about as fragile as Quinn and Man-Bat with a 15-defense that ends in an 11, but has an 8-range, 9-attack and front-loaded Stealth, Incapacitate, Barrier, and Range Combat Expert. He loses most of his powers after the first click, but keeps incapacitate for most of his dial and does gain toughness a few clicks down.

Brilliant Tactician is a great card that is one of the two keys to this team; it’s on Dr. Harless Quinzel and she can use it for two click, but that can be, and usually is, a long time since you can make it really hard to hit her. You can use Brilliant Tactician to perplex everyone in your team each round.

Protected is also on Quinn, it lets you ignore damage from one source for one round, but you have to place an action token on her. Since she doesn’t need to activate to use Brilliant Tactician ,then once you have her in a good spot you shouldn’t have to worry about Protected pushing her.

Ambush is on the Joker. It lets you add 2 to your attack value, but you lose stealth for one round, it’s a quirky little card that can be advantageous to use as a surprise attack.

The Plan:

Ok so how can a team with such fragile figures work so well? Simple, the Batman Enemy Team Ability plus Brilliant Tactician: both of these abilities let you buff up your combat values in very effective ways. First off, the Batman Enemy Team Ability lets you use any unmodified attack value of an adjacent friendly figure that has the same Team Ability as yours, so it becomes your attack value. So if planned correctly, everyone on your team can have a 10-attack without having to use Perplex or Brilliant Tactician! You could have everyone in a line with the Joker or Bane at the end to do this; of course, you’re probably not going to have a situation like that, which is why two figures have a 10. Brilliant Tactician lets you Perplex one value on each friendly figure that has the same Team Ability in your Line-of-Sight, so Quinn can use it to buff everyone’s damage or defense (though there’s no reason for this since Perplex’s buff ends when your turn is over), but you can buff the range of figures or their movement. But that’s not it. Brilliant Tactician is activated when you use Perplex so Quinn can perplex herself to do so (she cannot target herself with the Brilliant Tactician however), buff one allay twice or lower the defense of an enemy.

So now that we know how those two powers work we can move to how to play the figures. Bane has trouble getting places; if you move him by the time you get into combat he’ll have action tokens on him, which you don’t want, so you instead carry him with Man-Bat from place to place, and if you’re lucky you can charge with Man-Bat when moving Bane next to someone. You want to try and get as many people tied up with these two figures as you can, and if you’re lucky your opponent will attack Bane First and that lets you take another attack with Man-Bat’s Blade/Claw/Fangs—which you should do sooner than later even if it pushes him. Since he can use Bane’s attack value his doesn’t matter and his damage is 2 for a while, so it’s best to lose Blade/Claw/Fangs from using it than from someone attacking you. Going after ranged attackers that have an 8 or greater range is another good idea, that way you can attack back with the second group without fear of easy reprisal. Also, don’t forget to have Quinn use Brilliant tactician before these two attack, and even when they move away from her Line-of-Sight it’s best to always buff these two.

The other figures on the team—Squad 2, Victor Fries, Joker, and Quinn—should stay together not only because they can share the Joker’s attack value of 10, but also because they can get hurt quite easily. Both Joker and Fries have Stealth and if they are stealthed, Quinn cannot target them, but they can still share attack values via the Team Ability. You can hide Quinn behind one of them and she can’t be targeted by ranged attacks since the stealth character blocks Line-of-Sight. If you’ve got a longer range than your opponent then don’t worry about hiding and take advantage of your longer range. If you see your opponent moving up to attack your ranged figures, both Quinn and Fries have Incapacitate they can use; if Fries is still on his first click then doing 4-damage via Ranged Combat Expert (or 5-damage if you buff his damage) or throwing down a barrier are probably better ideas, but it depends on the figure(s) that are advancing.

Eventually your opponent will get a few figures up to Quinn to attack, which is when you should use Ambush with Joker to take them down quick. She does have one protect and has two click of Perplex (which has to be showing to use Brilliant Tactician), and hopefully by this time you’ve whittled away enough of your opponents that if you do lose her Perplex it won’t matter much. Also, the Joker gets Perplex for most of his dial so use that to further increase your damage.

Summation:

This team doesn’t have a lot of defense, but it does a lot of damage and can hit easily. You might have a hard time against anyone with a significantly higher range than yours, so positioning is very important, as well as quickly getting Bane up to take out any long-range attackers.

Discuss it in our forums.

Written by Spriggan on March 10th, 2007