X-Force teams haven’t been quite as cool since the Watch List nerfs.

Everyone remembers WXM010 Shatterstar. No one uses him now because he had an awesome trait that was nerfed to heck. It was the exact same way with his teammate WXM041 Spiral. What if I told you there was a way to use them that would let you beat the well-nigh unstoppable IIM051 Iron Pharaoh (1500 BC) at his own game? If only I had thought of this team before my last game versus the Pharaoh.

The combo pieces are Shatterstar and WXM042 Fantomex. Just teleport Fantomex to the other side of the map and shoot Iron Pharaoh on like turn 3. There you win… Opps! I’m being told that won’t work at all. Fantomex is too many points for Shatterstar to teleport with and the watch list made it so anyone teleported can’t take a non-free action that same turn. Obviously none of this works and I should stop writing now… But wait, I’m still writing so I must know something.

Here’s the deal. It’s true you can’t teleport Fantomex, but nothing says you can’t teleport WXM042BT E.V.A.! So start on turn three with your characters un-tokened and together (because it takes Fantomex a turn to make an E.V.A). Have Shatterstar teleport and base Iron Pharaoh. Put E.V.A. in line of fire one square away. Try to position so you aren’t in the line of fire of the rest of the opposing team. E.V.A. can’t use a non free action that turn, but she can use her outwit to counter the Pharaoh’s defensive ability. Fantomex can now shoot through E.V.A using ranged combat expert to attack the Pharaoh with a 12 attack and hit for 4 damage (which is the sweet spot on the Pharaoh). But what if you miss your Alpha strike? That’s why I mentioned using Spiral earlier. Stand her next to Fantomex and use her probability control to get a second shot. The best part is that an opponent’s probability control is useless, because Fantomex will be well out of range. Include AVX005R Wolverine on your team to round it out to 396 points that can be used in the AvX event.

We’ve gone over what Fantomex and Shatterstar will be doing, but what about your other two characters? Well the same turn that Shatterstar teleports to the other side of the board Spiral should make a portal with one side under Wolverine so that he can use a free action to cross through it on his next turn and come out swinging. You’ll need to put the opposite end of the portal some place where your opponent either can’t move a character over the top of it (like deep in hindering), or where they won’t want to put a character (like adjacent to Shatterstar).

The turn following your Alpha Strike Wolverine and Shatterstar get their chance to chop your opponents to bits in close quarters. The turn after that Fantomex and Spiral will have cleared and can move into the fray via the spiral portal or by just using their advanced movement abilities. Hopefully by then your opponent won’t have much fight left in him.

This team can obviously be adapted to alpha strike any piece that’s necessary to your opponent’s game plan. SLOSH005B Mon-El and SLOSH048 Tellus come to mind as pieces to target, but just about any piece is vulnerable. Don’t try this on SLOSH039 Bizarro…

This is what it looked like the last time someone used this plan on Bizarro…

You can change the team to 300 points by dropping Spiral and adding the X-Force ATA. You can also make it close to 500 by adding WXM011A Deathlok. Just like the  Iron Pharaoh combo team I posted here, to the best of my knowledge no one has thought of this combo at the time I published it. If you take this to your local venue it’s likely no one will see this coming. In fact, you might be underestimated by other players for using “nerfed” pieces. Good luck. If you use this team, leave a comment to let me know how you did.