Welcome Back!

If you missed Part 1 a few days ago, Ninwashui and I are trying to put together competitive Builds for each Lantern Corps, but we’re throwing in a twist–each Build must feature a character who isn’t normally associated with that color of the emotional spectrum and its related Corps.

To recap, there are two main rules:

1. Each Build has to be a Theme Team (although that Theme doesn’t necessarily have to be for the corresponding Corps keyword) that features a character who isn’t known for being a member of the featured color (Hal Jordan Parallax, for example; or someone who’s never been a Lantern of any color in the comics–like a Marvel character!);

2. For each color, each member of a team has to either start with the corresponding Corps keyword, or they must be able to get it during the game.

There are several ways to do this: use a character from War of Light who’s been made in a color different from the norm (Parallax Hal or Kyle Rayner, Orange Lantern Hal or Blue Lantern Hal, White Lantern Kyle Rayner, Red Lantern Guy Gardner, and so on and so forth); use an Entity to bring any other character in the game into that Entity’s color; or just make a general Theme Team and use the Lantern Power Battery to distribute rings during the game and give each member of a team that color’s keyword (along with some kickass powers!).

In part one, we featured the Sinestro Corps, Indigo Tribe and the Orange Lantern Corps.

Today, Ninwashui is starting us off with… the Blue Lantern Corps!! He thinks he’s come up with some Meta-worthy Build. It’s probably terrible, but whatever. Here it is!!

 

BLUE LANTERN CORPS (Ninwashui Build)

Team Name: The Brooklyn Dodgers

Theme: Scientist

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Blue Lantern Corps: Superior Spider-Man!! Old School Captain Marvel!!

Roster:

DP060 Superior Spider-Man – 160 Points

w/ Secret Avengers ATA – 5

GOTG007B Captain Marvel – 82

DP102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M. – 30

WOLR107 Power Battery (Blue Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR307 Blue Lantern Ring – 4

WOLR207.06 Blue Decoy – 6

WOLR207.11 Blue Bulldozer – 4

WOLR207.14 Blue Sniper Rifle – 6

=299 (Gah! So inefficient!! This must be Parker’s doing somehow…)

 

How It Plays: So, in Magic: The Gathering, blue is the color of counterspells and unsummons–basically, it shuts down offense. Really, it can derail your opponent’s entire strategy. Well, we’re gonna take that idea to Heroclix and run with it!! So if you thought Hal Jordan Parallax was hard to hit with his 19 Defense and -2 to just about every opposing character’s Attack Value, well… meet Superior Spider-Man.

He starts out with an 18 Defense (that bumps up to 19 when he’s next to Captain Marvel, but we will get to the good Captain in a minute) and has Super Senses down his whole dial (which will be important!). He also has a Trait that lets him spit out Spider-Bots for free and attach them with a Power Action. There are two types of Spider-Bots in the game, but you’re really only going to need to make a couple of Mark 1’s at the beginning of the game and attach them. Why? Because each one you attach adds +1 to any Super Senses roll that Spidey makes. Which means that with two Spider-Bots attached, Spidey will straight out AVOID any attack that manages to beat his 18-19 Defense a whopping 66.6% of the time!

But wait! There’s more–a lot more! We’re giving Spidey the Blue Decoy, which adds Shape Change to his repertoire–another 1 in 3 chance that he can’t be attacked. So, to recap, we have a 33.3% chance that Spidey can’t even be attacked, followed by a 66.6% that any attack roll that somehow manages to hit him actually ends up missing him completely! That’s pretty good, right? Nope–not good enough! That’s where the Blue Power Battery comes in! The Battery’s Trait (EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM: HOPE: If the Power Battery, attached Power Ring, and Constructs are all the same color, during each of your opponent’s turns, one friendly Corps member may reroll a roll made for itself.) lets you reroll that 66.6% Super Senses roll. Whew!!

Again, to review, when your opponent declares an attack targeting Spidey, there’s instantly a 33.3% chance that he can’t proceed with that attack. Then, he has to hit at least an 18 Defense (minimum). THEN, if he somehow hits, you get TWO chances at rolling a 3, 4, 5 or 6. Spidey also has the Secret Avengers keyword, which makes it very difficult to Outwit any of his powers. ANNNND Spidey himself has an Outwit to get rid of opposing character’s problem powers (Outwit opposing Precision Strike, Poison or Pulse Wave like it’s the Plague!!).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not a statistician, but Jerry Seinfeld clearly is, and–as always–he has this advice:]

Um… yeah. I think what Jerry is trying to say is that (assuming a 7 is needed to even hit Spidey in the first place–which means your opponent’s primary attacker better be packing an 11 or 12 Attack Value) for every 30 attacks announced with Spidey as the target, roughly 4 will get through. That’s about a 13.33% chance to deal damage. To put that in perspective, that same theoretical opponent would have a roughly 18% to damage the IIM Absorbing Man LE. BUUUUUUUUT, when we factor in the Blue Power Battery Super Senses reroll, that Spidey number changes to roughly 4 out of every 90 announced attacks that get through–or 4.4%.

Let me type that again: 4 POINT 4 FREAKING PERCENT!! Those are lights out, game over and thanks for playing sorts of numbers! Meanwhile, Spidey is swinging away for 3 damage or more (he has Super Strength) every turn. Yikes. Now, taking all that into account, consider this:

Spidey is not your Primary Attacker.

And now we come to Captain Marvel!! Cap’s Defense Special (DEFEND HUMANITY FROM MY PEOPLE: Captain Marvel can use Defend and Super Senses. Modify the Defense Values of adjacent friendly characters without the Kree keyword by +1. This power can’t be countered.) combined with his native 18 Defense means that Spidey and Bill, Agent of A.I.M. each have a 19 Defense when adjacent to him! But that’s not the best part of Captain Marvel’s arsenal. Nooooo, sir! His Attack Special (UNI-BEAM: Captain Marvel can use Energy Explosion, Incapacitate, and Penetrating/Psychic Blast. When Captain Marvel hits with a ranged combat attack, hit targets can’t make attacks during their next turn.) means that your opponent’s best figures may not even get to announce those attacks against Spidey or take a spin on the 4 out of 90 Wheel of (Mis)Fortune! He doesn’t even need to do damage–he just needs to hit! Does that power sound like fun? Great!

Now give Captain Marvel the Sniper Rifle and watch him do it from 10 Squares away. What’s that, you say? Your opponent’s best piece has Stealth or keeps hiding behind Barrier tokens? Well, that’s why you brought Deadpool’s idiot friend Bill along. On his second click he gets an Attack Special (MY HIGH-ENERGY FINDER THING: Give Bill, Agent of A.I.M. a power action and choose the highest-point opposing character. Until your next turn, that character can be targeted with a ranged combat attack by one friendly character without line of fire to that opposing character.) that is pretty much game over, especially when you consider that every character with a Blue Construct also has the Blue Ring-granted limited Perplex (which means Captain Marvel’s Attack Value could theoretically go to 14!). Captain Marvel can keep your opponent’s best figure locked down every other turn for the entire game!!

To quote the noted philosopher Dane Cook, “Good game America.”

 

ASTOUNDED HypeFox Says: “…. I… uh, … $#!%. I can’t believe you came up with something this good! I really have nothing to add. This team is stupid. This is like that South Park episode where “Wall-Mart” ran rampant and almost destroyed the world. I don’t think you realize what you’ve done! This team is an abomination! It must never see the light of day! It must be banished back to the depths from whence it came, before it’s too late!!

… I mean, I’m still gonna publish it though. I just have to figure out how to take credit for it first. Hmmmm... ”

 

RED LANTERN CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name: The Petulant Children

Theme: Red Lantern Corps

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Blue Lantern Corps: Superboy Prime (As far as the Red Lanterns and Superboy Prime go, I mean, really, it was just the one time… he didn’t even really like it…) and Black Talon!!

Roster:

WOL057B Superboy Prime (Red Lantern) – 190 Points

w/ Kryptonian ATA – 2

DP043 Black Talon – 60

possessed by Butcher – 25

WOLR102 Power Battery (Red Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR302 Red Lantern Ring – 8

WOLR202.12 Red Spotlight – 6

WOLR207.14 Red Sniper Rifle – 6

=299 (GRRRRRRRRRRRRR… )

 

How It Plays: This might be the simplest Build of this whole series. The premise is really basic: the only thing better than one Superboy Prime Hypersonic Speed attack each turn is two! Putting the Butcher AND a Construct on Black Talon raises his Attack Value to a 12; a roll of 6 or 7 will give a successful Mind Control hit on SBP, with which you can wreak havoc on the whole board. Superboy Prime’s Movement and Attack will each get +1 with a Construct (giving Superboy a 12 Attack!), and if he hits with his first attack (4 Damage minus any dampeners), you can keep him in range and INSTANTLY ATTACK AGAIN–THIS TIME WITH RANGED COMBAT EXPERT!!

And you can probably just keep Black Talon near the Power Battery so that you can keep healing the damage he takes from Mind Controlling Superboy Prime. And if anyone decides to break off and attack him, he’s packing Charge, B/C/F, and Attack Value that can be modified to 12 (on his top click) along with access to Butcher’s Special Damage Power (HEAT OF RAGE: Once per turn, a friendly character may reroll the d6 roll for Blades/Claws/Fangs.). On Click 3, just when your opponent might expect Black Talon to LOSE B/C/F, he actually picks up access to an Attack Special (BLADES OF THE BUTCHER: Butcher can use Blades/Claws/Fangs. When he does, add 2 to the result.) that gives him B/C/F back AND makes it kinda filthy (I mean, you roll a 6 and all of the sudden it’s Black Talon who’s doing 8 freaking damage in one turn as opposed to SBP, who’s more than capable of that himself.

Of all the teams we’ve designed so far for this series, this team has the highest damage potential. They may not be the best team, but each member is capable of KO’ing even substantial point pieces in one blow!

 

UNIMPRESSED TENTH DOCTOR Ninwashui Says: “What? That’s it? That’s what you cobble together after I create one of the greatest Builds known to mankind?! Psssh. My Blue Lantern Build would wipe the floor with this Red Lantern nonsense you’ve come up with here.”

 

ANGRY AVATAR OF RAGE DMX HypeFox Retorts: “Oh, really? OH REALLY!! I SMELL A CHALLENGE COMING ON!!”

 

AWKWARDLY CLOSE TENTH DOCTOR NINWASHUI CALMLY REPLIES: “Name your terms.”

 

ASKEWED BEANIE’D DMX HYPEFOX States: “Well, we’ve have four Builds left. That’s two apiece. Winner take all! I’ll take the Green Lantern Corps and the Black Lantern Corps.”

 

INTRIGUED TENTH DOCTOR Ninwashui: “So that leaves me the White Lanterns and the Star Sapphires, eh? Very well then. I accept your challenge, sir! Although there’s one thing you forgot!”

 

POSTURING DMX HypeFox Says: “Oh? And what’s that, playa?”

 

NINWASHUI DROPS A FINAL BOMBSHELL!!: “I’ve been a raccoon the whole time! MWA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAA! I hope you’re ready… and I’ll see you next time!!“