Despite my excellent recommendation in my Flash Top 10, neither I nor Hypefox (my mostly evil almost-twin) have had a chance to try FL025 Golden Glider. Well, this past Wednesday at a constructed tournament at our local venue, Hypefox faced one and all he could talk about afterwards was how she made much of the board impassable to his team. That got me thinking about fun ways to use this piece. (Note: Singing songs from the movie Frozen is completely acceptable while playing Golden Glider. It’s a rule buried deep in the Official Rulebook Appendix under the “Acceptable Singing” section.)

Team Name: Space Invaders

Keyword Theme: None

Roster: FL025 Golden Glider, IIM038 Iron Man, IIM038 Iron Man, WOLR302 Red Lantern Ring, WOLR102 Power Battery (Red Lantern Corps), WOLR202.03 Mallet (Red), WOLR202.12 Spotlight (Red)

Total = 300 Points

How it Works: IIM038 Iron Man is completely untouchable at range as long as he’s in Hindering Terrain (or next to Blocking). And two of  IIM038 Iron Man is even better than one. Why? In all of Modern Age, he only has to worry about: DP102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M., GOTG044 Shriek, and 023 Yondu.  Each of the Iron Men will be packing a Red Construct that they like to keep handy for close encounters. FL025 Golden Glider is the best Hindering Terrain producer this side of WOL053 Swamp Thing, but at roughly 1/3 of the price.  Her power is “FROZEN TRAIL: After Golden Glider moves and actions resolve, place up to 6 hindering terrain markers in squares she moved through. When a character occupying or adjacent to one of these markers attempts to move, it must attempt to break away as if the marker was a character that can use Plasticity and is friendly to Golden Glider.” That means her Hindering Terrain markers are really only passable by her own team. Because if the other team comes to you, you can break away and it will likely be the last time the opponent can move that character this game. Of course you could also stay right where you are and let Penetrating Poison do the work for you.

Because of the complete lack of Willpower on this team and the fact that Golden Glider can only create 6 Hindering Terrain tokens a turn this team will be making a slow, ominous advance up the board not unlike the video game Space Invaders. Advance 3 squares, rest, advance 3 squares, rest and repeat. Unlike Space Invaders, your opponent will not be firing at your approaching army. More than likely no attack will be possible. Just make sure to keep Golden Glider behind the Iron Men so that she is protected as well.  If your opponent keeps running from you, don’t worry you will catch up eventually. As you continue to move Golden Glider the opponent’s available space to run will just keep getting smaller and smaller as the game goes on.

 

Team Name: Revenge of the Nerfed 2.0

Keyword Theme: None

Roster: FL025 Golden Glider, GOTG047BR Thanosi, IIM051 Iron Pharaoh (1500 BC), WOLR104 Power Battery (Indigo Tribe), WOLR304 Indigo Tribe Ring, WOLR204.05 Crossbow (Indigo), WOLR204.01 Net (Indigo), WOLR204.06 Decoy (Indigo)

Total = 300 Points

How it Works: Wait, IIM051 Iron Pharaoh is on this team? Wasn’t he nerfed? Yes he was, but just like with WXM010 Shatterstar, that only makes me more determined. It’s true that after the nerf Iron Pharoah’s Falcon now has trouble catching up to a figure on its own. The new Trait reads, “GOLDEN FALCON, SOARING:When Iron Pharaoh is first placed on the map, place a Falcon special terrain marker in an adjacent square. The Falcon marker moves as if it is a character with the Flight ability. Give Iron Pharaoh a free action to either move this marker up to 3 squares or until the end of the turn, Iron Pharaoh can draw lines of fire and count range (up to 3 squares) from the Falcon marker using Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, Ignores Elevated Terrain, Ignores Outdoor Blocking Terrain, Ignores Characters.” That’s a pretty big nerf (and you can certainly question whether Iron Pharaoh even needed to be nerfed to begin with), but–after copious amounts of testing in my lab–I’ve discovered that Iron Pharaoh’s Falcon will have no problem catching up to the opposing team if they aren’t moving around too much, which would render WizKids’s nerf… moot.

That’s where FL025 Golden Glider and GOTG047BR Thanosi help out. Golden Glider makes Hindering Terrain tokens and Thanosi turns any Hindering Terrain into a veritable wall, but only for the opposing team. His trait reads “BUILT TO TEST MY FOES: KA-ZAR: Opposing characters within range can’t ignore terrain for movement purposes.” That means that if they try to cross Golden Glider’s Hindering Terrain they stop dead and because her Hindering Terrain also acts like “a character that can use Plasticity and is friendly to Golden Glider“, that’s about the worst thing an opponent can do to themselves. All Thanosi has to do is be within his Range of 8 and any Hindering Terrain will stop any move action dead. Telekinesis and a placement power like Shatterstar has are the only ways to get through.

This Build features team members that are generally fairly hardy, so if your opponent wants to TK one character at a time close to you, then that should work out to your advantage. Especially considering that at least part of the opponent’s team will be stuck outside of the fight and because of the Indigo Constructs, everyone on your team has Support. Your opponent can’t even try to shoot you through the Hindering Terrain because of the Indigo Power Battery. It’s Emotional Spectrum Power doesn’t let an opponent hit you from range unless they are within four squares. If you’ve done everything right, they should be stuck in hindering much farther away then that.

The Decoy should be assigned to Golden Glider to keep her safe. The Net is even more effective then normal when assigned to Thanosi, and Iron Pharaoh should get the Crossbow to make sure that the Falcon is super effective.

This team is probably the more evil of the two; either way, have fun trying them out. I know I will!