[EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to our first ever Preview Week, which is devoted to–you guessed it–Previews!! With Deadpool and X-Force dropping in one week, we’re gonna devote the next five days to taking a look at what’s gonna be coming our way this year–from DXF and beyond! Part 1 dropped two days ago and can be found here.]

Today we take a look at some of the interesting Rares and Super Rares from DXF!

[EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s just so much to talk about with the Rares that we’re gonna save Super Rares and Primes for tomorrow, followed by Chases and beyond in Part 4!]

Without further ado…

RARES:

DXF034A-C Deadpool — 75 Points — Rare: Wow–Deadpool in an ultra-supporty role? Whaa… ? Yup–it’s true. All three versions of this “Shifting Focus” sculpt have the same powers. They only differ in their main named Keyword and which Keyword their powers affect.

But they will all give you 4 Range, 3 Damage top dial, Phasing/Teleport, a limited Prob, a limited DOUBLE PERPLEX and Defend. And yes, you can shift to him AFTER making a ranged or close attack with some of his more offensive versions, then use his double Perp and Prob on his teammates. Awesomesauce.

 

DXF035 Howard the Duck — 50 Points — Rare: Look, everyone loves Howard the Duck, but there’s just not a ton to work with here. Sidestep, Stealth, minimal Damage Output and a Special Damage Power (We Can Do This the Wrong Way, or My Way!: At the beginning of your turn, choose a standard power that an adjacent friendly character can use. Until your next turn, all characters within 6 squares and line of fire of Howard the Duck can’t use the chosen power.) that might hurt you as much as it hurts your opponent, especially since ONE OF YOUR CHARACTERS HAS TO ALREADY HAVE THE POWER YOU WANT TO DISALLOW!!

He picks up a decent Incapacitate Special in the middle of his dial (Fowl-Mouthed!: Howard the Duck can use Incapacitate. When he does, he may target all adjacent opposing characters.), but it’s not enough to save this piece.

 

DXF039 Squirrel Girl — 85 Points — Rare: A close combat machine who is also a token generator, Squirrel Girl becomes more of a problem for your opponent as the game goes on.

With her first Trait (Chuk Chitty Chit Chit Chkk!: Give Squirrel Girl a free action when she has one action token and place a Squirrel bystander adjacent.), she can generate her own tie-up supporting figs and her third Trait (Fighting Squirrel Man!: Give Squirrel Girl a free action if there are 6 Squirrel bystanders on the map. Replace them with a Squirrel Man bystander in one of their squares.) lets her bring in what is essentially another Secondary Attacker (Squirrel Man).

 

DXF042 Boom-Boom — 60 Points — Rare: Running Shot mixed with an absolutely AWESOME Attack Special (3,2,1… Boom!: Boom-Boom can use Energy Explosion and Penetrating/Psychic Blast. When she makes a range attack and has no action tokens, modify her attack and damage values by +1.) makes Boom-Boom an extremely efficient Secondary Attacker.

 

DXF044 Shatterstar — 60 Points — Rare: Basically the close combat version of the Boom-Boom I just mentioned. He has Traited Sidestep and Toughness, and his Attack Special (Twin Blades: Shatterstar can use Blades/Claws/Fangs. When he does, once per turn he may reroll the d6.) lets him essentially Prob his Blades roll.

I would definitely say there’s some dark horse Meta potential with both Boom-Boom and Shatterstar as they’re both Secondary Attackers for Tertiary Attacker prices.

 

DXF046 Doop — 90 or 35 Points — Rare: I just played him at his 35 Point level at a Sealed last night and he was great. His Trait is long and wordy:

The Unimaginable Power of Doop: Give Doop a power action. Roll a d6 that can only be rerolled once per turn by removing a Headline token from him.
1-2 Moving Between Panels: Place Doop and all adjacent characters into any square adjacent to themselves.
3-4 Doop Space: All characters within 4 squares are placed adjacent to Doop.
5 Gleaming The Cosmic Cube: Choose a friendly character and it can use the Power Cosmic team ability until your next turn.
6 Hailstorm of Mjolnirs: Doop makes a range attack with a range value of 10 and Targeting: OO>. Instead of normal damage, each hit character and each character adjacent to 1 or more hit characters is dealt 3 damage.

And it’s totally usable at either point level. At 35 Points, he still comes with Sidestep, Invincible and Prob, which makes him nearly indispensable in a Sealed environment. In the Meta, I still prefer Spectre on his Tower Click for the same 35 Points, but it’s close, and Doop doesn’t break Theme on X-Force or X-Statix Builds.

The Con Exclusive is still better, but the more I play this Doop, the more useful he becomes.

 

Okay! That’s all our time for today, but keep watching this space for some standout Super Rares, Primes, Chases and more as we Preview the Deadpool & X-Force set–and beyond during Preview Week!

 

And finally, I want to once again give special thanks to Wizkids, Scott Porter, all the eagle-eyed folks in the HCRealms.com community (especially Jaysol for putting everything there together), the good people at Married With Clix and everyone else who’s helped spoil this set. This article wouldn’t have been possible without all of their hard work.