Now I have a few games under my belt, I want to give some serious thought to team selection, rather than picking models I like the look of, or ones that have cool names.
In fact, ignore that. I want to build a team around Final Boss. For exactly those reasons.
I have always been a fan of models in games that can do a bit of everything, and Final Boss fits that well. He has pretty good defensive abilities (especially up close with i-Khol), he can shoot people and not care about them being a minimum distance away, and he can displace himself given the right situations.
So, I am going to pick 3 more characters to go with him, and then look at card synergies.
Looking at Final Boss, Swim Move seems like it wants more Dazzled, stunned and Immobilised than he can hand out, so let’s look at a piece first of all that can help with that.
Laxmee seems to fit. First of all, she is understandably very easy to kill, though thankfully as none of her powers require line of sight she can stay a bit out of harm’s way. This also helps with her use of Purge ’92, meaning I haven’t got to worry too much about moving out of position with my other characters, forcing Laxmee to move out from somewhere nice and safe.
Stunned will help keep the team alive, and Focused will help with damage output as well as removing more state tokens. Yes, Laxmee, you will fit well.
Her Health of 2 worries me, she will not be great at going into zones (especially if she goes early into the turn, which may be the case as she may want to stun targets early). So, I think I should look at more players who can hold zones, and help support Laxmee a little more with not being shot in the head.
Kozmo seems to fill many holes at once. First of all, she has solid defenses and health, allowing her to tank alongside Final Boss. She can zoom across the board and score without any real difficulty. Her smoke will really help shield Laxmee (and the rest of the team, to be honest) from lots of threats. It may also help Final Boss, making enemies have to engage him close up, allowing him to use i-Khol.
Several of Kozmo’s cards, as well as Multispectral Visor benefit from the target being Dazzled. So, for my fourth pick, I think i would like someone who could do this, as well as help dish out some damage and score when needed.
I really like Eclypse. Her damage output isn’t awful (especially if she can attack twice), she can hand out both Dazzled and Marked from up to 5 hexes away as well. Moon Cycle will help keep states on my own side under control, as well as prolong other states on my opponent’s team that the rest of the team are handing out. This should allow Laxmee to spread Stunned and Focused out more efficiently, and allow Final Boss to use Swim Move more often
Plus, Penumbra can help give protect allies, though I often fins Allies aren’t adjacent at the end of her activation as she might want to her in line of sight for Black Lightning.
So, that is my team. What about the cards?
I am not a big fan of having too many cards that rely on a certain character being in the Hexadome, or being the model that is activated / targeted. For this reason, I have avoided too many of them.
That said, the combination of Crystal clear with 4-Kaleidoscope is too good to pass up, even though it takes two activations to fully use. The idea of stunning all enemies within 7 Hexes of Laxmee ignoring line of sight, then immobilizing them afterwards makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
This team is not as mobile as some, with not many displace effects, so Chimera Ram will help a little with that. Infinite Density and Stellar Nucleosynthesis work well with Kozmo and Eclypse, who can use them to lock an opponent down and so damage to finish someone off, potentially without even having to roll dice and risk taking any damage back.
Polarization will keep states in play for longer, and also allow any benched players to come back with less energy loss, or allow a player who has been targeted by any effects that they are unable to shift on their own to clear them as soon as they can. Finally, Veil of Darkness is going to be good to keep squishy players like Laxmee alive, but also allow characters like Final Boss and Eclypse to close the distance to use their powers without being in as much risk of counter attack for the rest of the turn
I think the cards are certainly open for debate as to which ones to pick, the cards I didn’t take for Eclypse for example; Baily’s Bead for example brings more Marked to the table which is a strong state to have.
I think this team has some good synergies, it isn’t hugely fast and has not got many displace effects, so I think there is a risk of it being tied down too easily. Still, if it is able to do it’s combos it will be able to lock down and control the opponent, and pick off pieces where needed.
That’s it for now. Let me know what you think, either on here in the comments, or on Twitter @IHexadome
Bye!
Into The Hexadome 