Uncanny X-Men – Feature Pt.2 – Storm

Today we have the second article from Dom, as we join him with his Uncanny X-Men journey. Today, he’ll be talking about his go-to leader, Storm!

Storm – Thunder Woman! 

This is a follow up to my first article on the Uncanny X-Men, if you haven’t read it yet – you can check it out here

Who is Storm, and what can she do?

Storm is one of the major characters in the X-Men. A primary figure in the comics, cartoons, and in the movies throughout the 00’s and the 10’s, Storm is one of the most well known members of the team. But how does she shape up in Marvel Crisis Protocol.

Off the bat, she comes in with a reasonable Physical and Mystic defence of three, and an Energy defence of 4. She’s three Threat, so she’s on the lower-side of the X-Men threat values and she’s size 2. She comes with two zero-power attacks

Lightning Bolt, a weak Energy attack at Range 4 that can deal the “Shock condition if you roll a wild.

Ice Blizzard, a weak range three Physical Beam attack that can dish out the “Stun” condition if it deals some damage.

Her “spender” (an attack where Power must be spent to start the attack) is
Hurricane, an okay short-range area attack at 4 Power, with a couple of nice special rules.

As for her Superpowers, she can spend three power to roll an extra two dice for any of these attacks, and she also has access to a throw. Her best superpower is her pseudo-stealth rule Goddess of the Storms, which means she can’t be targeted outside of Range 3. Last but not least, she can fly.

Storm is one of the Uncanny X-Men’s “Leader” options alongside Scott Summers, and frankly in my humble opinion Storm is the Uncanny X-Men’s best Leader option.

I doubt it. She doesn’t sound like a great character…

This is where I pull the proverbial rug from under your feet. In a machiavellian-level plot-twist I have weaved a web of misinformation and covertly manage to neglect to mention the best part about Storm. 

Firstly, Storm allows a friendly Character to “hop” over another friendly. We love free movement in the X-Men. I’m fairly new to this game and free movement is a way to get a slight buffer for my mistakes. You can use this hop to claim an objective, to make a long range shot without needing to move, or to simply move faster. There is a limit to this, you can’t hop if you’re holding an objective, and it only happens once a round. So, you need to make it count. 

Secondly everyone in your team gets cover. In an Oprah-esque move, Storm hands out cover like a brand-new car.

For posterity’s sake, when defending Cover allows you to change one (non-skull) dice into a block, after re rolls. This is a massive boost in durability to your team. Once again, this has a limit. It only applies to attacks outside of range two.

Woah. That’s a pretty good leadership ability!

Storm really makes up for hitting like a wet lettuce (most of the time – see Doomed Prophecy) by having a really good leadership ability. She’s a character that can sit on your back objective with her sort-of-stealth, launching shock-inducing thunderbolts into anyone that dares approach, while simultaneously allowing everyone in her team to ninja-flip over one-another. She can also pull into the mid-board late game and make use of her area two Hurricane stacked on top of her Eye of the Storm to clear an objective.

Storm is not a character you’re going to see for the X-Men unless the player is making use of their leadership ability (which they definitely should be!). She is not a damage-dealer like Domino, she doesn’t really want to be mixing it up like Beast, frankly she’s not as good at sitting back and dealing conditions as Cable, but what she does bring is an incredible leadership ability. 

As always, please leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed reading, or a thumbs down if you didn’t! Please feel free to comment any thoughts you have! Dom is going to be continuing this series here on the blog, so please follow the blog if you want to see his and my own future posts!