The Elephant on the Moon

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I’ve run the same roster for the last few events, and I’ll be changing it up slightly for the next few. No major changes – The core three Web Heads are still gonna be around, but I’ll be dropping some characters to make space for others. I think my current roster is perfectly fine, but as things change rosters need to change with them.

So it’s time to address the elephant in the room – S.W.O.R.D establishes Base On Moon’s Blue Area. The scenario came out a while ago with the Cable and Domino box, and is starting to see more play despite the fact that in my opinion, it’s a pretty whacky scenario.

So SWORD puts three Tokens horizontally across the table using the C deployment map. Like other secures, a specific player ‘Controls’ the objective after interacting with it, which can be represented with suitable tokens. However, if there are no enemy characters contesting the console, you simply control it after interacting with it with no dice roll needed. This is pretty odd, as it means there is no chance to fluff you dice like there is in say Spider Portals.

What’s even weirder is the way you take back control if there are enemies contesting it. So in Spider Portals, you need to roll more Hits, Crits or Wilds than there are healthy enemy characters contesting the point to steal it back. In S.W.O.R.D all you have to do is roll one dice, regardless of how many enemy characters are there contesting the point, and roll a single Hit, Crit or Wild. If you do this, then the point is now yours! It doesn’t matter if the enemy has one, or six models contesting the S.W.O.R.D base, if you roll one of these results, it’s now yours! The fact that it’s a 50/50 chance to simply take it seems a bit odd to me.

What this also means is that the character who does not have priority has a big advantage. Regardless of what your opponent does, if you still have characters left to activate after theirs, you can just walk up to the objective and take the chance at it being yours. As a result of this, rosters are going as wide as possible when playing the scenario – Which at fourteen threat can be quite difficult for rosters like Asgardians or Black Order. Sam Wilson is eagerly licking his lips, bringing four of his friends at fourteen to wreak havoc.

With my previous roster, the only affiliated way I could play fourteen threat only had four models. This would be Gwen, Miles, Venom and Killmonger. Although I think this is a solid team, the disadvantage of being outnumbered in this scenario is pretty big. This is why I’ve decided to shuffle things about a little, adding some new models and taking out some that I hadn’t used for a while. My roster had previously looked like this:

Characters
Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Venom, Daredevil, Scarlet Witch, Killmonger, Baron Zemo, Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight and The Reality Stone.

Team Tactic cards
Medpack, Brace for Impact, All Webbed up!, Lethal protector, Climbing gear, The Whims of Chaos, Usurp the Throne and Execute.

Secure crisis cards
Daemons downtown! Has our comeuppance come due? – 19
Mutant Madman turns city centre into amusement park – 18
Portals overrun city with spider people – 18

Extract crisis cards
Fear grips world as ‘Worthy’ terrorize citizens – 18
Skrulls Infiltrate world Leadership – 17
Struggle for the cube continues – 17

The bulk of my roster will be staying the same, and as much as Quinn keeps hoping for it, Corvus and the Reality Gem aren’t going anywhere. In terms of characters, I’ll be dropping Daredevil, Baron Zemo and Scarlet Witch. This is quite a few substitutes, and although all three of these characters are without a doubt super solid, I’ve found myself rarely using them. Zemo is still incredible, but it’s easy to get punished with Beam attacks whilst trying to optimise his re rolls. Daredevil is a super tanky objective runner, but for four threat I never really take him over Killmonger. Scarlet Witch, as we all know, is an amazing character, but I very rarely take her unless I’m playing at twenty threat.

I’ll be dropping a couple of Tactics cards too – Execute and Whims of Chaos. I don’t think I’ve ever used Execute in a tournament game, I’ve just thrown it in to fill my eighth slot. Whims of Chaos is honestly one of my favourite tactics cards, but without the Scarlet Witch it isn’t much use to me. So with the same Scenarios, my new sets of Characters and Tactics cards are going to look something like this

Characters
Miles Morales, Ghost Spider, Venom, Black Cat, Moon Knight, Killmonger, Toad, Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight and The Reality Stone.

Team Tactic cards
Medpack, Brace for Impact, All Webbed up!, Lethal protector, Climbing gear, Advanced R&D, Usurp the Throne and Spider Tracker.

I don’t know how often I’ll be trying the two new Tactics cards. I’ve only had a few games with Spider Tracker and only found it really useful in a couple of scenarios – I much prefer the freedom of Climbing Gear. After talking to my friend Dan, Advanced R&D opens up some interesting turn one plays, so I might try that in a couple of games and see how it gets on.

The big changes for me here are the new characters. I’ve played a bunch of games with Black Cat now, and she is slowly growing on me. With Moon Knight being released and coming in as an unsuspected Web Warrior, I’m looking forward to trying him out too. I’ve never used a two threat, but to do a five wide build at fourteen, I needed one, and Toad was my two threat of choice. At fourteen threat, I now have a super stealthy five wide team which is

Miles Morales (L), Ghost Spider, Black Cat, Moon Knight and Toad

I’m looking forward to trying this team at fourteen – Even though it actually breaks my core three! The triple stealth is really nice, and it will make some interesting plays I think. I’ll see if the two threat Toad is actually worth it, and what he can do. I’ll also be running a slightly different team at twenty threat now, which looks like

Miles Morales (L), Ghost Spider, Venom, Corvus Glaive – Reality, Moon Knight and Toad.

This is another interesting combination of characters, but it is basically just what I’d take at eighteen with Toad tagging along. Toad is really gonna have to pull his weight and prove himself, as there’s now plenty of other decent looking two threats that I might try out! Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to trying this slightly different roster and seeing what people’s thoughts on it are. If I break my winning streak, I’m just going to blame Toad!

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