F.U.N. Fights: The Authority

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Back in January, Heroclixin’ revealed that the entire Authority themed team was our No. 2 favorite character[s] of 2014. In spring, after the initial flush of newness had worn off, we fielded the crew in a game. Would the team’s F.U.N. Factor hold up?

THE BUILD: 750 points Modern Age, 5 actions

Apollo @ 200
Jenny Sparks 125
Midnighter 100
Engineer @ 90
Swift 90
Jack Hawksmoor 85
Doctor @ 50
Envy relic 8

=748 points.

ROUND ONE vs. Aaron and his Age of Ultron set Avengers: Captain America [102], Thor [103] @ 150 points, Iron Man [001] @ 250 points and Hulk [008] @ 250 points. I chose Central City, a map I’m accustomed to running the Authority on. 

I holed up on one of the buildings to start since Stealth would be no defense against Avengers Initiative TA. Aaron, seeing the trap if he dared set up for an attack, positioned clear on the other side of the map, well out of my easy swing range. I used the opportunity to carry Jenny (using Swift’s free move action via Air tokens) to a better fighting zone. Aaron, in turn, got a chance to successfully use Cap’s SP Leadership to free up his whole team to re-position without pushing to make attacks on her and Swift next turn.

Uh-oh.

TURNING POINT

  • Jenny made an unsuccessful attempt on Hulk and Iron Man, but I had an Air token to use Swift to get her out of retaliation range. Apollo had slightly better luck, tagging Hulk for 1 damage and forcing Big Green to drop the object he was holding with the subsequent loss of Super Strength. 
  • But the real boon was Iron Man missing his leading attack on Apollo, who was then able to weather Hulk’s followup shot. With Hulk thus engaged, I TKed Midnighter into Charge range to…
  • …hit Hulk in the ‘nads [Exploit Weakness] and lower his DV for the rest of the turn…
  • …then Outwit Hulk’s Invincible+Regen SP for Apollo’s and Jenny’s shots. His hit, hers missed…
  • …but Swift ended it with a pushing Charge against the still-countered Hulk for the win. 1-0.

 

ROUND TWO saw Brian field a variant of a team I had considered for this event, Green Lanterns of Earth: War of Light figs Hal Jordan [102], Kyle Rayner [107], John Stewart [105] @ 165, Jade [106] and token alien GL Soranik Natu. He also had the Net, Wall and Spotlight constructs attached. 

I set up in the same hidey-hole as before, but it didn’t go nearly as well this time: Brian had all the range his team needed to one-shot Doctor and keep my force stuck with free Net and Barrier tokens. A rather desperate shot with Jenny Sparks to cripple Kyle Rayner failed miserably and she was crippled in turn immediately after. Meanwhile, Swift kept getting shot at and only a lowish roll or two kept Kyle’s Energy Explosion from really doing my team harm.

TURNING POINT

  • Having chosen not to Theme Prob Jenny’s miss left Apollo free to HSS and Precision Strike the pushed Kyle to his Ion click, right where I wanted him: based by a foe his Outwit couldn’t effectively counter. Apollo endured Jade’s and Hal’s counterattacks [and hit and miss, respectively]…
  • …then Engineer and Jack double TKed Midnighter to the roof to clobber Kyle with Empowered EW (thanks to Swift) off his Ion SP for Apollo to finish off for the win. 2-0.

So far, Authority teams have had a winning record. I haven’t lost except A) to one other Authority team or B) to a Golden Age Yugioh team that literally could win without ever having to land an attack roll. The wins never come easily — low-scoring games like this one tend to be the norm — and they absolutely require careful play and determination to not give up. 

 

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