When Hammer of Thor’s release was still some weeks away, I barely had a clue who any of the Guardians of the Galaxy were (besides already-made members such as Mantis, V Drax and Gamora). And aside from Rocket Raccoon, I didn’t care one whit. I didn’t read Marvel’s “cosmic” titles and had no interest in starting.

But as more info on the set began to filter out, I found myself intrigued more and more by both previously unknown characters and the ones I knew.

Then I saw her.

I was so impressed by the sculpt alone (let alone the solid dial) that I got interested in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic. And, in a scant six weeks or so (thanks in large part to my friend and fellow player Lenny loaning me the majority of the series for one of those weeks), I’ve become a big fan. All because of my love-at-first-sight with Miss Phyla-Vell above.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to play this team for weeks but didn’t want to do it halfway. I also had to reacquire Vet Drax from Supernova first…

and then I wanted to modifiy him to match his current look:

Turned out great. One day, I’ll do a post or series of posts featuring all my mods. I’m hardly the best out there, but I like my work.

Here’s the team.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

V Drax 184 + Unstoppable 5
Adam Warlock (Secret Invasion) 160
Phyla-Vell 138 + Protected 8
Star-Lord 90
Gamora 73 + Protected 8
V Mantis 67
Rocket Raccoon 65

= 798 points.

…and some other cards I can’t recall. He picked the Dawn of Time map. I picked the wrong side. Tons of hindering terrain forced my crew to assemble in a wide kill zone where Thor and Iron Man could take easy shots and get easy rerolls from Prob Controls. I’d have to hope my Kinetic Accelerator would give Gamora enough of a boost to get to someone. (An ideal build would’ve given me some way of double-teaming her with Drax. But no, not this team.)

Complicating that early-strike idea was Quicksilver swiftly moving to base Gamora and Mantis. Simply could not have that, so Drax Charged him to KO with the Meteorite. (Didn’t mind doing it because Drax has his own Exploit Weakness to work with.) Thus freed, Gamora got enough extra speed from the Accelerator to get to Iron Man. But her attack was Probability Controlled into a miss, and that’s all she wrote aside from tying up Tony for a while longer.

Mantis got healed by Adam Warlock after taking a hard shot from Iron Man but fell to Thor once she got back in the field while Drax pushed and utterly failed against Giant-Man. Stuck on Combat Reflexes and unable to Outwit any Avengers of note, he sucked massive damage straight to KO. Star-Lord took it even worse when a Perplexed Thor one-shot him.

EDIT (01/5/10): And now, as I recall, Charlie’s Earthquake BFC going off didn’t help much either!

Never quite got Star-Lord, Phyla-Vell or Rocket Raccoon into the fight for real…landed a shot on Iron Man but that was it. I lost Drax, Star-Lord, Gamora, Mantis and only got Quicksilver and a Protected feat. 0-1.

Thor (Hammer of Thor) + Fortitude + Protected + Alias

Again I was forced onto the Dawn of Time map, but I picked a better side this round, giving me a little more cover and him only one direction of attack. Star-Lord again took an uru mallet to the face, but thankfully this was only for 5 damage, sending him to Adam Warlock’s healing ways.

This time Drax was the first to Accelerate to Thor, using Unstoppable to run through the water. But he was forced to waste his Meteorite on an adjacent Asgardian Warrior when Thor got his Alias roll.

Gamora came next (once the others cleared out the other A. Warriors shielding Thor) and the whole team began to work on Thor as Heimdall and Sif moved in to support him. Beta Ray Bill got some killing shots on Drax but gave Star-Lord something to try Galactic Marksmanship on so he could lay some big hurt on Thor (once Phyla and others got Spider-Man out of the way).

Thor whiffed a couple of key attacks and breakaways, sealing his fate. Got Thor, Spidey and both Asgardian Warriors (to my losses of Drax, Gamora and Mantis again) for a win. 1-1.

I won roll and picked the Space Map. Gamora got an early Charge on Thor & Loki but Shape Change thwarted her. Star-Lord got a much lighter shot on them.

Asgardians surrounded the big duo, forcing me to whittle them away. Poor Mantis, on the map’s rooftop, took down a generic Valkyrie but was woefully overmatched by SR Valkyrie. Rocket Raccoon tried to gain a rooftop vantage to PC, but only got Outwitted once Gamora actually got to hit Thor & Loki to that point in their dial.

Drax pushed and Charged in for a crit hit on Thor & Loki that was nullified when they made their Shape Change again (retroactively, because it’s non-optional). Drax was gone before the next turn, shot in the back by SR Valkyrie and Charged by Asgardian Warriors.

Gamora, on her Flurry+Blades click, rolled a 1 & 2 on the attacks. And then game was over after she was gone. I was incredibly mortified to realize that her base 3 damage would have KO’d Thor & Loki and won me the game instead of losing it — even with the Mystics feedback!

KO’d 2 Warriors and Valkyries each but lost Drax, Gamora and Drax…AGAIN.

These results were less than optimal: 1-2. Mantis and Gamora and Drax were casualties in every game. Gamora did her part despite her loss, but Drax really underperformed because I was just too reckless with him, pushing to make his attacks almost every time.

I kinda found a rhythm by the last game: taxi Gamora to the Kinetic Accelerator on turn one with Phyla, Charge on turn 2 then get Drax on the Accelerator for a push Charge with a Meteorite. I wasn’t able to do this plan of attack in round one and paid for it. Also flubbed it in round two. Almost pulled it off in the last one but Thor & Loki’s Shape Change is a killer and a half.

Even better would be to taxi Gamora first with Phyla, then Drax with Adam, hopefully scoring a 1-2-3 KO with 1) a push shot from Phyla, 2) an Accelerated Charge from Gamora, opening the Accelerator for Drax (hopefully) and 3) Drax coming in with a heavy a turn later.

I was now determined to win with this team, though, because they were still pretty competitive; it was more user error than anything that doomed me. I had a 1000-point game the next Friday and an 800-pointer Saturday. Both would be GotG builds…I SWORE IT*!!!!

*(not really. But I DID play a LOT more GotG teams. Watch this space for more on the space-farers!)