We held our Appalachian tour tournament at the Fabricator’s Forge outside of Pittsburgh in Western PA on September 27th. This also doubled as a Las Vegas Open Qualifier Tournament. We pulled in players from West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to compete in competitive Marvel Crisis Protocol.
Since new models have been pretty sparse this summer and I’ve been very busy outside of the game, I decided to play my Inhumans roster. Going into this tournament my record at tournaments with this list was 6-1. The only change I made was to take out the Medusa leadership TTC and replace it with Recalibration Matrix, which ended up being a very good choice for me. Multiple times during this tournament I was able to play Recalibration Matrix and get very favorable re-rolls.
Even though Medusa’s leadership is more geared towards brawling, I think the lines of play on Round 1 with Black Bolt’s leadership is extremely strong so even if it’s going to be a brawl of a game I still lean toward Bolt’s leadership instead of using Medusa. I’ve also been discussing with people the power of Black Bolt using the Great Refuge TTC card on Round 1 to make two attacks against an enemy model and exactly how powerful that can be. While I didn’t manage to use that during this tournament I think it will be invaluable in the future against attrition teams and any enemy model that is weak to energy attacks.
If you want to read more in-depth about this Inhumans roster please visit my previous articles.
Previous Inhumans Tournament Report
Round 1 (Brotherhood, 20 Threat)
Round 1 I got paired up against a player from Ohio who brought Brotherhood affiliation. I won priority and chose my extracts (I always chose my Extracts because I am really favored when I can get Terrigenesis TTC to trigger and they usually allow me to go up on VP on Round 1 as well). We ended up playing on Unexpected Guests and Wedding Party and my opponent chose 20 Threat because he likes playing Magneto and high threats. He brought Magneto, Juggernaut, Toad, Rogue, and Avalanche. I brought Black Bolt, Medusa, Namor, Quicksilver, and Baron Zemo. This board did have a lot of terrain for my opponent’s Magneto to toss around, but pivotally there was the size 5 Weapon X bunker on a flank right next to one of the Secures.
In the first round Namor activated, passed a power to Quicksilver, and took a Guest then moved on top of the Weapon X bunker while contesting the Wedding Party. My opponent used Juggernaut to move up and slide through terrain to pass some power out and set up his Asteroid M turn. Juggernaut’s punch into Namor thankfully didn’t do too much damage. My Quicksilver was passed another power from Black Bolt then was able to move Long, use his superpower to move Long again, pick up the Wedding Guest on my opponent’s side of the table, and move Long back onto the Weapon X bunker next to Namor.
For the rest of the Round my opponent used Asteroid M to move Magneto up in a position so he could double tap and Daze Quicksilver. Thankfully since they were both on top of the terrain piece my opponent could not Throw terrain into them and also could not slide Juggernaut into my models. That saved me for the rest of the game since it really took damage and action economy away from my opponent’s most expensive models.
Over the rest of the match I was able to Daze Magneto to take away an Activation. I kept Juggernaut’s effectiveness to a minimum and his biggest play was his single 8 dice Builder and his use of his TTC to Throw one of my characters. Toad did not get to score any objectives all game long but hung around and had Magneto Thrown into him by Medusa.
On the other flank Rogue had an exceedingly great turn where she was able to charge into her Builder and Daze my Zemo then Spender and Daze my Black Bolt. Neither of them had activated at the time. While my opponent scored that side of the board with Rogue, I was stopping my opponent from Contesting the other Secure because I had moved it up onto the Weapon X bunker where his models had no place to go next to the ones I already had up there. This ended up being very frustrating for my opponent and I definitely see why. This piece of terrain is pretty unique and does allow for some base blocking.
At the end of Round 3 I was able to take down Rogue and damage Avalanche who was still holding an Extract. I was going to get to 14 VP but decided to try for a 50% chance at Terrigenesis to win the game and just close it out. Unfortunately I only did 1 damage to Avalanche instead of the 2 I needed to Daze him so we went to Round 4. In this Round Magneto was already gone and I managed to KO Rogue and take down Avalanche. I scored as many VP as I could and ended the game 19 VP to 12 VP.
Round 2 (Wakanda, 17 Threat)
In Round 2 I was paired against a player who has been on a hot streak using Wakanda. Wakanda, while it has a low play rate, has a very high win rate. This player has definitely shown that Wakanda is one of the strongest teams and I didn’t feel very confident about this game. Probably the biggest break in my direction this game was that I won the priority roll. This allowed me to pick my Extracts and guarantee that Terrigenesis would be online. Also, with priority I could grab a majority of the Extracts and try to stay ahead during the course of the game.
We ended up playing Spider-Infected and Wedding Party at 17 Threat. I chose Black Bolt, Namor, Medusa, and Quicksilver. He took King T’challa, M’baku, Luke Cage, Okoye, and Gorgon. He also took Gorgon’s Royal Guardians TTC and Luke Cage’s Heroes for Hire. Combined with Luke Cage’s innate bodyguard, Gorgon’s bodyguard, and Okoye’s bodyguard, it would be difficult to target King T with any meaningful attacks.
Namor took the middle Extract and bounced to the Secure across from Luke Cage. I figured Namor would be able to take down Luke Cage easier and with Medusa on that side, the re-rolls would make a very formidable flank. On my second Turn Quicksilver was able to do the Advance, Superpower advance, pick up the Extract on my opponent’s side. Unfortunately this was the same side that my opponent’s King T was on so Quicksilver opted to Long move to the center of the table, trying to avoid aggression.
At the end of Turn 1 my opponent’s King T was able to move forward and target Quicksilver and do three damage to him. My opponent knew that I was going to be ahead on Extracts and this was his chance to catch up by Dazing Quicksilver. He used Wakanda Forever TTC to do another zero cost attack from King T into Quicksilver. Quicksilver used his Can’t Catch Me superpower to reposition next to Namor for the additional re-roll and next to Cover. Ultimately, my opponent’s 8 dice builder was not able to Daze Quicksilver who made it out of the Round alive.
In the second Round Quicksilver rotated to the other flank and was Patched Up by Black Bolt and stayed in range so Black Bolt could Bodyguard him. Gorgon was able to use his Spender to Throw and Stagger Black Bolt which is untimately the best way to deal with Black Bolt. King T came in and was able to take down Quicksilver. On the other flank Namor whittled down Luke Cage and Medusa used Terrigenesis to finish him off and score 2 VP. This Terrigenesis round put me ahead for the rest of the game.
In the last Round Luke Cage was KOd and M’baku was Staggered by Namor and so far away from the action that he wasn’t able to do anything meaningful. Namor finished his activation standing on one Secure while Medusa rotated to the other Secure during the Round. I basically had enough characters spread far enough apart that it was very difficult for my opponent to stop me from scoring out. King T needed to take down Medusa, Quicksilver, and somehow he needed to take down another character as well with only Okoye remaining. The game ended with me scoring out 17 VP to his 15 VP.
Truly, Terrigenesis was the winning play here and that can mostly be attributed to me winning the Priority roll. I do think Wakanda would be favored if the Priority roll had been different.
Round 3 (Web Warriors, 16 Threat)
There were three 2-0 players including myself and I got the pair-down for this Round. Unfortunately, I was paired up against the excellent Web Warriors player. I did win Priority roll again, and chose my Extracts. We played on Unexpected Guests and Cosmic Invasion. My opponent chose to play at 16 Threat. My list does not have a very strong 16 Threat roster to bring to the table, especially against a wide Web Warriors team so I felt pretty disadvantaged.
I think I made a Turn 0 error in this game chosing my models. There wasn’t a clear correct choice but I chose too many immobile characters into a wide Web Warriors team and couldn’t keep up and couldn’t do enough damage to win the game. I took Black Bolt, Namor, Quicksilver, and Ms. Marvel. Although Black Bolt is my only for the affiliation in my roster, I could have gone leaderless affiliated to still play Terrigenesis. I also had the option fo playing unaffiliated with splash characters who are fast like Namor, Baron Zemo, Shang Chi, Miles Morales, and Spider-Woman. I have a problem with Web Warriors because they are fast and my affiliated characters like Black Bolt, Karnak, Ms. Marvel, and Medusa can’t keep up.
My opponent went 5 wide with Miles Morales, Spectacular Spider-Man, Black Cat, Baron Zemo, and Shang Chi. My Namor picked up one of my Guests and sat on a side Secure. My Quicksilver was able to take an opponent’s side Extract and move onto the other side Secure. His Black Cat dove my side Guest and I only had a Normal sized Ms. Marvel to deal with her and that didn’t seem likely. His Baron Zemo went onto the point with my Quicksilver so I decided to move Ms. Marvel onto the flank and try to brawl instead of scoring my back Secure. His Spectacular Spider-Man was not able to Impact Webbing my Namor off the point but his Shang-Chi used his gainer to move onto the point with Namor. His Miles took his back point and my Black Bolt took my back point.
I made another mistake here because I thought I had Great Refuge in my TTC so I could teleport up Black Bolt in the next Round and double tap either Spectacular or Shang-Chi. However, I did not have Great Refuge and Black Bolt was stuck on the back point. I do think Black Bolt is a silver bullet to Shang-Chi because outside of Range 3 Black Bolt is very effective against Shang-Chi’s energy defense. I walked Black Bolt up and took my single attack at Shang-Chi but it didn’t do much damage and now Black Bolt was stranded off the point having a less than stellar activation.
Ms. Marvel was passed a power from Quicksilver to Embiggen and attack into Zemo. In her Embiggened form she has two re-rolls and another re-roll but couldn’t Daze Zemo. His Zemo and Black Cat were more effective at brawling than my Quicksilver and Ms. Marvel. Although I was able to Terrigenesis his Zemo this game and eventually KO Zemo, Black Cat was still scoring more points than I was, while still putting out damage and Staggers.
The rest of the game was similarly ineffective for my squad. Namor charged into Spectacular Spider-Man which used Spider-Tracker to get out of his attack Range. Black Bolt continued to whiff into Shang-Chi from range. His defense rolls were better than my attack rolls and he stayed ahead in the score for the rest of the game. He basically was able to stand on points and withstand my attacks and sail to victory. I lost the game 17 VP to 10 VP.
Conclusions
The tournament finished after three rounds so I had a final record of 2-1 which I was still happy with. I finished 4th in the tournament. Overall my Inhumans list in competitive tournaments is 8-2 for an 80% win rate which I feel is very good in a very competitive environment. I am still learning all the lines of play for the roster and people in my area are learning to play against Inhumans better. I am quite worried about the new Web Warrior characters super charging that affiliation making the match-up even worse for me. I’m not sure how to combat the Web Warriors meta but I think I’ll need to include either fast characters or characters that don’t allow for opponent defensive re-rolls.
A Shadowlands Daredevil list won the tournament using Mephisto and Loki Prince of Lies as strong affiliated pieces. He accidently went unaffiliated in the last Round of the tournament but still won over another Inhumans list to win the tournament. It was a great tournament and I am still happy with Inhumans. I will be testing out Ultimate Spider-Man in many lists for the future, but don’t know if I want to splash him in Inhumans. Passing a power for him to Web Swing then a buffed attack that can Slow and pull an enemy off the point seems like a good effect in the first Round. However, 3 Threat Miles can do a similar effect and has an objective focused Spender. Gorgon is an Inhumans character that I might be interested in including in the future for his Charge superpower and ability to Spender with a Throw and Stagger.
If you’re looking for another viewpoint on this tournament, listen to the Crit-Hit-Wild podcast!
If you’re looking for Criminal models or Web Warriors or Inhumans, look to the Frontline Gaming online store. The next Appalachian tournament is being held in November! If you’re in the area come by my home shop the Fabricator’s Forge in Pittsburgh, PA. MCP is in a great spot right now but the Web Warriors are on their way so we better all get ready!