Uncanny X-Force: Roster

Hello there, Dr. Phil here with one of my old rosters: the Uncanny X-Force! Since I made this, the rules on some of the heroes have changed, making it even stronger. I'd switch Winter Soldier and Ronan for Psylocke and Deadpool now, but basically everything here is still pretty great on the table with the latest updates!

Combining the affiliations Uncanny X-Men and X-Force into one roster, this "Beam Team" is all about taking enemies down from range and sending forth waves of mutants to capture objectives! This team isn't about racism and fascism though, so Brotherhood members are tolerated but Magneto and Scarlet Witch are their most hated enemies (and also, due to my home setup, one of their most common enemies).

For this roster, I'll be focusing on Storm and Cable as my potential leaders, so let's start with Storm and the Uncanny X-Men. Storm's leadership grants cover to enemies outside of range 2, and once per round one of your team can "leap" over an ally, placing themselves within range 1 of an ally within range 2. The distance traveled by this ability is functionally increased with the "medium" size bases, so Beast, Colossus come to mind. From what I've seen from competitive X-Men rosters, a big scary close combat hero like Thanos or Corvus Glaive is included to get into position for their attacks, so Storm's leadership also makes me think of including at least one scary fighter in the team when she's the leader. As for her ability to grant cover outside of range 2, this combos well with the Uncanny X-Men because many of them have range 4 attacks: Storm, Cyclops, Cable, Domino, and Magik. This means is that in a ranged battle you can have a defensive advantage, so I'm already thinking of a Beam Team when I bring Storm as the leader. 

Let's talk about some of the Uncanny X-Men. Domino has a range 3 rapid fire attack and a range 4 attack that gives out incinerate and has splash damage, so she's great for my Beam Team strategy. Her superpower to count skulls as critical hits makes her damage really spike hard, so it's not surprising to see her randomly daze someone with a grenade bounce. X-23 is a literal and figurative clone of Wolverine but with two claws per hand instead of three, and she has a little sister named Honey Badger, who has only one claw per hand. X-23 and Honey Badger are very strong heroes and only threat level 3 and 2. X-23 and Honey Badger have some synergy on the tabletop but not as much as Rocket and Groot, so that you'd definitely bring one or the other alone in some situations. Rogue is really powerful but a bit power hungry, so she's really solid in Brotherhood where Magneto can give her lots of power with his leadership ability, but she is another scary physical attacker so she likes using Storm's X-Men hop. Magik has solid mystical attacks and mystical defense, so she is a go-to when facing Convocation or Midnight Sons, but she doesn't have much in the way of physical/energy defense so I hesitate to bring her against enemy Hulks or Black Order. Her Tactics card can teleport someone range 3 though, and using this on an enemy to put them out of position can win games, and against your average threat 3 hero, her mystical attacks are powerful enough to get a lot of KOs. With Storm, X-23, Beast, Magik and Domino all at 3 threat, the Uncanny X-Men can play very wide (wide means lots of small heroes, tall means a few big heroes).

There is a fun first turn play as Uncanny X-Men that involves To Me! My X-Men and Storm's leadership ability. If you line up Beast on the line on the Spider-Infected or Cosmic Cube missions, he can move twice to grab the enemy extract, and then Storm can immediately use To Me! My X-Men to give Beast a free move backwards, where he can then interact with the side objective on map C, thanks to First Class. This also brings him out of range of the enemy's response, allowing you to grab 4 of the 5 extracts on turn one and generate a big lead. With Storm's leadership granting him cover, Beast can actually be pretty tanky, and has some extra mobility, Any character with a medium move on a medium base can grab the enemy objective, so you can place another such hero on the opposite side and the enemy will be unable to respond to your play. Heroes with a medium move and a small base can also make it if they use Storm's leadership ability. For this role, I like Lizard, for his tankiness and access to X-Ceptional Healing. I like Ronan for this task thanks to his retribution attack and judgment making it not the worst thing for him to be focused down, although if Scarlet Witch, Ebony Maw, or M.O.D.O.K. are within range 4 of that location I would definitely hesitate to send him in. I like Rogue for this task, although she has to use Storm's leadership to make it there, because she can also be targeted by To Me! My X-Men and is tanky enough to survive an enemy reaction. Sabretooth can make it without any shenanigans, and can retaliate at enemies who try and respond and also has X-Ceptional Healing access. In the end, I went with Ronan for his synergy with the ranged attrition game plan. 

Cable is the leader of X-Force and is a slightly controversial hero, with the internet community seemingly divided on his value for competitive play. On one hand, his 5 threat level makes it hard to bring him in lists and goes against the wide affiliation strategy. People also complain about his attacks, with his attack only at strength 5 it does struggle to do a lot of damage. On the positive side, his terrain throw might be in the best in the game, it can throw up to size 4 terrain within range 3, and his teleport ability makes it even easier to line up a size 4 terrain throw onto the enemy's weakest hero. His teleport ability and X-Force's tactic card Cat and Mouse mean that he's almost always taking two attacks per round, and it's range 5, so almost the entire enemy team is susceptible. His leadership ability grants one attack reroll per turn, which is pretty universally useful. If you compare his leadership to Guardians of the Galaxy, three heroes rerolling two dice each is 6 rerolls per round, so you have to have 6 or more X-Force heroes to get the same value. So that means the affiliation likes to play wide, but also if you can attack on the enemy's turn you will get even more rerolls. Winter Soldier and Sabretooth are crowd favorites here. I really like Winter Soldier thanks to his range 5 rapid fire attack, and he's almost always in range to use his superpower to retaliate with the X-Force reroll. Speaking of range 5, Punisher is on board to finish off the heroes that Cable and Winter Soldier weaken with his strength 8 spender attack with pierce. So for my mission selection, extracts are easy as I definitely want both Cubes and Spider-Infected. The Hammer extracts from Worth Terrorize Citizens are amazing on the heroes with rapid fire. I once got two hammers on Punisher, he can then put out four attacks at strength 6 each turn. For my secures, I generally want to avoid the missions where you have to stand around securing objectives, because my heroes are not any stronger within range 2 and everyone is a little squishy to physical attacks. I do like Infinity Formula though because everyone is a bit hungry for power but has great abilities, and with my range 4/5, I can reach the enemy's weak objective-campers. I chose Spider-Portals because if I am displaced by the portal, I'm usually still in range to make my attacks, and I chose Deadly Meteors because my team can set up shop in between two of the Meteors and be in range of both targets. I can send mobile heroes like Magik, Beast forward to try and capture the objective, and then out of range of retribution, while Cable, Winter Solder, and Punisher try and take out anyone standing near the Meteors.

With priority against a team that does not play the mission well, I can select my extracts and go for a wide Storm team, planning to use my first turn play on Beast. For cubes, I'm looking to bring both X-23 and Honey Badger, since their healing factor makes them excellent cube-holders. If I don't have priority, of course if the right mission conditions come out I can still go for my extract strategy, but otherwise I will fall back on my ranged attrition game. I am looking to play Storm against teams with deadly range potential; against Ebony Maw, Scarlet Witch and M.O.D.O.K. you will almost always get cover against their attacks. If I have priority and draw Worthy Terrorize Citizens (Hammers), I will usually try to build a rapid fire team as X-Force unless the enemy team has better ranged attacks. 

Storm is rather bad against physical attackers, who will just cross the distance and daze/K.O. her with one attack, so in this matchup I turn up the damage a bit and go for X-Force with Cable. Cable can throw Size 4 terrain into anyone who reaches the back line, and Winter Soldier, Ronan, and Punisher have "comeback" abilities that activate when your team is dazed. Against teams like Black Order with Corvus Glaive and Black Swan, you will have to accept some casualties on your side but you have excellent focus fire capabilities to take them down one by one. Domino can activate first with her guaranteed Incinerate, and then the rest of the team can focus them down with their rapid fire attacks if close enough or ranged attacks otherwise. Magik is also a good counter-initiator, able to come in and try and deal with Corvus if he gets close, first with her attacks, then by using Journey Through the Unknown to teleport him away (but still within range 4/5 of your team) and give him incinerate. The great thing about Ronan is in addition to having great short-range attacks, he has a range 4 attack with Push, so he can hang out with your team and beam with them as long as possible, and then join the fight when it comes, and his ability to hand out Judgement when his allies are damaged means the enemies are easy to get focused down in return.

As for the Tactics cards, I've mentioned Journey Through the Unknown, First Class, To Me! My X-Men, Cat and Mouse. I have then selected Mission Objective to aid the extract game plan. Advanced R&D is really nice on Cable, Winter Solider, and Punisher, who tend to build up a lot of power, and they can also use that power for Patch Up and Follow Me. Brace for Impact is a good one against Magneto (this team's sworn enemy) and in general the heroes have pretty low physical defense so they love the extra defense against throws. X-Ceptional Healing pushes X-23 and Honey Badger over the top in terms of survivability; having your attack go onto Honey Badger instead of your intended target and then cap out at one damage thanks to X-Ceptional Healing can be pretty demoralizing. I don't need Honey Badger's Jonathan the Unstoppable card because I'm hoping to just avoid that type of mission entirely. Lately I've been loving Escort to Safety, so I might drop Follow Me for that, but Follow Me is more aggressive and that plays into the X-Force's style a bit better.

Overall, the team is really fun to play and mainly focused on ranged attrition, so most of the game you are just looking to attack the enemy team and don't have to worry too much about strategizing for pushes/pulls/throws, but also has tools for playing the mission as well. The team also doesn't create the "feels bad" aspect of some of the other competitive teams out there: losing to Black Order can feel like they are too killy, and losing to Kingpin's Criminal Syndicate can feel like they aren't playing the objective game fairly. That's probably because this roster's members are not at the highest possible power level in terms of all of the MCP characters, but that's part of the fun too, to make the best out of the situation you're given. Thanks for reading about my Uncanny X-Force roster and I hope to see you here again soon!