Playing Wolverine without Fear

Here we are again MCPers.

We got us another very popular Marvel character that wasn’t doing too hot that got a big update in the last round of character card shakeups. I think it would be safe to say that very few people brought the angriest bub in the world in the recent past, but I would say that he is looking MIGHTY MORE ATTRACTIVE these days unless you are a psychic red head. (That was a Jean Grey joke Taylor.)

I think people enjoy the comparison articles so I figured I would do one for a character that I bet many people were not expecting me, of all people, to cover. Like I brought up in the last article about Daredevil, it is amazing to see a beloved comic book character get brought up to speed with the rest of the pack so that we can enjoy using them on the table and not second think if we are bad at the game.

Which I am.

Lets forget about the old and the bad and focus on the new and shiny.

First of all, if you want to buy this model like a Dr. D would, I would recommend you head to Bearded Dragon Games so that you can hand over your hard-earned bubs to a man with exceptionally hot hands. Logan would have difficulty doing this due to Canadian’s propensity for the cold, but we are not going to dive into that. What we are going to dive into though is how you should use the code PCME10 to get a sweet discount for this box of models so you can get to cutting your friends to death in mentally induced insanity spurts in no time!

You can even use you IMAGINATION to pretend that the following card will be the one in the box.

What Changed?

The Best at What I Do was changed from costing 3 to 2 power and now allows you to use any attack you would like; not just Adamantium Slash.

Health on Injured Side went from 5 to 6

General Overview

The first few things to consider whenever you look at a character card is cost, role, and usefulness. Wolverine comes in the hotly contested 4-threat spot so he had better be able to pull his weight otherwise we are going to feel bad about not taking someone else. Which is probably Hulk in all honesty. Wolverine’s role is most assuredly a bruiser that will occasionally wander into the tanky side of things thanks to his excellent Healing Factor 2. Lastly, how useful is the Wolverine? Well I have been using him much more recently and I have to say that I never felt bad using him as long as you take his weakness to mystic into account. I think that as long as the opposing side is not running high amounts of mystic attacks like Convocation you can come up with a reason to bring Logan.

If you put him up against a Wizard though you are going to find his brain melted very quickly. Beware the Wizard Blast!

Adamantium Strike

This represents Wolverine giving someone the metal pokers that spring from his grippers. Pretty solid attack even with it being limited to range 2. A builder that comes with pierce is going to just be straight up better than one without it. Pierce helps build power and keeps the character using their powers more consistently. Something that commonly comes up with new players is them wondering if they need more than a single wild to trigger bleed and pierce. The good new is that you only need a single wild to get both of the triggers to go off. It is strange that they don’t just put it onto a single trigger, but here we are.

The lack of range on the attack is somewhat mitigated with the charge power that he has, but we will get there in a second.

Note the wild triggers. We will talk about that later.

Berserker Barrage

This attack is representing that Wolverine is not able to have a polite afternoon at a dinner party since he is just too angry to put on a lapel. This attack has always been pretty solid, but was commonly competing with the power for Best at What I Do. This attack is the aggressive negotiation of choice, and works amazingly with Best at What I Do. The adaptiveness of this attack is incredible since it is also a perfect objective grabber. You can use the range 3 to get the place on the opponent’s positioning, and then gift them the prize of yeeting them away from you as long as they are size 3. A great option for attacking models that have already activated.

It should also be noted that you get to choose the order of the bullets after the attack. This means that you can do the place within range 1 before OR after the throw. This gives you the chance to show off some pinball wizardry as you clank idiots around the table. Just make sure you remember that you MUST place after the attack. Everyone is gonna laugh at you if you forget this important fact then run off of the objective.

The Best at What I Do…

One of the most important factors that makes characters better than others in this game is the ability to get placed without using the movement action. If you are able to get a model somewhere without spending an action, it is already going to be put in front of so many other models. It is hard to stress how powerful movement is in this game. This makes The Best at What I Do superpower actually sorta insane. You essentially get a charge action that enables you to get double successes from wilds on your dice rolls. When they reduced the price of the power they put it at the exact same pricetag as a regular charge on other characters. This works perfectly with Berserker Barrage since it allows you to roll AT LEAST 7 dice on the attack. This power’s effectiveness exponentially increases as you get more dice.

Very frequently I would use this 5 power combo to move up on an activated doofus, slap em around a little bit, and then Sparta kick them away while I scored the secure point. Your rolls may vary, but with only getting 2 wilds in your roll, not even considering what else you roll, is going to bring some serious pain if your opponent had a bad defense roll. This combo has a crazy strong spike value, but also still gives you the fancy point scoring tech in the process. This power also skyrockets in value when you consider the extra dice you are going to be getting from Wild Rage.

Also, this continues the very reliant on needing to roll wilds theme that Wolverine has going for him. I told you we will talk about that later. Please, calm down.

Adamantium Skeleton

No one, and I mean no one, can say that Wolverine doesn’t have big metal bones. Because he does. It means that he can only be pushed or thrown if the other person is brawny enough to throw a size 3. Honestly, most throws are not that limited especially in the 4 threat metaverse that we currently reside. Size 2 restricted throws and pushes seem to dwell mostly in the 3 and lower threat models, but make sure you keep an eye open in case it does come up. Just remember that if he is thrown into another model that he is going to be dispensing 4 damage worth of chunky metal meatball onto them. It’s always fun to consider Fastball Special, but I have very rarely seen the card taken.

Wild Rage

This similar to watching Dr. D attempt to figure out how to do slightly complex things like programing a VCR (does anyone even know what those are anymore?) or try and brush his teeth and breath at the same time. These complicated things usually results in him punching something really hard due to how broken his feeble mind is. The issue is that he doesn’t have enough power to activate X-Ceptional Healing when he needs it.

This superpower is only available on the injured side and gives you an extra dice on all of your attacks for each damage on you. This tops out at 5 extra dice since you get afflicted with the No Longer Among The Living condition (that is a getting dazed condition joke Taylor) if you take another damage. This does represent Logan turning off his brain and choosing a big cup of violence in the morning in regards to scoring extract objectives though. He is so overcome with emotion and being based that he can’t interact with any kind of objective anymore, but he can still score you points on secure objectives if he is breathing into a paper bag nearby.

Healing Factor 2

So Wolverine is well known for being able to heal from any kind of injury. Something that I learned after hours and hours of research is that 2 is, in fact, a higher number than 1. This means that Logan is SO good at healing that at the end of his turn he gets two of his health back. This is actually surprisingly amazing since it implies that any remotely decent defense rolls will stop him from getting dazed. This means that if you time your activations correctly it can mean putting this angry, little man down becomes very difficult for your opponent. The bubs can just keep coming.

Healing Factor also allows you to us Exceptional Healing. This is a very meta card and essentially allows you to just ignore someone’s dice spike. Take the card. Accept the card into your life. You will not regret it.

Immune [Stun+ Stagger]

Wolverine also has immunity to stun forever and stagger on his injured side. This is most likely due to the fact that he has a metal skullpan that protects the soft squishy thing that he calls a brain. (You could consider this a cranial vault Taylor.) Stun immunity is a great way to keep him consistent with power and makes him very attractive for the Fisk Crisis Card. Make sure you are aware of the change when he goes into injured mode since it would be a shame to lose an action while he is foaming at the mouth.

The Wild Dependency

This wild dice result concept was me alluding to the fact that Wolverine loves wild dice results. Duh. Anything that allows Wolverine to reroll or dice fix into a wild dice result is going to give you CRAZY levels of value out of this character. Captain America, First Avenger is a match made in heaven for this Wolverine. Daredevil’s reroll is also very excellent for Wolverine since it not only allows you to potentially turn misses into hits, but also get EXTRA bam for your buck on the The Best at What I Do attack if it turns it into a wild. Always keep this in mind when think of the places you want to put Wolverine.

Conclusions and Ratings

This article is a long-winded way to say that Wolverine is pretty gosh darn good. I painted him specifically because his card was so insanely better! I even MADE A GUIDE FOR IT! I think that his character upgrade was very much needed and hit that sweet spot for exactly where he should be. Well done AMG for getting the job done so succinctly.

Theme Score

5/5 Love triangles of women who are attracted to very short and hairy men

Competitive Score

5/5 Metal triangles from the joints between Logan’s fingers.

I love using him and he feels really good. Exactly where he should be with very well-defined strengths, but also a glaring weakness that will give him trouble. Therefore I rate him a good/very.

Keep it popping guys and you might see me out there with a very strong body odor and a drinking problem while saying bub real soon!