X-Men, under Storm’s Leadership X-Men Gold, is currently one of the few teams that have good turn 1 extraction scenario plays. First off, a reminder of what the X-Men Gold leadership does.
Once per round, you can take a character within R2 of another, and place it within R1 of them, providing the character you place does not hold an objective. This enables the X-Men to pick up central extracts and be relatively safe compared to most affiliations but in order to do this effectively, there are some preambles. In order to have a character be able to pick up two extracts or pick up an extract in the center line and move back, one of the two characters you’re using needs to have a medium or large base. A character could do it from small base, but they would need additional movement.
Beast can use the leadership to place himself in front of Magik (provided they’ve been deployed within R2 of each other) move forward and pick up a Cube then move back or pick up another Cube if you’ve used the tactic card First Class. The inverse is also possible. Magik can place herself in front of Beast, move once to the center, then either back or to another side Cube.
Now there’s still something left in the Uncanny X-Men’s bag of tricks. To quote Professor X:
To Me, My X-Men! gives an additional option for movement and with good deployment, can bring your extract carrier on a B secure (like the one in the exemple above). First Class enables X-Men to potentially interact twice during the round it’s played or use the power for something else. For instance, Magik can, with Limbo Step, be placed from even a small base and be able to move, interact and move back.
Here what it looks like for Magik, placing herself R1 of Storm and doing her medium move. By spending 1 power with Limbo Step you can easily get within R1 of the objective and thanks to First Class, you don’t have to pay power to pick it up before moving back, putting your opponent in a tricky situation.
This gives an idea of what the X-Men can do with teamwork and good leadership. Hopefully this will inspire some folks to try their own X-Men set up and see how far it can take them.
Thank you for taking the time to read this piece, please feel free to leave a comment and as always, don’t forget to have fun!