How to start the affiliation
You start with the excellent Wakanda affiliation pack, which comes with four of your nine available characters in Black Panther, Killmonger, Shuri and Okoye. It’s by far your best purchase for the affiliation because from now on it starts to get much more difficult. M’Baku and Klaw (unaffiliated) is probably next on your shopping list. If you want to run Storm (who isn’t bad here) you can either look for the X-Men affiliation pack or her old pack with just Cyclops. The affiliation packs are much better value so I’d look for that one myself. Black Panther, Chosen of Bast and Namor is also a good pick up. It gives you another decent 3 threat (that you can’t play with Black Panther as your leader of course) and Namor (unaffiliated ), who is a 5 threat you can slot in here very well.
And finally you’ll have to decided if you want to invest in the rivals panel with King T’Challa and Killmonger, Usurper. Both are additional leaders and they come with many TTCs but the price tag is extremely high especially as terrain is not really usable for playing.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical game plan
Wakanda is super weird here as four out of nine affiliated characters are leaders and they are also only six different alter egos in total.
King of Wakanda is just a generically strong leadership. Don’t be too precious with spending for it, but also keep your total power economy in check when using it.
With this leadership you can tune your game plan basically anyway you want to.
Where King of Wakanda is a good “pay for” leadership, Blessed by Gherke offers a flat offensive upgrade for no power cost but much more conditional. The part about not getting placed or pushed is neat when it happens but absolutely not the key to the leadership here. If you run this leadership you’re looking for characters who need a wild, hit or wild, Shield trigger, like M’Baku himself.
As the boon is only while attacking M’Baku Wakanda is definitely more on the fighty end of things.
Strength of the Ancestors is just a bit weird. You simply lack affiliated characters, who can reliably push (a certain Black Panther would be great here but can’t ever be) to make the leadership worth it. You have also really build your list around it which means a lot of splashes. King T is a killing machine and this leadership turns displacement into a source of damage meaning it has a pure kill game plan usually.
Strength of the New Generation is a really interesting leadership. It rewards you for playing really tall as you only get to hand out three tokens. In round 1 you’ll often use them to power up your characters (hurting them in the process) and then adding the die from round 2. It is especially good with characters who can reroll a lot or even any amount of attack dice. Ms. Marvel and original Captain Marvel are supposed to be especially good here according to Lexa White from the Morlocks Podcast.
Who could be added to the affiliation in the future, especially as new leaders
Someone not named T’Challa or N’Jadakka would be the most important part. I’m really not an expert on Wakanda in the comics, but Nakia is pretty popular from the movies and would probably be the most obvious pick for a new character.
With almost half of the characters here already being leaders I don’t think we can expect (or need) a new leadership soon.
Rating every affiliated TTC and character
Team Tactics (9+3)
Bast‘s Blessing
C. Rolling two wilds on six dice is only a 20% chance without any rerolls and the attack is definitely not worth the power and TTC slot if you trigger the additional attack at least once.
Jabari Chieftain
B. Spending four power on M’Baku is a lot but you get the extra dice for the entire activation meaning it can be in for example Black Panthers turn when he already played Mantle. Out of activation movement for M’Baku can also be very good. Would be an A if the cost was a bit lower.
King‘s Command
C. Turns one attack per affiliated characters activation into a gainer. Meaning it can only every gain a maximum of six power if you somehow manage to fit every affiliated alter ego into a squad (possible at 19 and 20 threat) which would be a total gain of 2 power. Having to spend four on your leader is just much too high a price here. Especially as every leader available has great ways to spent their power on their stat card already.
K‘liluna‘s Glory
C. The damage of the attack still gives out power so you can’t really drain an enemy character with it. And I don’t really see what the point is then.
Spirit of Wakanda
A. It isn’t abusable anymore in turn 1 like it was when Advanced RnD was still legal but it’s still a supreme card and can be used in multiple different ways.
Strength and Cunning
D-. This is on contention to be the worst card in the game. It is all: expensive, super hard to set up and not worth the investment. I really don’t know what went wrong during the design of this card.
Trial by Combat
A-. This is absolutely awesome. Is it something you should do competitively? Probably not, but this is one of the most creative cards in the game. It is awesome with Killmonger, Usurper because his leadership can’t be turned off with it (neither can Star-Lords, so don’t bring it against Guardians), because the tokens are already been handed out when you play it. It can absolutely cripple any team that relies heavily on their leadership like Steve 1 Avengers or Professor X X-Men, but it is very hard to set up and dicey on top of it.
Vibranium Shielding
B+. AoE damage reduction is great. You just have a lot else to spend power on with Black Panther and Shuri usually isn’t central enough in your team to make it work. Sometimes it is just good to pay one with Panther to give him damage reduction for the round.
Wakanda Forever
A+++. Plain and simply the best card in the game.
Usurp the Throne (unaffiliated)
A. If you play Killmonger, you play this card. It’s especially good here because you can use it in combination with Wakanda Forever to really make sure you get the kill.
Wisdom of the Ancestors (unaffiliated)
A. It gets kind of insane when you play it with King T, but it’s great with the other two T’Challas as well. I wouldn’t bother with it for Shuri though.
Synthetic Heart-Shaped Herbs (unaffiliated)
C+. Giving either Killmonger a throw is great in theory but you have no in affiliation way to get rid of the Poison which can really cripple them.
Characters (9)
Black Panther (4)
A. For a long time Panther was regarded as the best 4 threat in the game. While that throne has nowadays been usurped from him he’s still an excellent piece. He is fast, has action economy, reroll any dice for the entire actication for two power which is kind of insane and on his front side he is durable on top of it all. His backside is much worse though, so try everything you can to keep him from flipping.
Black Panther, Chosen of Bast (3)
B. Bast Panther is the only T’Challa with a Medium move but making up for it with a Medium base and Wall Crawler. Which depending on terrain can be faster then the Small base Long movers. He has decent attacks and a pounce but relies on Stealth for his defenses while his attacks are all only range 2.
Killmonger (4)
A-. A heat seeking missile that will explode if the opponent spends some resources into attacking him.
Killmonger, Usurper (4)
B. Plays just a bit different than OG Killmonger, with his pounce being the strongest argument for him. He can’t play Usurp which for me kills him except you play him as a leader when he is fine but not great.
King T‘Challa (5)
A. King T is an absolute murder machine but be careful he isn’t focussed down too quickly.
M‘Baku (4)
B+. M’Bakus ceiling is that of a 5 threat. His floor is that of a 3 threat. He’s very reliant on hitting his triggers but if he does that at least semi regularly you’ll be happy with him.
Okoye (2)
B+. Okoye lacks power generation but once she can bodyguard you’ll won’t regret having brought her. She’s at her best in A-Force but being an affiliated, good, 2 threat is reason enough to bring her here too.
Shuri (3)
B+. Shuri is a displacement machine and can grant rerolls to your team. A good opponent will focus her down quickly and she can’t do too much about that which is her biggest weakness.
Storm (3)
B. Storm is a much more interesting pick here after her 2023 update made her a much more threatening character. She’s your fighty option at 3 threat (disregarding Bast Panther who you often can’t even run because he’s T’Challa and there’s a 50% chance your leader is too.)
Example Roster
Characters (10)
Black Panther (4)
Killmonger (4)
M‘Baku (4)
Okoye (2)
Shuri (3)
Black Panther, Chosen of Bast (3)
Storm (3)
Namor the Sub-Mariner (5)
Beast (3)
Wolverine (4)
Team Tactics (10)
Jabari Chieftain
Spirit of Wakanda
Vibranium Shielding
Wakanda Forever
Usurp the Throne
Wisdom of the Ancestors
Weapon X Program
Brace for Impact (R)
Fall Back (R)
Recalibration Matrix
Secure Crisis
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate (F, 20)
Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses (H, 16)
Extract Crisis
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
The premise here is that you get a semi competitive roster out of just three boxes in total: the Wakanda and X-Men affiliation packs as well as Black Panther, Chosen of Bast and Namor, the Sub-Mariner. I especially like Fisk here because the 16 of Panther, Killmonger, M’Baku and Wolverine sounds like a tonne of fun especially considering M’Baku and Wolverine are Stun immune. They’ll hold the middle while Panther and Killmonger go hunt extracts grabbers.
That’s it for today. Next up: Weapon X
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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