In this series, I will be discussing my Servants of the Apocalypse list building and presenting battle reports as I relearn MCP after a very long hiatus and learn to play the Servants of the Apocalypse affiliation.
Before playing any games with the Servants of the Apocalypse. I first had to build an initial roster. Every Servants of the Apocalypse roster starts with En Sabah Nur himself.
Apocalypse
With Biomorphic Arsenal, Apocalypse is great at taking advantage of characters with uneven defensive stats. En Sabah Nur’s Judgement allows you to turn a stack of conditions on a high-priority target into increased damage. Celestial Technology provides massive mobility to allied characters. You Will be Remade Through Me further incentives Servants of the Apocalypse squads to play the condition game by allowing Apocalypse to change the condition being applied by Apocalypse or an allied character. Only the Strong Remain makes Apocalypse very good into a lot of small attacks and attacks that generate conditions, but he can still easily fold to large attacks or very big attack spikes. His leadership is what really defines Servants of the Apocalypse lists and squads.
Apocalypse’s leadership and Horseman Card are all about empowering other affiliated characters with the Horseman Cards and having those characters empower him with those cards and evolution tokens for paying for Horsemen Card superpowers and rerolls. With that in mind, it is often very beneficial to bring at least four characters with Apocalypse that can take the four Horseman Cards between them. I like to build MCP rosters by building up from the lowest threat. In the current crisis rotation, there are no 16-threat extracts, only 16-threat secures. This means that you will never be forced to play at 16 threat, since you can either choose secures with priority or not choose at 16 threat. Apocalypse teams start to become powerful at 17, since it allows you to take thre 3-threat horsemen. As a result, we will start list building there.
17 Threat
At 17 threat, the go-to squad is Apocalypse, three 3-threats, and a 2-threat. One of the most played horseman, Toad, comes in at 2-threat.
Toad is all about playing the scoring game. With priority, your first activation will often be Toad walking to within Range 2 of an extract and picking it up using Prehensile Tongue. If he is attacked by an enemy character, Slippery provides a way to get to saftey. When positioning Toad when picking up an extract, it is important to take into consideration where you want to Slippery. Do you want Toad to be able to Slippery onto a secure? Do you want Toad to be able to Slippery out of line-of-sight using Wall Crawler? Since Toad will often be holding an extract, he will be a often be a primary target for your opponent to daze or KO. Assigning Toad the Death card means that if our opponent follows this course of action we get Evolution Tokens to fuel our other characters. Death additionally allows Toad to come back into the fight, target a damaged enemy character, make a big attack using Created to End, and then, potentially, Hop away.
Apocalypse will rarely, if ever, use Created to End. He will, however, very often use Vanish Into Dust from the Famine card to move without spending an action point. Because of this, you will always want to include a character that can be assigned Famine in your squads.
At 17 threat, Deadpool is a common Famine.
The Famine card doubles down on Deadpool’s playstyle. For instance, it allows him to Vanish Into Dust forward (usually using an Evolution Token), Bang, Bang, and then You Can’t Spell Legendary Without Leg Day back to end his activation Range 3 away from enemy characters, gaining an Evolution Token. With enough power, Deadpool can also remove three power from and enemy character using Merc with a Mouth and Vanish Into Dust. Deadpool, however, may not be the right pick in every situation. Unicorns, Rainbows, and Sugar Plums Dancing Through My Head means the Deadpool cannot be pushed or advanced by enemy superpower, such as Web Line. A common alternative Famine at 17 threat is Magik, although The Blob and Iceman are additional options.
Vanish Into Dust pushes Magik’s mobility to incredible levels. Using Vanish into Dust and Limbo Step can allow Magik to dive into a fight and then retreat to a safe position, while still making two attacks. It can also allow for power-flush Magik to use both to completely relocate across the board before or after attacking. Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo and a four mystic defense can make Magik quite resilient to mystic attacks. When using Famine and Limbo Step it is important to think positioning for her next activation, which may include positioning for Celestial Technology.
A key reason for Magik being so good in Servants of the Apocalypse is her Team Tactics Card Journey Through Limbo.
Not only can Journey Through Limbo move and enemy character and apply a condition, but it combos amazing well with Apocalypse. Since he is immune to Incinerate and has Only the Strong Remain, this card will not only move him but also give him a power or heal one damage.
While Magik is an offensive Famine, The Blob is a defensive Famine.
The Blob is mostly taken as Famine, since he is competing with Beast for Pestilence (more on Beast later). Vanish Into Dust alleviates one of The Blob’s biggest weaknesses, a lack of mobility to reach a relevant secure. Since you will often being playing Toad, the Leapfrog Team Tactics Card can also help with The Blob’s mobility.
Once on a relevant secure, Nothing Can Move The Blob! make it difficult for him to be moved off the secure. Ha, Ha, Ha, That Tickles! allows him to not only survive attacks, but also reactively displace enemy characters. However, he needs power to use this ability. This can make his Turn 1 play a bit lackluster, since he can’t both pick up an extract, sit on a secure, and use this ability. In my opinion, Iceman can not only bring much better feeling Turn 1 extract plays, but can also debilitate enemy characters.
Iceman helps play the condition game and is particularly good at apply Slow, and potentially Stagger, to limit the mobility of enemy characters. With being a 50mm-based medium mover, Iceman is quite mobile and can make safe extract plays on some situations. Vanish Into Dust further boosts his mobility. Vanish Into Dust enables moving Iceman into a position to Freezing Blast multiple characters twice, once with an attack action and once using Freeze and Fade. The move from Freeze and Fade can then be used to potentially move Iceman to safety. Evolution Tokens can be important for these types of plays, both for paying for the Horsemen card superpower and potential rerolls. The Pestilence Horsemen card is often key to Evolution Token generation.
The premier Pestilence character at 17 threat and beyond is Beast.
With a 50mm base, a medium move, and Wall Crawler, Beast is extremely mobile. He also brings one of the few sources of enemy displacement via the throw from Baser Instincts. Disconcerting, Yet Provocative! means that Beast will often have the power to fuel use of Consuming Blight and the throw. Applying conditions with Consuming Blight is key to generating enough Evolution Tokens to fuel what your other characters want to do. Six stamina and Stars and Garters can allow Beast to sustain some punishment. A common play pattern for beast is to move, Consuming Blight, throw an enemy character, and move away. Plays like this can key to enabling Apocalypse and the assigned character to make big plays with the Death card’s superpower, Fury.
Fury requires Apocalypse or the assigned character to be within Range 2 of the enemy character being targeted by the attack. It particularly combos well with En Sabah Nur’s Judgment, since that attack can have a very large dice pool. Attacking with the character assigned War can be a very good way of generating Evolution Tokens.
At 17 threat, the two common characters for War are Deadpool and Magik. Deadpool likes to make a lot of small dice pool physical attacks. This means that he can often do consistent damage, particularly when using Fury. However, these low dice attacks can be bad into certain defensive tech, which is common in lists like Web Warriors. War’s superpower Fury also combos very nicely with Deadpool’s injured-side spender, Maximum Effort!.
While Magik can make Range 4 attacks with Bolts of Osthur, attacking at Range 2 with Soulsword is often more damaging, due to pierce and one more attack dice. Being a Mystic attack, it can also sometimes prey on characters, such as many Web Warriors characters due to bypassing Spider-Sense. Magik is often War in some higher-threat squads.
All of that leaves us with a general 17-threat squad of:
Apocalypse
Toad (Death)
Deadpool/Magik or Blob or Iceman (Famine)
Beast (Pestilence)
Magik/Deadpool (War)
18 Threat
At at threat, a 3-threat is upgraded to a 4-threat. One of the most common options is upgrading the 3-threat Famine to Psylocke and taking Magik as War.
Vanish into Dust, Telekenetic Combat Enhancement and Pursuit from Psi-Bow, Psylocke is very mobile. Between Telephathic Precognition and Evolution Tokens, Psylocke’s attack and defense rolls can become pretty consistent. She also brings a disruptive defensive toolkit of Stealth, meaning she cannot be targeted by attacks from outside Range 3 and Martial Artist, which allows her to count blanks when targeted within Range 2. As Death, which will become a good option at higher threats, Psylocke can become a principle source of damage in your squad, especially since Telekenetic Combat can allow her to move and attack twice. This allows the first attack to damage the character and the second attack to get more dice from that damage. Psylocke’s mobility and resilience can further be enhanced after she is injured using her Crimson Dawn Team Tactics Card.
Another Psylocke card, Psionic Constructs, can go even further towards improving her, or a nearby allied character’s resilience.
Neither of these Team Tactics Cards is required, but taking one of them could be considered if you plan on consistently taking Psylocke at 18 and higher threats.
Another upgrade option is Magik or Deadpool as War to Wolverine. This is particularly a good option at 18 threat, or above, if you are playing on the Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses secure, which can give character’s the Stun condition. This is because Wolverine, like Apocalypse, is immune to Stun.
Fury combos very nicely with Wolverine’s kit. Between Pierce on Adamantium Slash, the large dice pool of Berserker Barrage, The Best At What I Do…, Fury makes Wolverine’s attacks spike very hard, which can be made more likely by using Evolution Tokens to hunt for wilds with rerolls. The Best At What I Do… also allows Wolverine to acition-effeciently close the distance to within the Range 2 needed by Fury. Wolverine’s mobility and damage consistency can also be increased by the Weapon X Program Team Tactics Card. With Healing Factor [2], Wolverine is also good at surviving taking damage, which can lead to more Evolution Tokens being generated by the War card.
You could look at upgrading Beast to Archangel or Mr. Sinister, but, while being an upgrade threat-wise, these changes might not be an upgrade gameplay-wise at 18-threat.
All of that leaves us with general 18-threat squads of:
Apocalypse
Toad (Death)
Psylocke/Magik or Deadpool or Iceman (Famine)
Beast (Pestilence)
Magik/Wolverine(War)
19 Threat
19 threat opens up several different options, including two team-up Team Tactics Cards. One option is to replace Toad with Psylocke as Death and play Deadpool/Iceman as Famine. This could be a good option if you lost priority and do not think that Toad will provide good value on the selected extract. If you lost priority and want to play a more control-focused style, you could look to upgrade Deadpool/Iceman to Mr. Sinister as Famine. You could also look at using both the Mr. Sinister/Psylocke as Famine and Wolverine as War upgrades if you are playing on Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses.
As with Iceman, Vanish Into Dust can be used to setup beam plays against multiple enemy characters using Mister Sinister’s Genetic Splicing. This would then fuel his applying the Root condition using Genetic Negation or his resilience to damage using Molecular Generation. Mister Sinister brings one of the few sources of guaranteed enemy character displacement with Such Fun Little Playthings. Mr. Sinister could be played as Pestilence, but, in my opinion, Beast is a better Pestilence and is a threat cheaper. With Mister Sinister being a control tech piece and not a center-piece character, I am not planning on bringing any of his tactics cards.
Yet another option is to play, Psylocke (Famine) and Sabertooth (War).
Sabretooth as War is a great Evolution Token generator. War generates an Evolution Token the first time the assigned character deals damage and the first time the character is dealt damage each turn. With Untamed Force, Sabretooth can potentially deal damage during your opponent’s turn, generating more Evolution Tokens. This superpower only works if the attacker is in Range 2 after an attack resolves. this can make it easy to play around for some squads, such as Wakanda squads. I am hesitant to play something that can be played around so easily. Sabretooth does bring an attack that can conditionally apply the Bleed Condition. His attacks are just very swingy and I’d look to Wolverine over Sabretooth for a swingy aggressive character. Alternatively, Sabretooth can be a good 4-threat Pestilence, who can be harder to ignore and faster than Colussus. If you plan on playing Sabretooth often, you can look at taking Happy Birthday, Runt!, which can boost Sabretooth’s damage potential and get through an opponent’s defensive tech.
At 19 threat, you might consider upgrading Beast to either Colossus/Archangel as Pestilence. This would enable the playing of the Fastball Special!/Battle Bound Team Tactics Cards when accompanied by an upgrade to Wolverine (War)/Psylocke (Famine). Giving one of your main damage threats more damage and mobility.
While Colossus can be assigned War as he can deal and take damage, my initial take is that he primarily wants to be played as Pestilence with Wolverine as War and Fastball Special!, particularly at 19 threat. At 20 threat, there is a reasonable Colossus as War squad.
As Pestilence, Colossus looks to get within Range 2 of multiple enemy characters to use Consuming Blight and to use Big Brother to protect other allied characters. With Bonze Moi, particularly on his Injured side, and damage reduction from Organic Steel, Colossus can survive being in the middle of the action. One of the biggest issues with taking Colossus as Pestilence is that he replaces Beast, who is cheaper, more power-efficient, and brings a throw that can target enemy characters.
Archangel brings a lot of the tools you want for a character assigned Pestilence. He is a very mobile character, having a 50mm base, medium move, and Charge, that can apply condition. Evolution Tokens can be used to hunt for a wild when using Avatar of Death. Like Wolverine, wilds can allow Archangel’s attacks to have a damage spike. Archangel can also turn power into increased defense with Wing Shield. Like with Colussus, one of the biggest issues with taking Archangel as Pestilence is that he replaces Beast, who is cheaper, more power-efficient, and brings a throw. With that in mind, I’d only really consider taking Archangel with Psylocke and Battle Bound.
Yet another option is to six-wide. Taking a sixth character allows you to take Apocalypse, four horsemen, and another character making this one squad option that really incentivizes playing a splash character. The general set up would be to take one of the 17-threat squads and a 3-threat splash. Many people’s go-to splash character here is Bullseye.
Bullseye can apply apply the Bleed condition to support the Servants of the Apocalypse’s condition game. He also does a minimum damage of one on his attacks, which can lead to guaranteed dazes and KOs. He can do all this while providing an extra body for extracts and secures. Parting Shot means that he can retreat to a safe position with an extract if he is not dazed or KO’d.
Some people may look to Honey Badger when going six-wide. However, I view one of the main reasons to go wide is to have more models for grabbing extracts and scoring secures, which Honey Badger cannot due because of Anklebiter.
With all of the options, it can be hard to select general 19-threat lists. This will be one area that I will need to really explore as I am playing games and learning Servants of the Apocalypse.
20 Threat
At 20 threat, there are four main options:
- Apocalypse, Toad (Death), and three 4-threats
- Apocalypse, Toad (Death), one 4-threats, two 3-threat, and a 2-threat
- Apocalypse, Toad (Death), and four 3-threats
- Apocalypse, Toad (Death), a 5-threat, a 4-threat, and a 3-threat
- Apocalypse, two 4-threats, and two 3-threats
Option 1 is a great option if you have priority, need Toad to grab a key extract, and are looking to play aggressively and take advantage of either Fastball Special! or Battle Bound. This option could lead to squads that include:
- Psylocke (Famine), Wolverine (War), and Colossus (Pestilence)
- Psylocke (Famine), Wolverine or Sabretooth (War), and Archangel (Pestilence)
I am currently hesitant to play Wolverine (War) not on Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses or without Colossus and Fastball Special!. I am also not personally sold on Sabretooth. However, I will need to test these options.
Option 2 is a good option if you want to go wide. It allows you to upgrade a 3-threat to a 4-threat relative to the 17-threat squads, while still having a sixth body for objectives. As at 19-threat Bullseye is the go-to 2-threat splash.
Option 3 is another good option if you want to go wide at 10 threat. It allows you to take Apocalypse, four horsemen, and another character, making this another one of the few squad options that really incentivizes playing a splash character. The general set up would be to take one of the 17-threat squads and a 3-threat splash. Many people’s go-to splash character here is Pyro, who substantially contributes to the condition game being played by the Servants of the Apocalypse.
Pyro brings several sources of conditions. Firewall can Root and Slow an enemy character. Fire Blast, Flame Jet and his Team Tactics Card Pyrotechnics can apply Incinerate, which can potentially be changed to another condition using Apocalypse’s You Will be Remade Through Me. Pyrotechnics can also allow for a powerful VP swing turn by forcing enemy characters to drop extracts, a play that could be set up using Celestial Technology.
Options 4 is a reasonable option if you want to be more likely to get priority against wider squads, but want Toad to make an early extract play. For Option 3, you would usually play either Casandra Nova as Famine or Cable as War.
Casandra Nova plays into the power denial game that Servants of the Apocalypse can play by having other characters apply the Poison and Root conditions. This is enabled by Sap Power from Psionic Bolt. Mind Possesion, along with the Mental Domination Team Tactics Card, brings guaranteed enemy character displacement. Additionally, Flesh Manipulation brings conditional displacement. By using these displacement abilities or Telekenetic Deflection an enemy character or Casandra Nova can be used to back stop Apocalypse, something that could be important when playing into enemy squads that bring a lot of pushes or throws. Using Vanish Into Dust, Mind Possesion, and Telepathic Cloak together can lead to a play pattern of placing within Range 3 of an opponent, attacking them once or twice, moving them outside of Range 3, and being protected from being double attacked at range. Psychic Distraction can even be used to protect Casandra Nova from a character moving and attacking her within Range 3.
A big issue with playing Casandra Nova is which other horsemen to take with her and Toad. I am not sold on the 4-threat War options, so I am hesitant to play Toad (Death), Beast (Pestilence), and a 4-threat (War), such as Wolverine. Another option is playing Toad (Pestilence), Psylocke (Famine), and Magik/Deadpool (War). This, however, loses Beast and assigns Toad Pestilence, probably his less desirable Horseman Card option. If I really wanted to play Casandar Nova, I could play Apocalypse and three 3-threats, likely Beast (Pestilence), Magik/Deadpool (War), and Deadpool/Magik or Iceman (Famine). However, losing Psylocke could significantly reduce the damage consistency of the squad.
Playing Cable as War at 20 threat, on-the-other-hand, enables playing Toad (Death), Beast (Pestilence), and Psylocke (Famine).
Cable can be assigned Pestilence and War. There are plenty of good Pestilence options, with Beast being prominent. However, there are not as many great options for War. Fury likes being used on attacks with large dice pools, so Plasma Rifle might not be ideal. However, it does have built-in rerolls within Range 3, so you can hunt for wilds and crits, although there might not be many shields or blanks left to convert to hits. Fury with Askani’Son could be devastating, but costs a large amount of power/Evolution Tokens. This can be a big cost since Cable has other great ways to spend power. Body Slide by One is a actionless movement superpower that can enable Cable to make more attacks, and thus generate more Evolution Tokens. Telekinetic Shield helps him and allied characters survive longer. This could be especially effective on keeping Apocalypse in the fight, since him being KO’d likely puts you in a bad spot.
Option 5 is a good option when you do not think that you will need Toad to make an early extract play and still want to try and get priority into wider squads. Some options for this are:
- Psylocke (Death), Mister Sinister (Famine), Beast (Pestilence), Magik (War)
- Psylocke (Death), Archangel (Pestilence), Deadpool/Magik (War), Magik/Deadpool or Iceman or The Blob (Famine)
- Wolverine (Death), Colussus (War), Beast (Pestilence), Magik or Deadpool or Iceman or The Blob (Famine)
The first option brings a lot of control between Mister Sinister’s Such Fun Little Playthings, Beasts throw, and Magik’s Journey Through Limbo. The second option, allows you to play the Psylocke and Archangel Battle Bound combo. The third option allows you to play the Wolverine and Colossus Fastball Special! combo.
Choices for 20 threat will often be the driving factor behind different Servants of the Apocalypse rosters. I will need to perform a lot of testing before picking which of all of these options I want to make available in my roster.
Epilogue
Thank you for reading my thoughts on characters for the Servants of the Apocalypse affiliation. This due to the Horsemen Cards, this affiliation has one of, if not the most, complex squad selection in MCP. This complexity means that a lot of practice will be needed to fully evaluate the most promising options. However, the key characters that you will likely see in every Servants of the Apocalypse roster are Apocalypse, Toad, Beast, Magik, Deadpool, and Psyloke.
Next, I will write down my initial thoughts on filling out the roster with Team Tactics Cards and Extractions and Secures. As always, if you have any comments or critiques please reach out to me on Discord at professor_ulysses.
You Caught Me Monolouging 