Mechanically Inclined: Hank Pym

As promised in my previous Mechanically Inclined article, this article is focusing on the Mechanics utilized by the very inventive, Hank Pym. That said, this article will be slightly different in focus to the last, because it will focus one how best to utilize these mechanics with Chaos War's various Dr. Pyms exclusively.

To begin, we have to look at the Ant-Man and Wasp duo figure. Why start there you ask? Because the Ant-Man and Wasp duo figure is 168 points while the combined cost of Hank and Janet only comes to 157 points. So, if we want to be able to utilize the duo, we need to start there. Now the down side to starting with the duo is that the duo is actually quite good in it's own right, so you may be tempted to stay in that form for the entirety of the game. However, for the sake of argument (and this article) you could give the duo a power action to Split into Hank and Janet at the beginning of the game (a tactic that I've employed to much success).

For the Split, Janet is the easy choice because she only has one version at 77 points. Hank on the other hand gives you up to 5 choices if you're fortunate enough to own the Con Exclusive Giant Man/Ant-Man (which I am). Personally, I either like to start with Hank Pym or the Con Exclusive Ant-Man, although regular set Ant-Man is not sloutch either. Hank gives you up front Outwit and his Tinkerer Supreme ability. However, Ant-Man gives you Stealth and Incapacitate. Fun Fact with Ant-Man: he can use Close Combat Incapacitate (because it does 'no damage') and Morph into another form.

Another thing to remember about Hank is that he can always grant you Outwit if he's in the right form. Hank has Outwit on the odd number clicks, the regular set Ant-Man has Outwit on the even number clicks. Outside of that, the most important thing to remember if you started with the Ant-Man and Wasp duo, you want to keep Hank and Janet next to each other as much as possible. This should be relatively easy, since Janet can carry Hank if they're both tiny, and she can hitch a ride on Hank if he's not.

If one of them gets injured, and you can get them both clear, you can always Merge them back together. This tactic is especially fun if they're based by an opponent that can be Poisoned. Not only that, but they have a fair amount of Exploit Weakness, which can also be surprising for an unsuspecting opponent.

The last two items that I'll touch on with Dr. Pym are his Pym Particle traits. Now if it wasn't fun enough to have Hank pay size-yo-yo during the game, he can also bring an Avenger friend along for the resize ride. Granted they have to be 75 points or less, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with other Avengers in that point range. One very important thing to remember is that this ability only works once per game and only works for as long as you have that version of Hank on the board. Be selective when you invoke this ability and make sure you plan to stay on that version long enough to make the choice worth your while. Otherwise, save it for when you can really use it. One of my favorite uses for Shrink is a Tiny Tigra.

Whatever flavor of Hank is your favorite, one thing is for sure, he's a fantastic Swiss Army Knife of abilities, and his ability to Morph is well applied. I really like every version available depending on the circumstances involved. I hope you enjoyed this installment of Mechanically Inclined. For the next article I think I'll review what I'm going to call the "Wound/Repair" mechanic that appears on Adam Warlock/Magus and Sentry/Void. As always, suggestions are welcome.