Welcome to the another article in the Quick Reference Guide series. In this series we're going to take a look at each affiliation in the game and give a brief overview of how they play on the table, where we cover three main topics, strengths, weaknesses and crisis selections. This series is aimed at newer players who might not be familiar with all of the affiliations in the game, and serve as a quick reference guide to glance over before a game.
This week, we're taking a look at the Spider Foes.
What are the Strengths of the Affiliation?
Spider Foes biggest strength is their ability to dip into a range of multiple different playstyles, they have a leadership that really synergises with an attrition based game plan with the ability to re-roll one of your opponents defence dice once per turn, or they can flex into a more scenario focused playstyle as they have access to some of the best scenario focused tactics cards in the game as well as having access to multiple sources of displacement with their affiliated characters . Well Laid Plans and This Is A Robbery both help with stealing extracts from your opponent whilst Sinister Traps acts as an objective deterrent, and Venom, Kingpin, Mysterio, Dock Ock and Lizard all have access to some form of displacement either from attacks or superpowers that helps tilt the secure element of the game.
Another thing to note, is their ability to cause out of activation damage, which is a fairly unique trait for the affiliation. Both Green Goblin and Mysterio have superpowers that have the ability to cause your opponent damage if they've moved or advanced within a certain range of the character and/or terrain. Cassandra Nova is often a common splash character with Spider Foes which opens up this playstyle even further, as she has the same superpower as Mysterio where she can also cause damage if a character has been advanced or placed within range of her. This game plan is further enhanced as both Mysterio and Cassandra Nova have advance triggers on their attacks which can then subsequently trigger the various superpowers between Green Goblin, Nova and Mysterio. It's a fairly unique attrition game plan that you'll probably not see outside of the Spider Foes affiliation.
What Are Their Weaknesses?
Whilst being able to dip into a wide range of playstyles is indeed a strength, it also poses a problem that is probably their biggest weakness. They are a jack of all trades and masters at none. Whilst you're always going to be able to play the game with your playstyle of choice, there's going to be match ups where an affiliation can play that style better than you. This isn't necessarily all bad though, as there probably isn't a crisis combination in the game that you're really going to struggle with.
Another weakness, is the affiliated characters don't synergise particularly well with the leadership. Whilst Green Goblin's leadership promotes a pure attrition based playstyle, a good proportion of the affiliated Spider Foes characters and their tactics cards are actually more suited to playing a more scenario focused game. You can build into a more attrition game plan to utilise the leadership, but you're probably going to utilise less of the affiliated characters to play in this way.
A final note to make, and this isn't really a weaknesses but I thought it was worth pointing out anyway, Foes are absolutely stacked with four threats which can pose a bit of a headache for squad building, especially when the only leader is a four threat and there's no access to an affiliated two threat. At the time of writing there are currently nine affiliated Foes characters and five of these are all four threat. This will of course probably even out as new characters are released, but at the moment it can cause a bit of an issue.
What Crisis Do They Like?
As discussed earlier, as Foes tend to be a jack of all trades affiliation, I don't think there's an actual answer to this as there's no crisis combination they can't really play, and the one's they are going to like are going to depend on whether you're building more into attrition or more into objective play. If you're building into attrition, slow scoring extracts such as Alien Ship and Montesi and narrow secures such as Gamma and Demons might be good options. Alternatively, if your leaning into a more objective focused Foes, higher scoring extracts and wider secures are your aim here, with extracts such as Paranoia and Spider Infected and Riots and Infinity Formula are all worth considering.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope it's given you enough understanding of the affiliation to give you some confidence in either playing with, or against them. As ever, thank you for taking the time to read this, it really is appreciated.
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