Comic Book Resources

**mattbib** · 11-19-2007, 08:57 AM

Greetings, fight fans! Welcome to the rematch that will decide the champion of Avengers League 2007. Both teams have lost one match to the other. The winner of this round takes all!

Go here for rules on voting.

And now on to our fight...

In the first corner we have Pwood's Victorious & Valiant 'Vengers
(Vision, War-Machine, Spider-Woman, Mantis, Yellowjacket, Black Knight)

vs

In the other corner is Mike Smash! & Ragnarok_2012's Seven Soldiers of Strategery
(Black Panther, Machine Man, Ant-Man, Beast, Falcon, Thing, Wiccan)

Both participants have submitted strategies. The winner will be the Avengers League 2007 champion.

Please do not post or vote until both strategies have been posted and read.

**mattbib** · 11-19-2007, 09:00 AM

Stage 1: (Simultaneously)

Vision:
Vision will become intangible and open a time traveling portal directly in the middle of the Victorious & Valiant ‘Vengers, splitting the team into two halves. Every member that can fly will begin to fly speedily into it. Every member that can’t will charge as fast as they can into it. Everybody should be able to get into the portal within a matter or 1-2 seconds. This portal will take them to the nearest time where they meet the opposing team face to face. This should be immediately after each team enters the battle.

Note: If the opponent chooses to do something similar via teleportation, my team will simply set up another time portal and meet them where they have teleported. Also, before entering the portal, War Machine will put up his cloaking device and target Beast, Yellowjacket will begin to grow and target Falcon, and Mantis will focus on the emotions of Wiccan (to alarm Vision of what he is wanting to do) and the weak points of Black Panther (to take him out). Spider-Woman will charge a venom blast for Ant-Man (and Redwing), and Black Knight will have his sword out, ready to deflect/absorb attacks and fight Machine Man.

Stage 2: (right after stage 1, simultaneously)

Vision:
Vision will fly at as fast as he can towards Wiccan. If Wiccan has a force-field up, Vision will be able to phase through it. After penetrating the force-field by flying fists first, Vision will make both of his fists diamond-hard. He will begin pummeling Wiccan’s head, aiming for the temples for a quick knockout. After a few of these, Wiccan should be out. If he isn’t, Vision will simply phase his hand through Billy’s head and disrupt/cut off any mental activity. Wiccan is out.

Note: This should take very little time considering the effectiveness of the portal. In a matter of seconds, Wiccan is down and the Thing will have made very little ground unless he is being lifted or carried, in which case Vision will still be able to reach him.

Vision now focuses on the Thing. The Thing is slow and should be easy to locate. Once Vision does, all he’ll need to do is phase through the Thing’s back and grab his spinal cord. Solidifying, Vision will grab the spinal cord and give it a slight pinch. This should cause the Thing excruciating pain and cause him to buckle. A little more pressure, and Thing is out.

War Machine:
War Machine will fly out of the portal and aim for Beast. Rhodes will fire a few repulsors at Beast and then fly to a different location, still pursuing Hank. Then, War Machine will fire more repulsors and move again. This combined with his cloaking device and the other engagements on the battlefield should keep War Machine from being tracked easily. Beast is agile, but Rhodes has a very advanced targeting system and very efficient repulsors and should be able to hit him. Once he does, he should unleash until Beast is out. War Machine will now be available to aid his teammates if they need it.

Black Knight:
Dane, after exiting the portal, should immediately find Machine Man and charge full speed towards him. If any one attempts to attack him in the split second he charges toward Aaron, he will deflect the energy back at them. Instantly, Black Knight should be in front Machine Man. Assuming Machine Man attempts to grab Dane with his extendible arms, Dane can simply sever them with his Ebony Blade. This will not only cut off the extendibility of Aaron’s arms, but it should also eliminate the use of his hand arsenal. If Machine Man doesn’t attempt to use his arms and hands or is attempting to attack someone else and is unaware of Dane’s presence, Black Knight will slash at his shoulder and cut all the way down to his waist diagonally. This should leave Machine Man in two halves and knocked out. If Machine Man is still functioning, Black Knight will simply hack at him until he shuts down.

Yellowjacket:
After exiting the portal, Pym should be at his maximum height ready to locate and engage Falcon. Sam can fly at 250 mph. Pym will attempt to shoot him with his bio-energy gun contained in his gauntlets. These should be huge blasts that are quick enough to hurt Falcon immediately, preventing him from flight. If Sam somehow manages to take flight, then Yellowjacket should be able to catch him before he reaches his maximum speed. Remember, Yellowjacket can cover more area in a shorter amount of time in his enlarged state and should be able to grab him. Either way he attacks Falcon, he will get him in his hands and begin to flick Falcon in the head until he is becomes unconscious.

Spider-Woman:
Spider-Woman will fly as fast as she can out of the portal and locate Redwing. She will immediately deliver a blast at the bird and knock it out. Falcon will also have his own troubles with Pym at this time and have trouble communicating with Falcon. After Redwing has been taken care of, Jessica should charge up another blast and attempt to locate Ant-Man. Jessica can do this in a number of ways, but should be able to hear him using her superhumanly acute hearing, assuming he is in ant-size. If he isn’t in ant-size, it would be fairly easy to find him. Lang zipping through the air should create sounds that Jessica will be able to locate. Once she does, she will heavily outmatch him. Jessica will fire blasts at Ant-Man until she hits him. Ant-Man’s nervous system should temporarily shut down. Lang is out.

Mantis:
Mantis will locate Black Panther. Sensing Black Panther’s weaknesses, she will charge at him, hoping to sneak up behind him. However, T’Challa’s sense will pick up on the approaching danger and he will go into defence mode. Mantis will already have a lock on his weaknesses and will begin to attack him. Mantis will latch onto his back and jab away at him, weakening him with each blow. Any cuts that Mantis might receive will be instantly healed. Any attack from energy daggers will be absorbed when Mantis instinctively reroutes her nerves to reduce the effect. After a few swift punches, kicks, jabs, chops, and any other martial arts skills she can throw at T’Challa have been delivered, the Black Panther should be out. Again, Mantis can take out foes as powerful as Thor, so Black Panther shouldn’t be nearly as hard to render unconscious.

**mattbib** · 11-19-2007, 09:01 AM

ROUND ONE:

Immediately and simultaneously:

Wiccan immediately casts a teleportation spell on our opponents’ entire team. Given his own specialty with teleportation, the fact that the targets are all in line of sight and the fact that he won’t need to speak to use it, this spell should take effect almost immediately, and certainly before any of them can close the distance to our team.

If any of them have taken flight or begun to move, it won’t matter. They will suddenly find themselves at ground level and surrounded by the Seven Soldiers. They will be disoriented, they won’t know their surroundings, they will interrupted in most of their initial attacks and actions… and for a split second, they will be incredible vulnerable to surprise attack. Our team will capitalize on that. They will attack hard and fast.

Once they are surrounded by our team, Wiccan will throw a powerful magical force field around the Vision. Billy will pour all of his willpower into this field and will continue to supplement it with other spells to add to its density – to make it extremely hard to phase through – and to command the force field to hit the Vision with a blast of painful magical lightning energy if he should attempt phasing.

A cannon will emerge from Machine Man’s chest and fire a series of knockout gas canisters into the midst of our opponent’s team. While heroes like the Vision and War Machine (protected by his armor) should be unaffected, Spider-Woman, Mantis, Black Knight and Yellowjacket should be vulnerable. While the team is reeling, he will enter the battle and use his quick extended arms to ensnare and knock the stunned Spider-Woman out with a strong punch to the jaw. If she tries to fly to avoid the gas, he will follow and open fire with a hail or rubber bullets, flash grenades and fire and ice attacks.

Black Panther will hurl a barrage of his Wakandan energy daggers at War Machine, disabling his weapons and any force field he may have up. T’Challa’s energy daggers have, in the past, shown capable of disabling even the random modulations of the Iron Man armor fields and disabling energy sources…even people. We predict that Rhodey’s armor will keep him safe from the daggers, but not from what comes next. T’Challa will leap at War Machine and attack him with a series of hit and run attacks with his vibranium anti-metal claws, which dissolve just about any metal. Given Panther’s speed and skill, and Rhodey’s disorientation and surprise, T’Challa should be able to quickly open enough of a rift in the War Machine armor to zap him out with an energy dagger. [It’s worth mentioning that T’Challa’s mask will protect him from the knockout gas and that his costume and mask have been shown to have their own oxygen supply in the past.]

The rest of our strategy will depend heavily on the course of action that Yellowjacket takes.

*******************************

IF YELLOWJACKET is in his giant form or at normal height:

If Hank Pym is in giant form or normal height (or has gone giant to get out of the gas), the Thing will take a deep breath and dive into the fray. With an “It’s clobberin’ time!” thought bubble, he’s hit Hank would a good right cross. If he’s in giant form, this would probably be in the ankle or shin, but would be enough to down the giant man. If he’s at normal size, he’s going down. He’ll keep his breath and knock Hank down for the knockout.

Ant-Man will open fire on the Black Knight (whose helmet does not cover his mouth) with his bioelectric stingers. Given the shock of the sudden teleportation and the gas attack, the Dane should be disoriented and woozy enough to be only able to offer feeble attempts at blocking the stinger blasts with his sword. He should go down quickly.

IF YELLOWJACKET is in his ant-sized form:

Ant-Man will shrink down to ant-form to find him. Given that Pym’s mask has an open mouth on it (and Lang’s has a full helmet covering his nose and mouth) and having been taken by surprise and teleported into a gas attack, he won’t be at his peak. Lang should be able to take him down quickly with his stingers. If he takes down Pym, he’ll move on to the Black Knight.

The Thing will stay outside of the gas radius and strike the ground to knock the opponents’ team from their feet and keep them disoriented, to compound the effects of the gas, the teleportation and the sudden nature of the attack on them.

*********************************

Mantis, while being an extremely gifted martial artist, is not invincible. Given the immediate disorientation of her surroundings changing around her and the element of surprise she can be taken out.

During the Avengers/Defenders War in the 1970s, Mantis was in battle against Doctor Strange. In her underestimating him and surprise, he managed to dodge one of her martial arts maneuvers and respond with one of his own. Doctor Strange isn’t nearly the hand-to-hand combatant that the Falcon or the Beast are.

Given that Mantis has been suddenly teleported into a ring of her enemies, attacked instantly and hit with knockout gas, we believe there is a window to take her down fast.

The Beast will take a deep breath and dive into battle from her side with a double legged kick on high, while the Falcon holds his breath and goes low, sweeping her legs from under her. Given that both of these men have extensive Avengers training with Captain America and decades of experience fighting foes more powerful than themselves, we think that they can strike quickly in tandem while the Mantis is still regaining her bearings and woozy from the knockout gas. We believe that this is a large enough window for two highly skilled fighters with the element of surprise, the aid of knockout gas and the disorientation of Mantis to take this opponent down quickly and exit the gas before it affects them.

ROUND TWO:

Wiccan will continue to contain the Vision in his magical lightning force bubble and battle him. He’ll flood the bubble with powerful magical energy to short out the android and knock him out. This could be a challenge, but he’ll persist and fight any attempt to allow the Vision to phase out of the bubble.

If the Black Panther has already taken down War Machine, and we believe that he will, he’ll go on the defensive to guard Wiccan. T’Challa stands guard with his formidable martial arts skills, speed, claws and energy daggers.

If Mantis is remarkably still standing, Beast and Falcon will continue their battle against her, taking every opportunity to cover for one another, so that they might take some more fresh air.

If Machine Man’s sudden attack has managed to take down Spider-Woman, he’ll join the offensive against Mantis. He’ll use a number of long range, wide spectrum attacks to aid his allies. Including spraying a high viscosity machine lubricant near her feet, making any martial arts all the more difficult… he’ll also use nets, rubber bullets when he has an opening and taser darts.

If Ant-Man has successfully taken down the Black Knight, he’ll also join the dog pile on Mantis. His helmet covers his mouth and should protect him from the knockout gas and his stinger blasts should be helpful.

If Pym and the Knight are down, the ever-lovin’ blue eyed Thing will also join the fight with Mantis, adding his great strength and fighting skills to the battle.

Pwood · 11-19-2007, 09:23 AM

First off, nice strategy guys! And congratulations on making it to the finals. It's been fun.

A few observations...

The teleportations that Wiccan uses shouldn't matter much because Vision opens a time portal to be right in front of the opponent.

Also, Wiccan shouldn't be able to contain an intangible opponent, no matter what the density of the forcefield. Vision can phasse through seemingly anything.

Machine Man could not possibly fire a gas cannister without affecting his own team.

Black Panther will not be able to see War Machine because he is cloaked instantly. He may be able to see him afterwards when he fire repulsors at Beast, but this is only for a brief time and then he moves. Plus, Black Panther is will immediately sense Mantis' attack and engage her instead.

The Thing might be able to hit Pym's ankle, but to what affect? The Thing is slow and Pym has superhuman durability in his maximum height.

Ant-Man can easily be found by Spider-Woman, so he is taken down quickly.

Falcon and Beast should be tangled up before they can attack Mantis.

Mike Smash! · 11-19-2007, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pwood

First off, nice strategy guys! And congratulations on making it to the finals. It's been fun.

A few observations...

Quote:

The teleportations that Wiccan uses shouldn't matter much because Vision opens a time portal to be right in front of the opponent.

Even if this is so and your portal happens before mine, they are still grabbed and tossed into a circle of our heroes. Your people remain in line of sight the entire strat, so it still comes down to the teleport.

Quote:

Also, Wiccan shouldn't be able to contain an intangible opponent, no matter what the density of the forcefield. Vision can phasse through seemingly anything.

One word, it's magic. And there are always things that even intangible people cannot phase through and things that they cannot dodge. That's what Wiccan is magically summoning. Something that won't let him phase and will hurt him if he tries.

Quote:

Black Panther will not be able to see War Machine because he is cloaked instantly. He may be able to see him afterwards when he fire repulsors at Beast, but this is only for a brief time and then he moves. Plus, Black Panther is will immediately sense Mantis' attack and engage her instead.

Panther has not only the enhanced senses of sight and smell, but a number technically advanced dood-dads that would help him detect War Machine passively.

Quote:

The Thing might be able to hit Pym's ankle, but to what affect? The Thing is slow and Pym has superhuman durability in his maximum height.

Pym's durability isn't that great. While he becomes strong at giant size, he isn't invulnerable and he becomes pretty much a giant target. The Thing can lift 85 tons over his head, in real life the Thing would snap Pym's leg in half with a punch to the ankle. In comic book science, he'd simply knock his ass down. Imagine a hobbit punching you as hard as they could in he ankle. It'd hurt like hell. Now imagine that hobbit's strength increasing a thousandfold. That's what Pym would deal with.

Quote:

Ant-Man can easily be found by Spider-Woman, so he is taken down quickly.

Only if she isn't taken down herself first by Machine Man who should have the element of surprise and has class 7 strength, not to mention more versatile attacks.

Quote:

Falcon and Beast should be tangled up before they can attack Mantis.

Even with the time portal trick, they'd still be teleported into the middle of our team.

Let's both agree to not fight this time the way that we did last time. It's very tiring and let's just let the voters decide and not post ourselves unless someone asks us a question.

Mike Smash! · 11-19-2007, 10:31 AM

Matt, you forgot to make the votes public... we may have a problem with anonymous voters and new voters.

Pwood · 11-19-2007, 10:52 AM

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