We continue our new TFEW Guides section of the Website and the Building A War Team series of articles. Today we will continue to look at Team Composition as James “Emrakul Tat” Hogan of Alpha Cartel guides us through the main areas of focus that you need to take a look at when building your war team in Transformers: Earth Wars. We continue to discuss what every good war team needs in TFEW, and today we continue to look at what we want on our team and the sacrifices we will have to make elsewhere to get what we want on that team.
The X Factors
These are the bots that don’t just bring stats or damage, but fundamentally change the way you fight a war battle. Let’s start with Optimus Prime & Megatron. OP & Megatron will win you wars. Period. There are so many bases that can be exploited with his ability that I feel comfortable recommending him for nearly any well-rounded team. A massive health pool, decent DPS and and the very rare ability to control team movement on the battlefield. If you have him, you probably should be using him.
Let’s compare that to another bot in this category, Kup. Kup & Dead End can punish a base single-handedly, but it has to be a VERY specific base and because of that I can’t in good conscience recommend them as permanent war team bots. If you have a strong Kup or Dead End however, they are a key that opens a very specific lock, but if one of these bases show up, use them to take the easy win and teach them a valuable lesson on smart base design!
Arcee/Nightbird, Rook/Blat, Gnaw and Blaster/Soundwave are a set of X factor bots that add a lot of health on the field with their abilities and can pop outposts. Popping outposts can be the key to stopping your team from taking a Star Saber/Deathsaurus or Elita-1/Lugnut to the face, or avoid getting stunned forever from Silverbolt/Thundercracker. Oftentimes it will draw the outpost bots out of position so you can avoid dealing with them in a fiery killzone.
If there is a Swoop/Scourge or a Tigerhawk/Waspinator on defense for a base you are attacking, you either want to avoid that circle all together with a combiner, or throw as many bodies in that circle as possible to reduce the damage taken per bot. Smokescreen or Brake-Neck is another great choice because either can snipe an outpost bot with very good timing, nullifying squishy threats like Swoop. Cheetor and Slash can rip and tear through a base like a biblical one-bot plague with their outrageous damage output. There are many bots that fit in this category, so when choosing them remember the previous rules I have reviewed and if you think you can squeeze one of these bots into your team go for it!
