First We Crack the Shell...

This is part one of a two deck series showcasing one of the best scenes in Transformers: The Movie. (The second part being No Way, Two Can Play). I'm talking about the mini-cassette battle during the siege of Autobot City.

Early in the film, the Decepticons managed to sneak through the Autobots defenses and were pretty much kicking the Autobots' teeth in.  Perceptor told Blaster to radio Optimus Prime for help. Soundwave had other ideas, sending his mini cassette legion to cut off the radio signal in a mission creatively called "Operation Interference."

This legion of mini-bots was pretty fierce.  Number, Frenzy, Ravage, and ... Rat-bat! I'm pretty sure Rumble is supposed to be blue in the scene below, but we'll overlook that.

The Decepticons wisely took out the satellite dish to prevent any communication from getting out and cut off the Autobots' opportunity to watch cable tv.

While Starcream uttered my favorite line from the movie (which I featured in my deck, Oh, how it pains me to do this), Rumble has a close second.  This deck is named in honor of his battle cry before he used his rumble arms to break the dome protecting the Autobots: "First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside."  I'm not 100% sure I even understand it, and I love it.  Editors Note: Has anyone else ever wondered why Rumble got those cool piston arms and got to say stuff and Frenzy didn't and was just kind of there?

What ensued was an epic smackdown between Autobot and Decepticon cassettes.  This deck features the Decepticon side of the fight, and the second part of the series (No Way, Two Can Play) has the Autobot side.  Note, I have started putting the fortressmaximus.io visual depiction of my decks at the bottom of my articles for those who are interested. 

Characters:

Raider Rat-bat (6)

Raider Ravage (5)

Raider Rumble (6)

Frenzy (5)

3x Fuel Cache Star Card (3)

Star Cards (Pip Colors)(Number)

Extra Padding (BG)(3)

Reactive Armor (GO)

Immersed in Shadow (BL,O)(3)

Stealthiness (O)(3)

Attack Drone (GW)(3)

Dismantling Claw (BG)(3)

Scoundrel's Blaster (BG)(3)

Fight For Position (BL,O)(3)

Fuel Cache (BOW)(3)

Rock Toss (BL,O)(1)

Roll Out (BO)(1)

Secret Dealings (GW)(3)

War of Attrition (BG)(3)

Wedge Formation (G,BL,O)(3)

Buzzsaw, Ravage, Frenzy, Attack! (BL)(1)

Micro Capacitor (None)(1)

Breakdown: 20 Orange, 16 Blue, 9 White, 24 Green, 11 Black.  18 Actions, 9 Weapons, 6 Armor, 7 Utility.

Why these characters? If Soundwave thinks these four guys are good enough to send into battle to cripple the Autobots' telecommunication services, that's good enough for me.  True, they didn't really succeed at cutting off communication the message got to Prime and sure, they got chased off by the Autobot cassettes...but they had Perceptor on the ropes!

Why these battle cards? These guys don't really do much to play off of each other, so I decided to build my deck around Rat-bat.  Rat-bat has a cool tap ability in which he repairs one damage from each character for each color pip on the top card of the deck.  I therefore decided to have as many double pip (29) and triple pip (6) cards as possible.  I added Micro-Capacitor in the hopes that I can use Rat-bat's ability twice.  Stealthiness (and Immersed in Shadow) are there to keep Rat-bat alive so he can heal my other dudes.  Finally, I did have to add Buzzsaw, Ravage, Frenzy, Attack because like, it's basically my deck brought to battle card life.  Plus, I do have Ravage and Frenzy, so it might get a play.

Strategy: Keep Rat-bat alive so he can heal everyone else.  Equip him with stealth to keep people from swinging at him, while giving weapons to everyone else.  If I hit the jackpot and get Micro-capacitor early, it will likely go on Rat-bat, but Ravage would like it if Rat-bat has rat-bit the dust.  If I'm being true to the movie, Rumble attacks first and he has the most health so he's going to survive the first hit.  That would give Rat-bat enough time to heal him if need be, but it could also make sense to jump in with Frenzy as well to give another juicy target.  But let's not kid ourselves, Blaster's boys did a decent job defending themselves in the movie, so the odds of these guys winning is pretty small.

CLICK HERE to continue to the companion deck, No Way, Two Can Play.