The Case of the Sinister Expenses
Yeah, another Heroclix post. What did you expect? The new set came out Wednesday and my case arrived today. Go away until I decide to write about something of interest.
The good news is that the case is still delivering a complete set -- plus many and sundry extras. The bad news is that matters of quality control have slipped.
In some instances to sundry one can add sundered, as a few boosters had the pieces jammed into the bottom of the box with conspicuous force, almost ferocity. Just a couple instances of it saw it going beyond bent cards, but one flight base was snapped off and another had been markedly bent. Never saw that before.
I've recently learned that over in China, where Wizkids' manufacturing is subcontracted, work shifts among various factories. When we saw the jump in quality that accompanied Fantastic Forces it was, we were told, the result of moving to a new factory. When things slipped in the packing for Icons we were told that had been handled by the "old" factory, and left to speculate that this was just some residual item they'd been contracted to do, and that the bent cards and figures jammed into packages were the result of people working on what they knew was their last contract for Wizkids. As it turns out, however, production jumps from facility to facility as they juggle the production for each of their various games. Hopefully something will be done about what's going on in the factory that produced and packaged this set.
In the previous few, full expansions the distribution of card items (Feats, Battlefield Conditions, bystanders and, most recently, objects) had been extremely even-handed within a case. This time out... not so much. While I received at least one of each of the card items, in some instances I pulled three, while in others it was only one.
Most of the other packaging problems - and this mainly affects the palatbility of the clix brick program (an incentive to buy 12 boosters at once from a retailer)- are clusters of figures. In a standard case there could be as many as three of the same level of the same figure (eg an experienced Beetle), which is fine and acceptable to a case buyer -- after all, there are only 96 clix in an expansion and a case contains 192; we're expecting extras, and have generally been pleased to see the end (with rare exceptions due to someone's blunder) of the days when a case might contain 7 rookie Penguins (There's an odious chorus line for you) and could still see the buyer out searching for more than a few pieces to complete his collection.
A brick buyer, however, is not going to be thrilled to find those three experienced Beetles coming from adjacent boosters. Worse, he could find most of the duplicates of a complete REV in the same brick. It's something they're going to need to address if they want this program to succeed. As it stands the strongest reasons to buy a brick are the special mail-away piece (for Sinister, it's a Venom) and early access and a 25% reduction on the cost of the collector's sets that follow a set's release. In terms of figures to be found in a brick it's quite the crap shoot and the dice are decidedly weighted.
Rather than belabor all that, or speculate on how much better or worse the situation will be come October's Supernova set, as the first four REVs (pieces 1-12) will presumably be alien generics, I'll get onto the breakdown of my case of Sinister:
HYDRA Footsoldier/Technician/Officer 3-3-2
SHIELD Trooper/Sniper/Agent 3-3-2 (The two vet agents were in the last two boosters of the final brick in the case.)
Swordsman 3-2-3
Hydro Man 3-3-2
Paste Pot Pete/Trapster 3-2-3
Mockingbird 3-3-3
Jewel/Jessica Jones 3-2-3
Beetle 3-3-2
Wizard 3-3-2
Electro 3-3-2
Fixer/Techno/Fixer 3-3-2 (Most of these were found in the same brick. One booster contained two rookies!)
Jack O'Lantern 3-3-2
Sprite/Shadowcat 2-2-1
MACH-1/MACH-3/MACH-4 3-1-1
Nighthawk 3-2-1
Valkyrie 3-2-1
Multiple Man 3-2-1
Deathlok 3-2-1
Falcon 3-3-1
Spider-Man 3-2-1
Radioactive Man 2-1-1
Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar 2-1-1
Rhino 2-1-1
Whizzer/Speed Demon 2-1-1
Daredevil 2-1-1
Meggan 2-1-1
Bullseye 2-1-1
Kraven 2-1-1 (You can see how steady the distribution is at the case level, especially for the uppermost tier of clix.)
Uniques:
Forge 1
Purple Man 1
Maximus 1
Baron Strucker 1
Charcoal 1
Wolverine 1
Nick Fury 1
Arkon 1
Ka-Zar 2
Scarlet Spider 2
Stilt Man 2 (Yay! The extra leg segments from #2 are already in place on #1, so he's twice as tall as the giants.)
Black Bolt 2 (Another sign of a somewhat methodical/mechanical approach to controlling the overall contents of the case is seen here, as the four extra uniques are consecutive.)
Bystanders:
Jamie Madrox 3
Turk Barrett 3
Mary-Jane Watson-Parker 3
Sgt. Tork 2
Lockheed 3
Dallas Riordan 3
Battlefield Conditions:
GROUND ZERO 2
BACK-ALLEY BRAWL 2
TELEKINETIC STRAIN 2
RUSHED ASSAULT 3
Feat Cards:
PUMMEL 3
KNOCKDOWN 3
ENTANGLE 3
HEIGHTENED REFLEXES 1
VAULT 1
VENDETTA 1
INDOMITABLE 1
CAMOUFLAGE 1 (Somewhat disappointed to have only gotten one each of several useful cards, though within home games it's fine -- one can be tapped as many times as we choose.)
Special Objects:
STEPLADDER 3
STATUE 3
One last note on quality control, here's a list of the misprinted pieces in the set which have been errataed:
* E Shadowcat - should have boot speed symbol, not wing speed symbolThat's a fair list of mistakes, and begs the question of whether or not there's any quality control happening at the production level aside from the most basic standards? While the E & V Nighthawk are fairly obvious, as he's sitting atop a flight stand and the average player isn't going to even notice the boot symbol on the base, the Stiltman and E Spider-man in particular are irritating as they're lacking markings to show that they have special movement capabilities. Anyone who's not spending time on Wizkids' boards or playing with people who do, they'd open the boosters and never know.
* V Shadowcat - should have boot speed symbol, not wing speed symbol
* E Nighthawk - should have wing speed symbol, not boot speed symbol
* V Nighthawk - should have wing speed symbol, not boot speed symbol
* E Spider-Man - should have boot transporter speed symbol, not boot speed symbol
* U Charcoal - should have boot speed symbol, not wing speed symbol
* U Stilt-Man - should have giant damage symbol
Oh, as a customer appreciation (and inventory-clearing move, too) move ICON USA also sent me five boosters from various sets gratis. The Indy pack booster contained a unique Shi, the Icons booster contained an Unstoppable card, and the Fantastic Forces booster contained a Nimrod. Also in the mix were an Icons veteran Batman, and an experienced Hypertime Flash, which might be useful trading fodder down the line depending on who I run into. Not bad for free stuff.
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Comments
my how you boys do love your toys! ( i can't tease - i used to be just as into beanie babies. really)
anyway, hitting the road for a week with my guy and 6 kids!
say a prayer.
i'll catch up with you when we get back.
j.
I've picked up six boosters total so far. I haven't come across any broken figs as yet, but most of my cards have been bent.
The last booster I picked up, all by itself last Saturday, contained a Vet Hydro-Man and a Pulsar, the Vet of the female Captain Marvel REV. Also a rookie Falcon and yet another Experienced Wizard. I don't often get boosters with two Vets in them, so that worked well for me.
The only Feat Card I've gotten so far remains Pummel.
The new Feat Card from the DANGER ROOM set, the name of which I can't remember (Lucky something or other) that allows you to reroll one 6 sided die if it comes up a 1 once per game, is pretty nice. And the Battlefield Condition that adds 2 to everyone's movement if they begin a move in their starting area is nice, too.
The list of dial misprints had quite a few up in arms over at the WK forums, too, with many threatening to stop buying clix altogether unless WK found some way to get them corrected figures, while the usual coterie of asskissers and suck ups pointed out yet again how everyone should be grateful to have a game like this to play at all, even if the characters were all badly misdefined and technical problems abounded.
Me, my tendency is simply to play the figs the way they are in comics, anyway. Many were upset about Shadowcat, for example, being ret conned to a boot speed symbol apparently because the factory forgot to manufacture flight stands for her, but I've never understood why Shadowcat would have a flight stand, other than to allow her to carry teammates, which, granted, she does do... but which a Passenger will accomplish as well as a flight stand.
Charcoal I'd play as a flyer, as he is one. As to the transporter Spider-Man, I think it's a pointless feature; Spidey does occasionally carry other heroes into combat, but it's not like they have a stable platform to launch attacks from, and really, if he has Captain America on his shoulders, he shouldn't be smacking anyone as they both swing on by, either.
Very nice case, though.
HG: Hmmm... this is going to be one of those boy vs girl things I suppose. Heroclix are (generally and increasingly) nicely sculpted and painted sculpts of characters with histories going back years and even decades, placed on game discs approximating someone's conception of the character's powers and abilities for the sake of a game. So, they can appeal to a comics fan on at least one level and to a gamer on another -- and some of us on both.
Beanie babies are fluffy blobs of fabric that mostly represented no one or nothing (some exceptions, eventually, I know), ultimately created for a collect-em-all mentality and not much else.
(Retroactively) Good luck with the trip! The Brady Bunch rides?
The two Danger Room cards were nice additions, I agree. I'm tempted to make the Battlefield Condition from that one and Armor Wars' Assembled as part of the base rules for any home games, encouraging both bold moves out of the gate and comics-oriented team-building.
The Shadowcat wing/boot symbol bit didn't strike me as a major affair, though by her vet it would be more of a concern for me since taking someone along with her became part of her abilities. Still, in the end I'm fine with it even with Passenger's costing a click of damage from the effort. For the most part I think people were just lumping her in because they wanted more to complain about in that vein than just the bit with Charcoal; in Charcoal's case they knew from Seth himself that the piece was designed and calculated to be a flyer as you pretty much note.
As for Spidey, keep in mind that in the official game anyone who's being carried is inert until he or she is set down. In the game as writ the transporter mechanic makes that Spidey the only one in the game who can move, make an attack and move again in the same action. As he takes a -2 to his AV, it's meant to simulate a reduced accuracy, so I can reasonably buy it even if he is carrying someone.
Wizkids really needs to focus on their quality control, eh?
The ones I've seen have been pinker than the one one sees in the Fantastic Forces figure gallery, but I think that's due in part to the way strong light reflects off it. In the spotlights or a flash for a pic, and that can lighten it up considerably.