First Sinister Step(Tedious Heroclix post)
Mostly just names and numbers, with some comments likely added along the way. You were warned.
Wednesday saw the street-level release of the latest Marvel Heroclix expansion, Sinister. As I'd made arrangements for the bulk of my purchases of the set months ago, I opted not to go buy any straight-away, as my retail-bought brick would be in my hands by Thursday morning and a case via delivery service on Friday.
All early reports indicated relatively strong character clusters within bricks, so that many characters might not appear at any level in a given brick, while another one might appear in multiples and across two or more levesl, so one might end up with 5 Falcons and no Deathloks or Spider-man pieces. As with the bricks for Collateral Damage and Armor Wars before it, the distribution has apparently been determined at the case level, so what made its way into a given brick can be an odd concentration. A brick might contain most of a given character's occurences for an entire case, and as a result two, three, even four boosters in a row might contain one, two, even three of the same character, some of them at the same level. Obviously, someone who is intending to solely buy by the brick is likely to be upset at the results unless he's very lucky.
So I braced myself for strong concentrations and hoped for them to be among some some specific, force-building ones - the Hydra and SHIELD generics, and the Multiple Man pieces - and that the majority of the cardboard bits I pulled would be Feat cards. With a case on the way I am reasonably assured of pulling a complete set from the case alone.
Reports of frequently bent cards in boosters were also running strong by Wednesday night. Generally not much more than an annoyance, it was still disappointing to read these reports again and again as I'd thought this was a problem they'd addressed.
Generally speaking, four uniques per brick seemed to be the rule, so the Armor Wars problem fixed in Collateral Damage remained fixed.
The numbers to the right are the quantity of each level (Rookie, Experienced, Veteran) pulled. (And, yes, I did the skeleton set-up work for this post in advance; I didn't want to be trying to pull this together from scratch the same day I was opening the boosters.)
I'll likely get all the numbers input, publish the post and then add other comments in red later.
HYDRA Footsoldier/Technician/Officer 0-0-0 (So much for a quick build of a new Hydra army.)
SHIELD Trooper/Sniper/Agent 1-3-0 (A little disappointment not to get the vet, but the sniper's the most useful piece among the three lebels anyway.)
Swordsman 0-0-0
Hydro Man 3-1-1
Paste Pot Pete/Trapster 1-1-0
Mockingbird 0-0-1
Jewel/Jessica Jones 1-2-0
Beetle 0-1-0
Wizard 0-1-0
Electro 1-1-1
Fixer/Techno/Fixer 1-0-0
Jack O'Lantern 2-1-0
Sprite/Shadowcat 1-0-1
MACH-1/MACH-3/MACH-4 1-0-0
Nighthawk 0-1-0
Valkyrie 0-0-1
Multiple Man 0-1-0
Deathlok 2-0-0
Falcon 1-2-0
Spider-Man 1-0-0
Radioactive Man 1-0-0
Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar 1-0-0
Rhino 1-0-0
Whizzer/Speed Demon 1-0-0
Daredevil 1-0-0
Meggan 1-0-0
Bullseye 0-1-1
Kraven 0-0-0
Uniques:
Forge 1
Purple Man 1
Maximus 0
Baron Strucker 0
Charcoal 0
Wolverine 0
Nick Fury 0
Arkon 1
Ka-Zar 1
Scarlet Spider 0
Stilt Man 0 (I was very much hoping to pull at least one of these out of the brick.)
Black Bolt 0
Bystanders:
Jamie Madrox 0 (A disappointment, as this is nearly the only bystander I'd be looking to have multiples of.)
Turk Barrett 1
Mary-Jane Watson-Parker 0
Sgt. Tork 1
Lockheed 0 (...though multiples of little, flying dragons would have been nice, too.)
Dallas Riordan 1
Sin-Eater 0 (I believe this is the marquee participation "prize", not something from a booster)
Battlefield Conditions:
GROUND ZERO 1
BACK-ALLEY BRAWL 1
TELEKINETIC STRAIN 0
RUSHED ASSAULT 1
Feat Cards:
PUMMEL 1
KNOCKDOWN 1
ENTANGLE 1
HEIGHTENED REFLEXES 1
VAULT
VENDETTA
INDOMITABLE
CAMOUFLAGE 1
Special Objects:
STEPLADDER
STATUE 1
Despite not getting an ideal mix of pieces, this was a nicely-spread selection of characters and would have been a brick no one could reasonably complain about. Consider: I pulled four different uniques, and of the REV groups of pieces there were only three (HYDRA,Swordsman and Kraven) that I didn't get any levels of. I pulled no more than three of a given level of a particular piece, as all of the ones from that case ended up in one brick; in my view that's perfectly acceptable, if not necessarily always convenient. While the SHIELD Snipers tended to be bending over backwards, it's a supple plastic and the piece is only standing on one foot. None of my cards were the least bit bent, either.
Oh! I almost forgot to note that the Danger Room set is a nice package, too.
All early reports indicated relatively strong character clusters within bricks, so that many characters might not appear at any level in a given brick, while another one might appear in multiples and across two or more levesl, so one might end up with 5 Falcons and no Deathloks or Spider-man pieces. As with the bricks for Collateral Damage and Armor Wars before it, the distribution has apparently been determined at the case level, so what made its way into a given brick can be an odd concentration. A brick might contain most of a given character's occurences for an entire case, and as a result two, three, even four boosters in a row might contain one, two, even three of the same character, some of them at the same level. Obviously, someone who is intending to solely buy by the brick is likely to be upset at the results unless he's very lucky.
So I braced myself for strong concentrations and hoped for them to be among some some specific, force-building ones - the Hydra and SHIELD generics, and the Multiple Man pieces - and that the majority of the cardboard bits I pulled would be Feat cards. With a case on the way I am reasonably assured of pulling a complete set from the case alone.
Reports of frequently bent cards in boosters were also running strong by Wednesday night. Generally not much more than an annoyance, it was still disappointing to read these reports again and again as I'd thought this was a problem they'd addressed.
Generally speaking, four uniques per brick seemed to be the rule, so the Armor Wars problem fixed in Collateral Damage remained fixed.
The numbers to the right are the quantity of each level (Rookie, Experienced, Veteran) pulled. (And, yes, I did the skeleton set-up work for this post in advance; I didn't want to be trying to pull this together from scratch the same day I was opening the boosters.)
I'll likely get all the numbers input, publish the post and then add other comments in red later.
HYDRA Footsoldier/Technician/Officer 0-0-0 (So much for a quick build of a new Hydra army.)
SHIELD Trooper/Sniper/Agent 1-3-0 (A little disappointment not to get the vet, but the sniper's the most useful piece among the three lebels anyway.)
Swordsman 0-0-0
Hydro Man 3-1-1
Paste Pot Pete/Trapster 1-1-0
Mockingbird 0-0-1
Jewel/Jessica Jones 1-2-0
Beetle 0-1-0
Wizard 0-1-0
Electro 1-1-1
Fixer/Techno/Fixer 1-0-0
Jack O'Lantern 2-1-0
Sprite/Shadowcat 1-0-1
MACH-1/MACH-3/MACH-4 1-0-0
Nighthawk 0-1-0
Valkyrie 0-0-1
Multiple Man 0-1-0
Deathlok 2-0-0
Falcon 1-2-0
Spider-Man 1-0-0
Radioactive Man 1-0-0
Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar 1-0-0
Rhino 1-0-0
Whizzer/Speed Demon 1-0-0
Daredevil 1-0-0
Meggan 1-0-0
Bullseye 0-1-1
Kraven 0-0-0
Uniques:
Forge 1
Purple Man 1
Maximus 0
Baron Strucker 0
Charcoal 0
Wolverine 0
Nick Fury 0
Arkon 1
Ka-Zar 1
Scarlet Spider 0
Stilt Man 0 (I was very much hoping to pull at least one of these out of the brick.)
Black Bolt 0
Bystanders:
Jamie Madrox 0 (A disappointment, as this is nearly the only bystander I'd be looking to have multiples of.)
Turk Barrett 1
Mary-Jane Watson-Parker 0
Sgt. Tork 1
Lockheed 0 (...though multiples of little, flying dragons would have been nice, too.)
Dallas Riordan 1
Sin-Eater 0 (I believe this is the marquee participation "prize", not something from a booster)
Battlefield Conditions:
GROUND ZERO 1
BACK-ALLEY BRAWL 1
TELEKINETIC STRAIN 0
RUSHED ASSAULT 1
Feat Cards:
PUMMEL 1
KNOCKDOWN 1
ENTANGLE 1
HEIGHTENED REFLEXES 1
VAULT
VENDETTA
INDOMITABLE
CAMOUFLAGE 1
Special Objects:
STEPLADDER
STATUE 1
Despite not getting an ideal mix of pieces, this was a nicely-spread selection of characters and would have been a brick no one could reasonably complain about. Consider: I pulled four different uniques, and of the REV groups of pieces there were only three (HYDRA,Swordsman and Kraven) that I didn't get any levels of. I pulled no more than three of a given level of a particular piece, as all of the ones from that case ended up in one brick; in my view that's perfectly acceptable, if not necessarily always convenient. While the SHIELD Snipers tended to be bending over backwards, it's a supple plastic and the piece is only standing on one foot. None of my cards were the least bit bent, either.
Oh! I almost forgot to note that the Danger Room set is a nice package, too.
Comments
These Heroclix sound like fun, (shame on you) don't you know I save my hard earned cash for school expenses. I was almost tempted to get into them, and then I saw the :gasp: prices and quickly figured up in my head how much that could translate too. Ouch! I'll pass but have a good time for me to with them.
I have, to date, four offers on the three Uniques I'm willing to trade, but the 4 Vets and an unspecified number of Multiple Men remains the strongest. (One bold fellow offered to trade me his Ka-Zar in exchange for my Baron Strucker AND my Wolverine. Sun addled, or simply high? Only the Lord, and perhaps very soon, his local coroner, know for sure.)
Oh, and so far, no one wants Forge; everyone is all about Sam Jackson and the latest Logan.
No, that would never do.
However, when I order a case online the cost, including delivery is $221.95. Indeed, for some odd reason when I ordered Sinister the price was temporarily lower, coming in just a little over $200.
Now, that's still quite a lot to be paying for a bunch of pieces of plastic and cardboard, but I enjoy them so I persist.
Trade offers can get wacky. Some people don't simply border on rude, they cross the line & set up camp. While the joys of Ka-Zar have been hyped by some, seeing all of what he has to offer as a mobile, difficult to hit, damage machine for 40 points, he's still not worth two uniques. Well, not unless they're Parasite and maybe Brother Blood.
Yeah, it doesn't appear to be a mad rush to Forge. I think there are more aggressive priorities at work up front, but I expect Forge will pick back up once people get past the Who Can Hit Hardest stage and start looking at a fairly solid Swiss Army Knife of a piece with a TA that helps him control where on his dial you want him to be. Someone who leads with a click of Outwit, then two of Perplex, then two of Support and finally two of Leadership (okay, late-dial Leadership is no great asset...) is going to be a useful piece.
Good luck with the trade decisions.
I haven't heard back from the guy who wanted to trade me two SINISTER Vets for Wolverine and two more for Nick Fury. I'm still hoping to get the Vet Kraven and the Vet Wizard from him in exchange for the Wolverine. On the other hand, if he doesn't come through, well, I have most of the Wolverines in existence now, so I won't mind keeping another one.
The new Wolverine should be fun to play with Indominatable and Automatic Regeneration on him, results varying largely based on what team he's facing, of course.
Random things that are troubling me about the latest developments from SINISTER and DANGER ROOM at the moment --
They upgraded the Shape Shift power slightly, letting it activate on a 5-6. But they didn't upgrade the Skrulls TA similarly. Annoying.
The Wizard seems to have 2 ranged targets on his Rookie level; somehow, as he's increased in experience and refined his technology further, he's lost the extra target on his higher levels. Annoying.
There should be a Feat Card that allows you to place more Multiple Men on the board at will. Pay for them at the start of the game, sure, but you should be able to keep them off the map until you want them, and then as a free action, place them in squares adjacent to any Multiple Man you currently have on the board.
Beyond all that, I've got a Frightful Five (E. Wizard, V Trapster, V. Sandman, the rookie Hydro-Man, and the Vet Deadpool) vs. an odd squad of Avengers (V Cap from AW, V Hercules, Danger Room Beast, V Scarlet Witch from IC, and V Swordsman) going on the new Danger Room map. No time to do moves yet, but it's set up. I'm interested to see how it plays out.
The reason given for the no-upgrade of the Skrull TA is that since it can't be Outwitted (while Shape Change can) such a change would have made the TA undercosted. The Skrulls deserve better, though, so maybe we'll see a TA-specific Feat that'll allow an upgrade for a few points per character.
I noticed the weird loss of multitasking skills on the Wizard, too. I theorize that he has deep acrophobia and the moment he started leaving the ground an underlying state of panic kept him from focusing on more than one attack at a time.
The Multiple Man situation's a problem, yeah, as they didn't attempt to simulate his powers. The official word was that Seth's not a fan of character-specific cards, feeling that it drags the game in the wrong direction.
I briefly began thinking about how I want to handle it, but so far it's very rough.
It strikes me that most likely I'd only be playing a bunch of those pieces as part of some special scenario where I was allowing any hit on the main Jamie to generate a bystander. Deciding whether or not any bystander who's hit will also generate another Jamie (which would, in effect, simply replace the one KOed) is something I'd have to think about. It could be fun for a swarm team. If the player wanted more than one of the Multiple Man full sculpts he'd have to pay for that out of his build points at the start, but let the fragile copies be generated with each successful attack made against him. Yes, he gets the extra teammates at no build cost, but his opponent also gets access to as many 7 pt bonuses as he can hit.
Deciding how many actions the Multiple Man team gets is another question. I'd be willing to allow each of the bystanders the ability to move or attack any turn, knowing that if they push they'll KO themselves. Maybe the proviso that a newly-manifested duplicate isn't able to act the following turn - a sort of momentary "birth" shock - would be how to restrict it -- otherwise each time someone KOed one his fresh replacement would attack the following turn, and it could be ridiculously overwhelming.
Hmmm. If one did all this and used the vet Madrox... yeah, it would be a problem. He has Mastermind, so he'd park a 7 pt piece next to himself and each time it took the damage a new one would replace it. The opponent would keep adding 7 points to his win column, but the vet piece would never take a click of damage from a direct attack.
Then again, he's supposed to be an overwhelming challenge...
Lots of (much-needed) Perplex on that evil FF team!
I'll be interested to see how it plays out for you.