The new game system (X-Box 360) arrived Friday and, happily enough, the two games arrived Saturday (and they look great), so as the weekend wore on that had the kids' focus, especially Travis'. I've watched but haven't had the heart to insist on taking a turn yet, knowing how frustrating it is to not only not be able to play a new game but watch someone who is fumbling at the controls on even the most basic levels. Time enough for me to try my hand at that later.Back over the Labor Day weekend, though, I ran some Heroclix battles.
The first of these was involved two 638 pt teams late Sunday night, Avengers vs Masters of Evil, which I ran against myself. It turned out somewhat lopsided in terms of KOs, but beatings were taken on both sides:
Masters of EvilThese were two of the bagged, unplayed teams from the two Heroclix sessions at Crypt Leak and Abbygal's. I'd skipped choosing the Avengers team for fear that it would be too much, and while I was interested in seeing how the Masters of Evil's new Team Ability would work out, I decided their overall lack of range made them a bad choice for anything but a close, tight map.
Baron Zemo 90 pts + Swingline 10 pts + Indomitable 5 pts = 105 pts.
Executioner rookie 56 pts + Shellhead 10 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts = 76 pts
Enchantress 91 pts + Shellhead 10 pts = 101 pts
Whirlwind vet 41 pts + Shellhead 10 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts
+ Force Field 10 pts + Heightened Reflexes 10 pts = 81 pts
Black Knight vet 77 pts + Thunderbolts 5 pts (to MOE) + Shellhead 10 pts = 87 pts
Radioactive Man vet 80 pts + Thunderbolts 5 pts (to MOE)
+ Armor Piercing 10 pts + Shellhead 10 pts = 105 pts
Blizzard vet 53 pts + Force Field 10 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts
+ Shellhead 10 pts = 83 ptsVS
The Avengers
Iron Man vet 172 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts + Shellhead 10 = 192 pts
Tigra E 46 pts + Swingline 10 pts = 56
Hawkeye V 84 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts = 94 pts
Quicksilver E 62 pts+ Swingline 10 pts+ Armor Piercing 10 pts.
+ Homing Device = 90 pts.
Scarlet Witch V 62 pts + Armor Piercing 10 pts = 72 pts
Spider-Woman U 67 pts + Armor Piercing = 77 pts
Moon Knight E 27 pts + Pounce 15 pts = 42 pts
This test battle reinforced both decisions, but especially the latter.
To clarify, the Masters of Evil TA now allows them to act in three, consecutive turns (pushing on the second and third) rather than automatically being left immobile after that second turn. For nearly everyone on the team I decided to take advatange of the likelihood that they'd be standing there with two tokens on them more often than the average team and gave them Shellhead. (That raised their Defense Values by 2 whenever they had two tokens on them.)
Both sides got in their hits, Zemo and Blizzard tagged Iron Man early on, blowing him past his earliest, strongest, most active clicks, but never made more headway on him.
Tigra was the only Avenger to fall, while one by one - Zemo first, and finally Enchantress at the end - fell on the other side.
Hawkeye, Spider-Woman and Quicksilver were each solid performers, even though Quicksilver was almost always only able to do a click of damage at a time through the defensive powers. The Combat Reflexes on Spider-Woman made her invaluable for getting in to engage several of the enemy close up.
As always, had some rolls gone differently it could have been less of a clear battle, but the Avengers won without my even making best use of them. Their TA allows them to move without it taking up one of their team's actions, and I don't believe I used it once. (Keep in mind I was sticking to 3 movements per turn, not the 6 the official rules would call for.)
The following night, while I was playing around with a different match-up, this one more of a scenario and I had several clix out on the table, Travis suggested putting together a team and having a match. He hadn't played in a long time so once he'd made his hodge podge selections I beefed them up with appropriate cards. (More than what I'm recalling here.)
Cain Marko + Fortitude and UnstoppableAgainst this I decided to play as close to a classic Defenders team as I could:
Venom (the new, Sinister clix brick promotional one.)
Nightcrawler (Clobberin' Time) + Armor Piercing + Swingline
Chemo + Armor Piercing
Nyeun Chun Ti
Dr. Strange experienced (FF) 96 pts + Force FieldI got in an early hit or two, but found myself holding back and had the Hulk react, well, like the Hulk even though it meant he was setting himself up for a pounding.
Hulk unique (Ultimates) 182 pts + Double-Time + Unstoppable + Shellhead
Silver Surfer Unique 173 pts + Automatic Regeneration + Armor Piercing
Sub-Mariner experienced 135 pts + Unstoppable
The intent was to not give Trav a hard time, so I repeatedly failed to press advantages. That we consistently misread Nyeun's Toughness as Super Senses, and Trav kept rolling 5s and 6s hardly helped my side. His was a tricky team, I held back a little too long, and Trav has a knack for strategic battle games. I ultimately took out one or two of his pieces but when the Surfer fell he was the last of my team.
I have a different scenario in mind - one for which I had the Chemo out on the table in the first place - but I'll describe that once I've made the final decisions and played it. I might get to that one of the nights this week.
Comments
I'd tossed this one together over the weekend partially because I'd meant to do so most of a week earlier (losing it in a Blogger freeze-up when I failed to save drafts) and wanted to hit it before even these scant details faded away.
Comparing the Ultimates Hulk side by side with the Savage Hulk, well, it's frickin' amazing how much bang you get for your activation click buck. Whew!
On the MOE/Avengers hoedown -- that's an interestingly varied Avengers squad, covering a great many bases, from B/C/F to HSS. Most of my comments come down to just how the play strategy varies under my House Rules, which you may well be sick and tired of hearing about.
Still -- no need to give Quicksilver a Swing Line under my system, where HyperSonic Speed lets one ignore Hindering and Elevated Terrain. (Mind you, the +1 to Speed would be nice, but my revision to the card eliminates it, in favor of allowing those with SwingLine to, well, ignore differing terrain elevations, which seems like a fair trade to me.)
I always tend to use the Ultimates Scarlet Witch on my Avengers squads, because her dial is so much better, usually House Ruling an Avengers TA onto her base.
Armor Piercing is a natural card for Hawkeye, yes. In my largely unfought Suicide Squad vs Outsiders battle, still laid out downstairs, I gave Armor Piercing to both Deadshot and Arsenal, which seemed equally natural.
The experienced Moon Knight is an interesting piece. Along with the Experienced Paladin and, I think, Killer Shrike, they may be the cheapest Super Strength pieces out there. The Experienced Moon Knight works well under my House Rules for another reason, though; with his Willpower, he can move in, grab an opponent character, and then, on the following turn, use that opponent as a club on another adjacent opponent, without taking pushing damage.
It's laborious, but about the only way I can think of to simultaneously deal damage to two different opponents in close combat, unless, of course, you have Flurry.
I'd have thought that Masters of Evil team would have done better. Blizzard's a much more useful piece under my rules than WK's, with the added capacity to erect barriers on occupied squares, effectively embedding opponents in ice and paralyzing them for a turn. Still, even without that capacity, the Black Knight has a lot of Exploit Weakness and starts with a decent attack; I'd have thought he'd have been more usefully exerted against Iron Man.
As to the bout between you and Travis, well, congratulations -- it's been a long time since any of the kids around here have shown any interest in a match. That's always a nice surprise.
The Defenders TA is extremely inexpensive -- I know I worked it out in an earlier post or a comment on one -- running a fraction of a point per click.
Your trade-off on Swingline is more than equitable, allowing even early versions of Daredevil a chance to act more consistently like Daredevil.
I went with the ranged strikes on Iron Man as I did because they (Zemo and Blizzard) could get their digs in early. Black Knight was initially held back mostly as a consequence of limited number of actions on their first turn (the Avengers won the roll and went first), and didn't move in towards Iron Man on the second turn because there were a cluster of Avengers out fairly close to Shellhead by that time and he'd have been blasted and otherwise hammered by one or more of: I.M., Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. By the third turn Spider-Woman was in BK & Blizzard's faces, which is where the remainder of the battle played out over multiple turns for those three characters.
Under WK's rules this particular team of Masters of Evil really needs a trickier, tighter map... or a better player running them. ;) The Avengers had mobility, strinking range and striking power. Once Blizzard (who is terribly front-loaded) and Zemo took solid hits most of those assets were gone from the MOE team.
Their new TA did serve them well in many instances, and matched their aggressive personality as a team, but it also encouraged me to push them, which I did. Whirlwind, the Executioner and Radioactive Man all got in some good hits and had the benefit of that +2 to their Defenses more than once, but they wore themselves to vulnerability.
Clix doesn't compete well with a new game system, but depending on the game only one of them is able to play some of them so maybe I'll be able to squeeze out some more games with one or the other of the kids in the near future. I know I'll almost certainly end up taking one of them with me to the next New Guy Night in October. I'm curious about that Silver Centurion armor.
I'm not sure MOE is doable even under my rules, even with the new TA, which I've combined with my previous adaptation allowing multiple MOE members to swing on the same opponent for only one action token among them. Although I give WK props for at least trying. They just don't seem to have the horses.
Black Knight works well on an outdoor map with Dive Bomb on him. That way he can Soar and still use that Exploit Weakness. Keeps the ground pounders off his back, at the very least. I hadn't considered he was on a tight indoor map, which would tend to limit his usefulness.