Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

Wizkids (finally) Speaks!

This afternoon Wizkids personnel held a chat on their website, so here are the elements I found to be of note.

First, we're set to see the first of the Origin previews -- at least the New Guy Night and By It By the Brick pieces -- sometime tomorrow. The weekly sneak peeks begin this Friday.

One of the convention exclusives - this one coming free with the purchase of $100 of items from Wizkids' booth - is a grounded, Power Cosmic Thor.

As you can see, it's officially part of the Supernova set, coming in at #224, just after the zombies. Since the next Marvel set isn't until July and the convention season starts in March, this was pretty much a given. Hardly a must-have, game-breaking piece, it's still one I'm planning to add to the assortment. The built-in Willpower is a nice draw, and the immunity from Outwit also means that at least one gets a chance to use all those pretty colors. No word so far on whether those clicks of Energy Explosion and Battle Fury really are together on those three clicks... [Update: The set's designer stepped up and explained that the error that slipped through into production is the Battle Fury. It won't appear on his dial. They'll be correcting the dial on the website, but they'll have to add the corrections to the clix FAQ/errata document as that's the way they'll be appearing.]

This will come with a new feat card: Thundering Blow. There's something about it that's somewhat unheroic -- sort of a "gang-up" card more in the spirit of the original Master of Evil TA. Since its only prerequisite is a single piece with an Attack Value of 11 or higher showing it could easily be used by a villain team, so there's a good, themed option, too.

It has me wondering if this presages more big menaces in upcoming sets -- or more likely whatever this year's colossal figure will be. We haven't been told what it is, but it seems reasonable that given Thor's appearance and strong rumors that the colossal figure this year will be a Marvel one, I'm anticipating a linkage.

I suppose it could be the Odin some have been suggesting, but I'm expecting it to be more of a menacing piece. I don't know that a Surtur or Ymir (preferably as a fire & ice paired threat) would grab the average player's imagination much. A Mangog could look wonderful, but, again, I'm not sure how obscure that would be for the average player. An idea that occurred to me a while back and has stuck with me is an Ego, The Living Planet piece, which could be a colossal figure and a map, with specially-empowered Antibody bystander pogs, similar to the Angry Spirits they came up with for The Specter. (ie Marauding pieces that appear and attack in response to any attacks made on the colossal character.)

Well, with the convention season coming up fast we'll find out soon enough. It'll just be a race between whether the revelation comes from Wizkids or as a site update for mid-March's Wizard Convention in Los Angeles.

Last week we already saw that at the $50 level the free figure will be a Batman with the Superman TA, shown here. We haven't seen a dial or point cost for this piece yet.

We also had the question of what the give-away piece would be at the $75 mark. At first I wasn't ruling out another Marvel Zombie piece, as that would not only help bring attention to the Horrorclix game but would be a big draw for fans who might not be enticed by Batman or Thor, but it was revealed that it was a straight Horrorclix piece, Vlad The Impaler.

In the Too Soon To Know What It Means Dept. we were told today that "soon" we would have details on how "convention exclusives" will be made available to people who couldn't make it to conventions.

The next set after Origin? Here's the working logo for it:
...a theme that surprised me just a little, but given how many people have been Avengers, how much they've crossed over across the Marvel universe and how loose a theme's hold is on over half of an expansion, it's perfectly legit. Having gotten relatively recent versions of many of their main hitters (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, for instance) they'll likely be reaching out into ones we've either not seen at all or not in a long time.

In the line of Avengers remakes to look for, immediately coming to mind are Black Panther, Black Widow, Hulk (please, a useful, Avengers TAed Hulk!), Hercules (we need a more dynamic dial), maybe a new Wasp... and possibly a solid, but grounded, Hawkeye. We haven't seen an actual Ms. Marvel, come to think of it, though we've seen her as Warbird and Binary.

For those we haven't seen thusfar, a proper Giant Man, maybe a Goliath from when Clint (Hawkeye) was operating that way, a new Beast (helping both the Avengers and X-Men at appropriate points in the REV), Firebird, USAgent, Living Lightning (a unique), Gilgamesh, Stingray, Rage (yeah, yeah, but these sets aren't just for us...), Silverclaw and maybe Triathlon to either cheer Kurt Busiek up or shame him a little.

Also, it's a nice time to fold in the many villains that have crossed their path, from those we've yet to see such as the Grey Gargoyle and Living Laser to a new version of Mr. Hyde... and if we're getting a new Mr. Hyde then what a find time to bring in a first appearance of his occasional partner, the Cobra?

With a third Spidey movie hitting in May, featuring Sandman -- someone in great need of a re-do from his Clobberin Time version -- that's one I'm expecting to see, too -- and he was even an Avenger briefly, too, now that I think of it.

Seth showed us a Battlefield Condition from Origin:

BF002: PROTECT THE INNOCENT
Once per turn as a free action, you may choose to remove from the game a bystander token adjacent to a friendly character. No victory points are scored for the removed bystander token

...which, if I understand it correctly, means that this is one to pull out if one sees an opposing team with multiple pogs and likely mechanisms for getting them over as tie-up pieces. No more (at least during a turn where this BFC is in play) can a Lian Harper or a Forbush Man be plunked down next to a powerhouse to tie him up. Now one can just make it disappear once it's there, and do so as a free action.

a few reacted to very positively while I mostly saw it as a pseudo-theme element that some players might be angling to use it as a means of taking potential victory points off for an opponent off the map, though that also would mean build points wasted. Not one that would have immediately come to mind for me, nor one I'm at the moment

For those who are interested, coming to clix sometime in '07 will be Lobo and Guy Gardner, neither of which moved my feet to dance, but the tune you hear may be strikingly different.

DC will see an array of Transporters added by the end of the year. There was some mention of more giants creeping in over the course of the year, too, but that wasn't stressed.

As far as Heroclix is concerned the Collector's Sets/ Collector's Advantage program is ending with the 2099 set. Anything that was planned to be done that way will now be an Action Pack, and so will be more widely and immediately available with it's own map included, so it's a better plans, says I. A vague statement about how they'll add more value to the bricks was made, but that that means isn't clear. The most obvious idea, that they would come up with multiple BIBtB figures was shot down during the chat.

An almost laugh out loud claim was made that they had new quality control procedures going into place... for roundabout June. (The humor being that the next set is coming in March.)

A meeting with DC personnel on Monday has them reporting that while Wildstorm characters might get into the pipeline we will not see Authority or Watchmen clix. Ever. The door to those options is closed "once and for all." So, those inclined to create mods have some safe ground to hit. I suspect that once The Question comes out in Origin we'll be seeing many Rorschach mods.

A transcript - starting with targeted highlights, followed by an exhaustively complete one to give one a sense of the chaos in the chat room - is found here.

Tags: Heroclix