Heroclix Updates: Win a case of Unleashed, and the new The Rule of Three
First, players (or those interested) who haven’t already done so should take a few moments to fill out the questionnaire on WizKids’ site to take a chance at winning a case of DC Unleashed boosters. They launched this last Friday. ‘Nuff said.
Announced Monday (4/12), WizKids has announced a new, blanket rule concerning some of its powers. Those interested in such things likely either already know, or will follow the above link and soon find out. Still, I have a couple comments to make.
First, I think it’s a fairly good idea. It establishes a boundary against gross misuse of the power, without giving those who like using Perplex regularly anything to complain about.
We’d been expecting that eventually they would limit the amount of modification a given stat could receive, and this does that: Any stat on the dial can now only be changed by up to 3, but no more.
For the uninitiated, there’s a power in Heroclix called “Perplex”, which allows a player to raise or lower a given stat on that or another clix’s dial (within range) by 1. What’s happened is that some players, particularly those who make use of the low-cost Con Artists (whose point values for rookie, experienced and veteran pieces, respectively, are 11, 12 and 16) in groups to create what are known as “hooker bombs.” (One just has to look at the Con Artist pieces to see where the "hooker" part came from.) Spending 55 points on 5 rookie Con Artists, once they’ve been pushed or PulseWaved onto their click of Perplex, means that the player can power up a given piece – increasing one or more of its stats to potentially devastating levels. Some players have done this (even using more than 5 Perplex pieces) to power up a figure to a degree where one hit could KO any one of most of the other pieces in the game.
The surprise in this “rule of three” is that in the same stroke where they’ve limited such modifications, they’ve now opened Perplex to work with Ranged Combat Expert and Close Combat Expert. As each ability already increases the base Damage by 2, one can only Perplex it up by 1 more (to achieve the total change of 3) it can still be a significant change, and up until now wasn’t an option.
There's no word on whether or not this significant rules change has been made in time to be included in the new rulebooks accompanying the Universe starter sets due to be released in May. Sure, with the nearly monthly FAQ rule "clarifications" it's necessary for a player to check for the latest rulings, but it would be sad if the new rulebook arrived in stores with already outdated rules.
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