WizKids slowing down rate of HeroClix sets?
Here it is, not quite the middle of June, I still haven't decided whether or not to let my case order for Ultimates stand - the set's due for release on the 30th - and now I find that WizKids announced yesterday that the next HeroClix expansion will be Mutant Mayhem, and is due out in November. Presumably this confirms that there won't be another DC set this fall, and now stretches the release times between sets to roughly 5 months. I suspect this will help them sell through sets more throroughly, and allow more attention to be given to each set by the fans. (By way of confirming that this is almost certainly the only other HC set to appear yet this year, see this interview with WK's main designer, John Leithheusser.)
The information is sparse -- which is good, since people will be looking for more and more info on the set over the next five months. "Mutant Mayhem mixes heroes and villains from different times, dimensions, and worlds across the Marvel Universe." As such it so far gets a lukewarm response from me, as I'm not that focused on Marvel's mutants. With the narrowed focus, though, perhaps all those people looking for Nightcrawler will find a new version of him in this mix? Unless I've skipped a step, this expansion should be the one that simultaneously retires Clobberin' Time from tournament play, though as I'm not involved in the tournament situation I'm only presuming that Xplosion is being retired from such play as of July.
Of more interest is what else is in each booster, aside from the 4 clix miniatures: "One Feat card, Battlefield Condition card, or Bystander Token included." Feat and Battlefield Condition cards mark new innovations in the game, and more Bystander Tokens will not only allow for some more, inexpensive (such tokens so far have been for characters of between 2 and 6 points) variety and allow more supporting cast characters to appear, but may also presage some more innovations in structured gameplay to take better advantage of such people in scenarios. Above and beyond all that, with various cards and tokens added into the mix it will make opening boosters more fun, as there's more to hunt down than before. Now rather than having just a set list of 96 clix to collect, they'll have an as-yet-unknown number of cards and character tokens to look for. Whether Battlefield Condition and Feat cards will be items players will maintain their own decks of, much as they select from their own clix, or be more like board game cards that either player can blindly draw from remains to be seen.
Interesting timing on the announcement, though, with so many months before release and a set that's already been tapped for information (the Ultimates) not set to hit stores for just under 3 weeks... I don't know what to say about the timing. It could be played either way, I suppose. There's enough time between sets that perhaps they can count on people buying what's available while having a building interest in the next set -- a set positioned late enough in the year to make people's holiday lists.
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