Okay, a moment for Icons
I'm taking a brief break, having noticed another announcement on the Heroclix front:
WizKids announced their new starter sets and base set for the DC universe of clix: Icons. Much as was the case with the Marvel Universe starters, the Icons startes will sell for $12.99, conctain the rules, 2 dice, a ring (for turning the bases), tokens, a map (no confirmation on whether this will be a small map, as they put in the Universe set, or a full-size one) and six (6) clix found only in the starter, balanced into two (presumably 100 pt.) teams.
Unlike the Universe set, Icons will be made up of new sculptures and dials (powers and statistics) rather than being re-issues of early, existing sculpts and stats. The set will be much smaller, though, numbering 60 pieces including the 6 in the starter and 6 "super rares" -- which we're presuming will be uniques, but who knows? The way it breaks down is that there will be 16 characters represented at rookies, experienced and veterans, and with the name "Icons" and it being a starter set, some of those in the set will be easy to predict (Batman, Superman, Robin, Wonder Woman...) leaving it to the imagination as to how balanced it will be between heroes and villains; I wouldn't be surprised if there were more villains than heroes -- that's the way it works in the comics, after all -- but that remains to be seen.
Icons booster packs, like the Universe ones, will have 2 clix per box and will retail for $3.99. Unlike the Universe ones these will also have one Feat or Battlefield Condition Card, or one bystander token. No word on whether or not the set will feature all-new cards and tokens, though I suspect that will be the case since they're doing new sculpts and stats. They might take this opportunity to catch up a little with Marvel by issuing DC versions of cards such as Marvel's Pounce, Passenger, Rip It Up, Taunt and Haymaker. (All of that last sentence is pure speculation on my part.) With a card or token in every 2-figure booster, these are a better value than Legacy and Mutant Mayhem were, since these extra items were one per pack in boosters that contained 4 figures for $7.99. With the set being much smaller it shouldn't take anywhere near as many boosters to make up a complete set, which is likely something WizKids is counting on to keep the fans interested instead of having their heads explode over the cost of keeping up with the hobby over the course of a year. The size of a case of Icons is not yet announced, though a standard-sized case (previous sets) would contain 192 figures, which would mean someone would be looking at an ever larger number of duplicates than usual, since there are only 54 different pieces available in the main set. Even less known is the number of "super rares" in a case. My expectation? These will come out in much smaller cases, with maybe 24 boosters containing two "super rares" in the mix. Since the set is smaller, though, the number of "super rares" may be higher... but, honestly, there are entirely too many unknowns, not the least of which is the above mentioned question: Are these true Super Rares or they made a slip and meant to refer to uniques?
No release date is currently set. When they debuted Universe, because all but what was in the starter were re-releases and so of little to no interest to those who had already been collecting since the start, they didn't treat it like a normal expansion and so had it appear close to one of the regular expansions. With Marvel's Fantastic Forces set due in July, though, I'm not sure when this new DC base set will debut. My guess is sometime afterwards, in August or September. September would mark the 4th anniversary since the DC set debuted, though that's probably not looming large in their minds. The general expectation is that there will be yet another Marvel set before the end of the year, most likely in November... but was may all be dead by then, so let's not concern ourselves with that.
Okay. Back to work.
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