Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

Heroclix (mostly) update

Doubtless, this will be long and tedious for anyone not very interested in the subject. Hell, it's likely too long and tedious for anyone. I just wanted to collect some information and thoughts on the set at this juncture.

The next set, Fantastic Forces, has now been given a set release date: June 29th. That's a tentative relief to me, as had it been the first week of July I'm sure the 4th falling on a Monday would have all but guaranteed my not seeing the cases (2) I've ordered until the 11th. As it is, I'm hoping that the same-week affair it happened to be with the previous set (Legacy) will hold true this time, so that they'll arrive on Friday, July 1st. If not, and they slip past that Friday, I could have been left waiting until the following Tuesday since UPS isn't going to bring them to me on Monday, July 4th. No, it's not so much a matter of having to wait a little longer as it was the idea that I'd be getting the clix just after a three day weekend.

Seeing as they've mentioned the pre-release event for the set being the very tight weekend before release (the 25th & 26th) I've all but written off the idea that the Wizard World East convention, held in nearby Philadelphia on June 3-5, will have a pre-release sale of the FF boosters. Largely because two people I work with will also be going, I've already bought a ticket for the event. It was almost funny to see how we all went from being uncertain of whether or not to even go, to deciding to buy three-day pass tickets. Being uncertain of both how the work schedule will be then and what the convention programming will be, and seeing that a three-day pass is less expensive than buying for two individual days, we each decided to go for it. Hopefully we'll all make it in on Friday; after that we'll each make the decisions as to whether and when to go back for Saturday and/or Sunday. That's just over a month away, though, and decisions are best left for much closer to then.

At the top of this entry you see the so-so sculpt for the new Mr. Fantastic (I'm almost positive it will look better from a side-angle, when we can get more of the characterof the upraised hand, but, yes, it's difficult to be both rubbery and dignified...) and Juggernaut. A click on each of the images will take you to information concerning their Limited Edition versions, essentially representing them out of their official, costumed roles, as Reed Richards and Cain Marko, respectively. This is pretty quickly evident by the Reed piece having no Fantastic Four team symbol, and Cain having no Mind Control-protecting Battle Fury, which his helmet would provide. The Mr. Fantastic clix will reportedly be packed in two pieces, much as the Legacy version of Batman was, btw.

The Juggernaut sculpt is a definite improvement over the retired piece from Infinity Challenge, seen on the left, and to the extent that we can tell such things by looking at an LE's dial, it'll be a significant difference in terms of playability, too. A couple paragraphs above, on the right, you see the sculpt for Lockjaw, one of the double-based figures in this set, and one of the new speed class: Transporters. Three levels of Lockjaw will be the first three clix in the set, btw.

As for the rest of Fantastic Forces, we also know that among other things there'll be a Colleen Wing pog with Blades/Claws/Fangs and a Misty Knight one with Toughness and Super Strength, Feat cards to offer optional changes for the team abilities for Avengers and Fantastic Four, and another that could mean a lot of knock-back movement and strongly suggests a Graviton unique in this set. There are Battlefield Condition Cards to flood open spaces with water, allow characters to double their Speed for movement purposes only, a poorly-defined card to provide a force field to a character in need of some protection, and a Marvel version of the Poor Teamwork card. At last check we knew half the REV list for the set:

Lockjaw (double)
Namor (REV?)
Thing (Ultimate) (REV?)
Scarlet Witch (REV?)
Dr. Doom (Ultimate) (Unique) (AE - Mr. Fantastic?)
Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) (double base) (REV)
Yellowjacket (Henry Pym) (Giant Size) (REV)
Goliath/Atlas (Giant)
Mr. Fantastic (Ultimate) (Reed Richards LE) (AE - Dr. Doom?)
Classic Green Goblin (REV) (Norman Osborn LE)
Human Torch (Ultimate)
Invisible Girl (Ultimate)
Iron Fist (REV and Unique)
Nightcrawler (Ultimate) (REV)
Juggernaut (Cain Marko LE)

....along with a unique-only Spiderman 2099 clix which does little for me so far, but hopefully it'll both look reasonably cool and be useful. That's 15 of the 28 REV pieces in the set. Starting next Wednesday (May 4th) WizKids will begin their series of official sneak peeks for this set on their Marvel site. Despite having thusfar hungrily reached into threads over on HCRealms for the latest leaks and updates I decided around the middle of this week to stop swinging by there for a while. Why? Well, I realized that I'd be reaching in for 2 cases this time due to a look at the number of boosters it would likely take to secure either an immediately complete set or enough coverage to all but ensure I'd be able to immediately trade for what I'm missing. Since the price per booster at retail is still $7.99 despite the boosters in this set containing only three clix, I needed to shift all or nearly all of my buys over to the most cost-effective means and so keep the cost/clix as low as reasonably possible. At retail, as noted above, it would be $7.99/booster, and actually $8.47 after PA state tax has its way with them. Buying them online by the case it's about $4.62/booster, including shipping. Any comparison is ridiculous. Even with the discount I'm spending a ludicrous amount on this hobby.

The set is 104 pieces, with the first 84 being Rookie/Experienced/Veteran versions of 28 characters. After that are 12 uniques, and then 8 super rares. A case of clix used to contain 191 clix in their 48 boosters (with one giant-sized figure taking up half a booster), but with a giant-sized or double-based figure in every booster of Fantastic Forces there are only 144 clix in a case. Each case should have 8 uniques and 4 super rares - I'm not expecting that to change - so between the two cases I should either have all of the uniques and super rares, or extras to enable me to trade for the ones I'm missing. Between the two cases I should have 164 REV pieces, in a set with 84 REV pieces, so it's juuust shy of twice as many. If I break down and buy a booster or two on release day, I could theoretically find myself with a complete set and a handful of trades to create a second, complete REV set. If I can swing that, well, it'll be part of the next step.

A key element to my ramping this up is the promise to myself to move quickly to make whatever trades I might still need to make, and then sell off pieces online ASAP. If I can swing a second, full REV set I suspect I'll sell them off that way, with the extra uniques being sold individually. Certainly this won't be with any mad notion of profiting on the overall deal, but simply to reduce the cost of my hobby outlay. How well I'll be able to do that will largely depend on what I pull.

One stalwart trading buddy, G, isn't going in on a case level for this set. There are some pieces he'll want, I'm sure, but he's not the completist I tend to be. Besides, his refrain for the set ever since the 3 clix/booster arrangement was announced is that Fantastic Forces is "25% less fun." Still, that should mean that by the time I've opened my cases he'll have bought all or nearly all of the boosters he's intending to buy, so any trades with him should be taken care of almost immediately. The other main trading pal, D, is newly relocated and at last word lining up work, so I'm not sure how he's going to approach this set, nor even to what extent the known of it thusfar is attracting or repelling him. Fellow Legendaire Tim T., being a well-grounded, sane and steady fellow, takes a much more measured approach to any new set. He tends to buy a couple boosters here and there much as he did baseball cards long ago; I should check with him about how he's planning to approach this set to see if any trading might be in line. (The same goes for others in the Legends group, as I keep forgetting to keep track of who else has gotten into any of this.)

One reassuring thing about the set has to do with the initial announcement concerning the number of super rares. They told us that the set would have 8 super rares, leaving me unsure of what this meant exactly. See, in the previous two sets there were 16 super rares, which were simply differently-colored dial versions of the Limited Edition (LE) pieces for the set. The LE versions come in neat little boxes and are given away as prizes at events, while the super rare versions ("super rare" because there are half as many in a case as there are uniques) can be pulled from standard boosters. Now, people whose clix lives revolve around the action at local playing venues - be they judges who are worried about anything that will interfere with attendance, or players who are either worried about a venue closing through lack of participation or whose self esteem is built on being the best local player, winning these events - have been known to complain about the existence of super rares. Loudly. "Whine" wouldn't be a completely unfair characterization. Their overt concern is that if someone can pull a piece from a booster it makes the LE version less special. Hmmph. Well, I could see the point, but even if they can be pulled from boosters it doesn't mean they would be, seeing as how any specific one is twice as rare as a unique... actually, even rarer given both the lower frequency in a case and there being more of them in a series than than there are uniques.

Anyway (I sure do ramble...) when I saw there were only 8 super rares in the set I was concerned that the whiners had won, and we would have 8 super rares but would also have 8 other pieces - different characters - who would be LEs only. Seeing that the Champion and Fellowship prizes for the marquee events (Cain & Reed, as seen above) were numbered 202 and 207, and the super rare/LE pieces have traditionally started at #201, it seems that the 8 super rares will exactly match the LEs, so there won't be pieces that either have to be won or bought off some judge or gameshark who got hold of two or more of them. It's a good sign, IMHO. Really, what serves both them and me best is if Wizkids makes their super rares/LEs more distinct -- give us interesting, if not game-breaking variations. A version of the piece that offers a unique take on the character.

Finally, don't forget that next Saturday, May 7th, is Free Comic Book Day. If you're interested in seeing which stores near you are participating, you can look them up here, though it may be a good idea to follow that up with a phone call to confirm it. Almost nothing in the mainstream/Gold Sponsors list is attractive to me, but most of the ones in the Silver Sponsors list - less likely to be at an average comics shop - could be interesting samples. Still, free is free, and all of the participating stores should have their welcome mats out, fishing for both customers looking for a new store and people looking to either begin reading comics or to renew an old and abandoned hobby.

The clix connection? Each participating store should have new rookie Batman figures from the upcoming Icons set. These 102 point pieces (click on the image to get to his stats) are promotional pieces, and so aren't tournament legal, but who cares? Making them promo pieces was a good, mollifying move by WK, so that people who can't get one largely due to location won't sit and fume at a tournament where other players might show up with one. Besides, WK wants fans to buy into the Icons set (sometime later this year), after all. I will be interested to see how many of them turn up on eBay, though. Many will likely not have a participating shop anywhere nearby, and promotional or not it's a new sculpt and dial that won't be otherwise available for at least three months, and perhaps as many as five.

Hey. That was long and tedious.