The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Armor Wars: The Sculpts
(and most of the set)
Revealed!

Set for release November 7th, the next Marvel Heroclix set - Armor Wars - still has six of the eight official sneak peeks yet to go. Still, the set - at least the sculpts - stood revealed at the recently-concluded Diamond Retailer's Conference, and many fuzzy photos were taken. Please, don't blame me for the quality of the shots.

These mock-ups were hastily pulled together for the show, as can be seen by not only the absence of dials but also of flight stands. There may be other mistakes on the dial faces, but at least this gives us the look of the set. Most of the images here are small ones, but clicking on them will bring you to larger versions.


As can be seen in the list above - which lists all but one of the figures (Marrina didn't make it for some reason) along with the bystanders and cards - they once again made a nice mix of it IMHO. Also in my opinion, they made a mistake by pulling a theme name that was also the title of a major Iron Man arc. That, along with a set where the set icon... is Iron Man's helmet? Well, what did they expect many of the fans' expectations would be?

The full list of the set (items to be found in boosters) now stands as follows:

Iron Man (new REV), Iron Man (old Gold unique - not seen in any of the shots, but presumably a gold version of the gray Clixbrick LE), the still, somewhat embarassingly named War Machine (REV), Captain America (REV), have all been previewed so far, complete with dials for them and their LE prize versions.

Captain America has thrown more people for a loop due to the LE version being super-patriot nutcase John Walker, while the REV appears to be the genuine article. Some fans battle on about it, but in the end it hardly matters. If one wants to he's free to believe it's Aunt May in that costume.

Titanium Man (more modern, less bulky design; REV. The E appears to be 117 pts with a single target and a 6 Range). I was hoping for the original version - a much bulkier, blockier giant.

Crimson Dynamo is an REV -- but grounded? Some quick fan mention of this being some later design, perhaps from some miniseries I vaguely recall the existence of as I skipped buying it...?

Ultron is an REV, though it's unclear if he's going to be grounded or not this time. So long as he's tough to injure, hits hard, and has at least some Running Shot to make him more immediately playable, it should be fine.

The poorly-named Iron Monger (seen to the left), the armored alter ego of Tony Stark's rival, Jebediah Stane, is a Unique.

Spider-Woman appears confirmed as both a Unique and a grounded figure. I'm disappointed on both fronts as I expect it'll be a long time before we see another version of Jessica Drew, and she deserves a fuller treatment than this.

A piece many of us were looking for in the previous Marvel set, Fantastic Forces, made the cut this time: Crystal, the Inhuman's mistress of the elements. Nice! Okay, so we can't see how well or poorly the sculpt itself does at capturing the character, but what we can see is encouraging. She has the Fantastic Four's team ability, so we can all tune our ears to a fresh chorus of whining about how overpowered the replacement FF team ability is as she boldly takes the field borrowing Sue Storm's 19 Defense. With that, an 8 Range, and probably Energy Exposion and Quake -- maybe some other things -- for 62 points she'll be a fine addition. The long-distance, teleporting and transporting Lockjaw will be a natural companion for her.

Killer Shrike (REV; R is 27 pt, 6 Range), Spymaster (REV. Must start LOW since the vet's 29 pts with 8 Range.), and Ghost (REV, seen to the right) are all among the villains in the set. Paladin (REV, on the left) is a nearly forgotten hero in the mix. Spymaster and Ghost were nice, second-to-third string Iron Man villains to draw on.

Diamond Lil (REV; statuesque, diamond-hard, super strong character -- another brick), Thunderbird (REV. Keep him away from the firewater), Firebrand (REV), Echo (REV; I'd never heard of this one), and Magma (REV, someone for Volcana to play with) are in the mix, and for now I can't bother myself to work in their images. Based on comments I've seen they're most likely to come up on the average fan's "Who?!" lists

The Wrecking Crew's own Thunderball (REV. Vet's shown on the left with the Serpent Society TA?!) is one I'm interested to see the dials for, since the Wrecker was something of a disappointment to many of us when he showed up in the Ultimates set. Even a little Charge would help liven him up.

Two Asgardians made the cut for this set, each as REV pieces: The Executioner (aka Skurge) is ready to swing his axe at a foe. We didn't get a shot at his cost, but the rookie is appropriately labelled as a Master of Evil. I'm expecting Charge and Blades/Claws/Fangs, with some Exploit Weakness along the way. I'll be interested to see if they give him any Phasing/Teleport to show how his axe can pierce dimensional barriers?

Lorelei (today's sneak peek, btw)is the other Agardian. A relative of The Enchantress, she's more a tough support piece than a primary attacker. Her 0 range means her opening clicks of Mind Control can only reach out four spaces. If she's carried by the right flyer she may get to use that Mind Control before being knocked down to her purely support powers.

Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, made the set this time as a Unique. We very much expected him a few sets back, but he finally arrived. His pose and expression, well... I can see what they were trying for - the confident smile and open arms for all comers that is part of knowing that one has the ability to absorb any kinetic energy directed against him and convert it to strength. The result, however, is the second coming of Al Jolson. "Mammy!"

While on the subject of mutants, we also have Sunfire (REV. 61 pt E with 8 Range), the "atomic samurai" and Japanese ultra-nationalist, so someone looking to complete the first international team of X-Men is two steps closer between this one and Thunderbird. If you have a leftover volcano model you made for a science fair with a little work you can re-enact the origin issue, I suppose. At the end of the scenario you can hurl the island into the air. Hey, go nuts. Really, what a sucktastic ploit device that was, eh? The entire island... is a mutant! Egads. I don't know what's more unbelievable: That Len Wein was actually paid for that or that within a couple years the "new" X-Men would be on the fast track to becoming the hottest thing in mainstream comics.

Cannonball (REV, seen on the right) was one of the big winners in the fan polls last year, and so makes his debut here. Most are anxious to see how well they capture Sam Guthrie's powers, since while he's blasting he's supposed to be impervious to harm.

Psylocke is an REV in this set, and she looks like something from THUNDER Agents. Banshee is also an REV (shown waay up near the top), and is the original one; I wasn't sure if it was going to be his successor in the set, but now we know. Shaman has been given nice, mystic meditation sculpt, as seen over on the left -- however blurry. Dazzler - albeit the Ultimates version, who is apparently a punkish rocker chick with guitar and microphone - are all, also in this set. I'm sure that better shots of all of these will be showing up elsewhere before long, which is part of the reason I'm not trying to cram all of them in this entry.

A new REV of Quicksilver has been made, and with the vet being 105 points he should be a solid speedster with Hypersonic Speed. The vet has the X-Men TA, so I'm hoping we'll see the Brotherhood TA for the rookie and Avengers for the experienced.

Another super-fast mutant (indeed, she should be faster than Quicksilver) is Aurora. Another of the set's REV. pieces, all levels should have the Alpha Flight stand-in TA of the Avengers. She looks good even in this blurry pic. A flyer with some Range - 8 on the vet - she should be a solid piece unless her Attack Values are pathetic. With 10 more points on her for Armor Piercing (which, as hoped and based on the blurry list image up near the top, is part of this set) the vet, at least, should be able to dart in, fire at range, then retreat. As a flyer she can Soar at the end, making her that much more difficult for most pieces to target.

Marrina, the late (I'm presuming she's still dead) early member of Alpha Flight made this set. She didn't make the official list seen in the presentation graphic up above, but she's clear at the far right of one of the group shots; adding her to the list gives us the right number of characters.

The Superman-like Sentry is this set's high point piece at 211 pts. We're presuming some solid defensive stats and powers and at least a little Hypersonic Speed's behind that high cost. With that 0 Range he's going to need a high movement stat and at least a little Hypersonic if he's going to compete. The Avengers TA they gave him allows a player to spend 5 more points along with the Thunderbolts card to give him a more useful team ability.

Finally, four of the uniques are based on versions from Marvel's current Big Event, House of M. (In that story of an alternate timeline brought into existence via the reality-bending powers of the Scarlet Witch, though with 6 of 8 parts printed it hasn't yet been revealed who's the guiding hand behind it) Magneto, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Mystique (ugly face - the face looks like the XP Psylocke), with Wolverine and Mystique each having the S.H.I.E.LD. team ability. This brings us a 187 pt version of Magneto - whose throne will be flying when the figure is released - which should finally pacify his fans who've found his earlier versions all markedly under-powered.

That's 40 characters, which fits the 28 REV characters and the 12 uniques.

I'm still running through all this in my head, and likely won't know how the set really strikes me until I have more details, but so far, all in all, I'm looking forward to it.