Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

Clixety Clix Clix Clix

Despite having essentially written the post between three emails to various people this weekend, I never did get a clix post up on the site. I mentioned to two of my correspondents that I'd be adding one this weekend, which was the closest thing to a guarantee I wouldn't be doing one. That's the way things work in me. That predictable process is likely the source of most of my problems, but I'm not going to deal with that after 1am on a work night.

This, instead, is a quickly edited-together post on Heroclix.

So, if you found yourself wondering if you were missing out on something by sleeping, you can at least know that whatever you were missing, it wasn't happening on this site.

Taking most recent first, Monday they announced an upcoming freebie, a Wolverine who'll be given out at comics shops on May 6th, the next Free Comic Book Day.

With what struck me initially as a fairly, playable dial, this 57 pt Wolverine comes with the X-Men team ability. Eight clicks of life, with the final two having Regeneration - so with a good dice roll he could bounce back as high as his third click. What's tantalizing about that, though, is that unless he's healed or has an X-Men affiliated (or wildcarding) teammate who's willing to take an extra click of his damage, he's not going to get back to either of those first two clicks with Blades/Claws/Fangs (BCF). The key element for consideration here is his ability to deal damage to an opposing piece.

With BCF, Wolvie could do up to 6 clicks of damage to an opponent, which means that providing he makes a successful attack roll he could potentially do 4 clicks of damage to someone with Invulnerability. Being a bundle of tight muscles armed with razor-sharp claws of an unbreakable metal, that much makes sense. However, once this Wolverine gets past those clicks he's not likely to be a threat to anyone with Impervious or Invulnerability, except on his 5th and 6th clicks when he gets Close Combat Expert (that's the purplish coloring on the Damage stats) when those 1 Damages become 3 with the CCE boost. During those clicks he could sneak a click of harm past those high-end Damage-reducers. On that fifth click - if the rolls stay good - he could get 2 clicks past there due to the red up in the Speed, which is Flurry -- allowing him to make two attacks in the same move. And, or course, there's always the chance that one will roll box cars (two sixes) and do an extra click of damage with a Critical Hit. Seeing that the odds on that are both long and equal to rolling double ones - scoring a Critical Miss and damaging one's self by 1 click - it's not something to count on unless you have loaded dice.

On his final two clicks, though, we have a Wolverine who's nearly uncertain to damage even someone who only has Toughness, which reduces any damage dealt to it by 1. Given that this is a character who traditionally slips towards the feral when the chips are down, it's surpising to see him threaten to wink out with a whimper.

Still, it's a potentially useful piece, and it'll be free at many (most?) comics shops on May 6th.

Moving back a day, this past Sunday I took my older son, Travis, with me to the New Guy "Night" event at a local clix venue, Comics and More. This was the second of a series of events intended to introduce new players to the game. A registered player brings someone who's either unregistered or hasn't played in a venue event or tournament in at least six months, and each of them get a special clix that is only available through this event -- or on the secondary market... or if and when a judge decides to kick one in as a prize option down the line.

This time it was a Superman with the Batman TA, which makes him an almost ridiculously tough customer. On his first click, with Hypersonic Speed, he can zoom into range (which for him is 10 spaces away), target up to two opponents to divide his 5 damage-attack over, then scoot away. While not having his own TA in place means he can't blast away at someone who's in Stealth, having the Batman TA means that if he goes to hindering terrain he'll be hidden from most.

While I don't believe Travis will be headed back to play at a normal venue event anytime soon, but on the other hand he realized he enjoyed playing the game and signs are we'll get to some of that more often at home.

While there I picked up another Armor Wars booster, btw, and pulled one of the two pieces I was still looking for in the set: the experienced level Aurora. It's one of those pieces that isn't rare, but which the petty gods of chance kept out of my reach.

Stepping back from that -- and since this is already taking up so much time, I'll go to what was in the emails I sent to some fellow clix players, a look ahead at what's coming up for Heroclix in the rest of 2006, such that we know it:


1. February: Collateral Damage We've seen it, I'm looking forward to it, and I'm aiming to pre-pay for the brick (20% off) next week. It's been confirmed and reconfirmed that they've done something to correct the collation problems seen in Armor Wars, so we shouldn't be seeing the weird circumstance where some upper level vets (and even experienced pieces) are rarer than uniques.

2. April: Giants (And, to the extent that they've been revealed, the set including stats.) So far, so good, including the latest - Giganta. My biggest question remains what the price for these collectors' sets will be. I doknow roughly how they're going to work the ordering of the collectors' sets. Buy the brick and send away for the exclusive LE. When the LE arrives it'll include a coupon which will have a web address (and presumably a key code) on it, so one can order the collector set online; they're still setting up the mechanics and don't want to describe the process until it's set.

3. June/July: Starter and a separate Marvel expansion They're being cagey about both.

So far, all we know for sure about the starter: It won't be accompanied by a booster-driven set. The map will be the full size variety, 36 x 36, which is nice because it's both fun to have new terrain to work with and it's also good to have at least one map each year be friendly to multi-player games. (The themed maps they've started producing are narrow afairs, intended for two players.) It will include some new things that they've reportedly been asked for frequently. Speculation: The starter will include more than six figures, and will feature some key remakes. They might set it up so that players can select pieces to play 100, 200 and 300 pt builds using the figures. We might see some new 3D objects in the mix. Then again, they might put a golden ticket in one of them and the one who finds it will take over the factory and a secret race of jaundiced, chain-smoking Oompa Loompahs.

As far as the June/July expansion is concerned, we know that it'll include at least one REV of a generic, as they've promised that'll be the pattern starting with Collateral Damage. As the recent write-up on the return of generics mentioned alien races and the Marvel event Keith Giffen's overseeing this year (Annihilation ) is a cosmic event focusing on Marvel's more space-born & space-faring characters I'm expecting either this set or the one near the end of the year to have a cosmic/alien theme, and we'll likely be seeing a new version of Thanos somewhere along the way. The story features Silver Surfer, Super Skrull, Nova, Ronan the Accuser, Drax, Quasar and Thanos, amongt others, and all of those save Quasar and Thanos are currently on the Heroclix retired list - and most players aren't satisfied with those versions - so most of the elements appear to be in place.

Since the "event" is kicking off in March and Wizkids is trying to work closer and closer with the companies, this seems more likely for the June/July set than the end of the year. Whatever this first set is about, we're scheduled to get some word on it starting in February; if someone gets hold of the info and starts leaking it early, though, they might speed that up.

4. August: The Invincible Collector's Set. Kirkman's good, but I don't know that I could care less about this particular collector's set. There's some info out already, but I don't read the series and at the moment don't care to. If it turns out that it's some treasure trove of enjoyment, well, there's time enough for that later.

5. September: Alien Green Lanterns Collector's Set. On the fence. How much do I really want a set of alien Green Lanterns? Much will depend on the twin matters of cost and how interesting they make both the sculpts and dials, as the Green Lanter Corp has never loomed large on my horizon as a comics fan. We'll see. Plenty of water upstream between that and the bridge I'm standing on now.

6. October/November: Another Marvel expansion Well, hey... I always seem to be up for a new Marvel set. They've mentioned that one of the emphases from here out will be the older fan - the result of what they saw in the online polls, where less than 10% were under 18, and many were in the 30+ range - so there's some attention supposedly being given to selecting various Silver Age characters to help keep it interesting. Hopefully it won't merely mean that they simply intend to soak us because they figure we have to have jobs...

7. Dec/Jan - Undecided collector's set. Who knows? Since the collector's sets offered after the mid-year Marvel set won't be Marvel ones, I'm expecting that this one will be.

And that's enough of that.