Slush Fund Fun
[Category: Heroclix]
While I'd transferred the lion's share of money from my most recent set of auctions out of Paypal and into my checking account shortly before Christmas, I left myself some clicking around money as a slush fund.
Earlier this morning, after coming back from the kitchen and some advance meal prep for Monday (slicing and marinating the steaks, as mentioned in the previous post) I decided to look at my watch list over on ebay and found that two of the items I had marked to watch from the same seller were less than a minute from ending. Tossing in two, quick bids, I won each of them.
These were two Heroclix LEs.
At the moment I'm waiting on an invoice since the auctions mentioned shipping discounts for winning more than one auction but gave no means of calculating what a second item would mean. Hopefully this won't turn into one of those situations where a seller will be disappointed at the low selling price and will try to make some of it up with inflated shipping. Seriously, I've sold enough clix to know that the $3.85 (which is what the seller refers to in each auction) to send a single clix via Priority mail will also cover at least a second one. Well, we'll see. If I'm soaked for shipping, I'll pay but he won't get positive feedback from me.
The first -- and the one I'd been looking at recently -- is the Carter Hall LE. This is a variant version of Hawkman, affiliated with the JSA. What brought him to mind recently is the imminent inclusion of the Inspiring Command Feat in next month's Collateral Damage set.Inspiring Command allows one to choose a character who has Leadership or Mastermind and let his teammates push themselves (act in two consecutive turns) under special circumstances (if they begin or end their turn adjacent to the leader) so long as they're worth fewer points than the leader. I was disappointed to see that no new piece will be added in the Collateral Damage set who is truly suited to use this on a JSA team. As it stands, Carter Hall's the first, best choice. The only other one who qualifies is Mr. Terrific, and he can only use it late in his dial when he picks up Mastermind.
I'm a little disappointed (though not surprised) to find that the official Wizkids ruling says I can't consider Carter Hall under the circumstances to be 69 points (54 points on his base + 15 for the I.C. card) when determining who on his team can make used of the card's benefits... yet if an opponent KOs Carter they'll make 69 points. A reasonable person would say that he's either worth 69 points or he's not, then pick one and live with the consequences. More puffed up idiocy from the rulemakers and rules arbiters over at Wizkids. It's no wonder so many people play by house rules, including venues where the judges agree that some of these calls are moronic.
Still, either way, with his two up-front clicks of Leadership, Carter Hall's the best, current JSA prospect for this card, and at a sale price of $1.04 (plus whatever shipping will be) I could hardly help indulging myself.
The second piece was one that I latched onto due in part to it being a mildly interesting variant on the REV, and partly due to it being something from the same seller -- aiming to defray the shipping cost. That's a Kitty Pryde LE.
Kitty - for 11 points more than the veteran Shadowcat - gets a higher attack value, holds onto her 2 Damage into her second click, and gains two clicks of Incapacitate. At 51 points, especially given the stats seen in the two most recent sets, she's looking more playable than ever. Her opening Attack Value of 10 and her combination of a 17 Defense and Super Senses combine to make he seem almost god-like when viewed in the company of so many new pieces with Attack Values of 8 and below and Defenses of 15 or 16.
At $1.55 (again, waiting to see what shipping will add) she was one I couldn't easily pass up. As new Feats are added to make larger teams of characters with the same TA more attractive to play, fielding an X-Men team is beginning to gain some appeal.
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Comments
Your notation that WizKids insists on giving those who use Feat Cards the worst of all possible worlds -- your opponent gets the extra points, but apparently, you do not, in terms of things like Leadership and Mind Control -- well, yeah. House Rules. House Rules. House Rules.
Still, I was really hoping the IC card would let me get rid of one of my House Rule Leadership modifiers. As it is, though, I'll keep it in.
That a higher point cost is necessary for this addition is ludicrously flawed in terms of the source material, as we've both realized. It's obviously a card made up by someone too deep into a gaming mentality - being wary of any potential abuse - and not a comics fan who's seen teams including huge powerhouses lead by the likes of Capt. America, the Wasp, Hawkeye, Mr. Teriffic, etc. We know that, of course, and it seems that anyone who should have any decision-making position on a game like this should know that... but there you go.
On the plus side, the LE sale was finalized, the seller kept it a flat $3.85 for Priority, so the combined cost for the two pieces was $6.44. That's fine with me.