The Tease of Things I Don't Need

(Fairly Happily) Hit by a brick!

(Heroclix -- nothing else in this entry -- so read or avoid accordingly; the only Krazy Kat & Ignatz reference in here is this one.)

Yes, I know it's all a great deal of silliness, all the moreso when one considers the problems and shortfalls in my own life and the world at large, but three times each year there's a new Heroclix set and I continue to look forward to them much as any eternal kid does Christmas morning.

Collateral Damage, the latest DC comics-themed expansion in the Heroclix game officially went on sale yesterday, and thanks to Mike T., after a minor delay, I have mine. (Note: I've added some notes in red this afternoon.)

Wizkids' reps had been claiming the figure collation and distribution problems seen in bricks of Armor Wars, and based on my brick I'd say they've taken a firm stride in the right direction. Indeed, between this and the case reports I've been seeing it appears they've gotten as close to perfection with the cases as they can without making each case identical.

At the brick level the reports have almost all been good, save for one where a strong stripe of rookie figures was in play. Almost all of the very few complaints I've seen have been from those who had very specific want lists from this set, and - honestly - aside from luck there's no helping those people. They probably should have waited and gone straight to the secondary market.

I also want to note that the quality of the sculpts and paint is excellent, and the images on their site generally don't come close to expressing that. If Blogger's momentarily relented and allowed things to work as they should, the top of this post shows the one photo they've provided that best captures the quality -- Kalibak. (Which, of course, was not one of the ones I happened to pull, though I have seen one.)

There are twelve boosters in a brick, each containing four heroclix figures and one of the cardboard bits (a card, a bystander or an object token), so that's 48 clix and 12 cardstock items. The complete set is 96 clix and 20 card stock items. (Okay, 21, but that includes the Oberon bystander token that one can only get by attending the Collateral Damage marquee event.) In terms of pure numbers that would seem to be halfway through the clix and over halfway through the cardstock bits, but that's not the way these things work. There's a hierarchy of rarity for the clix themselves, and redundancy/duplication is part of the economics of clix.

What did I pull? Let's see.

I'll list them by name -- the first 28 names will have "R E V" after them, each followed by a number to show how many of that level (Rookie, Experienced, Veteran) I pulled. The next 12 after that will be uniques, and then it'll be the types of cards. (Here's a page of very handy checklists for fellow clix collectors; the Collateral Damage one has a few minor errors, from the first two figures only showing 'E' and the rookie Hive Trooper's points being wrong, to a few spelling mistakes) but is still better than having to make the list up one's self.)

The Clix:
Hive Trooper R0 E0 V1
Ragman R 1 E0 V2
Vixen R 0 E0 V1
Black Mask R 1 E1 V0
Trickster R 0 E0 V0
Azrael R 0 E1 V1
Katana R 1 E0 V1
Dr. Mid-Nite R 1 E0 V0
Freen Flame/Fire R 0 E1 V1
Icemaiden/Ice R2 E1 V0
Speedy R 3 E1 V0
Shadow Lass/Umbra R1 E1 V1 (A weak hip on one of them, it turned out to be one of the connection points and has popped out a couple times. A little Krazy Glue'll do 'er.)
Captain Cold R 1 E0 V0
Elongated Man R 1 E1 V0
Blue Devil R 1 E1 V0
Black Lightning R 0 E0 V0
Green Lantern R 0 E1 V0
Manhunter R0 E0 V0
Clayface R 2 E0 V0
Metamorpho R 2 E1 V1
Emerald Empress R 0 E 1 V0
Dr. Light R 1 E0 V0
Superman Red/Blue R0 E0 V0 (One of the pieces I'd have preferred to pull an REV of here.)
Red Tornado R 0 E0 V1
Geo-Force R 1 E0 V1 (Don't worry, he's not broken. He comes in three pieces, his blast trail being one of them.)
OMAC R 0 E0 V0
Mary Marvel R 0 E1 V0
Monsieur Mallah/The Brain R2 E0 V0 (No E or V was disappointing.)
Felix Faust U0
Guardian U1
Crimson Avenger U0
Ambush Bug U0
Dr. Psycho U0
Orion U0
Jonah Hex U1
Eclipso U0
Captain Boomerang U0
Owlman U0
Kalibak U0
Adam Strange U2

(Some of faces in this set are a step back from what we saw in Fantastic Forces and Armor Wars, upon closer inspection. A little lumpy and undefined. Adam Strange, unfortunately, has some of this going against him.)

Bystanders:
Detective Chimp 1
Eddie Fyers 0
Sue Dibney 0
Ted Knight 2
Uncle Dudley 0
Linda Park-West 1

Feats:
Inspiring Command 0
Flashbang 0
Ambush 0
The Society 1
Movethrough 0
Running Start 1

Battlefield Conditions:
Debris 0
Proximity Mines 1

Special Objects:
Teleport Pad 1
Kinetic Absorber 0
Separation Field Generator 0
Laser Turret 2
Arial Baffler 1
Fuel Tank 1

Not a bad pull, I'm generally pleased with the distribution, though I was (among other things) hoping for a strong complement of HIVE and OMAC pieces, since the even-handed distribution seen at the case level means I'm not likely pull strongly in their favor when my case hits. They're generics -- non-name pieces one might like to build a force of -- so I'm not expecting them to be trading as freely as the figures around them. So, finding someone who's pulled them and doesn't give a rat's ass about them will be the trick.

Compare this pull with my Armor Wars brick to get a better sense of the improvements in collation.

In that brick I only pulled 20 of the 28 base figures at any level, and only 1 of the 12 uniques. This time it was 23 of the 28 represented in some form, along with four uniques... even if one of those was a double. While doubles of some are to be expected, in Armor Wars I pulled a high as 4 of one and 3 of another, whereas the worst offender in this brick were the 3 rookie Speedys. The Armor Wars brick gave me 11 extras, the Collateral Damage one only 8, one of those a unique.

Any gaps in the cards and the missing uniques don't bother me, since save for one person everyone's been reporting full sets of uniques + 4 extras and full sets of cardstock items in their cases. I feel reasonably well covered on those fronts, and having pulled two Laser Turrets, a Fuel Tank and a Teleport Pad I already feel ahead of the game, as those are items I'd like to have multiples of for some maps and scenarios.

Being Lord Overkill of the Irresponsible Clan, I have a case order coming Friday, and then I'll see what state I'm in with my checklist. For the moment I have plenty of holes, including absolutely no appearances of Trickster, Black Lightning, Manhunter, Superman or OMAC.

If all that's on track then before my three-day weekend is out I'll be running a block of clix sales on ebay to try to defray some of these costs.

One note concerning the Krypto mail-away offer: Save the UPCs (bottoms of the boosters)! They've added the requirement of sending those along with the coupon, receipt and check for shipping. It's lunacy, but it's mandatory lunacy. (So it is written, so it was done! My fat packet's out in the mail, on the way to Ohio.)

For now, though, I have a work day to attend to.

(Yes, btw, I did create a template for this in advance. I didn't do all of this typing Thursday morning.)