From Darkness I strike!
(And, as it turns out,
get struck quite a bit, too...)
(And, as it turns out,
get struck quite a bit, too...)
Wednesday evening I made it to a Heroclix marquee for the Collateral Damage set. I may have mentioned the set once or twice along the way...
Off to the left is the participation "prize" -- the Oberon bystander token that's only given out at the marquees. Willpower and Close Combat Expert make him a little interesting, but 10 pts for someone with no range who can be taken out with a single hit... eh. More a curiosity piece than anything else.
Most of the marquees were run this past weekend, but I was too tied up for that, and the Monday night schedule for the usual venue fell on Travis' birthday, so
I pulled an Orion and almost used him, but then I'd have ended up with probably a three-piece team, so I left him aside. The only Elongated Man I pulled was a rookie, and 47 points for a piece I'd be pushing to get to his second click just so I'd have PC. I also passed on a rookie Ragman, Azrael, Metamorpho and exp Clayface. Instead, I ran with vets Ragman, Azrael and Red Tornado, exp. Umbra, experienced Speedy and an Eddie Fyers pog.
First match I was up against a vet Superman and an experienced Green Lantern, and I lost that during the final turn with the loss of Azrael. The match stood as played, but as we realized during the second match we'd both so quickly presumed that G.L. has telekinesis up front that we didn't look at it... and it didn't have it. So much of his strategy was having the Lantern give a TK launch to Superman out to punch one of my stealthed pieces and then fly back behind cover.
Second match I won against a mixed team, taking 102 of his points while only losing the 9 pt. Eddie F. when, on my final turn, I pushed him to take out Ice.
Third match was against a team with another vet Ragman, a vet Clayface, another exp. Green Lantern, an Ambush Bug and maybe one other. That match, too, I lost on the final turn, when he took out my Azrael. (I really hate those clicks of Charge -- they can really cripple a character who should be able to get out of a tight spot.) My biggest mistake in that match was clustering too many pieces, and GL (with his AV Perplexed to 11) made a successful Running Shot EE hit on Red Tornado, and in that same strike dealt a click of Damage to Umbra, Speedy and Azrael. Still, I got some great shots in and forced his Green Lantern to finally run to safety.
In all of the matches I relied heavily on a great deal of Stealth, Umbra being able to share her 17 Defense with anyone adjacent to her and her being able to copy Ragman's Mystics TA, which would deal a click of damage to anyone who directly harms someone with the Mystics TA. Red Tornado's 18 Defense, Willpower and TK. were also big assets, but nowhere near as much as they should have been; I shot myself in the foot repeatedly by blocking my line of sight for the TK launch.
Still, loss, win & loss, I won Fellowship and now have an OMAC 5674... shown here. A possibly fun variation on the OMAC theme, with a higher Range than the vet, a wildcard TA (which the vet also lacks), some Blades/Claws/Fangs in the middle, and some Poison. On the other side of things, this one has an activation click (a starting position where he's Joe Average, before the nanobots in his system take over) - which the lower versions aren't burdened with - and doesn't have any clicks of Regeneration. So, hardly a game-breaker, but a neat variation.Now... Thursday looms, and I'm anxious to skip to late Friday afternoon. Time to get some sleep.
Comments
Congrats on the Fellowship Award, though.
One local player has accumulated 7+ of each level of OMAC and reportedly scored two of the LEs during this past weekend's marquees; one of them he received as compensation for being a judge at an event.
The OMACs are out there, no rarer in terms of production than their fellows, but it's a luck of the draw. One of the players last night happened to pull an REV of it between his three boosters and one of the other players found it impossible to entice him into any trade that was for more than the rookie.
In hindsight, deciding to place a generic character so high on the list - bowing to his power level - rather than placing him within the first dozen pieces will hopefully be judged to be a mistake.
Oh, on a related clix note one of the judges confirmed (at least as much as he could without potentially getting into trouble given their non-disclosure agreements) that the Stiltman in June's Sinister set will be a unique. Since the leg sections will be stackable I'm expecting that at least in the short run he'll be a chase unique as many will want one or more extras just so they can concentrate the leg extensions and built the tallest Stiltman they can before he begins to pitch to one side.
How long (no pun intended) that'll last before the joke wears thin will depend in part upon whether or not the piece itself is very effective. If he isn't worth putting on a team then people will tire of carrying around all the parts and reassembling him for each outing.
Gotta have a Stilt-Man, too. I'm thinking SINISTER is an excellent candidate for my first case buy in over a year (discounting Christmas presents) if I can squeeze that much money out of the budget by then...
Hey, did you see the new Masters of Evil TA coming out with the new DANGER ROOM rules book? Makes Baron Zemo pretty sweet...
On a strongly related note, this past Thursday, on a thread on Wizkids' forum where questions for key staff members are posted, I asked Seth (lead designer) the following, as-yet unanswered question:
"In Collateral Damage you apparently opted to bow towards the point value/power level when it came to OMACs by placing them so high in the REVs, which results in them being not only difficult to come by in terms of production rarity but even moreso because many are tending to hold onto them in an attempt to build an OMAC force. This could have been as much as anything for the sake of marketing, as it creates a different (almost cruel) chase dynamic than we've seen before. Still, while perhaps not coming right out and declaring the move a mistake, is it something you're expecting to do in the future? Put another way, if another set of 50+ pt REV generics like the OMACs were to appear in the future set would we have much chance of seeing them placed down within the first 12 characters of the set, where they'd be much more common?"
Maybe sometime Monday he'll check in, as he simply wasn't around later in the week.
As for Sinister, yeah, so far it's a promising set. Seeing that one of the most recently-added "strongly-rumored pieces are S.H.I.E.L.D. jet-pack agent clix was another nice, if unconfirmed, boost.
Since the card's not hit for payment until they're ready to ship I already ordered my case last week when they finally posted them for sale. The new, lower price for cases was a pleasant surprise.
Checking on something I see that the confirmed characters have taken a huge jump (noted in bold) this weekend due to a "13 villains" teaser poster spotted at a comics shot as part of a distributor's promotional materials. Since Boneyard jumped on it with confirmations I'm counting it as verified.:
Daredevil (yellow costume)
Wolverine (brown costume)
Electro (616)
Rhino (616)
Stilt-Man
Bullseye
Trapster/Paste Pot Pete
Spider-Man (Symbiote black costume?)
Black Bolt (U)
Scarlet Spider (U?)
Jack O' Lantern
Radioactive Man (probably unaffiliated, MOE and Avengers)
Wizard/Wingless Wizard (Yay!)
Speed Demon/Whizzer (I'm curious which TA they'll use to designate the Squadron Sinister? The vet will likely be Avengers for the Thunderbolts connection.)
Nighthawk (Yes!)
Beetle
Mach 1/Mach III (Hopefully this will hold up as separate figures for this and Beetle, even if one of them ends up being a U)
Fixer/Techno
Kraven
Hydra Trooper/Officer (Hopefully offering something as interesting as the possible jetpack pieces for S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Hydro-Man (I know he's a relative latecomer for us old fans, but I'm looking forward to this both for the sculpt and the dial.)
Purple Man (U) (I wonder what spot they've plucked this one from. Most recently he was operating at considerable range.)
Deathlok (An interesting addition.)
Arkon (U) (Ha! Okay, not everyone's favorite but a fun addition from way back. I wonder if they'll give him at least one click of Phasing/Teleport for his unique form of travel?)
Maximus the Mad (U) (Hopefully not the Lex Luthor of this set. Has to be an arch enemy for Black Bolt.)
...which is a nice set so far! I'm a little surprised to see a Kraven remake.
The Minions of Doom could get something for copying this, though the only one there with the Willpower positioned to really work is the vet Taskmaster. Still, it could be a nice asset for most of them. Another fun possibility for the vet Dr. Doom, for instance. The unique (albeit Ultimates) Doom from Fantastic Forces could see a nice boost from this, too, but who wants to play his raggedy ass?
It also makes Shellhead a complementary card for these team members since they'll potentially have two markers on them for twice as long as other pieces will, and so get a maximum benefit from that +2 to the Defense.