Some were trends, as seen in #10. Some were specific characters, like the last few.

#7 is both.

Gordon & Gordon’s Moving Service

It started with Lt. Gordon (The Dark Knight Rises 021). Here’s what I wrote back in July:

“His stats and standard powers are modest; his SP is game-warping, giving multiple keywords a lot of extra movement for the cost of his single power action. To be both character-accurate and game-balanced, it should’ve been limited to less-expensive Police-keyworded characters.”

Of course, I was reacting to this SP:

“Give Lt. Gordon a power action; you can immediately give him and up to two adjacent friendly characters who possess a team ability or keyword possessed by Lt. Gordon a move action as a free action, replacing all characters’ speed values with Lt. Gordon’s unmodified speed value.”

The Gotham City keyword is too deep to be giving its characters free movement like this. Worse, even the balancing suggestion I had back then is obsolete in light of figures that have come out since.

As bad as Lt. Jim is, his daughter Barbara, as Oracle (Streets of Gotham Fast Forces 001), takes it even further: She can give a cleared pal sharing her Birds of Prey or Justice League keywords a totally free move for half their speed. And unlike her pa, they don’t need to need to be adjacent or even VISIBLE.

At least she’s a Unique, unlike her pa, which keeps the Torrid potential of Ms. Gordon at bay. She also lacks the Gotham keyword(s), which prevent her from teaming with Papa for really awful combinations. But still.

Last year, Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings set seemed nearly broken. Now he almost seems tame.

Speaking of free mobility:

#6 Improved Movement

So on the one hand, something like Improved Movement is well overdue for HeroClix. It’s long been a bit of a crime that The Flash couldn’t run over water in ‘Clix the way he so often does in comics.

On the other hand, it’s given us torrid figures who just can’t be tied down or hindered by hardly ANYTHING anymore. The only upside is that Improved Movement is an ability that can be countered — YAY OUTWIT!! — so it’s not so bad as most of them aren’t Batman Allies or Stealthers.

(oh…wait…)

Number of characters with Improved Movement: 25

Number of those with Stealth or Batman Ally team ability: 15 (60%)

Ooog.