Finally at the end!

The #2 WINNER is:

BATTLE FURY

Battle Fury has long been little more than a detriment: it keeps one from making ranged attacks or being carried. Sure, it protected one from Mind Control, but how often does that help ya?

Well, it’s finally gotten a couple of upgrades. First, it now ignores that other light-blue power…Incapacitate. Second, it ignores Shape Change (including the variety used by the Skrulls/Danger Girl team abilities). And, of course, the power retains its other qualities, especially its discounting effect on point cost.

With a pair of completely positive changes and no drawbacks, Battle Fury is nearly the biggest winner of 2011’s ruleset.

The #2 LOSER?

GIANTS.

Otherwise known as Giant Walking Targets, these tall ones have always been magnets for ranged attacks, and the introduction of multiple elevations to the game does nothing to alleviate that weakness…it maybe makes it a little worse.

But the biggest harm they suffer has nothing to do with their own abilities, but rather a change to another. Friendly Giants can no longer be moved with Telekinesis. This used to be a nice little way of addressing Giants’ difficulty in getting into a fight without being shot to pieces first, or getting them out of trouble. It’s gone now.

Another game change is the removal of canceling. Until now, a character could cancel its powers/abilities during a turn. This was good for a few characters who possessed the Giant symbol via a Special Power, allowing them to “shrink” to normal size for a turn and avoid enemy lines of fire — something other Giants can’t do. Now these part-time Giants (Crisis Mordru, M+M Box and especially SI Yellowjacket Skrull) are just as vulnerable as the regular ones.

Giants do get a few new plusses: they can interact with higher elevations at will (though that works both ways for line of fire), or carry regardless of tokens (though only on move actions) and their Great Size and Giant Reach abilities can’t be countered. But their inherent positioning issues are still too big a liability, making them nearly the biggest losers of all.

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And the #1 WINNER after the 2011 rulebook kicks in May 1st is:

PULSE WAVE

It’s always been the ultimate answer to any power in HeroClix.

• Stealth blocking LOF? Not to Pulse Wave.
• Impervious target? Not to Pulse Wave?
• Your opponent keeps forcing rerolls with Prob Control? Not if they’re Pulse Waved.

Basically the only defense against it was to hide behind blocking terrain or a Barrier. But when the 2008 rules shut down ranged attacks in adjacency, Pulse Wave got its own rock to its scissors — a tied-up PWer couldn’t use the power, as Pulse Wave is a ranged attack.

That’s no longer the case in 2011. Pulse Wave can now be used even when based. This is super for every single character with the power, ranging from the great (Hammer of Thor’s Odin and Ultron just got terrifyingly stronger still) to the small (Arkham Asylum’s Human Bomb and Johnny Sorrow are smiling now, even though you can’t see their faces). And the ever-frightening Nova Blast feat will certainly come back in vogue for Golden Age games.

This fantastically simple yet powerful improvement to one of the game’s strongest powers makes Pulse Wave the #1 winner of the 2011 rulebook!

The #1 biggest LOSER on May 1st?

TRANSPORTERS’ MOVE AND ATTACK

Apparently undercosted at its inception and even moreso once true Hypersonic Speed lost its second option, the powers that be decided to remove its ability to fire at full range. This doesn’t affect those with no range, but folks like GX Archangel and FF Hawkeye take a hit.

Um...Aquaman...? The new rules kill Manta enough. You don't need to kill him anymore.

(And, frankly, Brightest Day Aquaman’s latter-dial doesn’t dig this change so much, either.)

With a huge negative and no counterbalancing positives, Move And Attack is the biggest loser with the 2011 rules. But that won’t stop anyone from using it if they’ve got it!

Thanks for reading!

The #4 WINNER(s):

MULTI-ATTACK / QUAKE / MIND CONTROL

Originally, I had saved this slot for Multi-Attack alone. The power action has gotten a hefty upgrade, allowing for ANY two actions rather than just two power actions that attack. (Thus, CD Spectre can, at last, Phase in and then Psychic Blast for massive damage. But note that he can’t get two of the same action, per the new “once-per-turn” global rule on free actions.) But, as I realized that the only characters with the ability were Colossals, I just chalked up this rule change along with the other boosts Colossals got.

Then I considered two other powers that got nothing but better, Quake and Mind Control. Instead of capping higher damage at 2, Quake now boosts even lower damage to 2 as well. And Mind Control’s minimum range is 4, instead of only granting the 4 range to 0-range figs with the power. Nice!…

…until I noted, like Multi-Attack, hardly any characters benefitted from either change. Only 20 of thousands of HC characters have Quake and under 2 damage. Meanwhile, only about TWO characters in the whole game have Mind Control and a range less than 4 but greater than 0.

Therefore, Multi-Attack, Quake, and Mind Control tie as #4 winners. All got simpler and more effective upgrades, but only a tiny handful of figs benefit from it.

Meanwhile, the #4 LOSER is:

"DAMN! Spotted me."

STEALTH

It’s long been an inexpensive power with a big impact, making its users practically invulnerable to range-based powers in this range-focused game. It was also a pain for friend and foe alike when trying to draw line of fire to use Perplex or Probability Control. If you forgot to cancel Stealth on your turn, you couldn’t PC that crit miss into something less injurious.

Now, though, it’s only effective on opponents’ turns, making it simple to Perplex Batman before taking that shot. But…the enemy also has no problem PCing that crit hit into something less injurious.

If the change to the power itself was the only issue Stealth had, it wouldn’t be this high on the losers’ list. But a couple of other rule changes negatively affect the black Speed power:

1. Immobile objects no longer leave debris. Fielding the blue-ringed Special Objects used to be a way to guarantee a customized bit of permanent hindering terrain for the Stealthers, but this game-streamlining rule change removes that option.
2. Telekinesis can use objects to attack targets in Stealth. The final ruling on this hasn’t been delivered, but the intent is plain; because TKing an object into a square is drawing line of fire to the square, not the character, it gets around Stealth’s usual blocking of said line and allows the ranged attack.

These are a couple of big knocks for Stealth. It’s still one of the most viable powers in the game, but it’s nevertheless one of the biggest losers of 2011’s rule changes.

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The #3 WINNER is:

LEADERSHIP

Wait…wasn’t this a loser? Yes, it is…

…if you use it the old way by putting just one little Leadership piece on the team (because successful rolls didn’t stack anyway) and using some feat like Contingency Plan or Inspiring Command. Adding more Leadership was rarely a good use of points (again, because of the non-stacking), and it was really wasted on higher-cost characters since you couldn’t use the extra actions anyway, usually (except, again, in the service of a feat like Contingency Plan). With the lower chance of Leadership even working, using the power in such a minimal fashion has become a losing proposition, making it the #9 loser.

But, as you see, it has placed very high on the winners’ list. Here’s why:

• A cheaper adjacent ally gets to remove a token. This is new incentive to use the high-point Leadership pieces that were wasted on the power before.
• The extra actions gained by additional Leadership rolls now stack. This makes fielding multiple Leadership characters beneficial instead of a near-total waste.

If not for the lower chances of a successful roll, this could’ve easily been the #1 winner of all the 2011 rulebook changes.

The #3 LOSER:

The THEME TEAM

First, generic themed teams got a little harder to build. Instead of needing 1 character for every 100 points, you now need 3 for every 300 points, 6 for 301-600, 9 for 601-900, and so on. Worse still, they only get ONE theme team Probability Control per 300 points; gone are the days of swarm teams loaded with “Probs.”

Named keywords (the new term for “non-generic”) didn’t get it quite as bad, only needing 2 characters and getting 2 uses of themeProb at each level. (Unfortunately, that makes certain 400-point themes impossible.)

Additionally, it’s the themeProb itself which has changed to the detriment of both:

• it can’t be used by characters lacking the keyword. That excludes pogs or certain Alter-Ego-style variants brought into the game like DC75 Beast Boys or GX Jamie Madrox.
• it can’t be used by actual Probability Control figures like Scarlet Witch or Rip Hunter.

It did get a slight boost in that only non-free actions keep one from using it. But yeah…theme teams lose pretty big in 2011.