Heroclixin' ...it's all about F.U.N.

No. 2

Moon Knight [Avengers Defenders War 062]

Some figures I like for the gameplay. Others for the sculpt. This one? Both.

Love the white suit look. But the dial is the real thing: Charge+Running Shot, IM: Hindering+Elevated, 11AV, Indomitable wildcard with Perplex. He’s got a STOP click, too, with Regen. He’ll need it if you employ his ability to warp to the spot where an ally was KO’d. Better to use the trait’s feature of dropping tokens from him when friendlies are hit and hurt.

It’s a figure that I constantly want to play and so he ranks very high on my favorites list.

How much F.U.N. is Knight time?

Friendly/Fellowship: Low range, high cost, best traits require damage to and/or loss of allies

Useful/Utility: Wildcard, Perplex, good mobility, action advantage

Nifty/Nerdcore: Moon Knight avenges night travelers and HeroClix

NEXT: ¡Numero una!

No. 3

Troll [The Mighty Thor 039]

She completely snuck onto this list. With a dialful of Exploit Weakness, she’s a solid melee piece. But she has so much more to offer:

• Anti-Stealth. Adjacent friendlies can use IM:Hindering.
• Mobility. SP Leap/Climb and Charge that ignores most everything
• Early Blades backs into late Steal Energy and Regen for a shot at a second wind.
• Oh and she’s got Thunderbolts for the ATA or other team-up games
• All this for just 60 points, and yet still F.U.N.

How F.U.N. is it?

Friendly/Fellowship: Fairly fragile at range

Useful/Utility: Great melee mobility, low cost, anti-Stealth aid

Nifty/Nerdcore: Delightfully feral sculpt and background

NEXT: HE OWNS THE NIGHT

No. 4

Elijah Snow [Elseworlds 046]

My friend Bob traded him to me, saying, “You’re really going to like this one; he’s your kind of figure.”

Bob knows me.

In a great bit of design, Snow can, once per game per type, force enemies to take an extra token or unavoidable click for doing any of the four costed action types. Got an Indom. foe all set to push to use Hypersonic to punish you? Pick POWER; he’ll take a click for daring to use it. Is there a sniper worrying you? Buy time by picking RANGE; she’ll end up double-tokened and pushed. Elijah also can force non-flyers to slip and slide, only able to move in direct paths. (The F.U.N. catch is that this one affects friends as well and is a once-per-game effect that lasts the WHOLE game as long as Snow is alive.)

He’s also a solid figure beyond these traits. Sidestep 8 range, Outwit/Perplex, Indom+Barrier, triple Incap top his dial at 120 points. His second dial at 70 points is focused on Running Shot Pulse Wave and Leadership.

A winter wonderland of F.U.N.?

Friendly/Fellowship: Completely unarmored. Traits are double-edged

Useful/Utility: Unusual methods of tempo control can’t be stopped. Good stats, powers

Nifty/Nerdcore: Snow days are fun

NEXT: Trolling

No. 5

Muhammad Ali [WizKids DP17-004]

The amazing thing about HeroClix is that any character can be made into a figure and this is a key example. “The Greatest” lives up to the name with extra-Precise punches (dealing 2 through defenses rather than 1 on the first half of his dial), team play with Empower and constant Sidestep and Indom. His lack of early armor keeps him from being un-F.U.N. but he lacks a single bad click — back half yields CCE to edge up his waning stats, Flurry to hedge your attack bets and Toughness to help him survive the shots headed his way.

He works best with a Superman (gaining him semi-optional Battle Fury and easier theme team options beyond his Celebrity and Warrior ones), but that’s not my ideal team for him. I’m not sure what IS, exactly, so he’s not higher on my list.

F.U.N. like a butterfly:

Friendly/Fellowship: Not well armored, stats are pretty human

Useful/Utility: But that Precision-plus and Indom, tho.

Nifty/Nerdcore: He’s the Greatest

[tie]

No. 6

Sand [Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls 060]

So there was a time when I was a JSA completist. Those days are gone but I still harbored dreams of running this team:

Sand was the last one missing for a VERY long time. We almost got him as a result of the first Fan Vote contest WizKids held in 2011. But he was the runner-up behind Big Barda who, even at the time, was a remake of an already clixed character — as far too many of the contestant characters were. Over the ensuing years and subsequent fan vote contests, Sand remained unmade despite the near miss — until now.

The dial is a bit of a disappointment, though, which is why he’s not higher in my top ten. He’s short-lived and fragile with no armor at all. But his interesting form of moving attack (No-cost Force Blast after Phasing) and late-dial Prob Control combine with his very low cost to make him a hidden gem. Neat sculpt, too.

F.U.N. in a sandbox?

Friendly/Fellowship: Sand is soft

Useful/Utility: But Sand gets everywhere to irritate the foe

Nifty/Nerdcore: I like Sand

This green-clad hero winds up sharing space at this spot with another green fellow:

Hulk [Avengers Defenders War 052]

An early candidate for this list, Amadeus Cho here was briefly forgotten in my first draft. (There have been a LOT of figures released since May.) But this is a piece I frequently want to run for its supreme F.U.N. qualities. He’s a bruiser with Perplex and conditional Outwit, making him quite the Utility piece. What also makes him F.U.N. is a focus on punching up instead of down via his “Battling Monsters” trait that drops action tokens from him when he hits a Monster or any foe with 4 damage. But his other trait that heals him when he lands KOs also helps keep him going.

Totally Awesome F.U.N.

Friendly/Fellowship: Not overwhelmingly smashy for a Hulk

Useful/Utility: But still a Hulk. With Perplex and Outwit. And SMASH

Nifty/Nerdcore: Amadeus, Amadeus … oh oh oh Amadeus (Cho)

No. 7

Bat-Knight [WizKids DP17-006]

I was surprised to receive this one in a Secret Santa exchange over at HCRealms.com. It almost immediately became a new favorite. First, I love giants. I like the Utility that is Sidestep with 8 range, giving the Bat-robot a nice 10-square swing. Bat-Stealth, Indom, KC TA, Outwit protection and Precision round out the 60-point package. Even getting hit to late dial only raises the AV from 11 to 12 with a shot at Regen — and double-target Incap.

With all that, it’s hard to want to use its traited Ram ability when there’s so much use out of the rest of the dial. But maybe the multi-hits could be worth it.

F.U.N.bot

Friendly/Fellowship: Damage, armor aren’t the best

Useful/Utility: Only 60 points for so much

Nifty/Nerdcore: Bat-Knight keeps city under control

NEXT: All tied up

No. 8

Uhura [Star Trek: The Original Series 038]

I was not very interested in the Star Trek set. But then I saw this fantastic figure. Not only did I need it for my Black Box collection, the dial looked good and F.U.N. as well.

She starts Stealthy to protect her soft 17 Senses until she can base her foe. If said target is 100 points or less, she can turn off its defense as FREE then vivisect with Blades, possibly with Flurry. She also has the new Mirror Universe team ability: Mystics without being Mystics to get around the occasional immunity to the TA.

How F.U.N. is she?

Friendly/Fellowship: Zero moving attack or Willpower hurt her cause.

Useful/Utility: But nixing defense and Mystics-y and Blade tho.

Nifty/Nerdcore: Uhura in a belly shirt? Sign me up

NEXT: Vision of another dark future

No. 9

Peace Machine [What If 0043]

In addition to being one of our top figures of the year, alternate timeline James Rhodes squeaks onto my list of favorites. Aside from his fitting a couple of themes I collect (black characters, Stark armors), Peace Machine is a figure who very squarely fits my meta play style, which is to plan to get punched in the mouth. PM allows that to happen thanks to his trait limiting to 3 the damage a single strike can do. The Utility of TK, Outwit, Support, 3-range Force Blast and high DV got him onto the top figs list.

Peace Machine, along with 2016 Top Ten pick Jakeem Thunder, Taylor’s No. 3 F.U.N. fig Iron Heart and Captain America [Avengers Defenders War 069] allowed me to at last fulfill a HeroClix dream I’ve had since joining the game back in 2005: to build a top-flight team of nothing but black characters. And for that, he makes my list of top favorites.

Call him F.U.N. Machine cuz:

Friendly/Fellowship: Fewer one-shots is better for everyone

Useful/Utility: C’mon, he was Heroclixin’s No. 8 Top Fig

Nifty/Nerdcore: GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

NEXT: Reflections of … the way she used to be

No. 10

Robin [Harley Quinn and the Gotham Girls 030]

I was thoroughly uninterested in the Thrillkiller subtheme of the Harley Quinn set. But this one eked his way onto my radar. For one thing, I like Robin figures (as far back as 2011). But more than that, I found this dial to be solid as a rock. 11 AV Charge with 3 damage and 18 Reflexes for close combat and Batman Ally with 2 targets for 5 range shooting. There’s also his Thrillkiller ’62 trait that drops tokens off him when attack KOs occur, which can make up somewhat for his lack of Willpower, and his other trait that throws tokens ONTO foes within 6 squares if HE is KO’d. At a cheap 40 points, I don’t mind so much when this triggers.

I will look forward to using him on another all-Robin force and on a meta team.

F.U.N.killer? NO!

Friendly/Fellowship: He’s kind of a throwaway piece

Useful/Utility: So use him with abandon. Or use him for wildcard or whatever

Nifty/Nerdcore: Two gun kid Robin!

NEXT: Nobody dies!

Newbie TBT essentially took care of the F.U.N. list for me this year. I was kind of dreading it because there were so many hundreds of clix released in this 15th Anniversary year of HeroClix. But while some of his picks weren’t exactly what I would have selected, most of them absolutely were, and all of them were spot on.

It’s freed me up to list my favorites — which also happen to be FUN figs as well. (Full disclosure: Both Sceritz and TBT chose figures that would have made my favorite and FUN lists, so I’ve left them off my top 10 for more variation between the three of us.)

As is my custom, I open this look back with an example of an older figure from the previous year that I got too late to count among my favorite then:

Donatello [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Heroes In A Half-Shell 025]

I didn’t get this piece until well into 2017. At 100 points, he’s very much the most expensive version of this character available in the game. But I like him because, similar to Black Panther [Age of Ultron 045] from a few years back, he’s the version that feels most complete. He’s got the mobility (IM:Hindering/Elevated). The Stealth of a ninja, the Toughness of a turtle (both via trait, freeing up those slots for other powers). The range of his bo (3) and the repositioning ability other versions have sported (another trait). And the pit crew powers that we’ve come to expect from the smartest of the quartet: Outwit, Perplex and Support.

But there’s a FUN. catch here: he can only use one per turn, and he’s got to select it at turn’s start. I love the balance.

In sum:

Friendly/Fellowship: 100 points is kind of a lot

Useful/Utility: All sorts of little tricks here tho

Nifty/Nerdcore: Donny is my favorite turtle

So! On to my Top Ten F.U.N. Favorites of 2017 to wrap up our extended look back!