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No. 10 [tie]
Injustice League team ability

This was on the 2011 list and it still hasn’t changed for the better. Worse, there are actually new characters recently given the TA, and it never gets used. So the No. 10 Most Needed Change in HeroClix is to change this:

“Whenever a character using the Injustice League team ability attacks an opposing character that was attacked by another character using the Injustice League team ability this turn, the action does not count toward your available actions this turn.”

to this:

“When a friendly character makes an attack, attacks made by other characters using this team ability against the same opposing character don’t count toward your available actions this turn. At the end of your turn, remove an action token from each character that used this team ability to make an unsuccessful attack this turn.”

It maintains the original gangpile-on-one-guy spirit of the TA but gives it some use for today’s much smaller teams.

No. 10 [tie]
Regeneration

Same as before, using Regen should never cause pushing damage.

_________________________________
No. 9
Iron Pharaoh’s Golden Falcon, Soaring trait

The game’s trend toward positioning-free play is worrisome. This one goes beyond previous attack-from-start-zone offenders in that the Falcon’s LOF can’t be blocked by ANYTHING on an outdoor map and that it’s impossible to tie up or attack or ANYTHING.

In fact, there’s a rumor that the set Iron Pharaoh appears in, Invincible Iron Man, may have been designed before Wolverine and the X-Men and that the outrageous original version of that set’s Spiral figure was intended as a silver bullet against I.P. and others bad game design decisions like him.

 

If only WizKids would realize that silver bullets are also bad game design decisions. But they haven’t yet, and so the below rewrite is the No. 9 Needed Change:

“GOLDEN FALCON, SOARING: When Iron Pharaoh is first placed on the map, place a Falcon special terrain marker in an adjacent square. Give Iron Pharaoh a free action to move this marker up to 3 squares. Iron Pharaoh can draw lines of fire and count range (up to 3 squares) from the Falcon marker for a single action using his printed damage value and Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, Ignores Elevated Terrain, Ignores Outdoor Blocking Terrain, Ignores Characters.”

It’s enough that he can attack around corners or, in time, from clear across the map. He shouldn’t have the ability to counter with Outwit AND shoot a target for massively enhanced damage.

_____

Next: More broken stuff that needs repair

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A couple years back, Heroclixin’ listed 10 things that needed to change to fix the game.

10. Event Dials
9. Outsiders team ability
8. Injustice League team ability
7. Barrier
6. Mind Control
5. Regeneration
4. Super Strength
3. Outwit
2. Silver Age
1. Incapacitate

A lot of that stuff got addressed. Event Dials morphed into Resources…sort of. Outsiders lost the beginning of turn restriction and kept the long range. Mind Control became compatible with Charge and Running Shot and no longer deals more than a click of “feedback” for hitting high-cost targets. Outwit lost some of its teeth with the range drawdown, and Incapacitate got some teeth against all the Willpower out there.

But there’s some new junk that needs to be repaired. What would go on Heroclixin’s “Watch List?” Check in this week for the Top Ten Needed Changes in HeroClix in 2014.

 

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Welcome again to heroclixin’s photographic record of Super Strength figs that can physically hold object tokens on their sculpts somehow. Today’s subject is one from the vaults:

Black Lantern Earth-2 Superman Kal-L [The Brave and the Bold 058] has a solid grip via his cape.

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LegionWeAre

So about a month ago, I boldly took a somewhat overmatched Legion of Super-Heroes team to a Top  8 finish in the highly competitive Realms Open Championship qualifier. I decided to try out a new Legion team for another big tournament with big prizes on the line.

Superboy [SLOSH] 100
Cosmic Boy [201] 70
Phantom Girl [008] 72 + Utility Belt 13
Science Police Officer [004] 45
= 300 points.

Young Supes is the main attacker, of course. His anti-Stealth TA and Running Shot and 4 damage all lend weight to the role. Cos is the main supporter with his Telekinesis and Perplex and Leadership that can even benefit the higher-priced Boy of Steel. But the linchpin of the team is P-Girl, who A) could shut down relic/resource engines and B) via the Batman Cowl, give the team Batman Ally TA to boost the defenses against range.

FIRST ROUND
vs. FI Iron Fist 007, WX Magneto, 50-pt Enchantress, and Wonder Girl 008, on the Hall of Doom map.

Turning Point
Handcuffs on Iron Fist tied him up for enough rounds to gain a narrow LOF on him. As he was the most dangerous figure on the other side, taking him down more or less sealed my win.

SECOND ROUND
vs. FI Hawkeye, WX Hope Summers, Maggia Goon x 3, Book of Skulls. I took the Hall of Doom again.

Keys to the game
He Hammered up, buying me time to set up alpha strike to Energy Explode Hope and ping Hawkeye off Running Shot, which helped a lot later.
Shut down the hammers with Phantom Girl, preventing their later use and abuse.

THIRD ROUND
vs. Fantomex + Belt, Jinx, Spiral. Same map, because I like it. But…

…Almost lost this one. Got baited into blocking Spiral’s portal, confident in Bat-Stealth. But didn’t notice Night Vision Goggles, and suddenly P-Girl was half-dead! Also, I set up Science cop too far out to affect the fight with his SP.

PG survived to lock up Fantomex’s use of Belt to slow him down long enough for Superboy and Cos to gang up on Spiral for the KO before time ran out.

FOURTH ROUND
didn’t happen. At this point, it’s me versus my friend and ride to the venue, Charlie. and both of us are gassed and not at our best and we have a 90-plus-minute drive ahead of us. He offers to concede the win — I have the points advantage and because, to use his words, that’s how bros bro — and the judge allows it.

His team, which he said was inspired by my earlier ROC team: P-Girl + Belt, Cosmic Boy, Sun Boy, Motorcycle + GCPD, Science Police Officer 004, I think. We’d be using similar tech on our teams. Mine has a slight edge on pure firepower but he’s got the advantage on maneuverability and actions thanks to GCPD. Charlie also has way better Utility Belt items than I do.

Honestly. on paper, I think he’s got this one. But I’ve been wrong before.

Anyway, I get a trio of Con Exclusives I’d never owned, Charlie got some trade fodder, and Nate, the one I defeated in round 3, was able to get the one piece he wanted most of the whole prize collection.

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Continuing this regular Heroclixin’ feature that visually documents how characters with the Super Strength power can physically hold standard object tokens in the game, Heroclixin’ now shows off — finally — the Avengers Vs. X-Men set:

 

Namor, Thor and Spider-Man all maintain at least a decent grip on object tokens as shown.

Tomorrow comes the Wednesday battle report on HeroClix games, F.U.N. Fights, with another account of a Legion team in the top 16 of a big tournament. Hope you’ll stop back by.

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This series recounting how I added art to DC cards to make ‘em prettier continues with this BFC from Arkham Asylum:

AA_BF001_Grounded

This image from the early ’80s Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew series is the best possible choice to illustrate this card.

Next week, more Arkham.

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Welcome to a new installment of this regular Heroclixin’ feature that visually documents how characters with the Super Strength power can physically hold standard object tokens in the game. Today, let’s step a set back and look at some remaining figures from Invincible Iron Man that we didn’t get to before the holidays: Grey Gargoyle, Absorbing Man and Titania, Titanium Man and Juggernaut:

The Iron Slayer [054] has a couple of holds as well:

IronSlayer IronSlayer2

And this should finish off our look at Invincible Iron Man, with the exception of Bulldozer, who can so barely hold his token that I’m not going to photograph it today.

Next Tuesday, Heroclixin’ will feature AvX.

WHOSE SIDE WILL U CHOOSE?!??!?

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This past weekend I found myself taking another little road trip to a big tournament to play for F.U.N. and prizes. And again, I found myself trying to compete with this F.U.N. team:

Lizard [Amazing Spider-Man] 88
Vixen [Streets of Gotham] 74 + Justice League: Generation Lost ATA 3
Alyosha Kraven [Amazing Spider-Man] 70
Beast Boy [DC 75th Anniversary ] 60
Cosmo [Galactic Guardians] 52
Catwoman [10th Anniversary ] 35
Flock of Bats [Batman 99c] 18
= 400 points. This time around, even the themed team tactic was banned. But the force’s basic integrity was still intact, so I ran with it again. Let’s see how it did:

ROUND ONE
vs. an accidental Mystical team of Madame Web, Astral Dr. Strange, Brother Voodoo, the 50-point Enchantress and led by the 225-point Malekith [Thor: Dark World 004]. I was first player and chose the Karnak map from the Watchmen Crimebusters Fast Forces set. The starting areas are on the long edges of the map instead of on the ends.

Turning Points

  • As in my first match in the ROC a few weeks ago, my opponent made a First Round Immunity blooper again, thinking that my moving a single figure on my force meant my whole team was fair game. Why is this basic rule so misunderstood? Now I had an easy first shot on his big piece.
  • Whoa, Did I Say “Easy?” Malekith had a 20 DV from range because he Perplexed his defense and was sitting on the heavy object I’d placed during setup. Why, oh why didn’t I pick him as the target for Justice League: Generation Lost ATA? Without the hindering boost, I’d have felt better about shooting with Vixen instead of getting close — especially because with Cosmo’s PD TA and Enhancement, he’s a normal 18 instead of 20 to shoot for 4 damage. Then I could follow up with a TK’d Lizard Charge to tie Malekith up at a minimum.
  • What happened instead was misses, misses, misses thanks to way too much Prob Control and then Brother Voodoo wreaking his havoc on my formations with Mind Control.

Lost all but Catwoman, Cosmo, and a Flock of Bats, which was perpetually at least ONE SQUARE TOO FAR AWAY to do ANYTHING. 0-1.

ROUND TWO
vs. Phantom Stranger, Question, Pandora. Again, I picked Karnak.

How It Went
He immediately jumped on lil’ Catwoman with both Question and Phantom Stranger after I moved her out to a light object. I didn’t intend her to be bait, but I took the opportunity to blast him with a TK’d and Enhanced Vixen. Unfortunately, Catwoman failed to KO Question with a followup and fell quickly, leaving a clear LOF for Lizard to be Outwitted.
I repositioned to take on Pandora but there was a lot of dice futility. Lucked out that my opponent rarely used Poison.
I eventually got Question and Pandora but it was a desperate fight to stay ahead against an almost full-strength Phantom Stranger with most of my remaining figs all chewed up. A terrible move with Vixen — including forgetting HER Poison — KOd her and lost me the game.

Until I did the math and noted that 77+60+35 is still less than the 200 I’d scored. 1-1.

ROUND THREE
vs. 30-point Loki [Fear Itself], 50-point Scarlet Witch [Chaos War] and 319-point Cosmic Spider-Man [Web of Spider-Man]. I lost map roll and got stuck in a very-walled-up map whose name escapes me.

What the hell do I do against that?
I knew my only chance was to close on him as soon as possible, especially after my opponent’s opening move gave CSM view of the entire map. So:

  • Immediately I switched Beast Boy to Pterodactyl to carry 3 animals and poised him to do so just out of starting area. 0-moved Alyosha Kraven. Vixen JLA-free-moved as far out as possible, just in CSM’s range, carrying and placing Cosmo in front as bait, maybe. Finally, I used the free-action-move then a normal move action to get the Flock of Bats next to all his team.
  • But Loki pushed and easily KOed the Flock, making me want to say another word that shares a lot of the same letters as “flock.”
  • Thus free, CSM shot Vixen for 5, despite her Super Senses.
  • Got a lucky Regen with her [this was Vixen’s Best Move this match] as BB taxied the rest within Charge range of a pushed CSM. I had a CHANCE now of at least making a fight of it!
  • …until Scarlet Witch Barriered in the room. No chance.
  • …until Lizard Charged a wall, so Kraven could attack.
  • Then I free-action-moved BB to cart Catwoman near CSM and SWitch.
  • Here’s the Turning Point of the match, though: CSM chose to stay and fight rather than risk a Hypersonic Speed breakaway failure — THANK YOU, 2013 RULES CHANGE! — so I was able to swarm him. But between misses and Blades rolls and Prob Control, he and SW survived some 20-30 attack rolls! That bad luck was offset by superb fortune on Regen rolls, though, and eventually Cosmic Spider-Man fell, at which point my opponent conceded.

Back to another top 16. And again, I ran a Legion team in the 300-point finals. How’d it do? That’s a tale for next week.

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Continuing this regular Heroclixin’ feature that visually documents how characters with the Super Strength power can physically hold standard object tokens in the game, Heroclixin’ finishes its look at the SLOSH set with the chase figs. 

Lydea Mallor [Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes 057]:

Her hair is STRONG

Kalibak [058]:

See how it fits between his back and energy trail?

and Superman [061]:

A token can be fitted between the character’s knees.

 

 

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This series recounting how I added art to DC cards to make ‘em prettier continues. Last time, I said I’d move on to Secret Invasion, which was the next set with feat and BFC cards. But I forgot that I was only doing DC sets because the Marvel ones already HAVE art. So, on to Arkham Asylum.

AA_F001_Scatter

This image from a mid-1990’s issue of Legion of Super-Heroes sort of illustrates the concept of a team dispersing. I don’t know that I ever used this feat at all. Busting up your own formation doesn’t seem like a great move.

Next week, more Arkham.