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I played in No Man’s Land Month 6 recently.

Big Barda (Streets of Gotham) 148 + Utility Belt 10
Guy Gardner (Streets of Gotham) 142
Black Lightning 87
Void (Streets of Gotham) 70
Oracle (Streets of Gotham) 50
Bruce Wayne (Batman 202a) 50
Dr. Thomas Wayne (Streets of Gotham) 43
= 600 points.

This was not a F.U.N. team. This was a “ready to compete for the win” team. Barda is the best alpha-strike piece in the game. Guy was there to back her up or soften targets for her. He also granted her and Black Lightning a DV boost. BL functioned not only as a good 3rd attacker and range threat, but his Outsiders TA could nerf the stat bonuses of enemy Utility Belts.

Then I had a full-blown S.T.O.P.P. pit crew in the other four pieces:

  • Support: Void and Dr. Wayne
  • Telekinesis/taxi: Bruce Wayne (TK) and Void (super-taxi) and Oracle (her SP for untokened JL allies). Later, Guy gets TK, too.
  • Outwit: Void
  • Perplex: Bruce and, later, Oracle
  • Probability Control: Void

They also had Willpower when Dr. Wayne is adjacent, allowing for extra actions without taking pushing damage. This team should’ve rocked.

It didn’t.

In Round ONE, it fairly well handled a team headed up by Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. But said piece was wearing the Belt and landed huge hits while on its +2 slots to score exactly ONE MORE KO point than me: 279-278.

Round TWO, against a full WildCATs team, went a little better. It took me too long to KO Spartan, but I won with 200 points and lost none.

Round THREE was a disaster. We spent about 40 of the 50 minute round jockeying for position. I made a bold move to one-shot his Belt wearer, but he’d picked the Super Senses +2 slot and made the dodge. Left out in the open, my Barda was KOed in a single turn after my misplay of forgetting the Belt’s ability to short-circuit my Outsiders TA (and I could’ve easily blocked the needed Line of Fire).

Round FOUR went mostly well until I got a little overconfident and did not retreat far enough. Lost the game on the very last play as time expired.

A very disappointing 1-3 finish for a team that, by rights, should have gone at least 2-2 instead. All the more reason to play F.U.N. going forward, because this doesn’t work for me.

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#2

EE

 ENERGY EXPLOSION!

Hard to use, hard to explain, and hard to justify ever using on any click that could shoot out a wall instead, Energy Explosion has long been one of those stepchildren of attack powers. For while it was potentially powerful against multiple hit targets, getting that shot was usually difficult and not worth the trouble if even +1 damage got you to 3 damage or better. And if you had a SP or trait granting you some other ranged combat action power, like Penetrating/Psychic Blast or Pulse Wave? Fuggedaboudit; you’re using one of those two 90% of the time.

The 2013 ruleset addresses all that in the following ways:

  • EE is no longer a ranged combat action, but activates when one is made, more like Blades/Claws/Fangs. So just as Exploit Weakness + BCF = possible 6 penetrating damage, so does PPB + EE = penetrating “splash” damage.
  • Instead of dealing damage to the “splashed” characters based on “number of hits,” which was sometimes powerful but super-complicated, it’s based on the shooter’s number of targets. This is a vast upgrade because a 3-target EE shooter no longer has to fire at a big cluster of targets to deal the big splash damage.

To illustrate: In the past, Lightning Lord could target Ult. Cap, Arachne and Bucky Cap and deal damage via EE accordingly…
EEillustrationOLD

Moon Knight, who’d normally be untargetable thanks to Stealth, and Spymaster take some heavier damage due to being adjacent to two hit targets. But by and large, most are only scratched (and Aquaman, who’s got Invulnerability, isn’t even tickled).

Now, with the 2013 rules, Lightning Lord deals EE damage like this:
EEillustrationNEW

Whoa, that’s a BIG DIFFERENCE! Good thing ol’ L.L. only has a 9 AV, huh?

Oh, he’s a wild card? Copying Batman Enemy? With Joker As Sgt. on his 11 — or 12 — AV click?

This explosive leap in usefulness makes the orange attack power the #2 Winner of 2013.

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Speaking of leaping:

spiderman2600_(11)

LEAP/CLIMB.

Once the darling power of cheap tie-up figs everywhere, the king of mobility has lost its automatic break away might, only granting the +2 to the roll. It also lost the “Improved Movement: Characters” bit that would allow it to slip past enemy lines with ease. Most of the time, the Leap/Climb piece won’t have trouble doing so, but Plasticity (and certain other SPs and abilities) will trip it up.

Though still plenty useful, Leap/Climb is the #2 Loser in 2013, because the orange speed power is so much less than what it was.

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And now: the NUMBER ONES!

Flash+Tarpit

PLASTICITY!

It was long one of the lamest of all powers. Sure, it worked great at tie-up against most opponents, and helped minimize its users’ vulnerability to tie-up. But there were nearly 800 dials with Leap/Climb; nearly 300 with Hypersonic Speed and close to 650 with Phasing/Teleport. Once you add the Improved Movement pieces and the Giants and Colossals, you’ve got a full third of all characters in the game ABSOLUTELY IGNORING an opponent’s Plasticity.

So two of those powers/abilities were stripped of their automatic breakaway skills. That still left another third or more of all characters in HeroClix able to freely move around Plasticity via Flight or some other ability. That’s where Plasticity’s true upgrade comes in: the ability to gum up its surrounding squares for movement. Suddenly:

  • Hypersonic Speed characters with zero range can’t hit and run, or even run up and hit.
  • Leap/Climbers can’t bypass Plasticity to the rear guard.
  • Neither can fliers.
  • Or even colossals!

Plasticity doesn’t do squat against Phasing/Teleport (it ignores characters for movement) or vehicles (same) or certain types of Improved Movement. But the blue Speed power has been fantastically upgraded and will have a far greater impact on the game than ever before. It’s easily the #1 Winner in HeroClix’s 2013 rules revision.

And the #1 loser:

Flash trips

HYPERSONIC SPEED.

Although HSS has been nerfed a couple of times (full range to half; option 2 gone), it remained the one power that truly had no hard counter the way nearly every other power did…until now.

Losing automatic break away was the first blow, with HSS instead getting a +2 to the roll instead. But the changes to Plasticity make that a true hard counter to the brown speed power if its user has 0 range.

So say goodbye to the days when a HSS figure could easily and merrily stay just out of reach in the late game if you didn’t have Outwit to stop it. Now all you have to do is base the speedster, and you might have a chance at a fight.

It’s still pretty much the best power in the game, but it’s also pretty much the #1 Loser in 2013 because it’s gone from being as close to an auto-win standard power as exists in the game to merely being the best.

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That’s it! I, for one, am very much looking forward to these changes, which will tip the balance a bit more to the melee end of things while not invalidating the power of range. And, of course, there are the brand-new PAC powers of Sidestep, Precision Strike, Invincible and Empower!

But that’s ahead in June. For now, I’m off to go see Iron Man 3. Have F.U.N. clixin’!

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#4

lukeoutthewindow

FORCE BLAST

There were fewer powers less useful than Force Blast, before. Though occasionally good for stopping a tie-up threat or dealing easy knockback — and knockback damage — to a properly positioned high-DV, unarmored target, for the most part the purple Speed power was just so much wasted points in the slot. Usually, your power action was better spent doing something else — ANYTHING else.

But in 2013, Force Blast now has a passive effect — its user’s hits can always generate knockback, if they like. So that enemy shooter you just hit can get shoved out of retaliation range. Or that fig that had your buddy tied up gets pushed away.

Such a simple, elegant upgrade to a power that needed one makes Force Blast a welcome #4 Winner in Summer 2013.

It’s not alone in the slot, though.

(tie)

ironfists

RANGED COMBAT EXPERT / CLOSE COMBAT EXPERT

Hardly useless, the pair still get an upgrade from merely dealing +2 damage to getting the option to modify AV +2 instead, or granting +1 to both stats. Putting the “expert” in these powers rates a shared spot in the #4 Winner’s spot.

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The #4 Losers also tie.

pippinpalantir

PROBABILITY CONTROL.

One of the three “free-range” supporting powers, Prob Control now finds its effect hacked from the old default 10 squares to six, or whatever its user’s range is, whichever is higher. Whoops, it just got a lot harder for the likes of John Constantine or Destiny to affect the game from the safety of the back field. And with PC’s outsized effect on HeroClix games, these characters will be taking more fire than before.

There’s no rerolling this result: Probability Control will be the #4 Loser in HeroClix this summer.

(tie)

PERPLEX

Another of the three “free-range” powers, Perplex also finds its effect hacked from the old default 10 squares to six, or whatever its user’s range is, whichever is higher. That’s actually sort of good news, as a fellow Perplexer might be able to buff your range to get to ‘Plex a target — or use one of the other powers affected by this new rule.

But this is still a heck of a blow to this most versatile of supporting powers. No amount of modifiers keeps Perplex from sharing the #4 Loser slot in 2013.

Jokersane

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#3 in the “Win” column:

profXmobile

MIND CONTROL

This power has needed an upgrade for a while, appearing among the ten powers/abilities/rules needing a change about this time last year. My suggestions went a bit too far (3-die roll and ignore hindering terrain for LOF). I didn’t even consider the worst aspect of Mind Control: that after all those die rolls the power needs to be effective, you’re still taking automatic damage for controlling anything more than a peon. If you’re dealing with a tentpole, or worse, a colossal, you could very well hurt yourself badly for very little return.

(Case in point: I once tried to use Mouth of Sauron to MC colossal Thanos in a last-ditch effort to turn the game for my cause. Mouth succeeded; Thanos did not. Mouth was instantly KO’d by the unavoidable damage.)

Well, Mind Control has improved in a big way. First: it’s more flexible, being a combat action instead of a power action and thus making it compatible with Running Shot or Charge (in those cases where game effects allow these Speed Powers to coexist). Second: up to 150 points can be MC’d safely, and Third: only one click of damage is dealt for higher costs.

Mind Control is still an iffy power for its expense (you still have to land the attack, then possibly have to break away the target from its erstwhile allies, or land an attack on same, then take your feedback damage at worst and your action token at the very least). But it’s a darn sight better than it was and so is the #3 Winner in 2013.

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The Loser is also mental.

OUTWIT

One of the three “free-range” powers like Probability Control and Perplex, Outwit also finds its effect hacked from the old default 10 squares to six, or whatever its user’s range is, whichever is higher. And it’s worse for Outwit than for the others because while they can sit in relative safety in the rear guard rerolling allies’ attacks and boosting their stats, the Outwitter has to get the enemy in range, leaving the Outwitter itself far more vulnerable to attack.

BP beatup

Outwit is so much more dangerous to use now that it’s the biggest loser of the “OPP” triptych, and the #3 Loser of all.

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SMOKE CLOUD

Like a number of other powers, Smoke Cloud paled next to more aggressive ones because burning a power action and getting a token was so not worth it, even if the cost of the actual power was low. Increasingly, the only time the purple attack power was really useful was when it was a free action.

Now, though, its versatility is greatly increased with a minimum 4 range, 6 tokens available instead of 4 and, most importantly, its ability to -1 the attack value of anyone occupying it. Nice!

More squares of smoke at greater range enables greater flexibility to block Charging lanes against grounded foes, and it’s a way to nerf a bunch of enemies at once.

Smoke Cloud still isn’t going to be a marquee power, but it is definitely improved enough to be the #6 Winner in 2013, along with…

(tie)

Quaked

QUAKE

Similarly, Quake got a simplifying boost across the board: it always knocks back 2 squares, regardless of damage taken by the target. So where this power was once completely useless against targets Invulnerable or better, it now can knock those types away on any successful hit. Very nice way of thwarting  potential melee attacks or Poisonings next turn.

The new situationally defensive uses of this 100% positive change make the light green attack power shares the #6 spot among 2013’s Winners.

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The #6 Loser:

MULTIATTACK

While powerful, the rarely-given-out Multiattack was held back by A) only appearing on colossals costing well beyond the 300-point standard build total, B) not being paired with the best powers like Hypersonic Speed and, to wit, C) colossals being generally too big to effectively use the dreaded hit-and-run speed power to do the “run” half.

Then came Sentry & Void — a 300-point, single-based character with the Multiattack ability and, top-dial, Hypersonic Speed. With this tentpole able to strike first at the opposing starting area FROM his starting area, it revealed that perhaps Multiattack needed to be reined in a little bit.

Consequently, in 2013 Multiattack loses the ability to use the same action twice.

Multiattack: a colossal Loser in 2013 at #6.

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On to the top five!

BL incap

INCAPACITATE

It’s always been overcosted, but in recent years Incap has been particularly pointless. Of the 1,400 dials in Modern Age, almost HALF are resistant to Incapacitate by bearing some combination of Battle Fury, Willpower, Indomitable or Power Cosmic/Quintessence.

The other half can just pay 10 or 40 points to use the Utility Belt or Infinity Gauntlet resources, respectively to get Willpower. :/

Now, though, all that Willpower can make those figs extra-vulnerable to Incap: when targeting foes with two tokens, the light-blue attack power now deals 1 penetrating damage.

This simple upgrade singlehandedly puts teeth into Incapacitate, making it the #5 Winner in the 2013 rules.

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The  big Loser at #5?

Galactusfalls

COLOSSALS

The biggest of the big didn’t actually get any rule changes in 2013. That’s the problem.

A fair number of changes affect them negatively. Their Colossal Stamina, which allows them to act even with two tokens, leaves them newly vulnerable to Incapacitate now. Also, its ability to automatically break away and use “Improved Movement: Squares with Opposing Characters” no longer works against Plasticity. Finally, the changes to Multiattack hurts colossals almost exclusively.

That’s a lot of downgrades for even these generally overpowered monstrosities, making the fist damage symbol the #5 Loser in 2013.

 

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He's smilin' for a reason.

He’s smilin’ for a reason.

GIANT REACH

For some reason, WizKids didn’t want giants to use their hands. First, they could only Carry when they had zero tokens. Then, only on move actions. Now, Giants can finally Carry without restriction, just as fliers and Transporters can. They also still ignore Plasticity, and so are among the very few characters who retain great mobility against that improved power.

A big loser in 2011, Giant Reach has grown into the #8 Winner in 2013.

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A shooting power takes a bit of a slide:

nohands

Energy Explosion

In times past, on occasion, a character with Energy Explosion might be willing to take a shot at an enemy cluster based by an ally because A) the power could be angled to avoid dealing much damage to the friendly and B) it was only 1 damage anyway.

Now, though, EE has the potential to do GREAT harm with its splash damage to your friendly, possibly precluding you from using the power at all. And don’t even THINK about it if you’re a multi-target Sharpshooter trying to use it at point-blank range.

Despite the fact that it WILL show on the Winners’ list, the orange attack power is also the #8 Loser of 2013.

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The #7 Winner is:

SSsetdown

SUPER STRENGTH

It’s another power that’s needed a fix, as the very number of objects available to use for attacks has greatly shrunk in the modern game from a guaranteed six to as few as none.

The 2013 ruleset does nothing to fix that, unfortunately. What it does do is allow Super Strong figs to use their muscles for something other than smashing boulders: Now objects can be put down upon movement.

It’s a small change with great implications for the game:

  • It’s a new way other than Telekinesis to move objects around.
  • It’s more helpful to the team, situationally. Superman might be toting an ultra heavy object and can now carry Batman and place the detective and the object in the same square for — voila! — instant Stealthed meat shield.

The only drawback is that objects can’t be grabbed and dropped in the same turn. But it’s still enough to make Super Strength the #7 Winner in 2013.

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For every winner, there’s a Loser:

falling on butt

COMBAT REFLEXES

Once upon a time, Combat Reflexes was one of the more useless powers in all of HeroClix. All it did was allow its owner to take knock back from hits that normally didn’t cause it. But you had to declare you were taking that option before you got hit. Or was it AFTER you got hit, but before taking the damage? And did you have to still have Combat Reflexes in order to take the knock back after declaring you were going to use it?

None of this was ever very clear, so for the first few years the light-green defense power was only valued for its immunity to knock back damage. Then it got its upgrade in 2006 to grant +2 DV in close combat and became great.

But that original voluntary knock back thing remained, though rarely used because it required good dial memorization to know when suddenly NOT tying up an opponent is the best policy.

Anyway, it’s gone, replaced with a blanket immunity to knock back. And while that seems like another upgrade, it really is a loss, as evidenced by a character like Star-Lord (Hammer of Thor 025). There were a few times that, knowing he’s about to lose CR and end up in Stealth, I’d opt to take the knock back and lay into targets with his Ranged Combat Expert later from the cover of hindering terrain.

Not possible anymore. Combat Reflexes is the #7 Loser come June 2013.

 

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2013RULESlogo

Another spring in Heroclix, another new rulebook. Last year’s update merely tweaked a few things besides adding the then-new Split and Merge mechanics, compared to 2011’s overhaul.

2013’s making that overhaul look like a cosmetic makeover. There are definite winners and losers again this year. For the next four days, Heroclixin’ will highlight two winners and two losers.

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At  #10, we start with the least of the winners:

cryHavok

PULSE WAVE

Reworded last year to finally ignore even hindering terrain for the attack, HeroClix’s ultimate solvent ran into a stumbling block when the wording allowed a couple of ATAs to hide from the yellow attack power in plain sight!

Now Pulse Wave has been rewritten to work as it should — ignoring everything except walls and elevated and blocking terrain — making it the #10 Winner of 2013. Barely a winner, true, but one nonetheless.

And speaking of blocking terrain:

(tie)

Barrier

The wall-building power gets an upgrade to minimum 4 range, regardless of the character’s actual range value. But even this 100% positive upgrade only shares the #10 spot because fewer than two dozen characters benefit; the rest of the 300 or so characters with Barrier all have greater than 3 range.

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The tiniest Loser:

SmokePP

SMOKE CLOUD

Before, sitting in a Smoke Cloud only gave you a +1 DV from ranged attacks. But now, unless you’re a Superman Ally or something or can use Smoke Cloud yourself, getting that +1 means also getting a -1 to your attack value.

Putting the cloud between you and the enemy is no help, either — now THEY have the +1 DV against YOUR shots, too.

It’s not a big deal at all for actual Smoke Cloud users. But it’s just enough of an impediment for the rest of the team to get Smoke Cloud on the list as the #10 Loser in the 2013 rules revision.

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A notch higher on the Winners’ list is:

iron horse stance

COMBAT REFLEXES

It used to be able to take voluntary knock back. This was a very double-edged ability, as using the option made the character now vulnerable to ranged attacks, perhaps. Now, it’s just immune to knock back. It’s an upgrade that makes Combat Reflexes a #9 Winner in 2013, sharing the slot with…

(tie)

atatatata

Flurry / Hypersonic Speed

If you lost either of these powers in mid-action (due to, say, Mystics, Steal Energy or snake eyes) you used to be SOL. But now you’re allowed to make the second hit or run the heck away anyway. That’s a WIN for two of the best offensive Speed powers in the game to share the #9 spot. EDIT: And we may as well add Duo Attack here, too, as it got the same minor upgrade.

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Climbing down the Losers’ ladder:

SStrnerf

SUPER STRENGTH

The green attack power lost the ability to do +2 damage against objects and terrain. It was hardly ever used, but this represents a downgrade, making Super Strength the #9 Loser come June 2013.

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Continuing the photographic record of how HeroClix can hold their object tokens. Let’s look at the bruiser of the Batman set, Big Barda:

She holds hers OK under her cape IF you use the chintzy lightning on her Mega-Rod to help.

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I’ve been planning to publish the Top Ten list I was working on for April originally. But it was shoved into doubt by a sneak preview at a Fear Itself figure that appeared to meet the criteria.

Then the 2013 PAC and its changes completely destroyed that list.

Consequently, Heroclixin’ is beginning an early Top Ten countdown between now and Monday on the 10 biggest winners (and losers) in the 2013 rules update (in the same fashion as the 2011 version two years back).

It’s gonna be F.U.N.!

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Continuing this series talking about DC feats and BFC cards that I went back and customized with artwork for fun. (Here’s a link back to the original concept.) Today, Card Arts begins with Origin’s Feat cards.

The next feat of the set is Dissent, another I forgot to include when I uploaded these cards to Heroclixin’:

Dissent

Again using 2005 art by Barry Kitson from his run on Mark Waid’s reimagined “threeboot” Legion of Super-Heroes series. (It’s of newest member Invisible Kid being shunned.)

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Next time, Card Arts continues with another feat in Origin.

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Continuing the photographic record of which Super-Strong characters can hold cardboard object tokens. Here are a couple that I missed from the Batman set months back.

Batman (Batman 056) has a good hold under his cape. Maul (Batman 024) doesn’t grip his quite as tightly, but it’s fine and it’s arguably cooler.
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Was set to start a new feature tomorrow, but might delay to get a little ahead on the site. Have a great weekend!

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So I attended a sealed event and this is what I pulled:

Shocker
Rhino
Demogoblin
Daimon Hellstrom
Morbius
Spider-Girl
Werewolf By Night
Frank Drake
Cloak
Dagger

Of the eight-plus contestants, I was one of the only ones not to pull a Super Rare or better. And although I still lack about a third of the Amazing Spider-Man set, every single one of these figs is a double.

I was pouting, yes.

It was 400 points, so the 278-point Sinister Syndicate theme I had available was worthless. Worse, adding Morbius was 11 points over. But I did see a rare themed team opportunity here:

Daimon Hellstrom 113
Morbius 133
Werewolf By Night 81
Frank Drake 55
= only 382 points, but it was a Legion of Monsters themed team, giving me a whopping four Themed Team Probability Control (TTPC) rolls.

(I’d need ’em.)

FIRST ROUND began poorly when my opponent Stephen’s Guyladkin lion Charged to attack Frank Drake in the first round, luckily missing. But then a mental fail cost me dearly when I forgot Frank’s Outwit and the pog Super Sensed his counterattack — and then the OTHER THREE attacks all missed as well. A turn later, Werewolf By Night was KO’d with Frank Drake following fast.

But this is a dice game, and Stephen’s went cold despite his fielding Ancient One and Living Mummy’s probability control. Morbuis beefed up to his top dial as Daimon sniped from a tower to make an unlikely comeback, taking out Spider-Man 2099 even on his mighty final clicks.

SECOND ROUND I faced Chris’s Dracula, Baron Mordo and a Werewolf. Once again, I was knocked to my heels when Mordo immediately Pulse Waved my Werewolf for three clicks. But that opened the Baron to counterattack and, more importantly, Frank Drake’s mega-Outwit against mysticals and monsters. TTPC saved Morbius from a crippling crit hit and again my opponent’s dice went silent. But the biggest turning point was when he forgot to use Dracula’s “Mistform” SP. HUGE error, that, and it gave me the victory when I did not miss my followup attack.

FINAL ROUND was against Serina, fielding two Dr. Stranges (each granting a different team ability to his pals) Kaine, Prodigy and a Zuvembie (with a 2nd one on her sideline). My less-experienced opponent overextended Prodigy with a TK Charge for yet ANOTHER first-strike on my team that fortunately missed. But from there it was a slog through taking Mystics damage (balanced by Steal Energy) and trying to keep the Stranges from coming into play. Eventually I wore the team down to outlast her for the win.

3-0, and the winner of the event! That almost never happens. It was a nice consolation for failing at my USUAL consolation “prize” in sealed events of pulling and playing brand-new (to me) figures.