Now we really start bottom-feeding.

 #4

I mentioned her last summer in my rant about the overpoweredness of The Dark Knight Rises set, but my complaint was centered solely on the character inaccuracy of this dial. It’s really not very good.

(Kinda like Katie Holmes as an actress.)

• She’s not getting much use out of Leadership at her 40-point price.
• Incap’s not too useful at 0 range.
• She loses Stealth to be a medic…a subpar one with 8 AV.

Sure, she makes adjacent pals immune to Poison and Incap. But only one of those powers is scary. Meanwhile, she’s got to push and push (ignoring her Willpower) to get to a decent AV to use Support. So just do yourself a favor and pretend this Rachel is the one that gets blown up in the 2nd movie.

Along the lines of civilians-in-a-superhero-game…

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This was almost a double feature starring BOTH versions of Lucius Fox: this one and the Dark Knight Rises version. But the latter is properly costed well under 40 points for his civilian bystander weakness and can be useful for his special Leadership (which works way better than stupid Katie Holmes’) and Perplex and then Outwit.

The non-Morgan Freeman’d Fox also brings Perplex and Outwit to the table. But he’s paying 42 points for it and his power to not get shot at first thing in a turn. So opponents will move an inconsequential piece first and THEN blast him.

I suppose one could use him to tie up a dangerous opponent. But with his crap stats, you’ll just be surrendering his support powers and his 42 points and make him an obituary.

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 #2 

MADAME XANADU (New 52 Justice League 018)

She’s a Mystic with Perplex, and one of the cheapest. This makes her better than a lot of previous years’ Worst lists. Yet she here tops 2012’s crap heap. Why?

• No defense other than Mystics.
• In fact, she’s completely soft and vulnerable to attack.
• A largely wasted 10 AV. Being so soft and having 0 range work at cross purposes. In order to fight, she must be in close. No savvy opponent will let her in close, and she won’t live long in melee.
• And then there’s her SP, which only removes tokens off adjacent characters who MISS an attack.
• I repeat for emphasis — it only works when you’re failing attacks.
• Oh, and she’s got to make a power action first. So you’re basically burning an action as a weak contingency if the ally misses. Otherwise, you just totally wasted an action and her ability to use themed team Probability Control (because you’re only going to play her on a Justice League or Mystical keyword team, if ever) to reroll a friend’s attack.

The only reason she isn’t #1 is that the ever-useful Perplex is followed by an impressive run of Regen paired with Prob Control, which can combine to keep her around longer than she should and force the opponent to take more Mystics damage trying to KO her.

But you shouldn’t be paying 62 points for the ability to maybe come back from damage she ought not be taking. The booby prize of the New 52 Rares.

(Literally)

I’m looking at your stat slot window, Madame.

THANOS.

There was a lot of bellyaching about Nightcrawler (Web of Spider-Man) and his ability to kidnap a target to a prearranged killbox far away from its backup. That misbegotten mechanic suddenly made soft, immobile characters and tactics like Metron and the Shield Disruptor top-level stuff. But there were ways to slow the elf down: super turtling in the start zone or rushdown so the killbox can get overwhelmed immediately after its done its worst to Nighty’s victim.

That #$%#$ don’t work when the kidnap tactic works from the STARTING ZONES. On TURN TWO.

Thanos (Galactic Guardians 049) can do just that, isolating your top two figures some 20 squares away from anyone friendly, giving his killbox IN THE STARTING AREA (no need to actually, y’know, position) easy free shots on them.

And lest you think “Well, he just made it easy to counterattack him,” he can swap your guy’s usually high Attack Value with the usually lower Speed Value.

Meanwhile, the rest of your team is likely at LEAST two rounds from being able to effectively help out.

At least that’s a chase piece, and thus not all over the place. Unfortunately, the regular Super Rare Thanos (Galactic Guardians 046) is as torrid in his own way, thanks to this trait:

“AVATAR OF DEATH: Other characters can’t be healed.”

Steal Energy, X-Men/Titans TA, Regeneration, Support…all useless until he’s gone. And with his sky-high stats, self-healing and powers, that’s a tall order for a lot of teams.

Neither of these match up to Thanos the Colossal (Infinity Gauntlet 008), regardless of which “Issue” you’re “reading”:

1. Multi-Attack and a choice from  THREE 150-point figs to add to your force AFTER seeing what the other side’s packing AND deal half the team free damage;
2. Double-Incap a foe and dump ‘im in their start zone;
3. Kill the other team’s keywords and, if in base, team abilities…and oh yeah, a free 100-point brick/Perplexer in Terraxia;
4. Nerf a successful attacker’s stats -1;
5. Penetrating damage is just regular damage.

I mean, sheesh. How torrid can you get?

As it turns out, even more so. Stay tuned.

The countdown continues.

Resources were a new mechanic for 2012. Neither quite a feat, nor quite a special object, the Infinity Gauntlet combined the randomness of relics with the steady boost provided by the best feats.

Trouble was, it was better than ANY feat or relic — so much so that it became pointless to try winning a top-level tournament without paying the 40 points for the fully loaded version.

Here’s why:

• Anti-Outwit. Who needs Fortitude? Ignore the black damage power.
• Willpower. Any character that was hobbled by the fact that it couldn’t afford to push…well, it wasn’t hobbled anymore. Or balanced.
• Random extra powers. With a full complement of Infinity Gems, a Gauntlet wearer could sport a short ton of powers (Steal Energy, TK, Mind Control, PC, Super Senses, Phasing, Carry, Incap, etc.). Not something to count on, but certainly not chopped liver.
• Special Powers 1, 2 and 3. Within just a few rounds, suddenly that fig that you already had difficulty dealing with because your Outwit was useless and it kept acting 2 of 3 turns…well it just got more difficult to deal with. With SP #1, that random extra Gem power need not be so random anymore. Then SP #2 not only adds +1 to all stats — ALL! — but it also allows the player to pick any one power from the PAC.
• Worse still, Both SPs do not require the dial to turn like the rest of the Gauntlet does, allowing the wearer to just. Sit. There!
• Worst of all? SP #3 ups the ante to +2 to all combat values on top of the pick-a-power ability, and the wearer can use ANY of the attached Gems.
• For the rest of the game.

A more balanced — and comic accurate — approach to these Special Powers would be for them to require the Gauntlet dial to turn with every action. Why? Because no one EVER holds the Gauntlet long. The less-than-cosmic can’t handle the power (see Nebula) and the powerful are either too wise to do so (Adam Warlock) or bore quickly of omnipotence (Thanos).

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Barely any better is the Utility Belt. Much more random than the Gauntlet, it would seem to be a much more balanced piece.

It’s not.

It grants massive stat boosts about every other roll. Its attachable items grant some neat abilities for absolutely minimal cost (1 point).

And with just three of them, HEY! You get Willpower…for just 11 points.

Not done. You can get reloads of items, or take a double action to switch to your favorite click on the Belt (like the one with +2 stats and OUTWIT, maybe?) or add brand-NEW items, get free uses of existing ones or even drop one to make it a Relic.

One more thing: You can add a costume granting some MORE powers essentially for free (so far, we’ve got the Suit of Sorrows, which gives Super Strength and Battle Fury).

All this for a dirt-stinkin’-cheap 14 points, max. Its capabilities aren’t even fully known yet and it’s already warping the game.

Resources are torrid. But you need ’em if you’re going to face the top 3, coming next week.

One thing you always used to be sure of: If you saw a themed team of a certain type, you knew the other player was likely just a little more limited in what she could bring to the table than if she’d built a truly maxed-out team.

Used to.

But in 2012, even that was no longer any guarantee, thanks to the #5 most torrid thing in HeroClix this past year:

Keyword “wild cards”

It started with Morgan Le Fay (Chaos War 049) and her trait that allowed her to team up with Avengers — already one the most-populated and potent of the named keywords — and add her considerable talents without breaking the theme. This unprecented bending of the theme rules was mitigated by the fact that she didn’t actually add to the themed team bonuses; she can’t add to the map roll or use the theme Probability Control. But her being a Mystic and bringing her own PC made up for that little balancing act.

Then came Nightwing (DC 10th Anniversary 007), who not only doesn’t break theme teams, but actually gains the needed keyword in addition. So if you need a keyword to activate an effect, just make sure to assign it to the former boy wonder and let fly with the game abuse.

WizKids really should have at least, in the interest of character accuracy, limited the effect to DC keywords only. It’s like they learned nothing from the original Thunderbolts feat.

They still weren’t done. Gandalf (The Hobbit 002) also has the same trait. While the trait makes a bit more sense on him (after all, a wizard comes and goes precisely when he means to!) it should have been limited to generic keywords. Gandalf brings more general utility to teams than Nightwing thanks to first-click TK and Perplex. Thankfully, he’s not Modern Age-legal.

The three chase Skrulls represented a last bit of keyword “wild card” action. While they neither get nor grant keywords, they instead grant team abilities to all their fellows with the Skrulls keyword in addition to their inborn Skrulls TA. To that end, chase Spider-Man (Marvel 10th Anniversary 024) is the last link of the wild card keywords. Joined by the two previous pieces, he can turn fellow Skrulls into actual wild cards so they can copy Batman and Mystic TAs.

Torrid. Just torrid.