Avenger Movie teams

So much to my surprise, once I got past the shenanigans with the split set (only having figures like Coulson and Heimdall in the Mass Market box) I've found myself really enjoying the heck out of the Avengers Movie set. As such, and in honor of both the upcoming movie and the Free Comic Book Day Thor, I present some fun teams to run at various point totals. And of course, what else to start out with than the Avengers Initiative:

200 AVM004 Thor
160 AVM006 Iron Man
 50 AVM007 Black Widow
255 AVM202 Hulk
 70 AVM203 Nick Fury
100 AVM204 Captain America
 65 AVM208 Hawkeye
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900 Total

I actually got to play a portion of this team as a bye team at my event last night (Hulk, Nick, and Hawkeye at 390 points). Hulk is a beast, and is brutal enough on that first click that I held on to that 19 Defense like it was my job. Hawkeye got messed up in the first game I ran him in, but in the second game he got up in a Skrull's face invoking his Trait, and did much better in close (which was admittedly a little weird with Hawkeye). One thing to note about Nick, he only scores a power (Invulnerability or Toughness) if he's based with a friend that's also using one of those powers. I made the mistake of having him stuck to the Hulk, not realizing he was really getting no benefit from that matching.

Next up is S.H.I.E.L.D. Now I know some will complain that this team isn't populated with generics, but ultimately, I like playing the named characters even with a group like S.H.I.E.L.D. That said, I did skip over Howard for this build, and obviously it could be filled out to include more generic pieces. That said, this is a neat 300 point team that highlights the Named S.H.I.E.L.D. contingent.

 19 AVM003 Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 75 AVM009 Hawkeye
 51 AVM011 Maria Hill
 70 AVM035 Nick Fury
 35 AVM036 Black Widow
 50 AVM206 Agent Coulson
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300 Total

Next up is the Asgardians, and I can't express how annoyed I was that the only 140 Thor is The Mighty Avenger in the starter set, so if you're like me and don't want to purchase said starter set, here's the Asgardian team from Thor for you. Heimdall and Odin join in to bring it up to 895.

 80 AVM012 Sif
 67 AVM023 Volstagg
 66 AVM024 Hogun
 67 AVM025 Fandral
 80 AVM029 Loki
135 AVM210 Heimdall
250 AVM042 Odin
150 AVM200R Thor OR AVM201 Thor
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895 Total

If you want to run the "villians" of Asgard, here's a 600 point team with a couple of options. It's really too bad that Destroyer and Uncommon Loki come out to 475. I hate leaving that many points open.

250 AVM022 Destroyer
 80 AVM029 Loki OR AVM005 Frost Giant
180 AVM030 Laufey
 90 AVM031 Frost Giant Champion
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600 Total

Next up I have a fun little versus match for you. The Howling Commandos versus HYDRA at 200 points each. The only down-side to the HYDRA team is that it requires you to score 2 HYDRA team packs, but it sure looks like fun!

 50 AVM017 Bucky Barnes
 90 AVM018 Captain America
 60 AVM026 Dum Dum Dugan
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200 Total

 15 AVM002 HYDRA Soldier
 85 AVM016 Red Skull
 30 AVM039 HYDRA Footsoldier
 35 AVM040 HYDRA Technician
 35 AVM040 HYDRA Technician
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200 Total

As you can see, I went strictly with Avengers Movie figures for these teams and tried to get close to round point total. There are plenty of other teams (especially with the Avengers Initiative) but I thought these looked like the most fun. Have a team you liked, feel free to share it in the comments.

Annihilation: United Front

Being the day after Release Day for Galactic Guardians, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have HeroClix on the brain! And with this set highlighting some of my favorite characters from one of my favorite storylines I thought it'd be a great time to do an article on Annihilation: United Front Theme Teams. First note, that when I say theme teams, these are not Keyword Theme Teams, unless your venue uses Al's Clix Cave list of House Ruled keywords, in which case all these characters do have the United Front keyword that WizKids has yet to adopt (however, seeing as this would have been the set to adopt it for, I doubt that's going to happen).

Also note that this article will contain some spoilers about the Annihilation storyline, so if you haven't read it yet and are planning to read it, you may not want to read this article just yet. The first 2 teams that I'll present come from the pages of Annihilation: Nova, and both look like fun low-point options. The first is simply a team of Annihilators Fast Forces Nova and Counter Top Display Drax which comes out to a nice round 200 points, and reflects both fairly well from the point that they team up in the book. The second team from that book is technically just a modification of the first: Nova Prime, CTD Drax, and Annihilation Fast Forces Quasar for 400 points.

Moving on to Annihilation proper, a fun team that doesn't come out to a nice round number are the Ex-Heralds that fought together against the Annihilation Wave in the first issue of that book: Red Shift, Firelord  and Stardust (both from Avengers) for 453 points. The planet-side team from the same book was made up of Nova Prime, CTD Drax, Star-Lord and Ronan the Accuser (both from Hammer of Thor), Gamora (from Secret Invasion), Kree Warrior x2 and a Kree Captain (from Supernova) for 589 points. Combine the 2 by dropping the 2 Warriors and it comes out to 998 points.

Later in the series, Annihilus is threatening to destroy the planet that our heroes are on, and while most evacuate, Drax, Red Shift, and Stardust stay behind to help insure the escape of the rest. By building with the regular set Drax instead of the CTD one, this team comes out to 398 points.

The team that released Galactus from Annihilus' ship can be built with regular Drax, Silver Surfer, and Moondragon (from Hammer of Thor) for 491 points. While the team that freed Hala can be built with the unlikely duo of Fast Forces Ronan the Accuser and Super-Skrull (because sadly we still lack a Praxagora) for 293 points. And finally, the team that finally beat Annihilus can be built using Nova Prime with Star-Lord and Phyla-Vell (both from Hammer of Thor) for 378 points.

Personally there are a lot of fun teams there that I'm looking forward to trying out and there are a nice range of point totals as well. I'm hoping to do more articles like this in the near future, so feedback is surely welcome. I would have liked to display the teams more clearly, but the system I was using to enter these wasn't cooperating all that well, I'll try to have better formatting in future. Whatever you chose to play, I hope everyone had a Happy Release Day!

What If? WizKids actually made themey LEs from Galactic Guardians

Now let me start by saying I actually commend WizKids on trying something cool and different with the LEs for a HeroClix set. I actually really do like the figures they came up with. However, since I’m a cosmic Marvel fan I feel like I’m getting robbed when it comes to “my set.”

The objects are darn near perfect. I love that I can deputize Steve Rogers on my Secret Avengers team, or beef up my New Warriors team so as not to waste Nova’s Worldmind trait. And I can think of any number of themey ways to use the Cosmic Cube, not the least of which is to have Starlord running around with it.

That said, I’m a little bummed that after getting the New Fantastic Four in the last set (and having 2 of them be Super Rares), and having the regular Fantastic Four as Super Rares in Captain America and this set, we’re getting the Newer Fantastic Four (with 3 out of 4 of the same members as the New Fantastic Four) as LEs here and they’re from a What If book. Sure it’s cool that we’re at least getting “alternate” versions of these characters, but they’re still not radically different from the other versions of these characters that we already have. Soon I’ll be able to field the Rainbow Wolverine Corps and have most of them be modern figures.

So what LEs would I have done instead? There are four characters in the set that spent time as Phalanx Select in Annihilation: Conquest, which would have tied more directly to themes in the set. Granted Gamora is in the wrong costume, but that hasn’t stopped WizKids from attempting radical paint jobs in the past. And how cool would it have been to get Nova, Drax, Gamora, and Blastaar in alternative designs that could be fielded with HoT Phalanx Soldiers and Ultron?

If you lump in the Fast Force pack, two other options arise, Ronan as another Phalanx Select or a Rick Rider Quasar (who happens to be pictured on the back of the Quasar card anyway), although I wouldn’t have chosen that one and a Phalanx Select Nova.

Point being, giving the “regulars” the LE spots in this set, you lose out on the chance to better highlight the marquee characters of this set. As someone who judges at a venue, I try to theme my tournaments both around the storylines being spotlighted and the LEs being given as prizes. However, this set of LEs makes that difficult because of the disconnect between set theme and the LEs themselves. In the past where I’d have Bruce Banner as a prize for a Fall of the Hulks tournament or even Daredevil as a prize for a Shadowland tournament, now I’m going to have tournaments for Annihilation, War of Kings, and Thanos Imperative that really have nothing to do with the LEs being given out.