That being said, what I enjoy most is when they come up with powers that are completely new, because that tends to be something very special! The last time we got a new set of Powers was Unleashed with the lime green powers of Earthbound, Quake, Combat Reflexes and Exploit Weakness.
Now we have a new PAC and coming soon we'll have shiny new figures with pink powers making appearances on dials everywhere (judging by the prevalence of Improved Movement in Batman) in the very near future. However, before I get into that, let me throw out this disclaimer, I am not representing WizKids in any way with this (or future articles) that I decide to write about the new PAC, just like the rest of you, I'll be reading the official articles as they go up over on heroclix.com. With that out of the way, here are my initial reactions on our new Pink Powers!
The pink Movement Power is Sidestep. Personally, I love this power. My guess is that this power is a natural evaluation of the Lunge feat that we saw all the way back in Arkham Asylum and which saw a re-purposing on Wolverine in the Incredible Hulk set. The automatic breakaway element has been removed, but with the advent of Improved Movement, that can always be added onto a character through a Trait or Special Power in addition to Sidestep to grant the same effect as Lunge. It's a free move, which is awesomely powerful, but the character is also limited to a movement of 2 which doesn't make it game breaking, but it could be just the bump your character need to get out of opposing base combat to heal or find Stealth cover. Can you tell I'm excited for the possibilities with this one?
Next up, on Attack is Precision Strike. This is another power that has fantastic potential. I don't know about you, but I know in my games, outside of damage reducers my top 3 powers to Outwit are Super Senses, Mastermind, and Shape Change. Now all I need to do is pack a character on my team that has Precision Strike and Battle Fury, and I can get around all 3 powers without needing an Outwit. Who wouldn't be excited about that? The other cool thing about Precision Strike is that it stacks with your other Powers, so if you have Psychic Blast or Exploit Weakness then not only can they not Evade and/or Transfer and they're also taking penetrating damage. For big gun villains like Dr. Doom who can either reduce and/or transfer damage, you can take all their options away in one attack. That's pretty brutal.
After that, we come to Invincible in the Defense slot. Right up front with Invincible, I'm compelled to point out that unlike Damage Reducer powers, Invincible is Ignoring damage. It does not reduce it. What does that mean, well first off, it means that Penetrating Damage does not beat it, nor does Precision Strike. Kind of interesting how one new power can counter the other. One other thing to remember with this power is that it's the thing doing the rounding, so it's going to round up when Ignoring damage. That means if a figure is only doing 1, like with Poison, Invincible characters would get to completely ignore it.
Lastly, we have the least exciting but the most obvious selection for a power, Empower. This is basically the close combat sibling of Enhancement. Now you can power up your close combat buddies just like Dr. Strange would boost damage to a fellow ranged attacker. I'm sure I'll gladly use this power when it's available, but unlike some of the others I'm not sure that I will seek this one out. Not because it's bad per say, but it's almost an unconscious ability for me. Then again, it'll also depend on where we see it pop up.
Thanks for reading. In the next go around I'll tackle some of the powers that have been updated, and my take on the good or bad with those.
