Playing the Comics: Amazing Spider-Man: Additional Team Abilities

I haven't done a Playing the Comics article in a while, and with a whole new mess of ATAs out, and with Amazing Spider-Man having so may Theme Teams that I like, I figured that I'd try and build a team for each ATA.

The first team, The Defenders, was a fun team to build because it even uses some of the new figures from Fear Itself, being that this is the team of Defenders that spun out of Fear Itself.

Defenders

 80 FI007 Iron Fist

155 FI020 Red She-Hulk

 90 ASM005 Dr. Strange

150 SI045 Namor

100 FFGGA002R Silver Surfer

 20 Defenders X5

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595 Total

The next team up is the Heroes for Hire. This is the team of Heroes that spun out of Civil War, because that's one of my favorite configurations of the team, and one of the easier ones to build.

Heroes for Hire

140 ASM044 Colleen Wing and Misty Knight

 52 WS026 Black Cat

 51 SI027 Tarantula

 58 AV012 Shang-Chi

 56 AW006 Paladin

 40 Heroes for Hire x5

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397 Total

The next team is one that I put together for another article of theme teams based around Johnny Blaze. But now, with an ATA available, I'm revisiting the Legion of Monsters. Besides, how annoying is it that Satanna is pictured on the card, but doesn't have the keyword. Annoying!

Legion of Monsters

 81 ASM015 Werewolf By Night

133 ASM028 Morbius

200 ASM033 Man-Thing

145 ASM046 Ghost Rider

 20 Legion of Monster x4

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579 Total

So far WizKids has released 4 of the main 5 characters from Maximum Carnage, but only 2 of the 4 have the Maximum Carnage keyword (since it was first granted in Amazing Spider-Man). However, they all 4 have the Monster keyword. The other downside here is that once you have the right versions of the character on the team, there's no room for the ATA.

Maximum Carnage

 85 ASM029 Demogoblin

 65 ASM038R Carrion

153 WS018 Carnage *

 93 WS062 Doppelganger *

-----------------------------------

396 Total

Revisiting another Johnny Blaze team, the next up is the Midnight Sons. Currently none of the Darkhold Redeemers (nor do I expect we'll see them EVER). They still don't hit as close as I would like to a round point total, but 20 points aren't that hard to fill in this day and age.

Midnight Sons

 85 ASM004 Blade

 50 ASM007 Johnny Blaze

 55 ASM013A Frank Drake

107 ASM013B Hannibal King

133 ASM028 Morbius

125 IH037 Ghost Rider

 24 Midnight Sons x6

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579 Total

The next team lives up to the name, because it's OFFENSIVE to try to build a theme team with them, much less one that uses the ATA. This team comes out to 603 points if you play every character at their lowest point total, so they're never going to be a theme team (with all 4 members). And even adding the Collector to the team (with or without the Gem) doesn't get them to anything nicer. That said, here's the team I built

Offenders

151 ASM043 Baron Mordo

178 IH028 Red Hulk

134 IH033 Tiger Shark

265 ASM045 Terrax

 16 Offenders x4

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744 Total

Next up is the Original Sinister Six. Pretty straight forward there.

Original Sinister Six

 61 ASM019 Vulture

 82 ASM021 Electro

 70 ASM026 Mysterio

 15 ASM026B Mysterio

 15 ASM026B Mysterio

 95 ASM031A Kraven the Hunter

121 WS054 Doctor Octopus

101 WS055 Sandman

 24 Original Sinister Six x8

-----------------------------------

584 Total

The Sinister Six is followed by their most ambitions iteration, the Sinister Twelve. Currently, HeroClix is still missing any version of Hammerhead, and the Tombstone that we have does not have the keyword. Hopefully where ever you play, they'll give you a pass on that WizKids oversight, and they'll let you run this as a Theme Team.

Sinister Twelve

 65 ASM002 Shocker

 61 ASM019 Vulture

 88 ASM030 Lizard

 72 ASM205 Electro

117 M10A018 Green Goblin

 87 WS009 Venom

 66 WS019 Chameleon

 62 WS037 Scorpion

101 WS055 Sandman

 58 SI003 Tombstone *

 43 SN010 Hydro Man

 34 IC041 Boomerang

 44 Sinister Twelve x11

-----------------------------------

898 Total

Last but not least, we have the Spider-Man Family. Now since this team really only originated in Amazing Spider-Man, this is probably the least "themey" of all the Theme Teams here, but here it is anyway.

Spider-Man Family

 77 ASM018 Scarlet Spider

 41 ASM027 Spider-Girl

 24 ASM048 Madame Web

 75 ASM201 Spider-Man

 85 ASM202 Cloak

 65 ASM203 Dagger

 32 Spider-Man Family x6 (2*10+4*3)

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399 Total

That's all I have for today. With luck, I'll get a chance to do a similar article for the Batman/Teen Titans run of Additional Team Abilities. If you have a team you've built with any of these ATAs, feel free to share.

Product Placement: Dice Rings

It's been a while since I've done a peripheral product review, and I've had this one in the back of my mind for weeks, but I was hoping to at least have all of my correct product in hand before I did so. Unfortunately, it looks like I may never see my correctly completed order.

Dice rings started life as a Kickstarter, started by Aaron Laniewicz. At the projects inception it seemed like a neat little inventive product that solved the issue some players have of rolling there dice off of the table. Occasionally having 'wild dice' syndrome myself, I thought it'd be a neat product to fund, and get myself a Blue 2r6 for use playing HeroClix. Somehow during the Kickstarter, I had a miscommunication with my wife and did not originally order her a ring. However, after the Kickstarter closed, CritSuccess did allow backers a means to adjust their order to get additional rings. Since that was in place I took advantage of it, and ordered my wife a Rose 1r6pip.

Fast forward a few months, and 2 delays. Once, if I remember correctly, because the product was late getting to them, and once because they had shipping software issues (all of this is covered in their Kickstarter updates), they began to ship their products. Presumably, when a product ships, it forwards a shipping receipt to the person that should be receiving the order. However, in the companies infinite wisdom (or lack there of), they shipped the orders out without any form of delivery confirmation. A rookie mistake in my opinion.

As my luck would have it, my original order never appeared at my door, and it took me WEEKS to get them to agree to resend the order, with no small amount of interference from Aaron. It seems that they must have been having a lot of shipping issues, since they also addressed this publicly through their Kickstarter as well. After a fairly threatening email on my part, they did send the next order by Priority mail, thanks to Jesse. That order arrived in a timely fashion, but my wife's 1r6pip ring (which was listed correctly on the original order that never showed up) was incorrect on the follow-up order, and she got a 2d6pip instead, which, because of the 1/2 size differential in the multi-r rings, does not even come close to fitting her finger.

Now I've spent another week and a half dealing with Aaron again, and he says that he reshipped the corrected ring, but I never received a shipping verification for this order, so I'm pretty much assuming that not only has it not been sent, but unless I can get in contact with Jesse, I'm going to assume that it will not be corrected.

All that being said, I do like the ring that I did receive. It's a neat piece of jewelry, and it functions as advertised. I have used it in at least one HeroClix match and it was consistently random, although, I learned quickly NOT to try to spin just one ring for a roll that would only require one die. It's much easier to declare right or left, and just spin both.

It's really unfortunate that although the product is interesting, and I would normally recommend it, I cannot in good conscience recommend ordering from this fledgling company that really hasn't figured out the correct way to conduct shipping and customer service. They have a lot to figure out. That said, if you run into them at a con, first ask them if they're ever going to send me the correction to my order, then check out their product. If you can buy it, and walk away with it, you don't have to worry about them being unable to correctly ship the product. However, if you're ordering remotely, do so at your own risk.