Top 10 Never-Before-Clixed Characters of 2012

It seems like a popular thing to do at the beginning of a new year is to do Top 10 Lists of things from the prior year. I decided I'd join in this year by picking my Top 10 Never-Before-Clixed Characters from 2012. To do this, I used what some might consider an odd set of criteria, so let me start by explaining what I did.

First, to be considered, the character had to have never been officially created in a 3D figure with a dial. This is important, because there are characters that have come close, either by being done "unofficially" or by being done as a Bystander Token. Secondly, with so many releases coming out this past year, I did try to restrict myself to 1 figure per release. In some cases this was difficult, but by choosing my Top 1 from each release, it allowed me to cover a lot of ground, even though I still had to overlook some releases (sorry Assassin's Creed and Hobbit), which I haven't bought into. That being said, I do own at least one copy of each figure that shows up on my list, and in MOST cases have actually played them in at least 1 game. Admittedly, some of the figures that made the list, I like a lot on paper, but haven't had the chance to play. That said, let's get to the list!

#10: Stan Lee: Stan the Man comes in at #10 largely because he's only a promotional figure, so technically he can't be played in regular HeroClix games. That said, they did such an excellent job making him a fun piece to include on your teams without making him completely outrageous, like Joss Whedon's click. The sculpt is a great likeness for Stan, and the powers really give the feel of him being the creator running around in his own book. Definitely a neat figure worth acquiring if you can get your hands on one.

#9 Egghead: A long-overdue inclusion for the Masters of Evil, Egghead comes in at #9. Also helping to fill the roster of the Intelligencia, this mad scientist brings a lot of nasty little tricks to your team for his 50 point price tag. Great for taking on most versions of his favorite foe, Hank Pym, he's also good at taking on any non-normal-sized adversary. His biggest issues are his low defense versus close combatants and his lack of Mastermind, as well as a short range. When Egghead gets hit, he's going to feel it. That said, he is more of a leading from the rear sort of  figure anyway.

#8 In-Betweener: Some might argue that I've placed In-Betweener too low on the list, but truthfully, HeroClix is more fun as a team game. I'd much rather field a well-rounded team that a one-man-army, or even a tent poll team. That said, I'm a fan of all things Marvel Cosmic, so I was big into the Infinity Gauntlet events. Although I have yet to field a fully-loaded Gauntlet on anyone. It's just not my style. That said, the In-Betweener is a special kind of crazy click. His ability to dish out and take damage is ridiculous, once you factor in the Soul Gem, and really, why would you be fielding him without it?

#7 El Gaucho: I'll be honest, I haven't read any of the Batman Inc. stories, but I have to admit, I like the concept of having Batmen in other countries, and a luchador Batman is just too awesome to ignore! Admittedly, he's probably not even the best of the Batman Inc. pieces, but this piece speaks to me on a few levels. My favorite part about this figure is his "surprise" range attack via his Throwing Knives. Of course, Vet IC Black Panther was always my favorite out of that REV set as well, because people always forgot he had range too, and his is printed right on the dial.

#6 Spock: As much as a I hate the idea of out-of-scale Star Trek ships in my HeroClix games, I LOVE having in-scale Star Trek crew members! This was probably the hardest character on the list to choose because I love every character in the Away Team pack so much. Ultimately I picked Spock because his 2 dials are likely the two hardest to choose between. Both provide a lot of great options. Ultimately, you're going to choose the best one to complement the team. That being said, I think I like the "A" dial just a tad more for the inclusion of the Damage Special Power.

#5 Lucius Fox: The HeroClix representation of Morgan Freeman from Christopher Nolan's Batman films comes in at #5, both for being a clix representation of Morgan Freeman, and for being one darn useful click on a Gotham City team. I'm a huge fan of the movies, as one could note from my "Playing the Movie" series on those films, but he ability to use Leadership on figures far more costly then himself is one very useful power to have. Plus he's a low enough point cost that if he gets KOd, you're really not out all that much.

#4 Harvey Bullock: As a huge fan of the old Batman: The Animated Series, I couldn't help but get excited when I found out that we were finally getting Harvey Bullock in a 3D click. I look forward to fielding him on a team with Commissioner Gordon, Renee Montoya, and a Gotham City Detective (since that is Crispus Allen before he turned into the Spectre. Harvey brings some fun options to your GCPD team as well. I love both of Harvey's Special Powers, and can't wait to put them to good use.

#3 Agent Coulson: The glue that held together almost all of Avengers Phase 1, Agent Coulson is a great support piece for the points. As an indispensable member of S.H.I.E.L.D. now with representations both in cartoons and the comics, he's good at bedeviling your opponent with his hard to eliminate Perplex, and he packs a nice kick via Psychic Blast end dial. I have plans to mod mine so that he's holding the Destroyer gun, but have yet to get around to doing it. He'd have ranked higher if he wasn't a Target Exclusive piece.

#2 Cosmo: As I said earlier in the article, I'm a huge Marvel Cosmic fan, and being both a fan of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, and the Annihilators (all books Cosmo made frequent appearances in) it wouldn't be right for me to leave him off of this list. Plus he is one darn good support piece. I was lucky enough to pull him with Silver Surfer and Nebula in my first Galactic Guardians sealed event. Those three did quite well together. Plus, I think he's the only Annihilator to come in under 100 points (at least until we can get an Ikon anyway).

#1 John Constantine: Now, I'm not a big fan of the DC New 52, but there is 1 book out of all of them that I was particularly excited about, Justice League Dark. I loved the mix of characters that they threw together as the debut team for the book, and I love even more that we got the full roster in the Justice League: New 52 set. Their inclusion and rarity is the exclusive reason why I bought a CTD of that set. And let's face it, any figure that can shut down Probability Control on everyone else, is a pretty strong figure to have on your team, unless you have a lot of Prob (like Justice League Dark). And his sculpt is perfect!

If I get the opportunity in the near future, I'll try to do a list of my Top 10 favorite remakes and/or variants as well. Keep an eye out for it, and if your so inclined feel free to leave a list of your Top 10 favorite Never-Before-Clixed Characters in the comments.

Clix Critique: Streets of Gotham

Streets of Gotham hit the shelves yesterday, and like any good Clix addict, I was at my local shop picking up my case of the product. Over all, I'm pleased with my purchase. However, there are a few irksome issues that did arise. That being said, I'll start with those, so that I can finish on a good note.

First off, for those that aren't "in the know," Streets of Gotham is a nontraditional Countertop Display release. Like the Avengers Movie set, these displays come with 24 single-figure boosters and 4 team packs, packaged with 6 single-figure boosters and 1 team pack per mini-brick. All in all, the distribution within a single CTD is pretty good. You'll probably see about 3 dups, which is the norm in this type of release. Over the entirety of the case, you should get a full set of Commons, and it's possible to get a full set of Uncommons, but it's likely that you'll need to trade for 1. In my case, I was missing 2, which I think is excessive for the number of Uncommons that you're receiving over the entirety of the case. You'll likely pull 7 Rares over the Displays with 1 of those being a dup. In my case, I had 2 OMACs. With the team packs, you could conceivable pull all 8, although you're more likely going to pull 7 with 1 duplicate. In my case, I pulled the Outlaws twice and missed out on the Trinity, which is fine because my daughter wanted Starfire, and I have PLENTY of versions of the Trinity. If I don't get those, I'm not loosing any sleep over it. All in all, with the exception of missing 2 Uncommons, I thought the collation within my case was reasonable.

That said, where it became unreasonable is that the collation over the entirety of what was pulled at my store wasn't good. One of my closest clix friends pulled a mirror case to mine, done to the fact that we each had a broken Crux in our second Outlaws pack. The only difference we had was the he got 2 Questions instead of 1 Question and 1 Renee, which really isn't that different, since it's the same dial and 80% the same sculpt. The other problem was that only 2 people pulled Guy and Ice at all, and EVERYONE pulled at least one OMAC, and most pulled 2. What does that translate into? No one to trade with locally. That's a huge problem! It's one thing to have density within a case, but to have that same density across a number of cases is a problem. I don't mind having to trade, but you have to have people that get different stuff from you to be able to trade with. With that complaint out of the way, let's talk about what's good in the set.

First of all, the Team Packs all ended up being pretty fun, and outside of the HORRIBLE Batman sculpt, everything in the Team Packs look pretty fun. I got beat up on pretty bad by the Team Pack Birds of Prey, teamed with Blue Beetle, in a sealed last night. Seems like everyone played at least one guy from their Team Pack. I know I ran with Starfire from the Outlaws pack, and my daughter had Void from the WildC.A.T.s pack. Of course, she also had Scarecrow and Bane-Batman, with a Black Glove Demon. It was a pretty ugly team.

The paint on the figures is a bit blobby this time around, but for the most part the sculpts are passable. The only one that really looks truly terrible is the Batman sculpt that's used in both the regular set and Team Pack. There's something cartoony (in a bad way) about him.

One of the other things that I really like about this set is the fact that it complements the Batman set so well. There are a number of callbacks to that set. Blue Beetle is the perfect Bug pilot. Harvey can be Horrible Transformed into Two-Face. The Birds of Prey Team Pack round out the New 52 Birds of Prey to an even 400 points when teamed with Poison Ivy and Batgirl #025 from the Batman set. I'm sure that there are more that I'm missing, but those are some pretty strong examples in my book.

If you've bought your Streets of Gotham, and would like to chime in you're opinion as well, feel free to do so in the comments. If I get a chance to do another article over the Christmas holiday, I hope to come back with a "Playing the Comics" article focused on the various Birds of Prey configurations available thanks to the new set! My daughter and I are very excited to try some of those out.

Product Placement: hair10's ID Rings

One of the best peripheral items to get for HeroClix, if you play in tournaments with any regularity, has always been a product called ID-Rings. The old versions were colored rubber rings that wrapped around the outside of either cup or inverted Clix base. Most players used these rings to differentiate there figures from there of their opponents, although some used them to signify which figures had certain Feats, but when that mechanic was in fashion as well.

The old rings always had the problem that they didn't work on figures with larger bases, but since those at the time were mostly rare in appearance anyway, that really wasn't such a big deal. Fast forward to the age of the Oreo Base and all of a sudden the old ID Rings really don't work on any new figures at all.

That's where hair10 stepped in with a fantastic idea, and a desire to own a couple of 3D printers. Thanks to this idea, and the existence of a little site known as Kickstarter, Karl had the idea, and the means to see it come to fruition, and flourish it did! The Kickstarter did so well in fact that there were a number of Stretch Goals introduced and reached.

I'm proud to say that I was a backer of this project (at the $25 level), and to my excitement, when I got home last night, my box of Rings were sitting on my kitchen table waiting for me! So what did my investment earn me? I received 15 Oreo Base Rings, 2 Peanut Base Rings, 1 Single-Dial Colossal Ring, and 1 Light and 1 Heavy 3D (sort of) Standard Objects.

All the items are a sturdy plastic, and the rings fit very nicely on the bases they were designed for. They slide on and off easily, but fit snuggly enough, that I'm not afraid I'm going to loose them. They're also designed to be seen, but still fit fairly well inside the squares on the map. After all these are supposed to be visual aids, not obstructions. And although they aren't a perfect match for my old ID Rings, the color is close enough considering the difference in material and design.

I think my only complaint (if you can even call it that) is that I'd like to have at least one more of each of the larger base sizes. After all I need 3 Peanut Base Rings to run the Horsemen of Apocalypse, and who wants to run only 1 Frost Giant and/or Sentinel? Hopefully once Karl gets through all of his Kickstarter rewards, there will be a chance to order these items from him in a more a la carte fashion.

Mechanically Inclined: Hank Pym

As promised in my previous Mechanically Inclined article, this article is focusing on the Mechanics utilized by the very inventive, Hank Pym. That said, this article will be slightly different in focus to the last, because it will focus one how best to utilize these mechanics with Chaos War's various Dr. Pyms exclusively.

To begin, we have to look at the Ant-Man and Wasp duo figure. Why start there you ask? Because the Ant-Man and Wasp duo figure is 168 points while the combined cost of Hank and Janet only comes to 157 points. So, if we want to be able to utilize the duo, we need to start there. Now the down side to starting with the duo is that the duo is actually quite good in it's own right, so you may be tempted to stay in that form for the entirety of the game. However, for the sake of argument (and this article) you could give the duo a power action to Split into Hank and Janet at the beginning of the game (a tactic that I've employed to much success).

For the Split, Janet is the easy choice because she only has one version at 77 points. Hank on the other hand gives you up to 5 choices if you're fortunate enough to own the Con Exclusive Giant Man/Ant-Man (which I am). Personally, I either like to start with Hank Pym or the Con Exclusive Ant-Man, although regular set Ant-Man is not sloutch either. Hank gives you up front Outwit and his Tinkerer Supreme ability. However, Ant-Man gives you Stealth and Incapacitate. Fun Fact with Ant-Man: he can use Close Combat Incapacitate (because it does 'no damage') and Morph into another form.

Another thing to remember about Hank is that he can always grant you Outwit if he's in the right form. Hank has Outwit on the odd number clicks, the regular set Ant-Man has Outwit on the even number clicks. Outside of that, the most important thing to remember if you started with the Ant-Man and Wasp duo, you want to keep Hank and Janet next to each other as much as possible. This should be relatively easy, since Janet can carry Hank if they're both tiny, and she can hitch a ride on Hank if he's not.

If one of them gets injured, and you can get them both clear, you can always Merge them back together. This tactic is especially fun if they're based by an opponent that can be Poisoned. Not only that, but they have a fair amount of Exploit Weakness, which can also be surprising for an unsuspecting opponent.

The last two items that I'll touch on with Dr. Pym are his Pym Particle traits. Now if it wasn't fun enough to have Hank pay size-yo-yo during the game, he can also bring an Avenger friend along for the resize ride. Granted they have to be 75 points or less, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with other Avengers in that point range. One very important thing to remember is that this ability only works once per game and only works for as long as you have that version of Hank on the board. Be selective when you invoke this ability and make sure you plan to stay on that version long enough to make the choice worth your while. Otherwise, save it for when you can really use it. One of my favorite uses for Shrink is a Tiny Tigra.

Whatever flavor of Hank is your favorite, one thing is for sure, he's a fantastic Swiss Army Knife of abilities, and his ability to Morph is well applied. I really like every version available depending on the circumstances involved. I hope you enjoyed this installment of Mechanically Inclined. For the next article I think I'll review what I'm going to call the "Wound/Repair" mechanic that appears on Adam Warlock/Magus and Sentry/Void. As always, suggestions are welcome.

Mechanically Inclined: 10th Anniversary: Battlefield Promotion

Some players in the HeroClix community scoff at the deluge of new HeroClix mechanics that seem to appear from set to set. However, any player that has any experience with collectible games knows that new mechanics are the life-blood of keeping the property fresh and vibrant. That said, not every new mechanic is going to become the "new hotness" and not every mechanic is going to play they way that WizKids expects. I plan to use my Mechanically Inclined articles to break down what works and what doesn't, and hopefully give you some tips on how to make it work better.

With that, I turn my eyes to the 10th Anniversary: Battlefield Promotion mechanic. Conceptually, I love this mechanic, even if there are some weird promotions, I think it's a pretty neat idea, and like what WizKids tried to do. However, in trying to make it work, it's really hard to execute. Let me start by setting the stage. As I've mentioned before, my oldest daughter, who's about to turn 6, has started playing HeroClix with me. We don't play with theme rules, and I have yet to introduce Special Object, but we play with darn near everything else.

The other day we were playing a 300 point game, and she had White Queen and Marvel Girl on her team (among others) and I had Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern (Alan Scott) on my team, so we had a lot of promotible figures on the map. We do not play with a timer, so we just go until one team is KO'd. In that time, you would think that at least one figure would successfully promote, right? Wrong!

Over the entirety of the game, the most tokens any one figure earned was 4, if I remember correctly. Alan Scott gained his forth on the final attack of the game that finally KO'd White Queen. After the action resolved, I did actually roll and get the 4 I needed, but the game was already over. In a timed game, I honestly don't know how you'd have the opportunity to take enough actions to make this mechanic work. I had 3 out of 4 figures with Willpower and I still couldn't get one to promote. Granted Batman was one hit KO'd by a Mind Controlled Wonder Woman early on in the game, but Robin and Green Lantern were not hurting for targets, and they hit most of the time.

So, what are my tips for making this mechanic work for you?

1. Do not try to play with more than one or two of these figures on a given team. If you really want to make this mechanic work for you, you need to be able to focus on the character that you're trying to promote.
2. Employ a method to get this character more opportunities to attack. Whether you employ Leadership, play a promotible character that has built in Willpower, or select a more indirect means like using Telekinesis, Edward Nigma, or Aragorn (for his free move ability), use something that can help you get the characters more chances to attack.
3. Insure your ability to hit the target. Sure, the most common way to do this is with Probability Control, but I like Perplex and/or abilities like Hydra/PD to increase the characters overall attack number. The less you need to rely on the dice the better. During a game you also may want to consider not using this character to target the primary threat on the other team as well. If you want to rack up promotion tokens, go for the easier-to-hit high profile target first, if one is available to you.

Ultimately, my best tip here is, if you really want the promoted version of the figure, just leave the points for that figure on your team. However, if you'd rather play the promotible figure anyway, and just want the opportunity to have an extra goal in the game, these characters are a lot of fun, with a fun little bonus if you can pull it off.

I still really like the idea of this mechanic. It may be slightly overbalanced but I'd rather it be overbalanced, then under-balanced, so I'll take it how it is. I just wish characters like Blue Beetle and the Black Lanterns would have had a promotion mechanic more similar to Marvel Girl, since it would have made just as much sense for those characters as it does for her. For the next Mechanically Inclined, I'm considering a two for one feature on Split/Merge and Morph, because I love how it works for Hank Pym!

Product Placement: HeroTrays

Anyone that's played HeroClix for any amount of time knows that transporting your team, to and from a tournament, and moving them from table to table once you get there are two of the more annoying challenges with the game. It's also well known that there are some pretty innovative players out there that have come up with some pretty cool ideas to solve these problems. And some players are even enterprising enough to make those ideas available to the public.

One such product is a neat little series of trays aptly called HeroTrays that comes to us from John Woodall, who was trying to solve the problem of how to move around his newly acquired GSX Magneto at a tournament in a more protected fashion. He made one of these trays for himself, and it was such a hit among the local players that he made it available to the HeroClix community at large.

I was fortunate enough to acquire one of the HeroTray Peanut Base (P002) trays from him at GenCon in August, and I have to admit, my only regret is that I did not buy two. If you're considering buying one, I highly recommend the Peanut Base tray. It gives you the most bang for you buck and is highly versatile. In fact, I actually gain a little space with my tray, because I usually keep my character cards in a 9-Pocket Trading Card Page, so I have that area to use as extra space. I have found it's a great place to put a Single Dial Colossal base, if you have one on your team.

Not only is the tray great for keeping track of the team that you're playing, as well as tokens, line of fire tool, and dice, its great for keeping your sideboard organized during a game. In the photos above, you'll notice that in both cases, I have at least one character that could possibly sub in for another character. If you'd like to see a team that takes subbing to the extreme, check out this 4 figure team with a MASSIVE sideboard.

The original team is Ant-Man and Wasp, Mockingbird, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch and Vision. It was a heck of a lot of fun to play, and the HeroTray was an invaluable resource, since I had a nice handy place to keep track of all of my subs. Plus, it allowed me to easily move the entire set of them if they were in someone's way, without having to disrupt too much of the flow of my own game.

My only problem now is that when I play at home with my daughter, she has usurped the use of the tray for her own team. Hence the reason I wish I had bought two when I had the opportunity. Guess I can always order another one for Christmas.

That's it for this installment of Product Placement. I'll be doing another one of these when Karl finally gets me my ID Rings. Stay tuned!

Playing the Movie: The Avenger

Between the recent release of The Avengers to DVD and the popularity of my "Playing the Movie" articles for the Batman trilogy, I've decided it's time to play through the Avengers. For anyone who did not read the first series of articles, the way this works is that I select key moments from the film and create teams that two players could pit against one another to play that part of the movie in HeroClix. That said, you're matches could have much different results from those in the film, but it's a fun place to start with the build. Now unlike my Batman articles, there are very few "theme teams" in this article. That has to do mainly with this set not lending itself to keywords where you'd find teams from the film.

The movie opens with Nick Fury checking in on Selvig and the Cube. Loki teleports in and all hell breaks loose. He takes control of Hawkeye and Selvig, and they break out with the Cube. Since we didn't ge a Selvig in this set, I chose to just run with Loki and Hawkeye. For S.H.I.E.L.D. I went with the big three of Fury, Hill and Coulson backed by one lone agent to round out the points.

 70 AVM035 Nick Fury
 51 AVM011 Maria Hill
 50 AVM206 Agent Coulson
 19 AVM003A Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
-----------------------------------------------------------
190 Total

vs

125 AVM015 Loki
 75 AVM009 Hawkeye
-----------------------------------------------------------
200 Total

Next, we move to Germany, where we get to have a bit of fun! Loki is sort of on his own at this point, but he can summon duplicates of himself. I know we could split hairs about the duplicates not really doing anything, but then it'd be harder to build a team. And although Cap and Iron Man fight together they certainly aren't Avengers yet. The only down side to these teams is that they both come in at 205, but since they both do, I figured it should be a fair fight.

 90 AVM018 Captain America
115 AVM019 Iron Man
-----------------------------------------------------------
205 Total

vs

125 AVM015 Loki
 80 AVM029 Loki
-----------------------------------------------------------
205 Total

After that, action moves to the helicarrier, our team is sort of assembled for the first time, when Loki's forces move in to free him.

 75 AVM001 Captain America
 40 AVM013 Bruce Banner (Sideboard AVM014 AND AVM202 Hulk)
 35 AVM036 Black Widow
150 AVM201 Thor
 50 AVM206 Agent Coulson
 50 AVM209 Tony Stark (Sideboard AVM205 Iron Man)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
400 Total

vs

125 AVM015 Loki
 65 AVM208 Hawkeye
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
 30 AVM010 S.H.I.E.L.D. Commando
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
400 Total

From the helicarrier, our heroes are scattered, and need to finally come together to be The Avengers, and finish off Loki, and his ilk. For the purposes of Loki's team, I'll be running the Skrulls in place of the Chitauri (as was apparently intended).

 50 AVM007 Black Widow
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
 75 AVM009 Hawkeye
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
150 AVM201 Thor
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
255 AVM202 Hulk
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
100 AVM204 Captain America
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
150 AVM205 Iron Man
  3 ATA057 Avengers Response Unit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
798 Total

vs

220 AVM211 Loki
 60 AVM032 Skrull General
 60 AVM032 Skrull General
 40 AVM033 Skrull Saboteur
 40 AVM033 Skrull Saboteur
 50 AVM034 Skrull Warrior
 50 AVM034 Skrull Warrior
 28 AVM008A Skrull Commando
 28 AVM008A Skrull Commando
 28 AVM008B Skrull Commando
 28 AVM008B Skrull Commando
 40 AVM207A Skrull Infiltrator
 40 AVM207A Skrull Infiltrator
 40 AVM207B Skrull Infiltrator
 40 AVM207B Skrull Infiltrator
------------------------------------------------------------------------
792 Total

I know a couple of these team require a large amount of generics, and in truth, I'd likely go to other sets to finish them out, but these are the teams I'd run if I had the pieces. Hope you enjoyed this installment of Playing the Movie, and I hope to start running some similar comics oriented articles in the near future.