Playing the Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy

It's been a while since I've done one of these, too long really. I had started one for Kick Ass 2, but I never finished it. Part of the reason for that was the fact that the characters that got figures seldom came into conflict with one another, so I had to go to other sets to get someone for them to play against. That being said, the biggest problem that I had building the teams for Guardians was getting the point totals to work out to be close to one another. There are some figures that I didn't manage to fit on a team, which does bum me out a little, but that's largely because I didn't want to get too out of hand with the builds. I may include a couple of other fun Guardian builds at the end, just to fill out the figures that I miss along the way.

For those that don't know how this series works, you will find spoilers below. After all, it's hard to write a "Playing the Movie" article without covering key points in the movie. The teams below are my best approximations of the fight scenes that occur in the movie. With this movie, since the soundtrack was so integral to the proceedings, I tried to name the conflicts after songs that played near or during the events. I apologize if my memory is rusty. I'll gladly correct the names if someone corrects me on what songs played where.

Come and Get Your Love (Retrieving the Orb): In the beginning of the movie, we're introduced to Star-Lord, lipsynching and dancing to Come and Get Your Love, as he uses a space lizard for a microphone. It's a great scene to set the tone for the whole movie, and it leads directly into our first conflict. Star-Lord retrieves the Orb, only to be drawn on by Korath and some Sakaaran Soldiers. For the matter of points, I have the common Star-Lord vs the Rookie dial for Korath and a Soldier. However, if you have the Chase Star-Lord, you could play him vs Rookie Korath with 2 Soldiers, or you could upgrade Korath and still only field him with 1 Soldier. It's all in how you want to play it.

 95 GOTGM001 Star-Lord

VS

 50 GOTGM015E Korath the Pursuer
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
---------------------------------------
 99 Total

Spirit in the Sky (Xandar Conflict): Once Star-Lord gets to Xandar and fails to sell the Orb to the Broker, he comes into conflict with Gamora, and Rocket with Groot. You could either run Star-Lord vs Gamora, or you could add Rocket/Groot in as a "scenario" or as a third player. The Rocket/Groot combo is at a point advantage, but those are the cheapest versions of these characters available.

 95 GOTGM001 Star-Lord

VS

100 GOTGM103 Gamora

VS

 75 GOTGM102 Rocket Raccoon
 75 GOTGM105R Groot
---------------------------------------
150 Total

Moonage Daydream (Kyln Escape): Coming out of the conflict on Xandar, the Guardians are dumped at the Kyln and forced to escape, so that they can continue to try to find a buyer for the Orb. If you had enough Novas, you could increase the points for this scenario, but at 400, you can get the full movie Guardians team, to fight there way through the Nova Corps.

 94 GOTGM013 Drax the Destroyer
 75 GOTGM101 Star-Lord
 75 GOTGM102 Rocket Raccoon
 75 GOTGM103R Gamora
 75 GOTGM105R Groot
---------------------------------------
394 Total

VS

 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 55 GOTGM004 Nova Corps Officer
 55 GOTGM004 Nova Corps Officer
 55 GOTGM004 Nova Corps Officer
---------------------------------------
390 Total

Go All the Way (Knowhere): Once on Knowhere, the team tries to broker a deal with the Collector, but once the Collector exposes the true power of the Orb, Gamora and Star-Lord decide that they cannot leave it in his hands. When they flee his Museum, they find that Drax has called Ronan, and his forces have arrived on Knowhere. In the movie, a portion of this battle does happen in vehicles, but for the purposes of playing them in Clix, we'll run it like this. If you want Gamora to benefit from Sibling Rivalry, you could swap her for her 73 point version, and upgrade Rocket to his Chase version.

 95 GOTGM001 Star-Lord
 90 GOTGM009R Groot
 90 GOTGM005 Rocket Raccoon
125 GOTGM104 Drax the Destroyer
100 GOTGM103 Gamora
---------------------------------------
500 Total

VS

 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 74 GOTGM007 Sakaaran Commander
150 GOTGM008R Ronan the Accuser
 73 GOTGM010 Nebula
---------------------------------------
493 Total

Cherry Bomb (Assault on Dark Aster): After the events at Knowhere, The Guardians, the Ravagers, and the Nova Corps team up versus Ronan's Forces. This could be split up into smaller conflicts, and technically you wouldn't really need Irani Rael or Rhomann Dey, since neither of them were directly involved, but it's more fun to include them. That said, these are the builds I came up with.

 73 GOTGM002 Gamora
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 45 GOTGM003 Nova Corpsman
 55 GOTGM004 Nova Corps Officer
 90 GOTGM005 Rocket Raccoon
 60 GOTGM011 Irani Rael
 82 GOTGM012 Yondu
 94 GOTGM013 Drax the Destroyer
 75 GOTGM014 Rhomann Dey
 75 GOTGM101 Star-Lord
100 GOTGM105 Groot
---------------------------------------
794 Total

VS

 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 49 GOTGM006 Sakaaran Soldier
 74 GOTGM007 Sakaaran Commander
 74 GOTGM007 Sakaaran Commander
275 GOTGM008 Ronan the Accuser
 73 GOTGM010 Nebula
100 GOTGM015 Korath the Pursuer
---------------------------------------
792 Total

O-O-H Child (the Final Conflict): Once the Dark Aster crashes, there is one final conflict planet-side between the remaining Guardians and Ronan. This build was difficult to work out (especially since I'd rather use the Star-Lord Chase here) but to make points work out, I went back and grabbed an older version of Drax so each member of the Guardians is exactly 75 point working the build out to exactly 300 points. Ronan is easy since there is a 300 point version of him that pretty much reflects the character from the movie. Too bad there's no way to reflect a "dance-off" in HeroClix.

 75 GOTGM101 Star-Lord
 75 GOTGM102 Rocket Raccoon
 75 GOTGM103R Gamora
 75 GG204 Drax
--------------------------------
300 Total

VS

300 GOTGM106 Ronan

That concludes the teams that I built for Playing the Movie. However, for extra credit, here are 2 Guardians teams that are built almost exclusively from the Hobby/Target single figure boosters.

 73 GOTGM002 Gamora
 90 GOTGM005 Rocket Raccoon
 90 GOTGM009R Groot
 94 GOTGM013 Drax the Destroyer
150 GOTGM017 Star-Lord
--------------------------------
497 Total

95 GOTGM001 Star-Lord
   4 ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy
 73 GOTGM002 Gamora
   4 ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy
198 GOTGM009 Groot
   4 ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy
 94 GOTGM013 Drax the Destroyer
   4 ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy
100 GOTGM018 Rocket Raccoon
   4 ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy
 10 IGS102 Power Gem
--------------------------------
590 Total

If you've come up with your own movie set team, I'd love to see it. Thanks for reading.

Playing the Movie: Pacific Rim

On Monday, my friend Kevin and I went to see Pacific Rim in IMAX 3D, and I have to admit, it's the most fun I've had at the movies all summer (I do not count Iron Man 3 as a summer movie, since it came out in early May). If you haven't seen it yet, and you're a guy, what are you waiting for? Sure some of the science is questionable, but what summer movie worth seeing overly concerns itself with such matters. This is giant monsters, fighting giant robots, and it is glorious!

For those that don't know how this series works, you will find spoilers below. After all, it's hard to write a "Playing the Movie" article without covering key points in the movie. The teams below are my best approximations of the fight scenes that occur in the movie. Also realize, that since we only got 5 monsters in this set, I've been forced to use some monsters as stand-ins for the ones not represented here. That said, I don't think that this is a big issue since some of the monsters dial-wise sort of feel like amalgamations anyway.

Unlike other articles, I'm not going to exactly follow the arc of the movie with this one. Instead I'm going to opt to follow the chronology of events. With that, the first event that we can represent, if we sub in Scunner for Onibaba, is the battle between Onibaba and Coyote Tango. Using both figures at their full power, to even the points I've added 4 Fighter Jet bystanders from the mini-game pack, to represent the first wave to attack Onibaba.

400 PR009 Scunner (standing in for Onibaba)

VS

250 PR005 Coyote Tango
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet
--------------------------------------
400 Total

The next chronological event we see in the film Knifehead vs the Becket brothers piloting Gipsy Danger. To make the points come out close to even, I've opted to run the 200 point Knifehead vs the 125 point Gipsy anger. To round out the points, I've added 3 of the mini-game Battleships, even though there really weren't any Battleships in the sequence. Besides, the Battleships will likely fair as well as the civilian vessel did in the film.

200 PR006E Knifehead

VS

125 PR001E Gipsy Danger
 33 PRB102 Battleship
 33 PRB102 Battleship
--------------------------------------

191 Total





The next battle I have represented here, I've done with 2 different variations. In the first, I have Leatherback and Raiju, standing in for Otachi running up against Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon, since the four of them are the first to engage in combat, while Striker Alpha and Gipsy Danger hang out on the sidelines.

225 PR010E Leatherback
250 PR008R Raiju (stand in for Otachi)
------------------------------------------------------

475 Total

VS

325 PR003 Cherno Alpha
150 PR004R Crimson Typhoon
------------------------------------------------------

475 Total



For those wanting to run a larger battle, and those that just want to bring the full awesome of Leatherback, this larger build allows you to run all 4 Jaegers versus the 2 massive Kaiju. Again I've added a Fighter Jet to round out the points.

450 PR010 Leatherback
250 PR008R Raiju (stand in for Otachi)
------------------------------------------------------

700 Total

VS

150 PR004R Crimson Typhoon
225 PR003E Cherno Alpha
175 PR002E Striker Eureka
125 PR001E Gipsy Danger
 25 PRB101 Fighter Jet

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

700 Total

Finally, because the battle between 2 Jaegers and 3 Kaiju just wouldn't work out point-wise, I've split the battle up into 2 separate bouts. In the first bout, Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka face off against the two category 4 Kaiju, Raiju and Scunner. Since they fight under water, adding the Fighter Jet here didn't make any sense, so I just left the Jaegers at a disadvantage.

225 PR001 Gipsy Danger
350 PR002 Striker Eureka

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

575 Total

VS

400 PR008 Raiju
200 PR009E Scunner

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

600 Total

For the final battle, I have the same Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka teams squaring off against the big daddy of all the Kaiju, the category 5 Slattern at his beefy 600 point line. My only complaint about Slattern is that his sculpt should be about twice the size of what it is to be in scale with everyone else. However, you can tell just by the way the sculpt sprawls that they had to downsize him to make him fit in the boosters. It's really too bad that he couldn't have come in pieces and be assembled later. That might have allowed them to get a larger sculpt into the booster.

225 PR001 Gipsy Danger
350 PR002 Striker Eureka
------------------------------------------------------

575 Total

VS

600 PR007 Slattern





I have to admit, I'm pretty psyched at the prospect of getting to play these teams out. I have all the figures but Scunner (because we got one of the miss-packed Gravity Feeds that came with 5 Leatherbacks and no Scunners) but I should have one of him by next week. I also may need to track down a mini-game (once WizKids errata the Fighter Jet to actually have a range) since it helps to round out the points. Either way, this set and the movie are a lot of fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

Clix Critique: 2013 PAC: The New Hotness!

Every couple of year, it seems like the game developers over at WizKids twitch and decide to, for lack of a better phrase, re-weight the powers that exist in the game. I say re-weight, because they aren't necessarily rewriting the powers, but are usually tweaking what already works to make it work better and/or more efficiently. Sometimes the changes work great and stick around, No Action After Taxi (although some would argue me on that one). Other times they're frustrating and get redone years later (Energy Explosion, Pulse Wave, Telekinesis to varying degrees).

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.

Clix Critique: Amazing Spider-Man (and beyond)

I know that I'm about a week and a half late to the part on reviewing the Amazing Spider-Man but I just love the set so much, I couldn't let it completely pass by without showing some praise on it. That said, with this article being late, I'm also going to look at some of the other more recent HeroClix related announcements as well.

Amazing Spider-Man in a more traditional 5-figure only release, that packs 10 5-figure boosters to a brick and 2 bricks to a case. These bricks seem to be fairly consistent rewarding the purchaser with 3 Super Rares, 1 Prime, and 1 Chase to a brick. The exception to this rule seems to be if you pull Prime Hobgoblin, being that he is both a Super Rare, and a Prime, he seems to fill both rolls in the brick in which he appears. That said, I was fortunate enough to pull him, and I'm quite happy with what I got in addition to that figure. The collation in an individual brick seems to be very fair. There are plenty of fun generics in this set, so the more of those you receive, the happier people seem to be.

In my initial case, I managed to pull and entire CUR set which I was very pleased with. For my Super Rares, I received, Ghost Rider, Nightmare, Man-Thing and Howard the Duck, Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, and Spider-Man 2099 (in addition to the Hobgoblin Prime listed above). I pulled Brother Voodoo as my other Prime, and I pulled Dusk and Prodigy as my 2 Chases. Since the Identity Crisis costumes where my top wants out of the chases, I was pretty happy with this pull, although Ricochet was my top want. On generic (and pseudo-generic) characters, I managed to pull 4 Zuvembies, 3 Werewolves, 2 Vampires, and 3 Mysterios, not bad if you ask me.

In addition to my own case, my store, Legends Games and Comics has been running a new player incentive program where your name gets put in the drawing for a free brick of product if you bring in a new player and they make a purchase while there in the store. Much to my pleasure and surprise, my name got drawn this time around to win the free brick of product!!! So, in my additional brick, I managed to pull Madame Web, Hannibal King, and Hornet in addition to an extra Ghost Rider and Nightmare, which I promptly traded for Blackheart and Baron Mordo. I also increased my generic numbers to 7 Zuvembies, 5 Werewolves, 4 Vampires, and 5 Mysterios. After 3 bricks, I'm only missing Terrax, Hobgoblin, Alyosha Kraven, and Ricochet (which I have coming in the mail) in addition to the 4 Spider Armor chases. All in all, I can't complain too much about that. Not only that, but with just a few trades, I could actually easily have a second CUR set, that I could probably turn around and sell, if I didn't let me 6 year old raid my dups.

In addition to the fantastic collation, this set actually looks really good. The sculpt are great, and the paint jobs seem a little less globby, bringing out more of the sculpts details. Sure most of the figures could still use a decent wash to really make them pop. But they look much better than some sculpt from even 2 sets ago.

My only minor complaint for this set comes from a dial design perspective. With the deluge of figures with Improved Movement in Batman and Streets of Gotham for "peak human" characters, there is a surprising lack of Improved Movement for characters that can "do whatever a spider can." We have at least 3 sculpts that I can thing of where the character is swinging on either a web or a rope, but those characters didn't even merit Leap/Climb? If it weren't for their points, they would seem like they're missing something. With their points being what they are in some cases (read cheap), they just feel like they're poorly designed. I'm saying that knowing full well that the playtesters don't see the sculpt when testing the dials, however, I expect the game designers have to have some type of a clue.

Moving on, I'd like to touch on the upcoming Teen Titans release as well, since we've now had a chance to see what the team dial mechanic (and boosters) are going to look like. At the moment, I dislike Team Dials less then Vehicles, so that's a plus in their column. I'm somewhat annoyed that they come with some of the figures for the team, but understand with the larger bases, if they come with 3, it allows you the opportunity to play them "out of the box," so from that standpoint it makes sense. It does seem that they did give some thought about the uphill battle of "putting all of your eggs in one basket" by giving you multiple actions for the team base. They do appear that they'll at least be more effective then Duo figures. I'm currently not in love with the Splitting mechanic particularly at lower build totals, but it's possible that I do not fully understand how it works.

The third thing I'd like to address is the news that poured in from Toy Fair 2013. I'll hit each announced license in turn:

• 1960’s Adam West Batman: Not that I need any more Batman Clix, but if you're going to try to get me on board for more, this is the product to put out. Who wouldn't want to have this classic show/movie immortalized in Clix?
• Kick-Ass 2: My main hope with this product it that not only will we get Kick-Ass 2 characters, but I hope to at least see Big Daddy here as well.
• The Lone Ranger (2013): I'm going to at the very least need to acquire the Lone Ranger and Tonto. I may or may not bother with anything else, but those 2 are must haves for me.
• Pacific Rim: Like with Star Trek Tactics, I'm concerned with scaling issues with this product. If all the figures are "Giant-Sized" and have the Giant Defense symbol, I'm all over this release. If not, I'll probably pass on it. That said, at least these a robots and monsters, and make more sense having a superhero-based power set.
• Nightmare Before Christmas: OK, now we're getting a little nuts. That said, I'm still on board with this release. I'm on the fence about how much I'll buy, but there are multiple fans of this franchise in my house, so more than likely I'll end up with a set here. I want Jack and Oogie Boogie. Outside of that, it's a wait and see.
• Iron Maiden: I'm not particularly a fan of the band. However, Eddie is a cool looking character. I will more than likely at least trade for at least one of these.
• Hello Kitty: Now this is the product where I'm having the most problem wrapping my head around it being HeroClix compatible. It'll definitely target a new and completely different market, but I'm just not sure how you translate the characters into a combat-based game. My daughter is very excited for this release, and I'm sure I'll buy her some when they become available. I just can't see myself adding any of these to my collection and/or games.

I think that manages to hit everything that I wanted to try and touch on in this Clix Critique. Hope you enjoyed reading, and look forward to your comments and feedback.

Playing the Comics: Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider teams

This is turning out to be one heck of a week for me! Starting Sunday night, I got to cheer my favorite football team, the Baltimore Ravens on to a Super Bowl victory. I got to spend yesterday with my wife (sans kids) celebrating the victory from the night before. We took in a movie, Warm Bodies, which incidentally was a really entertaining, quirky spin on a zombie flick, and we got free burgers at our local Z-Burger, in honor of the Ravens win.

This week also marks the release of Marvel HeroClix: Amazing Spider-Man set, which would be cool enough if it were just a Spider-Man set. However, this set has strong Marvel Horror and mystical sub-themes represented in this set, and we are receiving a ton of characters that I personally have been begging WizKids to make (or make correctly) for 10 years. This culminated today in the preview of one of my all-time favorite characters, Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider.

Before I get to the teams I'm presenting today, let me give you some background on my history with and love for the character. It dates back to one of my favorite memories from childhood. Growing up in West Virginia, we didn't often have access to things like comic conventions, or even a decent hobby shop for that matter, but I was into comics, and occasionally  I'd find out about one that was happening in the general geography. I was getting into the New Warriors at the time, and Mark Bagley was coming to a semi-local convention in the Pittsburgh area. My father agreed to take me so that I could meet Mark (who was super cool by-the-way). I managed to get a comic and some New Warriors trading cards signed, and my dad let me buy a couple of cheap back issues. I picked out an old issue of A Man Called Nova, after all he was my favorite character from the New Warriors. The other issue I picked up was an old issue of Ghost Rider, which fortuitously contained a retelling of his origin (to a criminal posing as a priest if I remember correctly). That single issue started my love for the character. And later when he popped up in the new Ghost Rider's series, I was completely hooked. Between that, and being a fan of the other Midnight Sons as well, I'm practically crying tears of joy over this set.

So without dragging this out any further, here are the Top 5 teams I can't wait to play once I get my hands on this set:

Midnight Sons

 85 ASM004 Blade
 50 ASM007 Johnny Blaze
 55 ASM013A Frank Drake
107 ASM013B Hannibal King
133 ASM028 Morbius
125 IH037 Ghost Rider
-------------------------
555 Total


Sure you could swap the set version of Blade for the CTD version, or you could tack on a version of Dr. Strange, but I really like this build, and I'm hoping for an interesting Additional Team Ability for the Midnight Sons to round it out closer to a reasonable build total.

Legion of Monsters

 81 ASM015 Werewolf By Night
133 ASM028 Morbius
200 ASM033 Man-Thing
145 ASM046 Ghost Rider
---------------------------
559 Total

If you're going for a comic accurate version of the Legion of Monsters with Ghost Rider on it, he's only ever been on the original team, which isn't a very clean build, but again, hopefully the Legion of Monsters will be receiving an Additional Team Ability that helps bump them close to a full team build.

Champions

145 ASM046 Ghost Rider
 85 CA006 Black Widow
 98 CA043 Darkstar
 50 GX031 Angel
104 GX038 Iceman
142 SI016 Hercules
 58 SI022 Goliath
-------------------------
682 Total

Next, the expanded roster for the original Champions. The problem with this team is there's still no theme-able version of Angel (a founding member), so if you want him, you're breaking theme. Maybe Wolverine and the X-Men will finally give us a Champions version of that character.

Heroes for Hire #2

 82 ASM034 Satanna Hellstrom
 70 ASM044B Misty Knight
145 ASM046 Ghost Rider
 56 AW006 Paladin
 43 MM035 Silver Sable
-----------------------------
396 Total

This is the team Misty Knight pulled together for issue #2 of the latest Heroes for Hire run. This also isn't a theme team because Satanna did not get the Heroes for Hire keyword, even though Ghost Rider did (and they're in the same issues) nor is there a keyworded version of Silver Sable.


Heroes for Hire #7

 82 ASM034 Satanna Hellstrom
109 ASM032 Moon Knight
 70 ASM044B Misty Knight
145 ASM046 Ghost Rider
 75 ASM201 Spider-Man
 85 ASM202 Cloak
 79 CA030 Falcon
 52 WS026 Black Cat
 85 AV016 Luke Cage
 56 AW006 Paladin
 53 MM036 Silver Sable
-----------------------------
891 Total

The final team is an expanded version of the previous one, for higher point games. Again, it's not going to be a theme team proper because Cloak and Spider-Man join Satanna and Silver Sable in the club of not having the keyword. The rest of the team surprising do have it though. For a "rotating roster" team, that's really not that bad.

That's all I have for today. Later in the week, I'll be doing a Clix Critique on my actual pulls for the set. In the mean time, if you're planning on picking up the new set, I hope you have good luck with your pulls, and I hope you enjoy this set as much as I hope to!