Missing Link: Spider-Verse

 

For my first Missing Link article, I'm going to target a few characters that I'm very passionate about, and that I'm kind of annoyed aren't in HeroClix already. Now for this one, I have to give some history. In total, we've had 4 Spider-Man sets, that have danced the dance with Spider-Verse in some way/shape/form.

In Superior Foes of Spider-Man we got Spider-Girl, Scarlet Spider, Silk, Miles, Peter, Gwen, Morlun, and the set of Chases, which isn't bad for a "testing the waters" offering. We also only had Morlun one other time at this point, so his inclusion makes a lot of sense. The next time we see Spider-Man (as a subtheme) is Earth X so it's scratches Spider-Verse, but barely.

Our next hit comes in Spider-Man and Venom: Absolute Carnage, but this set is doing some serious heavy lifting. It's touching on Separation Anxiety, Maximum Carnage, Absolute Carnage, and a bit of Spider-Verse. There is SO MUCH going on in that set for a Spider-Man/Venom/Carnage fan, and ironically my next point has a tie-in to a comment Scott Porter made on his HeroClix for Huntington's 2025 stream (in the last 15 minutes or so). He was asked a question about what his favorite chase theme was, and part of his answer were the chases from Spider-Man and Venom: Absolute Carnage, because "it allowed the HeroClix Designers to be creative and come up with their own ideas." But here's the thing, that's only kind of half true, and I HATE that set of chases because they were half-steps to characters that we should have gotten instead, but I'll go into that more after the history lesson.

This brings us up to Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing, which in my mind was anything but Amazing. Why you ask, and I'll answer that I'm going to go into it in more detail in my VillainClix article. But ultimately, Beyond Amazing only had a handful of non-Clixed characters, and the ones that they did have were debatable at best. We got Spiderling which is an aged up version of the version that we got in Battleworld, but admittedly is important to Spider-Verse and is "different enough" to count. We got an Aunt May, which we had as a bystander, but is nice to finally have a 3D model for. I'll count the villainous Matt Murdock from Earth-65, Scorpion 2099, I'll even give you Elektra as Daredevil and Hand Leader Punisher, Julia Carpenter Madame Web, and Spider-Supreme (even though as a huge Warp World fan, I had completely forgotten about this guy), and then there's the Gwen half of the chases. I'm not got to count the Carnage chases aside from Silver Surfer (because that happened in the comics). The others are just derivative copies of the Venom figures, that I already didn't care for. That said, look over that list again, every figure on it is one where it's like "I guess I'll accept it" and sure my argument get's flimsy when you consider I'm arguing for Spider-Verse characters who themselves are also more or less variants on the original themes, but I digress.

Which brings us up to Spider-Verse, which by and large is a set that I LOVE with a couple of caveats, the biggest of which I will go into more detail on in the next article. So aside from the "villain problem" it's a great set, but it's missing some key players. So let's get into the specifics!

I'll start with Maybelle Reilly of Earth-803, because I defy anyone to try to argue that we shouldn't have her in clicks already. The Lady Spider as she is better known is the Steampunk Spider, so when the Absolute Carnage released and Steampunk Peni was one of the chases it was kick in both nuts as a proper SP//dr hadn't been made at that point, and this should have been Lady Spider, who we still don't have in Clix. We have since gotten Peni as an impossible to get (at least originally) Con Exclusive, but then she was also redone better in Beyond Amazing. Lady Spider was an integral part of the Web-Warriors during the Electro-Verse storyline. She's one of the smarter Spiders, and she's pretty good in a fight.

Next up we have Octavia Otto of Earth-1104. On her world, she was a member of the Young Avengers, and was pulled from it by an army of Electro's that wanted to exploit her knowledge. Fortunately she was saved by, and subsequently joined the Web Warriors. She was an integral member of the Spider-Army in Spider-Geddon, and just a really interesting alternate take on Doc Ock. For me, she's as much of a must have as Lady Spider. Maybe we'll get them the next time a Spider set comes around.

With the last entry on today's list I circle back to may earlier complaint with the Absolute Carnage chases. We received "Spider-Pharaoh" which was an Egyptian Jessica Drew. At the time, we did not have a single Jessica Drew with the Spider-Man Family keyword, even though we had gotten versions well after the original Spider-Verse comics. Again, this figure felt like a double shot to the nuts. The only Spider-Man Family Jessica that we got was this weird time-displaced one, and she wasn't a Pirate, which brings us to Jessica Drew of Earth-001. She was a pirate on Loomworld and an unwilling romantic partner for Morlun. She had a really cool character design, and because our 616 Jessica Drew captured her, and assumed her identity in her efforts to defeat the Inheritors Pirate Jessica is begging for a Standard (001)/Prime (616) version. Sure they don't do Prime splits with Chases, but we still should get those versions in a Spider-Verse set at some point.

That said, we should also have clixed Inheritors, but that's a whole article to itself, so check in next time for my VillainClix article on the Inheritors. I hope you enjoyed this article on Spider-Verse Missing Links. Let me know what other Spider-Verse characters you'd like to see that we haven't gotten yet.

Playing the Comic: Web Warriors

For today's installment of Playing the Comic, we look at one of my all-time favorite books (and will circle back on this one again soon) with Web-Warriors! Being that this was a major team to both be involved in, and spin out of Spider-Verse, the original team is prominently featured in the set. Billy Braddock, a.k.a. Spider-UK head's up this Exiles style team of Spiders. Being both a Spider and a Captain Britain, he brings a unique power set to the group. Being a team of Spiders, they bring as much (if not more) brains and wit then brawn.

Today is also special because you're going to get two and a half teams instead of the one. Part of the reason for this is how the Web-Warriors points work out, and part of it is my own team build philosophy. I'm play HeroClix primarily to play the characters. I'm not trying to pull any min/max bullshit or exploit things like One-Shots, Equipment, or Entities. I'll use them if they make sense on the team, but I'm not going out of my way to include those elements. Why is this an important caveat before I get into the teams? You may have already guessed, at Modern 300 points, the Web-Warriors points don't work out so well, forcing me to include additional elements to hit a round point value.

So what does a 300 point Modern build for this team look like? Well, we start out with Pavitr Prabhakar and his Kada Web Slinging. He can use this with his Running Shot and 5 range to ensnare an enemy and pull them in close, while also summoning an ally to his side. It's a pretty strong opening combo, and he also has Probability Control to help land the hit.

Next we look at Spider-Girl, The Weaver, and the Warriors "guy in the chair." Not only does her Reading the Scrolls power make her a great tactician in her own right, but it also allows her to support an adjacent ally using Perplex or Probability Control (we'll circle back on this with the other teams). Like in the comics, Araña gets a second-wind the first time she's KO'd. She also produces a Karn bystander that can upgrade to Master Weaver upon him sacrificing himself (read a comic). I'll pause here to mention that I'll have an upcoming article about the Inheritors (and groups like the Mutant Liberation Front and Nasty Boys), but that's something to cover outside of this article.

Spider-Ham swings onto the team as the comic relief and brings his cartoon antics with him. His Hammerspace ability lets him pull a standard object out of thin air allowing he or an ally to immediately boost there damage for a follow-up attack, and his Kosher trait limits that opponents ability to heal for a turn. Thanks to his Probability Control and Perplex, Ham is a good dance partner for Spider-Girl.

And who else likes to Dance, but our gritty neighborhood Spider-Man, Spider-Man Noir! He didn't pick the ballroom, but he's going to dance, with his Web Warrior trait, to lay down a cover of Smoke for his teammates, which gives them the added bonus of Shape Change, when they're shrouded. Unfortunately to make everyone fit, he's coming in at half his dial at 30 points, so he won't have Stealth, but he will come in with Flurry and Precision Strike, which will hopefully translate into him dishing out a little damage to a bunch of targets, since he can also target 2 opponents with his swing. He's definitely a strong option to be summoned as a follow-up attacker.

Alternatively, Ghost Spider is also a strong summon at 30 points as well. She is the most mobile of the group with her Ticket to the Multiverse Web Warriors trait. When she gets pulled in, she can be placed an additional time giving her more reach. She additionally has Sidestep, so if those first 2 placements don't get her where she needs to be, she can move an additional 2 squares for free. However, a wiser tactic might be to hold that move to extract her from danger instead. She also has Telekinesis that she could use to attack or shift teammates around, and her dial starts and ends with Shape Change to give her added protection.

Circling back to Spider-UK, the leader of the team, coming in on his 45 point dial. His Web Warriors trait allows him to extend the reach of both his Leadership and Empower to allow him to use those 3 squares away from another Web Warrior. Additionally, his Perfect Cuppa (tea in his case) allows him to Charge and remove a token from a friendly character within range, if he manages to hit. And since both it, and the Friends trait are after actions resolve, he could use them in tandem to pull in an ally and remove their token. Pretty sneaky, and likely to be overlooked by your opponent. Pulling in a double tokened Noir after a good hit by UK could mess-up an unsuspecting opponent.

And since this team comes in at 285, where do we spend those extra 15 points that we don't want to waste? With this set, on One-Shots of course. Then the question becomes, which One-Shots to pick. First, I went with Canon Event because SPIDERS, and I like the idea that I can protect one of my other characters when I just lost one. Second, I picked Spider Totem, for the 2 clicks of healing on a successful Super Senses roll. Here's the tricky part here thought, the characters on this team that will benefit from this one most are only making Super Senses on a 6. The ones that get it on 4-6 are the ones with shorter dials to begin with (for the most part). That said, this won't always be the case, but needs to still be considered with this pick. Lastly, I round it out with Web-Swinging. You're most likely going to use this for Ham but in a pinch, Noir could also benefit from it, and since it's a place and not a move it can be used to trigger his Smoke effect, which could again be a surprise for the opponent.

For Map choices I tried to stick to outdoor maps with elevation changes. Spiders like to move, and they like to control the terrain. These maps will help them to isolate and deal with threats on their terms. The Tangle is the most obvious choice here as it's going to frustrate most other teams. The Canadian Wilderness is another one that's interesting because of the ridges on either side, and the house in the middle (depending on where teams start). Lastly, Little Mogadishu seemed like an interesting choice with the elevated at one end, and the variety of blocking at the other.

With that, we've covered the 300 point version of the team. So what changes when you bump it to 400 points? Firstly, everyone gets bumped up to their top dials, so UK comes in at 80, and Ghost Spider and Noir bump up to 50. For Noir, that means he's starting with Stealth and Outwit, making him open as a far more tactical piece, and less of a secondary attacker. Ghost Spider keeps her mobility, but now can grab and smash someone with terrain top dial. UK picks up top dial Exploit Weakness and more durability. One thing it does narrow is who can summon who via the Friends trait, so you do need to be mindful of that. with everyone at full dials, you land at 260 points. 40 points is a large gap to fill, so what to fill it with? I'll have some additional ideas in my upcoming Missing Link and VillainClix (Inheritors) articles, but for now, I'm going to present a Modern and 2 Golden Age option.

In modern, I'm going with the 40 point Miles Morales from Black Panther. He's a solid version of Miles bringing all the bells and whistles you'd expect from him. he's got Camouflage Invisibility granting him enhanced Stealth, which would be really useful, especially within Noir's Smoke. His Bio-Electric Venom Blast would come in really useful especially in a scenario with multiple targets. And his Spidey-Senses Tingling are just going to make him an absolute nuisance to deal with for his 40 points.

Alternatively, if you go the Golden Age route, you have 2 different Spiderlings that you can use for 40 points. If you take the Beyond Amazing standard set version, she comes in wisecracking like her Dad, and manages to confound her opponents hopefully giving her team an opening. Or you can grab the Patternmaker herself and give your team another cheap source of Probability Control. Either Spiderling can be a boost to your team, it just depends on which role your trying to fill.

And as promised, for Golden Age, you also get another half a team (because they come out to 150 points even) in Spider-Girls from the Spider-Geddon storyline. This team was made up of Araña, Spiderling, and Mayday Parker, and since this is one of the playable Spider teams from Spider-Verse/Spider-Geddon, I had to mention it here, because a lot of the other teams are missing members, but that's another article for another time.

I hope that you enjoyed the my second return to blogging. I got a nice response from my first article, and I've got a second one in the books, so I'm on a roll now. I expect that I'll do my Missing Link article next as I'd like to talk about a few characters in particular that I'm personally shocked that we don't have in clicks yet. That said, I'm saving the Inheritors for their own article, because that's a whole different discussion all together, so they'll likely be the one after that one. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you back here for the next one!

Playing the Episode: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends: 7 Little Superheroes

 

Hello to all the fans of running fun HeroClix Theme Teams. I'm here to resurrect my Al's Clix Cave blog, and again write about the themey teams that I so love to build. Anyone that used to follow this blog is probably wondering, why am I bringing it back now after an almost nine year hiatus? And the simple answers are, I've been wanting to bring it back for a while now, and I just happened to find the time to make it happen. It seems like I always come the closest when there's a new Spider-Man set on the scene, probably because he's one of my favorite characters, and he has a decent media saturation, so it's easy to pick a show/movie/game/comic and then come up with a team to run with.

So why now, and why this team? Well, that's another easy answer. I grew up watching Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I loved the show as a kid, and when I got a little older, I was a huge New Warriors fan with the comics both because I got to meet Mark Bagley as a kid, and because Firestar was on the team. When I was looking at Iceman, Spider-Man, and Firestar from the new Spider-Verse set, it's pretty obvious that they were designed to run together and complement each other. However, they're also designed to run with a larger team, so when I was looking for that larger team, the 7 Little Superheroes episode of the show came to mind.

In this episode, the Spider-Friends receive a mysterious invitation to a weekend retreat to Wolf Island, and Aunt May tasks the group to take Ms. Lion with them. Once they arrive on the island, they discover that Captain America, Namor, Shanna, and Doctor Strange have all received invitations as well. It is soon revealed that the invitations had been sent to the heroes by their mutual enemy, the Chameleon, and the island itself is made up of a number of deathtraps designed to defeat the heroes. The Chameleon takes turns assuming the identities of the various heroes in order to lure their companions into these traps, but Ms. Lion manages to foil him because he can sniff the impersonator out at every turn.

Now, the downside to this team is that you're going to be limiting the mileage that you'll get out of the Amazing Friends trait, but it does give you an additional option for their Team Player team ability in the Defenders team ability from Dr. Strange and Namor. The other disappointing thing is that the only option for Ms. Lion is the one from the Team Base that has the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends keyword, instead of the Spider-Man Family keyword like 99% of all other Spider-Allies. It would be nice if Ms. Lion had more synergy with the other Amazing Friends. All that being said, here's the team as I built it. It's 400-point Golden Age non-themed (by keyword) team, and remember, it's intended for casual play.

As you can see, I spent more points on Captain America, mainly to help everything to work out to an even 400 at the end. Note that I haven't chosen any Terrain Markers for the team yet, but with Namor starting with Super Strength, and Spidey ending with it, both could benefit from having some terrain to throw around. That said, Iceman, and by extension from the Amazing Friends trait, Firestar and Spider-Man, do also have the ability to generate Barrier, if they're adjacent and Bobby is on the second half of his dial. Because of the nature of the episode, I looked for Mansion/Dungeon maps, hence the three that I chose. That said, I'm willing to hear suggestions both on better Maps and/or Terrain to include.

So let's really dig into the figures. I'll start with the Amazing Friends, because that's really who we're here for. Firestar starts off with Running Shot, dual target Energy Explosion, and Precision Strike, to make sure she can lay down some cover fire for the team, and make sure the opponents feel it, especially if they've clumped their force together. Adding insult to injury, she also sets each hit character on Fire, which could do follow-up damage if they stick around. She can also help Iceman and Spider-Man advance across the field, boosting their defense with her Energy Shield/Deflection.

Iceman can use his Flight (Ice Slides) to drag Peter along with him, and set him up for a follow-up attack on a later turn, while sharing his Toughness with Firestar and Spider-Man. If he moves into the right position on that follow-up turn he can Empower Peter to hit even harder with an iced up fist. Meanwhile, he can slow down the opposition with his dual target Incapacitate.

If Spidey is positioned to jump onto or off of a building, he can use his Wall-Crawler ability to pop into place, and hit his opponents with a Flurry of blows. Spider-Man also gives Firestar and Iceman some welcome dodging skills both with Super Sense and the Spider-Man team ability, allowing them to dodge out of the way 50% of the time they get hit by an attack. They're quite the dangerous trio when their adjacent to each other.

So what do the other heroes bring to this party? Let's look at Cap next. Captain America, like Firestar opens with Running Shot and dual targets. He also has traited Leadership to help the team keep moving, and he has opening Outwit to help weaken those tougher threats.

Dr. Strange is a Mystic and opens with Probability Control, plus he has an opening Smoke Cloud power that he can use in a number of useful ways. He can use it to move himself around for FREE, and boost the defense of himself or other allies occupying it. Alternatively, he can negatively impact the defense of an opponent instead.

Shanna can leverage the printed hindering terrain on each of the maps to booster her attack when her opponents occupy it, and her own damage when she occupies it. Since she opens with Stealth, she's going to want to lure the opponents into that printed hindering terrain anyway, so she can avoid being targeted by most opponents.

At the beginning of the game, Namor generates a square of Water terrain, that you'll want to place strategically, since he can use it to Regenerate for FREE on his late clicks. Otherwise, this is a Charging angry Namor that just wants to punch things. For his 40 points, he can do a lot of damage if you protect him well. I'd likely bring him up behind the Amazing Friends as a secondary attacker, especially if I can keep him adjacent to Iceman for that extra umph from Bobby's Empower, and if he's slipped from his first click, keep him next to Strange to pick up his 18 defense.

Last but certainly not least, don't forget about Ms. Lion to run around and be a nuisance to the opposition. This little yippy dog with Combat Reflexes and Shape Change is probably best used to tie-up minor threats like bystanders and minions. Stick to figures that will have trouble hitting that 17 up close.

All in all, I think this looks like a really fun team to run in a casual 400 point match. I hope you've enjoyed the return of the Al's Clix Cave blog. I hope to post more entries going forward. A lot of Playing the Comic/Episode/Movie/Game articles. Also looking to do another feature called "Missing Link" where I talk about teams that I'd love to run, but can't because we're missing an important character, and maybe some suggestions on how I'd approach the character if given the opportunity.

Let me know your thoughts on this team, and any thoughts you might have on teams you'd like to see my thought's on moving forward. But remember, I'm looking to keep it casual, and keep it fun!

Playing the Comics: Guardians of the Galaxy

My favorite way to play HeroClix is to field the teams I know and love from the comics, and with the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy comics set, I couldn't be more excited. I'm a Cosmic Marvel junkie, especially anything written by DnA. As such, this set has a whole lot to be excited about. That being said, I by no means locked myself into the new set to build most of the teams that I'll present for you today. Instead, I'm reaching as far back as the first Avengers comic set to fill out the ranks of some of these teams.

First up on our tour of some of the excellent Theme Teams that you can build from this set, I'm going to touch on 3 different versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy. I'll touch on the current team as well as DnA's team and the original Silver Age team (although I believe I've included some of the 90s additions to the Silver Age team).

I'll start in the most obvious place, the "current" team. It's current in that it's the early team from the current run (not including Venom or Captain Marvel, but Iron Man instead). Now I've built my team with the downgraded version of SR Iron Man because he works better to come out to a rounded point total. This build uses all figures from the 5 Figure Boosters, you could likely play around with the Gravity Feed versions of Gamora, Drax, and Star-Lord to upgrade Tony if you really wanted to. Here's the build:

Guardians of the Galaxy (Modern)
 55 GOTG001 Gamora
100 GOTG002 Drax the Destroyer
110 GOTG030 Star-Lord
 94 GOTG033 Angela
100 GOTG051 Groot
 80 GOTG052 Rocket Raccoon
150 GOTG055E Iron Man
--------------------------------------------
689 Total

For DnA's run, I actually went back and grabbed older versions of Groot, Star-Lord, and Rocket so that they had the right "look" for the team. This is a high point build, but it did leave point open for the AWESOME Guardians of the Galaxy ATA. This is definitely a "cover all" team, so you can widdle it down as needed.

Guardians of the Galaxy (DnA)
  56 GOTG002 Mantis
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  85 GOTG029 Moondragon
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
 160 GOTG040 Martyr
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
 165 GG010 Adam Warlock SIDEBOARD GG020 Magus
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
 121 GG011 Drax
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  52 GG039 Cosmo
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  64 CA011 Jack Flag
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
 152 WS049 Groot
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  44 HA001 Bug
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  90 HA025 Star-Lord
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
  65 HA028 Rocket Raccoon
   4 ATA Guardians of the Galaxy
--------------------------------------------
1098 Total

Building the Silver Age team, I again tried to assemble anyone that you may want to use for the team. I did leave the Keeper off, because he's a Chase, and he threw the points off. Just keep in mind that he is an available option, if you want to rework the build. They have a Silver Age ATA, but it's worthless if you're playing a pure GotG team. Also note that you could sideboard either Starhawk or Aleta. All depends on which one you want to have on the board at the opening of the game. For my team, I went with Starhawk.

Guardians of the Galaxy (Silver)
130 GOTG004 Starhawk SIDEBOARD GOTG024 Aleta
 95 GOTG005 Major Victory
 60 GOTG022 Talon
 75 GOTG023 Yondu
 92 GG012 Charlie-27
138 GG013 Hollywood
 72 GG024 Nikki
 82 GG025 Martinex
 47 GG035 Replica
--------------------------------------------
791 Total

Next, I'm going to touch on some smaller team that were featured in different events. The first are the Graces, coming from the pages of Annihilation: Ronan. This team was formed by Gamora on a a fringe Kree planet, and received 3 of it's 6 members in this set. Unfortunately, a fourth member, Cerise appeared as a Prime in Wolverine and the X-Men, but didn't get the keyword, because WizKids hadn't created it yet. That said, I've still opted to include her here, and point out that any Judge should allow this team in as a Theme Team. Of course, since you have to technically break theme to play this team anyway, if you're looking to up the point total, you can always team them up with some version of Ronan, like they do in the comic.

Graces
 55 GOTG001 Gamora
 75 GOTG012B Tana Nile
 87 GOTG016 Nebula
 60 WXM023B Cerise
--------------------------------------------
277 Total

The next team I'd like to look at comes from War of Kings: Ascension and is probably the most straight forward of the builds that I'll be discussing. This was essentially DnA's attempt to do for Darkhawk, what they did for Nova in Annihilation, which is to bring the character back into the lime-light and make him cool again. They did this by creating a larger mythos around the character, and connecting him to an ancient secret order from the Shi'ar Empire. Now, Darkhawk doesn't exactly get along with the other Raptors, so you could always sub 2 generic Raptors in for him to build out the team, but since I really love Darkhawk as a character (and like the dial a lot as well) I'll be fielding him with the rest of the team. And it comes to an even 300 points, which is always good.

Fraternity of Raptors
 45 GOTG008A Raptor
 45 GOTG008A Raptor
 90 GOTG008B Darkhawk
120 GOTG102 Talon
--------------------------------------------
300 Total

In the War of Kings, the battle between Vulcan and Black Bolt ended with a rift being torn in space-time, called the Fault. When the Fault broke open, all kinds of things started spilling out. One of those things was an elderly version of one of Nova's greatest foes, the Sphinx. In Nova's Realm of Kings tie-in issues the Sphinx is forced to recruit some of his greatest adversaries to combat the younger version of himself, because his younger version wants to steal the older versions Ka Stone to increase his power. Admittedly, my main reason for building this team was for an excuse to have a team with the Sphinx on it. That said, it's in no way a Theme Team by WizKids rules, but it still looks really fun to play.

Old Sphinx's team
 90 GOTG008B Darkhawk
150 GOTG036 Black Bolt
190 GOTG043 Sphinx
125 FFGGA001 Nova
130 GG037 Mr. Fantastic
 98 AV046 Namorita
--------------------------------------------
783 Total

An alternate approach would be to field the young Sphinx's team, although it's missing a couple of characters (Bloodstone and Basilisk). Here's what is out.

Young Sphinx's team
190 GOTG043 Sphinx
 94 IH009 Man-Wolf
 76 HA022 Moonstone
--------------------------------------------
360 Total

At the close of Thanos Imperative, Nova and Star-Lord were trapped in the Cancerverse, the former with all of the Nova Force and the latter with a Cosmic Cube, with Thanos. At the writing of this, we still don't know what happened to Rich there (although we will soon), but the other cosmic heavyweights from Realm of Kings formed a team to honor that sacrifice. The team was called the Annihilators, and can now be fielded in all it's glory! Personally, this is one I can't wait to run. Although, I'll have to find an event large enough to run it in. Note that they're are cheaper versions of most of these characters, so you could shoot for a lower point total. This is the one that looked like the most fun.

Annihilators
 150 GOTG009B Ikon
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
 200 FFGGA002 Silver Surfer
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
 175 FFGGA004 Quasar
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
 150 FFGGA005 Beta Ray Bill
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
 150 FFGGA006 Ronan the Accuser
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
  52 GG039 Cosmo
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
 195 GG040 Gladiator
   4 ATA047 Annihilators
--------------------------------------------
1100 Total

One last stop on my cosmic event tour takes us to a more recent event, Infinity, and the Cull Obsidian (or as they gave them the keyword, the Black Order). Thanos is tough enough without having a team of sociopaths behind him, but in Infinity, that's exactly what he brings with him. The team is both cunning and nasty, and I think they were reflected quite well in this set. This is another team I can't wait to try out. I went with the Experienced version of Thanos here (to save on points, and to start with his "The Black Order Obeys" power) but since his larger version is exactly 100 points more, you could very easily upgrade him.

Cull Obsidian (Black Order)
 65 GOTG025 Ebony Maw
105 GOTG046 Black Dwarf
200 GOTG047AE Thanos
120 GOTG048 Supergiant
100 GOTG049 Corvus Glaive
100 GOTG050  Proxmia Midnight
--------------------------------------------
690 Total

The last team that I'll touch on is a team that was born out of an older event, Operation: Galactic Storm. This team was put together by the Kree Supreme Intelligence basically as a Kree answer to the Avengers. Starforce was built from the best the Kree had to offer, and you can build a pretty cool team with them. Although, this team does come in a few points lower than I would like, with all the characters being Kree, you could easily place a Kree generic on the team to round it out to 600 points.

Starforce
150 GOTG019B Dr. Minerva
153 GOTG020 Ronan the Accuser
140 GOTG021 Korath the Pursuer
120 GOTG101 Captain Atlas
--------------------------------------------
563 Total

Now I know some people will look at this article and immediately say, where are the Inhumans? To that I say, they're in a Fast Force, which is more than easy to build teams from, and it's kind of an obvious team. Sure you could make the same argument for the Guardians of the Galaxy, except that as I've illustrated here, the Guardians really have at least 3 distinct rosters of characters. It's easy to get mixed up in those rosters if you don't already know who the members where on which teams. And while I may have touched on some obvious teams (like the Cull Obsidian), I at least tried to tap some that people may not have already known.

If you have a team that you really like that you can build thanks to something in this Guardians of the Galaxy set, I'd love to see it in the comments!

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.