ROC’ing the Meta 2: Electric Boogaloo… PART 2!! (Or, a Look at Where the Meta Might Be Heading!!)

November 19, 2014November 19, 2014 / HypeFox / 1 Comment

“Hmmm… well, 1 or 2 of these guys might be Meta. Someday… “

[To Be Read In Your Best Kiefer Sutherland Voice]

“Previously, on Critical Missives:

–‘Anakin, NO!’

–‘Iron Pharaoh is still a thing, going forward.’

–‘Hail Hydra!‘

–‘Highfather is a losing strategy.’

This should explain everything.

—————————————————————

And Now… The Conclusion.”

Whew!! Okay! Now that we’re all caught up, let’s look at some figs that ain’t what they used to be when it comes to the ROC, and some figs that people should be looking really closely at that haven’t yet had their day in the sun. Finally, we’ll talk a bit about what we can expect to show up in the Meta now that FLASH has been released!

Ain’t What They Used to Be Division:

Suuuuure you do, Sweetie…

–DP038 Copycat: Wow. Some idiot was predicting doom and gloom for this ROC season because Copycat would dominate in an environment without Resources and Entities. What’s that? Oh, it was me? And what’s happened (at least so far)? Copycat is nowhere to be seen? Oh. And the lesson, as always? I’m an idiot?

Yup!

So, every now and then, some jackass will Copycat in a ROC now, but they won’t advance even into the Top 8. Why? Well, it’s because of the Construct ability that lets you start with the Nurse on a piece like Abin Sur or Tomar Tu. And Construct pieces are EVERYWHERE! And because of this, if you’re running a Copycat, it’s useless to switch, because your opponent will just put her in a horrible position and then Regenerate (remember, any attachments or effects on the targeted character transfer to Copycat), thus ending the effect. And if you don’t switch, you’ve got 90 Points (basically a third of your force) that’s next to useless. 90 Points that’s so bad that you thought giving it to your opponent for almost ANY qualifying figure they had was a winning strategy.

It doesn’t help her either that the New Mutants Team Base–her best running buddy–is disallowed in the current format.

So yeah, you may run into one or two teams that you can wreck with Copycat, but more often than not you’re cutting your own throat by playing her in this format. I couldn’t have been more mistaken in where I thought this Meta was heading, and I’ve never been happier to be so wrong!

“He’s better than me? Wait, doesn’t Speed Demon know that I’M supposed to be the Prime?“

–DP053B Whizzer: Hell of a dial. Hell of a power set. Hell of a piece! It’s just that Speed Demon does everything Whizzer does, but better. And without taking up that valuable Prime slot that most folks are using for Brother Voodoo, Tomar Tu or Abin Sur.

Just as a refresher for those of you keeping score at home, let’s talk for a minute about the differences between Whizzer and Speed Demon (you can follow along at HCRealms.com):

–Whizzer ignores Elevated, Water and Blocking Terrain (and Characters, but so does Speed Demon); Speed Demon ignores Hindering Terrain. This is pretty much a wash; you’ll certainly encounter more Hindering Terrain than anything else, but the ability to run up walls or through them, or over water in a pinch with Whizzer is pretty cool. ADVANTAGE: EVEN

–Whizzer can make TWO attacks during his Hypersonic movement, but only during his first two clicks. Speed Demon knows the same trick ON HIS LAST FOUR CLICKS. ADVANTAGE: SPEED DEMON.

–Whizzer has Indomitable. Speed Demon doesn’t. ADVANTAGE: WHIZZER

–Speed Demon has the Speed Cyclone Uplift Trait, arguably one of the ten best Traits Wizkids has ever made. Whizzer has no Traits. MASSIVE ADVANTAGE: SPEED DEMON

Whizzer here gets a lil’ closer to his non-Prime brother in a format where keywords don’t matter (Speed Demon’s are waaaay better), but otherwise, save the 10 Points and go with Speed Demon.

FINAL TALLY: Speed Demon wins, 2-1.

And that is why Whizzer is in this category. He was great when the ROC was just starting to roll out, but–especially with almost every team running some sort of Prime secondary figure–Whizzer is just too expensive at the moment, especially since we know how good Speed Demon is now.

“No, I’ve not seen the Earthen cinema classic ‘Basic Instinct.’ Why do you ask?”

–SLOSH052 Highfather: Actually, I think we discussed him in Part 1! But he’s kind of in the same boat as Copycat for me; if you’re playing a Highfather team, you’re hoping to face one specific kind of team the whole tournament (any Build that revolves around a big bruiser–the more points, the better) that you can basically screw over before the game begins. If you run into a balanced team or really any team with a solid secondary attacker, you’re probably gonna lose. That’s why I think Highfather and Copycat are losing strategies; it’s not that you’ll lose every game, but you have almost no shot to actually win the tournament (or even make a Top 4). And if you’re not playing to win, you’re playing to lose–Ricky Bobby taught us this!

“Bizarro am Meta this season!”

–SLOSH039X Bizarro: Unfortunately, no, Bizarro is not Meta right now. And no, that’s not me saying the reverse of what I actually mean. Bizarro’s still got his un-ignorable Stop Click-y goodness Trait, but without access to Resources, Relics or Entities, he’s a bit more inconsistent in terms of the stats on his dial, and he can’t heal as easily. There’s also been an increase in the number of Meta-Worthy figures who can do damage to him twice in one turn (Speed Demon, Proxima Midnight, etc.).

Now, when Resources, Entities and everything else returns in the second half season, Bizarro will once again be Meta, but until then, he just isn’t going to be a consistent enough performer to structure a team around.

(Having said that, you WILL occasionally see 25 Point Bizarro included in some Builds as a Taxi/Tertiary Attacker. I never loved Bizarro at 25 Points simply because with only 1 Orrazib Token on his card, Bizarro can’t take advantage of his best power–that Traited, un-ignorable Stop Click! But at 25 Points, he’s kinda like a pull on a slot machine–if you roll him onto one of his best clicks, you can do some serious damage for very little Build cost.)

Modern Age Figures That Have So Far Been Ignored in the ROC:

—DP053A Speed Demon: So far, ROC results indicate that strong ranged-base pieces are at the center of the Meta right now. But Hypersonic Speed came back in a big way this year (more on that later), and as of yet seems really untapped! And of all the great speedsters WizKids released this year, Speed Demon is pound for pound the best of the lot! He’s placed in ROC Top 8’s before, and even in this format, I don’t see why he can’t be dominant again. As always, it’s his awesome Trait (SPEED CYCLONE UPLIFT: When Speed Demon moves, after actions resolve, choose an opposing character and roll a d6. If the result is less than the number of distinct squares that Speed Demon moved into or through that are adjacent to that character during the move, you may place that character within line of fire of its square and up to the result away in squares and deal that character half of the result in damage.) that lets him potentially deal damage twice in one turn (or up to three times a turn down dial!). The fact that his Trait can go off without having to make an attack roll is just awesome, and it’s a great way to deal with potentially problematic figs like Despotellis who have Defense Values that are really tough to reach.

Also, at 110 Points, he can be used as either a Primary Attacker or a Secondary Attacker, depending on which way you want to go with your build.

–007B Captain Marvel: So, this was kind of an omission from Part One, since he has shown up on multiple ROC teams, but we’ll talk about him here. Captain Marvel Prime is stupidly, ridiculously good. He was #1 on my GotG Top Ten Review, and he’s only gonna grow in popularity. His usefulness knows almost no bounds; he offers taxi services, Running Shot, 6 Range, Energy Explosion, Pen/Psy and Incapacitate, and if he hits with any of those attacks, the hit character CANNOT ATTACK during the next turn. He also has an 18 Defense with uncounterable Defend and Super Senses, and he adds +1 to the Defense of any non-Kree. Whew!! That’s a ton of stuff for only 82 Points!

His only drawback is his RELATIVELY short Range of 6 and his lack of Indomitable. That’s it. Try teaming him with AVX007 Black Panther and some other supporting folks to grant him Willpower to unleash his full potential!

–DP064 Electro: Zombie Chase Electro! Yay! In addition to being fun to play, Zombie Electro here has the potential to deal boatloads of damage. His attack isn’t necessarily consistently high enough to to be a Primary Attacker, but he’s damn dangerous as a secondary attacker. Try teaming him with Meta staples Super-Skrull and Headpool to get the most out of him. Either one will gives Virus tokens to any opposing character they hit, and once that happens, Electro can zap them from any square on the map as long as they’re within his Range–line of fire is no longer required! Also, Zombie Super-Skrull, Zombie Electro and Headpool is 298 Points, so they all fit together!

“I thought I was clear before, but, to reiterate… Y’all mother$@#%&!$ forgot about Dre!”

–IIM040 Shaman: Okay, I’ve been pitching this guy as a Secondary Attacker/Support piece for over a year now, but he is still REALLY good. And his “No Flights” ability can really screw over some Builds, especially on certain maps. We’ll have a Build featuring this guy, Iron Pharaoh and some NEW blood a little bit later!

“Oh man, look at those lines! Maybe coming to San Diego in character was a bad idea!”

–CATWS Captain America and Black Widow: Get this Duo some TK and Perplex and let them go to work. They have Traited Stealth and can see and move through Hindering themselves. Duo attack plus Precision Strike is nice. Sidestep + Improved Movement: Ignores Characters is also awesome! The best part about these two is that they only cost you 130 Points, which is really low for everything they offer. With the right supporting pieces, they can be straight deadly!

And What to Expect From The Flash:

Well, I don’t want to step on our Flash Top Ten Reviews coming later this month, but this is a really solid set, and there’s more than a few figures you’re going to have to know if you have hopes of competing in the ROC!

–FL031 Turtle: I love this figure! His Trait is so flavorful, and I love that his name is Turtle and that he, y’know, helps your team “turtle.” He gives you a Stealthy Outwitter for 50 Points, but the best reason to play him is his Trait (Slowness as a Way of Life: Turtle can use plasticity. when another character moves at least 5 squares and actions resolve, give them an action token. if you can’t, deal them 1 penetrating damage.), which pairs absolutely PERFECTLY with that Iron Pharaoh/Shaman team I mentioned earlier:

Team Name: Slowness as a Way of Death!

Theme: N/A

Roster:

IIM051 Iron Pharaoh — 110 Points

IIM040 Shaman — 92

DP020 Weasel — 27

FI001 Thule Society Priest — 21

FL031 Turtle — 50

=300 (Exactly! Yay!)

How to Play: This works like any other Pharaoh team. If you win Map Roll, you want to choose Wundagore Mountain (from AvX) or any other map that is a bear to cross. Hole up in your Starting Area, send out your Falcon, stop anyone else from flying with Shaman and destroy any who would oppose you. And with Turtle’s Trait, the faster they try and get to you, the longer it will actually take.

You’ll have 2 Outwits (IP, Turtle), 1 Perplex (Shaman), Enhancement (Weasel) and the possibility of a Prob Control (Thule Society Priest on his last click). Weasel will also pump up Iron Pharaoh’s Attack by 1 and let him reroll if Iron Pharaoh misses by 1! When the enemy closes in, Shaman makes a decent Secondary Attacker. Alternatively, his Defense Special (GLACIAL WALL: Shaman can use Barrier and Energy Shield/Deflection. When he uses Barrier, the blocking terrain markers can’t be targeted with an attack by characters marked with one or more action tokens.) lets him pump out an improved Barrier. Thule Society Priest can also be used as a tie-up/annoyance piece, especially since he can copy Mystics from Shaman and deal an unavoidable damage to whichever opposing figure has to spend an action killing him.

Now, Flash has also seen the release of Jack Hawksmoor, an Authority character who has a Trait that deals 1 Penetrating Damage to any character still in a Starting Area during Turn 3 or later. To me, though, this is hardly a deterrent to playing a Pharaoh team. Moving Pharaoh (especially with Shaman as a Taxi) and the rest of the team just outside their own starting area in the first couple turns is child’s play, and sometimes it leads to even better positioning for “turtling” (depending on the Map). At the end of the day, all Jack Hawksmoor is really going to stop is Blind Al.

So there ya go! The Slowest Team Ever Devised!! And its main flaw–it’s not a Themed Team–doesn’t matter in the current ROC format because Themed Team rules are not in effect!

–Finally, keep an eye out for FL007 S.T.A.R. Labs Technician (possibly the best pure all around support piece in the game right now!); FL202 Flash (once he gets going, there’s almost no safe place on the map for your opponent!); FL053B Zoom (the Prime; he’s a beast who can use Blades/Claws/Fangs AND either Flurry OR Exploit Weakness WHILE HE’S USING HYPERSONIC SPEED! Yup! Another piece who can attack twice in a turn. AND he’s a Black Lantern!); and FL050 Flash (aka Kingdom Come Flash; once he gets some Speed Force tokens going, he can absolutely END even some of the hardiest figures IN ONE TURN!).

Kingdom Come Flash’s KO rate when using his “Who Would Dare Be A Criminal in this City?” special Attack Power.

For more specifics on exactly why you need to be ready for these pieces and more, check out our Flash Top Ten Review coming later this month!

Until then, stay safe, and watch where you draw those lines of fire!

ROC’ing the Meta 2: Electric Boogaloo!! (Or, a Look at the Top Meta Figures for the 2014-2015 ROC Season!)

November 6, 2014 / HypeFox / 1 Comment

Okay! So it’s been awhile since I wrote anything that wasn’t a Weekly Roundup (or that had the “Electric Boogaloo” subtitle!), and I noticed that we really haven’t addressed the new ROC season format in any real detail yet. Well, that changes today!!

In this article, we’re going to look at which figures are doing well–basically, what you can expect to see at the next few ROC’s. In part 2, we’ll discuss which figures are not working like they use to in the Meta, and which figures might yet have their day in sun!

This should explain everything.

First, let’s take a look at the format the ROC is using this year. I mean, you can’t hit a target if you don’t know what it is, right?

From HCRealms, here is the current format:

1.2.1: The first half of this season the format will be “300 Points, Modern Age, and “No Tactics” “No Entity Possession”.

No figure with a base larger than a double base (peanut). Runs Sep 2014-Mar 2015.

What is “No Tactics?” Again, from the rules:

“Part 4: TACTICS
Tactics are optional elements of HeroClix that you can choose to play in your HeroClix games. Each brings new strategic depth and exciting opportunities to the game, but also additional rules and complexity.
Tactics should be added to your game only when you feel you’ve mastered all other aspects of the HeroClix rules. Even then, you and those you play with might want to add only one Tactic at a time, learning each in turn. Tactics covered in this section include:

• Special Objects
• Resources
• Feats
• Battlefield Conditions
• Event Dials
• Bystanders Tokens
• Themed Teams“

That’s right. No Resources, Relics, Colossals or Entities. No Bystander Tokens! No ATA’s, even! Yikes! Annnnd, you have to declare three maps on your Build sheet to choose from if you win Map Roll, so it’s a lot harder to hose teams simply via Map Choice. So what does that leave you? Well, quite a bit, actually, with one mechanic rising above the rest–at least so far. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Looking at the results of the few ROC’s that have been run so far under these rules (you can see the results of the FAT OGRE ROC right here, and the Dial H guys have talked at length about the ROC they ran in their last couple episodes), here is what you can expect to see.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Ranged figures are at such an advantage in this format. Probably because of that, everyone is looking for supporting figures that aid in targeting and pump up Range, Attack and/or Damage. Also, TK and Support are two KEY abilities that almost every team needs to have or needs to deal with. Healing, especially, is hard to come by in today’s Meta without a Power Battery. As such, these are the solutions some high level players have turned to in order to solve for X so far in this early part of the ROC season:

The Dead Set:

—DP018 Blind Al: She’s cheap (just 13 Points) and she enables shenanigans. She’s only got 2 clicks, but that doesn’t matter. Do you need to get a figure to its second click in a hurry? Do you want the cheapest Perplex in the game for your turtle (read: Iron Pharaoh) team? One of her main drawbacks–her keywords–doesn’t matter a lick in this format, since Theme Teams are disallowed.

—DP020 Weasel: Now we’re up to 27 Points and 3 clicks of life! Again, his dial is so useful it doesn’t matter. He’s got 2 specials that just make him the best supporting piece for ranged attackers in the game (Well, a case could be made for the next fig on this list, but I’m getting ahead of myself). Weasel’s Tech-Guru to the Underworld Damage Special essentially allows him to give an adjacent friendly attacker +1 to their Range, Attack AND Damage. His top dial Attack Special is slightly less useful, but it will let you reroll a nearby friendly character’s missed range attack roll if you miss by 1 (unless it’s a critical miss). As a nice little bonus, Weasel has Pulse Wave on the last two clicks of his dial. He only has an 8 Attack to go with his 5 Range (3 on the Pulse Wave), but when you remember that Pulse Wave ignores opposing Shape Change, Super Senses, Energy Shield/Deflection and Probability Control (if the Prob’er is in the area of effect), it’s not inconceivable that Weasel could actually hit someone with it.

—DP102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M.: 3 clicks of life for 30 Points! Bill does just about everything Blind Al does, only better! His Defense Special (I’M NOT ACTUALLY A QUALIFIED BLIMP PILOT, IT TURNS OUT: Bill, Agent of A.I.M. can use the Carry ability to carry any number of characters. After he carries a character and actions resolve, roll a d6. On a result of 3-6, deal him and the carried characters 1 damage.) will actually let you move most of your figures into place, and it also gets Bill to his two back clicks, which are absurdly useful for the points. He has the Hydra TA, Sidestep, Willpower and Outwit, but it’s his Attack Special that makes him a must play for a lot of folks (MY HIGH-ENERGY FINDER THING: Give Bill, Agent of A.I.M. a power action and choose the highest-point opposing character. Until your next turn, that character can be targeted with a ranged combat attack by one friendly character without line of fire to that opposing character.). Bascially, as long as your Primary Attacker is in range, he can attack your opponent’s best figure regardless of Terrain or Stealth or whatever, which is never not useful.

Again, Bill’s keywords aren’t the greatest (his best is probably Scientist), but that doesn’t matter a lick in this format.

The War Veterans:

War of Light is one of the largest sets they’ve ever made (actually, it’s gotta be the largest, right?), so just on shear numbers, it would have to offer a ton of great pieces for every role in a Build. As far as supporting pieces go, there’s definitely a few that you will run into again and again:

–WOL016 Soranik Natu: This is neither here nor there, but man, as I was looking for Soranik Natu images to put at the top of this entry, I noticed that half of what I found were Cosplay photos. I guess Soranik and her rather boobilicious uniform hit the Cosplay target right in the Bullseye. She’s alien, yet she basically looks like a sunburnt human; her costume wouldn’t be too hard to throw together, and dressing up as Ms. Natu offers the chance to display a lot o’ cleavage. There ya go–I think we just worked out a Cosplay algorithm that solves for the basic elements that need to be satisfied when choosing a character to Cosplay! Well done, us!

Anyway, Soranik Natu is a 70-Point Lantern from Wave 2 offers decent stats for her cost; what makes her Meta-worthy is the back half of her Trait (TANGLED LIVES: Opposing characters named Sinestro modify their combat values by -1 if not already modified by this effect. When Soranik Natu is adjacent to a character named Kyle Rayner, they both modify their attack values by +1 if not already modified by this effect.) and her top dial Attack Special (BATTLEFIELD MEDIC: Soranik Natu can use Telekinesis and Support. When she uses Telekinesis and places a friendly character next to her, she can use Support as a free action, but only to heal that character.). Please believe me when I say that there are very few good characters with Support in this format. Many teams in the normal Meta rely on the Power Battery for Support, or use Agrir’s Hammer for some Steal Energy/Quake shenanigans. Well, you can’t use either of those in the ROC right now. But Soranik here can fit right in with what a lot of Meta teams are already doing, and a 10 Attack Support as a FREE ACTION is a Godsend. Her TK also opens up a lot of doors in terms of your plan of attack.

As far as her Trait goes, we’ll see why that matters (if only a little) a little further on in this article.

–WOL029 Brother Hymn: He’s a bit pricey at 85 Points, but he will have just about every supporting power in the game (except maybe Empower, which doesn’t do much for you in the current environment anyway) somewhere on his dial. Top dial, he can use Perplex (only to increase values, but still), Enhancement (that also gives +1 to Range, not unlike Weasel), Barrier and Probability Control. Down dial he also morphs into a warrior monk with Running Shot and 3 damage along with Support (that he can occasionally use as–you guessed it–a Free Action!). He also flies, which means he’s a decent taxi, too.

–WOL033 Sister Sercy: She costs less than Brother Hymn (66 Points to his 85), but you get less, too. 1 less click of life, 2 less range, and less damage output throughout her whole dial. What you do get, however, is a phenomenal top click. Flight with 9 Movement and the Blue Lantern Perplex (can only Perplex values UP), 10 Attack with TK (so useful in this format), 17 Defense with Willpower and Prob with 2 Damage. She does pick up the same Support Special at the end of her dial that Brother Hymn has, but with an essentially naked 17 Defense and only 5 clicks, it is very possible someone can one shot her. Still, she is someone that you may see at a ROC.

The Old School:

–SOG035 Void: At 70 Points with Flight and Phasing on all five of her clicks, along with the ability to Carry up to four friendly characters (with no keyword requirement, which, again, works brilliantly in a no Themed Teams environment), she’s one of the best Taxis in the game. She also gives you a (all together now!) Free Action Support after she resolves a move action. If her attack wasn’t stuck at 8 for her whole dial, she’d be nearly broken. She also possesses a wonderful Damage Special (PRECOGNITION: Void can use Outwit, Probability Control, and Super Senses; when an action resolves after she uses any of these powers, roll a d6 that cannot be rerolled and on a result of ‘one’ deal Void 1 unavoidable damage.) that might eat away at her over time, but chances are the game will already be decided before that damage really hurts her enough to matter.

SECONDARY ATTACKERS:

Modern Age currently has a good number of figures (thanks primarily to War of Light) that can act as very efficient Secondary Attackers who cost a pittance compared to what you used to have to pay. Most are Primes, but not all. If you’re going to a ROC soon, expect to see one of these pieces backing up the Primary Attacker:

The Lanterns:

–WOL046B Abin Sur (Prime): Okay! Now we get to that mechanic I was talking about earlier–the one that’s been rising above the rest. It’s the Construct mechanic (CONSTRUCT: When building your force, you may attach a construct to this character by paying its point cost. Give this character a power action and replace the construct with any other construct, up to 2 points higher than the original construct. If this character has no action tokens and the new construct is a lower point value than the original construct, this is a free action instead.)! And Abin Sur here has it! He also has Running Shot, Energy Explosion, an 8 Range, 3 native Damage and some down dial Support (so useful!) and Perplex. Now, all that might seem pedestrian enough, but there are two MAJOR things to think about with Abin Sur here.

First, consider the WIDE range of abilities Abin’s Construct ability grants him (RCE, ES/D, Free Action Barrier, Free Action Smoke Cloud, Regen, CCE, Exploit Weakness, Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, etc., etc. … ). He can evolve with the game for the low, low price of 10 extra points when building your force (that’s the cost of the most expensive Construct, and he can switch them out at will by using a Power Action or a Free Action depending on which Construct you’re attaching.

Second, you’ll have that extra 10 Points (and more) to spend since Abin Sur ONLY COSTS 50 FREAKING POINTS!! Whaaa… ?!?!? Yep. He’s INSANELY good for his points. The other Construct pieces from War of Light are really good for their points, but 50 Points for everything Abin Sur brings you is just stupid.

–WOL013B Tomar Tu (Prime): 99 Points of awesome. He has the Construct ability, a mid-dial mini-Highfather-esque shenanigans-baiting Movement Special (FINAL STAND AGAINST HAL JORDAN: Give Tomar Tu a power action and choose an opposing character within 6 squares and line of fire. Until your next turn, that character can’t target any friendly character with an attack.), an absurd 9 Range, 18 Defense with Super Senses and Running Shot/Pulse Wave top dial. He can also use Willpower and has a conditional Outwit! You will be seeing this piece QUITE a lot in future ROC’s.

The Lil’ Guys:

–WOL099 Despotellis: Despotellis is sometimes referred to as a supporting piece, but make no mistake–his only purpose is dealing damage. Now, a 30-Point Hockey Puck with a 20 Defense is hard to deal with in the normal Meta; take away Resources and Relics, and his 20-Defense becomes ridiculously difficult to deal with. His Penetrating Poison is a great way to bust through particularly tough to deal with defensive abilities like Super Senses, Shape Change, Impervious, and so on. Additionally, some of the Construct-sporting Lanterns can get up to a 20+ Defense from Range with the Shield, so having a way to knock them through their clicks without having to roll attack dice is key.

–DP002 Headpool: Okay, he’s more of a tertiary attacker/tie-up piece, but he makes this list because you’re going to see him a lot. While he doesn’t have the Construct ability, he does have the Merc With a Mouth ability, which lets him attach Word Balloons (not as good as Constructs, but useful in and of themselves). He’s easy to get into the fray, and his Exploit Weakness should allow him to get through most defenses. Plus, his Defense Special (IMMORTAL ZOMBIE HEAD THAT EVERYONE WANTS: Headpool ignores other characters’ Poison and all but 1 damage that would be dealt to him. This power can’t be countered or ignored.) will keep him around far longer than his 3 clicks of life might suggest he would stay. The fact that he has the ability to dish out Virus tokens as well is something that might also be exploited, but we’ll touch on that a little more next time in Part 2…

PRIMARY PIECES:

These are the main pieces to watch out for. Not every army will feature one of these, but most will. They’re also not all Primary Attackers–there’s a couple Meta Builds that revolve around pieces that change the game without attacking. Either way, whatever Build you come up with, you are gonna need a way to deal with these guys (and gal) if and when you encounter them.

Yup. More Lanterns:

–WOL107 Kyle Raynor (Green Lantern): They finally made a good Kyle Raynor?! Yup. His 180 Point cost is worth it, especially since Kyle can use the Construct ability. He can deal a ton of damage his first two clicks, but then a Stop Click (ION: When this click is revealed due to an opponent’s attack, stop turning the dial. Kyle Rayner can use Impervious and the Quintessence team ability. This power can’t be ignored.) on Click 3 kicks things into overdrive. It bumps Kyle up to a 19 native Defense along with 5 Damage and Outwit. But it’s his Movement Special that’s really bonkers (I CAN BE EVERYWHERE I NEED TO BE: Kyle Rayner can use the Duo Attack Ability. When he does, before making each attack, you may place him in a legal square up to half his speed value away.). Read that ability again. It’s stupid, it’s so good. And you still have 110-ish Points (depending on what Construct you buy Kyle) left for supporting pieces. He is fully capable of doing 9 Damage or more while using that crazy Duo Attack of his, and there’s next to nothing that your opponent can do to tie him down!

–WOL105 John Stewart: A more traditional from-range beatstick who becomes more interesting in this format since he has the Construct ability. His top dial includes Running Shot, Precision Strike, RCE and the ability to use RCE as a ranged combat action instead of a power action. He also naturally sees through Hindering Terrain and other characters. For those reasons, he’s better than the 160 Point Hal Jordan that came with the Scenario Pack. He doesn’t have the crazy movement powers that Kyle Raynor does, but he’s damn good in his own right and he still packs a serious punch.

The Kool-Aid Kult Member:

–GOTG050 Proxima Midnight: First of all, how awesome is her sculpt? It’s the exact image above, including the fallen victim at her feet. But I digress. Proxima is 100 points of aggression; her dial has 7 Clicks that start out range-based, then turn to close combat before finishing with some clicks that are somewhere in between. Top dial she has 10 Movement with Running Shot, 11 Attack with Pen/Psy (and Sharpshooter), 18 Defense with Combat Reflexes and 3 native damage. Her Range is dependent on her first Trait (THREE TRACERS OF BLACK LIGHT: Proxima Midnight begins the game with 3 Tracer tokens on this card. Proxima Midnight has a range value equal to the number of Tracer tokens on this card times 3, and has a number of bolts equal to the number of Tracer tokens on this card.), but it’s her second Trait that makes her so useful against foes with strong defensive abilities (THE SPEAR OF PROXIMA MIDNIGHT: When Proxima Midnight hits with a ranged combat attack, remove a Tracer token from this card and place it on a hit character’s card if it doesn’t already have one. At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6 for each of her Tracer tokens on other character’s cards, and on a result of 3-6 deal 1 penetrating damage to the character with that Tracer token on its card. When a character with her Tracer token on its card is KO’d, place the Tracer token on Proxima Midnight’s card.). Yup. Depending on that Spear roll, you could potentially do two separate packets of penetrating damage to a character. For pieces with Stop Clicks or other shenanigans (Bizarro, the Kyle Raynor from above that we just talked about), this is a huge headache.

With her combination of Sharpshooter, Pen/Psy and Combat Reflexes, sometimes your best move is to simply Running Shot right next to your target and stay there–if they don’t have an available Outwit, it’s going to be very tough for most pieces to hit a 20 Defense–especially if Proxima hits them first and they’re mid-dial.

Lots of folks have been teaming her with Bill, Agent of A.I.M. to get that first shot in from a safe place where it’s hard or even impossible for the enemy to return fire. This is certainly a valid strategy; just be ever mindful of your positioning with her, because she can get chewed up from range real quick. Her native 18 Defense isn’t bad by any stretch, but she has no reducers of any kind. Of course, even if she does go down hard, she still has her final Trait (CULL OBSIDIAN: When Proxima Midnight is KO’d by an opposing character’s attack, deal damage to that character equal to the last amount of damage dealt to Proxima Midnight. This damage can’t be reduced below 1.) to leave as a parting gift. Oh, and Ninwashui is kind of a fan.

The Shapeshifter:

GOTG062 Super Skrull: This was the winning Primary Piece at the Dial H ROC event, I believe. He’s 170 Points and possesses all the same Zombie Traits that every other Zombie Chase has. Those alone make him pretty good, but what he’s really good at is mimicking that Green Lantern Construct ability! Super Skrull’s Trait (IT’S HARD TO EMULATE FOUR POWERS WITH HALF MY LIMBS: Give Super Skrull a free action and choose up to one each of standard speed, attack, defense, and damage powers. Super Skrull can use the chosen powers until your next turn. For each power chosen this way, place a Power token on his card. At the end of your turn, roll a d6 that can’t be rerolled, and subtract 1 for each Power token on his card and remove all Power tokens from his card. On a result of 1 or less, deal Super Skrull 1 unavoidable damage.) lets him actually choose up to FOUR standard abilities to pick up on the fly, and he does it all AS A FREE ACTION (not every Construct flip with the Lanterns is gonna be a Free Action). He’s a multi-tool for every occasion! And with his Zombie Traits, you frankly don’t care about taking one measly damage, since you have multiple ways to get it back!

And he teams very well with Headpool and some of the other Z-Virus figs like–well, we’ll get into that in Part 2 when we talk about some possibly overlooked figures!

The Ol’ Standards:

“I’m back?! My dear, I never left!”

–IIM051 Iron Pharaoh: He is still a thing, going forward. I don’t know if there’s a piece I’ve discussed more on this site. He’s one of my favorites to use, and he’s not going anywhere until he’s rotated out. There’s not really a format that he’s not at least above average in. Krampus/Helspont teams (and, to a lesser extent, Shatterstar teams) are probably his main weakness at the moment, but even then, he probably still has a 40%-50% of coming out on top. I’ll take those odds if I’m matched up against a team designed to exploit my fatal flaw. And while he keywords are actually pretty good, the fact that you can play whoever you want with him in this environment only makes him better–he doesn’t have any NAMED keywords, so he was never gonna get those Theme Team probs anyway!

–WXM010 Shatterstar: At 73 Points, he seems like he should be considered a Secondary Attacker. And on many builds, he probably will be. However, there’s a good chance that his team is going to revolve around him anyway thanks to his easily exploitable Trait (X PORTAL: Once per game, give Shatterstar a power action. Place Shatterstar and an adjacent friendly character of a lower point value in any adjacent squares on the map.) and the fact that, top dial, he can Charge 5 squares, has an 11 Attack with both Flurry AND B/C/F (Yup. If the rolls go your way, a 73 Point character can dish out 12 Clicks of raw damage on the second freaking turn no matter where your opponent is on the map. And once he’s up close and personal with an opposing figure, they’ll have to hit a 19 to Damage him (17 native Defense plus Combat Reflexes). Hell, you can run two of him and still have almost 150 Points leftover for the rest of your army. He’s that good. And just like the comics, he pairs really well with Rictor, especially since they both have top dial Charge (and Rictor pumps up their Attack values).

–SLOSH052 Highfather: Yes, he’s still hanging around. He’s a supporting piece masquerading as a primary figure. His top dial TK , Prob and Support are somewhat useful, but the only reason he’s really played is his Trait (THE PACT: At the beginning of the game, you may announce a pact. If you do, the highest point character on your force and the highest point character on your opponent’s force (300 points or less) can’t target opposing characters with an attack until one of them has taken damage from an attack or they are the only 2 characters on the map. This ability can’t be ignored.). He can shut down Tentpole pieces, but it’s very rare in this environment that you’re going to find yourself facing a really heavy-costed piece outside of Kyle or Zombie Super Skrull. And even then, it’s not inconceivable that they won’t have a supporting piece who can get a shot in on Highfather.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I think Highfather is a losing strategy at this point. If you go this route, you will run into a few games where he guides you to an easy win. You may even make Top 8, but usually by then you’re gonna face some really well-put-together teams that will have not one but MULTIPLE answers for Highfather, and your day will be done right quick. But I have to include him on this list because he is still out there and you may run into him.

WK002 Krampus/SLOSH042 Helspont: These guys come as a pair. An unlikely one, I grant you, but they’re pretty effective. The basic idea here is to use these two along with Blind Al. You Perplex Krampus twice with Blind Al and Helspont (who also has Perplex) to get Krampus to a 12 Attack, then you give Blind Al a power action to activate her Booby Trap power and expel Helspont from the starting area and deal him one unavoidable damage. The tricky part here is to find a spot to place Helspont that’s outside of your starting area yet adjacent to Krampus (not all maps will have a good spot, so winning Map Roll will definitely help you here). Then you activate Helspont’s Movement Special (I INFILTRATED YOU LONG AGO: Give Helspont a double power action and select an opposing character of a lower point value. Place Helspont and the chosen character in each other’s squares, and after actions resolve, Helspont may be given a close or ranged combat attack as a free action.) to trade places with a key member of your opponent’s force who’s 199 Points or less. If at all possible, you want to choose someone who doesn’t have Shape Change, Super Senses or Probability Control (again, with no Themed Teams, Probability Control will be a lil’ easier to avoid) to take as many variables out of the equation as you can.

Then you activate Krampus’s special Capture Trait (NAUGHTY CHILDREN ARE MY HOLIDAY FEAST: Krampus can use the Capture ability. He can use it normally or, if the target is a higher point value, he must be given a double power action instead of a power action. When Krampus releases a captured character in his starting area, in addition to the normal effects, heal Krampus to his starting line.) and hope to all that is holy (or maybe unholy) that you hit. Krampus’s Attack Special gives him +1 to hit as well for each token on the target, so that will help you as well. With a 12-13 Attack, you should have a fighting chance against most figures.

You’ll probably have to wait through one round of clearing before you can release your Captive, but if you can succeed at all those steps, there’s a high probability that the game will be effectively over, especially if you were also able to take a Free Action shot with Helspont at another figure on your opponent’s team (and since there’s no chance of a Colossal-Sized Power Battery being in the way in their starting area in this environment, you should be good to go). Because Krampus never left his starting area, he’s still there, and he can release his Captive as soon as he has the ability to take a Power Action.

Now, if you miss with Krampus, you’re not doomed, since his Plasticity will keep most figures right where they’re at and he other Special Powers that grant him Super Senses and the ability to Perplex Attack Values down by -2, but you’ll also be giving your opponent a LOT more time to react, which is never good with this sort of combo team. There was also a ruling recently in the WizKids rules forum where they basically expanded the first turn Immunity rule to prevent you from doing this on your first turn; waiting until turn two isn’t exactly a dealbreaker, though–if you hit your rolls, crippling your opponent on turn two is just as effective as crippling him on turn one.

Hypersonic Speed is also a horrible matchup for this team (Speed Demon in particular, who people seem to have forgotten about so soon after his domination last season. But with his ability to cross the map in two turns, attack Krampus for 3 Damage AND also catch the creature in a Speed Cyclone Uplift, it’s possible he can KO Krampus in that token-clearing turn after he Captures someone but before he can release them.), but so far, we haven’t seen a ton of those figs show up in this specific Meta (outside of Super Skrull, who can gain it if he wants it). Having said all that, this is still a wickedly viable Build. I’d suspect you’d have much better results playing this than Highfather, at the very least.

The Best of the Rest:

Briefly, IIM001B Silver Centurion, ASM017B Brother Voodoo and WOL104 & WOL104R Guy Gardner are a few other figures you may run into in your ROC travels that are definitely still viable in the Meta.

Okay! So there you have it. Almost 5000 words on what you can expect to run into if you attend a ROC this season. Next time, we’ll discuss which former Meta figures you should avoid, and which figures and Builds you can try that haven’t really shown up yet this season.

Until then, stay safe, and watch where you draw your lines of fire!

A Really Long Reply: Skye’s Father and Other Random Thoughts…

October 27, 2014October 28, 2014 / ninwashui / Leave a comment

This started off as a really long comment/reply to Hypefox’s last Mid-Weekly Roundup. With everything he brought up, my reply ended up being long enough to be it’s own article.

What follows is in no particular order…

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D:

–I read an article today theorizing that the Inhumans are coming to Agents of S.H.I. E.L.D. . The author theorized that the blue alien that healed Coulson was a Kree and that Skye was an Inhuman. That’s why Skye shared some DNA with the blue alien (being that the Inhumans were the result of Kree genetic experiments on humans). They also theorized that the obelisk is actually a Terrigan Crystal. Various characters in the series have also mentioned several times that Skye and her father were from the Himalayas. That was the original location of the home of the Inhumans (before it moved to the moon and before it blew up). Now, the author of the article thought Skye’s father would either be Mr. Hyde (retconned to now be an Inhuman), Maximus, or the Unspoken! The first one would make Skye into “Daisy” from Marvel’s Secret Warriors and the last two would actually make Skye part of the Inhuman royal family!

My guess?

I think it will turn out that Mr. Hyde will be Skye’s father. There is talk of an Inhumans movie and if that’s true then Mr. Hyde would be the least likely character that would be needed for such an endeavor, which in turn would mean that the showrunners would have free rein to do whatever they wanted to with the character. That’s why I think Season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t feature more recognizable super people–they didn’t know which characters would and would not be needed for MCU films in the near future. Having a major villain debut on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pretty much ensures that character won’t make it into the movies (at least not in any meaningful way, i.e. the primary antagonist).

Can you imagine if, say, a Hawkeye movie featured as the main villain someone that Phil Coulson’s team fought (and ostensibly beat) during an episode of MAoS? There could definitely be a feeling of ‘been there, done that’ to the proceedings, which could cause ticket sales to suffer, which is just about the last thing you would want for a tentpole flick that would cost a minimum of $150 million to produce.

However, if the MCU movies used some of the characters who were first established on TV (or, say, one of the upcoming Netflix series) to fill in the edges of some of their stories, well, that could be really cool. For example, if, say, Absorbing Man showed up as bit player in the next Avengers movie then I think that would drive the up popularity of both media, and would make the TV series “matter” in the movie universe. Can you imagine Avengers 2 opening with the already-established-on-Agents-of-S.H.I.E.L.D.-Absorbing Man fighting the Hulk in Times Square before the opening credits? Then Ultron reveals him himself after the Avengers assemble post-fight back at the tower. I don’t think they’ll do it, but it’s awesome to think about. Really, the possibilities for this sort of thing are endless…

Celebrate-Gate…

The Detroit Lions – These guys have been known in years past (really every other year previous to now) to lead fans on and make them start to believe only to yank the football away at the last second like Lucy does with Charlie Brown. Their defense this year will be remembered as one of the best the team has ever had. The offense will likely not be remembered at all. They won their latest game in incredible fashion, or more accurately the Falcons lost their latest game in incredible fashion. On the plus side this week no major player injured themselves celebrating, and our field goal kicker proved he can actually make a field goal if you give him a free do-over. Seriously I would love it if Jason Hanson came back. I think the Lions are getting kickers from the same place that the Tigers get closers.

Marvel Cartoon Series – I don’t have any new news here. I just wanted to bring these to your attention in case you haven’t been checking them out. When Marvel connected everything in their movie universe by releasing the Avengers, the cartoon universe made that same move. In 2013, the current (at that time) Avengers cartoon was based off of the comics. It was replaced by Avengers Assemble, which started in episode one with the events of the Avengers movie. From there it diverges wildly (like adding falcon to the team in episode 1), but it’s nice for new viewers to have the movie starting point. Being in cartoon form also allows them to do things that wouldn’t fly in the movies – like having Dracula (yes that Dracula) be a reoccurring villain. Avengers Assemble also connects with Ultimate Spider-man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. in the same cartoon Universe. This allows them to guest star characters frequently between series and keep the same voice actors for characters regardless of show. For example, Iron Man is always voiced by Adrian Pasdar (who is also Glen Talbot on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) regardless of which of the shows he’s appearing on at the time. That inter-connectedness makes it cool.

On Blu-Ray this month – I’ve got kids so I miss a ton of movies in theatres. I took a chance and rented Godzilla this week. I loved Pacific Rim and I was hoping this would be similarly fun. That ended up not being the case. The director made the incomprehensible decision to shoot the movie with realistic lighting conditions. Like maybe the monsters would be a lot scarier if you couldn’t really see them. Except in other movies that do that there is something else for the viewers to watch. This was just dark and hard to see. Can you imagine if the original Star Wars used realistic lighting conditions and you could barely see the Death Star the whole movie? Ridiculous. The plot also was absurd and that’s coming from someone who thought the Mathew Brodrick version was decent. HISHE has a wonderful spoof on this movie. The part with the “let them fight” line was dead on.

I’m hoping to rent The Edge of Tomorrow and 1000 Ways to Die in the West soon. I have higher hopes for those movies.

The Entire Flash set Versus Speed Demon – They’ve revealed five Hypersonic Speed-based character dials for The Flash set so far. While they each have some interesting powers, they all require you to hit an opponent before you can really do anything special. There are faster pieces in this set, but so far it looks like Speed Demon will remain the best Hypersonic HeroClix character [EDITOR’S NOTE: All characters get better with Entities, obviously, but he is damn near broken! Ion is great with him; Ophidian might be just as good, if not better (keep in mind, if you can find a way to give Speed Demon Sidestep, his Trait still activates! So in addition to your normal attack and first Speed Cyclone Uplift victim, if you’re careful enough with your positioning, you would have a 1 in 6 chance to do another 1 damage to an opposing figure. That’s three freaking chances to deal damage to opposing figures, and two of them don’t even need attack rolls. Sick, sick SICK!!]

On an unrelated note, FL204 Central City Police Captain has a power that reads “LAW ENFORCEMENT CONSULTANT: When building your force, all characters with the Police keyword have the Central City keyword.” With the Batman and Streets of Gotham sets still being legal, Police teams might be a thing again. As always, stay tuned…

Team of the week – I’ve had reason to study the Krampus/Helspont combo recently and I’m finding the only teams truly resistant are teams that feature a tent pole that costs over 199 points (because Helspont can’t switch with them). To that end I put together this quick team.

“Deadpool is Just the Man to Teachethetheth Thee.”

DP055 Deadpool (w/DPW003 “4th Wall? What 4th Wall?”)
TDW011 Fandral
FIR100 The Book of the Skull
FIR107 Angrir’s Hammer
Total = 299 points

If someone tries to “Krampus” this team they won’t be able to touch Deadpool due to his point cost. That leaves Fandral. Fandral can use his perplex to raise his defense by one and then Krampus would need hit a 20 defense to get his Capture. It’s still very possible Krampus makes that roll, but it’s a certainly not a “lock”. That’s not really even the worst part for the Krampus player. If Helspont switches with Fandral, he’ll end up double tokened next to Deadpool. Deadpool has outwit, pulse wave, and an attack of 14. He’s not going to miss except on snake eyes. Helspont will be near the end of his dial very quickly.

Against non-Krampus teams, Deadpool is still a killer and Fandral is still a very competent backup attacker. If Fandral rolls low on Blades then Deadpool gets a free close combat attack via Fandrals’s Feint special power . If Fandral rolls high on Blades, then he rolls high on Blades. Isn’t that enough?

The approach on the battlefield against other teams might hurt because Deadpool only has a six range, but once you close with another team you will be incredibly deadly.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Any team using the Yellow Power Battery has the possibility to give Krampus fits as well, provided your figures are over 79 Points. The Hal Jordan Parallax team from the first “Let’s Be Lanterns” should be able to mop the floor with a Krampus/Helspont team. Having said that, yeah, there’s not a lot that effectively counters Krampus/Helspont. Props to you again, Andrew!]

Well, that’s it for now. Man, that was a lot of randomness that I just scribbled down. I feel like Larry King! Now if only I got paid like him…

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry. Not gonna happen.]

Damn.

Flash Forward!! (Or, The Mid-Weekly Roundup for 10/19/2014!!)

October 23, 2014October 24, 2014 / HypeFox / 1 Comment

Welcome Back!!

So what’s happened since our last Roundup? Well, let’s see….

–The Tigers flamed out of the playoffs in just three short games. Joba Chamberlain and the bullpen were characteristically awful (seriously, it seemed like they were filming a sequel to “Firestarter” there EVERY FREAKING NIGHT!), as was manager Brad Ausmus, who–when it came to making pitching changes–made the wrong choice just about every time:

“What’s that? Anibal Sanchez is available? No thanks! Joba just blew an inning last game, so, mathematically, there’s no possible way he can blow a 4-run lead today! It’s science!”

I get that the number of good bullpen options he had were limited, but to not use virtually ANY of them is just idiotic. Even Blaine Hardy would have inspired more confidence than the Pu-Pu Platter of Joba Chamberlain and Joaquin Soria that he kept shoveling out there night after night.

While demonstrating his mastery of Sabermetrics, Tigers Manager Brad Ausmus delivers the results of his statistical analysis of using Joe Nathan as his closer.

Overall, I actually thought Ausmus was fairly solid as a manager during the regular season. We’ll see how Year 2 goes. I can’t imagine that the leash is long for him after such a playoff debacle. We shall see, though. Bring on the Hot Stove league!

–The Lions have tricked everyone into thinking they’re respectable again. Spoiler Alert: They’re not. They’ve beaten up on a Murderer’s Row of awful quarterbacks , and they still managed to find a way to lose at home to Kyle Orton. That’s not easy. Now, they are 5-2, and they still have 3 games against Minnesota and Chicago, who are terrible, so getting to 10+ wins should be fairly straightforward. Of course, with this team, things are never straightforward.

I’m cautiously optimistic, but after last year’s swoon, I’m gonna need to see a lot more than what they’ve shown me so far before I get my hopes up. Remember, we’re not even, like, a month removed from this highlight yet:

“Oh, Stephen, noooo!”

But enough about sports! What you’re really here for is a Heroclix recap, right?

Well, look no further than…

THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

PODCASTS:

–Dial H for Heroclix was back with an episode near and dear to my heart! Episode 66, “Lantern Team Building Advice,” was a shortie but a goodie. Similar in premise to the “Let’s Be Lanterns” series that we ran right here in August (but with much more of a “Dial H” spin, of course, and a much more thorough analysis of each color’s Power Battery), there’s no shortage of good advice for players contained within (FYI–the Blue Lantern actually does NOT work with LE Absorbing Man–that’s a pending errata right from Wizkids’s own rules forum–but the rest of the advice they give is spot on!).

–As far as I can tell, Episode 27, which covers the end of the ROC’s first season, is still the most recent entry!

–In case you missed it last time, in somewhat sad news, Push to Regen has announced on Reddit that they have released their final episode. Their Facebook page is still up, and still posting the occasional news item, but for now, the show has reached its final destination.

–ClixCast is back! They have yet to release an October ep, but you can catch their August and September offerings right here!

–While I haven’t seen any recent results, you can find the latest ROC tourney announcements right here!

–Having said that, I know I went on a big rant last time about the possibility of Copycat screwing up the ROC’s current format. Until I get some hard results that will either back up or destroy my argument, I’m going to back off a little bit… but I will definitely be watching these next few ROC’s with great interest!

–Want to know what it’ll be like tearing into a case of FLASH boosters next month? Well, wonder no longer, because Friday Night Lights alum and celebrity Heroclix fan Scott Porter (Iceman425 on the Realms) has teamed with DC VP of Creative Sciences Kevin Kiniry to do just that–and they recorded it all!

A couple of takeaways from that video:

-There are only 3 Chases (unofficially, they will be The Question, Pandora and Phantom Stranger)

-If you buy a case of The Flash, well… you are NOT guaranteed to pull one of them!! That’s right, Scott and Kevin pulled 2 Primes (the Common and Uncommon Prime, I believe). This means that the Chases will probably be REALLY expensive on the secondary market, especially initially. And if they’re actually good… yikes! Will they even be able to replace the Trinity of Sin Team Base figures? That is a dark horse rumor. That I just started.

-Some of the sculpts are amazing. Or at least they look amazing on film.

-I don’t know much about any of the Flash characters beyond Wally West, Barry Allen and Jay Garrick. I know virtually nothing about their Rogues’ Gallery. Having said that, a lot of people who do seem to be really, REALLY excited for this set. Basically, this seems like the DC version of the DeadPool set we got back in May. The characters I’d probably be most excited for are the Trinity of Sin characters, and they’re gonna be some really hard to pull Chases. And maybe a Kingdom Come Flash (He’s rumored to be a Super Rare. I loved that story, and all of the initial Kingdom Come characters were so overpowered it was ridiculous!). So while I may not grab nearly as much of this set as, say, Guardians of the Galaxy, I’m glad all the folks who really love these characters are finally getting a set!

-Finally, Deadpool kind of set the bar for how broken/awesome a Hypersonic Speed character can be with Speed Demon (and, to a lesser extent, Whizzer), so we’ll see if any of the characters in Flash can hang with the most recent Marvel speedsters!

Army of the Week:

This week, we’re gonna spotlight local player Andrew’s team from Ninwashui’s most recent Local Tourney Report!

Team Name: Krampin’ Your Style

Theme: None

Roster:

WKWK–002 Krampus—79 Points

(assigned The Utility Belt with 1 item)–8

SLOSH042 Helspont—200

DP018 Blind Al—13

=300 Points

What We Liked About This Build: Holy crap, this was pretty fun to play against! Krampus with a 13 Attack and Capture is just devastating, and Helspont’s ability–and Andrew’s creative way of getting Helspont to the correct click–was just some awesome out-of-the-box thinking! Ninwashui mentioned in his report that while he admired the creativity of the Build, he didn’t have a great time losing half of his army by Turn 2. I had a different experience.

Playing the Orange Power Battery with Iron Pharaoh (Possessed by Ophidian) and Speed Demon (Possessed by Ion), I saw Andrew capture Iron Pharaoh on Andrew’s first turn (using a double power action) and had to spend my next two turns racing across the board to try and free the Pharaoh. Speed Demon ended up rolling a 12, which did enough damage to KO Krampus in one hit. Had I not gotten that stroke of luck, I still would have had about a 66% chance to do the last two damage that I needed via Speed Demon’s Cyclone Trait (SPEED CYCLONE UPLIFT: When Speed Demon moves, after actions resolve, choose an opposing character and roll a d6. If the result is less than the number of distinct squares that Speed Demon moved into or through that are adjacent to that character during the move, you may place that character within line of fire of its square and up to the result away in squares and deal that character half of the result in damage.), but had I rolled a 1 or a 2, I would have been in a world of hurt; Krampus would have scored Iron Pharaoh on his next turn, which would have healed him back up to full, Speed Demon would be on his second click, and Andrew could just trade places with Speed Demon again using Helspont and sent my last piece all the way across the map (while double-tokened!).

In other words, the game would almost be over at that point. I’d have needed an extraordinary amount of luck to get back in the match, so it all came down to that initial push with Speed Demon to try and get Iron Pharaoh back. At the risk of coming across as the biggest nerd to ever pick up a pair of dice, it was probably my most dramatic Heroclix moment so far!

But that’s mostly a recap. What I want to focus on is Andrew’s army! Ninwashui and I spent probably 15 minutes after that tournament discussing Andrew’s Build and how it affected every decision each of us made in our respective matches. We also looked at it from Andrew’s perspective; after I described our match, Ninwashui was absolutely sure that Andrew should have grabbed Speed Demon instead of Iron Pharaoh. But I pointed out that Andrew then would have had a double tokened Helspont in a prime position (roughly 3 squares away) to get 2-shotted by Iron Pharaoh (who was sporting the Orange Crossbow and would have basically had a 13 Attack of his own and would have been sporting 5-6 Damage against Helspont at that point). So if Andrew takes Speed Demon, he scores around 185 Points, but he’d probably lose a 200 Point character immediately after! That would leave him Krampus and Blind Al, who, frankly, would have had no shot against the Pharaoh.

And that was just a small snippet of the dozens of scenarios Ninwashui and I were running through A HALF HOUR AFTER THE TOURNAMENT ENDED! I can’t remember the last Build that got us talking so much. Ninwashui was right in his report insomuch as there ARE several team types that will have next to no shot against Andrew’s team IF HIS CAPTURE GOES TO PLAN. But there are also plenty of Meta Builds that still match up well against Andrew’s squad! I was simply lucky in that I was playing just such a team (although, as I stated above, I still needed one really lucky roll!).

At the end of the day, I think Heroclix is actually a better game for having a team like Andrew’s in it. It was different and creative, and that’s why it’s this week’s Army of the Week! Great job, Andrew!

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–So last time, I talked about what was wrong with Gotham, and some things they could do to fix the show. The last two episodes weren’t fabulous, but they were a step in the right direction. So this week, I want to focus on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

If you gave up on this show last year, you are really missing something this year. These episodes have a raw momentum that was missing from many of the initial offerings last season. The creators have somehow also managed to introduce a TON of new characters while still remembering to give each of the main characters a share of the spotlight in every episode so far. More than that, the villains this year have been much more formidable (and, y’know, actually INTERESTING in their own right!).

As opposed to the Mort of the Month C-list roster fodder that the writers seemed to shuffle into every episode last year, this year started with a bang with an impressively realized Absorbing Man, Kraken (aka Daniel Whitehall) and Skye’s Evil Father (Mr. Hyde? A Kree? An original creation? We don’t know exactly who he is yet!).

This week’s episode also introduced Mockingbird into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it looks like things are just picking up.

Alan Sepinwall at Hitfix has been all over M.A.o.S.’s resurgence this year, and you can read his latest recap right here!

I have a lot of thoughts regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. specifically, and the MCU as a whole, that are probably best saved for a separate post. For now, I’ll just say that if you’ve been off the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. bandwagon for awhile, now is a great time to climb back on!

Wait--it's already listing this post!! Huh?! Whaa?! Must be magic!!

Critical Missives:

–Okay, we’ve already linked to Ninwashui’s articles from the last couple weeks, and we’ve got more content planned for the next couple weeks as well. Remember to Follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates (and random thoughts) as soon as they happen! You can Follow us at @criticalmissive to stay up to date on articles (think I’ve got the kinks worked out; it should Tweet the link every time there’s something new to read).

And that’s it for this week!! See ya next time, and until then, stay safe (and DRY!!), and watch where you draw your lines of fire!

How To Clinch The Central!! (Or, The Mid-Weekly Roundup for 09/28/2014!!)

October 2, 2014October 2, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Howdy! It’s time for another edition of our patented Roundups! Why publish an update now, in the middle of the week? Well, a lot has happened in the last two weeks!

In the world of Michigan sports alone:

–Baseball’s regular season has finally ended, and the Tigers finished in first place in the AL Central. Finally! Here’s what the scene looked like in and around Comerica Park:

Noted baseball fans Barry Allen and Wally West run by the stadium wearing Tigers colors! (Not gonna lie, they were hard to capture on film!)

Noted baseball fans Barry Allen and Wally West run by the stadium wearing Tigers colors! (Barry was in the home whites; Wally was wearing the navy gear. And yes, that’s Ford Field–where the Lions play–right behind them. For any non-southeastern Michigan readers, the Lions and Tigers play right next to each other!)

Fans exiting the stadium. That’s the Ren Cen in the skyline there.

Folks ready to celebrate in downtown Detroit.

Now, here’s where it gets weird. After the Tigers beat Minnesota to clinch the division, two cops on horseback came out onto the grass near the fence in left-center field (by the bullpens.) There, they milled about for just two minutes or so, and then left. And that’s when I noticed something strange on the warning track:

“Hmmm…” I thought, “That’s strange. Lemme see if I can zoom in a bit. That can’t be what I think it is... ”

“Oh yeah. That’s what I thought it was.“

Yep. An explosion of horsecrap right on the outfield dirt. Now our Warning Track needs a Warning Track.

–I bet the Twins felt crappy about losing.

–That horse was a real party pooper. (Okay, I’m done with the dookie puns now. Well… probably.)

–The Tigers will start their playoff run today in Baltimore at 5:37!

–Meanwhile, across the street, the Lions played Green Bay a couple weeks ago. They won the game, in large part because of their stellar defense. Lions middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch was so excited to get a sack in the first half that he just had to express himself:

"Somehow, this is still more manly than the Martin Grammatica celebratory knee explosion. At least Tulloch actually did something worth celebrating...

Yup! These are my Lions!

–Still, after a 3-1 start, I have to be optimistic, right? I mean, it’s not like this team has a long, tortured and RECENT history of collapsing during the latter half of the season, right?

Bah. Best not to think of such things. In fact, I think it’s high time we turned our attention to:

THE MID-WEEKLY UPDATE!!

PODCASTS:

–Dial H for Heroclix is always new every week! Their latest episode included some spoilers for upcoming OP kits as well as a discussion of the second series of Yu-Gi-Oh! figures!

–The Quarry has released Episode 27, which covers the end of the ROC’s first season!!

–In somewhat sad news, Push to Regen has announced on Reddit that they have released their final episode. Their Facebook page is still up, and still posting the occasional news item, but the show has reached its final destination.

“We’re a Thing again!”

–And, in tribute to Elton John and the Circle of Life (never thought I’d make an Elton John reference on this blog; I was, apparently, wrong), just as Push to Regen goes quietly into that dark night, ClixCast rises from the ashes after six months and publishes two new episodes! Welcome back, gentlemen.

–You can find the latest ROC tourney announcements right here!

–Keep your GotG Nebula, Rocket Raccoon Movie Chase, Star-Lord Movie Starter piece, Movie Rare Groot, Movie Rare Yondu and Batroc handy–we have another Pirate to add to your force! It’s Pirate Deathstroke, and he’s… weird. But in a good way. His mid-dial “Take Their Vessel” Special Movement power has to be the weirdest justification EVER for granting the use of Mind Control, but he also has a great top dial Damage Special called “Steal More Than Your Gold” that allows him to basically steal a standard power from an opposing figure within 6 squares. The best part is, you’re preventing that character from “using” that power, not countering that power, so it gets around Power Cosmic or Quintessence or any powers that “can’t be countered.” I’d like a little more Range than 6, but for 112 Points, he’s certainly unique.

–Want to know what to expect when OP Rogue is up for grabs at your local venue? Click here to find out!

–In case you missed it last time, we got some announcements about some upcoming sets!! We are getting an Avengers Assemble set with 25 never-before-Clix’d characters along with next year’s OP set: Age of Ultron!! Oh, and we’re getting an Age of Ultron Movie Set as well. In addition, it appears that BOTH sets will use Avengers ID cards (randomly inserted in boosters?) that will work with the Avengers Roundtable Resource. How this will all play out, I don’t know. But what I do know is that somewhere along the way (probably but not definitely as the main prize from Age of Ultron) we will finally get… a Quinjet! Yep, Marvel’s finally getting a vehicle (at least one that didn’t start as a figure like Warlock)!

Avengers Assemble should hit around May, and will be a normal 5-figure Booster set. Age of Ultron will come in two different waves of 5-Figure boosters. Wheeee!

You can find a link to the Alliance pictures HERE!!

Army of the Week:

No Army of the Week this week, as we’re devoting a little extra time to debuting another new feature–Upcoming Local Games–at the bottom of this very article. Army of the Week will return next time, though!

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–Gotham and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have premiered! After two episodes apiece, they appear to be heading in opposite directions. This week, I’ll talk about Gotham. Next week, we’ll take a look at Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

–Okay, I know this is a comic-book-based show, but the premiere and ESPECIALLY the second episode were really over the top. Not a great start. Ben McKenzie is fine as Jim Gordon, and I like his military backstory. But Donal Logue seems uncomfortable so far as Harvey Bullock (color me surprised–I would’ve thought he’d be brilliant), partially because every other scene has him spouting cartoonish exposition about how corrupt Gotham is and how Jim needs to get with the program. I think that’s what I dislike the most–Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock seem like characters from two different shows. And the abysmally named Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith). the other character with the most screen time through episode 2, seems bizarrely misconceived.

Why does Fish Mooney have a character banner like audience's already know who she is? Whaaa... ?! And really, a tough as nails female gangster has no problem with folks calling her Fish? Really?!

Why does Fish Mooney have a character banner like audiences already know who she is? And really, a tough as nails female gangster has no problem with folks calling her Fish?!

The only other standout so far is the guy playing the Penguin as a young thug. He’s good, but since he’s rail-thin and dressed to the nines all the time, every time someone talks about how much he looks or walks like a penguin (which supposedly sets him off on a violent rage every time he hears it), you just wonder what the hell they’re talking about.

The acting was really bad in episode 2, which featured indie movie vets Lili Taylor and Frank Whaley as a couple of creepy kidnappers. The roles were so poorly executed that neither actor ever seemed comfortable, and the whole thing devolved into a giant mess by the end. The show is also already having trouble connecting Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth to the weekly stories. This episode, Alfred caught Bruce burning his own hand with a candle flame, so of course he did the natural thing and went to see Jim Gordon, that detective Alfred has only met twice and who admittedly botched up the Wayne’s murder investigation. Well, of course that’s the guy he would turn to for parenting help.

This is only Episode 2, so the fact that the creative team is already having these sorts of structural problems with the premise of the show doesn’t bode well for the future. Look, I love Batman and Catwoman, but it seems like things would go a lot smoother if Bruce, Alfred, Selina Kyle and the young girl from the pilot who may or may not turn into Poison Ivy were recurring characters who only showed up a few times a season, at most. Because, despite what the marketing campaign would have you believe, the show’s not actually about them!

Based on what we saw in the pilot, Gotham is about a young detective named Jim Gordon, who happens to be the one honest cop in the city of Gotham, and his rise to prominence in the world’s most corrupt city. That’s it–that’s the logline of the show. Paring down the main cast to Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock, their boss (I’m sorry, I can’t even remember her name), Jim’s fiance Barbara and whatever mobsters/villains you want them going after during the arc of the first season would free up a lot of constraints that are currently weighing down the show.

"I take it back--the marketing clearly showed the four completely different stories that the show would be telling this season."

“I take it back–the marketing clearly showed the five completely different stories that the show would be telling this season.”

Now, on the bright side, they did find a way to include Selina Kyle a little more directly (although, God help me, if she tells one more adult to call her “Cat,” I might throw something at my TV. She’s gonna be Catwoman in another decade—WE F–KING GET IT!!), not just for this episode but for at least the next few.

I haven’t watched much of Arrow, but from what I understand that enterprise started a little shaky too; now it’s become CAN’T-MISS TV!! for a lot of folks. Perhaps Gotham will get there; for now, it remains a flawed undertaking.

Upcoming Local Events:

Hello! Welcome to the latest feature for the Weekly Update–Upcoming Local Events!

This is the spot where we’ll post a few notices about upcoming games at venues in and around Southeastern Michigan, where Critical Missives is based. If any venue would like us to announce an upcoming event anywhere in the country, you can hit us up on Twitter or let us know via feedback to this very post!

–Today @ 6pm, Big Ben’s Comix Oasis in Allen Park, MI will host some Free-For-All battles, 400 Points Modern Age–only single-based figures will be allowed. “Shock the Turtle” Battlefield conditions will be in effect.

–Comic City in Pontiac, MI also has a Zombie Team Base going to the winner of tonight’s game! Looks like the Build is a massive 1550?! Wow–gonna be some carnage tonight!

–Thursday night Clix is also happening at Comic City’s Canton location tonight! 300 Points, Modern Age.

–Fun 4 All Comics & Games in Ypsilanti (tonight!), The Amazing Book Store in Flint (Saturday the 4th), Warriors 3 Comics & Games in Wayne (Saturday the 4th), Comic Relief in Flint (Saturday the 4th) and Eternal Games in Warren (Sunday the 5th) are ALL running WoL Month 5 Events this week!

More updates to come next week!

And don’t forget that my local venue also has something cooking in a couple weeks:

–On Wednesday, October 15th @6:15pm, Comics & More in Madison Heights, MI will have some Zombie Team Bases from the GOTG OP kit up for grabs! The Build is 300 Points, and Colossals, Team Bases, Entities, Relics & Resources will ALL be allowed!

Wait--it's already listing this post!! Huh?! Whaa?! Must be magic!!

Critical Missives:

–Our Top Ten Set Reviews for Guardians of the Galaxy have dropped! To read HypeFox’s take, click here! To check out Ninwashui’s rebuttal, go here!

And that’s all for now! Whew! Long one this week. Keep an eye out for us this week! We’ll have a Local Tourney Report for WOL Month 4 coming soon, as well as an article devoted to Copycat and some of the issues she’s created!

Until then, stay safe, and watch where you draw those lines of fire!

Local Tournament Report – 9/03/14 @ Gamers Gauntlet (War of the Light Month 4)

September 7, 2014September 12, 2014 / ninwashui / 2 Comments

It’s been a little while I wrote a solo article. I’ve been having a mini vacation while at the same time submitting superior Lantern builds and beating Hypefox at his own article. Vote for me in his poll. It’ll be awesome.

In the meantime I attended War of the Light month 3 at Comics N’ More. I sat next to HypeFox as he pulled the only entity… again. Between that and my round one battle (which was the slowest game of HeroClix I ever played – Lost 0 points to 40) I just didn’t have the heart to write the month 3 battle report. The one good part of that was that I got experience playing Sodam Yat. On my team, he wasn’t KOed the whole tournament. Unfortunately, opponents kept knocking him to his 9 attack value click and ignoring him. A trick I would remember.

This is what War of the Light Month 3 looked like for me.

Gamers Gauntlet in Clinton Township is not my usual venue, but I thought it would be nice to try for a change. Turns out there are some great guys there. I’m still loyal to my regular venue, but I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Gamer’s Gauntlet again. Special thanks to Dan for letting me borrow his White Battery and constructs when I came with none of my own. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Seriously? You forgot your Power Battery again? My God, man!]

LOCAL TOURNAMENT REPORT!!

The Format: Each participant is given 1 boosters of the limited edition War of Light DC Heroclix wave 2 set and another of a recent set. From the figures contained within the two boosters, competitors must make the best 400 Point army they can and compete in 3 Rounds of competitive play. You can also include standard objects and any war of the light constructs and resources you’ve acquired so far.

What I Opened:

SLOSH002 Saturn Girl

SLOSH007 Shrinking Violet

SLOSH028 Lightray

SLOSH034 Starman

SLOSH046 Superboy

WOL006 Star Sapphire Recruit

WOL014 Rankorr

WOL022 Katma Tui

WOL024 Saarek

WOL036 Bleez

My Jujitsu works on Ion. That’s right… I’m a ninja.

What I Played:

SLOSH007 Shrinking Violet

SLOSH034 Starman

SLOSH046 Superboy

WOLR101 Power Battery (White Lantern Corps)

WOLR306 Star Sapphire Ring

WOLR201.05 Crossbow (White)

WOLR201.06 Decoy (White)

WOLR201.07 Catapult (White)

WOLR201.08 Scissors (White)

WOLR201.09 Nurse (White)

That’s right I went to a War of the Light event and played a SLOSH team. The team abilities were just too good to pass up. Shrinking violet could share her 19 defense using by copying Starman’s JSA Team Ability OR she could Outwit through Stealth using the Superman TA. Having a team with 19 base defense across the board in sealed doesn’t happen very often. Starman also has an exceptional defensive abilities. Add in shared Willpower from Superboy, and then everyone gets Shape Change and Mystics from the Battery when I use the Star Sapphires ring (which, as far as War of Light rings go, is severely underrated). This team would be considered “great” in constructed and I was playing sealed. I’d hate to be facing it.

Fun fact: in HeroClix you can outwit Medusa with a Gallon of Conditioner.

Fun fact: You can render Medusa powerless with a Gallon of Conditioner.

Round 1 versus WOL026 Sodam Yat, GOTG039 Medusa, and a WOL002 Red Lantern Recruit. I won map roll and we played on the Black Mercy Map. That meant there was no elevated and no blocking terrain to hide behind. My Range focused team had a huge advantage. I don’t remember all of the details of this match, but I do remember the ending. I had KOed everyone but Sodam Yat and surrounded him with my team. Between my Shape Change and his Decoy and Impervious the game ended up looking like we were playing dice masters. I counted at least 6 turns going by with no one able to land an attack even though everyone was based. We just started rushing through turns and they lasted 20 seconds each. The game still almost went to time. It was ridiculous.

She was secretly in the final running to become the new Captain America.

Round 2 versus SLOSH033 Stargirl possessed by ION, WOL030A Guy Gardner (Star Sapphires), WOL038 Dex-Starr, WOL002 Red Lantern Recruit, WOL006 Star Sapphire Recruit. We played on the same Black Mercy map that gave my team a huge advantage in round one. I moved up the board unafraid and my opponent was almost completely unable to hit my defense. I started off by hitting the Red Lantern Recruit from Range not wanting to face his penetrating Pois0n. Next I outwitted the special power on Guy Gardner and the Star Saphire Recruit so I didn’t take Mystics damage. I was then able to pick them off at will. As much as my opponent was missing me I also couldn’t touch his remaining characters. Dex-Starr had two Unoutwittable defensive abilities and Stargirl usually had Unoutwittable Impervious and Energy Shield Deflection.

I still hadn’t taken any damage up to that point and then Dex-Starr Pushed to hit for 2 on Starman. Thankfully that was the exact opening that I needed. Starman got Pulse Wave after being hit. The next turn I moved all my characters away and used Pulse Wave to KO Dex-Starr. I had done 4 damage to Stargirl and I was aiming for the kill on the following turn when the judge called time.

In one form or another I ended up fighting this guy all night.

Round 3 versus WOL026 Sodam Yat, WOL016 Soranik Natu, a Green Battery, various constructs, and a green ring. This turned out to be a really good game. No more Black Mercy map. This map had elevated to block my LoF. I started off by moving to the middle of the map and putting the crossbow on Superboy. My opponent used TK to move up Sodam Yat. Sodam then activated Charge, grabbed and Ultra-heavy object, and KOed Shrinking Violet just that fast. My remaining two characters had Running shot so I took two shots at Sodam Yat. Unfortunately the Shield and the ring combined to give him +3 to his ranged defense and I missed. He assigned the Decoy to Soranik and cleared Sodam. I assigned the Nurse to Starman and cleared. He charged and attacked Starman and missed. Starman’s trait added another token to him (awesome). On my turn I hit him for 2 damage with Starman and knocked him to click 3. He cleared. On my turn again Superboy missed again and Starman knocked him to Click 5. On his turn he activated Hypersonic, hit Starman for 3, took a Mystics damage, and ran Soranik away. We all cleared on the next turns. I used the Nurse to Regen Starman for 2. Seeing that I could heal to full, my opponent used Hypersonic and ran back to attack Starman. He missed and this time the second token gave him a pushing damage.

We each continued to damage our respective Lanterns by using powers and soon we each got each other’s Batteries to the end of the dials. I was on click 19 he was on click 20. Suddenly all of the stats on the characters in play went up by +2 or +3. The rest of the game went fairly quickly after that. Sodam Yat took a couple of hits right away and was on his last click. He couldn’t KO Starman without be KOed by mystics damage so he ran. I went after Soranik. She did 6 damage to Superboy, but he only took three due to invincible. Soranik was KOed the next turn. Sodam Yat tried to KO my power battery to even the odds. Unfortunately the power battery takes printed damage minus 2. In this case it was only one damage. It survived. The following turn Superboy KOed Sodam Yat with a running shot.

Conclusion: I won all of my matches, but I actually took second place on points. Thankfully, that was still enough to earn WOL112 Atrocitus.

What I Learned:

Anyone with a star rod is awesome. I mean SLOSH034 Starman and SLOSH033 Stargirl. Star-lord doesn’t count. Both had Traited defenses that were just killer in the games I played tonight. Stargirl was helped a lot by being possessed by Ion, but it seemed like she is able to add energy shield deflection almost at will and the was my teams “Kryptonite” tonight. Starman’s jujitsu that adds a token happened at least three times tonight. That’s so disheartening for your opponent, especially when it happens to their 250 point WOL026 Sodam Yat.
WOL026 Sodam Yat is good as long as you pay the full point value, but his offense isn’t that great until you get to the Ion clicks. I remember playing him several times in month 3 just wanting opponents to do damage to him so that I could play the Ion clicks and finally be able to KO someone. I turned the tables and gave my opponents that feeling this tournament.
People have been saying WOL038 Dex-Starr isn’t worth the points he costs, but after seeing him in action I tend to disagree. His defenses are top notch and his Penetrating Poison starts with an easy push to click 2. Add to that the fact that he can be carried by just about anyone and Dex-Starr seems like a winning piece to me.
I didn’t give SLOSH046 Superboy the credit he deserved in my SLOSH top 10. He’s a very competent attacker and his ability to grant Willpower to adjacent figures can make teams like the one I played much better. 18 with invincible to start with is very good. I’d definitely play him again.
Apparently the SLOSH set was the most over powered set to come out recently. Doubt me? Ask the ROC Champion or the HeroClix World Champion (You’ll definitely get the same answer from both since they are the same guy).

Let’s Be Lanterns Again! For One Shall Surely Fall!! (Or Let’s Build an Army For Each Lantern Corps–Part 3 of 3!!)

September 2, 2014September 2, 2014 / HypeFox / 4 Comments

And now we’ve reached the final four Corps!

For the uninitiated, Ninwashui and I are creating competitive Builds for each Lantern Corps–let’s recap the rules:

1. Each Build has to be a Theme Team (although that Theme doesn’t necessarily have to be for the corresponding Corps keyword) that features a character who isn’t known for being a member of the featured color (Red Lantern Superboy Prime, or Hal Jordan Parallax, for example; or someone who’s never been a Lantern of any color in the comics–like a Marvel character!);

2. For each color, each member of a team has to either start with the corresponding Corps keyword, or they must be able to get it during the game.

There are several ways to do this: use a character from War of Light who’s been made in a color different from the norm (Parallax Hal or Kyle Rayner, Orange Lantern Hal or Blue Lantern Hal, White Lantern Kyle Rayner, Red Lantern Guy Gardner, and so on and so forth); use an Entity to bring any other character in the game into that Entity’s color; or just make a general Theme Team and use the Lantern Power Battery to distribute rings during the game and give each member of a team that color’s keyword (along with some kickass powers!).

If you missed it, we featured the Sinestro Corps, Indigo Tribe and Orange Lantern Corps in Part 1!

The Blue Lantern Corps and Red Lantern Corps were covered in Part 2!

Also, in a shocking twist at the end of Part 2, Ninwashui revealed that he’s actually been a scheming, possibly drunk raccoon the whole time he’s been writing for this site!! (Y’know… it’s been a weird month.)

And now that everyone’s caught up, HypeFox and Ninwashui will be facing off one more time–AND ONE SHALL SURELY FALL!

HypeFox and Ninwashui each have a pair of Builds they think is better than the other’s–and you can be a judge simply by posting who you think came up with the better Builds in the Comments section below!

Up first is HypeFox with… The Green Lantern Corps!!

"I have the power to overcome great fear. And I have a flying, invulnerable Falcon automaton that sharts on any who would oppose me!"

“I may or may not have the power to overcome great fear, but I definitely have a flying, invulnerable Falcon automaton that sharts on any who would oppose me.”

GREEN LANTERN CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name:Threat Level Green

Theme: Mystical

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Green Lantern Corps: Iron Pharaoh (who, when you think about it, isn’t really even associated with the Marvel Universe–he was just on ONE alternate cover at some point); Shaman; Lockheed; and Thule Society Priest (in other words, the whole team!)

Roster:

IIM051 Iron Pharaoh – 110 Points

IIM040 Shaman – 92

w/ ATA005 Alpha Flight – 4

FI001 Thule Society Priest – 21

WXM080 Lockheed – 16

WOLR100 Power Battery (Green Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR300 Green Lantern Ring – 8

WOLR200 Shield (Green) – 8

WOLR200.01 Net (Green) – 8

WOLR200.04 Wall (Green) – 10

WOLR200.05 Crossbow (Green) – 10

WOLR200.09 Nurse (Green) – 10

=299 (It took all my Willpower not to make this an even 300 Point team… )

How It Plays: This is a version of the Iron Pharaoh/Shaman stall, seek & destroy team that I’m always pitching in one form or another–this time with a Green twist!! Firstly, while extremely effective in their own right, none of these characters have Willpower–that’s where the Green Ring comes in! Every time a Green Construct is given to a member of this team, in addition to the Construct’s effects, that member gains access to Willpower! ANNNNNNDD they then have 50% chance to ignore opposing Outwit and Perplex!

Iron Pharaoh plus the RCE-granting Crossbow equals a ton of damage dealing that can see through just about anything. Shaman grounds all characters with the Wing Symbol and offers Perplex and Barrier top dial–all of which should help in delaying the opposition from getting to you! Lockheed can be a pest, but his main purpose is providing another tie-up piece who can Energy Explode if your opponent bunches up his figures, as well as being another Mystical body on your side at the beginning of the game for Map Roll (Hint: If you win Map Roll, choose Wundagore Mountain or the weird SLoSH Apokolips map that has like 50 Elevated areas so that it’ll be nigh impossible for your opponent to get to the Pharaoh without getting rocked). Thule Society Priest is kind of there for the same reason as Lockheed, but pushing him to get to a Prob Control is not a terrible idea. Still, most of your damage is going to come from Iron Pharaoh and Shaman–but that should be more than enough!

CONDESCENDING NINWASHUI Chirps: “Oh, wow, you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble to innovate such a bold Build. I mean, it must have taken just a metric poop-ton of brainpower for you to come up with a team that you’ve pitched about 7 times before. Oh, well done, sir. Bravo! Ooooo, but you know who would really like this team?”

QUIZZICAL HYPEFOX Ponders: “Uhhhh... ”

POMPOUS NINWASHUI Retorts: “No one. But for a team that absolutely EVERYONE will just LOVE, look no further than the next entry!”

STAR SAPPHIRES (Ninwashui Build)

Team Name: As Long As Our Love (And My Head) Survives

Theme:

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Star Sapphires: The Hellfire Club’s Black King and White King

Roster:

WXM035 Black King – 165 Points

WXM020 White King – 107

WOLR106 Power Battery (Star Sapphires) – 2

WOLR306 Star Sapphire Ring – 8

WOLR206.08 Scissors (Violet) – 8

WOLR206.09 Nurse (Violet) – 10

=300 (Oh, look, HypeFox, no wasted points! It’s almost like one of us knows what they’re doing!)

How It Plays: This one is pretty basic. Take two guys who are basically unkillable, give them the Mystics TA and Shape Change (so that your opponent is only hurting himself when he tries to hurt you) and a way to heal the Black King (the Nurse Construct), and watch as your fiendish society takes over the world. Black King is a beast who only gets more powerful the more damage he takes (and remember, while he takes damage, your opponent is taking that Mystics unavoidable damage!), and–at 11 Clicks long–he can take a LOT of punishment. Meanwhile, White King will Charge around the map with his Scissors-granted Exploit Weakness and native Super Strength. Also, his Leadership works on Black King! Oh, and as long as Black King is on the map, White King can’t truly die. Which means that he’ll keep coming back over and over–and your opponent will have to grind through those Mystic clicks over and over. A perfect recipe for pain!

AMBIVALENT GIRAFFE HYPEFOX Responds: “It’s also a perfect recipe for boredom! Really?! Two characters, one of whom is meant to die over and over and the other who has to be hit A TON before you get to his super clicks? This might be an effective team, but I don’t think it’d be a fun one. Not as fun as, say, bringing the Sinister Syndicate into the Black Lantern Corps… ”

“Maxwell Dillon of Earth, you have the power to kill a ton of $#!t. Welcome to the Black Lantern Corps!”

BLACK LANTERN CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name: What’s Black and White and Dead All Over?

Theme: Sinister Syndicate

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Black Lantern Corps:

Roster:

DP064 Electro – 90 Points

w/ ATA091 Sinister Twelve – 4

ASM019 Vulture – 61

w/ ATA091 Sinister Twelve – 4

ASM030 Lizard – 88

w/ ATA091 Sinister Twelve – 4

DOFPH003 Human Protester – 10

FIB008 Photographer – 3

WOLR108 Power Battery (Black Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR308 Black Lantern Ring – 6

WOLR208.01 Net (Black) – 8

WOLR208.03 Mallet (Black) – 4

WOLR208.07 Catapult (Black)– 10

WOLR208.14 Sniper Rifle (Black) – 6

=300 (See Ninwashui? I can make 300 point teams too. I just don’t need to crow about it at the top of my lungs. No, like my team, I prefer to wait quietly in the shadows, silent but deadly…)

GIGGLING RACCOON NINWASHUI Points Out: “Yup! I’ve often described things you’ve created as silent but deadly.”

How It Plays: I hate you. Anyway, the Black Lantern Ring gives Steal Energy (and heals any bearers 1 Click when an opposing fig is KO’d) and the Black Battery will sometimes increase that Steal Energy Healing by 1. All of which means that Zombie Electro, if he gets even one hit in, will probably be around forever. Vulture can transport both Electro and Lizard at the same time, and if you give the Catapult to the Human Protester or (better yet) the Photographer, they can TK any of your characters to where they need to be.

Lizard will get the Mallet, which gives him BOTH Quake and Steal Energy–a combo we know from the good ol’ days of Lizard plus Angrir’s Hammer that works extremely efficiently. Zombie Electro gets the Sniper Rifle, and Vulture gets the Net to use as he sees fit–hopefully, he’ll deploy it after a Charge in which he did B/C/F or Exploit Weakness damage to keep any other targets in place while Electro readies a Pen/Psy/EE blast, which we’ve talked about at length before (it’s still pretty sick).

And don’t overlook Human Protester. While he and Photographer were mostly included on this force to goose the activation of the Sinister Twelve ATA, he can do decent damage in his own right against adjacent opposing figures. And if your opponent is playing mutants, he actually kind of hoses those teams a lil’.

But this team really digs into the Black Lantern theme aspect with Electro. KO’ing dudes and then adding them to your force is soooooo Black Lantern Corps, right? Right?

FIVE-FINGER-DEATHPUNCHING NINWASHUI Says: “I like that you’ve given me five figures to kill with any of the epic Builds that I’ve come up with. Giving TK to a POG isn’t a bad idea, and Electro is a hot mess of damage dealing. This isn’t a terrible Build. But just as Death must always give way to Life, your crappy Black Lantern Corps Build must give way to my Awesomesauce White Lantern Corps Build. Coming up NEXT!”

WHITE LANTERN CORPS (Ninwashui Build)

Team Name: If You Ain’t White, You Ain’t Right (Please Note that this is a Modern Family reference and not a bold new racist direction for Critical Missives) !!

Theme: S.H.I.E.L.D.

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Black Lantern Corps: Iron Man and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!!

Roster:

IIM001AE Iron Man – 150 Points

CATWS005 S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent – 36

WOLR101 Power Battery (White Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR301 White Lantern Ring – 6

WOLR201.01 Net (White) – 8

WOLR201.04 Wall (White) – 10

WOLR201.05 Crossbow (White)– 10

WOLR201.14 Sniper Rifle (White) – 6

=300 (Nailed it again!!)

How It Plays: Basically, this is the team that won’t die. Once per game, each character gets a stop click. You can also give any White Construct holder a Power Action and heal everyone in a six-square radius for 1 Click. In the meantime, Iron Man can Mastermind damage to any adjacent S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent (who again, can’t be killed from one shot). Meanwhile, Iron Man can shoot, Perplex AND Outwit through both Blocking and Hindering Terrain (which means Map Choice can be a HUGE advantage for this squad). Oh, and did I mention they all have the S.H.I.E.L.D. TA? So like Spinal Tap’s amps, Iron Man’s Range goes to 11. And if they manage to base IM, all those Agents also have Empower. Basically, Iron Man is either punching or shooting for a ton of damage every turn while the Agents make pests of themselves by either healing, creating Blocking Terrain, Hindering Terrain that must be broken away from, or even sniping for 2 Damage from 10 Squares away.

In short, this team will outlast any of the pathetic Builds HypeFox has inflicted upon us these last few weeks.

UNAMUSED HYPEFOX Notes: “Oh, you really think so? Then how about a little wager? We let the people decide. Because they’re never small to me. And the loser gives a Guardians of the Galaxy pack to the winner’s favorite charity. Or even to the winner. Actually, that makes more sense.”

MEAN FACE NINWASHUI Growls: “You, sir, are on! Heh.”

CONFIDENT HYPEFOX Wonders: “What’s so funny? You’re about to lose!”

GRINNING NINWASHUI Shouts: “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But you fell victim to one of the classic blunders–the most famous of which is “never get involved in a flame war online about comic-book movies“–but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against a Raccoon when Clix are on the line“! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…

… Um… I mean, are we just sticking around for the poll to go up, or–whoops! There we go.”

We Have a Winner!! (Or, The Weekly Roundup for 08/24/2014!!)

August 26, 2014August 26, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Has it been two weeks already! Man, time has just flown by. Well, we’re back, andSONOVA#$%#!IT’SRAININGAGAIN!!!! Good Lord. Apparently Michigan is nothing but a flood plain. Ay-yi-yi. Add to that how depressingly mediocre my Tigers have been, and I’m really too depressed to do anything but jump right into the…

WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

PODCASTS:

–Like clockwork, Dial H for Heroclix was new for the past two weeks! Episode 57 dealt with the immediate aftermath of GenCon, and Episode 58 was a GenCon wrap-up with all the guys (and keep an ear out during the portion of the show when they field questions for a special rules question cameo by HypeFox from Critical Missives!)

–Push to Regen is back with a new and improved Season 2, Episode 6!! The guys discuss GotG, growing a Heroclix community and more.

–The Quarry’s latest episode is still… Episode 24. It features an interview with ~~Patrick Yapjoco-slaye~~r recent ROC winner Kevin Afrooz as well as coverage of the Tulsa ROC. Seems like Edward took some time off to field a pretty damn creative Build for the Heroclix World Championship (see Dial H For Heroclix Episode 58 for more details)!

–In case you missed it, the ROC continues to streamline their system; they just offered a new breakdown (including costs and prize structure) to stores thinking about holding an ROC event.

–Speaking of, the ROC just made a few more Special Announcements. Basically, no Entities allowed as Possessors.

–You can check out the full ROC/DragonCon announcement here!

–No official Previews from WizKids. GotG has dropped; you can read our thoughts about it when we do our patented Top Ten Set Review in a couple weeks (here’s a free preview: Captain Marvel, the Common Prime, is the TRUTH!).

–Well well well! We finally have a Heroclix World Champion for 2014, and his name is… Patrick Yapjoco!! Patrick has really been the player of the year with how dominant Patrick has been at the ROC’s, so congratulations to him and his cadre of ‘Clixers at Majestix!

–Well, well, well WELL! We fianlly have a Heroclix World Champion TEAM for 2014–G–DAMMIT, it’s Patrick Yapjoco and his cadre (Team Majestix Apex Predators) AGAIN!! Jeez, let someone else win once in a while, eh Patrick (Just kidding. Congratulations Team Apex Predators!!)!

Army of the Week:

Okay, for this week’s Army of the Week, we’re gonna take a look at ~~a team revolving around Maximus~~! No, no we’re not. Of course we’re gonna look at Patrick Yapjoco’s winning team! We’re gonna break from our normal Army of the Week format and just link to his actual World Championship Army Sheet! Enjoy!

(P.S.: Remember how I said that Iron Pharaoh was gonna be a thing and Ninwashui didn’t? Yeah, this:)

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–Ant-Man (starring Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly) has finally released ~~some stills~~ a still! Here it is:

Very strange that THAT’S the image Marvel wanted to leak first (there’s not really a ton going on, right? I mean, he’s got some stitches on his eyebrow or whatever, which could mean anything and/or nothing), but there ya go!

–Speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at Comic-Con Patton Oswalt’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. character (well, one of them) hinted that we’d be seeing Bobbi Morse (a.k.a. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avenger extraordinaire Mockingbird) this season on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!! Mockingbird would be the first Avenger from the 616 to make her Cinematic debut on M’sAoS (at least that I can think of). Well, regardless, we now have a pretty good idea of what Mockingbird will look like…

Critical Missives:

–Two articles dropped these past two weeks: Part 1 and Part 2 of our 3-Part series “Let’s Be Lanterns!!”

–As always, here’s another reminder that we’re finally on Twitter! You can follow us @criticalmissive to stay up to date on articles (think I’ve got the kinks worked out; it should Tweet the link every time there’s something new to read).

And that’s it for this week’s Weekly Roundup!! We’ll be back later this week with the epic conclusion to our interstellar debate war (aka Part 3 of “Let’s Be Lanterns”), and next week you can expect a Local Tourney Report on Month 3 of War of Light along with a Top Ten Set Review for Guardians of the Galaxy!

Until then, once again, stay safe (and DRY!!), and watch where you draw your lines of fire!

Let’s Be Lanterns, Too!! (Or, Let’s Build an Army for Each Lantern Corps–PART 2 of 3!!)

August 23, 2014March 29, 2015 / HypeFox / 17 Comments

Welcome Back!

If you missed Part 1 a few days ago, Ninwashui and I are trying to put together competitive Builds for each Lantern Corps, but we’re throwing in a twist–each Build must feature a character who isn’t normally associated with that color of the emotional spectrum and its related Corps.

To recap, there are two main rules:

1. Each Build has to be a Theme Team (although that Theme doesn’t necessarily have to be for the corresponding Corps keyword) that features a character who isn’t known for being a member of the featured color (Hal Jordan Parallax, for example; or someone who’s never been a Lantern of any color in the comics–like a Marvel character!);

2. For each color, each member of a team has to either start with the corresponding Corps keyword, or they must be able to get it during the game.

In part one, we featured the Sinestro Corps, Indigo Tribe and the Orange Lantern Corps.

Today, Ninwashui is starting us off with… the Blue Lantern Corps!! He thinks he’s come up with some Meta-worthy Build. It’s probably terrible, but whatever. Here it is!!

"I HOPE I rid myself of that weakling Parker... "

“I HOPE… that I can rid myself of that weakling Parker!”

BLUE LANTERN CORPS (Ninwashui Build)

Team Name: The Brooklyn Dodgers

Theme: Scientist

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Blue Lantern Corps: Superior Spider-Man!! Old School Captain Marvel!!

Roster:

DP060 Superior Spider-Man – 160 Points

w/ Secret Avengers ATA – 5

GOTG007B Captain Marvel – 82

DP102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M. – 30

WOLR107 Power Battery (Blue Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR307 Blue Lantern Ring – 4

WOLR207.06 Blue Decoy – 6

WOLR207.11 Blue Bulldozer – 4

WOLR207.14 Blue Sniper Rifle – 6

=299 (Gah! So inefficient!! This must be Parker’s doing somehow…)

How It Plays: So, in Magic: The Gathering, blue is the color of counterspells and unsummons–basically, it shuts down offense. Really, it can derail your opponent’s entire strategy. Well, we’re gonna take that idea to Heroclix and run with it!! So if you thought Hal Jordan Parallax was hard to hit with his 19 Defense and -2 to just about every opposing character’s Attack Value, well… meet Superior Spider-Man.

He starts out with an 18 Defense (that bumps up to 19 when he’s next to Captain Marvel, but we will get to the good Captain in a minute) and has Super Senses down his whole dial (which will be important!). He also has a Trait that lets him spit out Spider-Bots for free and attach them with a Power Action. There are two types of Spider-Bots in the game, but you’re really only going to need to make a couple of Mark 1’s at the beginning of the game and attach them. Why? Because each one you attach adds +1 to any Super Senses roll that Spidey makes. Which means that with two Spider-Bots attached, Spidey will straight out AVOID any attack that manages to beat his 18-19 Defense a whopping 66.6% of the time!

But wait! There’s more–a lot more! We’re giving Spidey the Blue Decoy, which adds Shape Change to his repertoire–another 1 in 3 chance that he can’t be attacked. So, to recap, we have a 33.3% chance that Spidey can’t even be attacked, followed by a 66.6% that any attack roll that somehow manages to hit him actually ends up missing him completely! That’s pretty good, right? Nope–not good enough! That’s where the Blue Power Battery comes in! The Battery’s Trait (EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM: HOPE: If the Power Battery, attached Power Ring, and Constructs are all the same color, during each of your opponent’s turns, one friendly Corps member may reroll a roll made for itself.) lets you reroll that 66.6% Super Senses roll. Whew!!

Again, to review, when your opponent declares an attack targeting Spidey, there’s instantly a 33.3% chance that he can’t proceed with that attack. Then, he has to hit at least an 18 Defense (minimum). THEN, if he somehow hits, you get TWO chances at rolling a 3, 4, 5 or 6. Spidey also has the Secret Avengers keyword, which makes it very difficult to Outwit any of his powers. ANNNND Spidey himself has an Outwit to get rid of opposing character’s problem powers (Outwit opposing Precision Strike, Poison or Pulse Wave like it’s the Plague!!).

[EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not a statistician, but Jerry Seinfeld clearly is, and–as always–he has this advice:]

Um… yeah. I think what Jerry is trying to say is that (assuming a 7 is needed to even hit Spidey in the first place–which means your opponent’s primary attacker better be packing an 11 or 12 Attack Value) for every 30 attacks announced with Spidey as the target, roughly 4 will get through. That’s about a 13.33% chance to deal damage. To put that in perspective, that same theoretical opponent would have a roughly 18% to damage the IIM Absorbing Man LE. BUUUUUUUUT, when we factor in the Blue Power Battery Super Senses reroll, that Spidey number changes to roughly 4 out of every 90 announced attacks that get through–or 4.4%.

Let me type that again: 4 POINT 4 FREAKING PERCENT!! Those are lights out, game over and thanks for playing sorts of numbers! Meanwhile, Spidey is swinging away for 3 damage or more (he has Super Strength) every turn. Yikes. Now, taking all that into account, consider this:

Spidey is not your Primary Attacker.

“What am I, chopped liver? I save galaxies, dammit!”

And now we come to Captain Marvel!! Cap’s Defense Special (DEFEND HUMANITY FROM MY PEOPLE: Captain Marvel can use Defend and Super Senses. Modify the Defense Values of adjacent friendly characters without the Kree keyword by +1. This power can’t be countered.) combined with his native 18 Defense means that Spidey and Bill, Agent of A.I.M. each have a 19 Defense when adjacent to him! But that’s not the best part of Captain Marvel’s arsenal. Nooooo, sir! His Attack Special (UNI-BEAM: Captain Marvel can use Energy Explosion, Incapacitate, and Penetrating/Psychic Blast. When Captain Marvel hits with a ranged combat attack, hit targets can’t make attacks during their next turn.) means that your opponent’s best figures may not even get to announce those attacks against Spidey or take a spin on the 4 out of 90 Wheel of (Mis)Fortune! He doesn’t even need to do damage–he just needs to hit! Does that power sound like fun? Great!

Now give Captain Marvel the Sniper Rifle and watch him do it from 10 Squares away. What’s that, you say? Your opponent’s best piece has Stealth or keeps hiding behind Barrier tokens? Well, that’s why you brought Deadpool’s idiot friend Bill along. On his second click he gets an Attack Special (MY HIGH-ENERGY FINDER THING: Give Bill, Agent of A.I.M. a power action and choose the highest-point opposing character. Until your next turn, that character can be targeted with a ranged combat attack by one friendly character without line of fire to that opposing character.) that is pretty much game over, especially when you consider that every character with a Blue Construct also has the Blue Ring-granted limited Perplex (which means Captain Marvel’s Attack Value could theoretically go to 14!). Captain Marvel can keep your opponent’s best figure locked down every other turn for the entire game!!

To quote the noted philosopher Dane Cook, “Good game America.”

ASTOUNDED HypeFox Says: “…. I… uh, … $#!%. I can’t believe you came up with something this good! I really have nothing to add. This team is stupid. This is like that South Park episode where “Wall-Mart” ran rampant and almost destroyed the world. I don’t think you realize what you’ve done! This team is an abomination! It must never see the light of day! It must be banished back to the depths from whence it came, before it’s too late!!

… I mean, I’m still gonna publish it though. I just have to figure out how to take credit for it first. Hmmmm... ”

RED LANTERN CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name: The Petulant Children

Theme: Red Lantern Corps

Characters Not Normally Associated With the Blue Lantern Corps: Superboy Prime (As far as the Red Lanterns and Superboy Prime go, I mean, really, it was just the one time… he didn’t even really like it…) and Black Talon!!

Roster:

WOL057B Superboy Prime (Red Lantern) – 190 Points

w/ Kryptonian ATA – 2

DP043 Black Talon – 60

possessed by Butcher – 25

WOLR102 Power Battery (Red Lantern Corps) – 2

WOLR302 Red Lantern Ring – 8

WOLR202.12 Red Spotlight – 6

WOLR207.14 Red Sniper Rifle – 6

=299 (GRRRRRRRRRRRRR… )

How It Plays: This might be the simplest Build of this whole series. The premise is really basic: the only thing better than one Superboy Prime Hypersonic Speed attack each turn is two! Putting the Butcher AND a Construct on Black Talon raises his Attack Value to a 12; a roll of 6 or 7 will give a successful Mind Control hit on SBP, with which you can wreak havoc on the whole board. Superboy Prime’s Movement and Attack will each get +1 with a Construct (giving Superboy a 12 Attack!), and if he hits with his first attack (4 Damage minus any dampeners), you can keep him in range and INSTANTLY ATTACK AGAIN–THIS TIME WITH RANGED COMBAT EXPERT!!

And you can probably just keep Black Talon near the Power Battery so that you can keep healing the damage he takes from Mind Controlling Superboy Prime. And if anyone decides to break off and attack him, he’s packing Charge, B/C/F, and Attack Value that can be modified to 12 (on his top click) along with access to Butcher’s Special Damage Power (HEAT OF RAGE: Once per turn, a friendly character may reroll the d6 roll for Blades/Claws/Fangs.). On Click 3, just when your opponent might expect Black Talon to LOSE B/C/F, he actually picks up access to an Attack Special (BLADES OF THE BUTCHER: Butcher can use Blades/Claws/Fangs. When he does, add 2 to the result.) that gives him B/C/F back AND makes it kinda filthy (I mean, you roll a 6 and all of the sudden it’s Black Talon who’s doing 8 freaking damage in one turn as opposed to SBP, who’s more than capable of that himself.

Of all the teams we’ve designed so far for this series, this team has the highest damage potential. They may not be the best team, but each member is capable of KO’ing even substantial point pieces in one blow!

UNIMPRESSED TENTH DOCTOR Ninwashui Says: “What? That’s it? That’s what you cobble together after I create one of the greatest Builds known to mankind?! Psssh. My Blue Lantern Build would wipe the floor with this Red Lantern nonsense you’ve come up with here.”

ANGRY AVATAR OF RAGE DMX HypeFox Retorts: “Oh, really? OH REALLY!! I SMELL A CHALLENGE COMING ON!!”

AWKWARDLY CLOSE TENTH DOCTOR NINWASHUI CALMLY REPLIES: “Name your terms.”

ASKEWED BEANIE’D DMX HYPEFOX States: “Well, we’ve have four Builds left. That’s two apiece. Winner take all! I’ll take the Green Lantern Corps and the Black Lantern Corps.”

INTRIGUED TENTH DOCTOR Ninwashui: “So that leaves me the White Lanterns and the Star Sapphires, eh? Very well then. I accept your challenge, sir! Although there’s one thing you forgot!”

POSTURING DMX HypeFox Says: “Oh? And what’s that, playa?”

NINWASHUI DROPS A FINAL BOMBSHELL!!: “I’ve been a raccoon the whole time! MWA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAA! I hope you’re ready… and I’ll see you next time!!“

Let’s Be Lanterns!! (Or, Let’s Build an Army for Each Lantern Corps–PART 1 of 3!!)

August 17, 2014August 22, 2014 / HypeFox / 6 Comments

So, I’m at the theater a couple weeks ago, Guardians of the Galaxy is starting in a few minutes (FYI, Guardians is awesome–if you’re remotely interested in anything on this blog, you’ll love it and should just go see it right now! I’ll be here when you get back–I promise!), and the last trailer I see is for “Let’s Be Cops,” a new comedy starring Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans, Jr. It’s out now and it’s about a couple of buddies who go to a costume party dressed as cops, then decide to keep the charade going in their everyday lives when they become “neighborhood sensations.” Looks funny enough, but it also gave me an idea for today’s article. If two slackers can put on some uniforms and become cops, then, hey, what’s to stop us from collecting together some ‘Clix and becoming Space Cops?

That’s right!

Today…

Let’s Be Lanterns!!

Ninwashui and I are gonna come up with competitive Builds for each color of the emotional spectrum based off of the current Storyline OP War of Light set! But we’re also gonna add in a twist! Each Build has to be Theme (of course), and each build has to feature a character not traditionally associated with that color’s Corps.! Now this can be interpreted in a couple of different ways; sometimes, WizKids has taken care of this for us by printing an “off-color” version of a traditional Green Lantern (Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, etc.) in the War of Light set (Indigo John Stewart, anyone?); other times, we’ll be getting a lil’ creative by inducting someone (or someONES) into a certain color’s Corps by Possessing them with an Entity!

Are these Builds gonna win multiple ROC’s? Uhhh… no, probably not. But you should be able to take these to a local tourney and stand a chance. That’s the goal, at least.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Many of these builds use Power Batteries and Constructs; WizKids has been real coy about exactly how you’ll get half the Constructs for each color. As such, many don’t yet have an official designation yet in terms of collector numbers, so occasionally you’ll see something like “WOL???” instead of a full designation for certain Constructs.)

With all that said, here we go!

SINESTRO CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name: Pair ‘0 Smacks

Theme: Sinestro Corps

Character Not Normally Associated With the Sinestro Corps: Hal Jordan (normally a Green Lantern)

Roster:

WOL041 Parallax (Hal Jordan) – 250 Points

WOL099 Despotellis – 30

WOLR105 Power Battery (Yellow) – 2

WOLR305 Sinestro Corps Ring – 4

WOLR205.03 Sinestro Mallet – 4

WOLR205.09 Sinestro Nurse – 10

=300 (Woo-Hoo!)

How It Plays: Is anyone else annoyed that the Yellow Lanterns are referred to as the “Sinestro Corps?” You’re Yellow Lanterns. Just be Yellow Lanterns! It makes things soooo much easier. At least the Indigo Tribe still has “Indigo” in their name. Sigh…

Regardless, we’re gonna use someone who’s normally a Lantern, just not this color. Actually, if you subscribe to our Twitter feed (and if not, why not? It’s free!), you would have gotten this army a little bit earlier than everyone else who’s just reading about it now.

Basically, the goal with this army is to make Parallax Hal Jordan as close to un-hittable as possible. Hal Jordan’s base Defense is 18. He has Impervious (which means roughly 33% of the time you’re hit with a non-Precision Strike, non-penetrating attack, you’ll evade it altogether) with the Quintessence Team Ability (which means his powers can’t be countered). Once he gets a Construct on him from the Sinestro Corps Battery, all his stats except Damage get +1; so now his Defense is a 19 with un-Outwittable Impervious. But wait! There’s more!

The Sinestro Corps Power Battery gives every opposing figure with a point cost of 249 or less (roughly 90% of Meta figures, if not more) an additional -2 when attacking Parallax. Yes, this should work even against opposing Pulse Waves since the Battery isn’t a character (and thus could never have a line of fire drawn to it by Pulse Wave).

Let’s say, oh, I dunno, Bullseye (with a stat bump from an Entity) tries to shoot Hal. Normally, with a 12 Attack, he’d need a 7 to hit Hal’s 19 (native 18+1 from the Ring) Defense. But with the Sinestro Corps Power Battery, suddenly Bullseye needs a 9 just to touch Hal Jordan. And if he makes it…. Hal has Probability Control and a 9 Range!

So now, Bullseye–who, again, has a ridiculously good starting Attack Value–needs to hit a 9 or more TWICE! And that’s assuming that Bullseye’s not within Range of the Power Battery, which has the potential to make him Prob AGAIN if it’s on the right Click! Now, if your opponent can roll a 9 or better three times in a row… good luck to him (or her). They must be right with the Lord. Or be sitting on a horseshoe.

Now, you can go a few different ways with the Constructs; I’ve chosen the Nurse and the Mallet. The Nurse absolutely hoses Copycat strategies (and even though she’s 60 more points, I’d still rather keep my Despotellis, thank you veddy much) while the Mallet can be quite useful if the opposition is able to surround and swarm Hal. You could also go with some combination of the Net, Spotlight or Decoy. I just hate dealing with Copycat so much that I’d rather just nerf her with the Nurse Construct, but I’d suspect most folks would rather go with the Spotlight and Net.

BITTER Ninwashui Says: “I came up with this idea a few weeks ago and sent it to HypeFox, who promptly stole it, took credit for it and gave it away on Twitter. But yes, I was happy with this Build; Parallax Hal Jordan is a beast who cannot be reasoned with. He doesn’t fly, but he does everything else, drops 5-Damage bombs from 9 squares away and he can Carry Despotellis with no penalty to his Movement. And good luck trying to hit either of these yellow jackwagons. But the Nurse? I would definitely go with the spotlight and either the Net or Decoy. The Spotlight makes Hal especially disgusting, which, as always, means you should probably give it to him.”

"James Howlett, you have a great capacity for compassion. Welcome to--waaaaiiit, did you just stab the $#!t out of someone? I don't think you understand how this ring works. "

“James Howlett, you have a capacity for great compassion. Welcome to–waaaaiiit, is that blood? Hold on, did you just stab the $#!t out of someone? Unless you just used your claws to put down an injured horse, I don’t think you understand how this ring works!”

INDIGO TRIBE (Ninwashui Build)

Team Name: The Replacement Killers

Theme: The Hand

Character Not Normally Associated With the Indigo Tribe: Uh, all of them? Especially cuz they’re all Marvel characters? And stabby?

Roster:

DP103 Wolverine, Agent of Hydra – 90 Points

w/ The Hand ATA – 7

DP006 Hand Ninja – 43

w/ The Hand ATA – 7

WXM044 Silver Samurai – 100

w/ The Hand ATA – 7

WOLR104 Power Battery (Indig0) – 2

WOLR304 Indigo Tribe Ring – 4

WOLR204.01 Indigo Net– 8

WOLR204.03 Indigo Mallet – 4

WOLR204.04 Indigo Wall – 10

WOLR204.08 Indigo Scissors – 8

WOL204.09 Indigo Nurse – 10

=300 (Woo-Hoo! Again!!)

How It Plays: Waaaaay back in Season 2 of Friends, there was an episode where Monica is hired by a company to come up with recipes for a substance called Mockolate, a synthetic chocolate substitute. By the end of the episode, she returns to the company with a list of Mockolate recipes that are extremely light on actual Mockolate since it turns out that Mockolate is terrible (Phoebe, upon tasting one of Monica’s Mockolate recipes: “Oooohhhh, this is what evil must taste like!”).

Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, this Build is light on actual native Indigo Tribe members. They are, in a word, awful–it turns out that the Indigo Tribe is the Mockolate of War of Light. In fact, the Theme of this Build is actually The Hand. And that’s okay–even though these characters are all pretty evil, violent and mostly psychotic, they’re PERFECT for the color of compassion, and we’ll use the Indigo Power Battery to induct them!

Since none of them start with the Indigo Tribe keyword, they’ll all gain that keyword and the Support ability; just as important, when a non-adjacent friendly character within 6 squares takes 3 or more damage, after actions resolve, if that character hasn’t been healed this turn, you may place this character adjacent to that character and heal that character of 1 damage. That’s kind of a strange ability, but since this is a close combat team that will probably never NOT be within six squares of each other, it allows the team to swarm opposing figures when they get significant hits in on your team.

And that’s if they can find your team. One of the perils of close combat-based teams is advancing close enough to attack before your own characters get battered themselves. Well, The Hand ATA–which all three characters have–states that “When it is not your turn, lines of fire to a character using this team ability are blocked if this character is adjacent to a wall or blocking terrain.” Hmmm… if only there was a Construct that allowed a character to use Barrier every turn as a free action so that the team could continue its advance without wasting tokens. Oh wait, there is! It’s the Wall, and it’s part of this very force!

Once you make it to your opponent, you should be able to cut them to ribbons in short order. Wolverine’s Trait (MY KIND OF HYDRA: When friendly characters use the Hydra team ability, they can also affect close combat attacks and don’t need line of fire to the target.) makes it hard for Hand characters to miss, and the fact that both he and Silver Samurai have Leadership means that you should be able to keep up with your opponent on taking meaningful actions even though you only have three characters.

SURPRISED HypeFox Says: “Wow! I actually did not think of NOT using ANY Indigo Tribe characters at all. I guess we can allow it, since they’ll all get the keyword when they get a Construct. And technically it IS a Theme Team. When I assigned you Indigo Tribe, I thought you were screwed, since they all kind of blow chunks, but I have to say, you pulled a Kobayashi Maru and changed the parameters on me. Good job, sir. I’m pretty sure you cheated somehow, and I’m definitely sure you should be drummed out of Starfleet, but good job!! The fact that this team would be next to impossible to target with a ranged attack would make it downright frustrating to play against and would make me hate the game–the hallmark reaction of anyone who plays against a team designed by Ninwashui. Bravo!”

INTROSPECTIVE Ninwashui Responds: “Uh… thanks? I think I detected some sarcasm there. Either way, You’re Welcome! Also, have you noticed that we’ve completed two builds and not used even a single Entity?”

LEGO’D HypeFox Predicts: “Yeah, that’s about to change. Like now.”

ORANGE LANTERN CORPS (HypeFox Build)

Team Name: Orange Is the New Ultron

Theme: Sinestro Corps

Character Not Normally Associated With the Orange Lantern Corps: Secret Empire Number 9. I mean, he’s ninth–dude’s barely even associated with the Secret Empire, let’s be honest.

Roster:

WOL109 Larfleeze – 200 Points

DP204 Secret Empire Number 9 – 35

WOL063P Ophidian – 25 (Possessing Secret Empire Number 9)

WOLR103 Power Battery (Orange) – 2

WOLR303 Orange Lantern Ring – 6

WOLR203.04 Orange Wall – 10

WOLR203.05 Orange Crossbow – 10

WOLR203.12 Orange Spotlight – 6

WOLR203.14 Orange Sniper Rifle – 6

=300 (Woo-Hoo! Still got it!!)

How It Plays: Remember that scene in Aliens at the end when Ripley goes back for Newt and we finally see the Alien Queen for the first time, and she’s just chilling in her brood cave spawning gooey egg after gooey egg? Yeah, on this team, Larfleeze is that Alien Queen, constantly spawning sticky,Glomulus-shaped eggs.

Larfleeze is, himself, a brick, especially when you give him a Construct (like, say, the Spotlight or the Crossbow–in addition to their Relic effects, since Larfleeze is already an Orange Lantern, they pump up all his stats except Damage by +1), but the real fun in playing him is summoning the Orange Lantern Corps with his Attack Special (SUMMON THE ORANGE LANTERN CORPS: Give Larfleeze a free action to place a WOL #H001 Orange Lantern Absorbed into an adjacent square. Give Larfleeze a power action to place a WOL #001 Orange Lantern Construct into an adjacent square. Use these abilities only if no more than 3 total friendly characters, including tokens within stacks, with either name are on the map.).

Secret Empire Number 9 is there to provide support with his Hydra ATA, native Enhancement (if Larfleeze has the Crossbow and is adjacent to Secret Empire Number 9, he’s rocking a 12 Attack and 5 Damage BEFORE you divvy up your RCE bonus!) and a top dial Ophidian-granted Outwit Special (DESIRE OF GREED: Ophidian can use Outwit. When it does it can use the countered power or ability for as long as it’s countered.). With Ophidian Possessing him, S.E.M#9 (as all the cool kids call him) is even a half decent secondary attacker, since he alternates between Pen/Psy and Energy Explosion. Annnnnd, when you give him the Orange Sniper Rifle, things start to get scary. Suddenly he’s stealing powers FROM 10 SQUARES AWAY! He’s Pen/Psy’ing FROM 10 SQUARES AWAY! I mean, I’m’a chill on the capital letters for a minute, but you get the point! While all the lil’ Glomulus’s are swarming problem pieces, your freaking Secret Empire Number 9 can be taking pot shots–and doing pretty decent damage.

And if you win Map Roll and go first (or really, even if you don’t–it’s just more effective if you’re going first), you can even use the Battery’s Emotional Spectrum Power (EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM: GREED: If the Power Battery, attached Power Ring, and Constructs are all the same color, give the Power Battery a power action and choose a power, combat ability or team ability that a friendly Corps member can use. Opposing characters can’t use that power or ability until your next turn.) to pull a Shaman and keep your opponent from using basic abilities like Flight, which means they’ll take forever to get across the map, which means that Larfleeze’ll have all day to summon his army!

If you’re patient with this team, you’ll usually get what you want–a victory.

DRUNK RACCOON Ninwashui Says: “I thought Larfleeze’s whole deal was that he doesn’t share power. This seems thematically wrong. Having said that, this isn’t a bad way to go. If I were playing this team, Larfleeze’s lack of Willpower/Indomitable would worry me; you’d really have to be good at picking your spots with Larfleeze in terms of spitting out reinforcements, using his Barrier SP or just straight out attacking for a bazillion on one figure. I wasn’t wild about your choice of S.E.M.#9 at first; yes, he’s a great boon to Larfleeze, but you won’t always be attacking with Larfleeze, will you? But the more I think about it, the more I like the possibilities that he offers. You could theoretically throw a Sniper Rifle on an Orange Lantern Construct and–if he’s adjacent to Mr. Empire–the OLC (See? I can do acronyms too) will suddenly be rocking a 10 Attack (which equates to an 11 with Mr. Empire’s Hydra TA) and 3 Damage… from 10 SQUARES AWAY (See, I can hit Caps Lock too)!! That’s not bad. Off subject–um, is that Raccoon in the picture–”

INTERRUPTING HypeFox Says: “You mean you?”

DRUNK RACCOON Ninwashui Continues: “No, not me–fine me, you, whoever. <Sigh> I don’t even know where this bit is going–it’s so damn random. Nevertheless, can we even run that picture? I mean, isn’t that first raccoon a lil’… y’know… excited?”

DRUNK RACCOON Ninwashui: “Uh… hello?”

HypeFox Responds: “Look again. That’s his PAW.”

DRUNK RACCOON Ninwashui: “Ooooooooohhh, right.”

FRUSTRATED HypeFox Decrees: “Okay, you’re weirdly obsessed with raccoon paws and we’re officially off the rails. I’m ending this before you hurt yourself–or worse yet, me. Be ready next time with your Blue Lantern team–they’re kicking off Part 2 later this week!”

DRUNK, PLOTTING RACCOON Ninwashui Whispers: “Oooohhh, don’t worry. I’ll be ready… ”

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