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.

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!).

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… ”

The Price to Play!! (Or, The Weekly Roundup for 08/10/2014!!)

August 12, 2014August 12, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd… we’re back!

Sooooo much has happened in the last two weeks in the world of ‘Clix and sports. My Tigers traded at the deadline for one Mr. David Price! Yay! Then they squandered a pretty decent second outing from the Cy Young’er before going on to lose in 19 FREAKING INNINGS! Good gosh. To be honest, I can’t believe our bullpen held up that long. Even Joe Nathan came through.

Still, it was tense, especially with the Blue Jays constantly on the bases.

Noted Tigers fans Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield could barely stand to watch!

Noted Tigers fans Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield during Sunday’s 19-inning marathon.

What else… what else… Oh, yeah, THIS HAPPENED!!

Cars were floating away down streets. BUT THOSE STUPID ORANGE CONSTRUCTION CONES DIDN'T EVEN BUDGE. WHAAAA....????

During Michigan floods, orange construction barrels become road buoys.

THE RAIN APOCALYPSE CAME AND WENT!! My Lord, that was a lot of water. In the 35 years I’ve been on this Earth, I have never seen Southeastern Michigan flooded before like it was today. Dogs sleeping with cats, cars being swept along streets BY THE TIDE (BUT NOT THE HOLLOW ORANGE CONSTRUCTION BARRELS–OH NO!! APPARENTLY THOSE NEVER MOVE!!)!! Just total insanity!

Incidentally, this is what the Zombie Apocalypse will look like as well.

After a crazy day like this, I need something normal in my life. Something to restore the balance; something familiar, that’ll let me know life is getting back to normal. You know what? You know what I need? I could really use a…

WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

(Whew! Okay! I can already feel things normalizing! Here we go!)

PODCASTS:

–As always, Dial H for Heroclix was new for the past two weeks! Episode 55 dealt with some Sealed advice for War of Light Wave 2, and Episode 56 is a sort of survival guide for anyone going to GenCon!

–Push to Regen is still stuck on Episode 2.5!! If you missed it, they discuss last month’s Nationals, work in some War of the Light talk and check in with some listeners!

–The Quarry’s latest episode is now… Episode 24!! It features an interview with ~~Patrick Yapjoco-slaye~~r recent ROC winner Kevin Afrooz as well as coverage of the Tulsa ROC.

–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.

–Weaponer of Qward has taken a ROC! Read all about the Bluegrass Mafia’s Super Qualifier (from Lexington, Kentucky) right here!

–A token team backed up by the Power Plant; Bill, Agent of A.I.M.; and a fistful of Weasels and Blind Als has taken the Tulsa Heroclix Group Road to DragonCon 2014 Super Qualifier!

–Speaking of, the full ROC/DragonCon announcement is here!

–Still no official Previews from WizKids, which, again, is weird since GotG releases THIS WEEK! Still, we know a few things:

-The Rares are great! Thanos, like Darkseid in SL0SH, is just a Rare (and he’s got a “Thanosi” Prime as well). Gorr the God-Butcher also looks pretty powerful from the Rare slot. You can see a pretty good list of the expected figures (including ANOTHER Squadron Supreme Super Rare Prime) in the Forums at HCRealms.com.

–The Zombie Chases are, well… SEVERELY UNDERWHELMING at this point. Magneto (who I thought was just murdered by the Zombie hordes in that storyline–I don’t recall him actually becoming a Zombie, but whatever) and Mole Man have me a lil’ excited (more on them in a sec), but not much else. Many of the Chases have been at least partially spoiled. You can find an eBay auction for Zombie Skrull (not Zombie Super-Skrull–just Zombie regular Skrull) that shows part of his card; the other Chases we know about (Zombie Mole Man, Zombie Red Skull, Zombie Gladiator, Zombie Magneto and Zombie Morbius) don’t really move the needle too much.

Zombie Magneto seems decently useful; I’ve heard Zombie Gladiator is, frankly, hot garbage–a (maybe) 150 point character that somehow costs you 250 to field. Zombie Morbius doesn’t seem a heck of a lot different from his ASM version–pretty weak for his points until you get him back to Click 1 via Steal Energy, if you can. Zombie Mole Man seems like an 80-Point Zombie Taxi, although it’s hard to tell exactly what he does from that eBay picture. Finally, Zombie Red Skull is a fairly effective (although slightly expensive) Close Combat piece with some decent supporting powers if his teammates are Zombies or Hydra agents.

–Speaking of GotG, (surprise, surprise) it may not release quite on schedule due to shipping delays from China. And stuff.

(Honestly, with GenCon going on this week as well as many venues running War of Light Month 3, a one-week delay shouldn’t raise nearly the amount of complaints as it would have had there been nothing else going on.)

–In case you missed it a couple weeks ago, WizKids has finally responded to the popularity of the ROC, and it’s THIS!! If any of those seven locations was within three hours of Detroit (Chicago is like 4 and 1/2 on a GOOD traffic day), I’d be a little more excited about this…

Army of the Week:

Okay, for this week’s Army of the Week, we’re gonna spotlight Joshua Earnest’s team from the Tulsa ROC we mentioned above.

Team Name: Call Us Whatever You Want, As Long As You Call Us Winners!

Theme: Agency X

Roster:

DP102 Bill, Agent of A.I.M. – 30 Points

DP020 Weasel – 27

DP018 Blind Al – 13

DOFPH002 Sentinel Sentry x 3 – 42

FIB002 Skadi’s Warbot – 30

FIH002 Warbot (Rocket) x3 – 45

FIH003 Warbot (Machine Gun) x3 – 45

IIMR100 Power Plant (everything but Ice Blast) – 28

=300 Points

What We Like: The creativity! Joshua constructed a team where all of his primary, secondary AND tertiary attackers are Horde Tokens/Stacks! The actual figures he chose are the support pieces, an inverse of what we often see. Skadi’s Warbot can be devastatingly effective, particularly with Weasel backing him up. Since he’s Carry ability would most likely kill Skadi’s Warbot, I assume Bill, Agent of A.I.M. is there to move all the support pieces and the other Warbots (who have Toughness) into place and then make sure that they can all open up on their target regardless of line of fire. Because it’s technically a Theme team, each of those support pieces could use Theme Prob as well.

This is an army that would require a Master’s Degree in Positioning and Action Management to run effectively, but clearly Joshua was up to the task! This is definitely one of the most unique ROC-winning teams I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of Bill and his High-Energy Finder Thing at the ROC or the Sentinel Sentry tokens, either. Well done, Joshua!

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–Guardians of the Galaxy lived up to the hype! Great flick, even greater box office. Highly recommended, although why we didn’t get a [EDITOR’S NOTE: Name redacted.] Clix in the GotG Movie Set from his appearance at the end of the post-credits scene is beyond me! I mean, he’s a Marvel character, he’s carried his own movie before, and he’s popular enough that he’s already had SEVERAL Clix in the past. Oh well–missed opportunity!

–How successful was this movie? Successful enough that Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Electric Bugaloo already has a release date! By the way, if I could buy stock in Chris Pratt’s career or the popularity of Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon, I would. Like, now.

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

Critical Missives:

–Okay, there was only one major article that dropped since the last Weekly Roundup, but it was a doozy! 4000+ words about ranking the Entity Chases from War of Light!

–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!! We’ll be back later this week with more and better coverage of War of Light (now that we’re knee deep in Wave 2), and we’ll be posting a Top 10 Review of Guardians of the Galaxy just a bit after that set releases!

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

Straight, With CHASEr 2: Evaluating Legal Entities!! (Or, Ranking the War of Light Entities!!)

August 4, 2014August 4, 2014 / HypeFox / 2 Comments

“Ummm… what’s the twist? The one African American dude? Wait, is this album cover inadvertently racist?”

Welcome Back!

A couple months ago, we evaluated all the Modern Age Chase-level rarity pieces and chose what we thought were the Top Ten, then came up with armies that included each figure as an example of what you could do with them. It was a fun exercise that allowed us to publish numerous pictures of Ninwashui as a drunk kitty, but it was also immediately invalidated within a week of its publication by the release of the War of Light Wave 1 spoilers and the coming of the Entities (Chase figures that basically act like resources without actually BEING a resource–sorry M10 Iron Man!).

Well, now that we’re on the cusp of Month 3 of War of Light, we finally have the spoiled dials for the second wave of Entities (so called because they all share the named “Entity” keyword), and we can actually evaluate each Entity against its peers! We’re not doing armies today, just because this article would easily top 6000 words if we did. Also, Ninwashui is now a drunk raccoon, so I have to dig up all new photos. Next time, I promise.

“This’ll be published in 3D, right? Otherwise we’re all just gonna look silly!”

A couple final notes before we get started:

–The Chases are extremely rare (seems to be roughly 2 Chases for every 3 Bricks of War of Light) which has only caused their value to skyrocket–most will run you $100 or more (as of this writing, that is). With Month 3 about to start at many venues, the Wave 2 boosters will be arriving this month–and with them, 5 new Entities (4 Chases and 1 Super Rare–more on that in a little bit though).

–What makes these figures so valuable is their shared Trait (ENTITY POSSESSION: When Proselyte would be KO’d or, if you pay 25 points when building your force, place Proselyte on another friendly character’s card if that character is 25 points or more, has the “fist” or “sharpshooter” symbol, the “shield” or “indomitable” symbol, and the “tiny” or “burst” symbol. That character has [Insert Entity’s name here]‘s keywords and can use the Possessed ability with this character as the Possessor. When that character is KO’d, Proselyte is removed from the game.).

That’s a lot of words, but I bolded the relevant points. What is the Possessed ability? Why, I have it right here (POSSESSED: Click the Possessor’s dial to the same click number as this character and change it during the game in the same way that this character’s dial changes. At the beginning of each of your turns or after this character takes or is healed of damage and actions resolve, you may choose 1 power showing on one Possessor’s dial and 1 combat value on one Possessor’s dial higher than this character’s printed combat value. This character can use that power and modifies that combat value by +1 until your next turn or until it is healed or takes damage. If the Possessor is turned to a KO click, it is removed from the game immediately.)!

Essentially what this means is that you can take virtually any substantial figure in the game (as long as it’s at least 25 points and, like, not a Duo, Giant or Colossal) and give them limited access each turn to a very powerful Entity dial–and this is in addition to any resources you might be playing. This can make even 2 or 3 star figures ridiculously good very quickly.

–Each Entity can be fielded as a figure on its own, but most are pretty middling when played normally. The cheapest is 150 (Entity). The most expensive is 250 (Parallax–which makes sense, given all the trouble he’s caused in the comics). Black Hand (expensive, but his dial is long and effective, and he has Running Shot–not all Entities have a top dial move-and-attack), Ophidian (at least starts with some Sidestep, decent Range, and his top dial Outwit Special is just about the best version of Outwit in Modern Age right now), Entity (because he’s cheap-ish) and Predator (10 Range 2 Bolt Energy Explosion; 18 with ES/D if your opponent wants to retaliate) are all, at the very least, INTERESTING if you’re looking to play an Entity normally. The rest are a tougher sell.

Ion’s Trait (I AM ION, INCARNATION OF THE CORPS: Characters using the Possessed ability while Ion is the Possessor may choose to modify 2 combat values from Ion instead of 1 and may use 2 powers from Ion instead of 1.) straight up tells you, “You’re an idiot if you don’t play Ion as a Possessor,” right there on his card. Parallax is solid from his second click on, but he costs 250 points–the same as Parallax Hal Jordan (which clearly means that there should be a 0-point Hal Jordan out there somewhere that I can play…), who’s easier to build an effective team around. Butcher is a great close combat piece; unfortunately he doesn’t get Quintessence until halfway down his dial, so a team that uses him as the focal point might get out-actioned pretty quickly–and that’s if he doesn’t get lit up on his approach, which is very possible considering he doesn’t really have any native attack avoidance (Stealth, Super Senses, Shape Change, etc.). Adara doesn’t have enough offense to justify being your main piece. And I’m sorry, but you’re not building a 300 point team around Proselyte. You’re just not.

For these reasons, we’re strictly going to be evaluating the Entity’s based on the usefulness while using the ENTITY POSSESSION power.

–Nekron IS an Entity–but he doesn’t have the Possession Trait (well, on one of his dials he can kinda sorta Possess himself–not at the table, Carlos!–by allowing himself access to the powers on his other dials). Therefore, we’ll not be discussing him here today, although I’m sure his time will come! Alrighty!

–As always, figures will be rated on a scale of 1-5 Oxygen Filtration Masks. Why Oxygen Filtration Masks? Because it worked so well for our Guardians of the Galaxy Movie set review, that’s why! But having said that, ALL the Entities are pretty damn good relative to other pieces. But, as stated before, we’re measuring the best of the best here, so those are some pretty high standards!

Okay! I think we’re done with the preliminaries. Here, then, is:

Straight, With CHASEr 2: ~~Electric Bugaloo!!~~ Evaluating Legal Entities!!

"If there's one thing in this universe that just screams 'Compassion,' it's gotta be an ethereal mass of pulsing tentacles!"

“If there’s one thing in this universe that just personifies ‘compassion,’ it’s gotta be an ethereal mass of pulsing purple tentacles!”

9. WOL064P Proselyte – Indigo Tribe Entity: You’re playing War of Light with Wave 2 boosters, you’ve never pulled an Entity before, and you’re just praying to all that’s holy that today is your lucky day. You pop open your first booster, pull it out, and discover that you’ve just gotten Proselyte. The good news? You now have an Entity! The bad news? You’ve got the worst one!

The biggest thing Proselyte gives you top dial is Perplex. Not a “only to increase combat values” type of Perplex but an honest to goodness actual Perplex. Outside of War of Light Sealed play, though, Perplex is, frankly, one of the easiest top dial abilities to give a character. For 5 more points, you can play a complete Book of the Skull (which starts out giving one of your Hammer wielders Perplex) or a complete Power Plant (which may not grant Perplex specifically, but is still a damn good resource and grants a ton of powers on its own!). Comparing Entities to Resources isn’t exactly a 1 t0 1 comparison, but if I’m investing 25 points to boost one of my figures, I want a little more than just access to Perplex and +1 Damage (the usefulness of the stat modifiers depends so heavily on which figure you’re Possessing, but frankly, all of Proselyte’s starting stats suck except for Damage and Movement. Even its Range–just a 5–is really poor).

If you don’t want Perplex, your other choices are Plasticity (useful occasionally), Super Strength (half the figures who’d benefit from Super Strength already have it!) or Toughness (the worst damage absorption power). On Click 2, Proselyte picks up a mildly interesting Movement Special (CHANNEL THE LIGHT OF THE OTHER CORPS: Give Proselyte a free action and choose a color that isn’t brown, black, grey or pink. Proselyte can use a standard power of the chosen color until your next turn.), but it’s not until you get to Click 3 and Proselyte’s Damage Special (HEART OF COMPASSION: Friendly figures that can use Support may do so even if an opposing figure is adjacent to the friendly figure or the target. When they do modify the result of the 2d6 roll by +2 and don’t subtract 2 from the d6 roll.) that you start to see what the developers intended for this piece: Healing.

But even this epiphany raises as many questions as it answers. First, Proselyte does not have a native Support power (look again–his Special reads “friendly figures that CAN USE SUPPORT… “); you can give the Possessed character Support with Channel the Light of the Other Corps… BUT THEN YOU CAN’T USE HEART OF COMPASSION! It’s a Catch 22, which leaves you with just two choices that I can think of to remedy the situation.

First, you can play A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SUPPORT-POSSESSING FIGURE TO BE YOUR HEALER. This is the easiest way to go, although it’s also the most points-intensive way to go, since it involves adding a whole other figure to your force than you may have wished to field (and at this point you can almost throw Theme out the window, unless you want to pay ANOTHER 25 points for ANOTHER Entity to possess the healer you just added to your team, and dammit, before you know it, it’s Turtles all the way down).

Your second choice is to play Proselyte on a figure who already has Support. Easy enough, right? Nope–you have to make sure that the base figure has Support ON CLICK 3! Top dial or even second Click Support does you no good if you want to boost it with Heart of Compassion.

I mean, I suppose Proselyte is useful in supercharging a medic piece in a 400+ point game as long as you’re fielding a bunch of $100+ Entities; outside of that specific circumstance, I have to say, as Entities go, Proselyte is by far the worst.

GRADE: 1 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $103.50 to $149.99 (I’m not Nostradamus, but I guarantee you this will come down. You can practically get Parallax for $150. If you have a Proselyte and are thinking of selling, now would be the time, buckaroo!)

8. WOL066P Butcher – Red Lantern Corps Entity: The Red Lantern Entity has a top dial 5 Damage and 12 Attack Value, so right off the bat there will probably be a decent stat buff for most characters there. But he’s number 8 on this list because he offers almost nothing in terms of selectable powers–especially in the beginning. Butcher is one of the only Entities who doesn’t offer a power in all four slots top dial.

He starts off with Charge, Toughness and a Damage Special (HEAT OF RAGE: Once per turn, a friendly character may reroll the d6 roll for Blades/Claws/Fangs.) that really only works if you’ve built a whole team of B/C/F’ers. And if you’ve built a team of close combatants, I’m guessing most will already come equipped with Charge and/or Toughness (at least), so his Damage Special almost by default becomes the only power worth taking. I know there are some Red Lanterns out there with B/C/F, so army construction is key when using a piece like Butcher.

If you possess a character with a long dial (and/or if you have him possess the Rookie dial of a piece), Butcher starts to shine a little, offering Flurry, B/C/F, Combat Reflexes and Exploit Weakness. Unfortunately, you have to get to, like, click 9 for most of those powers to show up.

Butcher’s better than Proselyte, but that’s damning with faint praise.

GRADE: 2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $125-$185 (Again, I don’t think the Butcher is sustainable around that level, so I’d recommend trading him for a more useful Entity or selling him!)

“I am not a Yu-Gi-Oh!, mortal!”

7. WOL068P Predator – Star Sapphires Entity: Now we are starting to get into the truly useful Entities. Stats-wise, Predator’s top dial is top notch, offering (among other numbers) 10 Range, 18 Defense and 4 Damage. Most characters you’ll want to play with Predator should be able to buff ONE of those stats. And while Predator doesn’t offer any Specials at the beginning, it does give you the option of picking from 4 powers, all of them useful: Sidestep, Energy Explosion, Energy Shield/Deflection or Shape Change.

Further down Predator’s dial comes a Click 4 Movement Special (COSMIC LOVE: Predator can use Shape Change, the Quintessence and Mystics team ability.), and Click 6 brings a truly bonkers Damage Special (POWER OF LOVE: All characters within range can use Mind Control.), which is great if you’re trying to create mass chaos during endgame scenarios.

Predator is not as game-changing as some of the other Entities, but it offers solid options in every slot and is definitely worth the 25 points it takes to field it. Predator is also a great choice if you’re putting together a Meta team and need that second or third Entity to form a Theme Team.

GRADE: 3 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $150-$199 (All of these Wave 2 Entities will depreciate slightly, but I expect Predator to hold its value AT LEAST as well as Butcher and Proselyte)

“William Hand of Earth. Your mother is calling.”

6. WOL061P Entity – White Lantern Corps Entity: Top dial, Entity’s stats aren’t overwhelming; 8 Range, 10 Movement, 18 Defense and 4 Damage should let you pump up something. But Entity offers a couple EXTREMELY useful powers on Click 1. Probability Control is one of the best powers in the game, and Entity’s Movement Special (FLOW OF LIFE: At the beginning of your turn, you may heal one adjacent character without the Black Lantern Corps keyword 1 click.) is extraordinary in its ability to heal without a die roll. Sorta like Forge’s mechanical healing ability, but it works on everyone (well, everyone who’s not a Black Lantern).

Also of interest are Clicks 4 and 8, which grant a Special Stop Click (COSMIC LIFE: Entity can use Regeneration and the Quintessence team ability. When turning the dial, if this click is revealed due to damage taken from an opponent’s attack, stop turning the dial. This power can’t be ignored.). Unfortunately, the Stop part of the Stop Click won’t really do you any good, but being able to pick up Regeneration on Click 4 just might save the day. The fact that you ignore pushing damage and become un-Outwittable on the Click is also a bonus.

And, at the end of the day, Entity IS the White Lantern Entity, which really makes him a must play for White Lantern teams (that is, as with all of these pieces, assuming that you ever GET one, of course).

GRADE: 3 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $71-$130 (He may come down a little bit, at least until someone finds some way to completely abuse his healing power.)

“Do not fear, mortal, all is welllll–holy $#!#! Is that blood?! Oh hell no!! Adara out!”

5. WOL067P Adara – Blue Lantern Corps Entity: The ultimate support Entity! Top dial, Adara gives a character your choice of Telekinesis, Defend (with an 18 Defense that goes to 19 on the second Click) or Probability Control. Basically, with Adara, you get access to the full Scarlet.

Alright!

(Author’s Note: Nope! Not even a little bit what I meant by “access to the full Scarlet!” More than a little disturbing that you had THAT photo ready to go.)

(Author’s Note: There we go!)

Okay, sorry about that. My editor was a little quick on the “Scarlet” trigger there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah–so Adara basically turns any eligible character you want in FFCW006 Scarlet Witch. Only for 25 points instead of 75. And you get Adara’s neat little Defend trick on top of everything else (which has already been put to Meta use in many recent ROC’s by having Adara Possess Despotellis). Adara’s early placement and defense shenanigans give way mid-dial to a Special Attack power (SURGE OF HOPE: Friendly characters who can use Empower or Enhancement treat other friendly characters within 3 squares and line of fire of that character as adjacent for the purposes of those powers.) that starts pumping up your team’s offensive capabilities too.

Adara’s only negative–and it’s really only a negative when compared to the other Entities–is that her best Special (COSMIC HOPE: Adora can use Perplex, but only to increase combat values. Adora can use the Quintessence team ability.) doesn’t show up until Click 7. Otherwise, Adara is a proven commodity that can boost the effectiveness of just about any character.

GRADE: 4 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $71.00 + (Despite Adara’s ROC success, the price tag has not moved much. Your guess is as good as mine, but if you’re saving up for an Entity, Adara for somewhere around $70-$90 certainly seems to make A LOT more sense than, say, $150 for Proselyte or $185 for Butcher.)

Creepy? Sure, but this would still be an average Tuesday night for the Joker. Just sayin'.

Creepy? Sure, but this would just be an average Tuesday night for the Joker. Just sayin’.

4. WOL060P Black Hand – Black Lantern Corps Entity: What?! An Entity that’s not a Chase? Sweet! Finally! Now I don’t have to pay $80 just to–what? He’s already going for like $120? Sigh…

Anyway, Black Hand here offers four great powers at the top of his dial for you to choose from. Got a big hitter who’s stuck with, say, no move-and-attack? Black Hand can give him Running Shot. Do you have a ranged attacker you like who just has Pulse Wave even though you need to reach out and touch someone with a full range attack? Black Hand can grant Penetrating/Psychic Blast! Hard to hit piece that has Super Senses or ES/D but no dampeners? Yup, Black Hand can enable Invulnerability. Or, if you’re just trying to counterattack after your opponent misses, try Black Hand’s Damage Special (DESPAIR OF THE BLACKEST NIGHT: When an opposing character misses an attack, choose an opposing character within 10 squares and line of fire and modify that character’s defense value by -1 until the end of your next turn.) on for size.

On his second Click (and every even Click thereafter), Black Hand turns into a Black Lantern Corps enabler. His Movement (OBLIVION OF DEATH: When a friendly character with the Black Lantern Corps keyword is healed because an opposing character is KO’d, increase the healing by 1.) and Attack (DEATH: Black Hand can use Steal Energy. When an opposing character is KO’d, heal Black Hand of 1 damage.) Specials puts the swarming and healing capabilities of every Black Lantern into overdrive. You can really start to turn the tide of a game when your entire army heals 2 Clicks every time you KO an opposing figure (“Okay, I just took out one of your Warbot POG’s, and I have four Black Lanterns, so that kill will net me… 8 clicks of healing! And, every character I have is back to top dial!“).

The final thing that must be noted about Black Hand: He himself can be Possessed! He’s the only Entity that doesn’t have the Giant Damage Symbol, so you can run him as a normal figure and have another Entity Possess him! None of the other Entities can do that. And with 10 Clicks of life, Black Hand can definitely get the most out of a Possessor’s dial!

GRADE: 4 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $82-$110 (As more become available, this price will drop some; as Black Hand is damn good, and an Entity, I don’t expect it to drop much.)

3. WOL063P Ophidian – Orange Lantern Corps Entity: And now we’re closing in on the best of the best. Top dial, Ophidian can grant you your choice of: Sidestep; Pulse Wave; Invulnerability; or a sick version of Outwit (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.). Click 2 brings (COSMIC GREED: Ophidian can use Barrier, Plasticity, and the Quintessence team ability.) and Shape Change (Shape Change! Good Lord, I love Shape Change. I have a Larfleeze because of the Shape Change Ophidian granted my Red Lantern Superboy Prime–y’know what? For more details about how I exchanged my moral compass and good manners for a WOL Month 1 tourney win, click here!).

When you get closer to the mid-dial, Ophidian also offers Hypersonic Speed. If you don’t know why that’s good, this may not be the blog for you! At the end of the day, Ophidian is another Entity who’s ROC-certified. Like DJ Khaled, all he does is win!

GRADE: 4 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks!

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $71-$130. (And worth every penny!)

"Obviously, the embodiment of Will is a floating space shark fish. With crazy, shimmery fins. What the $@#& were YOU expecting?"

“Obviously, the embodiment of Will is a floating space shark fish. In space. With crazy, shimmery fins. What the $@#& were YOU expecting?”

2. WOL062P Ion – Green Lantern Corps Entity: So, looking back over this list, I’ve been pretty critical of most of the Wave 2 Entities. But I can’t complain about Ion. Ion’s third Trait (and I think he’s the only Entity with 3 Traits, by the way) is, in a word, prettyf@#$ingsick (I AM ION, INCARNATION OF THE CORPS: Characters using the Possessed ability while Ion is the Possessor may choose to modify 2 combat values from Ion instead of 1 and may use 2 powers from Ion instead of 1.).

His combat values are a bit depressed compared to the rest of the Entities; that’s about his only downside, but you can kind of fix that with character choice; a lot of folks tend to pick the biggest and best character they can find and throw an Entity on it. But with Ion especially, you really want a character who will benefit from the double stat boost even before you start looking at the powers Ion can grant.

On Click 2, Ion also gains a Movement Special (FORCE OF WILL: Friendly characters can use Willpower. If they can already do so, increase their defense value by the number of action tokens on them.) that could be extremely useful, especially if you’ve constructed a team with this in mind.

But it all comes back to Ion’s Trait; it’s so powerful that you wonder how it can cost the same 25 points as the others.

GRADE: 5 Oxygen Filtration Masks

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $280 and climbing. (Good Gosh!!)

“Impurity restored. Y’know, in the balance of the game.”

1. WOL065P Parallax – Sinestro Corps Entity: So, one way to evaluate the Entities that I haven’t really touched on is to look at their point values. Each one cost 25 points to use, but they all grant access to different point level dials. Parallax here has the most expensive dial at 250. That’s means Parallax gives you access to a dial that costs 100 freaking points more than Entity’s dial. And access to either dial COSTS THE SAME AMOUNT OF POINTS!

Top dial is where Parallax shines the most. He grants your choice of: Stealth; Penetrating/Psychic Blast; Impervious or the ridiculously good Damage Special (COSMIC FEAR: Parallax can use Perplex, but only to decrease combat values. Parallax can use the Quintessence team ability.). That’s right–you can give a character top dial Quintessence. Just stupid. And if you can get Parallax to his second click, he’ll grant access to Hypersonic Speed too (just like Ophidian).

Out of all of the Entities, Parallax is the one you should chasing. Or CHASE’n, as the case may be. In Wave 1 (or any Wave, for that matter) you cannot and will not pull a better figure.

GRADE: 6 (out of 5) Oxygen Filtration Masks!

CURRENT VALUE ON EBAY: $120-$200 (The secret’s out. You are going to have to spend some cash if you want Parallax. Or any of these pieces for that matter, but especially Parallax.)

Okay! That’s all for the Entities. Agree with our rankings? Disagree? Sound off in the forums below!

And until next time, stay safe, and watch where you draw those lines of fire!

Preparing For Launch!! (Or, The Weekly Roundup for 07/27/2014!!)

July 29, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Another day, another dollar, another week, another… Wait, is it Tuesday already? Good Lord, nevermind the intro, before I lose my train of thought with another Tigers rant, let’s just get straight into the…

WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

PODCASTS:

–As always, Dial H for Heroclix is back with another new episode! Episode 54 is an extended length podcast that delves into what the guys want/expect from Yu-Gi-Oh! Wave 2!

–Push to Regen’s newest episode is… still Episode 2.5!! If you missed it, they discuss last month’s Nationals, work in some War of the Light talk and check in with some listeners!

–The Quarry’s latest episode is still Episode 22!! It features some new Tryout Commentators analyzing the Oregon ROC!!… Hopefully we’ll get some more content soon, as no one covers the Meta like DarkLogos.

Welcome… to the ROC!

ROC:

-You can catch up with most of the recent ROC upcoming tourney announcements right here!

-Speaking of, the full ROC/DragonCon announcement is here!

-Still no official Previews from WizKids, which, again, is weird since GotG releases IN LESS THAN 3 WEEKS!! I mean, the title of this week’s Weekly Rounup is PREPARING FOR LAUNCH!! C’mon, WizKids!! For what it’s worth, the Gravity Feed dials are all up in the Units section of HCRealms.com, as are the dials from the Justice League Strategy Game that released earlier this month (Hint: They’re freaking good!!). And yes, all four of those Justice League dials are SwitchClix that can be put on the JLA Team Base.

-WizKids has finally responded to the popularity of the ROC, and it’s THIS!! If any of those seven locations was within three hours of Detroit (Chicago is like 4 and 1/2 on a GOOD traffic day), I’d be a little more excited about this…

-In case you missed it last week, there will be a 5-figure booster set next February, and it will be based on… DC’s Trinity War!! So we’ll be getting 2 DC sets in a row, and–in addition to normal Chases–there will be a new “Ultra-Chase” rarity (uh, yay?). With the set being based on Trinity War (and the Crime Syndicate), early bets on the identity of the Ultra-Chase all seem to be landing on either alt-Alfred Pennyworth or, more literally, Ultra-Man of the Crime Syndicate. There will also be TWO new Brick-Incentive Exclusive Resource Dials!! How will it all play?!

We shall see next February…

Army of the Week:

Okay, for this week’s Army of the Week, we’re gonna take a look at… the Army of the Week from 2 weeks ago. Why? Well, sometimes there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and sometimes, there’s more than one way to build an army! We’ll keep the same basic engine (Yondu and Rocket), but we’ll take out Star-Lord and sub in some Entities to go with the Resource, and see which army we like better!

"We may be the 18th team named Ravagers, but at least we're not Zombies."

“Once more… with FEELING!”

Team Name: Blam! Murdered You! AGAIN!!

Theme: Entity

Roster:

GOTGM018 Rocket Raccoon – 100 Points

WOL067P Adara – 25

GOTGM012 Yondu – 82

WOL065P Parallax – 25

WOLH002 Black Lantern Risen – 13

ATA098 Ravagers x2 – 8

The Phoenix Force – 12

All 5 Fragments – 15

Assigned Character x 2 – 6

=299 Points

What We Said Before: “So, in addition to their dials (which are all awesome!!), Rocket (Magik Frag) and Yondu (Cyke Frag) will get Running Shot, Energy Explosion, Defend and +1 to Damage from the Phoenix Force (and keep in mind that Rocket can be carried by either of his teammates WITH NO PENALTY TO MOVEMENT, since he’s got Tiny Size. I’d highly recommend Yondu though, for reasons I’m about to get into.). Now let’s look at the individual dials: Rocket has a native 19 Defense, which means whoever carries him also has a 19 Defense since Defend is granted by the Phoenix Force. Also, Rocket Raccoon’s Trait (HOW ABOUT “ROCKET RACCOON AND HIS HUMAN HANGERS-ON”?: Friendly characters adjacent to Rocket Raccoon with the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ravagers keyword modify their attack values by +1.) and Damage Special (SMARTEST MAMMAL IN THE D’AST GALAXY: Rocket Raccoon can use Enhancement and Outwit.) also boost Attack and Damage by +1 for whoever’s carrying the lil’ mammal. Now let’s look at Yondu. His Trait (HIGHER GROUND: Yondu can use Energy Shield/Deflection.) gives him a 21 FREAKING DEFENSE AGAINST RANGED ATTACKS (not counting any Hindering bonuses), and his Damage Special is great, too: ONE. LITTLE. WHISTLE.: When making a ranged combat attack against a single target, modify Yondu’s attack by +2.

So, to review: Just by having Yondu carry Rocket, Yondu’s top dial when attacking one opposing character at range becomes (in addition to the fact that he now flies and has Poison) 7 Movement (w/Running Shot), 13 Attack with Precision Strike AND Three Bolt Energy Explosion, 21 Defense (at least) against ranged retaliation and 5 Damage (3 Native Damage + Rocket’s Enhancement + 1 from the Phoenix Force). Annnnnnd you still have Star-Lord waiting in the wings (and if you push him just once, Star-Lord gets Empower, Enhancement and Perplex).

The only real flaw this team has is the lack of Willpower, but if you need to take that second or third action, you can (particularly if the Phoenix Force is still on its first click and the character that’s pushing is adjacent to Rocket, since his Defend would still be tough to overcome.). This team should be a lot of fun to play AND pretty competitive!!”

What the New Version Brings: All that and more! Star-Lord is great backup, but the fact is we now have 4 characters (6 if you include the Bystander Tokens, but they count towards Theme) instead of 3, so we have a slightly better chance to win Map Roll and choose where we fight.

With this team, you’ll be going around in a mini-Defense Ball with Yondu Carrying Rocket. Try to have the Black Lanterns stay close, so that they are just as hard to hit. There will be times when your opponent will need to hit a 22 to hit Yondu with a Ranged Attack (Remember, Rocket’s using Defend with a native 19, Yondu’s Trait gives him ES/D, and if he’s in Hindering and his assailant doesn’t see through that Terrain, they’ll need a 22).

As always, even Jerry Seinfeld thinks that’ll be unlikely:

Yondu can increase Damage or Range via Parallax every turn, and he’ll of course have Running Shot with both Precision Strike and 3 Bolt Energy Explosion (thanks to the Phoenix Force). If he’s targeting just one character (while he’s Carrying Rocket), when you add up all the buffs (and assuming he pumped up Damage with Parallax), Yondu would have a 13 Attack with 5 Damage, Precision Strike AND that 3 Bolt Energy Explosion. AND he can also choose every turn to gain a Yellow Lantern Perplex and the Quintessence Team Ability, which would solve his lack of Willpower dilemma.

Essentially, we’re taking 82 Point Yondu, who’s already pretty good, and giving him +3 to Attack and +2 to Damage at virtually all times. And we haven’t even gotten to the fact that the Phoenix Force can hook him up with the Magik Fragment, Poison, Flight, Invuln (since that’s what you’d choose every turn and much, much more if you can start turning that Resource Dial. With native Sharpshooter and the Ravagers TA which lets him automatically break away, basing him does almost no good at all. The only thing he fears even a little is Pulse Wave.

Rocket would get the Cyke Fragment and wreck face every other turn (if an opposing figure is within Rocket’s Range, he can nail them for 5 Damage!). Oh, and since–at least for the first few turns–Rocket gets Defend from the Phoenix Force, he’s free to choose Prob Control from Adara every turn. Y’know, just in case Yondu somehow misses with his 13 Attack.

There are two Meta figures who can mess this team up before it gets going.

The first, of course, is Copycat (God, this figure is going to wreck the game. Just ban it already!!). She can take either part of your engine; neither choice works out well for you. You would reeeeeeaaaaallly have to slow your roll and basically just send out Copycat as a solo attacker and hope she gets whacked quickly or that she can carve off some meaningful clicks from the other side (not likely, but not impossible either, since she’ll have access to both Adara and a Resource in this scenario).

And the second figure to look out for is Lydea Mallor, but only because she can take Colossus’s Fragment from the Phoenix Force. This wouldn’t be a game ender, but it would suddenly open up both of your engine parts to Poison.

Of the two, Copycat is FAR more lethal to your plans that Lydea Mallor, but both are annoying.

So go forth and try this army out; you’ll only need three expensive Chases, the Complete Phoenix Force Resource, and a hard to find Rare from a CTD set that’s all but sold out most places.

Good Luck!!

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

—Movie Wonder Woman is officially a thing!

–Guardians of the Galaxy opens on Friday (really Thursday night). As of Sunday night, over 25 reviews were in and it still had a 100% Fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com. Color me “excited.” UPDATE: It is now at 97%, as something called Jeff Coyle (an AP critic) has decided the movie was not his cup of tea. And now, in keeping with tradition, I will now go on a brief but ill-informed rant against this Jeff Coyle guy, and how little he clearly knows about this film, even though he’s seen the movie and I haven’t. Screw you, random movie reviewer I’ve never met, let alone read, and your negative opinion about a movie I’ve yet to see but really want to! What do you know about anything, anyway, except that you will die alone, bitter and unloved?

Okay! Whew! Glad I got that off my chest… oh, yeah, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 already has a release date!

–Speaking of release dates, Gotham has a premiere date on FOX, and it is September 22nd!

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

–Critical Missives:

–Okay, there were a couple of articles that dropped since the last Weekly Roundup! First, we finished our look at the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set by diving into a Starter Set Review! Secondly, Ninwashui recapped War of Light Month 2 at our local venue in his Local Tournament Report!

–Finally, this site has actually been growing by leaps and bounds these past 2 months, so I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s stopped by to check us out!

And that’s it for this week!! I’ll be back next week with a deeper look at War of Light, and in a few weeks we’ll be back with a Top 10 Review of Guardians of the Galaxy once that set releases!

Local Tournament Report – 7/23/14 Comics and More (War of the Light Month 2)

July 27, 2014July 29, 2014 / ninwashui / 1 Comment

The Format: 400 point Sealed with two boosters of War of the Light. No outside anything, except we can play any rings, batteries, and constructs from month 1. The judge also let us include the green ring and shield construct from the scenario pack. I didn’t have those.

What I pulled:

WOL003 Sinestro Corps Recruit

WOL005 Green Lantern Recruit

WOL007 Blue Lantern Recruit

WOL009 Controller Construct

WOL027 Graf Toren

WOL029 Brother Hymn

WOL039 Kryb

WOL053 Swamp Thing

What I Played:

“Oh look, that ‘Lost Lantern’ is standing next to two other people. They found him!”

WOL007 Blue Lantern Recruit

WOL027 Graf Toren

WOL053 Swamp Thing

WOLR100 Power Battery (Green Lantern Corps)

WOLR200.05 Crossbow

WOLR305 Sinestro Corps Ring

Total = 386 points

Round 1: Facing WOL021 Lyssa Drak, WOL037 Karu-Sil, and WOL035A Sayd (Orange Lantern) = 396 points

This match went slow. We were both playing characters we were unfamiliar with. I had created my team hastily and it took a couple of times reading through Swamp Thing’s card to get the gist of his Sort-Of! Hypersonic Attack. Apparently, he’s essentially FULLY Hypersonic and leaves Hindering Terrain wherever he goes. Wow! Of course, the small print will tell you that if your opponent is already sitting in Hindering Terrain then Swamp Thing’s Hypersonic 2: Electric Bugaloo-ish attack can’t touch them. Which makes about as much sense as the Hal Jordan Parallax not being able to fly (talk about the ring being a crutch). But whatever.

My opponent was trying to think of useful things to do with Sayd and Lyssa Drak. He may still be wondering at the time of this writing. This ended up being a mostly one sided affair, although the score would likely have been higher had we moved a little faster.

The action started out with both of us moving our teams out 8 spaces and then clearing. I equipped the Crossbow onto Graf Toren. My opponent had the first turn and moved his Sayd within firing range (9 squares) of my Graf Toren. His Karu-Sil and Lyssa Drak stayed back a few spaces further. Karu-Sil popped out her Pack and the turn ended. On my turn I went all out. I used the Blue Latern Recruit to TK Graf Toren into firing position on Sayd (since his range was shorter). Not wanting to miss, I used the Blue Latern Recruit’s Perplex and the Crossbow’s Ranged Combat expert to pump my attack up to 14! I would have also Outwitted Sayd’s Defense with Graf Toren‘s Traited Outwit, but Sayd’s Team Ability prevented me. At the time I had hoped that this encounter would be the last time I saw that TA this tournament because a lot of Graf Toren’s usefulness is based upon that Outwit. Sayd had 18 defense and was sitting in hindering terrain. Graf Toren’s 14 attack value meant I had no problem hitting Sayd; unfortunately, I rolled too well, knocking him back two squares. Sayd moved to click 3. It was then that White Lantern Swamp Thing entered the fray.

Sayd was still in hindering, and Karu-sil was too far away, but Lyssa Drak was within Swamp Thing’s Movement range and he slogged through the map until he was adjacent to both her and Karu-Sil. It was an easy 4 clicks of damage even after her traited Prob reroll.

On my opponent’s turn, he shot back with Sayd and missed Graf Toren who was in Hindering. The Pack used Sidestep to attack Swamp Thing, which moved to bog monster to Click 2 after all the dice rolls. Karu-Sil missed, but she did Perplex down one of Swamp Thing’s combat values, which also decreased his speed by three. Lyssa Drak then created a Barrier around herself that–unsurprisingly, given how useless her dial is–didn’t protect any of the other characters. I’m going to omit her from the rest of this battle report because, while she wasn’t KO’d, she never took a meaningful action for the rest of the game. Such is life for Lyssa Drak. Don’t blame me, I didn’t create her.

On my turn, Blue Lantern Recruit TK’ed Graf Toren, who then attacked Sayd again. This time he hit for 6 which caused 3 real damage. Swamp Thing attacked Karu-Sil and missed. Both teams cleared over the next two turns.

One my opponent’s turn The Pack and Karu-Sil both dug into Swamp Thing and knocked him down to his Regen/Stop click. Then it was my turn and the judge called time. I finished my turn by having Graf Toren knock Sayd to her last click and then Swamp finished her for the games only KO.

Round 2: Facing WOL025 The Weaponer of Qward, WOL025E The Weaponer of Qward, WOLR100 Power Battery (Green Lantern Corps), WOLR200 Shield, WOLR200.05 Crossbow, and WOLR300 Green Lantern Ring = 374 points

Seriously? Two freaking Weaponers? Who gets that lucky? I mean, besides HypeFox last month. Actually, now that I’m remembering HypeFox’s pulls last month, two Weaponers seems reasonable. Regardless, on paper, I would have given this match to my opponent easily. Then again, this game isn’t played on paper. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, it kinda is.)

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Shut up. I’m on a roll. Oh, and your proctologist called–he can see you Monday at 3:00pm to get that MAGICAL HORSESHOE PHYSICALLY REMOVED FROM YOUR POSTERIOR!!)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re trying to imply that luck had anything to do with–)

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hey, who’s telling this story? Me or you?)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: <sigh> Continue.)

Thank you. What I was trying to say was that anything can happen in HeroClix. And I knew that the more expensive Weaponer was an incredible threat. I had never faced one before, but I had read about him online. My opponent went first. We both moved up and cleared. He moved both his guys about 11 squares away and put the shield on the more expensive one. That was opening I needed. I used the same TK, Perplex, RCE trick that I had pulled on my opening shot in game one, but this time I could use Outwit. I hit his 20 ranged Defense and he took four clicks of damage. I got smart and had Swamp Thing throw up a Barrier between me and the Weaponers. Rather than use both of his characters just to try and get one attack through, my opponent just cleared.

On my turn Graf Toren hit again for 4 more clicks of damage. Then Swamp Thing gained Shape Change, moved in, hit for 4 damage and tied up both characters. My opponent got a couple of turns in a row and did manage to knock Swamp Thing down to click 5, but that was it. After that, Graf Toren knocked each Weaponer to their stop clicks and my other characters got the KOs. It’s a odd sight to see a Blue Lantern Recruit KO a Weaponer of Qward, but it happened. This game just happened to break my way, and I was lucky that I didn’t miss when I found that first opening.

Round 3: Facing WOL003 Sinestro Corps Recruit, WOL013A Romat-Ru, WOL041 Parallax (Hal Jordan), WOLR100 Power Battery (Green Lantern Corps), WOLR200.05 Crossbow, and WOLR303 Orange Lantern Ring = 395 points

So this match really came down to two pieces and their (mostly) one on one duel. Oh, and this was me and Hypefox in the final.

My opponent moved Parallax close enough to my forces that I got in an alpha strike with the same plan I used in the first two games. I couldn’t use Outwit, but I hit easily. He made his Impervious roll, so I did no damage! Swamp Thing couldn’t base him because he was too far away and instead moved halfway to Parallax. Parallax of course easily hit Graf Toren on his turn. Parallax’s allies just moved closer and in fact wouldn’t do much for most of the game.

I got another turn with a weakened Graf Toren and took a shot. It was a hit! Then Parallax used his top dial Probability Control and it turned my beautiful hit into a #$^#($^ Critical Miss!! I thought about basing Parallax with Swamp Thing, but he would be double tokened then and Parallax’s Pulse Wave would make short work of him. I cleared the rest of my forces.

Parallax scored another hit and knocked Graf Torn down to his last click. On my turn I tried to get him back to the battery or hide him with TK, but there just wasn’t much I could do. Parallax had been in Hindering Terrain this whole time so Swamp Thing was having trouble attacking him. I put Graf Toren in a place where Parallax would have to move out of Hindering for the KO.

“Oh, baby, I am SO out of my MIND right now! I’m’a go $@#%-up a Swamp Thing! I saw him on my way into what’s left of Coast City when I WASN’T FLYING, apparently!”

Everyone cleared and then Parallax moved out of Hindering and shot Graf Toren for the KO. On my turn I struck with Swamp thing and… missed horribly. I ended Swamp Thing’s movement next to my Power Battery hoping to use its Support to stay in this game. And that’s the way the game stayed. Parallax KO’d the Blue Lantern Recruit next. Swamp Thing probably got in 5 Ranged attacks before the game ended, but he couldn’t beat Parallax’s Defense and Probability Control. The game ends about 10 turns later (Stop Click + Regen +Support) and I haven’t done a single point of damage to his team. I was, however, once again able to capture every one of my attempts to damage Parallax on video. Here, then, is a repeating loop of every time I attacked Parallax this game:

This horrible defeat sent me from the penthouse to the outhouse as far as this tournament’s outcome was concerned. Because I was not just beaten, but beaten down to the point where I captured no points of my own, I found myself sliding from second place (and competing for a possible tournament win) to fifth (and, well, competing for nothing–which is exactly what fifth place awarded me!).

What I Learned:

WOL053 Swamp Thing is darn tough and had a few tricks opponents wouldn’t expect (Barrier, TK, etc.). However, once an opponent realizes the benefits of keeping figures on Hindering Terrain, Swamp Thing’s offensive punch drops a lot. I would play him again on a team that could really make use of the “forest” of Hindering Terrain markers he makes. Batman Allies, or Poison Ivy maybe?
WOL007 Blue Lantern Recruit is well worth his points as a Scarlet Witch/Enchantress/Mercy type of support figure. I’ll be playing him again soon.
WOL027 Graf Toren was good but not great. If he can’t use his Outwit then he is a waste of points.
In a set full of ranged centered offense and defense, WOL037 Karu-Sil and her pack are well worth the points.
The full point WOL025 The Weaponer of Qward is scary. The lesser pointed one is only just “good”.
HypeFox beat me again with a high point high-powered character. (WOL041 Parallax (Hal Jordan)) Apparently I need to tell him the wrong day if I want to win the next WOL event. Or just pray that he gets, say, one month where he doesn’t pull a bomb that has all the specific TA’s and Powers that I’m trying to avoid.
The participation prize for this week (WOL104 Guy Gardner (Green Lantern)) is really quite good for the points. I think with all the high point characters in the set people are looking past him. I’m looking forward to using him in constructed. (EDITOR’S NOTE: I second that emotion. His dial is great, and he’s the best Turn One Taxi in the game!)
WOL021 Lyssa Drak is still useless. You could graft an Entity on her, and she’d still be useless. She’d suddenly be worth another $100, but she’d still be useless. Scientists in Luxembourg have just confirmed that Lyssa falls right before Kim on the K.U.S. (Kardashian Uselessness Scale). I may have made up the last 3 points, but I think you get my drift.
The WOL039 Kryb that I pulled and didn’t use doesn’t look much better. Honestly, I read the Blackest Night TPB and the War of the Green Lanterns TPB in preparation for this Storyline Event, and I don’t remember this dude/gal/thing/creepfestival from any of those stories. UPDATE: I just Wiki’d her. Apparently it’s a her. Also apparently, her body just happens to have a cage where her back should be, and she goes around stealing the children of Green Lanterns, which begs all SORTS of questions. First of all, for the other members of Kryb’s species that don’t have access to a cosmic-level powerful, wish-granting ring, what exactly do they keep in the cages in their backs? As in, what sort of biosphere exists on their planet of origin that necessitated (or, really, even allowed) for the adopted adaptation of built-in back cages? Secondly, exactly how powerful are Yellow Lanterns (sorry, “Sinestro Corps. members”) in comparison to Green Lanterns? Because if she’he’it has taken as many Green Lantern children as she’s constantly depicted to have taken (I mean, every picture of her has legions of floating limbs sprouting from her back), wouldn’t some of these pissed-off parents (who, remember, ALL WIELD RINGS THAT BRINGS THEIR WILDEST, MOST OUTLANDISHLY CREATIVE THOUGHTS TO LIFE IN THE FORM OF GREEN ENERGY) have banded together and straight up murdered THE ALIEN PSYCHOPATH THAT HAS BEEN STEALING THEIR CHILDREN?! I know most Lanterns aren’t the killing type, but doesn’t all that go out the window when your kids are being stolen? Yet when they finally catch up with her, they send her to Zamaron to be rehabilitated? Uh, no. All of which leads to my last question: Are there big Kryb fans out there? I’m just wondering who you are and what you’re doing with your life.

Guarding the Galaxy Part 2: The Starter Review!! (Or, Y’know, A Review of the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set Starter Pack!!)

July 25, 2014July 26, 2014 / HypeFox / 2 Comments

Annnnnnd we’re back! I swear, I haven’t been playing Hearthstone for three days straight! Honest!

(No, for reals–I mean, I would’ve spent the whole three days pulling my hair out trying to take on the Heroic versions of the Naxx Arachnid Quarter Bosses without Alexstrazsa–y’know what? Doesn’t matter right now.)

Okay! So, awhile ago, we published our take on the first 18 figures in the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set! But we promised we’d be back later with the back end of the review–namely, the six figures that come in the starter! Well, here we are!

As a whole, I highly recommend purchasing the Starter for the reasons we’re about to get into, but man, there’s not really a dud piece in the bunch! But before we get to the last six Clix in the set, I want to mention a few things.

First of all, the fact that you get an exclusive Map is just gravy on the cake (no, I’m not mixing metaphors–I just invented the greatest thing ever by combining the two FORMER greatest things ever. You’re Welcome. And yes, that was a reference to the film’s tagline. Ahem.). Yes, I know all Starters/Fast Forces come with a map, but it definitely adds to the value of the whole endeavor.

This particular map comes with two Indoor layouts–The Kyln (a space prison, I believe) and Nova Corps. headquarters. Let’s start with the last one first.

MAP: Nova Corps. Headquarters:

Yep–in all of InternetLand, this is the best image I could find for this map. For shame, cyberspace. For Shame!!

This map is a stay away for me. One side is fairly isolated, which can be gold if you’re playing an Iron Pharaoh or Fantomex (read: Stall Team) force, but you’ll never get to play there. If you win Map Roll, you get to choose what map you want, but then your opponent gets to pick what side he gets. And, since he’s seen what you’re playing at this point, if he has any idea how your team works, he’d never let you choose the isolated side. Plus, even if you were playing a Iron Pharaoh team, your Falcon would be neutered a tiny bit by not being able to see through Blocking Terrain (since you’re Indoors.). There’s a few teams that could work on a map like this, (The Hand, maybe, powered by Wolverine, Agent of Hydra?), but most of the teams that could work on this map could probably work even better on a different one.

Much more interesting, then, in my eyes at least, is:

MAP: The Kyln:

Ugh--this one's even worse, and I took it myself. Man, why doesn't HCRealms just catalog every map with a clean picture and document every last bit of Orange text and put it all into a nice, free and functional Search Engine? Man, it's like they're not even trying anymore...

Ugh–this one’s even worse, and I took it myself. Man, why doesn’t HCRealms just catalog every Clix map ever made with a clean picture AND document every last bit of Orange text and put it all into a nice, free and functional search engine on their site? Man, it’s like they’re not even trying anymore…

The Kyln has a ton of room to run and hide after striking for Hypersonic characters! Superboy Prime(s), Speed Demon, Whizzer–all would do well on this map! Very exploitable (reeeeeaaaalllly easy to sneak out, nail someone, then swing back around a corner and hide behind Walls!), and if you regularly play tourneys, at the very least, you’ll want this map for your toolbox.

And having said that, let’s move on to the Main Event! We’ll go right in order:

GOTGM101 Star-Lord – 75 Points – Starter Set: Point for point, the best Star-Lord in the set. Chris Pratt’s alter ego starts out with the Improved Movement power that you probably scoured the other versions’ cards for (CAN’T KEEP THIS UP, BUT I DON’T NEED TO: Improved Movement: Ignores Elevated Terrain, Ignores Hindering Terrain) only to find after much searching that it just wasn’t there. This dial is also interesting because it switches ROLES every other click! He alternates between being a pretty damn good Secondary Attacker in a 300 Point Modern Age game on his odd clicks to being the ultimate supporting figure (he gains Enhancement, Empower AND Perplex) on his even ones. Movie Peter Quill’s first three clicks all have a native 3 Damage, and he’s rocking a 6 Range with Running Shot and Penetrating/Psychic Blast top click (actually, he keeps that Pen/Psy for his first clicks!!). And while everything else is going on, his Trait (get used to seeing this–more than a few figures have it!) gives him a one-time, backstage pass to an improved version of Pulse Wave (HADRON ENFORCER: Once per game, give Star-Lord a free action and choose an unoccupied square of clear terrain within range and line of fire. When you do, Star-Lord can use Pulse Wave this turn as if he occupied that square.)!!

I can’t tell you off of the top of my head exactly how many figures for 75 Points or less have access to both Penetrating/Psychic Blast AND Pulse Wave of ANY kind–much less one that effectively DOUBLES your Range with it–without the benefit of a Resource, but I’m betting the number is EXTREMELY small. Like possibly just Starter Chris Pratt small. Remember, these are the two best Attack Slot powers IN THE GAME! His drawbacks are few. He only has five clicks of life (helped a tiny bit by Toughness on the first three clicks and Super Senses on the last two), and his Defense tops out at 17. Not terrible, but definitely hittable. Still, considering that he brings so many top tier standard powers to the table, he more than makes up for a questionable Defense. He even has decent keywords (GotG, Ravagers, Soldier, etc.). Good gosh, he’s only 75 Points!

GRADE: 4 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks (he’s not a Chase Rocket Raccoon, but he ain’t far off!)

“It’s real!!”

GOTGM102 Rocket Raccoon – 75 Points – Starter Set: Again, a lot to love. This version ditches the Improved Movement for better targeting potential (INDISCRIMINATE? NO, INCOMPARABLE: Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, Ignores Characters). He’s Tiny, so he can still be Carried, and his Attack Special (TWO BIG GUNS: Give Rocket Raccoon a power action and he may then make 2 ranged combat attacks as free actions.) is REALLY GOOD if you can Outwit your opponent’s Defense first! His other assets include a 7 Range with two Bolts, top dial Stealth and the fact that he’s one of the only actual Guardians of the Galaxy to have top dial Willpower–that’s actually a difference between a lot of these figures versus they’re starter counterparts. The Starter figs tend to have it where the main set pieces don’t. His keywords are limited–just Animal and GotG–but he can still be a solid Secondary Attacker on the right team. Having said all that, this is the rare case (with this set at least) where the Starter set version is actually worse than the main set versions (of course, that bar is pretty high!). Still, I’d give him this:

GRADE: 3 Oxygen Filtration Masks

“Eyes up, Star-Lord.”

GOTGM103 Gamora – 100/75 Points – Starter Set: Whoa!! There we go! On her first click of life, Gamora can use Charge, Precision Strike, Super Senses and a Special version of Close Combat Mastery that hoses any piece she hits. As I stated above with Rocket Raccoon, not many actual Guardians have Willpower, but Gamora here is rocking Indomitable. Plus, her Trait (DEADLIEST WOMAN IN THE WHOLE GALAXY: Give Gamora a free action and choose an opposing character. When Gamora attacks the chosen character, modify her attack and damage values by +1. Gamora can’t choose again until the chosen character has been KO’d.) potentially bumps her Attack Value to 12 and here Damage value to 4 when she attacks the chosen character! Her 75 Point dial is almost as good; I just prefer the top dial Charge of the 100 Point version to the Special Movement Power that grants Sidestep (among other things). She’s right up there with the rare Target exclusive Drax the Destroyer, although he was only like 94 Points. I gave that Drax 3 and 3/4 rating, which means I have to give this Gamora:

GRADE: 3 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks

GOTGM104 Drax the Destroyer – 125 Points – Starter Set: Hmmm… this piece is an odd duck. For 31 more points, Starter Drax has a solid 6 Range (up from 3), that same improved-range Pulse Wave Trait that Star-Lord had (HADRON ENFORCER: Once per game, Give Drax the Destroyer a free action and choose an unoccupied square of clear terrain within range and line of fire. When you do, Drax the Destroyer can use Pulse Wave this turn as if he occupied that square.), Indomitable (there’s that again!) and Impervious followed by Invincible instead of just straight Toughness followed by weird pseudo-Stop Clicks. But this Drax also has 1 less click of life, lower Defense (starts with a 17 versus the Mass Market Rare’s 18), slightly lower attack and Super Strength where his counterpart had Precision Strike. The Target-exclusive Drax had a clear role–take out any enemy pieces with Shape Change and/or Super Senses, since he ignores both of those powers. This Drax instead has Exploit Weakness and Close Combat Expert, so his damage dealing potential (if it gets through Super Senses and Shape Change) is a little higher, but not much. I’d personally stick with the Mass Market Rare and spend that extra 31 Points elsewhere.

GRADE: 3 Oxygen Filtration Masks

“I… am… West Siiiide!”

GOTGM105 Groot – 100/75 Points – Starter Set: Another support figure, but this version will only cost you up to 100 Points and comes in two great flavors! The first (100 Point version) is rocking an 18 Defense with Invulnerability and the always useful Defend. He’s got Indomitable, so you don’t have to worry about pushing, and he’s also a giant like the main set version. His Movement Special (PHOSPHORESCENT FLOWERS: Lines of fire drawn to opposing characters within 6 squares of Groot ignore hindering terrain.) alternates with Charge (which the Rookie version starts with) and is a great way to open up lines of fire for any snipers on your side who don’t come with Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain. Having Experienced Starter Groot Carry his lil’ Raccoon buddy (either the Chase or the Common from the main set) is both movie-accurate and useful, and you’d still have 100 Points left!

His keywords are very narrow (just Brute and Guardians of the Galaxy), but Brute actually opens up a lot of builds (and makes him eligible for Duhg’s Army). I wish he had access to Plasticity or Exploit Weakness at some point to go with his Close Combat Expert or Charge, respectively, but there’s still a lot to like here, and at MUCH more reasonable costs than the main set Rare. GRADE: 4 Oxygen Filtration Masks (100 Point Dial); 3 Oxygen Filtration Masks (75 Point Dial)

“I’m told this is my best side.”

GOTGM106 Ronan – 300/200/100 Points – Starter Set: Like the main set version, Starter Ronan is a high risk/high reward brick who is meant to take up all–or most–of your points. Each version has an Improved Targeting Trait (YOU CANNOT EVADE ME: Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, Ignores Characters), and the Veteran also has 11 clicks of life and a Trait that makes Outwit useless (I WILL NOT BE DENIED: Ronan’s powers can’t be countered.). 10 Range with Running Shot/Pulse Wave top dial (and a 12 Attack Value) means that if you tried to field just Ronan here at, say, a ROC, you won’t be laughed off the table (I still wouldn’t recommend it, since you’ll be hideously out-actioned, but he’s by far NOT the worst figure you could try this with). I wish his damage stayed at 5 beyond top dial, but he comes with an Outwit of his own (again, with 10 Range!) and an 18 Defense with both Impervious AND Energy Shield/Deflection (which is, as mentioned, uncounterable, so the only major fear he has from range is–as always–Pulse Wave).

His Experienced version keeps the 18 Defense with Imperv and ES/D, but only top click, and he loses his move-and-attack power in favor of Flurry. Now, you’ll have an extra 100 Points to play with here, but as Ronan flies, he cannot be carried by most Taxis, which locks you into having to play a TK’er. His damage drops to 4 with Perplex (instead of Outwit), and his starting Attack Value is actually LOWER than the Rookie dial’s.

Rookie Ronan is five clicks of pain. He picks up Charge, an 11 Attack (that goes to 12 on Click 2), a 17 Defense with Invincible and 3 Damage with Close Combat Expert. His last two clicks have a Damage Special that lets him use Regeneration for free. At 100 points, he has a high damage output ceiling if you can get him in close.

GRADE: 4 Oxygen Filtration Masks (300 Point Dial); 3 Oxygen Filtration Masks (200 Point Dial); 3 and 1/2 Oxygen Filtration Masks (1oo Point Dial)

There ya go! I hope you enjoyed this look at the back end of the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set. I know I’m pumped for this movie, and I’ll enjoy playing these figures for the next couple years.

I’ll see you guys next time; until then, if you need me, I’ll be here, opening Hearthstone packs… LIKE A BOSS!!

Guarding the Galaxy, For Starters!! (Or, The Weekly Roundup for 07/20/2014!!)

July 22, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Another week gone by, and another blown game by Tiger’s closer Joe Nathan! Bleh. At least my Tigers salvaged the last game of their four game series against the Indians at home. They’ve just been a much less effective team at home for whatever reason, even though they’re, like, +12 on the road. Weird.

Forget Mad Max–this is what real road warriors look like.

Still, the Tigs are well in first place, and at this point I’m expecting a nice, peaceful cruise into the Playoffs (yeah, right). Until then, however, we should probably get you caught up on the week that was in the world of Heroclix. Here, then, is…

THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

PODCASTS:

–Dial H for Heroclix is back once again and podcasting into their second year with Episode 53! It’s a shorter length discussion that ranges from possible punishments for Austin for missing yet another podcast to replacement Modern Age maps for the best maps that have recently rotated out!

–Push to Regen’s newest episode is… still Episode 2.5!! If you missed it, they discuss last month’s Nationals, work in some War of the Light talk and check in with some listeners!

–The Quarry’s latest episode is still Episode 22!! It features some new Tryout Commentators analyzing the Oregon ROC!!…

Welcome… to the ROC!

ROC:

-You can catch up with most of the recent ROC upcoming tourney announcements right here!

-Speaking of, the full ROC/DragonCon announcement is here!

-The recent HCRealms.com contest to create ROC standard objects has come to an end! Click here for the winning Objects!

Again, no official Previews this week (Strange, considering GotG is less than a month away, no?), but check out the HCRealms.com Rumors section for some of the Gravity Feed Dials. As a lifelong Jim Starlin/Warlock and the Infinity Watch fan, the fact that the first two Gravity Feed characters are Infinity Watch-era Gamora and Drax means that this guy will be buying some GF packs!

-Yu-Gi-Oh! is getting a storyline event AND a resource dial!! Good lord. Will it be any good? Does this mean that I have to start playing Yu-Gi-Oh! ?

We shall see next February…

Army of the Week:

Team Name: You Have to Stay in the Sniper’s Nest

Theme: Spy

Roster:

DP018 Blind Al – 13 Points

WXM042 Fantomex– 142

CATWS008 Winter Soldier – 100

AVXR100 Phoenix Force – 12

2x Assigned Character – 6

All 5 Phoenix Fragments – 15

ATA020 X-Force (assigned to Fantomex) – 3

=291 Points

This is a simple team built around being hard to engage. Fantomex can simply stay in his Starting Zone with Blind Al and wreck face through E.V.A. while Winter Soldier snipes away from his nests. It’s really that simple; the Phoenix Force of course helps, but your goal here is to nail your opponent’s tentpoles before they ever even get to you. And if they do, you can use Blind Al to forcibly evict them!

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–No big Hollywood news this week, but in a couple weeks we will have a Roundup Report on the statuses of Gotham (TV), Superman/Batman: Dawn of Justice (Film) and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)!!

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

–Critical Missives:

–Bunch of new articles in the last two weeks since we lasted ‘Rounded Up! We took a look at which pieces in the current Modern Age could replace the Meta staples that have recently gone Golden Age, we did a review of every figure (except those in the Starter) from the brand new Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set and, finally, Ninwashui took an in-depth look at Arnim Zola armies!!

–Once again… 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!! In the next few days (read: Thursday), we should finally get to the GotG Movie Starter figs (hint: it contains the best Star-Lord in the set!!) review as well as another couple Tourney Reports from WAR of Light Month 2, as that rolls at our venue tomorrow!

The Three Wars!! (Or, The Weekly Roundup for 07/13/2014!!)

July 16, 2014July 21, 2014 / HypeFox / Leave a comment

Annnnnnd welcome to another week of Heroclix coverage!!

We’ve been busy these last couple weeks, and we actually had some Heroclix news break recently as well! That wait is partially why you’re getting another Mid-Weekly Roundup a couple days off from the normal release. So let’s just dive right in to…

THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP!!

PODCASTS:

–Dial H for Heroclix has finally released Episode 52!! Check their Podbean for details, but you can finally see the guys on YouTube in addition to downloading the audio version like normal! Congratulations to them on their first year anniversary show!

–Push to Regen’s newest episode is… still Episode 2.5!! If you missed it, they discuss last month’s Nationals, work in some War of the Light talk and check in with some listeners!

–The Quarry’s latest episode is Episode 22!! It features some new Tryout Commentators analyzing the Oregon ROC!!…

Welcome… to the ROC!

ROC:

-You can catch up with most of the recent ROC upcoming tourney announcements right here!

-The recent HCRealms.com contest to create ROC standard objects has come to an end! Click here for the winning Objects!

Again, no official Previews this week, but check out the WizKids section for some upcoming set news…

-There will be a 5-figure booster set next February, and it will be based on… DC’s Trinity War!! So we’ll be getting 2 DC sets in a row, and–in addition to normal Chases–there will be a new “Ultra-Chase” rarity (uh, yay?). With the set being based on Trinity War (and the Crime Syndicate), early bets on the identity of the Ultra-Chase all seem to be landing on either alt-Alfred Pennyworth or, more literally, Ultra-Man of the Crime Syndicate. There will also be TWO new Brick-Incentive Exclusive Resource Dials!! How will it all play?!

We shall see next February…

Army of the Week:

This week, in honor of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Set, we’re going to build a Ravagers team!!

“At least we’re not Zombies.”

Team Name: Blam! Murdered You!

Theme: Ravagers

Roster:

GOTGM018 Rocket Raccoon – 100 Points

GOTGM012 Yondu – 82

GOTGM102 Star-Lord – 75

AVXR100 Phoenix Force – 12

2x Assigned Character – 6

All 5 Phoenix Fragments – 15

ATA011 Guardians of the Galaxy ATA x2 – 8

=298 Points

So, in addition to their dials (which are all awesome!!), Rocket (Magik Frag) and Yondu (Cyke Frag) will get Running Shot, Energy Explosion, Defend and +1 to Damage from the Phoenix Force (and keep in mind that Rocket can be carried by either of his teammates WITH NO PENALTY TO MOVEMENT, since he’s got Tiny Size. I’d highly recommend Yondu though, for reasons I’m about to get into.). Now let’s look at the individual dials: Rocket has a native 19 Defense, which means whoever carries him also has a 19 Defense since Defend is granted by the Phoenix Force. Also, Rocket Raccoon’s Trait (HOW ABOUT “ROCKET RACCOON AND HIS HUMAN HANGERS-ON”?: Friendly characters adjacent to Rocket Raccoon with the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ravagers keyword modify their attack values by +1.) and Damage Special (SMARTEST MAMMAL IN THE D’AST GALAXY: Rocket Raccoon can use Enhancement and Outwit.) also boost Attack and Damage by +1 for whoever’s carrying the lil’ mammal. Now let’s look at Yondu. His Trait (HIGHER GROUND: Yondu can use Energy Shield/Deflection.) gives him a 21 FREAKING DEFENSE AGAINST RANGED ATTACKS (not counting any Hindering bonuses), and his Damage Special is great, too: ONE. LITTLE. WHISTLE.: When making a ranged combat attack against a single target, modify Yondu’s attack by +2.

Hooray for Hollllllywooood!!

–No big Hollywood news this week, but next week will have a Roundup Report on the statuses of Gotham (TV), Superman/Batman: Dawn of Justice (Film) and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)!!

–Critical Missives:

And that’s it for this week!! Look for a review of the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Starter Set later this week!!

Team Ideas – An Army of Gwen

July 13, 2014July 14, 2014 / ninwashui / 3 Comments

DP054 Arnim Zola was one of the most interesting pieces to come out in the Deadpool set. He’s got a combo of Running Shot and Pulse Wave that AVX014 Magneto showed us was really good. Except Arnim doesn’t have Magneto’s defenses, or really his offensive firepower. Wait, why do I want to play this guy again? Oh yeah it’s his Trait:

YOU CLONED WHO?!?: Give Arnim Zola a free action to place a Gwen Stacy Clone bystander token as described on this card adjacent to him on the map. If there is already 1 friendly one on the map, this is a power action instead. If there are 2 or more friendly ones, this is a double power action instead.

I prefer to think of Gwen Stacy Clones as Fembots. Groovy baby. Yeah!

Basically this trait can let him pop out a couple of XP001 Con Artists pretty effortlessly. Except, the Gwen tokens don’t need to be pushed to get to their Perplex and they don’t give the other team points when KOed. Pretty Cool. Unfortunately, the downside is that if you have two on the board, Arnim Zola needs a double power action to make another one. Because he lacks Willpower, a double action token means pushing damage. Can you imagine if the AVM016 Red Skull was still in modern? Between their two traits. you could set up a mad science lab in your starting zone.

That brings us my first (Silver Age) team:

Little known fact: this is how Michael Jackson would have looked in another 10 years.

Why is my doomsday device filled with all these young women?

Team Name: H.D.D.D. (Hydra Doomsday Device Division)

Theme: Hydra

Roster:

DP054 Arnim Zola

AVM016 Red Skull

AVM040 Hydra Technician

FIB003 Damaged Warbot

Total = 300 Points

That’s a total of 4 Perplexes (two Gwens, two techs), two Enhancements, a Leadership, and Outwit. That’s a lot of support. The Warbots are there to hold off the other team while you are building. Backed up by that much support they can be dangerous. If The Red Skull can finish his doomsday weapon, then the other team is in for some real trouble.

Now that team was fun, but Arnim would take pushing damage if he tried to have more than two Gwen tokens on the board at once. If you could counteract the problem of Arnim taking damage from a double power action, you could flood the board with Gwen Stacy tokens. There would be no theoretical limit. 3? 6? 12? You can keep making them in your starting area until your opponent’s team shows up to make you stop. How many Gwen Stacy Perplexers would it take to give the mugger that murdered Uncle Ben a fighting chance against Spider-Man? With Arnim Zola you can find out.

There are two ways to offset the damage Arnim takes from his double power action:

Granting him Willpower (Nul’s hammer, Bat belt, AVX007 Black Panther, SLOSH046 Superboy, WOL065P Parallax)
Healing the damage he takes (WOL061P Entity, DOFP016 Moira MacTaggert, DOFP007 Franklin Richards, IM3008 Aldrich Killian, FFBM005 Alfred Pennyworth, BM031 Alfred Pennyworth)

Sadly, using Black Talon or Tony Stark to mind control him wouldn’t work because per the rules, “A double power action can’t be given as a free action.”

So when you put these pieces together with Arnim, you get a team like this:

Sometimes his chest TV shows his face, other times it shows Game of Thrones.

Gwen Stacy will be the model T of my clone Assembly line!

Maximum Gwen

DP054 Arnim Zola

FIB003 Damaged Warbot

DOFP016 Moira MacTaggert

Total = 298 points

With two Armin Zola’s you can pump out an average of one Gwen a turn. Moira is there to offset pushing damage. Unfortunately when the other team finally does come to find you, your mobility isn’t great and your primary attackers have only on click of running shot and no willpower. If you have a lot of Gwen tokens out, you should have a shot at taking down anyone. Good luck.

For a team I might consider taking to a tournament try this one:

For the glory of Wakanda we shall crush our foes with an army young women!

“Though I was loathe to employ someone as nefarious as Arnim Zola, I am proud to report that he has secured the future of Wakanda by creating an army of high school girls!”

Arnim Zola, friend of Wakanda

DP054 Arnim Zola

AVX007 Black Panther

M10A004 Green Goblin

Total = 300 Points

Green Goblin can carry Arnim Zola around and help you avoid the other team a little longer. The longer you avoid them the more Gwens you have. With enough Perplex Green Goblin makes an awesome primary attacker. Perplex his attack by +3 and there is nothing he can’t hit. Perplex his damage by +3 and there will be not much left of whatever he does hit.

Good luck with your Arnim team, and, as always, may the Gwen be with you

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