Has another week come and gone already?! What’s that? Wait, it’s been another TWO WEEKS?! Yikes. Wow. That got away from me quickly. Nevertheless… This was your (LAST 2!!) week(s!) in Heroclix:

Podcasts:

—Dial H for Heroclix has been new the past two weeks. The guys released Episode 31 (“I’m the Map… I’m the Map… I’m the Map… I’m the Map,” wherein the importance of map selection–along with a review of the best maps in the game for various army builds– was discussed) AND Episode 32 (“AvX Constructed Figs,” wherein the guys discussed, uh, AvX constructed figs. I’m mean, it’s right there in the title. Actually, this was a really thorough discussion of the best X-Men and Avengers keyworded figs for putting together builds for the monthly AvX OP events).

The Dial H guys also run a fun Dial Design Contest over on HCRealms.com. Basically they hand out three weekly dial design assignments each month, and then score each dial on a 1-30 scale. The highest total point getter each month receives some spiffy custom poker chip action tokens. Right now, February Week Two’s assignment (design a figure with the “Tiny” symbol) is just finishing up…

—ClixCast is up to Episode 140! Hosts Steve and Jeremiah talk about their 3 favorite maps (lots of map info these last couple weeks!) and also discuss the latest X-Men: DoFP previews.

Closed for business?

–Has anyone seen Duo Attack? Cuz if so, you’d have more information about it than I do. Again, great podcast, but for whatever reason, it may be no more…

—Push to Regen is still on its two-month hiatus. If you’re missing them, their most recent show (Episode 30) is still available for download. Their main topic was a “2013 Year in Review,” and their special guest for that discussion was none other than Brian Roll, the Creative Director of Heroclix.

This is Ultimate Play, b!tches.

—The Quarry has no official logo that I’m aware of, so I came up with my own. You’re welcome, Dark Logos. Episode 8 & 9 both featured plenty of ROC results reporting, along with some pretty entertaining ESPN-Style roundtable discussions about the teams that made the Top 16 at the most recent ROC’s. This podcast has gotten slightly better every week; the roundtable discussion usually yields plenty of insight in the current ROC-Age Meta. If you’re a high-level tourney player or a Meta addict, this and Dial H are the podcasts for you.

ROC:

–The ROC is going to Dragon Con!! They even have a tentative schedule of events that’s already up!

Previews:

–Outside of some Yu-Gi-Oh! previews, there wasn’t too much of note happening in terms of WizKids-approved sneak peeks. There were a couple of cool Toy Fair photos, however, showing off some of the sculpts from SLOSH, Deadpool and X-Men: DoFP. Validus, in particular, looks GIGANTIC. Which he’s supposed to be, I guess, but DAAAANNNG! This is like a return to the days of Bat Sentry or Ultimate Giant Man. Very cool. Oh, speaking of…

–Validus DID get a preview, actually, and he’s massive–in every way. A Super Rare, he can be played at two different point levels: 249 and 175. Both dials are pretty good, but at 175 he starts with a 12 Attack, 8 Range Special Psychic Blast power that gives an action token if his target already has an action token. Plus he’s immune to Pen/Psy at both point levels. Given that he’s also Indomitable, that special can go a long way towards keeping Validus from getting out-actioned too severely (since even at 175 he’s a pretty significant point sink). He’s not Silver Centurion (who is?!), but he’s pretty good. I’d be psyched if I opened him in sealed, that’s for sure!

Entertainment News:

What a bunch of A-holes!

–GUARDIANS. OF. THE. FREAKING. GALAXY!

Yep! Tons of news here. We already know we’re getting a regular 5-figure booster set based on the comics ALONG with an awesome Gravity Feed movie set. Well, we learned a ton more about the actual movie this week.

–The official trailer has dropped! That’s the new poster leading into this line item! New tagline? You’re Welcome! Heh. Love it! You can see it embedded here, along with more info about the poster.

–Go to Entertainment Weekly for a quick 30 second feature with director James Gunn and Bradley Cooper talking about Rocket Raccoon and you’ll get to hear and see 10 seconds of RR footage (if you’ve been curious as to what Cooper will sound like–here ya go! As much as you can make a judgement after one line of dialogue… I think Cooper will be great!).

–Vin Diesel’s got Groot fans covered as well via his Facebook page. Cool ass shot of Diesel (from the aforementioned Facebook page) on stilts playing the character (presumably for some mo-cap?!), plus a quick featurette, all available here.

–Over in DC news, Jesse Eisenberg has been cast as Lex Luthor in the upcoming Batman Versus Superman, and at least one site thinks his casting could have contributed to the year-long delay for that movie (which, again, is probably gonna get Clix’d). Still, I think this was a great choice for Lex. I’d assume at this point that he’d be the major villain in the film, but time will tell.

–FOX is prepping a major Batman prequel television series called “Gotham.” Several casting announcements have been made, including the OC’s Ben McKenzie as Det. Jim Gordon (this series appears like it’ll revolve around Gordon, rather than Bruce Wayne), Donal Logue as–well, click here to find out which famous GCPD member HE’S playing–and Sean Pertwee (whom Doctor Who fans may remember is the real-life son of Doctor #3 Jon Pertwee, as well as being the badass Sgt. Harry Wells in Dog Soldiers). Who’s Pertwee playing? Another very important character to the Batman mythos (and if you read the parenthetical I just wrote about him, you can probably already guess which character that is. But if not, click here for the answer).

Godzilla! We must flee! And no, this is just a nice custom someone made (presumably from some Pacific Rim figs), not what the actual figs will look like.

–And finally, since I forgot to mention it last time, we’ve got pretty good evidence at this point that WizKids will be Clix’ing the upcoming Godzilla movie (out in May of this year) that stars Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, among others. You can see the fairly awesome preview right about… here.

Critical Missives:

So NinwaShui was left in charge of the site this past week, and he did a decent job, I must say. We’ll have 2-3 more articles this week, including another Build column. The last BUILD  didn’t go so well for me. Thanos was great, but a little slower than I anticipated because I had to wait a turn to Hammer him up. I also substituted Stealth Suit Iron Man for Scarlet Witch, which proved to be my undoing! I went 1-2, and I had some of the worst rolls I’ve ever had. While Stealth IM was a great figure in his own right, not having SW’s Prob and healing cost me big time. I was also outplayed the first game by my opponent (he was playing the Serpent). With his move and attack (Running Shot, I believe) I should’ve just Hammered up and then retaliated. Instead, I ended up screwing up my positioning and losing fairly handily. Oh well. The lesson? Stay with your original plan! And bringing at least one Prob fig is never a bad idea. Especially if she’s borderline broken like the Witch. I would play Thanos again in a heartbeat; hopefully, I’d play him better (and field a better supporting cast!).

That’s all for now! Until next time, stay safe, and watch where you draw those lines of fire!