The neat thing about HeroClix is that the large range of figures allow for the appearance of some very obscure characters. The Inhumans are a prime example. Unless you’re fairly deeply into Marvel Comics lore, you’ve probably never heard of ’em. But here they are, able to be played right alongside Superman or Spidey if you like.

Anyhow, a thread at HCRealms focused on how well the Inhumans play together as a team. This was borne out in a tournament I ran most of the extant team in last summer. 

 

The scenario: 400 points with a 10% feat limit.

My team: Inhumans

Black Bolt 166

V Lockjaw 38

Karnak 79

+And Stay Down 6

Gorgon 110

=399 points

BFCs: Inferno, Disbanded, Telekinetic Strain

My plan: Use Lockjaw to transport either Gorgon or Karnak into Charging range of targets, shielding them with his big, double-based body. Black Bolt hangs back to Perplex and snipe until Lockjaw needs some help from Bolt’s Defend.

 

How it went down:

FIRST ROUND I faced Chad and his Hand Ninja clan

V Hand Ninja (range)

E Hand Ninja (range)

E Hand Ninja (range)

R Hand Ninja (range)

R Hand Ninja (range)

V Hand Ninja  

E Hand Ninja  

E Hand Ninja  

E Hand Ninja  

R Hand Ninja 

R Hand Ninja 

R Hand Ninja  

V Hand Ninja (universe)

E Hand Ninja (universe)

Kirigi

LE XPlosion Elektra

V Critical Mass Elektra

LE XPlosion Betsy Braddock +Extended Range

V Armor Wars Psylocke + Saboteur

on the JSA Museum…his choice of course (theme bonus of plus NINETEEN). I opted not to play Inferno as that would have completely messed his team up and I wanted us to have fun.

Generally, every time I hit, a Ninja went down. But Gorgon got hit hard by an Enhanced Betsy PsyBlast, followed by a 5 BCF hit by Psylocke. Thank heavens for Lockjaw, who both took a PC token to save him and got him out of there. Karnak also took a fair amount of damage, but survived to the end. I lost no one and got both Betsys and Elektras and about 100 points of other Ninjas. 1-0.

 

NEXT, one the Dawn of Time man, new face Adrian brought his Avengers theme:

Iron Spider

SR Scarlet Witch

NGN Iron Man + Stunning Blow

V Echo

E Mockingbird + Alpha Flight

I used a Dynamostat to give myself some small cover to use the Kinetic Accelerator. He used the 3D Desk with Spidey. I immediately Perplexed up Black Bolt’s range to 11 to get rid of the Desk and actually still hit (well, after theme PCing Black Bolt’s crit miss), removing the immediate Outwit threat. A followup basing with Lockjaw and Karnak was thwarted by Mockingbird tying up and then dodging Karnak. So Lockjaw left for the Defend protection of Black Bolt.

Now Adrian clumped his team ’round my Dynamostat, providing some defense against Pulse Wave. Unable to reach Iron Man with anyone, I cringed when he pushed to Stunning Blow Bolt for 5 clicks of damage immediately after. Meanwhile, Gorgon was repeatedly being Webbed by Spidey. Fortunately, Bolt was able to Outwit Iron Man’s Outwit so Karnak could deliver a counterblow and get rid of Outwit permanently.

Tied up by Mockinbird, BBolt repeatedly failed to hit her (despite being able to use range attacks to circumvent her Combat Reflexes — this being a few weeks before the rule changes last summer) but kept her Close Combat Expert countered against his Invulnerability. Karnak crithit Iron Man out of range (saving him from a likely KO from Flurry) and Gorgon finished Spidey. Adrian’s rolls began to tank, rendering him unable to even finish off Lockjaw. I KO’d Echo, Mockingbird and Spidey for the win. 2-0.

 

The FINAL ROUND was on my Space map against Paul’s wildcardy badness:

V Emerald Empress + Nova Blast

Ghost Widow

V Lockjaw

E Icons Joker

Alfred Pennyworth

Cosmic Boy

I Disbanded him. Then, to neutralize the threat of Pulse Wave or Nova Blast, I rushed him as fast as possible, on first turn, using Lockjaw to get Karnak in base with Cos immediately, with Black Bolt putting Gorgon within Charge range right behind. Paul immediately jumped on the dog, countering his Phasing/Teleport and pounding him with Emerald Empress, Joker and putting Ghost Widow into Poison position for good measure. Gorgon, Perplexed to 11 Attack Value, Charged in to successfully Quake Joker, Cos and GW away, clearing a path for Karnak to Charge-Exploit Weakness Empress right off Pulse Wave.

Black Bolt pushed to Defend Lockjaw from what would have been a euthanizing shot from Cos. Paul tried to regroup by sending his crew across the field to my Vine, but we got to him. Lost Lockjaw eventually but got max points by wiping Paul’s team.

WIN/LOSS: 3-0. As the tourney winner, I got to pick Sir Pietro Maximoff from a grab bag of 15 or so LEs. I can’t believe this Inhumans theme actually did so well. Lockjaw is insanely useful, giving this crew mobility it would lack and blocking for the fragile Black Bolt. Karnak continued his giant-killing ways and Gorgon delivered some clutch hits.  

—————-

That was last summer. If anything, the rule changes to the game that ban range attacks in adjacency only make Karnak and Gorgon even more effective. Moreover, the old archenemy rules are now gone, allowing Black Bolt’s brother Maximus to be played on the team, giving it the mobility of the Telekinesis power. Finally, the addition of Triton gives the team a third melee fighter. 

That’s all for this edition of Battle Reports. Stay tuned for a series about Event Dials in the comic weeks!

Played 3/14/09
The scenario: 2000 points; at least 5 characters must be green or have the green Uncommon tab. Rounds last 60 minutes, with both sides getting an even number of turns; shock barriers activate on turn 5.

My take: Another SKRULL INVASION!!!!!
I’ve wanted to play a big Skrull force anchored by the Skrull Emperor for some time. So when our judge announced a green-themed St. Patty’s Day game, this team — which was an alternate for another day’s 2000-pointer — was a lock.
Super Skrull: Illuminati 250 + Fortitude 25
Capt. Mar-Vell 185
Ms. Marvel 168
SN Super-Skrull 150
Skrull Emperor 140 + Brilliant Tactician 20 + Getaway 4 + Outsmart 10 + Coordination 6
SSkrull Avengers 126
Warskrull 110
Warskrull 110
SSkrull X-Men 106
Yellowjacket 100
Elektra 80
SI Spider-Woman 79
Dum Dum Dugan 75
Skrull General 43 + Contingency Plan 12
Skrull General 43 + Contingency Plan 12
SI Jarvis 36
Skrull Warrior 30
Skrull Warrior 30
Skrull Infiltrator 25
Skrull Infiltrator 25
 = 2000 points. For the rest of this report, I’ll cease this pointless impersonation of the human known as Rurouni KJS and reveal my TRUE SKRULL NATURE!

This, the grand imperial army of the glorious Skrull Empire, descended upon that mudball planet of Earth. Our first excursion was against Lenny’s:

SR Spectre
Green Scar + Fortitude, Repulsor Shield, Protected, Unstoppable
Rampaging Hulk + Fortitude
Green Arrow + Trick Shot
CR Green Lantern
Skrull Sue
2099 Hulk
SI Iron Fist
Celestial Madonna
V Vision
SI Dr. Strange + Brilliant Tactician
Dawnstar
Dawnstar + Opportunist
Tomar Re
Jarella

We chose the earthlings’ outcast mutants’ Danger Room outdoors. It proved to be inauspicious; immediately the human archer Green Arrow was moved by Telekinesis to a roof to attack our Ms. Marvel soldier off her strongest powers. Matters worsened when our Avenger super-soldier was the first casualty, again thanks to Green Arrow cowardly shooting from behind a bystander.

Our forces took a brief advantage when the humans’ Rampaging Hulk fell to a fuisillade of Skrull fire. Green Scar was to be next, but we made our critical error of the day when we wasted a potentially crippling 6-damage attack with Ms.M on his Protected shield technique and THEN followed with a Running Shot with Cap. Skrull-Vell. This cost us this battle, when on the final turn our Elektra agent and a brave pair of Infiltrators bravely sacrificed themselves. 0-1.

We took advantage of a needed respite (read: I took a bye) to retool our approach in the THIRD ROUND to face Paul’s all-green team.

N’astirh
Sauron
CJ Phasing Green Lantern
V Mantis
Gamora
Green Scar + Fortitude + ICWO
SN V She-Hulk
CM Charles Xavier (Brood)
SI Annihilus
Ms. Skrullvel
V Martian Manhunter + ICWO
V Killer Croc
V Lizard
Miss Martian
XP Green Goblin
SI Elektra

This time we were able to use turn the humans’ own Resistance technique to OUR advantage to essentially make us invulnerable to Outwit (as though a bunch of mudball apes could Outwit US). Again able to choose the field of battle, we again chose the mutants’ territory.

The fools wasted no time closing on us, which proved deadly to the one called Martian Manhunter. We were startled when our brave Avengers agent suddenly turned on us, then broke ranks to join the enemy, but quickly surmised it was an enemy Mind Control trick. The enemy tried to then snuff out his life, but his superior shapeshifting training thwarted no less than 4 of the 5 enemies to attack him. Hail the Skrull Empire!

The Avengers agent’s sacrifice allowed the rest of our forces to focus attacks upon the Green Scar for a second victory, with Killer Croc then falling to our combined might. Our ability to baffle the enemy’s attacks with our infiltration and sleeper agents (known to some as “theme team Probability Control) proved instrumental in our glorious victory!

But perhaps none was so glorious as our Emperor himself! His Brilliant Tactics made the entire army considerably more dangerous. But for that one costly error in tactics by the overzealous Ms. Marvel, nothing may have stopped the destined victory of the Skrull Empire!

Had a lot of fun trying out this Skrully force — many of the pieces for the first time in a live game. Lenny says he wants to do a Kree versus Skrull game sometime. I’m game once he can secure a Ronan the Accuser to make his side more complete. 

OK, so this post is coming a bit later than I promised, but it’s not like I had any visitors yet, anyway!

The scenario: 800 points and at least two figures had to sport either the Green Lantern symbol or the keyword.

My take: Well, since I haven’t scored a Guy Gardner yet, I didn’t want to play a true GL squad…too boring. Instead, I wanted to run a team of all-goofy characters!

 

Ch’p 82
G’nort 70
CR Blue Beetle 65
V OR Booster Gold 80
Impossible Man 72 + Loner 5
Ambush Bug 50 
Mr. Mzyxptlk 107 + Monster Society of Evil 0
Batzarro 69
Bizarro #1 199 + The Society 0

= 799 points

My plan: This was to be a classic Green Lantern tank team, in which a character with the Green Lantern team ability carries and surrounds himself with passengers. Coupled with Ch’p’s Defend power (once I pushed him to the power), this had the potential to be a hard-to-hit squad. Booster Gold would supply ranged firepower after Blue Beetle and/or Impossible Man (or Batzarro) Outwitted enemy defenses while G’nort and Impy both used Probability Control to influence results. At some point, too, Bizarro #1 would levy his high damage. 

The matches: I had only two opponents at this venue: barely-14-year-old Conrad and Lenny, a very soft-spoken player in his 30s. Lenny fielded a true Green Lantern team:

Abin Sur + Trick Shot
Arisia
Ch’p
G’nort
Green Lantern (Crisis)
Katma Tui + Opportunist
Tomar Re
+ Green Lantern Corps

He won the initiative roll and chose the water temple map. He played Assembled and cancelled my Disruption. I picked the side of the map with an island of hindering and blocking terrain to set up my Kinetic Accelerator. I set a Dynamostat and Structural Integrity Field on the big island to give my team a little more cover against the Trick Shot threat.

On our opening positionings, I noticed that I’d left Batzarro open to a quick Trick Shot, but I didn’t mind when he got hit hard into Stealth. Wanting to push my Ch’p to Defend immediately, and to bring some fight to the enemy GLs huddled mostly behind now-indestructible blocking terrain, I pushed Bizarro #1 to make an Accelerator-boosted Charge to attack Green Lantern. The attack failed, so I pushed Ch’p to TK him back to safety. Failed that, too, and neither of my Probability Controllers had any Line of Fire to effect a reroll. 

This was an utter disaster of a turn for several reasons. First, poor Bizarro was stuck unable to act with two tokens on him. Second, I’d unwisely pushed him off his only Impervious click. Third, he was open to several consecutive attacks from the GL Corps. Fourth, said Corps was equipped with the little-seen Green Lantern Corps alternate team ability feat, with allows them an attack boost for every member’s attack roll on a given target — successful or not. And with Perplex, a PCer of their own, and the Assembled feat giving an additional +1 to attack value, Bizarro’s mounting Defense Value that I trusted in was absolutely no obstacle. He was KO’d without being able to make another action.

With the big galoot gone, I tried to get Mzyxptlk into the action to maybe get his quasi-incapacitating Special Power to work, but he didn’t last a turn either against the GLC TA. And again, my PC and Outwit pieces had little LOF to work with, thanks to my own SIF giving plenty of hiding places for the Telekinesis-and-Running Shot-loaded GLs. Although I scored some hits on Tomar Re, I scored no KOs.

So. My game-breaking errors:

1. Not knowing Bizarro #1 only has the single click of Impervious and pushing off it. And doing THAT against a character sporting the Protected feat, to boot!

2. Putting my PC pieces in the BACK of my Ch’p tank. Incredibly sloppy.

3. Not having a proper strategy for Mr. Mzyxptlk. I’ve long known that his Object Animation SP is no good without Telekinesis to toss him (or objects) into range or a character with Smoke Cloud to give him the hindering terrain the power needs to work. I didn’t use either tactic.

4. Using the Structural Integrity Field object was far more harmful to me than him, Trick Shot threat or no. 

5. Completely forgetting to use the Monster Society feat.

6. Forgetting that while he hasn’t been playing as long as I have, Lenny has become a VERY competent player. 

Y’know what really makes this loss rankle the most, though? Lenny’s told me he got the Abin Sur+Trick Shot idea from this review column, particularly the 2nd review. Go look, I’ll wait.

Yeah. So I really did beat myself in a bunch of different ways.

 

2nd round: I had the bye and so essentially judged the 2nd round between Lenny and Conrad (noting a couple of figs not on 1st clicks, reminding young Conrad of powers and TAs he was forgetting to use). In the end, he’d KO’d Katma Tui and lost his Starro Green Lantern to lose by a SINGLE POINT.

Until all present remembered that Katma had been wearing Opportunist.

So I sat for my game against Conrad’s similarly GL-heavy team:

Starro Lantern
LE Alan Scott
CR Kyle Rayner
CD R Green Lantern
The Mighty Thor
Mera
AA Question

on the water map again. This time, I’ll let the characters narrate:

Impossible Man: “Here comes the fun again!”

Ch’p: “All right, everyone form up on me!”

Batzarro: “Me doing what you say!”

Ch’p: “Wh…where are you going, Batzarro?!?”

Mr. Mxyzptlk: “That didn’t work so well LAST time, so I guess he’s trying something new!

Blue Beetle: “Booster? Wait!”

Booster Gold: “Dude, I’ve got a shot on Alan Scott! I’m taking it!”

Bizarro #1: “HA! HIM HIT TARGET HARD!!”

Booster Gold: “Arrgh! My blasters backfired!”

Blue Beetle: “(razzin frazzin idiot…) Hold on, I’m coming!”

Batzarro: “Watch in, them holding their fire now!”

Beetle: “BOOSTERRRRRR!”

Impy: “I can’t SEE anything from back here!”

Ambush Bug: “I can’t read my #$#%^#$ newspaper with all this noise!

Ch’p: “Put the paper down and pay attention! Bizarro #1, get ready!”

Bizarro: “ME TOTALLY UNPREPARED!”

Impy: “Wow, didja see him blast that weird old Lantern over there, G’nort?”

G’nort: “Yessiree!!!”

Ambush Bug: “Hey, where ya goin’, Alan?”

Beetle: “Look out, it’s Thor!”

Ambush Bug: “EEEAGH!!”

Ch’p: “Aw, poor Bug.”

Impossible Man: “That beardo looks like he needs a laugh! HI THERE, M.T. HAMMER!!”

Ch’p: “Well, that oughta keep ‘im busy for a bit.”

Impy: “You ticklish under that armor?”

Mr. M: “Let’s see what fun *I* can stir up!”

Beetle: “This is a disaster. Hey G’nort! Try a divebomb angle on Mera there!”

G’nort: “G’NORT-A-ROONIEEEE!”

Bizarro #1: “THAT GET US OFF SCOREBOARD NOW!

Mr. M: “AAIEEGH! This Rayner fella is no fun at all! Lemme outta here!”

G’nort: “Ahh…a little help here, guys? I think I’m gonna…pass…out…” THUD

 

Well, OK, that’s enough of that. Suffice it to say, I didn’t even run my GL tank strat this time, getting too antsy and making an ill-advised TK and shot with Booster and paying for it with his early loss (and depriving me of the “Bwah-ha-ha” SP for the rest of the game). Stacked serious damage on Alan Scott (Bizarro finally came through) but he got away. The only points I netted were for Mera the pog, and I was fortunate not to lose Mxyzptlk as well.

So for the first time in a long while, I found myself in dead last place both in points and wins. But it was Conrad’s first-ever tournament win, so I was glad for him.

Next time on “Battle Reports,” we’ll see what happened when I fielded 2000 points of Skrulls. See you then!

This is Rurouni KJS, as seen on HCRealms and Pojo, the two main websites for all things HeroClix-related since WizKids took the dirt nap.

Not much to say for now — I’m still feeling my way around this WordPress software — but look to here for plenty of HeroClix content in the coming weeks, including:

• entertaining, detailed battle reports

• reviews of HeroClix figures and elements

• occasional how-t0-play articles

• comics-related discussions

I’ve written a lot of reviews over at www.Pojo.com, so feel free to dip over there for a while to get a feel for my writing style. Just come back here when you’re done, all right?

Friday, I’ll share a just-for-fun team built of the wackiest characters in the game and how it did in a competitive setting. (Hint: worse than you think.) See you then!