It’s one of this site’s goals to photographically document how all Super-Strong characters’ sculpts can hold object tokens. This week we begin our look at AoU SLOP.
In order: She-Hulk, Machine Man, Goliath and Hulk each hold tokens with varying degrees of success.
With AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, we’re SAD to see Blade [004 and 207] go —just when we got Ronin and a related ID card for him! — and GLAD to not have to deal with Brother Voodoo cheese anymore. Seriously, screw that guy and his Mind-Control-every-single-turn shenanigans.
From BATMAN, we never seemed able to give Godiva a proper workout on the map. So sad. But there is a certain gladness in our hearts at the exit of Arkham Asylum Guard’s dirt cheap Capture ability, particularly after running into him at States this past weekend
TEEN TITANS’ Skitter always got left on the shelf, sadly. The team bases, OTOH, especially Justice League, need to just remain pretty dust gatherers on the shelf. They are NOT F.U.N.
It occurs to us that we didn’t run The Question from STREETS OF GOTHAM nearly often enough. We’re happy to leave the Batcycle good and impounded, though.
Because her ex Black Panther rotated out in 2013 with Captain America, MARVEL 10th ANNIVERSARY’s Storm [020] was a queen without a king to get her DV boost — or to use Support via — and so she didn’t get run so much. And now it’s too late to reunite in Modern Age, and we’re sad. Sadder still: Thanks to Marvel’s secret war with Fox, with this set there will be NO MORE MODERN VERSIONS of the original Fantastic Four, Marvel’s First Family, as Thing [003 and 011] bows out. Never having to fret over Dark Phoenix again is cold comfort.
Blue Beetle [009] will be missed from DC 10th ANNIVERSARY. For Heroclixin’s money, though? Oracle [017] won’t, being that rare fig that fails hard on the “useful” portion of the F.U.N. factor.
we wrap up Wednesda
Finally, the retirement list is official, with the following sets rotating to Golden Age on Wednesday, July 1:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
BATMAN and its Fast Forces
TEEN TITANS and the RAVAGERS Fast Forces
STREETS OF GOTHAM and its “Birds of Prey” Fast Forces
Marvel 10th Anniversary
Iron Man 3
DC 10th Anniversary
Man of Steel
All Tab App + Tab App Elite releases
Fear Itself
No Man’s Land and Convention Exclusive Utility Belt items
As with last year, we bid a fond farewell to Heroclixin’s favorites, a regretful sadness for pieces we passed over too often, and a hearty “Hey Hey Hey…GoodBYE” to stuff we hated seeing.
This Friday [which happens to be the webmaster’s birthday], Heroclixin’ will just list its old favorites that are retiring. It goes without saying that we’ll miss these:
Captain America [Fear Itself 201]: Our favorite Cap in the game
Clark Kent [Man of Steel 009]: A mainstay on the “plainclothes” theme
Cloak [Amazing Spider-Man 202]: DEFINITELY didn’t get run enough
Colleen Wing and Misty Knight [Amazing Spider-Man 044]: Ditto for this great but awkwardly priced duo
Mysterio [ASM 026 and 206]: Was it all an ILLUSION?
Static [Teen Titans 045]: Precision Strike took his playability right away
Valkyrie [Fear Itself 005]: Retiring just as a new Commander Rogers looks to show in Nick Fury. Poop
Vixen (Streets of Gotham 028): Not likely to care about Animal themes in Modern without her
Next week, leading into July 1, we’ll say a few words on some non-favorites that we wish we’d gotten to know a little better. And we’ll celebrate those annoyances that we can’t WAIT to see gone from the Modern meta.
Continuing our F.U.N. quest to see how our toys hold their weapons:
Not sure we ever shot Black Dwarf [Guardians of the Galaxy]. So here he goes.
Looking to get back to a more regular schedule of updating the site.
Welcome back to Heroclixin’s Top Tens, something we haven’t done since 2013. It used to be a nearly monthly feature, but we got away from it. [A little bit like how we got away on a vacation and didn’t update the blog from the road. Hotel didn’t have computer access.]
Anyway, we’ve been looking at the power creep LEAP in the game. And there are some figures that, while they aren’t game-breaking necessarily, they are still at least a little too strong for the character represented. For each, we offer our F.U.N. Fix suggestion of how it SHOULD have been done and, if you’re a F.U.N. player, how you can run it without being a jerk.
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No. 10
Falcon [Avengers Assemble] gets 12 speed with a SP allowing him to effectively full Charge and use Close Combat Expert. Even with the balancing prerequisites of no action tokens and not being able to carry, it’s a bit much for him to hit for 4 from so far away. The F.U.N. Fix, then, is to split the CCE modifiers or stack on Attack to hit for light damage.
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No. 9
3D Man: I read the comics where he joined the Agents of Atlas, and I saw nothing to suggest he had anything approaching Hypersonic Speed — not for the Speed values he got. The F.U.N. Fix: Something like Nova’s locked-speed version would be better. So opt to use it at half-speed, or to not hit-and-run.
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No. 8
Iron Man [Invincible Iron Man 001] at 300 points. That dial is way better than that classic armor should be capable of performing. The F.U.N. Fix: Run him at the still-strong but more plausible 150 level.
[tie]
Iron Man [Classic Avengers 004]: This is supposed to be Tony Stark’s first suit of armor built in his real lab, but this dial is nearly as capable as the red-and-gold suit built much later. I know there’s power creep LEAP to contend with, but COME ON.
F.U.N. Fix this by never playing this armor at 150 points. The 100-pointer, while still a super dial, at least seems like an optimized version of Stark’s clunky early armor.
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No. 7
Speed Demon [Deadpool]: Improved Movement: Hindering and Characters along with his very high Speed makes him overpowered and inaccurate. He has a move to run AROUND a foe and send him flying. The F.U.N. Fix: He should have to rely on his HSS-granted Improved Movement to put more actual risk into the power. Never run through an enemy square if he’s trying to spin that person.
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No. 6
Entities: Should really work for Lanterns only. In the comics, only actual members of each Corps get possessed, right? And even they seem to lose some of their real personalities or control of their actions. There ought to have been some risk to using the entities, such as this F.U.N. Fix: Occasionally, due to the overwhelming power, the character gets an action token and can’t act. So when you pick the power and values, roll a d6 and force a token on yourself on a 1.
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No. 5
Batman [Trinity War]: Bats has a lot of tricks in his Utility Belt, but nothing that should allow him to use Pulse Wave over and over! The F.U.N. Fix: Only pick each power ONCE per game. It’s conceivable that Batman would have ONE E.M.P. generator in his belt. More than that? Doubtful.
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No. 4
Electro [Deadpool 064]: Isn’t the whole point of zombies is that they eat and infect people by biting them? So how does this character feed and infect from range? Shooting shouldn’t allow eating! The F.U.N. Fix is to just ignore his ability to rack up Food tokens with ease and only get them from adjacent characters, although this is not strictly allowed by the rules of the zombies’ ability.
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No. 3
Banshee: This piece is still so mean. Back from the 2014 Top Ten countdown:
“He renders worthless most of the game’s defensive powers (Super Senses, Impervious, Invincible, Invulnerability) just by being a little close — without resorting to Pulse Wave — AND penalizes the characters using those powers with extra damage. He doesn’t care about Stealth OR elevated terrain and, sometimes, even blocking terrain.”
The F.U.N. Fix would be to reel the anti-defense trait’s range in to 4 instead of 6, or to have it affect friendlies as well. But there’s really no getting around this figure’s unfriendliness.
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No. 2
Bullseye [Deadpool]: There is no reason why Bullseye should have normal Probability Control. A Special Power version for his own attacks, sure. But not this. F.U.N. Fix it by only using it on his own attacks.
[tie]
Science Police [SLOSH 004] : These goons routinely call in the Legion of Super-Heroes for backup, for goodness’ sake. They shouldn’t be dealing free damage JUST FOR STANDING AROUND. There really isn’t a F.U.N. Fix outside of WizKids issuing an erratum to make the effect not stack, at least.
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No. 1
Felix Faust
This comes as no surprise after the piece’s domination at Worlds this year. Although the results of his d20 roll appear at first glance to be random enough to not be that terrible, in practice it’s incredibly powerful. Here’s what I wrote about it over on HCRealms.com:
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“If Faust’s d20 lands on the second special power on his card, “Green Bell of Uthool,” it’s as though the equivalent of three Black Panthers [81 points] had together used Outwit to counter:
Targeting/Movement…all without even needing range or line of fire, and against EVERY OPPOSING CHARACTER ON THE FIELD.
It would require TWENTY-FIVE THIRTY-FIVE Rookie Black Panther figs on a build of 7001000 or greater to almost duplicate this effect using Outwit, against a SINGLE character, much less a whole force. (And even here, A. 35 clear lines of fire would be needed — better put the old Coordination feat on a bunch of ’em — and B. the BPs would ALL have to be in Stealth because even they can’t otherwise prevent the target from shooting.)
Felix costs 80 and does it from the safety of his starting area, or wherever. And the target can’t shoot.
That’s just one of six such debilitating SPs his Necronimicon offers.”
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Now, in practice, we’re actually only talking about, say, seven or eight Panthers: Three or four to handle abilities such as Flight, Indomitable and Improved Targeting, and one each to counter Speed, Attack, Defense and Damage powers, respectively. That’s still nearly THREE TIMES Felix’s cost and only effective against a solo target of all that Outwit.
This was a badly, badly designed piece, all reward and negligible risk. The only F.U.N. Fix that won’t mangle it entirely is to give Felix a non-free action EVERY TIME he rolls the d20, and don’t roll it if he can’t.