Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I almost certainly have had one, but this was written and set to publish earlier in the week.

OK, so I revealed my grand plans to bring a new feature to Heroclixin’ (almost) every weekday last week, but stopped short of the pressing the “Publish” key on this one because I figured I should explain my team-building philosophy a little.

I, primarily, am a fun HeroClix player. First, I am Friendly. I dislike playing teams designed to crush all comers. I’ve faced those teams and found the experience unpleasant. It’s also more challenging to play a less-than-optimized build and still win with it. I mean, which delivers bigger bragging rights: going 3-0 with a Warbound Skrull Ms. Marvel+SI Nick Fury or with The Runaways?

This doesn’t mean I like to lose. Therefore, most of my teams will still have a degree of Utility to make them effective against all but the most highly competitive builds. No auto-losses!

Finally, probably the biggest element of my team-building philosophy is the “Neat-o” factor. I almost always run with a theme of some sort that I hope will bring a smile or at least a nod of appreciation from my fellow players.

So there, in a fairly torturous acrostic-ized nutshell, is my approach to this feature and to the game at large: It’s all about FUN.

Example of a team I ran back in June for a Modern Age 400-point game requiring that characters share a generic keyword:

Crispus Allen 197
Edward Nigma 60
The Question (Arkham Asylum) 37
Gotham City Detective 27
Gotham City Detective 27
Gotham City Detective 27
= 375 points. Although a team with 3 Outwitters and 4 Enhancement pieces may not look all that Friendly, consider that the team has zero move and attack powers, limited range, and little protection from same — and I could just as easily have run the Batman/Catwoman duo to address all three weaknesses and had room for another figure. All the same, it has plenty of Utility in the powers I named, along with Nigma’s powerful SP. Finally, though (and the other reason BatCats was never a consideration), the team’s Neat-o factor is that all are wearing suits and ties. They’re the Sharp-Dressed Detectives.
FUN team-building at its best. Hope you’ll visit next Friday for more!