Usually, Heroclixin’ devotes the first full week of the month to a Top Ten countdown of something. But we’re battling the happy fatigue that follows the great Labor Day weekend nerd prom called DragonCon. So this one’s going to be short and sweet as yours truly takes a short, sweet break from Heroclixin’. Readers new and old can use the time to catch up on older articles.
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It’s tough reviewing these. Heroclixin’ is all about F.U.N. But BFCs were all too frequently the OPPOSITE of fun.
- They were often used as a “screw you” to the other side…
- …or were fielded in self-defense against unbalanced powergaming tech.
- Or both.
- USUALLY both.
- Or they were so even-handed in how they crippled/enhanced each team that you’d almost rather never play them at all.
When themed teams became a thing, BFCs lost much of their steam as the one you needed to use could all too frequently be canceled away. And so now Heroclixin’ simply shares, in mostly no particular order, its take on the best/worst of the purple-headed cardboard:
F.U.N. ones
Atlantis Rising: Characters with the Dolphin Speed symbols usually work at a disadvantage. This BFC evens matters up for them a bit. And because Swim figures are usually F.U.N. figures, Atlantis Rising’s ability to flood Level 1 of any map isn’t terribly broken.
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White Noise: Outwit and Perplex could be annoying sometimes. But it’s also a pain not to have them at all. The partial solution was this BFC that made the free action powers riskier to use. It’s a help to a team that doesn’t have those powers yet won’t completely hose those with them.
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Bizarro World: There are several BFCs that mess with the world of crit hits and misses (Extraordinary Day, Madness, Critical Strike, Great Arena) but none that equal F.U.N. for everyone like this one, which takes the sting out of getting hit with either the 12 or the 2 roll.
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Infiltration: This neat BFC allows select characters — Stealthers, Teleporters, Swimmers — to start a little closer to the action in their terrain of choice. It’s a risk/reward move, as it puts some closer to being alpha-struck. But it doesn’t screw any player over for building a team, so it’s nice and F.U.N.
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Darkness: Long range can be really hard for some teams to deal with. This little BFC just cuts it all to a manageable 6. It does hurt snipers a bit, but ranged combat has enough advantages already. This card alone won’t beat ’em. A quintessentially F.U.N card that levels the field.
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Ordinary Day: It just cancels the other guy’s BFC; the ultimate defense against deleterious BFC effects. Or it used to be, before themed teams, which now just as often kill off THIS card.
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Resistance: A very F.U.N. card that rewarded old-school “theme” play of characters with the same team symbol, it was balanced by requiring adjacency to gain immunity to Outwit.
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Assembled: Another “theme” card that encouraged old-school “theme” play. (Although I tend to forget to use its effect — +1 AV when a same-team-symbol friend is adjacent — whenever I use the card.)
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Pacification: Back in the old days, many clix couldn’t take a hit, so nerfing high damage was a must to survive an alpha strike. (The more things change, right?) This BFC helped a little without taking ALL the teeth out of natural heavy hitters and B/C/F figs the way Power Dampening Field did.
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Debris: Heroclixin’ has noted the problem associated with a lack of objects in the game. This F.U.N. BFC reverses that by adding six EXTRA objects to a game. A boon to the Super Strong and the Stealthy, to be sure, but not one that breaks the game into an unwinnable slog for teams lacking same.
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TOMORROW: The Top Ten most unF.U.N. BFCs ever made.