HeroClix: Summer 2012

I've been remiss in posting for almost two months, if you consider the last date I posted and the time between then and now. I just couldn't bear to let a calendar month go by without posting something, so I thought I'd discuss some big news in a kind of "quick beats" format.

The Dark Knight Rises

Batman returns one last time to save Gotham City from the likes of Bane in Christopher Nolan's final movie in his vaunted trilogy, and Wizkids produced a set to commemorate the event for us clixers. As much as I sometimes hate on Batman, I have to say - The movie was awesome, and the clix aren't far behind. My favorite figure is the last one anybody was able to acquire - Batman 100 Marquee figure. Excellent sculpt and dial.

Chaos War

After having a month to play with this stuff, I have to say - this is the best HeroClix set since Giant-Size X-Men. Yeah, it's laden with redoes of popular characters - but they're my characters. Yeah, they got Cap's sculpt wrong - but I took care of that. There are always downsides. However, the upsides more than compensate. And when you consider an all Chaos War team took World's this year, the implications for future World Championship metagaming is turned on its' ear (more on this later). Anyway, to the upsides.

Don't like redoes? Can't imagine why.

The character design in this set rocks. Even the many-times-released big three got really awesome new versions between the Primer Set, Fast Forces and regular release. A villain heavy SR selection didn't hurt things, either.

And let's not forget the Chase figures. While Chase figures are always controversial, I think Wizkids have picked some pretty interesting ones for this set. Mostly Avengers duos, they are also accompanied by Kang and Dr. Doom. I have a hard time picking a favorite. Actually, no I don't. It's easily Avengers Prime.

The Chaos War Fast Forces might well be the biggest Fast Forces release yet, with Scarlet Witch and Mockingbird as figures found only in this set. Oh, and Scarlet Witch was on the World Championship player's team.

Convention Exclusives

This year's selection of convention exclusives was the most ambitious yet. Besides the somewhat enraging release of a Superman and Superman duo figure, the promotional figures from this year are all at least interesting, even if not 'meta-worthy'. The list of DC figures are - Dr. Fate, Martian Manhunter, and of course Superman and Superman. The list of Marvel figures are Apocalypse, The Punisher, and Venom. Being of limited funds this time out, I have not acquired them all as yet, but between increasing income and Supremacy League play, I'm sure I'll get around to them all soon enough.

Really, I could do a whole blog on this figure, but I'll skip it.

World Championships at Gencon

Alex Avila, winner of this year's World Championship at Gencon used Morgan Le Fay, Scarlet Witch and Wasp (Rare version) with Secret Avengers ATA to defeat previous year's World Champ (and this years US Champ) George Massu using 200 pt Black Adam (designed by George), Harry Leland and the Infinity Gauntlet (assigned to Black Adam). Congratulations, Alex!

Wanda to the top 8 - "No more Championships".

The metagame implications of Chaos War cannot be understated enough here. Morgan Le Fay was definitely not looked upon by many (me NOT being one of them) as even sealed worthy to play, let alone meta-defining. I still don't think she is meta-defining, as say, Metron. She is an excellent figure. I pulled her in a sealed and didn't think I could make her work, so I played some other configuration with Hawkeye and won the tournament using that. However, I did put her on a constructed team ASAP and she did extremely well for me. Scarlet Witch has people paying 40 dollars for her on ebay, and she's from a Fast Forces Pack. Nuff said. Rare Wasp is another sleeper hit (the other being Fast Forces Wasp, who I think is just as excellent as Scarlet Witch, but as usual gets no airtime) with her ability to get around Mystics damage with Incapacitate that deals damage after actions resolve. All this, and it qualifies as an Avengers Themed Team.

Infinity Gauntlet 8

The final tournament in the Infinity Gauntlet storyline event was held at Legends Comics and venues all around the country. The winner and points runner up received a Colossal Thanos as the prize. I had a chance to play mine, and it is a pretty fun figure (even if it's not Cosmic Cube powered Chase Thanos broken).

Courtesy of Figures.com

Justice League New 52

DC made its proper return to HeroClix this month with the Justice League New 52 CTD set. This set of 21 figures features characters from the Justice League and New 52 comics line currently promoted by DC. The characters sport their updated "not a reboot..but yeah, it is" looks and dials. While DC's marketing moves might be controversial, the sculpts and dials on these figures are not. The Justice League has never looked better. Justice League Dark is also included in the set, and we actually got a complete roster. Also, lone villain Deathstroke makes his way into the mix with a sculpt that looks better than the panel to panel interpretation.

 

I make this look good.

That's all I've got for this super general update, but that was quite a bit. I will be posting more often in the coming months. I have some other irons in the fire that require me to use my free time a bit more constructively, yet still involves games. I will update more on that sometime soon as well. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to 10th Anniversary (DC and Marvel) and Batman, and I will have something up involving all those sets. Til then, keep those pips off double ones!