Clix Conundrum

Mutations & Monsters: The First Wave of Info

Justice League -- a good set, btw. -- didn't get much if any heralding from me due to time and life circumstances. I was paying attention as new info was released, but not bothering to write about it. With a new Marvel set - Mutations & Monsters - due for release November 21st (the day before Thanksgiving) and only a handful of pieces fully revealed, I want to take a few minutes to look at what we've been shown.

I'm still waiting for my vendor of choice to list what his brick and case prices for this set will be, as it's the first one with the MSRP of $10.99/booster. Hopefully the shift at the bulk buy level won't be large.

One quick refresher note about Special Powers: Any powers they grant are not useful as prerequisites for Feats. It doesn't matter if part of a given special power declares that someone has or can use Leap/Climb, without the Orange there in the Speed slot it can't be used as the basis for a Feat. Someone granted Mind Control or Willpower by one of these Special Powers similarly isn't eligible for the protection of Mental Shields. I just wanted to hit on that again up front.

This set has a scattered theme, primarily it's a split (hopefully not an even one) among Planet Hulk (and World War Hulk?)-related pieces, X-Men and Marvel Zombies. Not the most inspiring blend for some of us. The Hulk-related material was the most promising, not the least because we've been waiting for Seth to try his hand at a mainstream Hulk. Least appealing by far is the too oft told, single note joke that is Marvel Zombies. Even if I liked the storyline they make bad sense for clix, since I'd want to run them as part of a story scenario and I'd have to come up with special rules for those who become infected anyway; the alternative would be to only play pieces that have been given a zombie version. The thought that someone might be contemplating producing zombie versions of even every major player in the zombie storyline is a wretched prospect. The X-Men connection is so broad as to be something I'll have to take on a piece-by-piece basis.

So, let's see what we've been shown in detail so far.

Unlike the two most recent sets this fall sees us back to a semblance of normalcy, which includes a New Guy Night event and a figure to go with it.

This time it will be the Rampaging Hulk.

For 128 points we get a fun Hulk that's closer to what I've been waiting for since the first set. The opening click of the new Squash power allows him to sail in from up to 10 spaces away, dropping from the sky as a Hulk should and arriving in his own crater. The Quake damage (dealing only 2 clicks, and this based on an attack roll + a 9AV) won't be a bother to anyone with Invulnerability or Impervious, but it could do a nice job wrecking the plans of any cluster of Stealthed and/or supporting pieces.

Looking him over I immediately want to Feat him up with Shellhead, and probably Armor Piercing (which could make that initial Quake be more fully felt), and that's probably enough for him under most circumstances... though especially if he's not the only Super Strong piece on one's team 20 points spent on Rip It Up might not be a bad investment.

His more persistent (first four clicks) Smash special power grants him Close Combat Expert, so his 3 & 4 Damage could be 5 and 6. The second aspect of the special power, causing one's opponent to introduce a light object and place it withing 6 squares of the Hulk, where he can see it, at the end of the turn will need to be evaluated by each player as to whether or not it will help his team. As of now it remains optional, so a player can turn it off before that part is activated if he doesn't want more light objects appearing.

Already juiced up, he lacks a Bruce Banner (activation) click, but his stats (Attack Values in particular) aren't all that one might have hoped for, and the lack of Regeneration also stings a little, but this is a 128 pt. piece with a very playable 10-click dial. This is one of the best New Guy Night pieces issued thusfar IMHO.

Next -- although this is likely to be the last piece from the set a player will see -- is the Buy It By the Brick mail-away piece: Dark Beast.

The whole Age of Apocalypse event happened years after I'd gotten off the Merry Mutant-Go-Round of the X-titles, so I have no connection there. However, the mainstream Hank McCoy being a very familiar, brilliant, likeable character can't help but make this versiojn interesting in the way that all "dark" universe/evil, alternate universe versions of familiar and beloved characters tend to be.

A Planet Hulk version of ol' Greenskin - a recent story arc saw him dumped on a planet where he was at first weakened, made a gladiator and fought his way not only to a greater power level than he'd had before but left him ruler of the planet - going by the name the locals called him, Green Scar, was another of the previews.

While the source work was highly derivative and included at least one scene worthy of a bad Superman movie, and while seeing the Hulk done up like a Roman legionnaire tends to visually over-specify the character, Seth did come through with a ripping good Hulk dial.

The Special Powers he came up with finally provide us with a Hulk who can get into action quickly and take advantage of things. Smash, the Speed power on his first four clicks, grants him Leap/Climb for general movement purposes, giving him the mobility to get past someone he'd rather not deal with or otherwise ignore hindering terrain and changes in elevation. As an alternate, it also allows him to move up to his full Speed value and make a close combat attack.

Yes, Seth decided to give the same name to two different powers appearing on two different Hulks. I don't know why. There will be confusion.

On the negative side, like Pounce, use of the attack power nullifies Leap/Climb, so he could be potentially tied up by any piece; an opponent could simply put a bystander next to him, forcing him to spend the turn KOing him, Leap/Climbing away, or rolling for breakaway before using Smash's attack run. Or, the opponent could place a piece somewhere along the direct path between Green Scar and the one he wants to get to, since Green Scar making a Smash attack run would have to stop adjacent to the first enemy piece.

On the positive side, this Pounce-like ability is built in, and doesn't deal a click of damage to Green Scar.

The Special defensive power, Toughest One There Is, kicks in from clicks four through seven, granting him both Impervious and Willpower. While there may be some troublesome errata/clarification in the pipeline, for now this appears to allow him to use Willpower on his turn - and so act in two consecutive turns without pushing - and switch to Impervious while he's on the defensive, not taking pushing damage because that would have been dealt on his turn... when he had Willpower.

That Green Scar is a rare instead of a Super Rare is a nice turn, as that means it'll be fairly easily found, which appeals to me. If I pull a second one I'll likely replace the sculpt with one of the other Hulk sculpts.

It does have me wondering about the rumor that we may have another Hulk lurking somewhere in this set, and whether or not that one will be a Super Rare.

The middle of last week we were shown Box, the second version of the character.

An interesting 125 pt flying, super strong Charger who can for three of his clicks become a giant while standing on hindering terrain, and for his final five clicks has a sort of built-in, souped-up form of Nanobots, allowing him to absorb an adjacent object and heal two clicks. Add to that two leading clicks of Perplex, 3 Damage for his first four clicks, Plasticity on the back half of his eight-click dial, three closing clicks of Close Combat Expert, two of Pulse Wave and the Thunderbolt-able Avengers TA, and its a fairly nice package. Given the low-ish if fairly steady Attack values the more thematic Alpha Flight alternate TA may be more useful overall, but Thunderbolting him to Batman Ally/Kabuki so that even when he might become a giant in the middle of his dial he would be an invisible one to most is a sweet prospect.

The sculpt design suffers from accuracy, capturing that very late '80s/early '90s ugliness - the tiny head, hands and feet along with the thick, cable-riddled neck, but that's something I can overlook.

A common, we can expect to see Box in quite a few boosters.

At the end of last week we were shown another surprise choice: Cuckoo. A generic of a sort -- there were originally five sisters, and they have been given special powers that represent their ability to work as a unit.


A very cool 40 pt piece. Even if one doesn't care about the Morrison-era New X-Men story material, the name reference and look are a nod to The Stepford Cuckoos, the source material used for the movie(s) Village of the Damned.

Their Coordination special power (the first two Speed clicks) grants them Mind Control, and also allows one Cuckoo to carry up to two others with her when she moves. This allows a unit of 3 Cuckoos to move with a single action, an action token given to only one of them so the other two will be fresh and ready to act the following turn.

The Hive Mind power (first four Defense clicks) allows each piece, when given an action, to gain a +1 to one of its combat values for each adjacent Cuckoo.

Sure, they're each only 40 points and five clicks, and have a maximum Defense of 16 with no Damage-reducing powers, and special abilities that cry out to be targeted by Energy Explosion, but the dynamic is appealing to me. The 6 range is a bit limiting, but as that's one of the combat values that can be boosted by Hive Mind there's some flexibility there. Pushing to get to that second click, where the first of two clicks of Probability Control comes into play is likely a good move. It improves their utility to the team dramatically and even allows some defensive advantage.

Her third click sees her holding onto Probability Control while gaining Psychic Blast, which she retains on click four. On clicks four and five she gains Shape Change, which helps her defensively, too. The Hive Mind ability allows her to gain from her sisters' presence on all but the final click.

In terms of the set, the Cuckoos let us know we have at least one generic in the set, which is wonderful news -- all the more so as this is a common. Even those who don't want these pieces will find that unlike most commons (uncommons and even rares) under the new system these will retail trading value because there will be people like myself who will happily trade one of my other extras for one of these.

This week, Wednesday brought us a version of a character I'm not familiar with. When I think of Mimic I think of the original one, Calvin Rankin. As it turns out, that's this one's name, too, but he's from an alternate timeline and was part of the dimension-hopping Exiles.


First, I must say that the sculpt (and I know it will, as always, look better in person) is the first really ugly piece of work I've seen in a Mutations & Monsters preview. While Box is unpleasantly distorted, I can't fault the sculptor for accurately capturing a pencil artist's work and bringing it into three dimensions. This has inhumanly gangly arms, thick, ugly claws and a face and hairpiece that remind me of figures we used to make with Play Doh. It's difficult to imagine this will look so substantially better in person as to rise above the level of a poor sculpt.

Still, that's just a sculpt. While far from perfect, the Mutant Mayhem version of the character gave me a workable sculpt which I can transplant onto this base. The hair and mustachio aren't quite what I'd like, but it's far, far closer to what I'd want. Maybe I'll eventually do a proper mod.

The 148 pt cost for the piece may put off some, especially the tournament players whose #1 aim is winning, but I like the piece and the versatility granted by the special powers.

As one would expect from the name, Mimic can copy the abilities of others, though in the case of this new version it appears he's sort of stuck with shifting between the powers of five of the X-Men.

A flyer with 8 range who starts with Hypersonic Speed and four clicks of a power that allows him to use Super Strength or Energy Explosion, and who on his second through fifth and once more on his final (eighth) click gets a special movement power that allows him to Charge or use Running Shot, appeals to me. That he has three clicks of Invulnerability up front, followed by two of Super Senses and then two of Regeneration - placed so that he could conceivably heal back to his second click - and then one final click of 16 Defense with Super Senses is also a good combination. The Leadership up front isn't likely to count for much, but occasionally the option for an extra action can be useful... however unlikely that'll be in a 300 pt build when one character has effectively taken half the build points. Ranged Combat Expert on her second and third and seventh and eighth clicks adds a little extra threat to the mix, though I expect that on that seventh click an action's more likely to be put into Regeneration and on both the seventh and eighth the Attack Values are down to 7, but hopefully by that stage the opposing pieces have been whittled down.

So far I'm running more enthusiastic about this set than I'd expected I'd be. I know there will be crap in the mix - it's inevitable (and I know we're getting at least a couple Marvel Zombies) - but as it stands I'm looking forward to the November 21st release and may even opt to attend a pre-release event on the 17th. I'll decide that later.