Clix Conundrum

I keep meaning to post comments over here, but the new job has a firewall that keeps me off blogs (and out of webmail applications, too) and I get so little time at home on the 'net when the kids are in residence... anyway, this is one of the first blogs I check out every night when I get home, but somehow I never get to leave a comment.

The list does look good... I'd expected a lot more crap than is actually cluttering it up. However, I find it both baffling and infuriating that we have 4 out of 5 of the original Lee-Kirby early Silver Age X-Men, but no Angel in a blue and gold costume. Yeah, the dials are more important than the sculpts, generally, but if we're going to get MOST of the team, couldn't we get the WHOLE team?

I'd also like them to have a special Classic X-Men TA that simulates how well they worked together. Barring that, I'd like to see special powers designed to allow each team member to help the other team members in some specific way.

All of this is moot, though, as I've stopped collecting clix, as of several weeks ago. I never get to play, so continuing to collect just makes me one of THOSE fanboys, and, well, I don't wanna be. So I've stopped well short of getting all the JUSTICE LEAGUE pieces I wanted (well, at least I know I don't have a Chronos or any of the several Flash Rogues I wanted, and I'm sure there are others I'm missing out on, too).

I'm sad I'll miss out on much of this set, but, well, again... never get to play, so, no point in getting the little figs just so I can put them on a shelf and stare at them.

I suppose there's always some pleasure in bitching about how badly Seth has screwed up this or that dial, but, honestly, it's a masochistic one I'm happy to be mostly done with...

Still, it's sad I will never own a Zzzzax.
 

I'd seen your post about trimming back on things and how while opportunities for gaming have increased since Nate moved there's no one there interested in playing clix. Understandable. We each have to make cash vs enjoyment recalculations from time to time, and it seems there are enough other fun things going on down there.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving the comment. This is such a quiet spot over here I've taken to looking at it more as a spot for notes on Heroclix without really expecting anyone to comment in turn. This entry for example, was something I just tossed some notes on and posted even though it's still at a draft stage. Part of it's just an information collection point for me to look over now, and a specialized bit of info for me to reference down the line. I was glad I'd done (over on the other blog, though perhaps I should copy/shift those over here) a post back on March 22nd when all the info was coming out concerning the remainder of the year and into the start of 2008. It was the first time we were told this set's name, and in the same move, succintly, we were told the three themes behind it. Having seen it (and trying to point it out to other clix fans on HCRealms at the time) I had a fair handle on the range of likely figures in the set.

Unfortunately, there was a block of people (bolstered by malcontents who appear to have a mission to try to support any discontent with the company and product) who saw "Monsters" and ran wild with speculation that the set was going to largely be about Werewolf By Night, Dracula, etc. The cyberspeed circle jerk saw them confirming each others expectations -- it was like watching a faith form. They set themselves up for disappointment, rejecting all definitions of "monster" that weren't their own.

It's a done deal now, so while it will remain a running joke for some of them about misleading set titles it's still over save for the inevitable grumbling and potshots.

As is always the case with Wizkids each new set, each new development, is a mixed bag.

The set is looking much better than I'd feared, and having several generics after a fashion in the mix really help. That's good, since the new collation/rarity elements mean that someone pulling from boosters is going to have to go through almost as much product to collect this smaller set as he did to get the old, 96-clix set. Even if perfectly coordinated it would take 24 boosters to get one each of the bystanders, cards and Event Dials, and at 1 Super Rare per 3 boosters unless fortune smiles that's 36 boosters... and even if that does yield 12 SRs who's to say which ones? And that's just 3 boosters shy of two cases anyway.

I've been getting out to a local venue to play, and Mike T. and I have been running less formal games wherein we take one of the recent sets, shuffle the deck of character cards, one cuts and the other deals, and we each play five characters. We handle it like Draw Poker, so any terrible pulls can be traded in for fresh cards once. The teams end up being off-balanced, but not as badly as one might expect.

The new emphasis in their organized play scheme, set to resume with this set, is more competitive than before, which will go far to suck the fun out of games for me. Now they'll be awarding prizes that are specifically intended to help the winner of one week's event win future games. How unsavory it becomes, and how quickly it does, remains to be seen.

The new "Floor" style events (where at least 50% of one's build must come from the current set) will help, but I'm still expecting min/max selections to outweigh theme considerations among those looking to win. The Justice League Common Batman, for instance, at 75 points could show up as a stealthed Outwitter who's highly mobile and able to attack. There's some fun to be found in anticipating strategies and trying to plan for them, though, and I'm giving that more of a chance to see if I can find more of my balance of enjoyment in there. While some of the keyword-driven themes may be questionable, it could very well be that theme teams will prove critical to winning when one starts looking at the benefits of being able to play a disruptive battlefield condition and then have one's team ignore it while one's opponent has to wallow in it.

But all that's beside the issue at hand. For now I'm conjuring a little with the set list. A week from today I'll be playing at a pre-release, so I'll have the first 10 clix in my hands and get to see much more of the set in person. Then... well, much will depend upon how soon the supplier gets product to the place I'm buying from. My best-case scenario is that they have them to ship on Monday so I'll have them on release day (Nov. 21), but if it's later than that I don't expect to see them until the Monday after Thanksgiving, which will suck. (They're being shipped UPS ground, and UPS considers Black Friday and Saturdays to be holidays of sorts, when only Air items are delivered... and there's no way it's worth anything like $50 more for that to me. So, what'll be will be. The sooner the better, though, as I want to put up as much extra material for ebay sale as seems practical as soon as practical. More than in the past I'm expecting people will be going primarily to the secondary market for the pieces they want, especially above the level of Commons.
 

I should note that, were I still collecting clix, I myself certainly wouldn't mind pulling a Devil Dinosaur/Moon Boy double figure. I'm not a fanatic about the concept like sometime comix creator Rich Howell is, but, you know, given how unlikely it is we'll ever get a Kamandi or Kirby OMAC, I'd be happy to put a DD/MB on my shelf... and maybe even play him. Maybe on the same team with Ka-Zar...
 

Oh, and the Leader is in the gallery now... classic Silver Age Leader, with a solid dial and excellent special powers. ::sigh:: They're making it harder for me...
 

Devil Dinosaur & Moon Boy never gained a favorable foothold in my tastes, but I am curious about the sculpt and dial. It was a wacky enough creation, and it was interesting to (upon doing a little reading up on them) to find out that Kirby had taken an even earlier shot at working them in, and that when he got them into print in the late seventies he was aiming to create a cartoon franchise.

The Leader, yeah, they put him up in the same sweep as Omega Red on Friday. It was great to see him back in his proper skull. I just hadn't written anything up about it, probably figuring that we're so close to the release that it'll all get out of hand soon enough. Three points more than the Xplosion version and vastly improved. The only negative bit for me was that the sculpt found me wishing we'd gotten his resilient humanoids as another of the commons.

The Super Adaptoid will be the original look, too, I believe. There's a thread up on HCR with pics from the poster, but I'm keeping myself from looking; I want to keep as much fresh as possible for next week's pre-release, and perhaps even a little beyond that for when I'm opening the boosters in my order.