Clix Conundrum

Return of the Titans

Wizkids ended the week with a preview of another of the original Teen Titans: Speedy.

...and it at least borders on ridiculously good for a mere 45 points.

Reasonably good base stats, Running Shot for two clicks, a good blend of Energy Shield/Deflection and Willpower, one Special Power that gives a +1 to ranged attacks and which will work with his Running Shot, and a second Special Power that enables him to remove up to three hindering and/or Barrier markers and make an attack in the same turn?!

Consider the latter power for a moment.

He could, providing the squares in question were within 8 spaces of him, open a hole in a Barrier (that he and any of his teammates could exploit) and potentially remove the hindering terrain one or two characters are using... and still make an attack in the same action. The wording at least strongly suggests that he can't make hindering terrain that's originally on the map disappear, but even so, many players pointedly destroy objects and walls in order to deny an opponent an objects and/or to give themselves some cover, especially for their Stealthed characters. Speedy can make that go away. Even just the ability to remove Barrier squares is a big one. Consider, too, that it doesn't say he has to remove them from in front of his eventual target; he could free a teammate within range who's had a Barrier thrown up around him, and then go after an opposing piece.

As with the power and efficiency of Kid Flash, it makes me wonder what their mentors and/or older selves will be packing the next time we see them in clix? We're supposed to be seeing a Barry Allen Flash in this set. If the scale-up is at all accurate... wow.

Time (and previews) will tell.

In the meantime, though, it does make me feel that the recent versions of Green Arrow we were given in Justice League were shorted at least a little.


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This shouldn't be a long post, as I won't be revisiting Mutations and Monsters in detail in this post. I'm just trying to look at how the experience of collecting it has gone, along with better determining where things stand as I look at the 2008 sets.

The set hit the streets the day before Thanksgiving, and the holiday along with the UPS shipping (UPS considers Black Friday to be something of a holiday, and will only deliver and significantly move high priority/air shipments that day and on weekends) conspired to see me wait until the following Monday for my delivery. I'd gone straight in for what I'd hoped would be a kill by getting two cases up front -- which is just 8 clix more than what we used to get in a single case under the pre-Avengers system. While in general I did well with the distribution, and even pulled above the statistical norm of 6 uniques/case, as with Justice League and Avengers I still ended up short by one Super Rare. Much as was the case with Justice League it turned out to be the one Super Rare that is more sought after than its fellows: Apocalypse. Though all manner of odd trades are possible, it's unlikely I'd find someone willing to trade an Apocalypse for any other, single Super Rare in this set, so my extras of Hulkbuster, Mastermind, Cassandra Nova, cosmic zombie Wolverine, zombie Iron Man or Silver Savage would not be likely to get me an Apocalypse... and I'm loathe to try trading 2:1 for him at this point.

This past Monday I played in the second sealed event (week five) of the nine-week M&M tournament series and didn't manage to pull an Apocalypse. At this stage I have no reason to buy any more boosters from the set -- it would be flatly stupid to do so in pursuit of one, super-rare piece. So, I'm essentially considering the booster-pullable portion of the set to be wrapped. Should one come to me in a trade or some other fashion, that'll be fine, but in the meantime I'm calling my set completed.

Despite being so mutant-heavy it was a fairly solid and enjoyable set which I'm still working my way through using. Next Monday night we have a 2007 event -- build a team of up to 20 characters, up to 2007 pts, using pieces from sets released in 2007. That should give me a good shot at using whatever pieces I want.

As predicted, the appearance of 6th element items (the Feats, Battlefield Conditions, Objects and Event Dials) made them individually sufficiently rare that one would be guaranteed to still at least be looking for four of them after buying a case (20 boosters), and depending upon extras of individual ones pulled and the desirability of having various items in multiples, even two cases of boosters is still likely to leave someone who likes to have multiples of Feats, Objects and some of the bystanders feeling rather anemic. The distribution of these within bricks and cases, though, seemed to be about as well done as they could manage, so those concentrated buys (along with considerations for discount pricing) remains vastly superior to any thoughts of buying loose boosters.

Speaking of pricing, the two cases, after all discounts and shipping were applied, yielded a per booster price of just under $7.19. Were I to buy them locally at a retailer they would be $10.99 + $0.66 tx = $11.65 per booster. A difference of $4.46.

While I still (minorly) lament having bought in at this depth without having come away with a truly complete set, I nonetheless am glad I went the way I did. Many of the extra cards were desired, and the set had several pieces I considered to be generic, and so would want to retail to build forces of: Brood, Cuckoo, Miek, Korg and Warskrull. While the last is a Super Rare (and I did end up with two of them) the first three are Commons and the fourth an Uncommon, so many of the boosters with familiar faces had one or more pieces that still went into my main collection rather than in with the extras.

As I look ahead to Crisis, a DC set, so far I'm left with less of a clear path. At the moment there are no pieces confirmed or even strongly rumored for the set that are generics. Indeed, two that were initially very likely - Shadow Demons and Thunderers - were pointedly removed from consideration because of a decision that straddles the line between the sadistic and the moronic: They were kept out of the expansion but one of each will accompany the Anti-Monitor in April's Anti-Monitor Action Pack.

So, instead of including them as commons in a set, where many of the collectors would be waiting to assemble large groups of them because that's how they appeared in the source stories in the comics, and so they would retain a value above their fellow Commons, a single one of each has been put in an Action Pack. A more obvious Lose:Lose move is difficult to conceive.

The decision on how deeply to buy into the set remains very difficult, especially when one knows that even buying two cases will not guarantee all of the pieces, but will most assuredly guarantee hefty numbers of extras in the Commons, Uncommons, and generally 1-3 extras of each of the Rares.

Well, it's hardly a life or death matter, or at least not until the next credit card statement...


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I haven't put anything since before Thanksgiving -- never even running a post on Mutations & Monsters post-release -- but I'm in the mood for at least a little catch-up and early considerations for this next, DC set, due to hit stores February 20th.

Ultimately, this, as with most of my blog entries, is a place for me to collect my thoughts on an issue. Hopefully it'll be of some passing interest to someone else, but if so that's a bonus. Here I'm in a run-up to whatever buying decision I'll be making on the set.

So far the Crisis gallery only has six items in it.

The first one shown to us was the Buy It By the Brick mail-away World's Finest duo. A duo piece on a larger (Sentinel-sized. covering 4 map squares) base, this 500 pt piece at least initially appears destined to be much more likely a collector's piece than a serious draw for gamers. More seriously dangerous, independently-moving Batman and Superman combinations are out there to be had, plus Feats, for much less than the 500 pts. While the dual TA (it has both Batman and Superman TAs) is a fun first for the game, it's important to remember that a base that size means they'll have to find a great deal of hindering terrain if they want to use the Batman TA effectively for protection. Any square not over hindering is a target.

As a side note on the piece, while I understand the thematic interest in having this piece represent those Batman/Superman team-ups, would it have been such an affront to have included some form of Justice League keyword? At it stands they're only open for Detective, Gotham City, Metropolis and Reporter theme teams. Granted, any theme team they'd be a part of would have to be huge and include a good number of low-point pieces, but I'm all about the options in this game.

Next shown was another piece with a large point cost: Mordru. As an official preview, it included a write-up by Seth.

At 245 points, the rare (piece #42) Mordru is ones sanity demands one put 25 points for Fortitude on in order to protect what those points were spent on. The lack of any move and attack powers will most likely mean considerable time as a target. Indeed, while it's still around (Armor Wars will be retiring this summer) I'd be tempted to go whole hog and spend another 25 points on Repulsor Shield. While Fortitude imparts protection from Outwit and Exploit Weakness, Repulsor Shield extends that protection to Force Blast, Psychic Blast and and Ranged Combat Expert.

It would help if we had a clarification whether he has the 10 range Seth mentions in his write-up or the 12 shown on their site.

The next two were added earlier this week: Batwoman and Kid Flash.

To be honest, I don't care about Batwoman enough to spend the time on the piece just now, so the confusion from having at least the base in the picture on their site plainly being for Batgirl, with a seventy-something point value and the Batman Ally TA... I'll at least wait until clearer info is up for her.

As for the Kid Flash (Wally West), this is a neat-o little 45 point piece, which I think sufficiently highly of to take the time to represent it below:
Really, while the lack of Super Senses and/or Energy Shield/Deflection might give one pause, the 18 Defense and ability to move over and through everything, added to the 18 Defense, helps considerably. This is a fine package for 45 points. Two clicks of Hypersonic Speed Option 1 followed by three of Charge. On his second and third clicks he gets a Flurry effect built in, and on those three Charge clicks he also gets a special power that enables him to use Force Blast as a free action, so if he wants to shift an opposing piece during his turn -- perhaps even the one he just finished Charging, creating some space between them -- he can do it without having to burn an action on it.

Today, Dawnstar and Jericho were added.

Dawnstar's an effective addition to the Legion of Superheroes team. At 60 points she's a flying Hypersonic Speed (via the Special Power: Tracker) piece with front-loaded Willpower and another Special Power, Quarry, which lets her choose one opposing piece at the start of the game which her and all of her teammates get a +1 against to their Attack Values. While her maximum Damage of 2 won't see her striking fear into the hearts of pieces with Invulnerability or Impervious, she's going to be very useful. Cheesy players may decide to play more than one of her, since (unless it's FAQed away) her Quarry could be stackable. Put two of her on the team and one could either get a +1 boost against two of the opposing pieces or a +2 to one, if there's someone with a high Defense Value to crack.

It's going to take a little time to get used to fliers not having flight stands anymore. I know that the case was there Mordru and the World's Finest team above, but it really stands out when someone with wings comes up.

Jericho has the same, wordy Possession special power Deadman was given in the Justice League set, which is to say that many may not want to field him. Though Jericho can at least do some direct attack damage. At least with opening Willpower he can theoretically move into position on one turn and roll to take possession the next, providing his clock hasn't been seriously cleaned in between.

General write-ups for Harbinger, Uncle Sam and the Infinite Crisis Event Dial were really the first things given to us, just before the holidays. I've still not used any of the Event Dials -- more a matter of opportunity than desire -- and the final call on Harbinger and Uncle Sam awaits seeing their stats; How cool dial tricks and options are vary considerably with the stats.

So far the only confirmed pieces are:
Commons:
#2 Classic Titans Kid Flash
#7 Jericho

Uncommons:
#17 Red Hood (Jason Todd)
#19 Batwoman
#22 Dawnstar

Rares:
#35 Uncle Sam (Transporter) 140 pts
#39 Harbinger 50 pts
#42 Mordru

Super-Rares:
#53 Black Adam
#60 Monitor
Spectre (Giant) Super-Rare
Nightwing (disco costume)and Starfire (Duo) Super-Rare

And those we don't yet know the rarity of:
Superman (unknown version)
Batman (unknown version)
Forerunner
Flash (Barry)
Wonder Woman (Titans of Tomorrow Armor?)
Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner - new costume)
"evil" Mary Marvel
Supernova

At 20 -- many of them still very poorly defined -- that's theoretically one third of the set. Still, only five of those are full reveals. It's still far too scant a list of info for me to make any order decisions about.

Going back to this past November, we had a sneak peek article in a gaming magazine that was really more of a press release, given that it was written by Brand Manager Mark Tuttle (click on the image for a larger view):

... the key points of which are that this set will contain:
* A character that's over 300pts
* TWO Full superhero teams
* ONE Full super villian team
* ONE double based figure
* more than one giant
* more than one Duo figure

Of course, we don't know if counted among the giants will be Uncle Sam, who gains giant status, or Harbinger, who gains Duo status, each at some point on their dials due to Special Powers.

Current front-runners for the 300+ piece are the new Spectre and Superman Prime. I'm hoping for the latter, as it'll be more representative of a piece with Silver Age Superboy/man abilities, and I'm hoping to have a Spectre I might more readily field as part of a Golden Age JSA team and be able to play the team at or below 700 points.

Hopefully the accelerated previews we're seeing this week will continue, with a main write-up and official sneak peek happening each Friday.

So far the set's looking good, but I've not been bowled over yet. The new rarity scheme is making cold-buy collecting problematic -- something I've talked a bit about before and plan to again when I do a quick catch-up piece on Mutations & Monsters perhaps later this week.


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