Crisis Week 4

On Friday we played the fourth week of the Crisis games, with a special twist. Four time bombs were seeded at the dawn of man by Per Degaton! Players could recover the bombs for 30 VPs, as the suspendium inside them was incredibly valuable! Also they had to kill the other guy.

Man, Time Bombs suck. We make up a lot of crazy games at our store, so I know what a broken game mechanism feels like, and Time Bomb has it in spades. I put a lot of energy into defusing them, and it was just impossible, and cost me a lot of actions; I guess you're supposed to let them explode. Because the 14 attack total you need to defuse it is just impossible to achieve. I defused two all night, and I don't think that anyone else defused any... Anyway, Time Bombs were an intriguing take on the Event Dial concept, but now that I've played with them, they're dead to me.

I fielded an anti-time-bomb team. Defusing is optimized to work around an attack value of 7, so I fielded 5 pogs as engineers to take them out. Jarvis, Jarvis, Duane Freeman, Turk Barrett, and Prof. Broom came to 23 points. To cart them around, I used Green Lantern, and finished off my Justice League of America theme team with Carter Hall and Green Arrow (now Starro-free thanks to a Speedy head).

Jeff fielded a team made up of Star Sapphire, Phantom Girl, Jonah Hex, and Alan Scott Green Lantern. Hmm, I'm not sure that this made up the requirements of Floor, we'll have to watch that in the future. This was a really strong team when it could ignore the time bomb mechanism. GL had Stunning Blow, which was brutal, throwing around four damage like it was nothing.

Ferru fielded the Royal Flush Gang, with their friend the Red Hood. We saw a great showing from these kind of middle-of-the-road characters this week, just like last week with Jeff's Metal Men. I think this speaks to good game design: nobody wants a D-lister like Lead to be the most efficient powerhouse in the game, but these pieces offer weird combinations that are seldom available elsewhere, like Ace's giant-plasticity-for cheap combo that makes them strong in unexpected ways.

Bill built his team around Uncle Sam, with Liberty Belle and Wildcat filling out the 300 points. I think a blasting tentpole, Darkseid or the like, could have gotten through his suite of 18 Defenses, but our teams were caught unawares. Bill swept the night like every game in Crisis so far (that he's played in).

In the first game I played Jeff and Ferru played Bill. Jeff and I concentrated on the bombs, to no avail. He took out Green Arrow and Carter Hall without much effort, but Green Lantern sniped the weaker members of his team. Sadly it cost him a click or two, and then Hal's 9 attack couldn't break Alan's 17 with ESD. Ferru and Bill ignored the bombs, with Bill's JSA line cleaning up the Royal Flushes.



In the second game, I played Ferru while Jeff took on Bill. I finally got a bomb, but all the actions it cost me let the Royal Flush Gang dance around the League. All the shape change proved hard to target as well. The game was called on time, with Hal and Carter giving me more points than Jack, 10, and Jason. I didn't see that much of the other game, but I think Bill didn't KO everyone, and I would guess that meant Alan Scott or Phantom Girl survived.



In the final game, I played Bill with Jeff playing Ferru. Bill's JSA moved with surprising speed across the map, basing GA and GL before I knew what was up. I broke away and held on for a while, but I never got them down to below a 17 defense. When Uncle Sam goes up in defense it's just disheartening. Jeff and Ferru came down to Green Lantern versus Red Hood, which we alternatively titled "Red vs Green," or "The Battle of Four First Names." Jeff, Green, and Alan won the day.



So at the end of the night it was Bill in first place, Jeff second, and myself in third. We got our Maneuver feats and called it a night. Next week we'll be playing with a collapsing Anti-Matter universe, and everyone had already figured out how to take the fun out of auto-KO walls (Darksied, Supernova, Donna Troy, Drag, etc.) so we need some online discussion on how that will work before Friday.

The One about line of sight

The Coming Crisis Game

Here is my plan for the Crisis game we have scheduled for this Friday:

Crisis Week 4, Restricted 300 pt.

Scenario: Dawn-of-Time Bombs: Four time bombs are seeded in the past by Per Degaton. The suspendium used in the bombs is unimaginably valuable. Teams try to save the past and recover the bombs by defusing them as per the rules on the Time Bomb event dial.


I was thinking of making some dials, but I think Bill won't be playing. At three players, we'll run one game at a time with a bye issued to the remaining player... and we'll only need four Time Bomb dials. Do we have four between all of us? I have one. Who else pulled Time Bomb event dials from Mutations and Monsters?

Crisis Week 3

On Friday we played the third week of the Crisis games. The teams were 50% floor, meaning that half of the points had to come from the Crisis set. That said, I don't think any figures came from outside of Crisis. Feats were another matter.

As a special element, we played with Devilance the Pursuer in the game, simulating the events of 52 issue #9! See the previous post for his rules. Please note that we only had one Devilance figure, so the other game used a D&D fig of appropriate size... same dial, though. So that's who the green guy is in some of these shots.

I fielded a Teen Titans team, picked for the Super Strength necessary to best use the Lance. The idea was, he'd go down, drop the Lance, and I'd use it to clean up the other team. Turned out that wasn't really necessary, as in all the games, Devilance was a secondary target compared to the opponents, and nobody could risk being caught based with him, let alone based with him and being shot in the back by the opponents you ignored. Anyway, I fielded Captain Marvel Jr, Robin, and Wonder Girl. Turn Donna into Cassie, and this lineup actually appeared! I played Monster Hunter on Cap Jr. to help with Devilance.

Jeff fielded a Metal Man team, with Gold, Lead and Tin, and two Irons. This team was a little two easy to get caught by Devilance, but proved really tough! Also, we need rules to state what happens when a Bot's target successfully Shapechanges.

Ferru fielded a genuine bonefied Crisis team, with Monitor and Harbinger. I think they had some neat tricks but lacked the power to take down Devilance.

Bill fielded Supergirl and Green Arrow, along with Ace from the Challengers of the Unknown. I was unaware how much ass Ace kicks! 9 attack, 17 defense for 8 points, how did I get through the Starro games without seeing this? Also, Supergirl was awesome.

In game 1, I played Bill, while Jeff played Ferru. Bill and I started cautiously, staying outside of the 8-radius square that was most of the map to avoid triggering Devilance. I sent CM3 to get an object while Robin went to ground in the forest. Meanwhile, Supergirl landed on the Kinetic Accelerator (prizes from week 1, which finally arrived!) In turn 3, Bill used this to rev up SG to 14 move, streak across the map, and tag Robin with a heavy object for 5 damage! Cap Jr. tried to return fire, but missed her 18 defense, then got hit, and it was all downhill from there. I'm not sure I damaged Supergirl at all, actually. I was able to use Wondergirl to lure Devilance into attacking Green Arrow, but he eventually broke away (speeded up thanks to the Kinetic Accelerator again) and he and SG slowly took down Devilance from full to nothing... over something like 20 turns. Bill defeated my team, killed Devilance, and recovered the lance, earning 586 VPs!

In the other game, Jeff got stuck in with Devilance while Ferru took potshots. I heard that Ferru made the mistake of assuming that Monitor got his "take an action token at any time" power to start, when it's actually not until click 4. Ferru took the pot this time, with Monitor recovering the Lance!



In game two, winners and losers battled like. I took on Jeff, while Ferru played Bill. Jeff charged into battle, moving his Metal Men in a line some four squares from Devilance. I hung back, sending Cap. Jr off to the edge of the map (totally copying Bill and using a Kinetic Accelerator and a Generator this game) while Robin and Wonder Girl stood at thw edge of the woods. Devilance took off to charge the Metal Men, and I made sure he based all of them. They then proceeded to make an impressive number of break-away roles and swarm around him to attack Wonder Girl and Robin. Captain Marvel Jr. came to their rescue, zooming in with a Critical hit that did 7 damage to Iron (armor outwitted, 3 base, 2 more for the heavy object, one for Monster Hunter, one for the crit, kill in one blow!) and continued the assault every other turn so that the Irons didn't last too long. Devilance finally defeated Gold, the one Metal Man who couldn't break away, and came after me (by way of Lead and Tin). With Monster Hunter helping Cap Jr I cleaned up Devilance to get the victory.


Ferru got stuck in with Devilance while Bill exploited the situation. Ferru tried to switch his Monitor and Harbinger, but I'm not sure it was to his advantage. I didn't see a lot of this game, so guys, fill in the blanks if you can. Bill was victorious in this round as well, putting him nearly 600 points ahead of his nearest competitor!

In Game 3, I faced Ferru while Bill played Jeff. Ferru and I ended up battling around the rock, which blocked Devilance's view... he didn't trigger until the end of the game. I jacked up CM3's speed by 4 using the Kinetic Acellerator, tagged the Monitor, and retreated a bit. Next turn I had to push Cap Jr. again to avoid Monitor's 11 attack, so I lost Hypersonic Speed. Meanwhile, Wonder Girl and Robin were creeping up around the outer edge of the map. Monitor was finally taken out, and I knocked Harbinger back a square, which put her in site of Devilance and sent him running in. Her Hypertime ability kept him away on the first turn, but soon the two-front attack wiped out Ferru's team. I, meanwhile, was facing an undamaged Devilance, and had expended myself past my ability to take him out confidently. I ended up using Robin's perplex to give either Wondergirl or Cap Jr's attack the boost it needed to crack Devilance's 18, but they were sporting 9s and 8s at that point, and it was grim work. Meanwhile he was quaking each time he could, at one point slamming Robin into the rock and giving him 3 clicks at once. Still CM3's Monster Hunter paid off and I took him down to achieve total victory.

Meanwhile, Bill wasn't faring well against Jeff. Green Arrow couldn't run and damage the Metal Men, and was taken out. Supergirl was also damaged, though she landed back on Hypersonic Speed. But Jeff's piece advantage meant he kept coming up as the target of Devilance's attacks, and took a lot of hits from the Bot. It came down to Supergirl versus Lead and Tin, and some luck put Bill out ahead. There was some question of victory points... Devilance had done the KOing for Gold and the two Irons, so what did Bill claim? In the end, Supergirl KOed Lead and Tin, giving Bill at least 100 points for the match and a clear win for the night.


So we all had a good night of play, and some ideas to revise the bot rules. Some things we floated:

1) Bots should have to move the shortest possible distance between points. Too often players used thier ability to control placement to their advantage.

2) The Bot turn, coming third as it does, gives a large advantage to the second player. I don't know a good fix for this... maybe more random reactions?

3) Shapechange and Hypertime were hard to deal with. The best way to handle this, we decided, were to rule out the beneficiary of these powers as a Target and go through the logic again.

4) As written, Quake was neutered, as only one possible figure was opposing on each Bot action. We decided that, for purposes of Quake and Energy Explosion, all figures would be opposing. It's just better that way.

Devilance the Pursuer!

On Friday we're going to play a special game in the general DC Crisis theme, replicating the events of last year's 52 issue #9. And for that we need Devilance the Pursuer! I'll be modding one that looks as cool as he did in Forever People #11, and all his other appearances... in 52 #9!

Devilance the Pursuer is a HeroClix Bot, and uses the following Bot House Rules:

Placing a Bot: After deploying all figures and objects, determine the four central squares of the map. The first player will place the Bot on one of these four squares. Bots cannot be deployed on blocking terrain. If all four central squares are blocking terrain (such as in the Airfield map), the first player may place the Bot in any of the set of legal squares that are determined to be closest to the center squares.

Bot Turn Sequence: The Bot turn is taken after the last player’s turn. The Bot turn and all player turns constitute one Round.
• Bot Actions: The Bot will use the Bot Logic Diagram to determine a Target. In the logic diagram, the following key phrases apply:
• Opposing Figures: At the start of the Bot turn, all non-Bot figures are opposing figures.
• Line: A modified Line-of-Fire that ignores the effects of Stealth. When a Bot is determining a target, blocking terrain and the effects of elevated terrain will prevent it from drawing a Line, as per LOF rules. Stealth will not prevent drawing a line (and drawing a Bot towards the stealthed figure) Stealth will still affect a LOF drawn for ranged attacks or any other purposes.
• Threat, Threatened: The range at which the Bot can damage an opposing figure. This will always be either the length of a Charge, the length of a Running Shot plus the Bot’s range, or adjacency, depending on the powers the Bot possesses.
• Last to Damage: The last figure to damage the Bot before the Bot’s turn. After damaging a Bot, give a figure a special token. This token will move to a second figure once they damage the Bot. At the start of the Bot turn, the figure with the token will be the Last Figure to Damage In the Bot Logic Diagram.
• Target: The target of the Bot’s attack. Each end point on the Bot Logic Diagram will either give the Bot a Target or result in the Bot taking no action. Once a Target is determined, the Bot becomes opposed to the Target and friendly to all other figures. Control of the Bot for a single action passes to the player to the left of the player controlling the Target. The controlling figure can give the Bot any one action and any number of available free actions.

Other Bot Rules: Bots never push, but can take pushing damage. If a Bot begins a turn with one or two action tokens, it will Clear.
Here is the Bot Logic Diagram:



Devilance the Pursuer uses an Avengers Hulk dial and card. These can be found here:
http://www.wizkidsgames.com/heroclix/marvel/figuregallery.asp?unitid=13244

Just like the Hulk, Devilance the Pursuer is worth 187 victory points. These points go to the player which achieves the KO (although both players will likely damage Devilance). Unlike the Hulk, Devilance has the keywords Deity and Apokalips.

Once defeated, Devilance the Pursuer drops the Lance, a special heavy object that is not destroyed after being used in an attack and that can be carried by either a figure with Super Strength or two adjacent figures that move together (and are not carried themselves). Figures that move together must move in the same turn, both starting and ending in adjacent squares. The first team to recover the Lance wins an additional 100 victory points. To recover, a figure or figures must be holding the lance within their deployment zone at the end of the turn. The Lance is then removed from the game. Players may chose not to recover if they are holding the Lance in their deployment zone.

If a player’s forces are all KO’ed while Devilance the Pursuer is still active, they can still control the Devilance, which can still deprive the opponent of those VPs. If a player KOs all of his opponent’s forces and Devilance, they are assumed to recover the Lance as well.

Crisis Week 2

Ferru won Crisis Week 2 with a team that included, most notably (at least to me), Spectre. I learned something interesting about theme teams that I didn't consider previously that left my Teen Titans at a marked disadvantage. With the rule that a theme team must consist of one character for every 100 or 150 points (depending on keyword), I didn't end up pulling together a smaller group of heavy hitters that could easily overcome Spectre's Invulnerability/Impervious clicks. I also bunched my figures up the whole game, which got really bad when Ferru pulled out Spectre's "I'm a giant figure and can therefore do this really well" Quake.

So, in conclusion, the Titans were righteously judged and I'm really glad I got Spectre in a booster last week.

My Soapbox

I really hate how WizKids handles almost everything that it does.

Now I consider myself an outsider looking in - as I don't work for them and I've only been following their product for a little less than a year. That being said, in the last 10 months or so I feel like I've been abused slightly yet I feel for longer players / collectors as it seems that what has irked me has been business as usual for the better part of the HeroClix games life.

For this installment - which makes sense only if I post more - I'm going to complain about chase figures.

My current gripe is the reintroduction of chase figures. These figures are next to impossible to get unless you purchase one off of ebay from sellers, who in many times are store owners, who bought up tons of boosters just to sell them off as singles. I don't understand the business strategy here - sure if you do open a booster there's the chance that you'll get a randomly inserted chase figure or if you watch / hear that someone in your play group has found a chase figure - you figure that it's an achievable feat. If you do pull a chase figure or hear that someone you know has - sure you might think you can do it again, etc. leading to the purchase of more product but as it stands - I have not met nor have I opened a booster with a chase figure. Therefore I am remiss that in order to purchase one of these figures, ebay is the only option.

The part that pisses me off is that when WizKids went to the new booster system, they introduced a rarity distribution system. I love this as I like to know that I am guaranteed at least one "rare" figure per pack. The chase figures don't have a rarity assigned and the only thing I've heard is speculation that indicates that the chase figures are 1 in 100 boosters or that they come 1 per case (which we know is not the reality unless our store got screwed in their distro).

As far as the Crisis set goes - I'm more pissed off that the chase figures are Superman and that the 2 chases are the only 2 Supermen in the set. I don't think WizKids needed to do this considering that the same thing happened with chase figures when they included Alfred, Lois Lane, and Marvel Zombies as chase in previous sets. Why Superman?

Lastly, I return to the business strategy. I don't understand this move to include chase at all! WizKids does an excellent job getting all their players to purchase Bricks of boosters in order to get a mail-away figure. I'm pretty sure most HeroClix players will purchase a Brick to get the mail-away figure and then maybe buy a few boosters for tournaments, etc. I don't know if WizKids is doing the chase figures to support this secondary market - if so I don't know what is in it for them.

This leads into the next gripe I have, which is how WizKids can completely ruin prices of impossible to get figures by re-releasing them later...

Crisis Week 1

Last night we played the first game of the Crisis tournament. It was a sealed game, and we all had to buy two boosters of the new set. Of course, we all had plenty of Crisis already, as we had all gathered at our store on Wednesday and purchased a brick or a case... but that's because the past year of the hobby has us all pretty dedicated/obsessed with HeroClix. Last summer the closed-booster game might have been the first stuff I bought.

Unfortunately our store had no maps and no prize support. We used Arena maps from the Mutations and Monsters campaign, which for whatever reason we had a million copies of. And the prize tonight was an IOU from WizKids. Anyway, here's what we played.

I drew Black Adam and not a lot else, so I had to play him. The rest of the team was Robin and Geriatric Lois Lane, but it's basically Black Adam and Friends. I don't like playing this kind of tentpole team because I only have one attacker and I don't have the die rolls to balance out a run of bad luck. I always feel like I'm in situations where I don't have any strategic options that can improve my performance; all I can do is stay the course and hope for good dice.

Jeff played Supernova, Batgirl, and Green Arrow. That's a pretty good team, with Green Arrow consistently awesome, and Batgirl has this incredible click she falls on middial: Jeff's performance seemed to swing around whether or not she hit that point or not.

Ferru pulled Sinestro, and pretty much had to play him. He also used Harbinger, Kid Flash, and Speedy. None of us were playing in the Kingdom Come days, so Harbinger was our first chance to play with the Hypertime team ability... it was a constant annoyance throughout the games. I think Kid Flash did okay but would have done better on the intended map (and will shine once we're playing indoors)... but we played outdoors on an open field.

Bill played Nightwing, Rip Hunter, Hawk & Dove, and Mercury. Hmm, the picture shows Karate Kid instead of Mercury... Bill fielded his team, then realized it was over 300 points, and made a substitution. In his defense, we had been drinking before gametime. Nightwing is a beast, but I wouldn't say he overperformed. Rip Hunter, on the other hand, was amazing. He had the only probability control on the board, and when you try to shut it down, the defense spikes. But Rip is awesome, I just got some of his old Time Master books, and I'm happy to see him get a good piece.

In the first game, I played Jeff, and Ferru played Bill. In my game, Black Adam got to his Hypersonic Speed and hid among the elevated terrain of the corners to whipe everyone out.


Bill KOed all of Ferru's forces, using Rip Hunter's Probability Control one million times.


In the second game, I played Bill while Ferru and Jeff battled. My Black Adam strategy was going well until a critical miss knocked him off his best click. Then, Mercury, his damage perplexed up to 3, got a critical hit... that's a 25 point piece doing serious damage to something costing almost ten-fold.


Jeff and Ferru played a pretty even match, with Ferru coming out on top. Fear Sinestro's might!


In the final game, I played Ferru, with Bill going up against Jeff. The highlight of my match was Geriatric Lois Lane, who dodged two, maybe three hits from the various Titans and finally was brought down by Sinestro. But Black Adam, despite fours, fives, and a critical miss, kept his luck for Impervious rolls and got the opponent down to where they couldn't break his armor without boxcars.


Bill reported for his game that the lack of anything in the arena made things kind of boring for both players. He was also using the Skyscrapers Battlefield Condition, so it really was just a field with two rocks. Regardless, Nightwing, Rip and friends won the day. And Bill won the night, with 200 more than anyone else. His prize is forthcoming, but we're supposed to be compensated for the delay with Double Prize Support. So everybody wins!

So it was a decent night of play, and I was happy to pull Black Adam, even if I was unhappy to put him with only 300 points. And as always, I was unhappy when Bill won. He gets these dead black shark eyes when he's winning. The color of an Outwit dial.