Watch this!

This looks like a cool action figure. Think it would make a decent heroclick? I'm thinking he would have to have some special rules, like he can only attack when attacked, or something. Just an idea I'm knocking around right now.

Post Game Show

I have pictures. They will be posted later today. The game on Friday was very enjoyable. With the number of people playing we were able to split up and play two games on two maps. This is a good because when you have six people on one map it tends to trigger any claustrophobia that anyone may have, also there ends up being a real game played in the 50 minute time span rather than the two or three opening moves that we usually get to with such a large group.

the first game we still played one game, but that was because we had five people. Nathan showed up for the second and last game.

Last call was a barrel of fish. Beau brought out the KC Green Lantern with it's 20 defense and had us all worried. Nathan, borrowing my KC Shazam did a bit of damage to him, however and even though Beau KOd Nathan while Ryan KO'd Matt, I eventually brought down the GL. Point-wise, Beau won. I was last man standing. I *could* have won if I wasn't retarded. Ryan's General Zod was on his last click and edging away from the GL. I used my Probability Control to make him reroll a missed attack because I thought it was a success. I was trying to help. But I made Beau make his failed attack and Ryan went down. Damn it. Oh well. But this has caused me to think the Last Call through and wonder if we should go for points or last man or a hybrid. I'm thinking that for Last Call when you KO a fig, you get all it's points, including any he got for KOing anyone before that. But I'll need to work out the bugs.

All-in-all, a fun game. Thanks to everyone who came and played.

Keep 'em rollin.

Death? Your name is Death?

How would you guys like to see a Death figure?
Not a giant or big fig, mind you. A regular sized character with insane powers and the Power Cosmic Team Ability? You know, someone useful in a game against The Spectre, Galactus and/or Dark Phoenix.

Picture this: a "regular" version costing 400 points (11 clicks of life) and then an R/E/V Cosmic version costing 1000 (13 clicks of life), 1400 (19 clicks), and 2000 (25 clicks) points respectively?

I've already got the stats mapped out, just waiting for the right figure to come along, but I think I may have found a suitable one in the form of a Mage Knight Wraith. (See above...duh!)

Another Quick Poll

Who is your favorite Powered Villian and why?


Who is your favorite Non-powered Villian and why?

Quick Poll

Who's your favorite super powered comic character and why?

Who's your favorite non-super powered comic character and why?

Tomorrow's lineup

Looks like we might have a full house at Neal's house tomorrow night. Here's the scenario for the first game as laid out by Dustin:

BFC Mark II
Lex Luthor has made an easier to use version of the cannon. Unfortunately, he posted this on the wrong internet forum and now everyone wants a piece of it.
Stats of the Cannon;
-Range of 12
-Can only be fired once per player's turn
-D6+2 damage in a straight line, hitting all characters in range (even
-D6+if they block LOS)
-All walls and terrain hit are instantly destroyed (still provide bonus to defense per hindering terrain).
-Damage-reduction powers are negated (think exploit weakness)
-Super-Strength required to wield cannon
-No movement powers for whomever is holding the cannon.
-When cannon is fired, knocks back wielder 1 space.
-The wielder must be KO'd or knocked back against a wall to lose the cannon. (Cannon deposited in space directly in front of character.)
-Any character adjacent to a character who is hit by cannon, takes one click of damage (damage reduction powers not negated)
-Whomever has the Cannon can't fight in hand-to-hand because their whole focus and effort is on holding and firing.
-The game ends when you take the Cannon off your side of the map, or timer goes off. Whoever has possession of the cannon at games end, wins. If no one has possession of the cannon, then normal rules for determining victor apply.
-Special Rule: Since this weapon was developed by Lex Luthor, any battlesuit directly associated with Lex Luthor's company can wield the cannon without requiring Super Strength. In addition, these battlesuits get a +2 to their defense when wielding the cannon, and can choose to ignore the cannon's knockback effect.
Add'l Spec's for this Scenario
Come up with a 500 pt team. No mixing enemies.

(I don't know about y'all, but I'm planning on having at least one LexCorp Battlesuit on my team!)

Most Recent Customs

I thought you fella's might like a little preview of the customs I've been working on lately. Sorry if the images are a little blurry - I guess I can't get too close with the ol' camera.
This first one is of USAgent. He's made from a Wrecker figure with a Captain America shield. I gave him a custom dial with some Charge, Energy Shield Deflection (which later becomes a click of Impervious, a click of Invulnerability and a couple more of Toughness just to round it out, and some Close Combat Expert at the end of the dial. With the Avengers Team Ability, John Walker should be able to duke it out with the best of them. Oh, and I managed to factor is just right so I didn't even have to alter the point value of the Veteran Wrecker fig, so he costs 131 points.

In order to get my own Unique Fantomex, I snipped the crossed swords off a Deadpool fig and repainted him white. I gave him his correct stats and point value (117), which is a little overpriced, as it turns out. When I plugged the stats into my spreadsheet (which is usually pretty close), the value came out as 101. That's some expensive Outwit and Perplex!!
The Moon Knight fig is my custom Ghost fig. This one was easy to do - just snipped off his gay little "weapons" and painted over the darker spots. The custom dial is sweet though - he's comparable to Invisible Woman with a high defense (19 with Defend) and plenty of Phase/Teleport. Oh, and the Exploit Weakness will come in handy when he's adjacent to some opposition. All in all, he's worth 90 points.
This is my R/E/V set of Cardiac. The little vigilante that could. His respective point values are 55/66/75. The thing I like most about him is, since he's a doctor, he has support for several clicks, meaning he'll be an awesome fig to have on the force should anyone decide to throw down that lousy "War Zone" card. He starts out dealing 4 clicks of damage (or healing, as the case may be) before dropping to 3 for a few clicks, then down to the usual 2 and 1.
And here's USAgent palling around with his old chum, Power Man, repainted in the duds he wore (with great style, I might add) as Luke Cage. I increased his stats somewhat and added a couple of powers raising his point value to 119.

Post Game, Successful Strategies

Friday's game witnessed the return of Victor to geek night. We were all happy that his wife gave him time off for bad behavior. Unfortunately, his ten figure stand against Ryan's long awaited "Giant fig, Shake off, Armor piercing" tactic with Giantman, left Vic's Captain America, Blink, Thug, Scarab, Spidey and Hawkeye dazed and confused, As seen below.

As for my standoff with Dustin, his extremely effective use of the new Prof. X's mind control of my Ra's Al-Ghul and Persuader against my Demon gave me seven clicks of pain yet costing him five clicks in return. One click for pushing, two clicks for the 232 point value of Ra's and Persuader, two click for the Mystic TA. Though painful, Prof. X stayed seated in the thick of the game, while my Demon retreated to the edge of the map. All and all it was a fun night at Star Labs.

With the early departure of Dusty and Vic, Ryan and I were ready to lay waste in the 600 point game with the last minute entry of my nine year old son Chance. Although he's young and inexperienced, my boy's able to roll the die better than the best of us. Some would say it's beginners luck, but I named him Chance for a reason. Sadly, many of his figs perished in the conflict between Ry and I. The rag tag team of lower point figs were no match for Ry's Hydra pain machine and my General Zod/ Hulk stampede.

No animals were harmed during the playing of tonight's games.

Agony of De Feet

Okay, Friday's game is...

First game "Foot loose" 500pt No figure over 150pts, no fig with the flight symbol. No BFC cards.

Second game, 600pt anything goes. BFC's will be selected randomly at game
time.

Game time is 7pm at my place. If you want snacks, please bring them I may have beverages. If you need directions, please email me.

Fantomex vs. The Ghost

I'll probably never get my hands on a Unique Fantomex, which is a kick ass fig, so I thought I could just go ahead and make my own custom version of him (hey, it's what I do.)
I have an extra Rookie Moon Knight that, I think, would make a decent facsimilie of Fantomex - I need to either put on a different head, or file off the hood, then replace his hands with some gun-wielding ones.
But then I got to thinking, The Ghost looks a hell of a lot like Moon Knight; he's a techno thief that's crossed paths with Iron Man and is all white with a hood and a cape. So the question now is, do I make a custom Ghost fig or my own nifty Fantomex fig?
What do you guys think?

Clixaholics Anonymous

Friday's games went well and all three were fun, despite my initial frustration with my strategy gone horribly wrong the first game. I assigned the Shake Off and Armor Piercing cards to my Bat Sentry, threw it into the fray where Beau hammered away at it. I figured that was all well and good if I could just successfully break away so I could inflict a click of damage to his General and Yellowjacket (only fail on a roll of 1 or 2) and what do I get? A friggin' 2. It doesn't even help to have any sort of strategy when it just blows up in your face, now does it?

In the above photo, Matt's Atlas just found himself trapped behind enemy lines (and Kilowog's barrier.) Beau didn't waste much time laying the smack down with his General, Kilowog and Yellowjacket the next turn.
I had finally managed to push my Custom Iron Giant into some playable clicks and took the high ground shortly after Atlas' demise. Matt's Awesome Andy and Steel figs look on.

The pre post game quickie

I know Ryan will post the "Post Game" on Monday, and why shouldn't he he's very good at it, I hear he has pictures. I just wanted to talk about a problem I've been having with the "Last man standing" games we've been doing at the end of our game nights. I just can't win. Almost every one of these has been an ass whooping for me. I don't feel I'm a bad player and no matter how good or bad a night I've been having, these games just seem to kick me back down a notch. Maybe it's just my Kryptonite. I don't know.

Custom Feat Cards

We've already discussed a few custom feat cards we'd like to make and use in a game, but here's one I thought of last night:

Captain Universe (cost: 100 points)

Choose a character that is 100 points or less in value.
Add 2 to all printed values on that character's dial.

Pretty wicked, eh?

Tomorrow's games

It looks like it's just Beau, Matt and me for the games tomorrow night, unless I'm called away to the hospital. We'll convene at my house (if that's alright with everyone involved) at the usual time.

Game #1 is "Clash of the Titans"
400 point build total.
Only Big/Giant/other large characters allowed.
No Battlefield Condition Cards

Game #2 is "Heavy Hitters"
700 point build total.
You're free to use any figures you desire, but with a higher build total, this allows for more expensive characters that may not see much action otherwise.

I took it upon myself to make some copies (sorry, no color copier at work) of all the BCC's that I have. I know Matt is missing some and I don't know if anyone else would need them. Let me know which ones you need and I'll get them mounted on cardstock and laminated for added durabililty.

Bat Sentry

Even though the Bat Sentry figure was designed well before the giant figure rules were ever laid out, I'd like to propose that we consider him as such. I have yet to use it in a game and maybe if the giant rules applied, he might be worth using on occasion.
Anyone agree/disagree?

Fantastic Forgotten

So Fantastic Forces has officially sold out, the 4th and final wave of shipments was sent out last week. www.iconusa.com has been my online choice for buying, and for every set (since I started to buy online) the options to buy singles has been established rather quickly a week or two following the first shipment. For this the latest set they have yet to be released, and they already have the pre-order option for cases of the next DC and Marvel sets. I have avoided buying more boosters for the certainty of getting nine more Rookie Awesome Androids or some other lame extra I don't need. Now I want my Spidey 2099 and Ultimate Prof. X! Aside from getting pulled in to the commerce nightmare that is eBay, I don't know what to do. So if any of you have any swell ideas for the stability of my mental heath when it comes to Heroclix, please let me know.

Beware of Lockjaw

We discussed the alteration of the Lockjaw figure and unanimously agreed that, since it's within the scope of his character, he should be allowed to carry more than just one adjacent figure when acting as a transporter. We would assign him this unique ability, similar to that belonging to the Green Lantern Corps. We agreed that having this additional "power", for lack of a better word, would need to be factored into the point value at each of his levels, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out how much that ability would be worth.
As it is, the Lockjaw figure is a bargain; his Rookie is something like 24 points and when I plugged his stats into my Point Value Builder spreadsheet, it calculated his worth at about 41 points.
Since the spreadsheet doesn't have the Green Lantern TA to give me it's estimated worth, I took a Green Lantern and plugged his stats into the spreadsheet as well. What was calculated as a value of 167 was given to the figure as 165. Well, I guess maybe the GL TA should be free, then, eh?
You guys have any suggestions for this dilemma?

I've got a theory

It could be bunnies.

I was home yesterday afternoon when FX started playing it's afternoon Buffy reruns. They just happened to be on one of my favorite episodes, Once More With Feeling, which is the musical episode. I noticed how much editing they do to put it on TV vs. the DVD versions. There is a lot of stuff cut out for TV or perhaps added in for the DVD. Either way. It kinda makes me never want to watch TV again, I could just wait for anything interesting to hit DVD and rent/borrow it and if it's really good, buy it. So I was wondering, besides Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Smallville, what series do you recommend?

Bystanders aren't innocent!

So I had a thought last week: what if we placed bystander tokens on the map similar to the way we place object tokens each game? I figured it might be fun to have a few more things on the map to hide behind or just plain kill (get a few points out of 'em at least.) So, I made the suggestion to Matt and Beau on Friday night and we tried it out on the first game. It really didn't turn out so well. They ended up just being more crap in the way on an already crowded map.

I still like my "Secret Mission Card" idea, but that requires the use of bystander tokens and as it turns out, those just aren't as fun as I thought they would be.

Anybody have any thoughts?

Friday Night Smackdown

So we played a grand total of 3 games this past Friday night. I found myself stuck smack dab in between the other two forces on the map and felt the effects pretty heavily. Matt won the Armor Wars and open build games, but I took home the Gold on our final "Last Call" battle. This is a game where each player can choose only one character (usually, there is no limit to the point value of the character, but for this game, we decided not to exceed 300.) Beau played with his 275 point Unique Ares with a 25 point Fortitude card (can't be outwitted or perplexed), Matt chose his 300 point Custom Nimrod fig that I made for him awhile back, and I wreaked havok with my 300 point Custom Hal Jordan as The Spectre figure. Man, that guy is a walking, er, hovering death sentence! Matt and I joined forces just long enough to bury Ares, then I focused my energies on an already weakened Nimrod. He went down like a slutty prom date on ecstacy.
We'll have to see what goes down next week, providing my wife doesn't go into labor this week and give me another bouncing baby boy to take care of on a Friday night.

Friday Night Lineup

The game tonight is at Jumpboot's place, start showing up anytime after 6.

First Game- Armor Wars, Points-500
Figs that are Robots(sentinals, ultron,etc), Man Powered Suits(Iron Man, Steel, Rocket Red,etc)

Second Game-Open Build, Points-300
Build your own teams(you can't use figs you used in the first game), w/ Battlefield Condition Cards.

I'm sorry I can't make this one. All I ask is that you think of me whenever a critical hit is rolled.

Oh baby! Oh baby! Oh baby!

Am I the only one who can't wait to see Serenity? I get so excited when I think about it that I start vibrating like a super caffeine high.

They've redesigned the site and added the second trailer. Enjoy.

Customs

Despite my previous achievements with custom made/altered clix figures, I must say I'm pretty proud of my latest creations. Over the weekend, I took two Power Man figures (I've been waiting for the official release of this character...I've always liked him and my initial custom figs for him were severely lacking in the playability department - but then again, what do you expect for repainted Thugs from the Infinity Challenge set?) and made him into an LE Luke Cage by painting his jacket black, pants gray, trimmed down the "Captain America" boots to look more like the metal ankle bracelets (so the cops can keep track of him, maybe?) he wears over his size 14 Buster Browns. Covered up his bare chest with a red T-shirt (nice pecs by the way) and yes, I covered over his homecoming queen tiara. Inserted the custom dial (starts out with a movement of 8 with Charge, 11 attack value with Super Strength throughout the dial, defense of 17 with Invulnerability which eventually changes over to Toughness which stays with him right 'till the painful end, and his damage on the first click is a ho slappin' 4 clicks. He's slightly better than his Veteran level and costs 10 points more, but I think he's worth it and at the very least will prove to be a fun piece to play on the battlefield.

But wait, there's more! I then went on to repaint 3 Checkmate Medics from the Hypertime set (you know, the armored dudes with the pole vault in their mitts) to make a full R/E/V set of Cardiac, the blue and white vigilante from the pages of Spider-Man! His stats aren't mega impressive or anything (I wanted to keep him relatively cheap) but what I love about him is that since he's a doctor, he starts out with Support for a few clicks before switching to Ranged Combat Expert. He'll be a suitable substitute for the LE Xorn (which I don't have) and extremely valuable as a medic when somebody throws down the Warzone BCC.
When all is said is done, his R/E/V point values are 55/66/75, respectively. His damage value is 4 on the first click of each level, then drops to 3 for a few clicks, but never drops below 2.

Secondhand news is still news

Swiped this info from the email Beau sent us last night. Thought it should be posted.

Here’s a taste of what to expect [with the next clix set: DC Icons].

Courtesy of SteelerTrav from the WK siteVeterans/Uniques List:
V Aquaman, 71 points, JLA (cool figure if nothing else)
V Batman, 119 points, no TA (you heard me)
V Beast Boy, 86 points, Titans
V Bizarro, 222 points, Superman Enemy
V Blackfire, 76 points
U Brainiac, 251 points, Superman Enemy
V Cheetah, 55 points
U Cyborg, 80 points, Titans (yes, unique)
V Darkseid (seen him already)
U Flash, 99 points
V Joker, 107 points, Batman Enemy
U Lex Luthor (seen him)
U Ra's Al-Ghul, 79 points, Batman Enemy
V Raven, 73 points, Titans
V Robin, 65 points, Titans
V Scarecrow (seen him)
V Starfire, 96 points, Titans
V Superman, 251 points, Superman Ally
U Terra (seen her)
V Wonder Woman, 127 points, JLA

New hotness: V Superman, 251 points, Superman Ally team
M: 13 Hypersonic Speed
A: 12 Super Strength
D: 18 Impervious
R: 10" 1 target
D: 5
The little blurb says "Eleven slots of super strength...." For 251 points, I hope so!

Superman Killer: U Brainiac, 251 points, Superman Enemy team
M:10 Running Shot
A: 11 Pulse Wave
D: 17 Impervious
R: 10" 1 target
D: 5 Outwit (Nova Blast anyone?)!!!!Nova Blast might put him on a vulnerable click, but I doubt it for those points. Put Nanobots feat from Armor Wars on him and heal back those two clicks of damage before your turn is over!

Best bang for your buck (no pun intended): V Wonder Woman, 127 points, JLA team
M: 10 Charge
A: 10 Super Strength
D: 17 Impervious
R: 0"
D: 5
It indicates a 10 click dial (4 Toughness, 3 Willpower, 2 Invulnerability, 1 Impervious) for 127 points. Nice!

Biggest mistake?: V Batman 119 points (NO Batman Ally Team!!??)
M: 10 Stealth
A: 11 Incapacitate
D: 17 Willpower
R: 8" 2 targets
D: 3 Outwit
The text says, "No Stealth on cheaper figures,..." Would that be because they have the Batman Ally TA?

A typical game night.

I have a few photos I've been saving for a web site or blog like this.
Here's what game night looks like at my house.

Live from Salt Lake, it's Monday Morning

Welcome to The Rule of Three (or the rule of 3, if you like). We are three guys who love geeky games, books, movies, comics, and TV shows. In short, all things geek.

Today, I'm covering a new addition to Wizkids collectible miniatures game of Heroclix. We call this game plastic crack because it's that addicting. Recently they've started including Feat and Battlefield condition cards with every booster. Some of these are insane. When we played Friday night I built two entire teams around one Feat card. The new Fantastic Four card. This card replaces the old team ability with the ability to share defense values amongst team members, regardless of their placement on the map. This type of ability was hithertofor restricted to adjacent figures. If you play Heroclix at all you'll immediately realize the potential here. We don't restrict 'retired figures' in our games so I used the E Invisible Woman from the Clobberin Time series. She has a 19 Defense and Stealth. I also had an LE Peter Parker, U Loki, and a V Dr Strange. So now all my figures have a 19 Defense and Dr Strange has Energy Shield Deflection, boosting that to 21 for ranged attacks. This card almost seems overpowered to me, but there are limits to which figures it applies to. Yes, wild card figures can take advantage of it. No, you may not use the new Thunderbolts Card to give this power to all your Avengers characters.

There are plenty of new Feats and Battlefield conditions that can tip the game on it's ear. Don't overlook any Feat card, and perhaps even more importantly, don't bank on any one card either. A simple "Disbanded" battlefield condition card would have ruined my day.