Sunday has rolled around once again, and it’s time for more Clix Bait! I’ve started something new this past week, so follow the link to the Facebook page and join in on the fun of the Daily Clix topics. Nothing too heavy, just some what-if and dream scenarios which are always a bit of fun! You can also follow the link to the YouTube channel for some new videos of matches from yesterday’s Columbus Regional.

Speaking of the Columbus Regional, I want to start by saying thank you to Heroes and Games for hosting a great event! Jay Major kept things rolling swiftly, and so everyone got home at a decent time, and there were no big disputes over the way the event was run. All in all, it was a great day of Clix, and I was pleased to be a part of it.

I will be a little honest…I was less pleased with my performance. I did finish third in the event, but I’m pretty critical of my errors, of which I had many. In the first round, I face a monster team featuring Venom Hulk, Venom Cap, and Surtur (other things there, of course, but that’s the bulk), and I did well to eliminate Surtur early on. Based on the map (ROC Underground) and the team (I’m still playing Lila Wolverines), I would have been best served at that point playing keep-away, but I got greedy, and ended up losing because of it. Remember, kids, if you have nothing to gain by engaging, then don’t engage!

The second round, I faced paired Iron Fist chases carried by Agent Coulson, and some Giant-Girls. I made the right choice in how to engage, and left his Iron Fists stuck with a Coulson that could no longer transport, but then I could not hit the Giant-Girls to save my life. So the time that it took for me to finally kill the Giant-Girls gave him the chance to get to me and win. My third round opponent was playing a strange Elijah Snow/Hawkman and Hawkwoman build that I didn’t fully understand. My placement on this was pretty good, and allowed me to get in on Elijah to fix the movement problems, and it was downhill for my opponent from there. His dice didn’t do him any favors, either. In the final round of Swiss, my opponent was playing a Vulture/Beta Ray build, and had some placement errors that led to me wiping the team.

You can see my first top eight match on YouTube here, where I was playing against my teammate Chris Stockhaus and his Beta Ray/Unseen team. It was a bad match-up for him, and it didn’t help that I won map and put us in the Prison Tier, so I was able to get the win. The second round I was up against Steven Clark, and I was pretty well in control of the game, but time ran out after I popped his Uni-Mind, and I had burned one ID card to do it, so I lost by three points. Not going to lie, that one hurt, but if I have to lose, I’m glad it was to Steven. He’s a good player and a good friend, and he was due a good result at the table!

While I was there, we finalized the plans for the Pauper Circuit Championships! You can find the announcement on the Heroclix Pauper League Facebook page, but the news is that the Pauper Circuit Championship will be held at Heroes and Games (which is there in the Convention Center hosting Origins) on Thursday, June 13th at 6pm. The winner will receive a brick of their choice of Heroclix, as well as the typical Win-A-Map prizes. Only the top 16 players will receive invitations to the event (you just need to qualify, there is no entry fee for the qualifiers), so talk to your venues about running events if you want a chance to attend!

Alright, I’ve rambled enough…let’s get to what I’ve got for you this week. We’re going to look at an interesting new team that has had a few different looks, but with a serious group effort, it looks like we have something that could make some noise! I’m also going to look at the Prison Tier map and tell you why it’s SO good for the right team. In Miniature Mutations, it’s time to celebrate the power of Shazam and the work of ProfessorShenanigans (which I felt I needed to do, since this is release weekend, and I’m going to see the movie today). And I’ll have something fringe-worthy for you, so…

Team of the Week – Cooperative Korath Hulks

This team, in and of itself, is a lot of fun, but what makes it truly stand out to me is how many hands were involved in making it work. Randy Carter came to me with the idea of using Korath to get a huge string of attacks from the Hulk, and it was a little bulky for what he was after (it used title character Cap to get a free move out of Hulk to start the chain going). Of course, other people were looking at this, but Randy had an interesting core, but neither of us really liked the trigger. I looked at it a while before I finally thought of using the fast forces Penguin to start things rolling. The Clixed Off Army had also been looking at the team, and liked where we were heading, but threw in using the Jean Grey ID to extend the reach of the team. And Bob Gray suggested the Stark Car and Skids ID to help against the ranged teams like Hawkeye. He also felt having a back-up Hulk was important to the team. So, if you wonder who builds a competitive team, well, we all do!

Link: Cooperative Korath Hulks

OK, so how does it work? Well, the trick is using Korath’s trait to keep Hulk moving and therefore making free quakes. The Penguin allows the chain to start, as Korath’s trait triggers when a friendly hits with an attack. Hulk hits Penguin, gains the loyalty token, and then begins the string of move then attacks. You use the Jean Grey ID to give Hulk passenger: 1, so he can carry Korath through the attacks, and continue making the attacks as long as he hits. Renet is a taxi and a source of prob to help keep it going. Since Hulk has the loyalty token, he’s attacking at 13 for four damage, and given that he keeps rolling until done, it can be brutal. One gets the spear to give him giant reach of two, so he doesn’t get tied down by plasticity, and the other gets the venom harness for battle fury, and the team can handle a lot of different builds. Sometimes gimmick builds are too fragile to survive a real match, but with the two Hulks (rather than just one), this one can really make an impact.

No team is perfect, and this is no exception. It is vulnerable to outwit, and Hawkeye still scares it, even with the Skids ID card and the Stark Car. I would have liked to find a way to fit a little perplex on the team, too, as 13 (or 14 with Venom Harness) is a good attack value, there are some big pieces with some high defenses out there. Maps could cause some problems, too, as you need room so operate to make the gimmick work.

Still, these are manageable concerns to good players. It does make for some complicated turns, so you need to practice to be really effective with the team. But most competitive team fall into that category, so that’s nothing new. It’s an innovative build, and a lot of fun to play when it works – just fear the dice!

I will also say that I continue to say that Husk is a stronger choice than Skids for your ID choice, but I think I’ll talk more about that in my View From the Fringe!

Strategy Bytes

I had a chance to use the Prison Tier map this weekend, and I have to say, I really like it. It’s a strong map choice for a lot of teams, and worth a detailed look. It has a lot going on, and knowing what the rules are (which I had to ask some questions this weekend to be clear – and we still got it wrong after looking into it) can really define how you make use of the map.

So first, let’s look at doors, which you don’t see too often:

“Doors are a subset of walls that block line of fire, but can be moved through. Doors are indicated by dashed white squares with a black outline. Door are considered walls (and therefore blocking terrain) for all effects, including destroying it.

• Adjacency: Same as for walls.

• Movement: Doors do not impede movement in any way.

• Line of Fire: Same as for walls.”

And for windows:

“Windows are a subset of walls that can have a line of fire drawn through them, but can’t be moved through. Windows are indicated by dashed blue squares with a black outline. Windows are considered walls (and therefore blocking terrain) for all effects, including destroying it.

• Adjacency: Same as for walls.

• Movement: Same as for walls.

• Line of Fire: Windows do not impede line of fire in any way.”

So, if any of you watched my match with Harrison Fordyce on YouTube (you can check it out here), he kept commenting about how irritating it was that you can’t destroy doors. Sadly, none of us double-checked that in the rulebook, or we would have known they could be destroyed.

Regardless, they DO block adjacency, which is the biggest bonus for this map for teams like mine, and for alpha strike teams. Even if your opponent places you on the lower elevation end of the map, your taxi only needs to be able to move eight squares to hide you in a cell, which will offer you a lot of protection. And you can effectively body block the doors to keep you even safer. Well, unless you opponent is phasing, which you can’t do much about that.

The elevation makes the map interesting, as well. Terrain features are slightly limited in where they can be placed, and they can also be used to help funnel non-fliers to take the approach paths you want them to take. The windows aren’t something that I think add much, largely because the walls and elevation on the map limit line of fire, but there could be occasions where they might help ranged pieces from getting based.

Ultimately, I think this is a perfect map for just about any team that wants to engage in close combat. The walls are placed in such a manner as to have the effect of shrinking the map, as there are only 13 squares between the upper elevation and the wall in the middle of the map. Cyclops can cut through a wall, but good placement can make it difficult for him to get a shot that only goes through a single wall. I think it’s definitely worth a good look if you want to get up close and personal with your opponent!

Miniature Mutations

Since I’m going to see Shazam today (which, by the way, is my favorite comic character), I thought I’d look for a nice Shazam mod for today’s mutation. I was not disappointed – ProfessorShenanigans from HC Realms had posted some pictures of this awesome custom Shazam. He made a card for it, too, but I wanted to focus on the process of the miniature.

He luckily included a few pictures of the process, which included the base for the conversion, so I thought I’d share those too. You can find out more about the piece by going to the link here at HC Realms where he posted the original pictures.

View from the Fringe

As I mentioned above, I get why you want to use the Skids ID card on teams right now as part of the anti-Hawkeye strategy. But when you look at things, I feel like the Husk ID is a more flexible choice. So I want to take a look at Husk right now, looking at how she might be a berrer choice for your sideline options.

So let’s start with the two things these pieces have in common, and why they are being used. Skids has sidestep and barrier, while Husk has sidestep and can take barrier. Husk has a better attack value, and can move five and make a close attack for two damage. Husk can also choose ANY defense power, which may not always be useful, but having options is always a positive in my mind. If you’re running an X-Men team, she has the keyword, so she can be perplexed by your headmasters and she can use your theme probs. Finally, her shape change gives her an additional layer of protection from an opponent trying to score your call-in.

Skids does have a higher defense, and defend which could be useful. She also has the ability to knock back a character one square as a free action, which could cause a surprise KO if you can manage to knock someone into a wall or off a ledge. I’m not envisioning a scenario where this could be relevant, but Skids also ignores characters for movement.

In the grand scheme of things, if your goal is to have a cheap call-in to give you a barrier for a turn, one’s probably as good as the other. But I can see a scenario where you might need that Husk to get perplexed up and take a swing at someone. It’s rare, and you may only see that need once in a hundred games, but if you feel the need to use a slot for a barrier character, then I would try to get the most out of that concession.

Anyway, that’s what I have for you this week…I hope you enjoyed it! As always, I welcome you to tell me what you think on our Facebook page, and join us for our Daily Clix topic. And share with me your custom pictures! I’d love to see them! Have a great week!