This week, I need to start by retracting a statement I made last week. I was really thrilled that the fine folks at WizKids made such an amazing piece of equipment a participation prize, so it would be really accessible and give newer players something they could build with. Sadly, they didn’t include enough of these with the WKO kits, so in practice, only the top 16 players are getting the pieces. Some venues may be running it differently, but the majority I have encountered are giving it to top 16 finishers. For smaller venues, there’s no issue with this, but in most locations I have heard about or been to, this means some people are getting left out, which kind of defeats the purpose of having participation prizes. While I know the secondary market is going to calm down shortly, initial prices for the Exospex have been as high as $75, which again shuts out the newer and less resourced players. What I thought was great is now rather disappointing. Shame on you, WizKids!

So what doesn’t have so much of a barrier to the new players is CU Pauper (I like calling it CU to distinguish it from the Fast Forces/Commons version), and the Pauper League will have a tournament November 25^th at the Rusty Scabbard in Lexington, Kentucky using the ROC Win-A-Map kit. I encourage other tournament organizers that are interested in promoting the format to reach out to me, and I’ll tell you how the event ran. I’ll also set up a communication network if there’s enough interest. Since I’m not going to world championships this year, I’ll be focusing on a CU Pauper build next week for the team of the week. This week, I had to stay focused on Modern, since I’m playing in a WKO today.

And that WKO is why this is early today. I have to be honest – I’m not feeling great about today as I’ll be playing a team that I built from the ground up, but have had no practice time with it. Still, there’s something about playing a team that is YOURS that can’t be compared with playing the top teams. You know why things work, what they were meant to do, in a way that you can’t relate to other choices. So we’ll see what happens today.

So what else do I have for you this week? My team of the week is more of a fringe team that Randy Carter and I put together, and has some potential…but I will admit, it hasn’t been tested yet, so play at your own risk! There was a lot of talk this week about a possible abuse of the Exospex, and I had some difficulty working the rules out in my head, so I’m going to break it down for you in Strategy Bytes so we’re all on the same page. My mutations will include a piece by one of our Facebook group members, and I’ll also share the dial for the first piece in our fantasy set. And just for my friend and Captain, Bob, I will take a fringe look at Batman from the OP kit. He’ll probably argue Batman is not fringe, but who do you see playing him?

Team of the Week – Klingon Mud Men

I like unusual teams, and so this is definitely the kind of team I’d enjoy playing. In fact, the only reason I haven’t played it yet is because I’m not sure how it deals with Goblin King. That’s just a hard puzzle for a swarm team in my mind. Anyway, Randy Carter, Bob Gray and I ironed out the details of this on the way back from a Win-A-Map in Columbus a few weeks ago.

Link: Mud Man Empire

So, the concept to this team is pretty simple – Green Oracle carries the swarm to the fray, where lots of plasticity locks your opponent down. The Klingon LT gives all friendly adjacent characters empower, so your Mud Men should usually be swinging for six damage. Golden Skull gives you an extra action, plus one to attack to the adjacent characters, and brings in a couple of pogs of his own. Both Green Oracle and Golden Skull also have perplex to help with that important attack. Mangog is a good retaliator, and might possibly be able to pull the Odinsword if your Mud Men tie up well enough. Call-ins have to stay under 50 points, but that still gives you two Wolverines, a Cyclops, and a Jubilee to hurt other swarms. Since you don’t like range, the office map is nice…plenty of walls, but room enough to drop your team where you need to.

Not that you’ll get to play on that map often, since there’s no theme. Lack of probability control might also be a problem, but the number of attacks with high damage will hopefully make up for that. You’ll be equipping the Venom Harness on your Klingon, but that leaves him as your only solution for shape change. There’s room for Trouble Alerts as you like, which is probably a good idea with the number of swings you’ll have. It’s a bit troubling that Green Oracle doesn’t have willpower, and that’s she’s only four clicks deep, but hopefully she’s buried in the Mud Man swarm so she won’t often be a target. She is, however, in my mind, the weakest link on the team.

Still, the bulk of your offense is hard to kill, and the boosts make it a threat you can’t ignore. Your opening moves will be your most important, as you want to tie up as much of your opponent’s team from the start as you can. All that plasticity will go a long way to do that, though, so you should be good. Try it for yourself and tell me what you think!

Strategy Bytes

Exospex on the Hulk from the fast forces from the Mighty Thor set has sparked an interesting discussion lately, and it’s something that I felt deserved a little time, because I didn’t get it at first. So to save some of you the confusion I first experienced, let me break it down for you in detail so you can have fun testing this combo for yourself.

So you have the starter Hulk equipped with the Exospex, and you use those to give him hypersonic speed. Here is the exact wording on hype for clarity:

“HYPERSONIC SPEED: BREAKAWAY +2. POWER: Halve range,  :0. Move, then make an attack, then move up to ‘your speed value minus the number of squares just moved.”

This has a lot of interesting benefits. Since there are two move instances with the power, it allows you to pick up an object and drop it in the same turn, so it can give you the same effect that many players are using characters with sidestep to do – namely, move to pick up an object, then sidestep to drop it in the square of a character they want to equip so that the character may be equipped in the starting zone. This is not relevant to what what we’re doing with Hulk, but it’s a valuable tidbit of information, nonetheless.

Starter Hulk has the following trait:

“HULK SMASH: When Hulk moves, after actions resolve he can use Quake at no cost.”

So, whenever he moves, he gets to use quake at no cost. Some players mixed that with sidestep in the past (granted either by Supreme Intelligence, or by using Michelangelo’s smoke cloud) to get extra attacks. Which is the same thought process here. Since hype grants two moves, you get two quakes, plus the attack in the middle of the hype. Because the Hulk’s ability states “after actions resolve,” he must wait until after the conclusion of all aspects of the hype action before he can use quake.

This led many to believe that Hulk should only get one quake at the end of the hype action. However, on page 10 of the rule book, it states:

“A triggered effect can trigger multiple times before resolving, most commonly during an action and involving after resolutions triggered effects. All of those triggered effects will resolve separately.”

They then use the combination of flurry with steal energy as a specific example:

“Flurry says “CLOSE: Make up to two close attacks.” Steal Energy says “When this character hits and damages one or more opposing characters with a close attack, after resolutions heal this character 1 click.” If a character with both powers uses Flurry and hits with both attacks, Steal Energy triggers twice and both triggered effects resolve separately after the Flurry action has resolved.”

So, based on this logic, the sequence of events would go like this – Hulk moves for the first part of his hype action, Hulk makes his attack, Hulk makes his second move, Hulk quakes, then Hulk makes his final quake. Keep in mind that you can declare a move of zero, so he could conceivably make all three attacks on the same character, but he will need to make a breakaway roll to get the final move, and therefore the second quake.

Hope that clarifies things for you!

Miniature Mutations

First I want to say that I love it when readers share with me their creations, whether they do so on the Facebook group, or if they email them to me. When I see a really excellent piece, I like to highlight it and give the creator a chance to talk about what they’ve made. So here’s what Doug Mayse had to say about his outstanding Maestro custom:

“I wanted to more or less mimic the toy biz Maestro figure from the 90’s Hulk line as he was adorn with the trophies of his fallen foes. I’m still missing a few pieces as I need to source another helmet or mask, as well as a couple chains etc to complete the look before I paint. It’s been roughly 10-12 years since I’ve made a Heroclix custom. In the early days of Clix around 02-05 Customs were in high demand and eBay was a godsend or making quick cash for a custom painted figure. At the time, I honestly funded my hobby with them.

As for a parts list, the base figure is the gravity feed Avengers movie Hulk, spliced in to parts from the Battle World Maestro. The helmets and accessories have been plucked off of many other figured across man sets.”

It looks great, and you can see the work that’s gone into it. I hope more of you will share, so I can share it with the world!

On another note, I want to share the first dial for the fantasy Hasbro set I’m putting together. This is #001 – Cobra Soldier!

Sorry if that’s hard to read…since HCTools is gone, I’ve yet to find a new dial creator. I’m currently using the tools on HC Realms, but that won’t allow me to make the dials for the minis, just for display purposes here. Still, you can follow the link if you want to try it for yourself!

View from the Fringe

What? A Batman on the Fringe? Not really unheard of, but I think this one deserves some attention. I know of a few players who really like the piece and want to make it work, but I have my reservations, although I do like it better than the other pieces in the Trinity OP kit. So let’s take a closer look at Batman and see what works and what doesn’t.

The dial’s pretty solid, though I would argue not outstanding. Outwit is always good to have, especially since he has the Superman team ability, and can see through stealth. And of course, the Batman team ability for his own stealth is good, too. His gas pellets are the outstanding feature…essentially it’s allowing him to move six and still perform a costed action, which is pretty big. TK him out six, then free placement for six, and call in something with good range and you can have a start to your alpha strike. The Heroic Icon tokens could also add to some difficulties for your opponent, giving the whole team a neg two to attack for a turn. He could pair pretty well with Sheriff Rogers. It’s a shame he doesn’t have the police keyword.

Actually, it’s a shame he doesn’t have a lot of keywords…it might make him a more appealing choice. Batman Family is fairly strong right now, but Trinity isn’t, and detective is fair at best. I suppose flurry could pair nicely with the free placement, but I feel like this could have been a better power. I actually think paired with his placement, sidestep would have been awesome. Then a 17 defense, even paired with combat reflexes, is not something I love. Especially at 100 points. I looked at a few ideas to take advantage of his placement ability, but I have yet to find a build that warrants the points.

Maybe I’m missing something that he would combo well with, but right now, I think he’s going to sit on my shelf a little longer. Maybe the next set will give him what he needs to truly shine.

So that’s all I have for you this week. Wish me luck today at the WKO! I’ve had a rough go on the tournament scene lately, and I’d really like to feel good about my Heroclix skills again. Feel free to throw some encouraging words on the Facebook page, or send me some pictures of your mods at clixbait@digitaledengames.com so I can include it in next week’s blog. Thanks for continuing to read, and feel free to let me know what you want to read more about…I’m not above pandering to my audience!