Masterful

Erik here (don't know who the Max character Wizkids refers to on the back of his card is) has done OK dial-wise in the past. Sure, his Infinity Challenge versions haven't dated too well (whose have?) but since then he's been a force to be reckoned with. But even those versions pale into insignificance before this fella. Lets take his dial one row at a time:

Movement: pretty much what you would expect – a little bit of running shot. The biggie here is the trait that allows him to carry four of his mates with him.

Attack: great numbers, never dropping below a nine – and also boosted by a wonderfully thematic trait that makes him more dangerous when he's standing on a pile of rubble. And that white power rocks in so many ways.

Defence: now we're getting silly. With the benefit of that trait once again, you'll be looking at 21 defence in hindering. Make that hindering a rubble token and his attack is up as well, of course. Oh, and he has toughness for those rare occasions when a shot gets through. And did I mention that opponents halve their ranges when attacking him?

Damage: nice numbers at the top, RCE and Perplex.

Personally, I pretty much lost interest in Magneto some time last decade when I lost track of whether he was a goodie or a baddie (though this figure's keywords make it clear this is the baddie version). That said, I really want to play this figure: on top of being pretty crazy powerful, this dial really feels like the master of magnetism.

The final word must be for that glorious, glorious sculpt. One of my favourite sculpts is the Rampaging Hulk and his little bits of debris jumping up from his fists. This takes that idea and cranks it up to 11 - though I do worry how many will make it into the hands of players intact or whether we'll be opening boosters to find something akin to a boiled sweet that's had a close encounter with a hammer.

And look, Erik's nicked the girder from the DC 75th Alan Scott Green Lantern!

Apparently Giant-Sized X-men will include a figure of "Wolverine as Death"

Is this what we can expect?

DC 75th post-release

This Sunday brought the Brighton post-release DC 75th tournament, held in an upstairs room in a café kitted out to resemble the bedroom to a teenage boy circa 1980 (I kid you not; among the many wonderful features are a mono record player, old-school Action Man, Back to the Future poster and assorted boardgames including Buckaroo. It's wonderful, and I keep meaning to pop up there when we aren't playing 'clix so I can have a proper look around).

Having scared off the last few non-Clixing café patrons in the room (to be fair, we did have it booked for our use), the ten players in attendance cracked open two boosters each. The format for today would be or usual pre-release method - first round at 300pts, then 400, 500 and finally 600.

My first booster was good, and included Hal Jordan SR, Deadshot and Cheetah Beast Boy. The contents of the second were beautifully colour-coordinated in pink and purple: Carol Ferris, Queen Aga'po, Ruling-cast Dominator and whatever other purple figures the set includes. It was as if Trinny and Suzanna had assembled a booster.

Round One
Hal and Carol fitted together so nicely at 295pts how could I not play them as a team? Round One was against Matt: comic-geek-without-peer, Heroclix judge and excellent player. His team included the Golden Age Batman (great sculpt, even if it does look a little like Batman's waving a walking stick above his head), Deadshot, Bart Allen and a Dominator. My already slim chance of a victory weren't helped by the fact that I based Deadshot, forgetting that Sharpshooters can use ranged attacks against adjacent figures (in my defence, I get to play rarely these days): four clicks of penetrating damage later, that was pretty much game to Matt.

Round Two
Refusing to be deterred by their previous poor performance, I stuck with the Hal and his girl, and teamed them up with Deadshot for Round Two. I was facing Greg; a true gent and a darn fine player; I didn't rate my chances too highly. My apologies to Greg, but I can't remember what he was playing or even too much about the game. Except that I lost.

Round Three
I still hadn't given up on my star-crossed lovers, and was pleased with how Deadshot performed in Round Two, so added the Dominator and his Ruling Class boss to the pack. The Outwit they brought the the team proved very useful in Round Three, which was against Michael - a lad who shares my passion for giant transforming robots. Against a background of talk about Samurai tanks and G2 Primes, I managed to clock up my first victory.

Round Four
My final match of the day was against tournament organiser Lamp who, fortunately for me, was on a rare losing streak. Not that it wasn't a close game - my victory literally came down to the final action of the match, when Hal KO'd Lamp's Captain Comet. I had added Black Alice to my team for this outing and, while she didn't to too much, more Outwit and her PC came in useful. Overall, I finished fifth out of the ten players.

It's hard to deny that many DC 75th sculpts lack a certain dynamism

The rare necessities?

I have noticed what seems to be a worrying trend in the construction of the most recent Heroclix sets – and I'm not just talking about sculpts such as Super-Lumpy (see previous post). What is concerning me - besides the weather, my workload and whether Transformers 3 will be as bad as Transformers 2* - is NECA's attitude to the super-rare slot.

Even as recently as Hammer of Thor and The Brave and the Bold, the SR slot was, for the most part, reserved for niche figures. How many of us were gutted that we didn't pull a Hela, a Seth or a Kurse, for example? There will always be a few particularly sought-after figures such as HoT's Volstagg but, for the most part, the SRs were more unusual characters that most casual players and non-collectors could live without.

This seems to have changed with the release of Web of Spiderman and the upcoming DC 75th.

WoS is a Spider-man themed set: a gathering of the allies and enemies of your friendly neighbourhood wall crawler. And in many ways the set delivers the goods - until we look at Doc Oc, Green Goblin, Sandman and Mysterio. Why were these four, all among Spidey's best-known enemies, put in SR slots when the majority of Marvel fans and 'clix players would love to get their paws on them?

Actually, we all know why - to sell boosters - but does that make it the right thing to do?

NECA seems to think so. Looking at the recently spoiled DC 75th set list, the JSA versions of Green Lantern, Supes, Wonder Woman and Batman are all in the SR slot while, for example, a niche character such as Warlord is an uncommon. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd much rather have a new version of Alan Scott than a Conan refugee with a dodgy taste in headgear.

So, what do you think? Am I being naïve and should accept that this is the way of collectible gaming, or does NECA risk annoying - and at worst losing - customers with a policy of making key, mainstream characters hard to get hold of.

* As an aside, Transformers 2 is a fine movie on DVD as it is possible to watch only the 15-or-so minutes of excellent robot-on-robot action while opting to avoid any scene that isn't at least 90% CGI.

I wish to God I was making this up...

...but apparently some of us will be seeing this when we crack open boosters of DC 75th.

For more images - many of which will make you feel a lot better about this set than the above pic - click HERE.

STOP PRESS: I think I may have stumbled across the inspiration for this sculpt - taken from a parade in New York in the 1940s (or possibly 1939):

Dear Wizkids...

Dick gets dynamic

Now here's something a lot of us probably didn't expect to see - a flying Batman. Better still, a flying, charging Batman. Just look at that first click: swoop in, leave behind a smoke cloud and lump an opponent's figure with that lovely 11 attack and 3 damage. Then laugh as they fail to hit that 19 defence in close combat. Two clicks later and Dick loses his rag and starts flailing around with his Flurry. Lovely stuff.

I really like the sculpt too. While it doesn't do such a dynamic dial justice, it still looks great and is an obvious homage to the cover of Batman and Robin issue 1.

One more reason to be looking forward to DC 75th.

Source: wizkidsgames.com

You'll lose your Rag

Well, who knew? Apparently, 'Ragdoll' in an anagram of 'most annoying tie-up piece you are ever likely to come across'.

This fella is fabulous - unless your opponent is fielding him, of course, and he is standing next to your 200pt brick. For just 46pts he has Shape Change and Super Senses to keep him out of trouble - followed by Combat Reflexes for when someone does actually land a blow. Then there's THAT white power - and I'm not talking the one that requires you to be playing Parademon.

Just picture your opponent's face when they finally manage to break away from this annoying pasty-faced bugger (did I not mention all that lovely Plasticity?) - only to be back to square one with Ragdoll still far too close for comfort at the end of the action.

Of course, he has his downsides - primarily an understandably short dial. Base Green Scar with him, for example, and miss the Shape Change and Super Senses rolls and it's all over over for Doll-face. Still, it's gotta be worth the gamble.

I love me a nice tie-up piece - and they don't come much nicer than this fella. If this is the shape of things to come for the DC 75th Anniversary set then bring it on.

Now, where can I get me some Secret Six books?

Source: Wizkids/Neca

Taking the theme thing too far?

I'm playing in a tournament on Sunday with a Hallowe'en theme; my 600pt team must include one demon, one scientist, one alien menace etc.

Now, I love playing thematic teams so am making mine as Hallowe'eny as possible - Green Goblin, Morbius, Ghost Rider. Which is where I hit a problem. I needed Ghost Rider to fill my 'demon' slot and wanted to run the Danny Ketch LE - but as far as I could tell from searching on line, the being that posseses Danny boy.isn't actually a demon. As a result I have put the exp Johnny Blaze in the team instead - as he is most definately down with the demons.

The incident got me wondering whether I was being too anal about this; the guys I play with wouldn't have made a fuss if I'd gone with Danny. But, at the end of the day, I would have known and wouldn't have felt totally happy playing him.

So, dear readers what would you have done?