It appears Wizkids really did listen to all of us.

And although they say this is starting with the new Marvel set...its really starting with DC ICONS...a complete set in one case.

I haven't been playing Heroclix in long time, and this announcement actually makes me want to start playing again.

I am thinking about using the new DC set as a base set to get back into the game...and then collect marvel a few Marvel and DC pieces from each coming set.

I wish they would make a video game of this game though. It would be great to see a DS version with all the sets up till now, and such. It could be awesome.

If you want a Heroclix related videogame, play X-men Legends or Spider-man 2

Now getting back to this, I am seeing many things here I enjoy. First of all, a set based around Armor Wars does have promise. Especially since it's not just a name anymore. I hope they keep a few non-related figures in the mix though or the set might get dull.

I don't know how successful clixbrix will be. However it's one of those things where it doesn't hurt to offer it. It's another option and I do enjoy it.

The exclusive LE for bringing friends in. Personally I brought all of my friends in long ago. I don't know who else to bring in.

The new Unique distribution is exciting. I hope this means I don't become swamped in untradable Uniques, but we'll see.

The good:

More uniques may mean that we can trade our uniques 1 for 1 and not have to worry that my unique isn't worth as much as your unique since there are more per case. I see NO down side to more Uniques at all. (clearly I don't sell mine on E-Bay)

Themes are great, love that concept, I just hope it plays out well in the cases and doesn't give us...

Iron Man from panel 1 in issue 2 of Armor Wars!
Iron Man from panel 5 in issue 4 of Armor Wars!
Iron Man from panel .... you get the idea, I like variety and don't want that to go away.

The bad:

Some of us don't go to venues for anything. Period. It really doesn't matter if I CAN go to one. I don't. I play home games with a pool of friends I have had for years. So why am I now a less valuable customer? I have bought cases of every set. I was really happy that they felt that the non-venue goer had value when they put SRs into boosters. Now I feel like they just said... "oh, wait.. no, we don't value you any more, that was temporary." No SRs, no brick LE, no bring a friend perk. If you don't go to a venue to buy, you get LESS from us then those that go to a venue to buy. It makes me wish that they hadn't put the SRs in at all, at least then it would be status quo and I wouldn't care. Now I care.

The ugly:

The reign of the 50+ dollar Uniques will come to an end only for the reign of the 50+ dollar LE to return. So now if I want an out of the REV mold I have to hit E-Bay for the high priced secondary market. So I guess Envoys are happy so they can sell thier tourny prize support. Ah well.

I don't see where the brick-and-mortar stores are going to be hurting too severely. The people that have the expendable income to buy oodles and scads of boosters simply buy cases. Those who buy "by-the-booster" will continue to support their stores. Personally, I only buy 12-30 boosters per set (depending on my available income at the time) and end up trading for the rest of my REVs and eBaying here and there for those uniques I can't live without. My "brick-and-mortar" venue doesn't really have a vast secondary market for Heroclix. Most of their business in that realm is done by selling boosters (which, in turn, is fostered by their running an enjoyable and well-run tournament scene).

Fewer doubles (and more uniques per case) insures me that I'm getting more "bang" for my buck. The only people not seeing as much of my money are those who are selling uniques on the secondary market (my wallet still cries whenever I field my U Nightcrawler or U Martian Manhunter). I don't mind that so much.

It's all good news, especially given how it feels I'm getting reamed with Fantastic Forces. They put Iron Fist, Black Knight, Luke Cage (all of whom are needed for my "Heroes-For-Hire" team-in-progress), three Thunderbolts, three New Mutants (including Warlock!) a playable Juggernaut, Spider-Man 2099, "Not-Ultimate" Hank Pym, the "real" Green Goblin and Vulture (which will make my "Sinister Six" seem all the more legitimate), Tigra, the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider, Volcana (which puts me about a Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman and 3/4s of the Wrecking Crew away from staging my very own "Secret War"), and Arnim "Face-for-a-Chest" Zola in a single set and then cut down the figures-per-booster down to three (even though it's two little guys and a big guy).

Armor Wars sounds potentially cool. I loved the "Silver Centurion" armor. Titanium Man would round out a team theme I've had since "X-Plosion" (along with Magneto, the Crimson Dynamo, and humming a certain McCartney song throughout). The Beetle/MACH IV would leave me a Techno away from completing a classic Thunderbolts roster. The "armor" theme might also lend itself towards obscure characters like Alpha Flight's "Box". I think we'll still see a smattering of other characters in the sets though. I mean, what would a Marvel set be without the requisite Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and/or Elektra?

Personally I was considering getting out of clix just due to the price, I mean if you want a good figure from some of these sets you'd have to buy an insane amount of packs or dish out tons of money on ebay, but this new distribution should make things better! I'm also excited to see what the do with this theme thing, maybe an "Our Worlds at War" set with a powerful superman and a convention sized figure of Imperix? And an infinite crisis set with a very ticked off batman? House of M? Either way my interest and excitment had been waning and this announcment definately lit a fire under me! I can't wait until Icons...I think I'm just going to hibernate until then.

p.s. I was very surprised to find out Marvel sells better....although if they had more expansions to start...like say a 2 or 3-1 ratio..that'd explain why they sell better.....

OK, now don't be silly.

Do you honestly think that's what he meant?

No, he ment that individually the Marvel sets sell better then the DC sets.

What you posit would mean the sales were even and there would be no reason not to alternate.

I've said it all along, nice to finally get some vindication on that one...



However, I do hope the next convention promo is DC.
That way I can sit back and relax and not worry about buying it....

This is in response to someone saying that the announcement was not enough to get him re-interested in the game.

Then the HCRealms standard pile-on occurred.

Folks: Consider this...

1) Wizkids comes out and makes a big show. BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! WILL CHANGE THE FACE OF HEROCLIX FOREVER!

2) Then Wizkids goes to WWE and Origins, and spends the entirety of the con pumping their "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! WILL CHANGE THE FACE OF HEROCLIX FOREVER!"

Is to TOO hard to believe that people who Wizkids drove out of the game (either with their ever-changing rules, or set design, or approved play snafus, or LE design, or other decisions) might be interested? Is it too hard to believe that people who had stopped playing Heroclix might stop by HCRealms to see what the announcement is, and to see commentary from folks on the announcement.

... and more to the point, see the announcement as not addressing their concerns?

It's NOT sad that people come here to explain that the announcement for them was hollow. Maybe they were people put off by set retirement, and see the announcement as a refusal of Wizkids to acknowledge the damage retirement did to their player base. They might even be insulted because Wizkids keeps crowing "We listened to our player base and..." when it's clear they listened to what they wanted to hear (as do we all, I should note).

You are welcome to only appreciate positive postings. I think the community benefits from both sides, the lovers and the haters, and those like Gentlegamer who are in-between.

What I find "sad" is people who cannot accept that things could be better in Heroclix, and that discussion of those things benefits the community.

RMS

Ok, I've been waiting to hear about this great and wonderful news that would CHANGE THE FACE OF HEROCLIX and make me want to HUG Bro Mags........

And I'm still waiting........

Don't get me wrong, I think this news is exciting, and I really like a lot of these ideas. However, I was led to believe that this might alter my life somehow....

My thoughts:

1. No rules changes........I know a lot of people like the rules as they are, but a lot of people would like to see some re-wording and re-asessment of the rules. Plasticity, for example, wouldn't really suffer from a boost in the rulebook. HSS has EVERYONE on edge as to whether they will change it to help or hinder HSS characters.

2. Armor Wars sounds sweet. I have 0 Iron Man figs, and that's mostly because the only one I want is Ultimate Iron Man, and he's still not cheap enough for me.....so I'm glad to hear he's coming in a set again!

3. New Guy Night is one of those ideas that are exactly why I value the opinion of Wiz on this game. They see it as a fun + fellowship game, as it should be. Their giving out starter sets to the newbs for free is equally awesome. Hell, I might bring my boss in for this!

4. ClixBricks........okay, I have differing opinions on this:
a. Online retailers can blow me. I hate Ebay, because out of the 12 transactions I've gone through since it's conception, 8 of those didn't involve foul play on the seller's part, and that's not a good enough ratio for me. I mean hell, my little bro just went and bought an Ipod on there recently, and he got jipped, no package. He reports it to Ebay, and Ebay doesn't do #### about it. And the other online retailers blow too. With the exception of sites like Cardagora, I consistently see prices that are far from reasonable. And do any of these things help my local venue? Hell no, they don't. I don't intend to buy my cases online, and I'm glad to see that Wizkids sees the value of my choice.
b. This is gonna backfire like hell. Way too many distributors have their heads up their asses lately. They'll break up the cases, some unethical retailers will take advantage of this so they can sell the LE's off of faked receipts (I read somewhere in the forums that a retailer was taking the prizes and selling them instead of awarding them, and despite reporting, they were sitting pretty on the deal.). I think this is something to get excited about if Wizkids kicks some asses. I, however, am still waiting for the case that I ordered, and my local retailer is pissed as hell that they haven't come in yet, and went into a rant about it while I was there, and he had a sound argument. My faith in the distro system is less than favorable, and despite the great announcement, I'm not jumping out of my chair about it until I see some improvements.

5. The new unique ratio seems great. I don't have any problems with it at all. Wizkids keeps a lot of fans very happy. I don't know how people can claim that they are going to have a harder time finding a full set now. And if they DO happen to have a sound argument for why it's going to be harder, I'm pretty sure it's because they've established a spending routine that just doesn't work with this anymore.

6. Nanobots feat: Awesome

7. Themed sets: I was kinda wondering when they were going to finally go in this direction. I could understand why they didn't in the first place: Too many franchises to try and pin down at the beginning, but I thought it was about time they started going in the themed direction. Good move. I think that this might be the beginning of themed play too. I disagree with a lot of comments that Wizkids should promote themed play NOW, because I have a LOT of trouble making a theme team if it's not unrestricted. Matter of fact, I think if they ever did, it would have to go hand in hand with nixxing retirement. However, releasing sets with certain themes that DON'T get retired would be a good idea that would slowly move the game in that direction.

8. Free Maps: Complain about it, I dare you. Seriously, free stuff is good.

9. 36x24 maps: I saw thugit post that this would help the range game. Maybe my understanding of the game is too poor to understand this argument. Wouldn't that mean that your ranged figures have less room to run around with? I fail to see how my close-combat game is going to be hindered when I'm throwing them in a straight line behind blocking terrain that is even HARDER to shoot around. Also keep in mind that having the map only work ONE WAY allows the map creators to move away from 4-corner methods and actually make hallways and rooms that are more gameplay oriented, instead of randomly throwing hindering terrain around the map. I think this is going to help balance the game AWAY from range instead of FOR range, but I could be wrong, and I think we'll have to wait to see the map to find out. To be honest, however, I like smaller maps.

10. 90% of the players that responded to the surveys were 18 or older. That should have shocked me, but it really didn't. I mean, just looking at my own thread in "another realm" asking people to talk about themselves yeilded nobody under 18. Matter of fact, I think I was the youngest one in that thread, and I'm nearly 22. And the fact that I rarely see anyone younger than me at the local venue during our events is a pretty good sign of this too. I guess I just thought that a lot of players that were under 18 probably didn't go to events very often and didn't really browse HCR very often. Maybe I'm still right, and should include "Wouldn't fill out a survey" to that assumption......

My $0.10.......

Will DC icons have the new unique ratio? Will people be able to complete a set in 1 case?

Someone needs to support online retailers? Really? Maybe it's because you don't play in tournaments, but for those of us who like to, it's important to support the local store as they're the ones giving you a place to play. Approved play drives a lot of sales, and they want to enhance/further that.

Online retailers already have a ton of advantages, in that anyone can order from them, and they don't have costly inventory/floor space to upkeep. And that's the point. Your Local Store does more to support the game than just Moving Product, and they're to be rewarded for that.

Just because you support one thing doesn't mean it's a slap in the face to another.

You can just "bother" to go to the store to pick it up, as it's free. Though as someone else pointed out, it will cost you time.

Does this mean I won't be able to get one as a player? Will they be sold individualy? Will there be a way for me to get one to play with the my friends besides going to ebay? I don't play in tourneys, can't stand the smell of being in a small room with 20 people who don't know how to spell shower let alone take one.

Speaking of which.... I like how they FORCE you to support your local retailers. There might be a reason why its not supported. I give my money to the person I order from, they give it to Wizkids, whats the difference to Wizkids end?

Fantastic Forces came out recently, as I'm sure you all know. I ordered 3 cases from my online source and got them. Now here in Tucson my brother wanted to buy a couple packs and EVERY PLACE is sold out cause they ordered 1 case and don't understand how they could have sold out so fast.

Ask them when they are going to get some in and its "uhhh, I don't know" or better yet the 1st local retailer I called on the Tuesday that it came out (I wanted to buy a couple before my cases arrived) they didn't even know a new HC set was coming out until I TOLD them that morning! "Dude I'll have to order some". I'm suppose to support this?!? Why?

I'd rather spend 10 bucks on it than spend an hour to go get one for "free" my time alone (not to mention gas) is worth more than that.

If the map gets smaller but Superman's range doesn't, then he now can effectively reach areas on the map more easily. You can't move away from the fray as easily because figures with long ranges now cover a larger percentage of the map.


If you could shortboard the map, it would be a decided advantage for figures with longer range. They could sit at one side of the map and have access to a bigger percentage of the map than they could previously. BroMags confirmed to me (although not on the "public" part of the chat) that you won't be allowed to shortboard. I still think it helps figures with longer range, but you can't do it as easily like I first feared.

So FORCEing is the same as "giving stuff away to encourage behaviour"? Interesting.

The difference on Wizkids end is local game stores sell product and give people a place to run/play games, which creates a network effect of more people playing. This is in Wizkids interests.

If you're so in favor of buying online, then what's the problem with buying off ebay when the time comes?

I thought as you did at first, but now I'm not so sure. As the map gets smaller and smaller, it gives more and more advantage to close combat, unless you think there's a "sweet spot' that exists for range below 24 squares and above 0.

I think the problem is range always has an advantage, so it's tough to see the changings. I think a bigger map helps range more, even though I realize they have a less percentage coverage. But it also makes it easier for them to run and keep people at their maximum range. Plus it keeps their support crew even safer. Smaller maps means easier striking of the bricks against the back line.