I bought a set of tabapp pieces for my son (wolverine/cyclops/iceman). I've been away from the game since original rules. It seems to me, even with not using the new powers that these characters are extremely overpowered for their point allocation.

I read in the new rules how for some character types (green ring?) you can have one per team. These tab apps seem like they would be considered as such. But they have no color ring. When compared to the power of my original series guys, these tabapp guys should be double their values! Cyclops doing 4 damage plus having leadership for example seems ridiculously OP for a 100 point guy. Or Wolverine having a ranged attack now, take no damage from pushing, 3 damage a hit, blades and claws plus regen..... In a 100 point character. No way that's balanced. That is more like a 200 point minimum character!

So how do you use them on a team?

There is nothing special about the TabApp characters as far as HeroClix is concerned. Treat them like any other character.

If you've really been away since the beginning with the original rules, then they will seem overpowered. But I guarantee you they are not anything terribly exceptional.

As a point of reference, this is what 200 points can buy you these days:



(since you seem to be a little out of date, that symbol is basically built in Willpower)

Wellll, one of them fits into the fairly rare niche of characters able to pull tokens off themselves.

But she still plays like any other HeroClix character. Special powers and traits aside, character is character is character. The guy is new to the game... we don't need to be throwing tons of special powers at him right now

Holy crap.

So, how are old characters played under the new rules if they don't have the extra symbols, skills, etc? It really does not look balanced to me, but if they actually took all that stuff into consideration when they made the new point allotments I will take your word for it. It just seems to me that the old guys are weaker, point for point. Almost like it is a new game- new rules for new, more powerful guys, but keeping point allotments low so you aren't stuck with only using 1 or 2 guys for a 200-300 point game and not even able to use 1 for a 100 point game.

There's probably a lot of that, but you also have to consider that there were more clicks on characters back then. Now, you'll have less clicks, but they are all useful. I didn't play back in the day, but it looks like a game that relied a lot on support.

Old guys are weaker point-for-point.

It is called power creep and it is a pretty much unavoidable thing with all collectible games.

The new characters need to be more powerful, so that people will still buy them.

But the rules are still the same for the old figures and the new figures.

I did notice that. Fewer clicks before death. Almost like they are designed to all burn hard and fast now.

I haven't played the new rules, but my first impression is that the old way of playing definitely required more support and strategy. I'm not sure I'm liking these new rules heh heh. When I used to play with my buddy just choosing our characters could take a half hour, and turns could be quite protracted. More like chess than an RPG. How long do games generally last now?

I disagree. They can be made more powerful, but they should still follow the rules of point allotment so as to not make old characters obsolete.

But then the older characters, while less powerful, would still be cheaper and you're able to cram more on to a team. People could still say, "I'd rather play with this than buy the new hotness". And that means lost sales.

Like it or not, power creep *IS* a factor in collectible games. Even if just a little. And since you've missed pretty much everything that's happened in the last 15 years, all those little incremental changes add up to a very, VERY big difference.

In general newer pieces are going to more powerful, shorter dialed, shorter ranged and more consistent stats.

Old stuff isn't completely obsolete though (unless you're playing strictly modern age, then yes it is useless obviously). 1-trick pony support pieces, taxis, mastermind fodder, filler, cheap tertiary attackers and long range snipers have remained relevant


I'm working on tracking down this golden oldie because of how absurdly good he can be paired with this venom

I feel like it still lasts a long time, but did not play back in the day. I would say nowadays, when you feel like the game is pretty much over, it is. Whereas, some of those older figs can linger even though you know which way the game is going.

I also feel like the game is much more unpredictable. If you look at the older dials they lose powers and stats, so you know that's the trend when you hit a character, but now you have stop clicks, and you have late dials with great endgame powers.

Well, yes it means more sales which is why they do it. I understand that, but it's still unfortunate to my mind that they alienate all these old characters.

This is very true.

Up until about Armor Wars (when a new designer took over), dial progression was extremely predictable. Additionally, if most any character took more than 2 or 3 clicks of damage, it might still be on the map but it was basically just mobile blocking terrain because the combat value plummeted so fast.

Since Armor Wars, the dial design is much more varied and, while perhaps shorter on average, they can also generally DO SOMETHING USEFUL their entire dial.

There are always exceptions to both eras in design, but generally speaking I like the post Armor Wars design paradigm much, much better.