HeroClix A to Z – Counting Cards.
Part 2 - I have two left feet and a dozen Trick Shots!

Its not much, but Connie called it home.

Mutant Mayhem introduced the new concept of Feat and Battlefield Condition cards to the game. There were a few in that set that stood out, and even changed the game, and a few that were less than stellar. DC’s follow-up, Legacy, took the concept and ran with it. Scoring more hits than misses in both types of cards. This is part 2 of a 4 part review that will discuss all of the new Feat and Battlefield Condition cards from Legacy.


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The Avengers Mansion - post Bendis.

Counting Cards: Part 2
I have two left feet, and a half a dozen Trick Shots!

Fortitude
Cost – 25
Prerequisites – None

This was one of the feats that generated the most buzz when it was first announced. People joyously declared; “I can now play KC Superman!” And “Ares and Fortitude will rock!” (I imagine that accompanied by a fist pumping in the air.)

But is this feat worth all the hype? Well, it certainly does accomplish its primary goal: Make high price bricks more feasible by removing their primary weakness – Outwit. With Outwit removed from consideration, figures like Superman are actually worth their points (mostly) since the powers, primarily defense, can be used to their fullest extent. Impervious always has the opportunity to dodge an attack, and HyperSonic Speed is readily available. Even though making that a reality requires you to tack another 25 points on an already expensive figure. And that’s the catch 22.

The only figures worth playing Fortitude on are the high priced ones that you don’t want to crumble like a house of cards under Outwit and a half dozen weenie attacks. But is there a fine balance between paying a lot for a good figure, and paying too much? If Ares is good with Fortitude, why not also add on Damage Shield, In Contact With Oracle, and maybe even Armor Piercing for good measure? Or is that overkill?

That is the primary weakness of Fortitude, its an expensive card that makes expensive figures, well, more expensive. Other weaknesses include: Psychic Blast - Range has always trumped close combat, so the fact that Fortitude protects against Exploit Weakness, but not Psychic Blast almost seems backwards. Fortitude’s other arch nemesis is Armor Piercing (one hundred and two uses!), since even with Fortitude, an attack with Armor Piercing still deals 1 damage. So why even bother with Outwit when you can just build the advantage into the attacker? Lastly, Fortitude’s biggest foil is… no outwit! Even though some people believe that Outwit is as common as hydrogen, the reality is that some people actually play without it! (gasp!) In a case like that, you’ve blown 25 points of your build total to defend against… nothing. (Yeah it still blocks against Exploit Weakness, but that’s hardly as ubiquitous as Outwit, and is more like a garnish on the feat than its primary appeal.)

In the end, its not that the Fortitude card itself is bad, but that there are actually too many ways to go around it that it doesn’t quite live up to its own worth. There will be cases where it may be worth twice its cost to your character, but that will probably be balanced out by the times where its completely worthless and you could have done better to spend those 25 points on something else.

BFC’s that affect Fortitude are: White Noise. If there’s a chance your opponent can’t Outwit you in the first place, you wouldn’t need to spend the points on Fortitude. Darkness and Deep Shadows also limit Outwit’s usefulness by limiting its range. Sure your figures are limited to only 6 range as well, but for figures like Black Adam or Zod who can move great distances and attack, that limitation is as bad for them as it is for the opposition. And best of all, those cards are free to use!


Large Object
Cost – 3 points per 100 of the build total
Prerequisite – Super Strength or Telekinesis.

At first this feat is a little tricky to understand, so here’s the basic gist of it:
- When using a standard heavy object for a close combat attack, you can reduce the damage bonus from +2 to +1, and instead get +1 to your character’s Attack Value.
- For heavy objects thrown as weapons, you can reduce the damage to 1, and get +2 to the attack (similarly when using the Soda Machine 3D object in close combat.)
- Light Objects get no bonus in close combat since they only deal +1 damage to begin with.

So, with that cleared up, what does Large Object do for your team? Well, on the plus side, its not an overly expensive feat, so if you want to use it, your whole team can get the benefit for only a handful of points. Also, your opponent will only get the points for this feat when the last figure that can use it is taken out. So if you can keep one fig alive with Super Strength or TK, then you can keep the points out of your opponent’s hands.

Even though the feat isn’t the easiest to understand, it does have its advantages. There are a lot of figures out there with mediocre attack values and Super Strength. Many of them have high enough damage that you can spare a point from an object in order to increase their attack value. This is also helpful for many figures later in the dial who keep Super Strength for a long time, but their AV drops.

The catch here though is how you use objects to begin with. First of all, Super Strength is not an optional power in close combat. So if you arm a character with an object in hopes of using the Large Object feat later, the first time they take a swing in close combat they lose the object. This makes it particularly difficult to use later in the game, since you’ll have a hard time planning for it.

Additionally, the biggest drawback is the number of objects in the first place. In a typical game, you’ll have an equal number of heavy and light objects, so there’ll be 3 heavy objects to use this with at all. You can supplement this with the 3D light object that offers +1 to damage, so there’s 4 objects. You might also get lucky and face an opponent that also puts in 3 heavy objects (since technically, each opponent puts in 3 objects each, even though more often the case is that 1 person puts in all 6.)

So in a typical game, you’ll have 3 objects to use with the feat, and no guarantee that you’ll be able to even get your hands on all 3 (your opponent could hide one in the corner, or in an opening move shoot the object and turn it to rubble to prevent you from using it.)

All of that leads to the determination that Large Object just doesn’t quite work out in a game. Any team that needs the bonus probably isn’t going to get to use it. And any team that doesn’t need the bonus won’t bother to play the feat in the first place.

The best use of this feat then, actually falls to Telekinesis. TK characters can make much better use of this feat than Super Strength figs. Even light objects thrown with TK can get a small bonus, and as such you’ll have more objects to choose from. TK’s long default range and the fact that its optional means that a TKer isn’t going to burn through their arsenal in the first attack. Lastly, combining Large Object with Armor Piercing on your TKer means that a figure who would typically be relegated to support suddenly becomes a capable attacker! The feat is also cheap enough to afford in a 300 point game. Over 300 points, and you’re probably better off using Perplex or Hydra/PD team ability to increase your AV and not worry about objects.

There are not many battlefield condition cards that affect this Feat. Overconfidence may be an issue if you had otherwise planned to help your characters’ Attack Values with Perplex. This could also be helpful if Poor Teamwork comes up, so your Telekinesis figures can be a little more useful. But neither of those BFC’s have enough of a specific disadvantage to build a team around to use Large Object.


Stunning Blow
Cost – 10
Prerequisite – Incapacitate

Yet another feat that is not only extremely clever, but also very useful.

Many players think this card is best used on figures with multiple ranged targets, and even though its good for them, it actually does the most to increases the value for figures with a single target incapacitate and high damage. This is because these figures with high damage probably never use their Incapacitate. Why give a target a token and a single click of damage for pushing when you could deal 3 damage instead? Sure you may have used Incapacitate once or twice with these figs, but it was always a secondary ability. Thanks to Stunning Blow though, now you can combine these attributes and take advantage of both the high damage and Incapacitate. And if you’re wondering why that’s such a big deal, then you have not been introduced to the joys of Incapacitate.
Basically what Incapacitate does for your team is allow you to control how your opponent moves. If you’ve ever breathed a sign of relief that your opponent’s figure is pushed, and thus you know with certainty that they aren’t going to do anything bad to you next turn, you can plan your own actions accordingly. With Incapacitate you can force your opponent to push, thus creating your own window of opportunity.
It also helps that the Incapacitate action deals damage as well.

Figures with Multi-Target Incapacitate were already good. They’ve had the option of dealing their damage, or slowing down multiple opposing figures. One figure slowing down 2 or 3 is a huge advantage. Add to the fact that Incapacitate ignores Impervious and Invulnerability, and you have a way to pick away at the bruisers and slow them down at the same time.

Stunning blow takes those already good figures and adds another layer of usefulness. Now characters like HT Batman or HT Nightwing (for example) can Incapacitate two targets at once and deal their base damage as well. One good case for that could be when you want to slow down a brick, but still deal damage to a soft target. So dual target Thor and his U-Man sidekick, Thor gets another action (probably pushing), and the Uman who probably won’t have an action on him can get the brunt of 3 clicks of damage (putting him off his Enhancement clicks!)
In other cases splitting up the damage (one here, two there) just makes the sting of Incapacitate that much worse.

Incapacitate in general is a great, if somewhat maligned, power. It can be a huge ability for some well designed figures, and on others it can be an overpriced burden. Stunning Blow doesn’t do much for the latter group, but makes the rest of them that much better, for only 10 points more.

Stunning Blow isn’t specifically affected by any Battlefield cards. But since Incapacitate is such an effective way to deal with Impervious, a good strategy could be to use it with White Noise which limits Outwit, and use Incapacitate instead of relying on Outwit.


Trick Shot
Cost – 20
Prerequisite – Plasticity or Ranged Combat Expert

This is the one Feat Card that was carried over from Mutant Mayhem. There’s not a whole lot of new info to be said about this except to note that the wording of the card changed slightly, but significantly.

This new version of the card specifies “When making an attack” which is different from the more generic “When drawing line of sight.” The difference is that the new card no longer allows some figures to use Outwit against targets in Stealth. It also doesn’t allow a TKer to put his teammates behind other figures or for a figure to put up a Barrier behind enemy lines. All of that specialized functionality is gone, and the card is down to the bare bones use of just making an attack.

Even though some players may miss those extra little tricks, the game may be better off with the change. It has turned out that Trick Shot is one of the more potent feats introduced yet, and has had one of the biggest effects on the overall game. Besides breathing new life into the Green Lantern team ability, its also resurrected old favorites like Amazo, and even brought otherwise obscure figures like Nebula to the forefront.

Since Trick Shot pretty much defeats Stealth, a good alternate option for defense is Barrier. Sure it costs you an action, but at the moment it is the only reliable defense against figures that can otherwise see past other figures and through hindering terrain.

A couple Battlefield cards that work against Trick Shot are Darkness and Deep Shadows. Deep Shadows may not seem useful since Trick Shot ignores the hindering terrain effect, but by default a team relying on Trick Shot is a team that relies on Range. Limiting that range to 6 can give you the breathing room you need to get your close combatants up next to their shooter for an attack. Also keep in mind that basing a figure with Trick Shot prevents them from using the feat to target figures in Stealth or behind other figures (even if the character using the feat is a flyer!)

Trick Shot teams also tend to be built around one specific figure, and that means they have to keep that figure healthy. War Zone and Radiation leak will limit that team’s ability to keep their primary figure healthy.

Since Trick Shot already defeats Stealth, there aren’t really any Battlefield cards that help this feat card. But with so many BFC’s that can hurt a Trick Shot team (Crosswinds, Poor Teamwork, sometimes Earthquake, and the 4 mentioned above), Ordinary Day is probably a Trick Shot team’s best friend.



That’s it for the Feat Cards from Legacy. I’ll be back on Monday with part 1 of the review of the new Battlefield Condition cards.

First post!

No i'm kidding. Nice review. It'll be useful.

The "con artist" in that shot MAKES the picture.

Bravo.

Awesome pictures! Good review too but the pictures and the captions are the highlight for me.

I find (so far) that the Fortitude Sweet Spot is one figures in the Medium Brick category-- running about 90-120 points. Low enough that adding 25 doesn't make your team too topheavy, high enough to be worth protecting. It was great on Superwoman, who had a variety of powers to be outwitted-- PC, SS, Imp, Charge, CCE. In general, it'll be more helpful on bricks with a lot of powers. I can't count the number of times I've neutered a brick by taking away his charge for just one round. Outwit isn't always used on defensive powers, you know.


Still costly, though, and I don't think I'll use it all that often.

I think the biggest beneficiaries of this card are the no-range Incapacitators. With one arrow you might still have situations where Incapacitating someone was the good choice. But when you had to be base-to-base with someone to Incap them it was almost never an option. Now someone like vet Black Canary, with a 10 attack and 3 damage has a reason to Incap. She's likely to hit, give 'em a token and hurt them. That's also why I think the picture on the card is Star-Spangled Kid doing a close-combat attack

thats great.

and the pics are funny too.

Foritude is great for theme teams, where your heavy hitter might have to be a 100-150 point brick. But in a low point game Foritude may be a waste on a 100 point guy, just because there are so many options.

Thoughts on the first picture "So Connie the Con Artist is taking her work home."

Thoughts on the second picture " Oh no! Vice Raid!"

The same. Absorbing Man already had great damage and a deep dial for a low cost, but the trade-off was that he had such a pitiful defensive value. Outwit him once and one could knock him halfway down his dial. The same applies to Swamp Thing, with his 11-click dial and Impervious for under 100 points. For an extra 2.5 points per click, Fortitude is a great way to force your opponent into working for those points.

Stunning Blow and Armor Piercing... mmmmmmm...

Outside of Trickshot, StunningBlow is amazing

it is a very good card, and well thought out

Careful thespiderfly, you still need to deal at least one damage for AP to work.

I think that Fortitude (in low point games) works better on characters under 200pts but over 100. In the larger games is where you can toss on big boys.

I agree. I think that fellows like Ult Iron Man are the ideal for this feat, although I haven't had a chance to try that out yet (my newborn is hedging in on my HC time). R Juggernaut would be pretty slick too...

Azs, with Large Object, couldn't you reduce the light object bonus to 0 in close combat to get +1 to hit? I just kind of assumed you could...