I have a quick question: Can a 0 range be Perplexed? I haven't seen it done before.

Example: Let's say I have Bi-Beast. He is three squares away from his nearest foe, Hulk. Let's say I have three Perplexers. Can they Perplex his range up to 3, and then Bi-Beast can make a ranged attack on Hulk?

Yes, this is perfectly legal. It's a nice way to hit characters that are on the rim of elevated terrain.

In a short answer, "yes". Because range is consider a combat value
From the 2011 PAC:

You can also use it to give Animal Man a 1 range pulse wave.

Yes, and have had it used to me once to great effect. Wolverine was on lower elevation than me, had his range perplex up one and hit me. Pretty much won the game for the opponent. It's rarely useful, but when it is, it can really take the opponent by complete surprise.

The best use of this was when Soaring was still part of the game. Some folks would hide their figures in Soaring when their Opponent would only have 0 figures left. It would surprise them and they'd get upset they'd get attacked.

With the introduction of multiple elevations I can see Soaring being reintroduced.

Multiple elevations have been around a bit, now. I don't know exactly the first map that had them, but it's been a bit.

Soaring was a bad mechanic, and the game is much better off without it.

-nihil

To me, talking about Soaring is like looking at pictures of what you/others wore in the Early 90s.

"Oh my god, what the hell were we/they thinking? How did we think big bulky sweaters and thick coke-bottle glasses were fashionable?"

"Flight stands? Sweet Jesus, what were we smoking back then? A little dealie to indicate 'soaring?' Jeez, those were some weird-### times."

Personally, I miss soaring, but I do think the flight stands were hideous. I'd like a more aesthetic way to reintroduce it though.

Thankfully I started after the whole soaring thing was nixed. But to get back on topic, the perplexing of a 0 range character is one of the sneakiest moves. I try exploiting it as much as I can.

I liked soaring and here is why:

I was playing in a tournament back when Armor Wars first came out. The game was 500 points, all figures had to be from AW, but all feats we legal. I'd just gotten the new Sentry, and was itching to give him a try. I posted a team I wanted to try, and when I got to this venue, 2 of the guys there asked me what my online name was. When I told them, they looked at each other smiled and said' You know what to play against him.' ::shrug:: Whatever, it wasn't going to change my team. Anyway, they both played teams full of Avengers T-Bolted to Mystics, and had Armor Piercing on at least 1 figure.

So the first game, I'm playing the one guy. He's got Mystics all over the place, plus he's got V Quicksilver with Armor Piercing and Nanobots. Sentry is Charging around, smashing with Heavy Objects, but taking Mystics feedback like nobodies business. I'm tying him up, and attacking with the rest of my team (can't remember exactly what it was, but V Echo was there), but they are all getting creamed as well.

So we get down to it. He's got V Quicksilver (top dial still) and E Shaman (sitting on a roof top). Sentry is my only figure left, and he's getting close to his last Charge clicks. My only chance is to Push Sentry to try to wipe out Shaman, otherwise Shaman is going to Psychic Blast me, then he'll probably finish me by Pushing him. So I Charge in, picking up an Object *smoosh* KO'd Shaman. Took my Push and Mystics Damage, which pushes me past my last Charge click. He HSS's in with Quicksilver, hits for 1 with AP, and buggers off again. I clear. He pushes and HSS in again to hit me for 1, putting me on my last click. He buggers off and goes to Nanobot the last object. I take Sentry, move him into soaring, then reach out to shake his hand. 'Good Game' I say. He looks at me with this puzzled look on his face? 'What? The games not over?' 'Sure it is' I say, 'you've got an HSS figure that has AP and a 13 Movement and no range. I've got a figure with a 7 move and no move attack, who's now sitting in soaring. I can't catch you, and you can't attack me.' The look on his face when he realized that I was right, was worth it alone. I ended up winning the tournament.

Yeah, I didn't use soaring that much, but it did come in handy every now and then, and for that one game alone I miss it.

Multiple, as in more than just grounded and elevated is something recent within the past nine months.

I had done something similar with Deathbird back during Xplosion, which is why I had seen a lot of players try to use it against me. It's one of those aces you keep for just the right time.

I think I understand how it works, but can anyone actually post the rules for how soaring worked? I started Clix last year, so it's way before my time.

Best surprise attack.


Ever.

You could do it any time you moved a flying character. It cost one movement point to move between soaring and not-soaring.

Characters who were not soaring could shoot at/draw LOF to soaring characters, but used half their range or squares.

Characters who were soaring could not do anything to characters that were no soaring (exceptions for Giants and Colossals), but also did not have to worry about terrain and the like.

So a 0-range flying character could move up to soaring level and then advance up the map in relative safety since all ranged attacks, Outwit, and such were at half range. I too used to use Soaring with Sentry many, many times.

It used to be even better because the *OLD* soaring rules only prevented a soaring character from attacking/targeting a non-soaring character; the didn't say anything about stuff that wasn't actually character based. So XP Iceman could go up to soaring, staying relatively safe and secure... and place Barriers around the map at his full 6 squares. That was awesome.