DEEP DISH THEMES:
By The Slice:

ORIGIN: Wildfire was originally named Drake Burroughs, who lived in the 30th century universe of our Earth. Drake was an astro-engineer who became Wildfire as the result of an accident. While working with others on a new propulsion system, Drake was engulfed in anti-energy after a valve broke in the project. His matter body was destroyed, but replaced by an anti-energy form. His colleagues designed a containment suit to keep his new anti-energy body under control. Drake took to the name ERG-1 (Energy Release Generator 1). Because of his suit, ERG-1 could maintain a humanoid appearance. Without it however, he was a cloud of abstractly shaped anti-energy.

Due to many revisions/retcons of the Legion of Super-Heroes characters and their stories over the years, the origins of the characters tend to get a bit muddy from time to time. To read up fully on the backstory of this character, I'm providing a link below that will help to clear things up:
http://comicvine.gamespot.com/wildfire/4005-3621/



PROS: He packs quite the punch for a figure that is under 100 points. He has an impressive movement combined with Running Shot and an equally impressive range of eight. Though it's become a little more commonplace for a character to be in his point range and be able to cause this much damage, this was a pretty big deal when this REVLE set of Wildfire came out. At below 100 points, you had a character that can be at worst a back-up attacker and be as good as a primary attacker. He may need a bit of help in his stats, but that's what a good, old fashioned pit crew is for. He doesn't need that much help, and I'm not usually one for depending on other characters to make the focus of my articles useful, but for the points you'll have left over, you'll be able to even fit in another character or two at his point range and still have room for some stat help.

CONS: The attack values aren't very high on this figure, but they're passable. The thing that always makes me worry about him are his low defense values and only Toughness for an 89 point figure. He packs a punch, and he's still arguably playable in a modern game, but man is he soft. Being an older figure, he has a pretty long dial at seven clicks long, but his defense tops out at a lowly 16. Even low point figures these days have little to no problem cracking that nut, and then you end up with spilled Wildfire energy all over the place and that's not good for anybody.

THEME: I would get a lot of enjoyment out of playing a 300 point team using the Legion of Super-Heroes keyword as my base idea. I would create a very solid team using this rookie Wildfire, Prime Mon-El, and Matter Eater Lad for a great 299 point team. Mon-El would do the exact trick he was needed for which is bashing in faces as well as shoring up Wildfire's defense values. Wildfire would be a great cannon piece with his eight range, and Matter Eater Lad is ALWAYS worth his points...even if you only use him as a dedicated Theme Team Probability Control piece...plus he can get in an attack or two should somebody base your team.



PROS: It's at this point that the figure takes the solid foundation that the rookie set up and runs with it. This is a SOLID figure. The Experienced version has upgraded several very key items to make him as good as he is. First and foremost, one of his biggest additions is the change top dial from Toughness to Invulnerability. It's only one click, but it makes a lot of difference to have that one extra layer of protection from harm. Secondly, he has added an extra target to his ranged repertoire. This makes his dial-long Energy Explosion that much more appealing. He's actually gotten BETTER over the years as a result since they changed the way Energy Explosion works. He has an effective 13 range and then can shoot with his improved attack stats for four base damage and then he causes two splash damage if there is anybody caught in the area of effect. He's a phenomenal attacker for only 123 points. He takes up less than half of a 300 point team, and he is something that can be built around even today.

CONS: Though he's traded in a click of Toughness for a click of Invulnerability and that helps him out a lot, his stats haven't increased beyond the top dial 16 defense. Where the rookie was slightly more understandably bad in that area, we're now talking about a figure that is getting higher in point values to where it is not as acceptable. There are plenty of ways to help him out, obviously, but we've gotten somewhat spoiled in the modern age of HeroClix where figures are usually a little more self-reliant.

THEME: He looks a little bit like an alternate reality Iron Man so I think it would be fun to play him with an Armor theme team using all the different iron man allies and other characters of the armored persuasion. I'm not talking about the characters that have the keyword but just have some thick shoulder pads or a Helmet or something. I'm talking full on, head to toe armor like an Iron Man, Wildfire, Titanium Man, Rescue, and more like that. It would likely cost a decent amount of points, though. Characters like that tend to have a lot of heavy damage reducers and other powers that are costly to have on a dial, so reserve this kind of team for a large point total...I'm thinking something around 1,000 points.



PROS: This version of Wildfire might hold a record for the HeroClix figure that I've used the most out of any figure that I own. This was my cannon of choice back in the Legacy era of the game. I used him on more teams than I probably should have, but even with Energy Explosion not being then what it is now, I got all of my points worth out of him nearly every time. In fact, I rarely ever even USED his Energy Explosion back there. I was just happy to have a Wildcard team ability and the ability to cause that much damage from his newly acquired TEN range. When you combine the new range with his increased movement, it gives him an effective 16 range to work with. He's also picked up yet another click of Invulnerability up front.

CONS: The defense issue continues to be a problem with him, but I don't want to keep beating the dead horse. This time around, I'll talk about his last click. This represents him losing his containment suit and then being a being of pure energy. As a result, he has no damage or attack ability and a really low movement. His defense is also laughably low, but it does sport a click of Impervious. This might allow him to get back to a medic to heal him up, but those are becoming more and more scarce in the modern age of Clix. A character might have support here and there, but that is usually the exception to most rules. I have been happy to have that Impervious any time that I land on that click, but unless you land directly on it, it's inflating his point cost by it being on his dial. I wonder how much less he'd cost if he didn't have it.

THEME: Future keyworded characters tend to skew towards the scientific type of character that has a lot of ability to effect the battlefield in interesting ways with Perplex, Probability Control, or just general board controlling powers, but what they lack a lot of the time is muscle. Veteran Wildfire could be just that piece in a Future theme team. Since they have those kinds of powers usually, they would be ideal partners for Wildfire since he could use some stat boosts and they, as I said, have a lot of those types of powers.



PROS: In the grand scheme of things, the LE Drake Burroughs falls somewhere in the place between the Experienced version and the Veteran version of the character. If you wanted a figure that is nearly as good as the Veteran but you wanted to shave off some points, this might be the version of Wildfire that you're looking for. He doesn't quite get the movement and range that the Veteran gets, but he does have three full clicks of top loaded Running Shot. He still does just as much damage and has just as high of an opening attack as the veteran, but he's just 18 points less. I don't know how many times I've built a team and have found myself wanting those few extra points so I could add another character to my force. That's the best thing that Drake has going for him. He's the happy Medium of the original Wildfire figures.

CONS: One of my favorite things about LE figures is that a lot of times they take a concept of a figure and radically turn it on it's ear to create a whole new concept for a figure. It used to be the only LE figure that I would actively seek. I loved it when you would take a figure that was normally a cannon and now they would have a bunch of subtle, strategic powers or vice versa. It was like another whole figure in a set. Then you have LE figures like this one. Sure, you can use him when you need to shave some points, but other than that, there aren't exactly a lot of remarkable differences between him and any other version of him in the original REV series of Wildfire figures. It took me a long time to add this guy to my collection because I really didn't see a ton of point in it. If I needed to shave some points, it likely could have been done elsewhere. Luckily (Or unluckily in the eyes of some) he's practically worthless dollar wise, so it didn't cost much to acquire.

THEME: One of the core concepts of the Legion of Super-Heroes is that there are many of them. That's why they are a LEGION after all. I don't like to play small teams of Legion characters as a result. Since this pony's one trick is essentially allowing you to squeeze more characters onto your team, that's where I would most likely put him. Granted, there are other versions that I could put on the team, but this one is that happy medium character like I said. He might afford you a character that you would have otherwise had to cut from your team while still being able to play with a decent Wildfire.



PROS: Our first carded era Wildfire had a lot of neat tricks up his containment suit's sleeves...does it have sleeves? Oh, well...moving on. One of the first things you'll notice about him is the old returning favorite of Running Shot and Energy Explosion near the top of his dial. This isn't exactly a new trick, but when combined with his newly acquired Sharpshooter ability, it can be even MORE deadly than it usually is! You can now target the middle character in a group of enemies and cause maximum damage. This is especially key when you look at his damage special power that he has on clicks three and four (He has the power on click five as well but doesn't have the Energy Explosion to go with it). The power says "After one of Wildfire's ranged combat actions resolves, heal him of one damage for each opposing character that took damage during that action."
This is important to note because he is possibly able to damage a TON of characters all in one attack if all of these power combos can get combined for maximum efficiency. It makes him potentially extremely pushable as he could heal himself back to full from mid-dial with a lot of attacks. Another new trick is his front loaded Ranged Combat Expert and his back dial special power that allows him to use Pulse Wave and Poison. Opponents won't want to deal with attacking him from range due to his Energy Shield/Deflection, and they won't want to get close enough to be damaged by either power granted by his special. SOMETHING will have to be done, though, because this is a great ranged piece.

CONS: Modern era dial design has tried to shift some of the game play AWAY from Alpha Strike pieces, so a lot of times if a character has any move and attack powers, they don't appear until at least click two. Wildfire is no exception to this. His stretch of Running Shot come on clicks 2-4. By no means does this make him a bad piece, but it forces you to be a little more thoughtful with how you use him, and there are a startling amount of players that can't think beyond simple point and click/run and gun figures. He has a give and take with his dial that a lot of people might shy away from as well. He is defensively a little stronger than his predecessors with his slightly increased defense values throughout his dial, but at the same time he's a bit softer in several places with no late dial damage reducers to speak of at all. He has Energy Shield/Deflection alone to keep him safe. This will make people want to get in close to hit him, but a good player isn't going to risk the Poison and Pulse Wave to get him gone. They'll pick their shot and/or set up a move and attack piece to finish him off without incurring his wrath.

THEME: Heroclix has all but abandoned the TEEN keyword at this point. The last figure to have it was the Robin figure from Streets of Gotham, and that was years ago at this point. It's one more keyword to be abandoned which is okay, I guess. Generic keywords allowed for far too muddied "Theme Teams" if you ask me. I play them occasionally, but I don't have as much fun with them personally. This version has lost a lot of those generic keywords such as teen in favor of his two main ones which are Future and Legion of Super-Heroes. I'll choose the latter for him nearly every time. Again, he is a good ranged piece that can be a center point for a Legion team and doesn't even cost half of your allotted points in a standard 300 point team. he's a little too costly to put with my favorite Legion center piece (Mon-El Prime) but with a 400 point team, he fits in well with Mon-El AND the SLOSH 001 Cosmic Boy. That's a 400 point theme team that will be hard to beat!



PROS: This is essentially the culmination of all the great things about the previous Wildfire figures that have come before him. He has all of the best stats and then some, his powers are a very healthy mixture of attack and defense, and he even gets better if you pair him with his favorite gal, Dawnstar! He is also a much more strategic piece than the Wildfire figures of old as well. He only has a couple of special powers, but each one comes with a choice. His attack special allows you to choose between Penetrating/Psychic Blast or Pulse Wave. Great choices to have, right? It gets better! With the Pulse Wave, you can give him a double power action and deal his printed damage when making the attack. He doesn't have Willpower, so it's going to give him a click of damage, but this puts you on his very high defense stop click that has his other special power on it. THAT special power lets you use Regeneration and Impervious. When he uses Regeneration, either the minimum result is 1 or he can use it as a free action and subtracts three from the d6 roll instead of two. The free action Regeneration here is quite risky as there is a 50/50 shot you won't heal anything, but should you get to, Wildfire could get a LOT of attacks in. This guy nearly KO'd a full point Darkseid when I used him in a SLOSH sealed event and did so by himself. If the guy using that Darkseid would have just stopped rolling 5's and 6's on Regeneration, the game would have been mine!

CONS: I know a lot of people that have never actually played with this figure and tend to write him off as bad. Heck, I used to be one of them until that sealed event that I mentioned. All I'm going to ask is that you give him a shot. Yes, he seems like he is too many points for his damage output and that he has a couple of clicks of zero damage that seem too steep of a cost to pay for, but just give him a shot. I honestly don't think you'll be disappointed. Could he be better? Of course he could...every figure has room for improvement. I would have preferred for him to have some kind of Willpower whether it was given to him by the power directly or by Indomitable, but that can be fixed via other elements in the game. He is still a really good figure without it, though. If you learn to play him properly, you can turn those perceived weaknesses into strengths and he becomes a figure that you can almost manipulate his dial to your will as a result.

THEME: Hey look! He has a new Keyword option! Though there really isn't any difference between playing him on a Legion Lost theme team than there is playing him on a Legion of Super-Heroes theme team (Seriously, all the characters that have the "Lost" keyword are also LoSH), it's still a distinctly different keyword and it may be of note later if they ever make characters that would have this keyword and NOT the LoSH one. It would be different if the Legion Lost ATA was only able to be used by characters with the Legion Lost keyword, but it can be used by anybody with the Legion of Super-Heroes OR the Legion of Super-Villains keywords...so there really is almost no point currently to this being different. Oh, well. It still sets a group of characters apart from the main team and gives you a reason to play a specific group of them together. That's cool enough in MY book.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Now that we have had a little glimpse into the aspects of all the different Wildfire figures, let's take a quick look at his keywords and I will tell you my number one picks to use for each keyword theme available (Named keywords are bolded):

Armor: slosh021 Wildfire
Future: slosh021 Wildfire
Legion of Super Heroes: slosh021 Wildfire
Teen: lg203 Drake Burroughs
Legion Lost: slosh021 Wildfire

WHO NEEDS KEYWORDS?!

In this section, I'm going to list some possible theme teams that you could play Wildfire on that are definitely comic accurate but don't require keywords and provides links using Comic Vine and/or Wikipedia to tell you more about them. Unfortunately, using these teams mean you are going to forego keyword bonuses, but every once in a while Judges might let you slip by with one of these teams:

Justice League United
Workforce

This wraps it up for Deep Dish Themes: Wildfire edition. Thank you to garrus vakarian for the nomination, and thank YOU for reading! Feel free to post what you think about the article and feel free to nominate a character for an upcoming edition of Deep Dish Themes. Join me on 6/8 when I take on the Leader in a half-shell, Leonardo!

My favorite Legionnaire! Thanks for the write-up.

Love Wildfire.

Thank you for another excellent article. I love that Legacy Vet to this day.

Wildfire has long been one of my favorite Legionnaires! Legacy Vet Wildfire still kicks butt with RS, 10 range, and 4 damage! Throw in EE and his long dial and he is a real battlefield threat. SLoSH Wildfire is solid. I've found that STOP clicks provide a psychological advantage. Players avoid even targeting that figure because they know they have to invest a minimum number of actions to KO them. I'm not saying that is correct logic; just the logic used against me.

Yes! After being introduced to all of the LoSH members, Wildfire is my favorite Legionnaire. Coincidentally, I was just reviewing the old pieces myself. The SLoSH one is without a doubt incredible. He's much, much better than people give him credit for... I've laid down the pain with this guy. So, I'm happy to see you review him well!

I still need to get all of the Legacy REV. I do have Drake Burroughs though, which is a little gem in my collection. Never played him though.

And finally, that Superman piece, I love the sculpt. I love his powers. I just wish he started with Running Shot. I think he actually fits much better in the environment we're currently in, but back then, it was hard to get much mileage out of him without throwing somebody like Invisible Kid on his team to keep him from getting shot down immediately. Gotta say again, that sculpt is tops.

EDIT: I only now just noticed that I, in fact, was the one that nominated this! I had completely forgotten, so you know that my two posts worth of rambling was genuine Thank you for the credit!

The #021 Wildfire is an excellent piece, looks bad on paper but can carry a game in practice.

I also just want to mention that, once, against a cheesy team consisting of two Dark Magician Girls and some other nonsense, SLoSH Wildfire managed to live to time when everyone else faltered.

I managed to heal him back to full in one turn with that awesome special regeneration. Then my opponent was crying "cheese".

I also wanted to say great article, as usual!

yes legion love, nice article iv'e always thought wildfire was one of the best legionnaires though he's not my favorite that's timber wolf he's definitely right up there, iv'e found the new SLOSH wildfire to be both the most accurate and the most powerful of all the wildfire's out there so personally i don't think we'll be needing a new version of him any time soon.

Favorite Legionnaire and still waiting for a silver age Wildfire ERG-1.

E unl Wildfire on his last click 0 attack & 0 damage targeted V ult Mysterio and E mm Domino both on their last clicks. Crit hit.

One of my favorites. Nice write up.

Be on the lookout for my by the slice article next Wednesday for my Timber Wolf article!

I just played the 021 Wildfire for the first time maybe two weeks ago. My opponent just couldn't kill him. I lost the match but this piece alone made it worthwhile, watching the other guy's head explode. Those stop clix are no joke.

Excellent character choice!

One of my hardest-fought Sealed tournaments led to my acquisition of LE Drake Burroughs, so Wildfire is certainly a sentimental favorite.

All versions of Wildfire are playable, although I like the original's sculpt best.