didn't really pay much attention when Mage Knight first came along. I had just weaned myself off of the collectible card game craze, and the idea of a collectible miniatures game held absolutely no appeal for me. The mere sight of the words "starter" and "booster" left a bad taste in my mouth. And watching Mage Knight's players quickly become Magic-like in their obsession, I felt like I had made the right choice.
But recently a couple of friends of mine began raving about Marvel Hero Clix, which is essentially Mage Knight done Marvel Universe-style. And these guys are hard-core anti-CCG -- one of them still holds a personal grudge against Magic for causing the demise of his carefully thought out Earthdawn campaign. So for them to be this excited about it, I figured it really had to be something.
Boy was I right.
From the moment that my Sabertooth belted my friend's Wolverine with a critical hit and sent him sprawling across the courtyard we were fighting in, I was hooked. This is a great game for both the super-hero gamer and the miniatures gamer.
Essentially, Hero Clix uses the same Combat Dial system used by Mage Knight. You have a pre-painted figure mounted on a rotating base. Printed on that base are statistics for Speed, Attack, Defense, Damage, and Ranged Attacks. As you take damage, you dial down one "click" for each wound you take, with your statistics decreasing appropriately. Each figure also has a point value for use when assembling your army for play. It's a very convenient system, eliminating the need for cards, sheets, and rule books in order to know what basic moves a figure is capable of.
Some of the statistics have colored boxes around them. These indicate super-powers that particular character has. They range from the ability to grant extra actions through Leadership to Telekinesis to simulating the razor-sharp claws of a Wolverine or Sabertooth.
In a great touch, characters can gain or lose powers as they take damage and lose clicks. For example, Magneto loses his Telekinesis once he's been knocked down a peg or two, simulating the fatigue the fight is taking on him, while the Hulk actually grows stronger and deals more damage the more hits he takes as his brute-force rage takes over, and Captain America gains the Toughness ability when he's down to his last click, symbolizing his never-say-die attitude.
There are some odd choices here -- Spider-Man doesn't have the Super Senses ability and Juggernaut can't Charge -- but these seem more like balance issues than outright omissions, as giving some characters every ability they have in the comics would lead to some seriously over-powered characters. Overall, the super powers do a great job of capturing the feel of each character while simulating their abilities in a fun but practical way.
In addition, some figures have a team symbol, marking them as members of the Avengers, the X-Men, the Minions of Doom, and other famous Marvel groups. Having more than one character of a particular team gives all members of that faction certain bonuses; a member of the X-Men can take a click of damage to give one click of healing to a fellow member, for example. Our play group already has an X-Men team, an Avengers team, and a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants team, and while the teams are not essential to enjoy the game, they do add another level of nuance, especially for those looking to recreate some of their favorite comic book battles.
Some characters have matching colored bases. These indicate arch-enemies, like Wolverine and Sabertooth or Spider-Man and the Hobgoblin. Arch-enemies can never be part of the same team, and defeating an arch-enemy gains extra victory points for that player. It's a fairly limited concept right now, with only Spidey, Wolverine, Dr. Strange, and Daredevil having arch-enemies, but with the large number of characters yet to come in future expansions, this could become a much more meaningful feature.
On top of that, there are usually three different versions of each character, indicated by a colored ring around the base: Rookie (yellow), Experienced (blue), and Veteran (red). Each one represents that character at a different point in their career. Statistics, abilities, super powers, and teams change to reflect the history and growth of the character -- the Rookie Rogue hasn't learned to fly yet, and Magneto changes teams from the Brotherhood to the X-Men and back to the Brotherhood just as he did in the comics. These facets, combined with the point system when building armies, helps to ensure that your yellow and blue characters don't simply sit up on a shelf collecting dust.
Some characters have a silver circle, indicating they are Unique. While the three basic types all have the same sculpting, the Unique is a different sculpt altogether. The unique Captain America has his World War II-style shield as opposed to the round one, the unique Professor X has his hover-chair rather than his traditional wheelchair, and the unique Spider-Man is in the black costume (some characters, like Nightmare, Quasar, and the Vision, are only available in the Unique form). While the Unique versions usually have higher point values, most of us playing couldn't see any real advantage of the Uniques over the Veteran versions (the Unique Wolverine, especially, seems underpowered compared to his Veteran counterpart). Perhaps this is simply a nod to the collectible crowd who will simply want one of each figure and aren't concerned with gameplay, and further play may reveal some value that our games up until now have not.
Rounding out the line-up are an assortment of henchmen, thugs, and SHIELD and HYDRA agents. While most of these are low-point characters there to fill out the ranks on your team, some do have the Support ability, which allows them to heal an adjacent teammate 1d6 clicks of damage. The value of this cannot be underestimated -- a 12-point HYDRA medic kept my Veteran Magneto alive and kicking for a good portion of one game, constantly staying by his side and healing him as my opponent made every effort to take this powerful character out of the game. However, adjacent opposing characters make it impossible to use this ability -- you can't really heal someone when Spider-Man is standing next to you ready to clobber you -- so the game never boils down to who has a healer or not.
So now you have all these figures with all these numbers and colors and symbols on them. What do you do with them? Well, this is where the fun begins, as the movement and combat systems are fast and easy to learn. Each turn you have up to three Actions (this can be increased using team abilities and super powers). When a character performs an action, be it movement, combat, or using a power, they receive an Action Token. This is a key concept, as a character with one Action Token has a choice to make the next turn: do nothing and remove the Token, or perform what is called a Push, acting again that turn and earning a second Action Token. While this allows the character to immediately respond to what his opponent does, the character takes one Click of damage, to simulate the physical strain of pushing themselves that extra mile. And a character with two Action Tokens cannot act the next turn. There are times when Pushing is a good idea -- a character like the Hulk, who gets stronger as he takes damage, is ideal for this strategy -- although it can frustrate those who simply want to rush in and join the fray. However, it does keep the game from degenerating into one decided by who wins the die roll to go first, and it can lead to some great comic book-style moments -- in one game, an opponent's Cyclops Pushed to make an attack on my Magneto. The Click of damage KOed Cyclops, but he scored a critical hit, badly wounding Magneto and dramatically altering the course of the game. What more could one ask from a super-hero?
Movement is simply moving a number of inches (or squares on the game map provided with the starter set) equal to the character's Speed rating, taking into account terrain and obstacles. Combat is just as simple: it basically boils down to adding your Attack/Ranged Attack stat to the result of a 2d6 roll. If that total equals or exceeds the Defense stat of your target, your attack hits and does a number of clicks of damage equal to your Damage stat. Double ones always miss, and double sixes always hit, so every dice roll means something, even if a character seems hopelessly outmatched. And rolling doubles on a successful attack roll causes Knockback, sending the victim flying from the force of the blow. Once a character clicks down to "KO," they're defeated and out of the game. Super powers can make attacks stronger or lessen the damage taken, and as each character usually has at least two super powers, there are a variety of options available to you. Team work is a must: Magneto can use his Telekinesis to hurl enemy characters out of the combat or teammates closer to it, and Captain America's Outwit ability can "turn off" an opponent's super power for the entire turn, allowing that last-ditch attack to get through. Between the super powers and the team abilities, there is a tremendous amount of variety to the types of teams you can put together, and with more characters to come, this variety will only get greater.
If there's one complaint, it's that the quality of the sculpting and the painting does tend to vary, both in general and from figure to figure. As someone who has shied away from miniature gaming mostly due to the time and effort involved in assembling and painting figures, having everything done for me is a huge plus. That said, some of the paint jobs are a tad sloppy, with eyes little more than black dots in larger white dots and costume colors bleeding onto bases and skin. And some of the sculpts leave something to be desired -- the Vulture and Whirlwind both look like they're having bladder problems. But when they get it right, boy do they get it right: the flowing capes on Dr. Strange, Magneto, and the Hobgoblin are wondrous to behold, and the Hulk looks as hulking as a one-inch tall figure can be. Regardless of some of the more suspect sculpts and paint jobs, each character is readily recognizable for who they are to anyone familiar with their printed versions, and several people are simply collecting the figures for their own sake. The official site -- http://www.wizkidsgames.com/heroclix/marvel/default.asp -- has a figure gallery that gives a very good idea what the figures look like.
Overall, Hero Clix is a winner. It's got everything I want from both a miniatures game and a supers game, from a smooth rules system to the thrill of smashing the villain or smiting the hero. With Thor, Iron Man, and several other heavy hitters on the way (and the promise of a Sentinel down the line), this is a game that should have a long healthy run with our gaming group. And with planned versions for the DC and Image characters (not directly compatible but more than likely not too hard to convert), it looks like we'll be fighting the good fight for some time to come.
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