Sunday January 23, 2005

JUST PLAYING

It’s not over yet, but still, right now it looks very likely that this year’s Super Bowl will be played, for the second year in a row, between two teams I loathe very nearly as much as I hate the entire concept of family values. I suppose it’s possible the Pittsburgh Steelers could overcome a 14 point deficit in 8 minutes – God knows enough teams did it against the Bucs over the last two seasons – but when I turned the game off and came in here, Big Ben had just thrown another interception. So, it seems unlikely.

Assuming that, in fact, the hated Patriots do advance to the Super Bowl to take on the despised Eagles, the only way anything good comes out of that game for me is if a gigantic meteorite hits the stadium halfway through the first quarter. And that kind of cataclysmic impact would most likely sink the entire isthmus of Florida, too, so I wouldn’t get to enjoy it for very long. Still, at least I’d die knowing that the goddam Patriots wouldn’t be making any more of those frickin obnoxious “not in our house” commercials I’ve been gritting my teeth through all year.

Turning my attention away from the ongoing frustration that this year’s NFL season has been and continues to be, let’s focus for a moment on something I enjoy more: HeroClix.

After kicking it around back and forth in various emails with Mike Norton, I decided to take the plunge. While my HeroClix House Rules are certainly already far more complex than the official rules set out by WizKids, they mostly layer on additional modifications and options without fundamentally altering the essential, underlying regulatory framework. I’d shied away from making really serious, really innovative changes (although a game played under my House Rules is substantially different than a ‘real’ game already) because I didn’t want to turn ‘my’ version of HeroClix into something all but unrecognizable to a mainstream player.

Nonetheless, my House Rules are specifically designed to make a HeroClix battle simulate much more closely the kind of combat situations one sees in the superhero comic books that the game is supposedly modeled on… and no matter how I tweaked things, the basic movement set up of HeroClix simply will not work within that framework.

In WizKids miniature games, all of which have essentially the same underlying movement rules, you can, basically, either move or attack with a piece. Only certain pieces can do both, requiring certain powers that tend to be fairly uncommon. For example, Hawkeye starts out with a few clicks of a power called Running Shot, which under WizKids’ standard rules, allows a fig to move up to half its movement number and make a free ranged attack. Captain America has a power called Charge, which allows a fig (again, under WizKids’ rules) to move up to half its movement and make a free Close Combat attack.

If you have neither of these powers (and the vast majority of the figures in this game do not) you cannot move and attack on the same turn without help from an outside agency. It used to be that flying characters could carry, or taxi, any other figure their full movement, and the figure getting the ride could then attack upon arriving (or take another action, but generally, they’d attack; it’s a combat game, and pretty much everything comes down to doing damage to the opposing characters, which means, attacking as much as possible). But more tactically minded players soon started taking advantage of that in ways not intended by the game designers, so a lot of rules were passed to prevent this from happening, the keystone of which is the No Action After Taxi rule, or NAAT. With this rule, flying characters can still carry non-flyers, but the fig that hitched a ride cannot do anything at all after it is placed on its new location. It has to wait until next turn to move.

For those who play completely within WizKids’ official rules (and ignoring NAAT is the most common house rule in existence; players who scrupulously adhere to every other regulation WizKids sets forth will still contemptously reject NAAT, as it is widely regarded as pretty much sucking every last ounce of fun out of the game if you play under it), then, there is only one way you can have a character move and attack on the same turn, and that is to have another character with a power called Telekinesis move that character. This is not considered a taxi. However, Telekinesis, like Running Shot and Charge, is also a very rare power, so if you want to use these options and have your game pieces be at all mobile during a match, you have to restrict yourself to maybe one-quarter of the available figures in all of your games.

Let me pause for a moment and digress in a couple of directions.

Why is it important to be able to move and attack on the same turn?

Those who have never played this game may well find this baffling. It’s simply because of this: if you can’t move and attack in the same turn, then you have to move your piece into position on one turn, and then wait to attack with it until after your opponent has a chance to respond. As a general rule, if you have moved one of your pieces into a position to launch an attack on an opposing piece, that opposing piece (and, probably, a few other opposing pieces) can now attack your fig. And they will, when the opponent’s turn comes around. As a general principle, in the game of HeroClix, when you move into position to attack with a certain character, you make that character vulnerable. If you leave that character there, your opponent will attack it before you get a chance to attack with it. And in HeroClix, most figures become far less effective after they have taken some damage. And there is nothing more frustrating in this game than moving a piece you really want to attack with into position to do so, only to have your opponent then utterly destroy that fig (or render it ineffective) before you can do so.

It is MUCH more effective to play with pieces that can stay out of range of the opposing side while it is your opponent’s turn to attack, and who can then rush in and launch an attack in the same turn.

Let’s give a few examples. Hawkeye, a character I mentioned before, has two different figures in this game now. The first is the ‘mainstream’ Hawkeye, who has Running Shot but who generally isn’t considered to be a particularly useful piece (his Attack Value and Damage Value are both relatively low; much lower than is, in fact, compatible with how Hawkeye is depicted in the comic books). The second is the Ultimates version of the character, which I despise, but who is generally played a lot more under WizKids normal rules, because despite the fact that he doesn’t start out with any Running Shot, and he has a slightly lower range than his mainstream doppelganger (an 8 as opposed to a 10), he does 5 clicks of damage with a shot instead of only 3, and he has a significantly higher Attack Value (an 11 as opposed to a 9).

Under WizKids current rules, the only way to get a shot off with the Ultimates Hawkeye in the same turn as you move him into position is to use Telekinesis on him. The mainstream Hawkeye, on the other hand, has both Running Shot and a range of 10, so he can hang back, out of range of the opposing force, or behind cover, and then move forward on your turn and take a shot.

Charge works similarly for close combat, which requires you to be on an adjacent square to an opposing fig. If Hercules, who does not have Charge, wants to attack someone in close combat, he has to move up to a square adjacent to that figure and then wait until next turn to attack. On the other hand, if the Thing, who does have Charge, wants to punch someone out, he can move up to half his movement value and if that brings him adjacent to an opposing figure, he can attack them that turn as well.

Hercules, by having to wait, makes himself vulnerable to being attacked first by whoever he just got base to base with. As a general rule, then, nobody plays with Hercules under the regular WizKids rules unless they have a Telekinesis figure to move him into position with, and most people just won’t even bother wasting the points on that.

Having explained all this, the next question comes up -- Why do I care that under these rules I can only effectively use a small handful of the available pieces? I mean, if some pieces are much better than other pieces, why not just use them in all my teams? After all, Ulik the Troll has Charge, and does as much damage on a Close Combat attack as any other piece in the game. Why not just put him in all my teams, along with, say, Captain Marvel, who has a high movement value, a very high Damage, a long range, a very high opening Attack Value, and the power Running Shot? Why not only use the relatively few pieces that function with real effectiveness under the rules as WizKids has written them?

Well, there are players out there who do this. Go to a tournament, or even sit down at some ‘friendly’ games in certain gaming groups, and you will invariably run into the same teams of characters over and over again. I know one guy who never plays anything except Justice League pieces (and then he generally only plays the ones with Outwit) or X-Men, not because he likes those characters more than any others, but because he finds them to have the most effective combinations of powers and Team Abilities. At one time, before NAAT, I do not doubt that the average tournament featured at least half a dozen teams with two different versions of Firelord on them, and even now, people still like to play a team of characters with Blade/Claws/Fangs surrounding the rookie Invisible Girl, with a Green Lantern right next to her to move the whole unlikely, ungainly construct more freely around the board. There are people who always have Batman on their team, no matter who else is on it, and I have heard of players who always have three different Saturn Girls on their team, as well.

Me, I consider this to be rotten playing, and it’s one reason I avoid tournaments. I like HeroClix because I like the characters that the pieces represent. Designing an array of tactically effective interactive powers isn’t how I build my HeroClix teams. I’m much more interested in pitting the Avengers against the JLA, or the Fantastic Four against the X-Men, or something like that. I’ll create theme teams, like Girls With Guns, or Beast-Men vs. Robots, in which characters from different universes who would never meet in the comics end up on the same teams, but they are there because I think it might be cool to get every single female character who carries a gun into the same force for one conflict, not because I think some particular combination of their powers may be invincible.

To me, people who put the rookie John Stewart next to the rookie Invisible Girl, put Trick Shot on John Stewart, and then surround them with a barrage of cheap Blades/Claws/Fangs figs from the Indy set, are pretty much cheating. And, worse, they're demeaning the game. I do not regard my HeroClix as being merely very complex chessmen. I regard them as the characters that they represent, and I respect their backgrounds, personalities, histories, and what I know of their established behavior when I build teams.

A lot of other players do things very differently, of course, but I don’t want to play the game that way, and, for the most part, I don’t want to play against that kind of player.

So, I want the full range of HeroClix available to me, and, frankly, I do not want to have to deal with the disadvantage of being someone who only builds theme teams battling against someone who designs their teams to be effective regardless of anything else.

Beyond this, the movement rules as they currently exist in WizKids are, as mentioned briefly well above, simply inconsistent with how things work in comics. In comics, Spider-Man does not run up to the Green Goblin or Dr. Octopus and then stop dead and wait for one of those guys to swing on him. As a general rule, when a superhuman engages in combat, they fling themselves forward at full speed, hurling blast beams or throwing punches or whirling around on their hands to kick the Silver Samurai right in the face with both feet. They do not get a ride from one of their buddies who flies, for the most part (and if they do, they certainly do not then stand in one place, paralyzed, while everybody they are fighting against launches a barrage of attacks against them). They do not, again, as a general rule, have Marvel Girl or Cosmic Boy levitate them thirty feet further down the street, so they can throw a punch a quarter of a second after they land.

Now, the above statement should not be taken as universal. I have read probably hundreds of thousands of superhero comic books in my lifetime, and there are occasions when, say, Thor might grab up Spider-Man or Daredevil and carry them along with him as he goes hurtling into battle. There have been many occasions, to use one specific example, when Giant-Man has carried the Wasp along with him, in combat or out of it. Superman often carries Batman, and occasionally, others, up to the Arctic to his Fortress of Solitude. As a general rule, though, this kind of ‘taxi-ing’ is done because otherwise, the heroes being ‘taxied’ will not be able to keep up with their faster, more mobile buddies. It is not done, ever, to allow the hero being carried to get in a faster attack on an opponent than they would otherwise be able to do, because in comics, when a superhero lands next to a bad guy who is in the middle of committing a heinous crime, the superhero in question immediately begins pummeling said bad guy about the head and shoulders with all his or her might.

I, and I suspect, many other HeroClix players, want the game to work as closely to how combat works in the comic books we love as possible, and these underlying movement rules – first you move into place, THEN you attack, unless you have special powers that provide otherwise – simply do not allow this. They force people to make their characters do things that characters would simply never do in the comics, and that don’t make any actual sense, like, having the Silver Surfer carry the Hulk into combat on his surfboard so the Hulk can immediately launch an attack, when in the Marvel Universe, the Hulk would just jump all over whoever it was he wanted to beat up on and crush them into goo with one smashing movement.

And even that wildly unlikely maneuver (the Surfer carrying the Hulk into combat on his board) is only possible if you refuse to acknowledge the existence of the No Action After Taxi rule. By the strictest of WizKids’ rules, if you want the Hulk to move and throw a punch in the same turn, you have to have someone use Telekinesis to move him into place. As if the Hulk is ever going to hold still for that!

So, after some kicking it back and forth with Mike Norton, as noted, I have begun playtesting the following modified movement rules:

Figures may move up to their full movement value and make one close combat attack/action for free. Figures may move up to half their movement value and make one ranged combat attack/action for free.

A figure who has the power Charge adds +1 click of damage to any successful free Close Combat attack made in combination with movement up to the target figure. This includes the d6 rolled for Blade/Claws/Fangs damage. A figure with Running Shot may move up to their full movement and launch a ranged attack/action.

WizKids has also declared that unless you have Charge, you cannot pick up an object and hit an opponent with it in the same turn. You have to pick it up on one turn, and attack with it on the next. Similarly, unless you have Running Shot, you cannot pick up an object and throw it on the same turn, you have to pick it up on one turn and throw it the next. Under my rules, above, this is set aside; a character with Super Strength can snatch up an object on the run and smack someone with it, or lob it at someone, all as part of their free close combat or ranged attack.

I’ve play-tested two games so far under these rules, and, well, the first thing that happens is, the games play much MUCH faster when there isn’t all the maneuvering and mincing around that one has to go through under the normal WizKids rules. When Captain America can run right up and slam the crap out of Baron Zemo on the same turn, and the Whirlwind can then come hurtling in and launch a barrage of attacks on Cap, the combat effects occur literally like lightning. Given that most superhuman battles in the comics happen and are over with very quickly, and given the way most HeroClix battles can drag on and on for hours, this strikes me as being a solid advantage over the old way, with no drawbacks I can see whatsoever. Yes, in general, whoever launches the first attack has an advantage (assuming they hit) but, well, that’s how it should be. Under WizKids rules, people hang back and futz around and hesitate endlessly, and games drag on forever.

Under these new house rules, the plastic figs behave the way they’re supposed to – they run in and SMACK each other.

And, frankly, it’s just much more fun… MUCH more, so much more I can’t adequately describe it in text… to move up to an opposing figure and launch an attack immediately, than it is to wait and scheme and maneuver and wait for your opponent to make a mistake before you launch a strike.

And it is so much more similar to the way things work in comics, I can’t really describe that here, either. In my first game, I put a small group of Avengers – Captain America (his poorer, Infinity Challenge version), Hawkeye (the mainstream version), Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, Giant-Man (the only one we have, the Ultimates version) and the Wasp (the IC Unique) up against Kang the Conqueror and a small force of goons who looked like they could be part of his motley, ragtag futuristic legions (a Checkmate Medic, a Veteran U-Man, a Veteran Para-Demon Scout, and a powerful armored female warrior who bore an alarming resemblance to Big Barda). The suddenly much more mobile Avengers made short work of the temporal tyrant and his asynchronous squadron; even that rotten version of Cap was a lot more useful under these rules (he came vaulting in and took out Big Barda after she’d knocked Giant-Man down several pegs, and been pasted back a pretty good one, too), and, well, Quicksilver, who is regarded by all HeroClix players as being entirely useless, was astonishingly effective (all the more so because I gave him a Haymaker card; this lowered his opening attack from 9 to 8, but gave him 4 clicks of damage on each attack instead of 2, and since he could make that double attack at the end of his movement of 14, he could literally buzz in from nearly any place on the map and launch a potent, viciously effective barrage attack… once or twice, at least… which is generally all that a superspeedster needs to do in the average super-battle, anyway). Back Quickie up with his sister, the Scarlet Witch, giving him an extra roll when he needs it, and Whoof! Suddenly, these characters take on at least some of the lustrous effectiveness and formidability they’ve always had in the comics.

Contrast this with the horribly incompatible manner in which the plastic version of Quicksilver is played under normal HeroClix rules. If he runs up to an opponent, he CANNOT attack, as he has no powers to allow that. Despite the fact that his only power is Super Speed, he is forced to run up to an opponent, and then freeze there and let the opponent attack him first, unless he waits for some propitious and unlikely occasion to render the opponent momentarily helpless. The only way he can do what he actually does in comics -- run up to an opponent and smack that opponent silly with a high velocity barrage of super speed punches -- is to have some other character use Telekinesis to place him adjacent to his opponent. Which is simply flatly ridiculous; in comics, it would never happen.

Additionally, on my new rules, Giant-Man is a game-breaker. With a speed that stays up over 10 for most of his dial, and the ability to run around and snatch up objects off the map and then run back and beat people with them from two squares away, he’s a one man battalion. While he probably wouldn’t be doing exactly this in a comic book, it is certainly possible that with his variable size and concomitant very long reach and stride, he could grab up objects from all over the place and use them as weapons, and let me tell you, when a thirty foot tall titan with Super Strength hits Mr. Hyde or Baron Zemo with a motorcycle or a fully loaded dumpster, they’re gonna feel it! And the idea that he’d have to pick the dumpster up and then hold it up over his head long enough for Mr. Hyde to kneecap him is just ridiculous.

That description got a bit ahead of myself; it wasn’t until the second game that I put that same team of Avengers up against a slightly more mobile and well balanced group of super villains – Baron Zemo, Mr. Hyde, the Whirlwind, the Enchantress, the Taskmaster, and Blizzard. Here the villains got in their shots as well, and the Whirlwind and Baron Zemo between them managed to take out Captain America, after Cap charged up and hit Blizzard with a smack that sent him flying backwards into a model dinosaur and knocked all the menace right out of him. Giant-Man had also come up and hammered the Enchantress with a dumpster, which may seem unchivalrous to the unlettered, but Giant-Man has fought that particular Asgardian sorceress enough to know that you don’t leave her conscious and capable of throwing a spell if you get a chance to ring her chimes first. Hawkeye hung back (something he can do easily with Trick Shot now) and took out Taskmaster nearly by himself (helped out by Quicksilver getting off one quick super speed barrage after Hawkeye blew up the dumpster Taskmaster was trying to hide in) and the Wasp darted around stunning people when necessary, or just blasting them into unconsciousness when they got far enough down the dials to allow her to get in the coupe de grace.

I still want to do a few more battles, including some with a lot of characters that would normally be used as taxis, like the Silver Surfer and Iron Man and Thor. If these new rules allow effective play without having to have Thor or the Surfer carry their comrades into the fray (and I suspect they will) then I will have to consider them to be a resounding success.

In other news – well, I have a case of Unleashed scheduled for delivery tomorrow, which should be fun. I have a few errands to run tomorrow as well. I did a lot of shopping at Wal-mart last night, after work, picking up not only groceries and a copy of The Forgotten, which I hope will be at least entertaining, but also five badly needed new pairs of pants, mostly for work. I don’t buy clothes often, and when I get them as gifts people inevitably buy me shirts because they are generally easier to size and cheaper than pants. The last time I bought new pants was back probably around 1999, and they were getting pretty badly worn. Four of the five pairs of pants are jeans, because black jeans are considered to be acceptable business casual attire, and we always have one casual day a week when we can wear blue jeans, and I didn’t actually own any blue jeans. The other is a pair of black khakis, just to mix it up.

For those who care, I seem to be a 44-30, which is, I know, I know, not exactly an Adonis-like physique. But I’m a middle aged geek; as far as I can tell, I’m supposed to be fat, it’s like, the Code of the West, or something. And until some genius somewhere manages to create a pill that burns off fat while I sleep, I’m going to stay this way, because I simply will not diet, nor will I exercise.

I owe lots of people email, and while I doubt I’ll get to it tonight, I’ll probably find time tomorrow, at some point, after I trek over to the post office to mail off a belated Christmas present to someone.

I also ordered some HeroClix singles and some paraphernalia from a game shop a few days ago, and picked up a few more singles off E-Bay, so I’ll have those coming in the mail sometime soon. And I got my copy of Modesty Blaise, the first in the series of novels Peter O’Donnell wrote about his newspaper strip of the same name, last week as well. I should be getting a whole lot more of that series sometime next month from Amazon.com.

Right now I’m making my way through Dorsai!, which is interesting. I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I already owned a copy of Foundation and Earth, and the one I am missing is, in fact, Foundation’s Edge, which is annoying. And I got about four chapters into The Keep and became more and more certain I’d read it once before, so I set it aside… it’s not bad, I just wanted to read something else at the moment.

And my brother Paul loaned me the first seven issues of Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men, which are probably worth an article in and of themselves, but I’m too tired to write it right now. I was impressed and I’ve added them to my pull with Steve Tice, the guy up north in Pennsylvania I get the few present day comics I buy from. Mind you, I have to emotionally treat the characters in the book as belonging to an entirely separate sub-continuum from the Cyclops and Beast that I love from Marvel’s Silver Age, much as I regard the movie X-Men as being separate from the comic book characters with the same name. Otherwise, seeing Scott Summers in bed with the White Queen would send me gibbering round the bend. And I’m fairly certain that Wolverine’s presence in this team/book was probably the only non-negotiable editorial demand Whedon had inflicted on him, since he absolutely does not fit into the team in terms of powers (Beast fills all the slots Logan fills rather better than Logan can) and he doesn’t bring much in terms of character interaction, either (and Whedon seems to be subtly pointing this out; all Wolverine had contributed so far is a lot of bitching and a penchant for getting into fights with other guys on the team at the drop of a whisker).

Still, Whedon is doing good dialogue, interesting characterization, and fairly intelligently designed plots, and in a modern Marvel comic, that’s nothing less than miraculous… as is the fact that Whedon has done the seeming impossible and made me actually like Kitty Pryde, and not mind the presence of Lockheed the Dragon, either.

Paul is only batting .500, though. He also extravagantly praised the work of some new writer who has taken over Captain America, whose name I cannot remember, and, well, as Charlie Sexton once remarked about Superman and Lois Lane, I am not impressed. For one thing, this guy brought back Diamondback, and every development Mark Gruenwald inflicted on Cap during his seemingly and torturously endless run as writer on the book is loathsome to my mind (but, especially, Cap would simply not date a former member of the Serpent Society, no matter how big her ya-yas are). For another thing, after Cap and Diamondback got skippy in one issue, it was revealed that Diamondback was nothing more than a new model of super-sophisticated LMD in the next – which, you know, bugs me on some fundamental level. Humanoid robots have been a mainstay of superhero metarealities since, I don’t know, the 1940s, most likely, but I’ve never found them to be particularly believable, and when they reach the level of sophistication necessary to not only pass a Turing test, but allow a superhero to shoot a load or two inside them without noticing their true nature, well, I just can’t suspend my disbelief high enough for it to pass over that particular train wreck of internal logic.

I kind of figure the LMD development was an ill conceived, hastily concocted plot twist, though, so this writer could keep Diamondback around long term even after having her (a) betray Cap to the Red Skull and then (b) try to back out of the deal with the Skull, which ended up with the Skull rather casually killing her. As about the only really effective moment in the four or five issues Paul loaned me was the Skull’s cold blooded murder of Diamondback, this ‘oh, she was really a robot the whole time and you just didn’t know it’ bit struck a really bad chord with me. Suffice to say, despite the fact that this writer (Kirkland? something like that) seems to like Silver Age stuff (he had Cap fight both HYDRA and Batroc ze Leaper, favorites of mine, prior to the Red Skull thing), he doesn’t write well enough to get away with utterly ridiculous plot twists like this, and I have not added Captain America to my pull.

* * * Late Breaking News Flash * * *

The case came about quarter of noon this morning and I jumped right into it. Aching fingers from pulling the backs off of booster boxes (the easiest way I’ve found to open them up and get the figures out without undue scrabbling) quickly presaged what will no doubt be my lot in a very arthritic old age, unless science gets me my youthful rejuvenation serum pretty damned quick… or, you know, I die before then, but let’s not dwell on that when I’ve got clix to talk about instead.

Overall, the box wasn’t a terrible disappointment. I wound up with a full REV of Supergirl, which seems to be selling for a decent price on E-Bay these days. I did not end up with a full REV of Hal “Green Lantern” Jordan, to my surprise, but the one I didn’t get was the Experienced piece with the JLA TA. I did get an extra Vet, and he seems to be selling well, too.

In terms of maybe getting some money back out of my case if I can talk one of the couple of people I know with E-bay experience into helping me out with the auctions, here’s what I pulled that is extraneous to what I already own, along with the Buy This Now prices I’ll be setting (and all of which is still in its original packing material, as that seems to matter to E-bay buyers):

Magog $15
Kilowog $10
Metallo $12
Mr. Bones $8
Shazam $12
Bat-Sentry $16
Supergirl REV $5 (I actually ended up with two of these, throwing in a rookie from a previous booster I’d bought when the set first came out)
Vet Hal Jordan GL $5

And since I’ll also be posting these on E-bay, too, from my Mutant Mayhem case, I have:

N’astirh $8
Alex Summers LE (Havok) $5
Tyrone Johnson LE (Cloak) $5

The Bat-Sentry is deliberately priced a little bit high, because if nobody wants to pay $16 for him, I’ll be happy to have two, since I already own one. Actually, it will be if nobody wants to pay $15.99 for him, since I’ll do the 99 cent thing when and if I actually do post these on E-bay. And if anyone out there out of the four or so of you who read this wants any of these, let me know. I’ll probably give a 10% discount to blog readers. ::grin::

What did I get that was new? Well, let’s cut to the chase… I did not get a Kingdom Come Superman. However, I can’t bitch too much, as I did get a Kingdom Come Wonder Woman, which isn’t a bad consolation prize, and I also got a Unique Silver Swan. I have no idea who she is, but she looks pretty spiffy.

This box could have easily been named “the Rookie Dr. Fate case”, as I wound up with about six of those. I also got another vet Dr. Fate, and would be trying to hawk a REV set of Dr. Fate online except I didn’t get an Experienced version, which is a bit annoying since that’s arguably the best phase of the REV. (I already have one, it’s just aggravating that I bought a case and missed out on some of the REVs.)

I’ve filled out my Kobra Minions set nicely, and have quite a lot of Science Police and HDC Troopers and Rocket Reds now, too. I also picked up some Gotham Undercover and DEO Agents, which I’d forgotten were in the set and honestly don’t much care about, but still, now I have them.

Oh, wait. Did I say I didn’t get a KC Superman?

I lied.

I did, I did, I did get a Kingdom Come Superman.

So that makes the case buy worth it right there. In fact, I’d have to say I’m pretty damn happy with this case. The only Unique from Unleashed I still don’t have is Nubia, and, honestly, I don’t care.

I’m glad I immediately pulled KC Superman out of his original packaging, because, having glanced out on the Internet for what people are willing to pay for him, I might be tempted to sell him otherwise. And I want to keep him, but still. It looks like I could hang a $50 Buy It Now price on him and get it in a New York minute… and if I managed to sell the rest of that list, well, I’d have just paid for my case.

But that would be pointless, since the only reason I bought the case was to get a KC Superman…

Now, a further HeroClix note, because I owe Mike Norton email and wanted to mention this there, but being absent minded, may forget:

The Parasite has apparently long been a joke among HeroClix players. He’s a Unique, and seems like a good piece, worth 107 points and with the Superman Enemies TA, which means, if you keep him adjacent to another Superman Enemy, one of them (the one with the higher point cost) gets Outwit, a very desirable power.

However, the Parasite’s first click is weak, deliberately, because, like Marvel’s Absorbing Man, he needs to touch a power source and absorb some of its power before he really becomes a tough guy. His second click, however, is quite usable, as he gains Leap-Climb, Impervious, a 3 damage, a 10 attack…

…and, goddamit it, a power called Steal Energy, which means, if he hits anyone while on that click, he gains a click of life, and, well, immediately moves back to his first click, where he stinks on ice.

For this reason, nobody plays the Parasite, and in fact, I have two of them, because Mike Norton sent me one early on (I think it may have been the first Unique I ever owned) and there was one in my cousin Chad’s collection when I bought it off of him.

Want to know how to make Parasite very playable?

Slap Haymaker on him.

Haymaker, for those of you not in the know, is one of the new Feat Cards that have recently been added to the game. You put it on a specific character, and that character can, whenever they attack, if you so choose, make a big looping swing at someone. This takes 1 off of their Attack Value, but adds 2 clicks of damage if they hit.

It also does one click of damage to the fig who throws the Haymaker.

Soooo… Parasite gets on his second click, with Steal Energy. He throws a Haymaker at someone. Assuming he hits, he gets a click of life from that person… but he also takes a click of damage for throwing the Haymaker, and ends up staying right where he is.

A few clicks further down his dial, when Parasite drops to a 2 damage, he can also use Pounce, which adds 1 to his attack, allows him to move his full movement and launch a free Close Combat attack, and adds 1 to his damage when he does it. Pounce also costs you a click of life when you use it, so Parasite will, again, neatly offset that click of life he would otherwise get for a successful attack, and stay right there. In some ways, this is his best click, because using Pounce, on a successful attack he takes no damage, does 3 damage back to someone, and actually has a 10 attack, instead of the 9 he’ll have when he Haymakers on his second click.

Haymaker adds 10 points to the affected character’s cost, and Pounce adds 15 (WizKids really hates to let their players have fun, so they make it very expensive to be able to move and attack on the same turn), so a fully charged Parasite is a 132 point figure, effectively… but being able to move in and out of combat at will, pummel people for 5 clicks of damage (using Haymaker on his second click) while Impervious, or hammering people for 3 clicks using a 10 attack further on down the dial, with no effective penalty, is pretty sweet.

And I’m kind of tired, so I think I may take a nap. And yes, I still owe people email. I’m VERY bad. But I’m too sleepy right now to focus on it. Sorry.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, "Wow, I didn't recognize you in men's clothing". According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I'm reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I'd take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here's The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people's blogs, you MUST NOT:

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin's Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron's blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don't really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren't related to me by marriage, I'd most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I've learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don't care if you:

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I'd get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don't Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.