Heroclix is exploding these days, and there’s no greater evidence of that than the sheer amount of product due out this year. This week sees the arrival of the Galactic Guardians set, a Marvel Cosmic-themed addition to the vast array of characters available in the game, and it includes Super Booster packs featuring one of five different packages of colossal characters – you’ll either get Galactus, Master Mold, Giganto the Mole Monster, a two-pack of Uatu The Watcher and The Dread Dormammu, or you’ll get an honest-to-goodness Celestial in the game, the one known as Ziran The Tester (doubly amusing because Justin Ziran is one of the head muckety-mucks of WizKids Games).
Here’s a look at the colossal figures you’ll be able to pick up in hobby shops tomorrow.
If you buy ’em by the “brick,” with each Super Booster, you’ll get eight normal 5-figure boosters with a random assortment of awesome new figures, including a kickass new Dr. Doom, Mistress Death herself and that lovable telepathic space dog Cosmo from the Guardians of the Galaxy! Check out the huge checklist right here.
And that list doesn’t even include the secret “chase” figures – including a Power Cosmic Dr. Doom riding the Silver Surfer’s surfboard, Thanos wielding the Cosmic Cube, Silver Surfer as “The Keeper” and Mr. Fantastic brandishing the Ultimate Nullifier. This one’s got something for every clix geek out there – especially if you’re a fan of obscurities, because the limited edition prize figures for tournament play are “The Newer Fantastic Four” – Iron Man, Spider-Man, Hulk and Wolverine, based around a specific What If? issue dealing with the Infinity Gauntlet. Nobdy saw that coming, and it’s made for the hyper-nerds.
However, that doesn’t mean you’ve got to be an established clix geek to get in on the fun – if you’re a casual gamer, you may want to look out for the tie-in sets to the Avengers movie. This gets a little confusing, so here’s the run-down of what’s available.
Next week in hobby shops, you’ll be able to pick up a brand new Avengers starter set, featuring the big guns – Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye. It’ll have maps, rules and everything you need to get a game going.
You’ll also be able to pick up a seperate expansion set in a counter-top display format, where you can either buy single-figure blind boosters or a mini-“brick” of six single-figure boosters and one “team pack” with three figures per booster. This encompasses the breadth of the Marvel movies, including The Warriors Three, Frost Giants, The Red Skull, the Howling Commandos and, of course, Nick Fury, as well as the main heroes from the starter set – all with new combat dials, so even if you’re getting the same sculpt as in the starter set, it’s still a different figure in the game.
THEN EVEN STILL, there’s yet another Avengers movie set iteration already showing up in various mass-market outlets like Target, Wal-Mart, etc. as we speak. It’s in a “gravity feed” format, and there at least 11 different single-booster packs tucked into the box, as well as a “chase” Loki, all with different dials from the other iterations and, truth be told, these are likely the best game-dials to be found. Finally, a really badass Hulk!
So once this all shakes out, we’ll have Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Hugo Weaving, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston and more as playable figures in Heroclix. Add to that the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises set, which will also give us Liam Neeson, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and we can almost forget the biggest celebrity in Heroclix before this was Halle Berry.
And guess what else Marvel’s got in the pipeline? More crazy cosmic stuff, and some more Avengers action. In a set formerly called The Mighty Avengers, we’ve seen it changed to Chaos War, likely so as not to be confused with these movie Avengers sets. A Fast Forces pack sporting a new Scarlet Witch, another “CTD” microset, and a standard five-figure booster set to boot, featuring the long awaited debut of Egghead, not to mention more Great Lakes Avengers, new versions of Kang, Ms. Marvel and Madame Masque, and even Nick Fury’s evil brother/LMD/clone Max Fury. Plus, the Future Foundation are limited edition prize figures.
So… much… stuff. And we’re not even talking about the DC Justice League New 52 set, Batman: Streets of Gotham, new Lord of the Rings stuff, and the DC and Marvel 10th Anniversary Heroclix sets.
Will the market be flooded with too much to buy, or can there ever actually be too much to buy? This game is huge, sprawling and every game is different thanks to the unbelievable mass of figures you can buy to make game teams out of. It’s dynamic as all get-out, and you can get in on the get-out as it’s getting out this week. Uh, yeah, that makes sense!
