First of all if you want to read Shawn’s account of our first foray into the world of Heroclix, just click here.

As the title suggests my first Heroclix game went…not well. I’ll get to the gory details later on in this article but I want to talk about the actual draft for a few minutes. We decided a few weeks before that we would do a sealed draft to make it interesting and to throw us into the deep end. It’s kind of like learning a foreign language, the best way to learn is by complete immersion. Or by buying Rosetta Stone. But that doesn’t work in my analogy.

For the draft, I went with a booster of the Amazing Spider-Man and Shawn went with a Guardians of the Galaxy booster. Both boosters were decent, nothing too overpowered to really tilt the scales, so it would be a fair(ish?) fight. I had a strategy going into the draft, I was looking for any character that possessed Prob Control, Blades/Claws/Fangs, or Charge/Running Shot. Sounds like I know what I’m talking about doesn’t it? Muhahahahhaha….(clears throat)..I don’t. Alright so let’s talk about my draft picks shall we?

Pick 1: Doctor Druid

I chose him because he had Prob Control and with my crap luck I figured that having the ability to re-roll or having Shawn re-roll would be necessary. He also has Mind Control and Outwit, which came in very handy when Shawn’s Man Thing was poisoning the crap out of him. That last sentence…was…awful.

……Moving on!

Pick 2: Crystal

At 75 points, Crystal seemed like a good value. She has Running Shot, Energy Shield/Deflection, Enhancement, and Prob Control (among other things). I think if I actually had been able to keep her in the game, she could have done some serious damage.

 

Pick 3: Werewolf

Why the eff did I go with Werewolf?! I guess it was for a couple of reasons: Blade/Claws/Fangs, and then his Full Moon ability, which lets you use Shape Change on a roll of 1-4 or lets you go to click 11 on the dial if it’s a 5-6. Unfortunately, this is where the first error of the night for me came into play. I never checked to see how many clicks of health he has. FYI it’s only 4.

 

Pick 4: Deathurge

I took him because he has indomitable and he’s a flier. He also has 7 clicks of life..but I didn’t end up putting him on my final team as I thought 140 points was too much for what he had to offer. Looking back, that was a mistake, if I had to do it all over again, I would draft him and Doctor Druid as my team.

 

Pick 5: Spider-Girl

I took her because it was down to the last pick and she was only 41 points and at that point I knew who was going to be on my team. I basically was only going to use her as a punching bag while my ranged attackers took care of business.

 

Whew! Okay, now that I’ve explained my (flawed?) reasoning for my draft picks it’s time to talk about the game itself. Since this was the very first game we’ve played, we looked at our ability cards and referenced the powers and abilities card multiple times a turn, it made the game longer, but not to an annoying extent. By the end of the game I felt that we both had a good grasp of the mechanics and even were able to use some powers without referencing the P&A card. Before the game we had opened an entire brick of the Hulk set, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we were a little nervous. What if the game itself was underwhelming? Yes, we have to cover a majority of games on the market for this website and our podcast, but still it would be disappointing to play the game and then regret spending money on a brick of something that we will never touch again. Thankfully, that was not the case. After the first game, we are hooked. If time was on our side we would have played again right away. I’m looking forward to playing in a couple of weeks, because I have to return the beating that Shawn (aka Cheater McGee) put on me. 100 pts my ass. 😉

So back to the title..how bad was the beating you ask? I only KO’d one of his characters. One. Stop laughing. I was so jazzed up that I rushed my characters right onto a staircase, ignoring the core concept of the game (strategy), and directly into the path of one angry Captain Marvel who was able to stay out of range (I think Shawn only moved that piece once or twice the entire game) and pepper Doctor Druid and Crystal like they were on a shooting range. Instead of trying to break away, again, another core strategy completely ignored, I sat in the pocket and tried to fire back like I was in a Tarantino flick. The only damage I was able do was when I was able to successfully use Mind Control on Man Thing, and then had him poison Captain Marvel. Of course now I realize that I should have been trying to break away Doctor Druid instead of doing a piddly one damage a turn. Sigh. Shawn, not ignoring the core concept, flanked my sides with Manphibian and Recorder. After that, things are fuzzy, I know that Werewolf, with his awe-inspiring 4 clicks of health dropped like a sack of crap first, Crystal was next, which knocked the wind right out of my team as she was my 2nd most powerful piece. At that point I realized that I was in trouble. For some reason I had Spider-Girl off by herself facing off with Manphibian, with Doc facing down Man Thing and Captain Marvel. Needless to say, Doc didn’t last long, which was followed shortly thereafter by the inevitable demise of Spider-Girl. I know it’s a fairly vague recollection of events but stay tuned for Shawn’s version on Friday (passing the ball back to you, buddy), where he will fill you in on his strategy.

So what are my takeaways from our first game of Heroclix?

-Next time use strategy. Like an actual strategy.

-This game is amazing.

 

Thanks for reading, and leave a comment below if you have any team-building tips/strategies that you think can help me exact my revenge.