Yesterday was my first day with HeroClix. Joe, Meeks and I went and picked up our first HeroClix characters. Joe went with a Fantastic Four starter kit and some booster packs, Meeks and I split a Marvel Brick and then each bought different booster packs.
The best part of HeroClix might be the opening of the booster packs. Meeks and I alternated which individual boxes we got inside the brick we split. I got pretty lucky with The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Colossus. Meeks was not so lucky, he ended up with guys like Kingpin.
The game itself is pretty complicated. We played three different games, each game we added a new layer of complexity. At first we just went with movement and attacks, then we added Range attacks and finally Abilities. Even with all of that, we still need to play again with Team Abilities added. Gameplay itself is kind of like an advanced version of what I used to do as a kid with Army men. Characters move and attack, but there are skills, attributes and scoring.
I won two of the three games, mainly because of The Incredible Hulk and Lightning Lord. Tombstone was probably Joe’s most valuable character and Black Panther was Meeks’ favorite. The average game, with learning the rules and everything, was probably about 45 minutes to an hour. I’m guessing it will be closer to 30 minutes once we understand all of the rules.
There are few things about HeroClix that makes it much better than Magic: The Gathering. All of the characters are from comic books, so a lot of them you are familiar with. They aren’t characters that are a universe that you only know because of the card (such as Magic). Secondly, you play each game with a cap. Each character has a point value assigned to them, so you build the best team you can underneath the cap. If I play a 200 point game and I want to use Hulk, he’ll take up 147 points. This keeps the game from becoming an arms race (such as Magic) where whoever spends the most money wins. Finally, these are small 1 inch figurines, so they are much more impressive than just a card.
Overall, it looks like a fun little hobby I’ll play once or twice a month. It also makes me even more interested in comic books.
