tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post113248890128749084..comments2023-10-11T10:40:48.712-04:00Comments on The Miserable Annals of the Earth: All jets ablaze!Doc Nebulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132588277366927332005-11-21T10:51:00.000-05:002005-11-21T10:51:00.000-05:00SSquirrel,Ah, HERE your comment is!Yeah, help your...SSquirrel,<BR/><BR/>Ah, HERE your comment is!<BR/><BR/>Yeah, help yourself to the paste. Honestly, it's not moving anywhere near as well as I thought it would. In fact, I can give you a very good bulk rate on it today.<BR/><BR/>More seriously, thanks for dropping by.Doc Nebulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132574530733057052005-11-21T07:02:00.000-05:002005-11-21T07:02:00.000-05:00Happy Birthday! Can I still eat the paste?Happy Birthday! Can I still eat the paste?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132542105489451872005-11-20T22:01:00.000-05:002005-11-20T22:01:00.000-05:00Understandable on the Icons impact. It's made me m...Understandable on the <B>Icons</B> impact. It's made me more curious about what this designer's going to do with the figures in <B>Collateral Damage</B>.<BR/><BR/> Yeah, the grey's relative stats were a surprise. More correctly, the gold version's were, as we'd seen the grey's first. I was trying to justify it on some grounds -- Tony being in more of an immediate life or death situation, trying to escape from a ruthless warlord, etc. -- but it doesn't add up much beyond the leading Outwit. A higher range, better stats, less end of dial weakness. It doesn't hold up when one considers that the grey was made in some third world-ish lab while the gold was well after he returned to all of his state of the art facilities and materials.<BR/><BR/> As far as the cards go, this is one case where you're going the official route while those of us generally sticking to WizKids' restrictive rules have essentially house-ruled around it. Then again, our local venue scrapped retirement issues months ago, so unless the night's theme restricts something then anything that fits in the build is a go.<BR/><BR/> With you all drawing from the same pool of cards it probably would work out fine either way. What we ran into at the venue level were too many situations where the advantage was going to players who had more cards to apply. Come to think of it, what actually tipped the boat was when one guy assembled a Skrull force and wanted to give Armor Piercing to all of the Skrull soldiers. He had the points to spend, and it seemed silly to insist he display 10 or more A.P. cards.<BR/><BR/> I've considered a force of rogue LMDs represented by Henchmen with LMD and A.P. on each of them, vs some GCPD, but it gets pretty limiting. Still, seeing how many Feats can be effectively applied to early generics could be fun. Perhaps a game where the base cost of each figure (pre-Feats) has to be under 20 in a 500 pt build?Mike Nortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13025995292338904959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132524122558475982005-11-20T17:02:00.000-05:002005-11-20T17:02:00.000-05:00I've probably given Sunfire some short shrift. I ...I've probably given Sunfire some short shrift. I guess after ICONS, anything that doesn't do 5 clicks of damage with a 13 attack seems weak to me, somehow.<BR/><BR/>I confess, I had simply assumed the gold armor IM was better than the more primitive, skeezier looking grey armored. However, I certainly stand corrected, now that I've looked at the dials. We'll be sending away for ours, never fear. And thanks for the heads up.<BR/><BR/>I had no idea that it was allowed to use a single card to give an effect to more than one character. That seems vaguely unsettling to me. I think I'll stick with our presumption here and keep it one card to one character. Otherwise, the girls will gleefully jam Fortitudes (and now, Repulsor Shields) onto everyone.Doc Nebulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132511741098448472005-11-20T13:35:00.000-05:002005-11-20T13:35:00.000-05:00Oh! All that text and I still forgot to say that I...Oh! All that text and I still forgot to say that I know I'm definitely sending away for the gray, Anthony Stark LE. Aside from the lack of an Avengers TA it's so much more of a playable piece than the gold unique.Mike Nortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13025995292338904959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1132511590792478622005-11-20T13:33:00.000-05:002005-11-20T13:33:00.000-05:00A good tour through the brick, though yours is one...A good tour through the brick, though yours is one of those with more "clumping." While I did get one (E Magma) as a quartet, I seemed to get a more spread out assortment.<BR/><BR/> Hopefully by Collateral Damage they'll have exercised as much control at the brick level as they did at the case. If the bricks even swung just a little in terms of uniques - 3 to 5, centering on the average of 4 they'd ideally have now that 16 are in a case - that would take care of most of it. We're all still factoring in the relative rarity of upper level E & V (and even R) pieces since they only appear in that top spot in the booster, and twice as many of those spots in a case are taken up with uniques now.<BR/><BR/> I didn't do a piece by piece breakdown this time since I'd spent too much time on them in the run-up, though my not doing it made my piece seem like too much of a checklist... <BR/><BR/> Several of the pieces (Ghost & Spymaster) really need a cluttered, preferably indoor map to work well, which is why the set-themed map works so well. A 6 Range is pretty much all one needs in that Serpentine layout. They're not intended to bring down someone like Iron Man solo, but then again they're each a fraction of his cost even if 10 points are added for Armor Piercing. Each of those two are difficult for their most likely themed foes (Iron Man in particular) to hit initially, between Spymaster's Stealth and Ghost's Defense and Super Senses. They will need that Armor Piercing if they want a shot at damaging I.M. shy of a Critical Hit. Spymaster's the bigger danger, of course. Ghost's more of a harasser and may be more useful as a target, soaking up an opponent's actions and hopefully doing so without taking a hit between his 17 Defense and the Super Senses. His combination of Movement, Range and AV makes him someone who especially needs that indoor environment. He's going to be ignored most of the time, I suspect, as he's not a big threat, will take some time getting somewhere, and it would be irritating to take a shot at a low level threat like that and miss due to the Defense or SS.<BR/><BR/> Firebrand's almost a basket case,though, between being such a target and his AVs that hang around 7 too much of the time. Maybe having him carry Ghost around as a shield is the answer? Firebrand's not going to see much play outside of sealed matches or theme play. Since he has RCE up front, though, and given his AVs, I suspect most of the time he appears in a constructed match he'll be In Contact With I don't know who. Even the rookie, if he stops over hindering and uses ICWO to to bump his Defense up by 1 he becomes a 17 from range. Yeah, there would be much better places to spend 39 points. It's going to be a matter of how much somone wants to play that character.<BR/><BR/> I'm surprised to see the general dismissal of Sunfire, though. The only bad item on any of them IMHO is that first defensive click on the Experienced, with no color and a 16 Defense. I'm presuming this is meant to demonstrate his chip-on-the-shoulder arrogance at that stage causing him to lead with his chin and risk getting tagged. Otherwise, he's a flying damage-dealer who should be tough to hit from range. He's no Superman, but he's not supposed to be. I don't know, I could see working even the 40 pt rookie with his lack of Running Shot and TA on a team, as he has that 16 with ES/D combination, a 9 AV and RCE on his first two clicks. The 6 Range might dissuade me, but he can bring some nice items to the game for 40 points. The 75 point vet is a nice combination, though I'd probably put Armor Piercing on him -- but I want to put A.P. on everyone! ;)<BR/><BR/> I'm happy to report that even at the better venue level (though, of course, it's not to be counted on and isn't something Official) judges aren't requiring a player to bring more than one of a given card. So long as the points are accounted for, one could put Armor Piercing on every member of the team and only bring one card. So I've gotten into the mindset of wanting to get enough of any useful card to cover the max number of players I might have in to play (presumably as new players who don't have any clix of their own) on some theoretical day. At the moment it's mostly just Nick and I drawing from the same pool.<BR/><BR/> "Shut up, Citizen!" leapt at us when the ad copy first hit, yeah. If only they could've worked "flick" in there somewhere...Mike Nortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13025995292338904959noreply@blogger.com