Marvel Heroclix

Overall score:

Heroclix is produced by the same geniuses at Wizkids who brought us Mage Knight, and uses many of the same conventions—the figures, the actions, and most importantly the combat dial are all here (I’ll explain that in a minute). There have been a number of changes to the rules, however, many of them good and some of them bad, which help give Heroclix a distinct and very comicbook feel. I hoenstly can’t recommend one over the other—it all depends on which appeals to you more, I suppose, medieval fantasy or modern superhero. They both appeal to me equally, which explains where most of my money has gone.

For those who’re unfamiliar with Wizkids’ games, let me explain the system as quickly as I can. First you have the figures: they come pre-painted and pre-assembled, randomly sorted into starter packs (8 models plus rules and maps and counters and dice) and booster packs (4 models). The base of each model is the marvelously innovative combat dial, which has a little window and a series of stats; each time you take damage you click the dial to the left, which changes the stats that appear in your window. If the numbers ever disappears and the window fills up with red KO symbols, your figure is out for the count and removed from the battle. The dial also contains all the other info you’ll ever need on the model—points value, name, team affiliation, rarity, and level of power.

The five stats are as follows: Speed shows how many spaces you can move. When you want to attack someone you roll two dice, add your Attack number, and compare the total to the target’s Defense; if your total is equal to it or higher, you hit. Your damage number shows how many times the target has to click his or her dial. The fifth stat is Range, which doesn’t change as the dial click—Range tells you how far your ranged attack can reach (if you have one), and whether or not you’re allowed to shoot multiple targets at once. The stats are incredibly simple, and the dial is so easy to use that games go by very quickly—there are no complex charts to refer to, no math to figure out or complex modifiers to consider, and the rulebook is only 28 pages long (including the sample scenarios, the credits, and for some reason the cover).

The rules are very simple, however, and the only rulebook you really need is the reference card that displays super powers and team abilities. Each model has an assortment of super powers represented by colored squares on the combat dial. If, for example, your Speed number is surrounded by a green box, you have the Charge super power—this means you can both move and attack in the same action. If your Attack is green you have super strength, and can pick up objects on the battlefield and hit other character with them. A black Attack number gives you the Steal Energy power, allowing you to heal yourself one click of damage every time you inflict damage in close combat. There are seven colors and four attributes (there are no super powers keyed to the Range stat), which makes for 28 super powers; all of them are easy to understand and add a lot of depth and flavor to the game.

To make the figures do things in the game, you use action tokens. Start by picking a points value and building your team; you get one action per turn for every 100 points. Actions come in four types—movement, close combat, and ranged combat, and pass—and everything you do counts as one of these (using Mind Control, for example, counts as a movement action, meaning that it’s hard to pull it off while engaged in close combat). To make a figure do something you "give" it an action, marking the figure with a token. At the end of your turn, you remove the tokens from every figure that did not receive an action that turn (or who only received a pass action). The usual result of this is that no figure can act in consecutive turns, but you always have the option of "pushing" a model by giving it a second action token (though never more than one action per turn). Pushing a model also forces it to take a click of damage, so you have to choose carefully how and when you push.

That’s all the basic rules, summed up in four paragraphs—the game is that easy to learn. I admit that the ideas sound a little strange, especially to veteran wargamers, but you’ll have to trust me on this—the game is incredibly fun. It’s also the hottest-selling non-computer game of the summer, which means that even if you don’t trust me there’s an entire nation of second opinions to back me up. Obviously the simple nature of the rules and the mass-produced nature of the models take away from a lot of the realism of tabletop gaming, but it’s a loss I can easily forgive. Wizkids has sacrificed detail for playability, and while their games will never replace my Warhammer hobby, they’ve certainly earned a place right beside it in my closet.

But that comparison isn’t as true for Heroclix as for Mage Knight—Mage Knight, after all, is a fantasy wargame, and a more direct genre competitor. Heroclix is a comicbook battle between Marvel superheroes and supervillains, and no other game on the market captures the same feel and atmosphere. Now that I’ve established more or less what the game is, let me talk a bit about the changes in the rules that make Heroclix unique.

First of all, Heroclix does away with the inch-based movement of most wargames and replaces its tape measure with a giant playmat marked out in a grid. This has its good points and its bad points: on the plus side, the grid is much easier for new players to learn, and much simpler for purposes of range, movement and adjacence (I don’t think that’s a word, but there it is). It also helps create the ambience a little better, since the art on the mat is guaranteed to look more comicbooky than a table covered with haphazard "this book is a building"-style scenery. On the downside, however, I find the grid to be very limiting—once you’ve played a game or two on it, then flipped it over and played on the other side, you’ve pretty much exhausted the possibilities. It’s also very annoying to haul around and use, and it can be a pain to try and make it lay flat. Fortunately, the models and their stats are perfectly compatible with inches as well as grid squares. After a couple of games on the mat, we gave it up and went back to the tape measure (I even whipped out my collection of Mordheim buildings and played a couple of great city scenarios).

Similar to the mat, Heroclix also requires a bunch of objects to make things work—without them, two of the more common powers (Super Strength and Telekinesis) become completely worthless. The game comes with token representing such objects as filing cabinets and dumpsters that your heroes can throw at each other, but the problems with this system are plentiful. You have to place them, for one thing, which adds one more annoyance to the set-up process (I like my games to be as simple as possible in the set-up department). You also have the problem of running out of objects—even if you put all six tokens out (which doesn’t make a lot of sense—why would a picnic table and an engine block be in the same area?), you’ll eventually run out because the objects are destroyed as soon as they are used.

Consider poor little Jean Grey: she’s only useful when she’s close to an object, and once she uses it she has to run over to get the next one. Once she runs out she’s just another thug. Compare this to Cyclops, who can cause more damage more consistently, and doesn’t need any objects to do so. In most cases I find the objects to be extraneous—just use models who don’t have to worry about them, and you’ll be far better off and have a far more adaptable force. Also note that using inches and real wargame scenery can help solve this problem as well—the Hulk can rip up a tree as easily as pick up a forklift. You can also buy modern scenery (like mailboxes and lampposts) in Heroclix adventure packs.

Heroclix has better interactions as well, both with other models and with the environment. If you roll doubles when attacking you knock the target back one square for each click of damage; if the flying body hits anything he takes another click of damage. By inflicting three or more clicks of damage in a single attack, models can bash their way through walls and other forms of blocking terrain, which in turn creates hindering terrain (rubble) that other characters can hide in. Heroclix does away with the issue of facing, for good or for ill, allowing models to shoot and attack in any direction. And it may seem like a small thing, but Heroclix lets you shoot at characters who are engaged in close combat—most wargames don’t, but I always want to. Thanks, Heroclix.

The biggest change, however, isn’t one of rules but of style. Since you’re playing with superheroes instead of simple line troops, almost every single model has a ton of super powers and costs a lot of points. There are a few faceless nobodies (thugs, henchmen, SHIELD Agents, Hydra Operatives, etc.), but everyone else is larger than life. Even the "lesser" heroes are fairly powerful: the rookie version of Elektra, at only 18 points, has Stealth and Blades, making her a strong but fragile unit. On the other end of the scale are models like the Veteran Hulk, coming in at 147 points, who has incredible stats and a super power for each one. In a two hundred point game, which could easily involve six or seven Mage Knight figures, you might only have two Heroclix models. This isn’t a bad thing—the figures are powerhouses, and you really feel like you’re playing with comicbook heroes rather than simple soldiers and archers.

Heroclix also uses the teams a little differently than Mage Knight does. In Mage Knight, the faction affiliations had the sole effect of allowing you to move and attack in formation—something that fits the war vibe of that game but doesn’t really jive with superhero skirmishes. In Heroclix there are no formations, and the teams are instead another excuse to give the models extra superpowers. Some are more useful than others (the Avengers can make an extra move action, which is really cool, whereas SHIELD agents can help an adjacent model inflict on extra click of damage in a ranged attack—not a very good bonus, plus they have to use up an action to do it). The list of teams and team abilities also includes some teams that don’t appear in the set, such as Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four—a sign of things to come, apparently.

The game designers took extra care to make sure that the stats and powers for a given figure had the right "feel," and as a result they reflect the hero’s individual style very well. One of my favorites is Spider-Man—his stats are very respectable to start, but drop off steeply after the villains humble him with a few good hits. He has a high movement and the Leap/Climb power, allowing him to ignore most terrain and thus do cool things like jump from the ground to the top of a building. He also has the Incapacitate power, which allows him to do zero damage in exchange for giving the target an action token—this can slow the enemy down or even force him to take pushing damage. After the bad guys have pummeled him and he’s starting to weaken, Spidey gains the Outwit power, which lets him nullify any one enemy power. The result is a model with the perfect Spider-Man personality—he goes in head on, gets beat up, then defeats the enemy by using his head instead of his fists. All they need now is a Wisecrack power, but you’re free to simulate that one yourself by taunting your opponents and singing the Spider-Man song.

The other models are just as good. The Hulk, who I already told you is incredibly powerful, has a very Hulk-ish quirk: every time he takes damage he gets stronger instead of weaker. If you’ve read the comics or watched the TV show you’ll know why—no matter what you do to the Hulk, you’ll only make him mad. Captain America can throw his shield as well as use it to deflect ranged attacks; he can stalk commando-style through hindering terrain, and use his leadership to give your team extra actions. The Scarlet Witch lets you re-roll dice, and can force you opponent to do the same—through her magic, she subtly works things out in her favor. Sabertooth and Wolverine resist a lot of damage, and can regenerate it pretty quickly. Skrull agents can shape-change to fool the enemy. Professor X leads his team by providing extra actions, and controls the enemies’ minds to make them run away, come out of hiding, or even attack each other.

Before I leave, let me drop a final note on collectability—because the pieces come in random sets in unmarked boxes, you never know what you’re going to get. This can be quite damaging if you’re looking for a certain figure or team, but it can be quite pleasant if you happen to open a unique figure. Uniques are relatively rare and highly sought after—not only are they great to play with, but they’ll trade at four-to-one in a lot of cases. Because Heroclix is so popular right now, the secondary market is hot and you can easily find people who’ll trade for the models you want. Buying singles works pretty well also—most are going for a buck or so on ebay (plus shipping), while uniques are about ten dollars each right now. If you can stand to part with that unique Juggernaught you opened, it’ll pay for your booster pack with some left over.

In the end, Heroclix has some definite improvements over Mage Knight, as well as some idiosyncracies that you may want to modify or do away with altogether. Whether you change it or not, however, the game is fast, easy to learn, and very exciting. If you’re looking for some solid wargame battles, Mage Knight might be a better pick, but if you want to play out some super-powered comicbook action, Heroclix is the game you’ve been waiting for.

Written by Fellfrosch on August 05th, 2002