Greetings HeroClix Fans!
Today we have a team building and strategy article featuring Spider-Man and his allies with the Spider-Man Family keyword from the new Marvel HeroClix: Superior Foes of Spider-Man set.
There are many things that make HeroClix a fun and engaging game for nearly all ages. Though it involves elements of basic arithmetic, strategic planning and positioning, layers of complex power interactions, chance, and even the unknown; the element that makes it more than just the sum of its parts are the characters. Character dials are designed in a way that extract comic book flavor by highlighting a character’s powers and personality in order to bring HeroClix to life. Some HeroClix figures have been designed as specialists, offering lower cost options that highlight specific powers for easier team building while other larger point characters are more general perspectives. Today’s team building article focuses on 4 great examples of characters with these features; 3 brand new dials of classic characters and one character making her Clix debut. Each character demonstrates how dial design follows the source material to play like the characters and not just figures on the map.
Here are our characters of interest today, as a 300 point Spider-Man Family Theme Team:
100 Spider-Man
80 Scarlet Spider
70 Silk
50 Black Cat
300 Total points
+4 to Initiative Map Roll, 3 uses of Themed Team Probability Control
Let’s get to work.
Throughout the nearly 15 years of HeroClix history, there have been countless versions of Spider-Man. Sifting through the Golden Age archives of Clixdom there are many Spider-Man figures that represent certain aspects of his comic book powers or periods of his long career but just a few that pack the essence of his character and all his powers. From his ability to swing from rooftops, his proportional arachnid strength, and snaring foes in his webbing to his distracting smack talking attitude, scientific mind, and his heroic drive to save the day this Spider-Man has it all. For 100 points Spider-Man leads off ignoring elevated and hindering terrain for movement, using Hypersonic Speed granted by his Unmatched Mobility special to make close attacks, grabbing objects with Super Strength, pushing himself to the limit with Willpower, making free attacks with Last-Ditch Effort, dodging attacks like only he can with enhanced Super Senses from his Trusty Spider Sense trait, Combat Reflexes, and utilizing the Spider’s Web trait to pin foes in place with his Web FX base. Pepper in some Perplex, Outwit, Sidestep, and Close Combat Expert and you have everything you could ask for in a Spider-Man figure. He can be used as a mobile primary attacker, support, and tie-up figure. Putting it all together with an acrobatically dynamic sculpt, Spider-Man has it all.
Our next two pieces for the Spider-Man Family team can make Spider-Man even better with strategic use of their Call In Help From The Spider-Verse traits.
From the 1990’s Clone Saga we have Ben Reilly donning the sleeveless blue hoodie and red suit as the Scarlet Spider. Reilly’s claim to fame was the introduction of Impact Webbing which he used to subdue foes from a safer distance, represented here alongside Running Shot and a two target range of 4. With Impact Webbing, you can choose to give an action token to hit targets or prevent them from moving or being placed for a turn. Additionally, when Scarlet Spider hits a target, you may roll for Call In Help From The Spider-Verse to bring in the original Spider-Man, or other friendly character, to step in and finish the job!
Making her HeroClix debut, Silk shares a common origin with Peter Parker, but was hidden away for years by a mysterious man named Ezekiel, in order to train her powers and protect her from Morlun and the Inheritors. As a result of this training, her ‘Silk-Sense’ is even stronger than Peter’s ‘Spider-Sense’, and is represented in game by her special damage power Precognitive Spider-Sense. This power allows her to use Probability Control, with an additional ability of re-rolling her Super Senses roll on an opponent’s turn. Additionally, her Thin Finger Webs give her the use of Incapacitate with 3 targets, but she cannot give actions tokens to a character that does not already have a token. This synergizes very well with Scarlet Spider’s Impact Webbing to place tokens on two targets and then follow up with Silk using Incapacitate on up to 3 targets without having to worry about characters with zero action tokens for Thin Finger Webs. This combination can lock down opposing characters, and potentially ping them for 1 penetrating damage if they already have 2 tokens.
Lastly, making an appearance on our Spider-Man Family theme team, is Black Cat. As a highly skilled cat burglar naturally she ignores elevated terrain when she moves, but she also has a handy trait; I’ll Just Take That, Thanks. This trait allows her to pick an opposing characters pocket if they have an object equipped to them instead of dealing damage. To top it off, a full dial of Stealth, Combat Reflexes and her damage special Just Lucky, I Guess, which makes her an ideal tie-up piece. She can easily keep opposing characters occupied while your spiders jump around, pin everyone else down with their webbing, and smash heavy objects over their heads while hurling sarcasm in their general direction.
That’s all we have for you today in our Spider-Man Family team building featuring the new Marvel HeroClix: Superior Foes of Spider-Man set.
Until next time, be ‘that guy’; perplex their damage down!