Tag: BioShock

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BioShock: Infinite HeroClix Preview

BioShock Infinite HeroClix: Machine Gun and Rocket Turrets and Motorized Patriot!

Greetings Heroclix fans!

Today we will continue our previews of the Bioshock Infinite HeroClix set with a look at some of Columbia’s mechanized troops.

002-Machine-GunTurret

006-Rocket-Turret

First off, we have not one but TWO turrets: the Machine Gun Turret and the Rocket Turret. Both the Machine Gun Turret and the Rocket Turret have the traits Let’s Move Into Position and Sentry. Let’s Move Into Position says any friendly character adjacent to the turret can use the Carry ability if they can’t already, but only to carry the turret. The turrets also can’t be targeted with Mind Control and can’t be dealt damage through Mastermind.

The Sentry trait says each time an opposing character within 6 squares makes an attack and hits, place one Alert token on the turret’s character card (to a maximum of four Alert tokens). When the turrets make an attack, you may remove any number of Alert tokens from their character card. For each token you remove, modify the turrets attack or damage value by +1.

Let’s Move Into Position allows you to more easily position the turrets, whether it is just using a damaged character that you are moving away or a character that you are going to use Running Shot or Charge in with. Positioning is going to be a key element to using the turrets, but they can be rather effective with the Machine Gun Turret’s 5 range and the Rocket Turret’s 8 range.

The Rocket Turret also has a special attack power called Halo Rockets which lets it use Energy Explosion and when it does the damage dealt to the target is penetrating damage. This makes effective use of the Alert tokens you have on the Rocket Turret’s character card to cut through opposing characters.

The Rocket Turret comes in at 45 points while the Machine Gun Turret comes in at 25 points, which are good for filling in points on your team when you are running a bit short.

014-Motorized-Patriot

Our final mechanized troop is the Motorized Patriot. Motorized Patriot has a trait called Relentless which allows him to use Running Shot if he has no action tokens. Motorized Patriot is pretty relentless with that trait combined with the Penetrating/Psychic Blast he has on his first three clicks. Motorized Patriot is also Indomitable so on turn one you can use Running Shot to get into position with his 6 range and two targets, then shoot again from that position next turn. Later down his dial he also gets Ranged Combat Expert, allowing him to boost up his damage by +2, attack by +2 or both values by +1 when making ranged attacks. Motorized Patriot is a 140-point ranged terror for your opponents.

Thank you for reading, please stay tuned while we show more previews from the Bioshock Infinite HeroClix set. Until next time, keep rolling those sixes.

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BioShock: Infinite HeroClix Preview

BioShock Infinite HeroClix: the Vox Populi and Daisy Fitzroy!

Greetings HeroClix fans!

Today’s BioShock Infinite HeroClix preview brings is to a group of resistance fighters who have gathered to overturn the rule of The Founders.  We are pleased to present Vox Populi and the revolution’s leader, the brutal Daisy Fitzroy!

First, let’s hear from the Vox Populi!

010-Vox-Populi

Vox Populi come into play at 45 points and has its own team ability.  The Vox Populi team ability reads: “When a character using this team ability is marked with an action token and makes an attack, any attack roll of doubles (other than a critical miss) is considered a hit.” If you have to push your figure with a second action, at least the odds of a successful attack are a little better!

Running Shot starts off Vox Populi’s dial and is paired with a special power in the attack slot called Hidden Gunpowder Bomb.  This special power, which appears on the first two clicks, lets Vox Populi use Pulse Wave.  However, the Pulse Wave’s lines of fire are drawn and the range is counted from an unheld object within Vox Populi’s range and line of fire.  The object is removed from the game after actions are resolved.  Vox Populi has a range of 5 squares.

Once Vox Populi is off its top click, it switches from Running Shot to Stealth for its next two clicks. The second click of Stealth overlaps with a three-click run of Combat Reflexes as Vox Populi gains a defensive boost against close combat attacks.  On Vox Populi’s last two clicks, it drops Stealth in favor of Flurry.  Finally, on the last click, Flurry and Combat Reflexes are paired with Exploit Weakness in the damage slot.

004-Daisy-Fitzroy

Daisy Fitzroy, the Vox Populi’s leader, comes into play at 75 points and also has the Vox Populi team ability.  She begins her dial with three clicks of Leap/Climb, allowing her to easily get into position for attacks.  To protect her from ranged attacks, Daisy Fitzroy has Energy Shield/Deflection on her first click.

On Daisy Fitzroy’s first four clicks she has a special power called Barnstormer RPG that makes her a ranged threat.  Barnstormer RPG modifies Daisy Fitzroy’s damage value by +1 when she’s given a ranged combat action.  On her last two clicks, Daisy Fitzroy picks up Penetrating/Psychic Blast, making her a fearsome opponent from range on each of her clicks.  The last two clicks also see the return of Energy Shield/Deflection.

Finally, Daisy Fitzroy has a trait called Rocket Strike which lets her use Outwit, but only if she hasn’t made and does not make a ranged combat attack this turn.  Additionally, when Daisy Fitzroy destroys and object or square of blocking terrain, all adjacent objects and squares of blocking terrain are destroyed.

Team building should be a snap with Daisy Fitzroy and Vox Populi as they both possess the Soldier and Vox keywords. For example, an even 300-point force can be made using Daisy Fitzroy and five Vox Populi.

While the Vox Populi use Hidden Gunpowder Bomb to damage groups of opposing characters, Daisy Fitzroy can stand back and use Outwit to counter any abilities as needed.  In Golden Age play, you may also want to consider using the Debris battlefield condition (Found under the Print and Play section)  to add more standard objects to the battlefield for Vox Populi to use.

Daisy Fitzroy’s Indomitable combat ability allows her to use Willpower, meaning she can ignore pushing damage.  When she’s marked with an action token, she’ll benefit from the Vox Populi team ability when she rolls doubles on her attacks!

Daisy Fitzroy can also get into the thick of combat and use her Barnstormer RPG special power to blast away at opponents from up to seven squares away.  Additionally, Barnstormer RPG is useful in creating extra hindering terrain for Vox Populi once they get onto their Stealth clicks.

Thanks for reading!  Join us again when we reveal more secrets from Columbia in the BioShock Infinite HeroClix set due in stores this June!  Until then, may all your Impervious rolls be successful!

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BioShock: Infinite HeroClix Preview

BioShock Infinite HeroClix: Booker & Liz and Boy of Silence!

Greetings HeroClix Fans!

We begin our series of previews for the BioShock Infinite HeroClix set with a look at a duo of the game’s main characters and one of its recurring antagonists.  We are pleased to present Booker and Liz and Boy of Silence!

First, let’s take a look at former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt and the mysterious Elizabeth, who are featured on the Booker and Liz duo character!

011-Booker_Liz

Coming in at 150 points, Booker and Liz begin play with a powerful trait called Shaping Destiny, which prevents opposing characters with range from using Probability Control.  Opposing characters within range who use a free action to use Outwit or Perplex must be given a power action instead. (Booker and Liz have a range of six squares and two targets.)

For the majority of their dial, Booker and Liz alternate between Phasing/Teleport and Running Shot in their movement slot as they step through tears in reality created by Elizabeth and shoot their way out of tight spots.  Booker and Liz end their dial with Phasing/Teleport on their last two clicks.  In their damage slot, Booker and Liz have a long run of Perplex.

In the defense slot, Booker and Liz start with two clicks of Energy Shield/Deflection as Elizabeth warns Booker DeWitt of any incoming ranged attacks.  Regeneration occupies the last three clicks as Booker and Liz replenish their health by using first aid kits.  In addition to those two standard powers, Booker and Liz have the Indomitable combat ability, which allows them to use Willpower.

In their attack slot Booker and Liz have the Duo Attack combat ability and start their dial with Energy Explosion.  Energy Explosion disappears on Booker and Liz’s second click but returns on click 5 and the last two slots.  On all the other attack slots, Booker and Liz have a special power called Murder of Crows, which lets them use Energy Explosion and Smoke Cloud.  When Booker and Liz use Smoke Cloud, they can potentially deal penetrating damage to opposing character that occupy the hindering terrain markers.

Booker and Liz have the Founders, Future, Herald, Past and Vox keywords, which makes them versatile when building your force with this duo as your centerpiece.  Shaping Destiny should come in handy against opponents who rely heavily on any of the big three powers from the damage slot: Probability Control, Outwit, and Perplex.  Valuewise, Booker and Liz have consistent damage values and their attack values never drop below a 10 until the last three clicks.

 003-Boy-of-Silence

In the world of BioShock Infinite, no sin may evade the gaze of the Boy of Silence.  This holds especially true for the HeroClix version of this character, which Booker DeWitt encounters several times throughout his journey in Columbia!

Boy of Silence comes in at 50 points and has an Improved Movement ability called Silent Steps, which lets him ignore hindering terrain when moving.  Boy of Silence also has a range of six squares and two targets.

In addition, Boy of Silence has the Founders team ability, which reads: “At the beginning of your turn, choose a single opposing character within line of fire of any one character that can use this team ability; all friendly characters using this team ability modify their attack value by +1 when attacking the chosen target this turn. Uncopyable.”

The senses-enhancing helmet worn by Boy of Silence is represented by a special power on the first three clicks called Waiting for the Noise.  This special power lets Boy of Silence use Charge, Quake, and Stealth.  Additionally, the futility of attacking Boy of Silence is represented in the defense slot as Toughness on all but the first click.  On its last three clicks, Boy of Silence has sounded its alarm and its piercing scream is represented as Pulse Wave.  You’ll want to note that Boy of Silence’s attack and defense values rise the deeper it moves into its dial.

At 50 points, Boy of Silence makes an interesting teammate for Booker and Liz, with whom they share the Founders and Herald keywords.  (Boy of Silence also has the Monster keyword.)

An easy, even 300-point force could see Booker and Liz manipulating three Boys of Silence, with the latter taking the point as the force advances on the battlefield and reaping the benefits of the +1 attack modifiers from the Founders team ability.  Meanwhile, Booker and Liz’s Murder of Crows special power can create the hindering terrain the Boy of Silence needs for Stealth, until it’s time for him to Charge and then Quake.

Feel free to push the Boy of Silence onto his 18 defense clicks, which can be modified to 19s thanks to some Perplex from Booker and Liz.  Or have Booker and Liz modify the Boy of Silence’s attack value to make sure that Pulse Wave attack hits. (Just make sure Booker and Liz stay out of the Pulse Wave range!)

Thanks for reading!  Join us again when we reveal more secrets from Columbia in the BioShock Infinite HeroClix set due in stores this June!  Until then, may all your Impervious rolls be successful!

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HeroClix Rules Review Rules Question

A Whole New World – Speed Powers

Speed Power Changes, PAC 2013

“What are your go-to powers? On the flip side, which powers do you not typically build a team around?”

That was how the team kicked off the 2013 PAC design meeting. “PAC” stands for the Powers and Abilities Card and this year, the goal was to get some of the powers that have been “shy and reserved” and see if they could stay true to their spirit with some changes to make them shine a little better.

Sure, almost everyone has that story of that one time they used Force Blast to knock Nightcrawler off the elevated terrain, or that time they used Incapacitate to completely lock down the opposing one-man-army, but in general there are a few powers that you tend to see on all the really successful teams (powers like Hypersonic Speed or Outwit) and powers that you very rarely ever see used (powers like Plasticity or Smoke Cloud) outside of special scenarios.  Game design took a long hard look at the types of characters that were being played to see what was and was not being used (and how it was being used), and took the PAC back to the drawing board.  Today, we will start looking at these changes with the speed powers.  Bear in mind that we’re only looking at changes, so if a power stayed the same, we’re just moving on.

Let’s start with the first power on the PAC, Flurry:

Flurry

There is only one change to Flurry, but it is a very important one.  If you compare this wording above to the 2012 wording, you’ll see that we’ve removed the line that tells you Flurry will stop working if the power is lost mid-action.  While rolling a critical miss or taking Mystics damage will still probably not be a happy occasion for you, at least now you don’t have to worry about Flurry ending prematurely when your character takes that damage.  Instead your character will get to finish the action normally and make its second attack, even if they power is lost and no longer on the dial.

Similarly, if you have the combo of Flurry with Steal Energy, then if you hit with that first attack and you heal onto a click that doesn’t have Flurry, you can still make that second attack.

Next we have a small change to Leap/Climb:

Leap-Climb

Look closely and you see that Leap/Climb no longer ignores characters for movement purposes.  Instead, when your character uses Leap/Climb, it can more around and through squares occupied by characters (just like the Flight ability).  Since it no longer ignores characters for movement, you do need to roll break away when using Leap/Climb, but you do get a +2 bonus to that break away roll.

Charge has a little cosmetic change:

Charge

Blink and you might miss it: the last sentence was tweaked slightly.   The overall effect is completely unchanged; however the old version sometimes caused some confusion so the power was altered for clarity.  That’s all.  REPEAT: THE FUNCTION OF THIS POWER HAS NOT CHANGED.

The next power, Mind Control, has some very significant changes:

Mind-Control

There are three big changes here.  First, Mind Control is no longer activated by a power action.  Instead, it is activated with a close combat action or ranged combat action.  This means you can now use Mind Control with Charge or Running Shot (or any other effect that allows your character to take a close/ranged combat action).

Second, your Mind Control character will still take damage if you use it on expensive characters, but the threshold has been raised to 150 points instead of 100.

Third, and related to the previous point, your character will only ever take 1 unavoidable damage now when controlling large-point characters.   It does not matter if your Mind Controller controls 150 points or 1500 points: it will take only 1 unavoidable damage for doing so.

All of these changes serve to make Mind Control a much more formidable power.  I always found it very useful (who doesn’t enjoy using your opponent’s own force against him?), but using Mind Control is now much more flexible and combo-friendly AND the penalties for using it are much more forgivable.

Now let’s look at what is quite possibly my favorite change on the PAC:

Plasticity

Plasticity still does everything it did before, but it has two VERY important additions.  First off, it now prevents characters from automatically breaking away.  A character that can ignore other characters (ImpMoveImp_Characters) for movement purposes will still not have to roll break away, but any other character is going to be forced to roll break away first… and that’s a very daunting prospect considering Plasticity still subtracts 2 from the break away die roll.

The other big change is that any character that moves adjacent to a Plasticity-using character must stop moving.  Even if the character could normally move around/through other characters (ImpMoveImp_BasedImp_Through) ; once again, the only way around this is if the character moving about completely ignores other characters (ImpMoveImp_Characters).

In a nutshell, outside of Phasing/Teleport, some Improved Movement characters, and a handful of special powers, Plasticity has become THE tie-up power.  One Plasticity character could lock down an entire team with proper positioning!

Another power that receives a huge bump in power is Force Blast:

Force-Blast

Like Mind Control and Plasticity, Force Blast has received a pretty significant upgrade.  On the one hand, it still work exactly like it did before, allow your character to knock back an adjacent character without needing any kind of attack roll: just assign a power action and roll the d6 for instant knock back.  But now there is brand new addition to its normal effects.  Now, anytime your character successfully attacks a character, you can choose to knock back that character back without needing to roll doubles!  Note that this “extra” knock back only occurs if the character wouldn’t otherwise be knocked back… you won’t get to knock back a character twice if you happen to roll doubles.  Also, since it says “may”, this new part is entirely optional.  If you’d rather not knock back the target (maybe you want it to stick around for a follow up attack), then you don’t need to use this new part of Force Blast. Lastly, bear in mind that this knock back is not any different than rolling doubles. So if the attacked character has Charge or another game effect that causes it to ignore knock back, it isn’t going anywhere.

Last, but not least, Hypersonic Speed has been tweaked, too:

Hypersonic-Speed

Like Leap/Climb, Hypersonic Speed now requires a break away roll.  And, like Leap/Climb, you get a +2 bonus to the break away.  This means that your speedsters will now have to think long and hard about using Hypersonic Speed if it is adjacent to an opposing character; no longer can they zip around the map with little fear of impediment.  Sure, a +2 bonus means that break away failure will be rare, but when it does happen, the action ends immediately and the character can’t even attack (much less run away).  And with the changes to Plasticity, even if your speedster isn’t adjacent to an opposing character when it is given the power action to use Hypersonic Speed, it may still have to stop mid-action if you aren’t careful!

Coming up next time!

We will take a detailed look at the changes to the standard attack powers on the 2013 PAC.  We’ve already shown you that Energy Explosion has been changed in a previous article… I wonder what other powers have been given a face lift?

I hope you found this primer on the new 2013 speed powers useful.  If you have any more questions about these alterations or anything else in the rules, send an e-mail to HeroClixRules@gmail.com or hit the Rules Deputies up on the forums!