I played at the recent local Clixmageddon held in Neutral Grounds Centris yesterday, May 30. I ran my Team Avengers build - Red Wolf & Lobo, two Abysses, Hulkbuster, and AOU gravfeed Hulk, empowered by the Phoenix Force. I enjoyed myself somewhat, mainly for the social aspect of the event, truth be told - I was there with some friends, and made a couple of new ones - but yet again, as always with these things, the whole thing was an eye-opener for me.
Clixma 2015 pretty much settled in my head that Heroclix is at its most balanced in 300- to 400-point builds - that is when smaller-yield (and potentially more strategic) figs are used in favour of larger-yield (and more costly) figs, with the hitting power averaging at around 10 Attack for 3 Damage, the Defense is at 16 with +2 boosts thanks to ESD or CR, with plenty of Outwitters and Probbers and some Perplexers, each team consisting of three to five figs max, and scalpels yield more results than axes.
With Clixma's thousand-point build, you generally get either maxxed-out teambases (600 points) or single-fig tanks (usually at 200+ points) with an army of keyworded minions for the initiative roll boosts and to pump-up the tank fig's Attack and Damage values. To whit, my second fight yesterday was to an Iron Man boosted by six Recorder #451s and a Bob, supported by two Researchers (for the additional +s for initiative) and the Phoenix Force - on his first turn, Iron Man was boosted six times for all combat values, plus the Phoenix Force boosts, plus a couple of Perplexes, giving him 19 Range with 19 Attack for 8 Damage with Energy Explosion, and supported by 24 Defense, with Bob allowing Iron Man no need for line of fire to eliminate my figs, three of which he killed in just his first turn.
Another realisation is how the modern day rules and PAC are actually the best and fairest iterations of the rules and PAC so far - more pointedly, apparently, there was no first turn immunity back in the day, and no Rule of Three, and so you got all these alpha strike builds that were boosted so much they could eliminate more than half of your team in just the first turn (ie, the Iron Man build I went up against).
Just to illustrate the levels of absurdity these unrestricted thousand-point builds could reach: the final match was between a DC team boosted by Lantern Rings and Entities and a Shi'ar army build with a teambase centerpiece, only the DC team had about 25 to 30 Mera pogs and four New52 Aquamen who have a trait that gives them +1 for each Mera character that dies in their team, and so as the Shi'ar teambase teleported to the Aquamen's side of the map and Pulse Waved 23 Mera, the four Aquamen's Speed, Attack, Defense, and Damage were all boosted +23, which meant 31 Speed, 33 Attack, 41 Defense, and 27 Damage for four figs, who were then further boosted with two PPB and one Outwit thanks to four Entities - even when the Shi'ar teambase could attack four times with 19 Attack for 8 Damage, mathematically it can't hit against a 41 Defense fig, not even with three dice all rolling sixes, and you can't roll enough CritHits (eight CritHits for each Aquaman) to eliminate them with any efficiency and proficiency. Not to dump on the two finalists' talent and abilities and strategic acumen, as I've watched them play enough times - one I've played against in my first tourney ever - and they are two of the top five best Clix players so far in the local scene, but my goodness, was that Aquamen-Meras build so insanely abusive. Again, great players, but abusive builds. But it was great to watch, though!
Random Bullshit:
* I wanted to play against that Ziran build!
* Someone else ran a variation of the Seyfert/Sentinel team I built as my alternate team, only with an extra Sentinel instead of Ragnarok - and they were doing well, but was then disqualified as he wasn't using regulation dice for that game (the guy had about six pairs of regulation dice in his box, though, so I felt really bad for him because he was doing so well with the build). The guy he was playing with is a friend of mine, and being such a great sport, he suggested Team Sentinel's elimination be decided by a coin toss (heads = elimination, tails = continue the game), which my friend won. I need to buy that guy a beer!
* The Marvel fights were more engaged, more prone to contact attacks, than the DC fights - the final game more or less represented that difference between strategies: the Shi'ar build boosted itself with Perplexes then went up close and personal to hit the DC team, while the DC team just sat back and relaxed and waited for the boosts to come to it via collateral damage.
* The Marvel fights had teambases and giant figs/colossals - and most everyone used Phoenix Forces - while DC had Green Lantern Power Batteries (I think everyone who used a Power Battery used the Green one) and Entities galore.
* And all my friends would be happy to hear that I'm back to running regular teams!
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