Tuesday 5 February 2013

The Log: 50 Points of Efficiency


As well as playing the game well and, a fair amount of luck, a big part of victory in Heroclix like a lot of other collectible games involves choosing and fielding a "good" force.

But what makes a "good" force?

My initial thoughts on this where a flashback to my Magic: The Gathering days where if you stocked your deck with more Rare cards than your opponent you were distinctly more likely to win. On closer inspection though, I'm pretty sure that's not really the case with Heroclix.

This doesn't mean that you don't get a bit more bang for your buck with say a Rare clix model than you do from a Common one but, with models also being graded by their "experience" and, having all this tied up with a points cost, it seems far less important to only field Rare or Limited Edition models.

To put it another way, Rarity is no guarantee of quality and, the theory that I am currently working with is that the better forces are the ones that make the best use of the rules. We're not talking about loopholes here but the bare bones of the mechanics. Making use of factors such high defense scores boosted by Team Abilities and Abilities that make you virtually impossible and such.

Looking over the rules it is even possible to determine the most "efficient" point costing of a clix, which given the title of this post shouldn't surprise you when I say it's 50.

But why 50 points?

Well no matter the size of your fielded force you can take actions (excluding free actions)equal to the point cost divided by 100, with your basic actions being move and attack. Try to act with the same models two turns in a row though and they take damage (although some abilities can get around this) and, won't be able to do anything for the next turn.. Well, other than sit there waiting to get shot to pieces that is.

However, if you field 50 points models you can get around this completely. On one turn half of your models can act as the other half clear their action tokens as a freebie, who are then ready to act next turn, as this lot clear theirs.

Acting fully every turn seems like a great way to go from a newcomers point of view but, I do see that finding a handful of 50 point models you want to field might be a problem. I don't believe it's impossible though.. Just a challenge.

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