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I only occasionally buy Heroclix (never played though I was tempted to have my NX-01 battle it out with Professor Hulk in years past!) mainly for RPG purposes like character conversions and recently started looking at them for the first time in a few years. It looks like they've had a lot of changes that probably won't surprise folks who follow the game(s) more closely. The detail looks better and the figs are definitely bigger which are good things for the most part with the mostly industry wide scale creep over the past decade as well as mounted on scenic raised islands of terrain (a bit conflicted on that one but admittedly I rebase them so...). I've found a news article on ttgn that referenced this post that likely is the turning point for the lines in that regard. Has the advent of 3d printing had an impact on their business outside of the core game players? That's what I've been mainly focused on (3d model conversion for random stuff) but obviously I don't have a feel for the game/hobby itself.

https://wizkids.com/heroclix/2020/09/30/marvel-heroclix-x-men-house-of-x/

https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/WizKids-Making-Big-Changes-to-HeroClix-Minis

One fig that I bought clocked in at 70+mm tall when I thought he'd end up being 40k ogre/ogryn sized. Still, loved the extra detail on him (it was a DC minotaur) and I just ordered a couple of others today including this hilarious fig that I will find a use for! Render then actual fig.




Has the game significantly changed along with the figs or has that remained, for better or worse, relatively stable?

edit: I figured I'd make a general thread as a search didn't turn one up in the past couple of years worth of posts.

In the mid 2000's, I was playing D&D minis more than anything else so I get where you're coming from. I'd say play what you want and don't let other people playing with their toy soldiers making fun of your's get to you. People outside the hobby won't distinguish and will just lump us all together as losers anyways!

The game itself never appealed to me (I tried several times at Gencon to do demo games but it never stuck) but I was always intrigued by the cheap source of figs. I've never bought a booster but I generally pick up singles (commons, uncommons) for a buck or two every once in a while when there are a couple sets to peruse that weren't around the last time I looked. For someone like me, the relative increase in quality at that price point is welcome though honestly I don't see much of a difference in that regard based on rarity. With D&D and Star Wars minis from WOTC in the old days (2003-2010ish), the paint jobs went up in detail with rarity. Was that the case with clix back when you played? Or is the rarity strictly based on the dial?

 Monkeysloth wrote:
No. There was generally never really any increase in quality in sculpts of paint with rarer figures which could be the same sculpt but different dial (they'd have 3 different ranks of a lot of figures) but there were also unique sculpts/dials in sets too which were generally rare. They stopped doing the 3 different ranks of most figures as the popularity waned to try and make the sets have more variety. They'd have starting points on dials for cheaper point versions vs haven't 3 separate dials for example.

Thanks. They do it in a way but at least they change the name and repaint the same fig in the same set. The DC minotaur I got had two versions in the set with a generic common minotaur (worse stats?) and an uncommon named one with different colored coat/pants.

I played the WoTC Star Wars minis game too. I have a lot of the D&D ones but I never cared for the game that much vs just playing D&D but I think I have all the cards for them somewhere. It's interesting that the game that more or less started as a wargame has failed every single time it's tried to spin back off to wargames.

Obviously I don't have access to the WOTC financials so can only speak definitively about what my large twice weekly group of almost two dozen felt and generally about the feel on the official forums. With D&D minis, it died with the switchover to 4e of the rpg. Not so much because of the general disdain for the rpg rules itself (though that didn't help!) but because of disgusting hubris on the part of WOTC. By that point, they had over 600 figs (around ten sets of 60 each) and they announced that iirc only 50 would get rules in the new edition of the collectible minis game that was being released to better match the 4e of the rpg. But we could vote on which ones in an online poll. Just like that, 98% of my collection by total fig count lost half its utility as obviously most of those voted for would be rares and not the commons/uncommons you have multiple of. Could I still use them in dnd rpg? Obviously and I still do! But I was really enjoying using them every week in the minis game as well and had a complete collection of those ten sets. They later reversed that decision but the damage was done.

I guess I was lucky that I actually liked it as it wasn't cheap to get into. One of the reasons I stopped playing was the blind buy and how expensive it was to get the good figures from ebay or other places. Some figures would go for hundreds of dollars (like the Kingdom Come Superman which I have still). Buying a case of boosters wouldn't guarantee everything in a release and they were a pretty big investment for a collage student making $7/hour part time.

Yeah, I started buying boosters every week as we had a big group and local mostly fair trades were a popular thing. Later I switched to buying complete sets after a TFG joined up who was the ferengi used car salesman trying to score unfair trades to later sell on ebay. He basically singlehandedly turned it into an inperson swap meet based exclusively on ebay prices. For the last couple sets after the 4e rpg/2e cmg switchover, I stopped playing and only bought complete c/uc sets on ebay for the price of a couple boosters.


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 Shrapnelsmile wrote:


Heroclix is a game that evokes a lot of different responses from gamers. If you want to see some of the newer sculpts, and a bit of discussion on Clix history, we covered an unboxing in
episode one of our channel:

https://youtu.be/GONLp1DC70Y

Yeah, I mentioned it above but I don't get the snobbery. I have a strong preference of playing with AND against painted figs but I don't shame opponents for it. I instead encourage them honestly if they make progress regularly towards that goal. I'd rather play against rebased heroclix in a minis agnostic game like Stargrave than the great grey horde. I even practice what I preach as I made small 40k forces of necrons and IG from my Clone Wars prepaints.

Thanks for the link and I'll take a look. That set (rise and fall) is where the blob mini I'm so giddy about came from. I'm also looking forward to some of the figs in the upcoming war of the realms set as well though I didn't see a set poster yet for it so don't know which ones will be c/uc. I'm not willing to pay market value for rares/ultrarares when I'm basically ruining their value by rebasing them.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

Heroclix is a game that evokes a lot of different responses from gamers. If you want to see some of the newer sculpts, and a bit of discussion on Clix history, we covered an unboxing in
episode one of our channel:

https://youtu.be/GONLp1DC70Y

Watched and sub'ed. I didn't realize they got rid of the "need" (yeah, I know you didn't "need" it technically) for the decoder spinner ring with an easier twisting dial as I couldn't ever get the hang of them years ago in the beginning. I also didn't know what the tokens were for. I figured they might be some sort of Street Fighter style jump in combo character move or something since they had heroes on the poker chips.


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 Monkeysloth wrote:

The 4e time period was a strange one at WoTC. I worked for a tabletop game review site back then that friends started (something that was still novel at the time) and during 3.x period of time WotC would send us things monthly to review (so did Palladium and a few other companies) and even occasionally cases of the minis for a new wave. When 4e came out the PR person we worked with told us that they weren't sending review copies anywhere because D&D is so big they don't need to advertise anymore (hint: it wasn't). I don't remember them ever releasing a new wargame at the time, though I do remember one talked about, as I think when the Hasbro brass saw the declining 3.x sales they demanded a new version quickly and that new mini game got turned into 4e D&D and then the boardgame system they still use today.

They also got completely out of the wargame hobby too as they got rid of Star Wars, due to high licensing fees and slower sales, and instead made the aforementioned boardgames -- which are reasonably fun. My younger nephews really enjoy them and the 4e combat system really works well in those games.

To quote gakky modern Star Trek... Sheer fething hubris! Hopefully the filter will catch those. Yeah, that jives with my purely consumer experience with them during the switchover. I never played SWM though I did buy lots of boosters over the years once I stopped D&D but exclusively for RPG purposes as I was running a saga clone wars era campaign and really big into the EU until they killed it.

I wonder if Heroclix had a similar moment that necessitated the change in the minis whether due to sales or 3d printing or something completely different. I don't know if the rules drastically changed over the past two years though. I've never actually bought a starter and just put all the stat cards and empty bases into a box together. Not much resale value since I'm "ruining" cheapo figs to begin with.

Apparently they're plastic poker chips now in the video linked above.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Apparently they're plastic poker chips now in the video linked above.

Back in the day we used to use colored beads to mark activations. Like, Mage Knight days....

That's positively prehistoric! Did you count wounds with carved chicken bones too? Kidding of course. We used cardboard chits in D&D minis.

General question for all... is Heroclix Realms the main community forum/site for the games? I've seen it around for years but it always seemed both backwards (as in mid 90s web design) and dense but lacking (no pictures) so I found it hard to navigate. I know...first world gamer problems, lol. I did find this thread as it seems like there wsa a recent price increase with the embiggened models on scenery as well as a future price increase coming this year again.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=836966

edit:

Doing some quick web searches since the names of the next set is already known. Gotta say I'm hoping that the Captain Carter will be in my usual price range of $1-2 for an uncommon and not a rare. I didn't watch the show but I remember from the trailer that there was a scrawny Steve Rogers in a WW2 iron man suit.

https://shop.wizkids.com/collections/heroclix/products/marvel-heroclix-marvel-studios-disney-plus-what-if-miniatures-game
https://shop.wizkids.com/collections/heroclix/products/pre-order-marvel-heroclix-marvel-studios-disney-plus-booster-brick

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

HC realms is bloody awful. I do feel the lack of an easily interactive website for Heroclix is a detriment to the games sustainability.
A full searchable gallery in a sleek, modern design would go a long way.

As someone on the outside with only a minimal amount of knowledge, I can definitely agree with that sentiment. Everytime I've gone to the wizkids site, it's a pain trying to find the news and set list/pics for the sets that came out in between that visit and my prior one usually 6 months earlier. For example, prior to this past week, my last visit to them/interest in the game was shortly before the DC Wonder Woman anniversary set came out. Even now the set that is apparently days (?) away from releasing or already released (lots of unboxings on youtube already) doesn't actually have a distinct page on their Marvel section.


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 Monkeysloth wrote:
HC Realms was the big site 10+ years ago. Considering the games popularity, it's probably still the best place.

Thanks. Just skimming the forum thread titles let me know that the next set is apparently just one month away (March) which feels odd. I wonder if this current one (War of the Realms) was delayed due to logistical issues. It seems like the Marvel set releases vastly outnumber the DC ones 3 or 4 to 1 but this short of a gap feels odd.

Yeah, that's what I was searching for over there and didn't find. They had the stats up from the card/dial for each character but not the pics of the fig. :(

As for the relative popularity, I wonder how the much more profitably MCU vs DCEU factors into that ratio. Marvel has almost always had the bigger share of the actual comics industry for most of my life but not enough to justify a 3-4 to 1 ratio of sets. They do seem to have a ton of repeats as well in Marvel though the distinct themes cut down on that apparently. It's hard to shoe in a Spider Man into a classic 80's or even 90's event themed set when he wasn't in the comics.

Yeah, that's a huge discrepancy in points value for effectively a skirmish game (278 vs 12) for single figs. Too much at least from an outsider's perspective personally.

Speaking of important sounding stuff, were primes a thing when you played? I've seen mentions of them in threads and they don't necessarily seem to be referring to the main comics universe versions of characters (as opposed to alternate universe ones). Is that something that indicates there is only one fig of that name in the whole set instead of having reposes and repaints at different rarities?

Back of the box pic from the upcoming (starter?) set. For those who watched the What If? cartoon on Disney plus, is the hydra stomper what Steve Rogers piloted or was it an actual pre-Iron Man suit?



edit: Found a better pic/render of the design. The US WW2 white star might indicate it's Steve?



And finally in news lots of other people online probably already know, the set after this Disney Plus one is some event where everyone got a sword and tarot cards?

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/50204/marvel-heroclix-explores-new-realities-x-swords-set

Oh wow...that much of a difference I wasn't expecting. They've been primarisized. I usually buy the big guys like the various hulks, juggs, and things with only the occasional normal human so I'm wondering if they've gone up as well. I mentioned above that the minotaur I bought last year was much bigger than expected (70mm+) when I was hoping he'd be more like a 40k ogryn (50mm). I suppose I'll find out hopefully over the weekend as I've got the blob pictured above and a she-hulk on the way as well as some wonder women.

 Eilif wrote:

Yeah, it seems like a full-range, major up-scale. The early "improvement" pictures that WizKids put up in 2020 seem to undersell the size difference, perhaps suspiciously so. My limited-view guess is that everything has gone up in size. Probably why the minotaur (what's the full name, I'd like to look it up) is much larger than you expected.

Yeah, I was taking their word on the size bump they themselves posted in the link in the first post. Looking back at it again with fresh eyes now that you've posted your fig, I can see some of the massive increases even there like with Mr. Sinister and Corsair.



These are the minotaurs I was referring to from last year's Wonder Woman 80th anniversary set; one is common (generic minotaur) and the other uncommon (Ferdinand named character). Unbased (and cut off their floaty island of rubble), they're 70mm tall iirc. I love the sculpts and frankly they're pretty much the only modern/scifi minotaurs I can find to fit my needs (shadowrun player character model) without resorting to 3d printing. But they're just too big compared with the other "troll" figs I have converted over the years like other Hulk clix and Ogres/Ogryn from GW.

I can confirm the scale creep is real. Wow. Got my minis today and my human female repaint of Diana Prince is gigantic. She's noticeably taller than the blob mini who, admittedly is bending down/forward, is also supposed to be inhumanly huge as well. I'll try posting a crap cell phone pic later.

edit: As promised, crappy cell pic of various female clix. I understand x23 is technically a teenager but the rest are supposedly full grown (occasionally alien!) women. That's one hell of a scale creep!

I can't speak for anyone else but it's more surprising for me than emotional/frustrating. I've never played and have less than $100 in heroclix over two decades.

Yeah, I was initially (when starting this thread) supportive of the scale increase as I didn't comprehend just how much of an increase it really was. In another decade, both normal 40k and clix will be compatible with the old Inquisitor and Mutant Chronicles CMG lines at 54mm...

They've made a page for the upcoming Disney+ set covering all the shows that premiered there including a set poster. Strangely, they don't have a poster up for the current set (War of the Realms) to easily see which figs are currently available. That seems like an odd oversight.

https://wizkids.com/heroclix/marvel-heroclix-marvel-studios-disney-plus/

From the new set, I'm most interested in the Hydra Stomper (WW2 Iron Man) and if that's a cheap fig then I'll get a few as RPG fodder. Other than that, one Captain Britain/Super Peggy and I think I'm done with the set. Even with Peggy, I'm a bit hesitant despite liking the visual design as I know she's going to end up as another giantess like my Diana Prince/Wonder Woman spy fig that is so huge that she's practically unusable for my purposes due to scale.

Well, it looks like the ww2 Iron Man suit (Hydra Stomper) is an super rare unfortunately for me. :( I may still eventually get a common Captain Carter but I'm not optimistic about that fig either due to the massive scale creep.


https://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=837815