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Okay, so I promised to do more than just talk about the comics themselves here. Yesterday, I went to the local gaming/comic/LAN Gaming shop here in Melbourne, Florida, The Wizard's Wall, and was sitting to do some e-mailing when I heard the Monday night Heroclix guys talking.
For those of you who don't know, Heroclix is a game where you get to make the decisions for a group of comic book characters fighting each other, and roll the dice to see how well things turn out.
Turns out, they were about to play a Marquee tournement for the newest set from DC, icons. Marquee means that it is a celebration of a new set coming out. It also means that everyone has to buy three packs of figures and make their best team from that (each figure has a certain point value, and your entire team cannot surpass a certain maximum point value) to play. This puts everyone on more-or-less even footing. So, I decided, "What the hell? Why not?" and I did. I haven't played heroclix in about... mmm... forever. Heroclix is a collectible game (different pieces have different rarities, and you only get 4 of about 96 figures from a set in any given box. This means to get all the figures you have to spend a few hundred dollars per set or so) and at some point they decided to start retiring figures. What this means is the hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars we had spent on the early Heroclix sets were now no longer worth anything in most tournement formats. Which sucked. In fact, for some of the group I played with, it sucked the fun right out of the game. So, we stopped playing.
But here I was, a stranger in a strange land, looking to meet people just as strange as I. So, I ponied up my $20 for the three boosters. And got my ass kicked. The first game, I made a couple of strategic errors - I will blame it on being rusty. The second game, I sacrificed one character for a couple of good shots at two others. It worked. I lost the one character, but wiped out my opponent. The third game, I played a younger player who was new to the game. He slaughtered me. I have never been beaten so badly in my life. The dice hated me and loved him. He couldn't miss (that's a lie. I think he did miss once, when he had about a 20% chance to hit. But it is worth noting that he tried that roll three times, and only missed it once), and I could almost never hit. And of the 5 times I did hit, he made a roll that let him ignore the damage done 3 times. Now, mind you, this roll is a straight up 33.33% shot. It was ugly. About as ugly as it can be. But hopefully, it'll have my opponents underestimating me next time.
Anyway, it was fun to forget about the fact that I am all alone down here for a few hours and meet some guys who may some day develop into friends. That is one of the great things about hobbies - if you meet someone else who shares them, then you know you will have at least something to talk about.
2 comments:
Good to hear you're getting back into something you like doing.
Yeah, the retiring Heroclix sets admittedly turned me off enough to tank the game for me, which is unfortunate, as even though I was never great at it, it's a pretty damn cool game.
Sorry to hear the dice were against you on your first foray. I know you certainly had your share of crappy luck with them here, and I know it frustrates you losing due to sheer bad luck, which I can appreciate.
You should bring up the idea of Rocketmen to the group and see if they're interested in playing. If so, I could always ship down the packs you left here. Haven't used them thus far with the gaming lads, mahself.
It still involves the luck of the dice, of course, but at least it's a new enough game that perhaps in introducing it to the group/playing it together, it could be another way to break the ice as everyone gets to understand it better collectively.
And hopefully, if things pan out particularly well for me *winkwink* I'll have some free time soon to not only get more writing done, but to get some of those game ideas of my own into some form of hard copy. I could send down some stuff for you to look at/playtest with the group. Or maybe come down myself and introduce them to it, or somesuch.
All of which is still beyond reach, of course, but as well you know, you gotta keep reaching for goals.
=)
Later, gamer d00d.
I always hated the retiring pieces thing.
I used to play Magic, The Gathering, and I had some great cards that ended up being "retired" from tournaments.
It sucked bigtime.
Good thing I never spent all THAT much money on it.
Sinc gave me a Demon Hordes card, among other gems. He rocked.
J
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