Web of Spiderman

The set called, Web of Spiderman, recently hit stores. As heroclix goes, it's an exciting set. We got our first brick (half a case equaling ten booster packs) and got some great pulls. This includes about the rarest piece in the whole set, Cosmic Spider-man.

I think, for a standard dial size figure, Cosmic Spidey has to be the most powerful piece ever made. His line of fire is never blocked. Not by walls, not by other figures, not by buildings, not by anything! If you are playing him and get to choose the map you play on, make it filled with obstacles and you've got Spidey's favorite playland for this piece. His points, I think, were purposely set at 319 to keep him out of standard 300 point play. But 400 points with a couple support pieces can still see him ruling the table. Having two team abilities is murderous too, but hard to get a good combo at his points without much higher point teams. Finally, look at his number stats. A 19 defense with impervious, 12 attack, and 14 movement with hypersonic speed and finally damages of 4 and 5 through the dial. That's just deadly.

Now, a friend of mine suggested that the ultimate response to Cosmic Spidey is another Web of figure called Bombastic Bag-man. It's based on another Spidey story where he had to wear a Fantastic Four uniform after losing the Symbiote, or giving it up, whatever. But the key to Bombastic is that any damage dealt to this figure is dealt right back to the attacking figure unavoidably. So if Cosmic hits him for 4 damage, Cosmic takes 4 damage regardless of defense powers. Then Cosmic's damage changes to 5. Hitting again will knock out Bombastic, but take Cosmic along too. Or not. The problem with that thought is that, as soon as Bombastic shows KO on his dial, he's no longer taking damage. The card says "damage taken" not "dealt". So after 4 is dealt, only ONE counts for ko'ing Bombastic! That leaves Cosmic Spidey still going strong. Well, he has two more clix left, but still decent numbers on the dial. Bombastic has some hilarious uses with his trait, but, according to the posters at HC Realms, damage from Mystics, Poison, Mastermind, Pulsewave and Forceblast still don't count. Pulsewave ignores all powers and TRAITS for defensive purposes or otherwise.

Now my favorite piece that I will use and abuse is Nightcrawler. His ability is awesome. First, his trait gives him permanent phasing with special wording. He's never stuck and can go where ever he wants always. So his trait doesn't count as a power action and can be used with his hypersonic speed attacks. That means he's just as mean on a map full of walls as Cosmic Spidey. He has the same movement and defense numbers to boot. He has a great ability to hit a target and then drag them back to his blades claws buddies that I dearly love. Yep, steal your opponents pieces, mean but effective.

So what do I not like about this set? Well, having all of Spidey's main foes as super rares is annoying. That could mean shelling out big bucks to get them all and I can't do that. I may find many in trade, but right now I only have one piece all my player friends are after. That's Cosmic Spidey. Not giving him up guys! The other thing that's annoying me is dial quality. They've slipped on this. Dials have a tendency to come apart when you are turning them. That can really be irksome in the middle of a tournament match when you have to be accurate in what you are doing.

Still, fabulous set, great pieces, and awesome traits. Pretty soon they are going to have to come up with ways to deal with traits just balance the power of the game. I'm sure they will however, in time.