My Brightest Day Review

I recently got my Brightest Day Heroclix starter set and I have to say I am very pleased. This set has some thrilling aspects on top of being fairly well made.

Only one complaint and I may as well air it first. Half the dials had to be fixed to even be turned. This isn't a major issue to those of us who are good at being "dial mechanics". I just took apart the dial and used a pair of fingernail clippers to trim down the plastic bump that the dial clicks across. On two of them, there was a "tag" of sorts on the side of the dial that I had to trim off. Once that was done, they were ready to rock.

As for how the figures were made, the sculpts are awesome. They are made of a good solid grade plastic and show off great detail. And if looks aren't enough for you, how about this:

Keywords: Much, much better than in Darkest Night. I think most venues would accept "Lanterns" as a custom keyword in play, but this set makes it unnecessary. Several keywords allow for good team building strategies. That's even if Deadman's White Lantern power turns out to be a "one set wonder" in 75th.

Yes, I'm talking about his "Summon the White" ability limited to calling in those of the Brightest Day or White Lantern keywords. It should be a great game ability for 75th (I like it!), but what about after that? See what I'm saying? We'll see. There's plenty of time to put Deadman to good use. I'm pretty excited about him.

I'm also excited about having an Aquaman and Firestorm that can be a real threat on the table. Yeah, there's been a couple of "usable" Aquaman figures, but they just haven't seemed right to me. This one rocks. His Undead Sea trait could make for some evil Atlantis teams and I'm sure that will happen soon. Two clicks of punishment for KO'ing anyone with the Atlantis keyword? Nice.

I'm not sure how I feel about Firestorm's trait since it's only good for when he has no tokens on him at the beginning of your turn. Still, the powers are good ones. Starting out with 8 range, two targets and four damage is nice too. Later on, he can rearrange terrain a bit by destroying entire squares of blocking terrain. I don't care that he's so locked down to one keyword. I would have liked to still be able to build them as JLA, but oh well.

And welcome back, Hawkgirl! It's good to see her come back into the mix. Her trait against other fliers is very, very nice. Against other fliers, she gets +1 to both attack and damage. She starts out with an 11 attack and 3 damage, so jump to a 12/4 respectively? Awesome! She doesn't have a real long dial, but she's dangerous for what she does have.

Martian Manhunter is much more likely to see play than his last incarnation with all the cookies. That's because he no longer costs over 200 points. For his new pointage of 158, you get a short range (6) but some decent attack and power usage. His trait that rewards him for your team knocking someone out is quite an admirable feature too. He gains Exploit Weakness, Outwit, and Probability Control until the beginning of your next turn. Having him in the right spot after a successful KO could mean a follow up KO if you do it right.

So, a cool set of pieces, very playable together and I found them affordable in price too. Got my set for around 25 bucks. Oh, and yeah, Captain Boomerang and Osiris get honorable mention. Check em out!

Xena and Buffy Heroclix? An interesting request

Recently, I gave my girlfriend her first heroclix match and she handed me a sound defeat. Not bad for a first game. She played Ms. Marvel, Supergirl and female Hawkeye against Dr. Doom and Vet Kang the Conquerer. It was a cool match. The best way to learn how to play Heroclix is simply to play it. Go through the motions and see how moves are done as you go. Not at tournaments, but with someone else who plays. I still say she did very well. And it's also about having a good time. I hope she did.

She did make a request and I found it quite interesting. Wizkids, you have a request to look into making heroclix for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess. Could it be done? I think so, but I could see something of a licensing nightmare too.

Still, there would be enough characters and cool abilities. How about Buffy? Charge, Blades/Claws/Fangs, Willpower, Combat Reflexes? Maybe Close Combat Expert? Vampires could host a variety of powers, like in Horror Clix. For that matter, Buffy could be another cross set able to play in both games. Not that Horror clix is doing particularly great, but still. After all, they are doing a Street Fighter set, why not Buffy? Why not add Angel and the characters from his show? How about a set on TV heroes? Greatest American Hero would be a good one in that. Of course, I wonder how many players would even know who he is or was.

I also think the Green Hornet and Kato should be heroclix. That would be very cool indeed.

Make your own keywords

I'm always interested to know what kind of keywords that players or judges find that aren't in the game officially. A judge has the power to accept any keyword that a player suggests, but in most cases should be careful in what they approve. Keywords should be something that's somewhat unique to a group of characters that they have in common. They should not be things like color of outfits or power use (like all having outwit). Here are a few that I have found that I think are interesting and suggestions are always welcome.

Circus Performers: A favorite of mine because of Nightcrawler. Others include, Hawkeye, Mister Miracle, Deadman, Nightwing, Ghostrider (the Johnny Blaze version) and Swordsman.

Acrobats: Characters known for that special mutant acrobatic ability that doesn't really come into play in powers so directly include, Spiderman, Beast, Nightwing, Deadman, Nightcrawler, Deadpool and a few others. For that matter, pretty much any of the "spider" characters could hit this area.

Clones- or, if you prefer, Genetically Engineered: Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly, Adam Warlock, Drax the Destroyer, Superboy (in the black t shirt), Goblin Queen, X-23, Guardian, Arc Light, Harpoon, Scalphunter, Vertigo, Genesis (Mar-Vell).

Mercenaries: Deadpool, Deathstroke, Maverick, Elektra, Hand Ninja, Bullseye, Silver Sable, Sandman, Cable, Domino, Paladin, Taskmaster, Ravager, Deathlok, Swordsman and I'm sure you can name a few others, maybe even Heroes for Hire.

Elementals: These are people who's power or ability are based strictly on a particular of the four elements somehow: Sandman, Hydroman, Iceman, Metamorpho, Human Torch, Thing, Mr. Fantastic (water), Invisible Woman (air), Crystal, She Thing, Fire, Firestar, Sunfire.

I've seen shapeshifters accepted before with Mystique, Clayface, Morph, and any Skrull you care to add.

How about Poker Night? Wolverine, The Thing, Doctor Strange, Human Torch, Spiderman (look up the poker nights Wolverine and the Thing put together, some cool names come out).

These parallels allow you to return to some of the cool comic book crossovers we all loved to make before "keywords" came along. Another area of Keyword acceptance that could be cool for a tournament is to build based on a specific story and the title becomes the keyword. Marvel Team-ups could give tons of cool ideas for this.

What sort of creative key word combos can you come up with?

(image property of Marvel Comics)