Tired of the same old thing every week with Clix? Want to try something new and different? Game Type is a series that talks about unique game formats to mix up your clix night or LGS!

Welcome back to Game Type! It’s been quite some time since we’ve visited this article series with a whopping single entry a year and a half ago! It’s not very often that I either find a really neat game type or come up with one that I feel is worth writing a whole article on. However, I think this new game type is pretty neat.

I recently was drafted into World of Warcraft thanks to a couple friends of mine, and I’ve taken a great liking to the lore and detail of the world. One day after our typical day at my venue that I judge at, a few of my friends and I stood around in the parking lot and talked about different game types or interesting ideas for events that were different from the typical 300 Modern or whatever else venues run. I always try my best to make every week unique with either very simple rules and/or something specific. It helps to mix things up and keep players on their toes while also allowing folks to use all the pieces in their collection instead of playing the same team every week.

This led to an inevitable discussion about how WoW could translate over to Heroclix or if it was even possible. With some brainstorming, we came up with a pretty cool idea.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Each player will pick their favored faction; Horde or Alliance. If there are too many people on one faction, players will randomly be assigned the other faction to make sure there are an even number of players for both. Players will construct a force using characters with Keywords that match their faction. You may not use characters with Keywords that are on the other faction. Once your force is assembled, it will be granted an Alliance or Horde Theme Team, so don’t worry about matching particular Keywords. Just make sure you’re not using opposing Keywords. If a Keyword is not listed, it’s fair game for either faction, but that character MUST possess a Keyword for your faction. During play, when a character on the opposing faction is KO’d anywhere in any game, the player who KO’d the unit will shout according to their faction. “FOR THE ALLIANCE!” for Alliance players, and “FOR THE HORDE!” for Horde players. Players who are part of that Faction that shout the same afterwards may heal any character on their force 1 click after resolutions of any action currently taking place. For the final game, the TOP TWO PLAYERS for both factions will join forces for a grand battle. The winning team is awarded two prizes (one for each player). It’s an all-or-nothing battle for the fate of Azeroth! The lowest scoring player on the winning faction will also be awarded a prize in place of fellowship.

The idea behind this event is to recreate mini skirmishes between the Alliance and Horde, the two factions in World of Warcraft, and then having a large war to determine who the victor is. I thought it would be fun to have players join forces to simulate different groups of their faction coming together for an all-out battle like we see in a lot of the cinematics for the game.

One of my friends had the genius idea of reusing the mechanic from the Civil War event 2 years ago with bounty cards. In that event, players were given random bounties and if they KO’d their bounty during the game, everyone on that side of the registration act was able to heal a character. While you can’t really do that in this setting without assigning certain characters and making things quite a mess for players to build around, I figured it was still a cool system that could be incorporated into the game.

Instead of taking down certain characters, I decided to switch this to the battle cries of each of the factions since they’re so prominent in the game and lore. It’s meant as a rallying cry and breathes new life into your team. However, I didn’t want people to be forced to take part in shouting for something they didn’t necessarily know what it was, or flat out don’t like the subject matter. For that reason, you don’t have to take part in the chant, but you’re rewarded if you do.

For force construction, I wanted a strict code to what people could play without choosing a faction for every character in the game. That would take dozens of hours and it’s just too much work. Instead, I opted for Keywords. As long as a character has a Keyword that matches their faction, it’s legal for that team. However, they can’t possess both faction Keywords. I wanted both factions to have an identity without any mixing.

Finally, I had to go through all of the different Keywords and pick which would fall under the two factions. In case you aren’t familiar with the two factions, here’s a very basic idea of who they are: (keep in mind, I’m a fairly new player, so die-hard WoW fans please don’t take offense if I get something a little wrong)

The Alliance: Your typical knight in shining armor troupe characters. Mostly comprised of humans, but there are also Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, and a few other races. A lot of these characters tend to be more elegant, and many adhere to a divine aspect known as “the light”.

The Horde: A mix of races that the Alliance either doesn’t agree with or won’t fight alongside. While Orcs are the backbone of the Horde, there are races like Tauren, Trolls, Blood Evles, and even Undead. Demonic forces are behind a history of the Horde, and darker magics are typically used.

Neither of these factions are really evil, depending on your point of view, but people who play the games do tend to side heavily with a certain faction. I won’t say which faction I side with because I want this game type to be as neutral as possible.

On to the Keywords!

Alliance Keywords: Amazon, Armor, Asgardian, Brightest Day, Captain Britain Corps, Central City, Coast City, Defenders, Hulkbuster, Illuminati, Invaders, K’un Lun, Keystone City, Marvel Knights, New Warriors, Nova Corps, Opal City, Police, Politician, Purifier/Purifiers, Shi’ar, Soldier, Spaceknight, Star City, TMNT Villain, White Lantern Corps

Horde Keywords: Animal/Animal Brute, Atlantean, Black Lantern Corps, Black Order, Brute, Demon Knights, Demon Legion, Exiles, Gorilla City, Hellfire Club, Hellions, Horsemen of Apocalypse, Howling Commandos, Hulked-Out Heroes, Inhumans, Kree, Legion of Monsters, Midnight Sons, Mojoverse, Monster, Morlocks, Mutanimals, Mutant, Savage Land, Skrulls, TMNT Ally, Warbound, Warrior

I tried to be as true to the nature of both factions as possible when picking Keywords without giving one side an extreme advantage. My ideal setting for this event would be Oreo Age, or anything with the current base style. While Mage Knight has some really great Keywords, most players don’t any of those pieces, so I opted to not include them.

I won’t go into how I chose each of these Keywords as that would take a lot of time and a lot of space, but I’m actually pretty proud of what I’ve chosen. I think a lot of these match up really well when compared to how little time I’ve played this monstrous game.

I’m really looking forward to running this event, and I’m hoping my players will enjoy it. This one is a bit easier to run as opposed to my Dungeons and Superheroes Game Type as it’s fairly simple to assemble a team (just pick a Keyword in your faction and build a theme team; done), but I think there’s a bit more flavor here.

What are your thoughts on this Game Type? Are there changes you would make? Are you ready to pitch this to your local judge to see if you can run it too? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

Thanks for tuning in again, everyone. I’ll see you all next week on Two Clicks From KO as I dive into some team builds with this new set and discuss some of the pieces in the coming weeks. I’m heavily leaning on a “Chase or Pass” article for Avengers: Infinity this coming week as there’s a LOT of discussion on these.

See ya!