Greetings everyone! Today’s article was going to be a new team build, but holy cow was there a ton of new spoilers last week. So instead, I’m going to go through each of the new 2019 convention exclusives and talk about which ones are the best.

It’s been a busy end of April/beginning of May for Heroclix, and the reveals aren’t slowing as we just got some WWE news on Thursday and unboxings are coming our way too. It seems the summer season for clix is well underway ahead of time.

This new wave of convention exclusives and WizKids Open prizes are among the top of the new reveals; some of these are just outstanding. As these aren’t as readily available as regular sets or monthly organized play figures, I thought it would be good to analyze each of them so that those of you that aren’t able to travel and try to win or purchase these (like me) can prioritize which pieces you want most.

To be clear, I’m not going to cover the first wave of exclusives we saw about a month ago which included things like the Batmobile, Doop, and Ghost Rider on the mammoth. This will be the newest group that was revealed last week. Don’t worry; I’ve included the reveals for you!

Ambrose Chase

What a fantastic ranged character for an honest bargain in points! Ambrose is the ranged Flurry piece you’ve always wanted but with a ton more kick than it seems. Starting things off, he can move through hindering and elevation, so you don’t have to worry about him getting into position or tripping on a bush for defense. Ambrose has a terrific trait that grants him limited Probability Control, but also the ability to reroll one of his own attack rolls in addition. That shouldn’t be too difficult for him since he has an 11-attack on 6 freaking clicks! Basically, you’re not going to miss with him. Ever.

Ambrose’s special movement power grants him Running Shot and Stealth which pairs well with his improved movement, and he can activate a RANGE to make three ranged attacks that have to hit multiple characters. Because this is a RANGE, he can indeed use this with his Running Shot. Finally, his special damage power gives him the option of Outwit or Perplex which just furthers his usefulness.

He’s a little fragile with nothing but Energy Shields and Stealth to keep him safe, but the high numbers, Probability Control (and other support powers), a long dial, and an ending click with 19-Regeneration make him one hell of a ranged attacker.

I give Ambrose a solid A. Pretty exciting and versatile. The only thing keeping him from a perfect score is the lack of reducers and Willpower.

Weapon H

If hulking masses are more your flavor, Weapon H is about as opposite as you get from Ambrose. This big boy (giant size) is all about closing the gap and hitting control+alt+delete on his target. Huge values across the dial and some vicious powers like Exploit Weakness and Super Strength on top of already big damage values makes him terrifying to spar against, especially since he breaks through walls. There will be no running from him.

The Powered By Rage trait returns from The Mighty Thor, basically making Weapon H that much more scary if you manage to deal some damage to him, which will be tough with his high defense values on either starting line and big reducers. It’s a long-winded trait but it’s very good and will often times make him only able to be hit once as his defense will sky rocket. He only has two special powers; Gamma Mutant Mutate (really?) With Adamantium Claws is your staple uber-beatdown power granting Charge and Flurry, and Gamma Infused Mutant Healing Factor is basically Wolverine’s healing laced with steroids granting STOP, Invulnerability, Regeneration, and Regen as FREE if he was hit since your last turn (which, yeah that should always be the case).

Put all this together and you have one heck of a bruiser that is going to hit for a metric ton of damage no matter how he chooses to engage, and he’s seriously tough to put down. My issue with Weapon H is that he’s giant and doesn’t have any Outwit protection, and even if you can’t counter that Invincible, any other click can be melted by penetrating damage. Two Cyclops blasts and this guy is suddenly on his last click. Still though, he’s downright vicious and shows The Devastator what a melee monster really means.

I give Weapon H a B+. I’m not too fond of pure melee pieces that cost this much, but he has the right tools to completely eviscerate whoever he gets to, and the double STOP click with free healing is pretty absurd. I’d love to play him at 75 points.

Superman Prime

It seems this Superman can do it all; ranged, melee, run-and-gun… he’s your every purpose Superman, but he has quite a bit more tricks up his sleeve. For one, since this is a much more powerful Superman, he gets the Quintessence team ability – something Superman has been wanting for a long time making his massive reducers that much harder to burn through. He also has the Superman Ally team ability to help him break Stealth, but that’s very typical. And of course, there’s Flight, another staple of the character.

What’s different from the other two so far is Supes’ massive point costs with 150 being his lowest and a whopping 350 as his highest! Since we mostly look at games at 300 points, that makes his top click pretty much non-existent, which is fine because he’s still fantastic at either lower point value. Two traits are on this dial; the first, 15,000 Years Hibernating In The Supre-Sun gives you Super Strength which is nice, but it also gives you Colossal Stamina on a huge-point figure, and a way to heal himself for free. So basically, this Superman is happy to act every single turn, making him much scarier than he looks.

His second trait, Bestow On You A Portion Of My Power gives Leadership and when he uses it, he can pull a token from someone within 8 squares that shares a keyword and increase their combat values by +1 instead. That’s huge, and of course he has the Cosmic keyword so he’s already got one of the best theme teams around. Finally his damage power, I’m Superman, Welcome To My Universe gives him Prob and Outwit, which he can use either twice a turn if he has one or more action tokens.

These are all insanely good powers and abilities, and when you look at his dial, Superman is disgusting to play against, no matter what value he’s being played at. I would argue that 150 is the best spot for him as you get a decent dial with tons of control, and you can take advantage of his Leadership super booster.

I give Superman Prime an A. He’s a bit too high in points to see as often as our other two choices without feeling dirty for playing him, but he’s going to have massive implications when he’s fielded.

Hulk

This is probably the most interesting take I’ve seen on Hulk. He does typical Hulk things (okay, aside from Phasing/Teleport), but has a very all-or-nothing super dial. Thankfully this version of Bruce is standard size, so we no longer have to worry about him being targeted by everyone. Hulk has some great values on his dial as is usual for the character, and his powers are pretty good too, although he is very slow to engage into the fight. But that’s okay because this Hulk doesn’t need to hit first.

Hulk has a pair of powers that completely change how he’s played. Relaxation By Positive Cerebral Ions makes is very hard to actually deal any damage to Hulk unless you have penetrating damage, and even then he’s going to have Invincible if you have a big damage value. Four clicks of this followed by four clicks of Impervious is one meaty dial, perhaps the toughest Hulk we’ve seen in a long time. Paired up with No One Will Notice Hulk Now gives him an alien Shape Change (although only on a 6), but if he nails it, he protects himself and adjacent characters for the entire turn. I would hate to fight this dude and have his controller roll a 6.

After Hulk freaks out and takes some damage, he has Explain Meaning Of Life Via Hulk, granting Poison and he hands out tokens to everyone within 2 squares if he sits around with Hulk thumb up butt. On his final click after some Flurry, we have the first power on his dial with Beat Banger McCrusher For Two Wishes?, an insanely good healing ability that lets Hulk ‘port around the map, healing for 4 clicks if your team can KO an opposing character worth 25 points or more.

I give Hulk a B. This is a super-fun dial that I would love to play, but he has a lot of weaknesses. Outwit, Pulse Wave, ranged attacks, penetrating damage, and he needs a lot of luck to be successful. With no STOP click on the end, there’s no guarantee you’ll get that free healing. If he weren’t so rare when he releases, he’d be a must-have for me.

Static

Virgil looks like he just stepped out of Batman: The Animated Series with this sculpt! This is a pretty simple dial that looks pretty darn good! You can either play Static at 65 or 40 points, and both are neat, but the bigger dial easily wins out. Played at 65, you get Running Shot with Pulse Wave and 18-Super Senses on defense compared to his Sidestep and 17-defense at 40. Flight is nice and can help him serve as a secondary attacker at 65 or a good support taxi at 40.

The reason why you want to play him at 65 points though is that you gain Gear, a bystander with Sidestep, Energy Shields, and Perplex that can only target himself or Static. Essentially, you’re paying the extra points to gain access to better values on his dial and a nice body blocker.

The best part about Static though is his Using The Environment trait which gives him TK as FREE, but only to throw objects in attacks. That gives Static a lot more utility at either point value. At higher points, he can Running Shot Pulse Wave, and then follow up by throwing a heavy object for 3-damage. At lower points, he can taxi your buddies around, continually throwing things for free while he repositions. While there’s only up to 6 items brought to any game, there’s plenty of characters in Modern that can generate them on command like Tinkerer from Earth X (who also has Enhancement and Empower to further help Static out!).

I give Static a B+. His values are a little low for my liking, but there’s some real potential with the constant item barrage. Pulse Wave on a smaller figure is always good, too.

Storm

It looks like we’re supplementing more Battleworld figures with LE’s, to which I say “give me more!” Storm is a simple figure with just a single special power, no improvements, and some Flight with Indomitable to keep her valuable. But just because this goddess of thunder and lightning has simple dial doesn’t make her bad.

Storm starts things off with Running Shot, Invulnerability, Leadership, and her special attack power, Behold, The Goddess Of Thunder!, all with stellar combat values for her 85-point cost. That special is quite handy giving her Energy Explosion, Pulse Wave, Knockback, and making her ranged damage unable to be reduced below her click number. This means that Storm can easily multi-target Pulse Wave figures and deal 1 damage to them no matter what. Reducer tied to a STOP click? Don’t care, you’re taking 1. Group of colossal retaliators? Yep, you’re all dead. That’s one hell of a top click!

It’s not like Storm gets any worse, either. Her middle clicks are still fantastic adding in Ranged Combat Expert to give her even more ways to dish a ton of damage (how does 11-attack and 5-damage sound that can’t be reduced below 3 or 4, with knockback?). Her last two clicks are pretty bad, but that’s fine because those first four are super brutal. To top it all off, her Keywords are fantastic with X-Men, Avengers, and Asgardian being huge team builders, and Deity a low-key win.

I give Storm an A. Easy to run, low in cost for what she can do, and fantastic to build around. She would be perfect if her defense didn’t drop so hard and those last two clicks didn’t feel so naked.

Robby Reed

Hoooo boy. I hope you like obscure characters because Robby is about to turn the game on its’ head. I’m not going to go through things in detail because frankly there’s just too much. Read his card really quickly, then come back here.

Good? Good. So what you’re getting with Robby is a 45-point activation character (meaning he has to take damage to become good) that has stupid-good values and can choose whichever way he wants to engage and deal damage. Every time he uses his item, he gets to basically reset his powers, but unlike other figures with this much utility, he gets to pick most of what he does. Hit that button and he gets to pick a power in each set: [Charge, Running Shot, Sidestep], [Combat Reflexes, Energy Shields], and [Close Combat Expert, Ranged Combat Expert], all with just stupid values for this point level. And it’s not like these just fade away; he gets to keep the powers until he hits the button again.

Speaking of the button, what does that thing do? Does it make him that much more powerful?

Why yes, yes it does. This thing looks confusing, but it’s a lot easier than that. Basically you get to roll 2d6 (one at a time though as it’s important for Robby that you do so), and you get a random power based on what you rolled with a small sliver of choice. But Robby throws this out the window. He just gets to pick whatever he wants for the second dice, giving him access to any power combination he wants. Let’s see what he can get.

1: Leap/Climb, Earthbound/Neutralized, Energy Explosion, Quake, Toughness, Battle Fury, Exploit Weakness.

2: Mind Control, Force Blast, Incapacitate, Smoke Cloud, Barrier, Willpower, Probability Control

3: Charge, Stealth, Super Strength, Steal Energy, Regeneration, Enhancement, Outwit

4: Plasticity, Sidestep, Penetrating/Psychic Blast, Precision Strike, Mastermind, Invincible, Shape Change, Empower

5: Phasing/Teleport, Running Shot, Pulse Wave, Telekinesis, Defend, Invulnerability, Support, Leadership

6: Flurry, Hypersonic Speed, Blades/Claws/Fangs, Poison, Super Senses, Impervious, Perplex

The duplicates for defense and damage were taken out as it wasn’t necessary but good god. This kid is just stupid-good. Thankfully for all of us, his only keyword is Past, so there’s a small ray of hope.

I give Robby and the H-Dial both an A+. This kid is just crazy-good and I fully expect to see him in the competitive world. I’m going to hate tracking him down.

Miles and Gwen

Spoilers! I’m biased and this dial is perfect. The sculpt is gorgeous, the mechanics are brutally efficient and cool, and wow Wizkids you have outdone yourselves. Okay, let’s get back to the real world.

Miles and Gwen clock in at a cool 100 points, have Indomitable, and the Spider-Man Ally team ability, along with some great keywords like Champions and Spider-Man Family. Characters mean nothing for them as they breeze right passed them, and they’ve got some pretty decent values and powers with a nice Probability Control riding shotgun and on every odd click.

These two are all about protecting your team with their Super Secret Science Tech portal trait that lets them blink around the map whenever an ally is KO’d giving them some insane mobility and making rush teams pay off in dividends (I can’t wait to try them with Stegron). The tech on this dial doesn’t stop there though which is good because that Leap/Climb would make them honestly bad. I’ve Got Your Back gives them FREE: make an attack against a character that hasn’t been hit this turn, so Miles and Gwen can blink next to an opponent (or wherever they’re buddy died if it was from range), make a FREE attack, then be given a costed action to attack again. That’s a lot of damage that you cannot hide from.

It just gets better, too! Who’s Ending Up On Which Earth? lets you pick who’s leading by picking either Miles or Gwen’s powerset and giving it to their shared dial. You want Charge/Quake/Combat Reflexes/Outwit, or Running Shot/Incapacitiate/Energy Shields/Perplex? Oh yeah, and remember you already have Prob!

But wait, there’s more! The duo have a STOP click with Super Senses that says if they do go down, they pop out both their respective bystander tokens, which means they’re still putting out their 100-points of hurt even after they’re gone! And since this is on a STOP click, you can’t Pulse Wave them out of this; they are GOING to drop.

I give Miles and Gwen an A+. The value this dial comes with is so freaking good! They’re capable of so much and only eating 100 points of your build is spectacular. I will chase them down immediately.

Robin

Compared to everything else on this list, Robin is fairly straightforward. Played on his own, he’s… not all that great aside from his point value to the damage he can potentially put out. But that’s not too great as he has the typical shortcomings of the boy wonder. The Batman Ally team ability helps a lot, but his inability to traverse hindering terrain means he doesn’t want to hide. Flurry with 3-damage for 40 points is good, but not when you have no way to engage, only 8-movement, and no Willpower.

Robin does come with a special attack power, Tactical Takedown, which is Incapacitate and when he attacks a single target and his roll is 2 or higher than the target’s defense, he gives them an action token. That’s pretty neat, and it will work with Flurry since the power only looks to see if he hit with an attack against a single target.

Now to be fair, Robin does get a lot better when you pair him with his bike thanks to his trait, Redbird Tricks, letting him blink to his bike within 4 squares and the ability to become its’ pilot for FREE rather than a POWER action. So in order to really assess Robin, we have to see the bike too:

Basically you’re giving a character Hypersonic Speed, Stealth, and Empower, along with 5 clicks of health. If Robin is the pilot, the Batcycle becomes a bit stronger with +1 to attack and damage giving you a nice 11-attack and 3-damage. In addition, the cycle does lay down hindering terrain in squares it moves through, so it’ll be much easier to keep yourself in hiding (remember that where it stops are still squares it moved through).

So the question becomes are Robin and the Batcycle worth 80 points? It’s a tough call. It’s neat that Robin can jump onto the bike for free, but it’s a bummer that it doesn’t work in reverse so that Robin can jump off after using Hypersonic Speed and Flurry the target. If that were the case, this would be one hell of a pair. As-is, I feel it’s a little too expensive.

I give Robin a D. Without the bike, there’s no reason to ever play this Robin. In addition, aside from saving the initial action to become the pilot, there are much better Robin’s to use with the bike.

I give the Batcycle an A-. Not a bad vehicle. Hypersonic Speed is a great power to hand out and the Empower and free Smoke Cloud actually make it worthwhile to just keep its’ own powers. Stats are a tad low for my liking though aside from the movement value.

Lightning

We’ve seen a lot of the Mandarin Rings and it looks like we still have 2 to go before completing all 10. Lightning is incredible; adding +1 to damage whenever the equipped character targets multiple characters with a ranged attacks and hits, is pretty exceptional.

Since the ring only checks to see if you targeted multiple characters with an attack, characters with two or more targets and Energy Explosion are going to eat this thing up. Imagine Starfire or The Murder Machine increasing all their damage dealt if they target two squads. That’s huge.

One final note; since the ring increases the damage dealt, this has nothing to do with the rule of 3’s. So if you have a big ranged character with 5 damage and two targets equipped with the Lightning ring, and you Perplex their damage to 8, you could target them both, deal 5 to one and 3 to the other, and then increase damage to both by +1. The ring is applying more damage, not increasing your damage value.

I give Lightning an A+. This ring seems like a “win more” item and will be a huge answer to both swarm teams and greatly increase the effectiveness of characters than can multi-target with big Enhancement squads.

The Liar

Compared to Lightning, The Liar isn’t all that grand. Granting Mind Control with a range of 10 is nifty, but one could argue why not just use a Mind Control figure to begin with and save the 5-points and double actions to equip? To be fair, there’s an additional aspect of the ring that gives the equipped character a minimum range value of 10 when using Mind Control, Outwit, or Perplex so that is neat, but again it’s just not that impressive.

If I want to play a figure that has a long Outwit range, I’m most likely not going to pick someone that’s 20-30 points and then play The Lair and spend the time to equip them. I’m going to play Unseen instead. And when Unseen rotates, there will probably be a new character that sees through everything with support powers up the wazoo.

The point I’m making is that The Liar just doesn’t do enough to warrant both the action economy or it’s points. Would you rather play this or any other ID card? “But Loki’s Staff was played for 12 points and that granted Mind Control.” Yes it did, but it also granted the much more heavily-wanted Shape Change.

I give The Liar a C. It’s just too slow for what it does when you could just run any figure to get the job done instead.

Well this turned out a bit longer than I had originally intended! Oh well, I suppose it’s always better to have more information. WizKids is really hitting it out of the park with this year’s convention exclusives – the first wave was incredibly exciting and there was quite a bit of pieces that made us giddy, and then this new wave comes along and slaps us with even more good stuff. Seriously, I don’t think there’s anyone who can’t find something to like out of both waves of convention exclusives this year.

What are your thoughts on these new LE’s? Which do you like best? Which do you dislike? Who are you going to be seeking out first? Can you get me a Miles and Gwen? Let me know in the comments section below!

Thanks for tuning in everyone! For those of you who are new to our page thanks to our awesome previews by Aaron last week; welcome and I hope you come back! You can catch my next article over on Clix Fix next Tuesday at 10AM PST, and then again here in two weeks at the same time.

Hope you guys are enjoying the swarm of new product reveals! Until next time, remember that the real fun begins when you’re Two Clicks From KO!