Hello and welcome back to our blog! Today’s post is a very special post as it brings exclusive previews from the upcoming Marve Heroclix: Captain America and The Avengers set! We are very excited to share these with you so let’s get into it!

Marvel’s next Heroclix set is centered around Captain America and his pals The Avengers. Sometimes it takes a great villain to make a great hero and today we have THREE to preview! Up first the nefarious Red Skull!

Johann Schmidt has been terrorizing Captain America as long as I can remember. He has been a part of many villainous teams and his keywords reflect that. Red Skull clocks in at 75 points for six clicks of life. He is a pretty tricky character as is he great on both offense and defense, utilizing power like Stealth, Shape Change, and Mastermind to keep him in the fight and Precision Strike and Outwit to make sure his attacks stick. Red Skull is a competent and natural leader for criminals and he has the Leadership power to reflect that. He also has not one but TWO useful team abilities to help his side get into the fight and hit their opponents. Underworld team ability lets him carry up to two characters that share a keyword (which he has many of) with him if they are lower points, and Hydra team ability subtracts from opposing defense values when he’s adjacent to a ranged attacker.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, he can even disrupt your opponents’ strategies thanks to his POWER ELITE trait. In the game of Heroclix, many of the most powerful abilities are started by using POWER actions. Red Skull can make those POWER actions become DOUBLE POWER actions instead, depending on how far away they are. This ability becomes more powerful depending on how many other Power Elite characters are on his team, so you will want to make sure you play plenty. I can’t wait to see which other popular characters will join the team, as the group’s roster ranges from Wilson Fisk and Baron Strucker to clones of the misguided soldier, Nuke.

The next stop on our tour of villainy brings us to The Valley of the Spirits where we find Tony Stark’s nemesis, The Mandarin.

Mandarin is a potential offensive powerhouse with top-dial Running Shot and a full dial of Precision Strike. He closes out his dial with Close Combat Expert and Sidestep, so he is always doing some serious damage. He has Toughness as a trait, and along with it, he is able to completely negate any powers in the Defense slot of targets with the Armor keyword.

To make matters worse for our heroes, Mandarin can choose between the consensus three best support powers in the game: Probability Control, Perplex, and Outwit. If you are in a pinch, you can have him use all three at the cost of 1 unavoidable damage at the end of your turn.

If that wasn’t enough, if you were fortunate enough to attend any WKO or Wizkids participating conventions, you may have some of the elusive Mandarin Rings to add to his arsenal which can give him extra supporting powers like Telekenesis or Smoke Cloud or more offensive with things like Energy Explosion or even the ability to unequip special objects!

If you didn’t have a chance to get your hands on those Mandarin Rings, they can sometimes be found in Realms Open Championship prize kits. Look for those nearby in the Wizkids Info Network.

Last, but certainly not least on our villain preview list we have the man who can absorb and adapt his body to any surface, Carl Creel aka Absorbing Man!

Absorbing Man is a really straightforward close combat attacker. He has a hefty 100 point value, but along with that comes 10 clicks of life. He has Charge to help him close the distance when he attacks and has Sidestep to keep him close once Charge is gone. He also has a full dial of damage reducers, helping him stand strong against any counter-attacks.

Masters of Evil team ability lets Crusher Carl act every turn and his mid to late dial Steal Energy makes it so that he really has no reason not to! The real kicker on Absorbing Man isn’t the wall FX marker he comes with, but the wall of text that is his Trait! Depending on where he is on a map, he can gain additional stat modifiers and powers making him a very diverse weapon to field! My favorite is the Obscuring Terrain bonus which lets him run through blocking and elevated terrains, move further, and have a little bit of extra defense via Super Senses.

That will end our tour of the Avengers’ rogue gallery. If you are as excited as I am to get your hands on these figures, be on the lookout for pre-release events beginning January 22nd, and look for them on shelves on February 5th!

Thanks for reading and remember, the real fun begins when you are Two Clicks from KO!