The Most Interested I'm Liable To Be In Secret Invasion

Because today was what's labeled as Week 1 of the Heroclix Secret Invasion event. It was a sealed event, meaning you buy two boosters, open them up, and make a team out of whatever's inside. I went against my normal style (because it's not as though that's worked well for me), and sent out a "real" Ms. Marvel (making up 58% of my team on points), the Punisher, and Gee (Alex Power of the Power Pack). Based on results, I might be better off sticking with my swarm style.

The problem today was simple: Ms. Marvel was a 168 point millstone around my neck. She hit absolutely no one today, in three games. Bob used Iron Man to smoke her for 5 damage, then she whiffed after he moved Iron Fist in between them. The Punisher did manage to hit Iron Fist for 3 damage (after being TK'd into place by Gee), and then later killed Bob's Gee (four players today, and three of us used Gee. Cheap Telekinesis is popular). But by then Carol was dead, and Iron Man was zeroing in on Frank, and he didn't last long either. After that I made one last futile stand, with Gee Force Blasting Iron Fist away from him (though not far enough to slam him into a wall, as per my luck), then Incapacitating him for 1 click of damage, before Marvel's Dread Ruler, Tony Stark, blasted him in the face.

The second game, remarkably, went even more poorly, though it took longer for me to die. At least it was an interesting team, as Malcolm trotted out Arachne (Spider-Woman the 2nd), Gamora, Clea, Elektra, and Howard the Duck. Only in Heroclix, people. I again got to pick the map, and this time I actually put some thought into it. All 3 of my characters have a range of 8 on their attacks. But on Malcolm's team, Elektra has a 4, Clea has an 8, and none of the others could attack at range. So I picked a rooftop map, where if a non-flier stops in mid-air, they fall and take damage. I figured that would restrict movement, and work to my advantage. I suppose if I had just sat back and waited, forcing him to come to me (the Bob Strategy), it might have worked, but that feels so cheap, so I didn't, and well, I paid for my impatience.

Ms. Marvel continued to fail to hit people, though she was trying to hit 19 defenses (thanks to hidnering terrain), so I'm not going to fault her too much for that, but missing a 16 was unacceptable. The high point of that game was either Frank Castle doing 3 damage to Howard (unfortunately not enough to kill him), or after Gamora had Charged at Frank and missed with her attack, Gee used Telekinesis to pick her up and move her out over the air, and let her drop. She popped up on the same roof she was on before, but now Frank could shoot at whomever he pleased, whereas before he would have been forced to attack her. The catch was that my attack roll with Gee was a 12, so if I had just attacked normally, I would have done 2 damage, which probably would have been better. Eventually, Ms. Marvel got battered, Clea Mind Controlled Punisher into killing Gee, and then Gamora charged in and hacked Frank to pieces.

Against, Tim, the rolls were really against me. 4 critical misses, including two in a row by Ms. Marvel, and one by the Punisher when he was already going to take damage for pushing. I did kill Tim's Gee, and his attempts to use Adam Warlock to Mind Control Frank into killing Carol failed. Not that it mattered, since Carol was still whiffing on every attack, and getting plinked to death by Sharon Carter and Spider-Man. Spidey also pummeled Gee into the ground, and then everybody dogpiled on Frank. I did manage to at least hurt Warlock, knocked him over halfway down his dial (except he Regened and recovered most of that), but Sharon Carter stubbornly refused to get hit.

By some cosmic joke, I won Fellowship, which is voted on by all the players, except you can't vote for the guy who won (Malcolm), so even though I did the worst of the four of us, I was still one of the two to get a prize. I don't know what the criteria are supposed to be for voting on that, so I can't say I know how I got it. I usually vote for the two players (in case of a tie) that beat me the most handily, assuming one of them wasn't the overall winner. I don't know what guidelines anyone else uses. The prize was a feat card that might come in handy in a game, I'm not sure. I really would like to be able to blog about some stirring tales on victory on my part, where my brilliant strategy, or fortunate rolls carried the day. Maybe next week.

Edit: One other positive I failed to mention earlier, I was able, by purchase and trade to get about half of the figures in the set I was looking for. They were the cheaper half, but still, I'm partially in this for the collecting aspect, so that was a nice turn of events.

Tomorrow. . . hmm, Essential Defenders Volume 4, I believe.