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November blew by and it is now December and that means that the New Year is coming up before we know it. Here's some random news and notes for November that I sure as shooting missed.
The release of the Hammer of Thor expansion for the re-born HeroClix line made me happy considering that most of November was dark and cloudy. Hammer of Thor is the first expansion in the new NECA/Wizkids gaming partnership. With a name like Hammer of Thor you would think that the set mostly focuses on Thor and Asgardian characters while also throwing in some mini's for fans that may not be interested in Asgard all that much. For those of you that dig on the Thunderbolts, like I do, they have most of the old Osborn Thunderbolts with Venom, Songbird, Moonstone and Penance in the set so all we're lacking is Radioactive Man and Bullseye and I'll have the Thunderbolts I came to know in the comics. Picking up where the Secret Invasion expansion left off there are the additions of Pip the Troll and Moondragon for those of us that are collecting the Infinity Watch. Using the Defenders team ability (even though they were not in the Defenders proper) are the new Guardians of the Galaxy based on the comic of the same name. Then there are The Runaways who are in the set, but be careful if you want them, they are split pretty evenly between the rarities and I know of two that I want and one of them is a Super-Rare. There are other figures that are for teams like S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra, and Avengers but they are only one or two in the set.
The best thing is after expansion after expansion of the old game we finally got a decent looking Captain America.
Picture Taken From Wizkidsgames.com
The mini is pretty much spot on to that picture except the smoke instead of being made of gray plastic it is more of a clear plastic. I'm not going to complain because it is the best looking mini I have seen in a long time.
I'll rescind what I said earlier about not wanting any Asgardian characters from the set. I do want the Warriors Three that consist of Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg. They are Uncommon, Rare and Super-Rare (in that order) and total out to be exactly three hundred points.
There have been rumblings on message boards that I hang out in that some people were not too happy with some of the decisions that the new company decided to do with the booster packs of the game. First, there is the whole thing with them making one pack in 40 packs of boosters be a God Pack. The God pack means that instead of having a mix of Commons, Uncommons, Rares and the occasional Super-Rare in it, it has four Super-Rares and a chase figure of either Frog Thor or Thorbuster Iron Man. While I have not bought any boosters (nor do I intend to) I think this was a good way to drum up interest in the set, but would backfire in the case of a guy who I read about who picked up a case (20 packs) of boosters and did not receive one pack with a super rare in it. Yes this may have just been a collation error, but I don't want to risk this sort of thing happening to me when I buy a brick (10 packs) or a case.
The other thing that long time players have been upset with is that the company did not put any cardboard in the form of bystander tokens, feats or special conditions in the set. Personally I was happy this happened. When I went out on a limb and purchased a brick of Secret Invasion when it came out, I ended up getting the same three feats or special conditions in every pack. I right then and there swore off of getting any more bricks unless the set had a lot of minis that I wanted or they removed all the special cardboard tokens, feats or conditions out of packs.
If you want to take a look at the new set, here's a link to the page with the Hammer of Thor Database of figures: http://www.wizkidsgames.com/heroclix/gallery/
If you are interested in news and other things coming out of NECA/Wizkids then just point your browser to http://www.wizkidsgames.com
Something boggles my mind about what some comic book companies have decided to do with their shipping schedules in this month. Since December is a five Wednesday month, you would naturally think that stores would get comics all five weeks. Instead the big two, Marvel and DC, have decided to ship only the first four weeks. This strikes me as kind of odd. I understand that some stores might not be open during the fifth week since it is the week of New Years, but that is like shooting yourself in the foot. This also puts their shipping schedule out of whack because of the decision. I have been looking at the preliminary shipping schedules for this month and some of the books that would come out towards the end of the month are now coming out within the first two weeks.
If you have any ideas on what kind of article I should do in the new year, drop me an e-mail and I'll take it under consideration.
Hey, that's all for this month; I'll see ya'll in 2010.
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