New DC set coming out and some pieces of interest

[Heldrak]

DC changed his costume from the Sherlock Holmes look to a jumpsuit recently.  Not the best move.

I agree- Terrible choice!

[JollyBob]

Really quite disappointed with that chimp. 

[wellender]

I picked up some last night.  They are not awesome by any means, but I will say that most of them look much better in hand than the previews do.  Detective Chimp actually looks ok.  All the Lanterns are pretty good, except Kyle who is a little chunky.  My favorites are the Dominators.  They turned out really well.  They look like this for those who don't know.



Sorry, no pictures of the actual figure yet.

[Hat Guy]

I checked out the set on Troll and Toad, I think the only figure I really want is Ragdoll. The rest really aren't grabbing me.

[wellender]

Ragdoll in hand, not that good.

[Hat Guy]

Usual "new clix" not that good. Or truly crap?

[wellender]

I'll have to look at him again.  Haven't touched it since the set came out.  I'm not a fan of the pose.  He's not as bad as some of the others, but not really my thing.  I wouldn't say it's truly crap, especially for the price he's likely to be available for. 

[WarGameGuru]

New Heroclix set, and as usual, I like to post some of the more interesting figures that can have some generic uses.

Easy Company Soldier. WWII army grunt
Gorilla City Warrior: Nice sized Gorilla with armbands
Golden Age Crimson Avenger - Red duster and a cowboy had and mask.
Beast Boy in a Bear, Cheetah and T-Rex form. The T-Rex is Super Rare, but the others are common.
Detective Chimp. Monkey with a Magnifying glass
A few other Golden Age heroes I haven't seen pics of, but I'm sure will have that costume style people seem to like. (Mr. Terrific, The Atom, Johnny Quick)

But the Easy Company soldier is horrid, and sadly they use that very same EXACT model, only repainted, to depict Sgt Rock as well! That's just sad.

They've come a long way in terms of the quality with HeroClix, only to take 10 steps back with some of the stuff they're doing now. Now granted, I could see a peon model like an Easy Company Soldier being a lessor quality sculpt, as I never had issue with the very earliest HeroClix like Aim Medic or Gotham Police models being somewhat generic, but even the old Gotham Police looked nicer than the Easy Company Soldier if you ask me.

Some of the newer models are clearly an improvement, especially when they started to use the colored clear plastics to depict energy bursts, magic and what not. But what they did with Sgt Rock in this set is utterly pitiful. Not to mention how much these things cost today. I remember buying the original HeroClix in the early 2000s for like $6 a booster, and they had more figures in the box even.

To sell us lessor quality models, for more money, and for less of them per box isn't progress if you ask me.

[WarGameGuru]

Actually, that is slightly true.  They announced, I think starting with Secret Invasion, that sculpts would be of different quality depending on the rarity.  A strange idea, but WizKids has always been a little weird.  Not sure why you wouldn't want to make all of your products look good.

Because it's not the same Wizkids. It's not being ran by the people with the same passion and vision. Remember Wizkids died and was brought back from the dead as a new company. The original Wizkids died because they made one big mistake, they sold the company to Topps, which ran it into the ground with cards.

[wellender]

Actually that is not true.  Most of the staff and designers are the exact same people they were at WizKids.  They even brought Seth Johnson back to design the dials again. 

When that announcement was made, they were Topps.  Now they are under the NECA banner with the same staff.  The lower rarity models are getting bad sculpts, the higher rarity are supposed to be better sculpts.  That policy has been with both companies.

Also, there is now one more figure in a booster then when they first cam out.  Boosters had four miniatures from Infinity Challenge up to Origins.  Begining in Avengers they went to five. 

[WarGameGuru]

Actually that is not true.  Most of the staff and designers are the exact same people they were at WizKids.  They even brought Seth Johnson back to design the dials again.  

When that announcement was made, they were Topps.  Now they are under the NECA banner with the same staff.  The lower rarity models are getting bad sculpts, the higher rarity are supposed to be better sculpts.  That policy has been with both companies.

Also, there is now one more figure in a booster then when they first cam out.  Boosters had four miniatures from Infinity Challenge up to Origins.  Begining in Avengers they went to five.  

Well then I stand corrected on the figure count in the boosters. I swear it was more. Maybe it's Mage Knight I'm remembering, because they used to come in very long boosters, and I swear they had 5 figures per box in many of those early boosters. Around the time Topps took over they dropped to 4 per booster. One figure also isn't enough to justify the boost from $6 to $12 or more per booster now too.

I quit Wizkids not long after Topps took over. Things changed drastically then, and if NECA is made up of the Topps era Wizkids peeps it's still not the Wizkids I remember, nor it is the Wizkids I helped to fund with hundreds of dollars worth of multiple case purchases with every Mage Knight, Mechwarrior and DC and Marvel HeroClix release they put out there from start until the first year into the Topps era.

I can't tell you how many strategy articles I wrote for magazines like Scrye and Undefeated on all of the various Wizkids products back then too. I loved those games back then. But they had their 15 minutes and I think it was up about 5+ years ago at this point.

The new Wizkids doesn't even market the brand properly, and they don't even respond to general inquiries about their products at all. It's definitely not the same Wizkids. It's like Topps all over again, because it's ran by another different parent company, who is trying to run a gaming company. I'd bet the Wizkids brand is pushing up daisies again just a few short years from now because of it.

The only thing the new Wizkids is doing that I think looks interesting is the Star Trek game, but I saw pictures of it the other day, and there's just six figures in the game box, 2 ships and 4 crew members, and no enemy models outside of the Klingon cruiser. So I'm puzzled as how that is going to work. The even more sickening part is that it carries an SRP of $50!

http://www.gametrademagazine.com/public/defaultalliancealert.asp?ai=104170

They got lots of licenses at present too like Halo, DC, Marvel, Watchmen, and now Star Trek, but is anyone buying it all? Lightning struck once when Wizkids burst onto the scene in its original form, but this new company has me scratching my head, because they're spreading a lot of money around on licenses, when the plastic crack that Wizkids once sold isn't nearly as popular as it once was.

[wellender]

Neca already has a ton of licenses.  That's how they did Watchmen. It is only the movie version they already had the rights too.  I think they are getting some of the existing licenses to allow them to make games too.  Halo, Marvel, and DC were Wizkids originally.  The new ones coming up are Iron Maiden (I have no idea why) and Street Fighter Clix.

When they announced they were bought by NECA I thought it was great.  They make nice action figures and collectibles.  I figured that would fix the quality of the product that had been coming out.  After all the Topps sets came out and we got the first full NECA sets, I was dissapointed that the quality is about the same.  Maybe a little better, but not much to get excited about.  The thing I never understand is they use a bunch of the same sculptors as Pulp City, Reaper, Darkson Design, Wyrd, and many others.  Their work gets butchered in whatever process they use to make the pre-painted platics.  Look at the greens, you'll see a difference.  

Of course when they announced that the staff waspretty much the same as WizKids, I didn't expect much anyway.  The only good move they made was bringing Seth back to design dials.  He did make some nice ones.  Of course I haven't actually played in a long time, but I appreciate his work.  

It still seems to sell well.  In my experience they are a different type of gamer than most of us on this board.  For the most part they don't paint, don't like to create their own characters, only want to play with established figures, love rules lawyering, etc.  I still collect them but don't play anymore.  Not really a completionist anymore either.

By the way, I think you are right about Mage Knight.  I seem to remember some of those coming with five figures.

[Hat Guy]

I picked up a box last night out of sheer curiosity, I got a Bear-form Beast Boy and a Superboy that I'll probably use and a couple of things I didn't recognise. As to sculpt quality, I think they're a little better than Secret Invasion. I just wish there wasn't so many White Lanterns in the set, it's like Marvel doing an Anniversary Set with One More Day figures in it.

[Puuka]

I picked up a box last night out of sheer curiosity, I got a Bear-form Beast Boy and a Superboy that I'll probably use and a couple of things I didn't recognise. As to sculpt quality, I think they're a little better than Secret Invasion. I just wish there wasn't so many White Lanterns in the set, it's like Marvel doing an Anniversary Set with One More Day figures in it.

The WL aren't so bad. They are only 1 per 10 packs, so 1 in 50 figures.