Greetings to all the Masterminds out there in HeroClix Land! Today’s article is going to highlight some of the new combos that will be possible under the 2021 Powers and Abilities Card. At the end, we’re going to address some of the most common general rules questions we’ve gotten on the previous articles.

Using more Standard Powers together is usually more fun. Players have already seen the changes that are coming for the Combat Experts that let them combo more, but some other abilities will have more combo potential as well. Read further for more details.

Why let more powers combo?

Combos are fun, even more so when it allows your Superheroes to feel more “Super.”

To address this, we are making changes so that more abilities IMPROVE your attacks instead of REPLACING them. Certain standard powers still require a dedicated action and will remain in the attack replacement column. But you will notice the list of standard powers grew considerably in the attack improvements columns by removing their dedicated actions (CLOSE, RANGE, POWER) to activate. This is where the fun begins!

Attack replacements:

  • Flurry
  • Mind Control
  • Energy Explosion
  • Pulse Wave

Attack improvements:

  • Force Blast (the “KNOCKBACK” portion only)
  • Blades/Claws/Fangs
  • Quake
  • Super Strength (the “KNOCKBACK” portion only)
  • Incapacitate
  • Penetrating/Psychic Blast
  • Precision Strike
  • Steal Energy
  • Ranged Combat Expert
  • Battle Fury (the avoiding Shape Change part only)
  • Exploit Weakness
  • Close Combat Expert

Power Actions:

  • Charge*
  • Force Blast (the POWER part only)
  • Hypersonic Speed
  • Running Shot*
  • Smoke Cloud
  • Telekinesis
  • Barrier

* Charge and Running Shot can have the attack portion of their effect replaced with an Attack replacement.

Your character can use any number of the Standard Powers listed under Attack Improvements at the same time, that apply for that kind of attack (close or range).

The rules are still governed by the usage of CLOSE, RANGE, and POWER but we think that this categorical list is easier for how to think about the powers. You can’t use Telekinesis with Running Shot since you can’t use two power actions together. You can use Flurry during Charge because it just replaces the attack.

Hypersonic Speed doesn’t have the same exception that Charge and Running Shot do for balance reasons.

As a reminder (there’s no change here) looking at the Attack Improvements, some of them don’t work together by the nature of their abilities. For example, Blades/Claws/Fangs only works on a single target, but Quake might give you multiple targets. The Combat Experts only work at close or range. As a result, you’ll never have a single attack with 12 Standard Powers improving it. Still, being able to Charge, Flurry, Quake, Close Combat Expert, Steal Energy will be pretty wild!

Rules Questions from Earlier Articles

Q1: How does my character with Colossal Stamina as part of a trait or special power work now?

A1: There will be a rules forum post with some more precise wording, but characters with Colossal Stamina as part of a special power or trait have the same game play as Colossal Stamina from the 2017 Core Rules and PAC. For reference, the 2017 wording on Colossal Stamina:

This character can be given a costed action even if it has two actions tokens, and does not receive an action token for that action. After resolutions deal it 1 unavoidable damage and don’t clear its action tokens this turn.

Q2: How will my character work that can use Close Combat Expert or Range Combat Expert as FREE or at no cost?

A2: We’ll be posting exact wording (errata) to the rules forum, but those characters will get the chance to make a close or range attack – so they’re actually going to be a little stronger than before. This would apply to characters like Champion 063 from Avengers Black Panther and the Illuminati or Frenzy from the X-Men Animated Series release. Trying to match those characters to exactly what they did before wasn’t in the spirit of the new rules and would be very wordy from a rules perspective.

Q3: How will my character work that can use Telekinesis, but only to do something that Telekinesis no longer does?

A3: We’ll be posting exact wording to the rules forum for characters that this applies to, like JLU 055 Stargirl. As much as possible, these figures will work like they always have. In the future, Special Powers or Traits might still allow for special versions of Telekinesis.

Q4: What’s happening to Water and Obscuring terrain?

A4: Water terrain will function like clear terrain for movement and line of fire purposes, except for special effects that specifically interact with it, like Susan, Queen of Atlantis. Obscuring terrain will be functionally identical to Hindering. Moving forward, we will not utilize obscuring terrain.

Q5: Given the new rules on Knockback, what about characters that specifically say how much knockback they do, or that they do an additional X knockback?

A5: Since special powers or traits can supersede the rules of the game, nearly all of those characters will still work as printed. There might be some exceptions which will require errata. Also, there will no longer be “falling” damage from being knocked back to a lower elevation.

Q6: Why has Flurry been eliminated?

A6: It hasn’t! We’ve seen feedback that some players have assumed since close attackers can multi-target, that Flurry won’t be sticking around. It will, and it’s even better on characters that can multi-target. Your close attacker could target two opposing characters with the first attack from their Flurry – if they roll high enough to hit one character but miss the other, they can apply their full damage to the hit character, and make the second attack with Flurry for another shot at both characters the second time.

We’d also like to give a special thanks to the players who reached out to let us know some figures they think will see more play and are excited to try out after the 2021 Rules are in effect. Check out these figures:

  • 043 Static from Justice League Unlimited
  • 033 Huntress from Justice League Unlimited
  • 010 Ninja from Batman the Animated Series
  • 015 Trapster from Fantastic Four

Thanks for keeping up to date with all of the rules changes! We’re receiving lots of feedback through gamefeedback@wizkids.com and we’ll be sure to try and answer some of the most common questions we receive in the next article.

To see everything we’ve revealed so far for the 2021 rules update and Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary, check here.