Greetings HeroClix Masterminds!

Our previous articles (Article 1, Article 2) have touched on vehicles, fire (ouch!), and the themes we used to capture a Ghost Rider feel for the set. As we wrap up preview season, we wanted to step away from Ghost Rider to look at another feature of the set: Monsters! Zombies, Vampires, and Mummies stretch back to some of Marvel’s earliest comics and most beloved stories, and all can be found in Wheels of Vengeance, but most of all the full moon shines on WEREWOLVES!

When designing a HeroClix set, one of the things the design team likes to do is look back through older sets to find ideas to riff off. The team isn’t just revisiting the mechanics players loved, but also to revitalizing the ones that have room to grow. With a little retooling, those so-so mechanics can have the fire of excitement!

The “near miss” we picked out for Wheels of Vengeance came from the Werewolves of 2017’s HeroClix: Undead set.

Undead’s Werewolf and Werewolf Alpha had a really cool, flavorful Lycanthrope trait. At the beginning of the turn, a shared die roll would determine how transformed they were. In practice though, we identified two issues with this mechanic. Firstly, if you ran a team of Werewolves it could be frustratingly time-consuming to change the click number of all your figures every turn. Secondly, when your Werewolves were at their strongest, they were also at their most fragile, and a single click of damage would KO them. The old mechanic was interesting, and balanced, but wasn’t as much fun for players as we had hoped. Wheels of Vengeance was the perfect time to reimagine what lycanthropy could mean.

“Moon: Harvest or Blood?” is the answer to the issues we had with Lycanthrope. It lives in the same conceptual space as Lycanthrope, with a die roll determining the phase of the moon, but it doesn’t have Lycanthrope’s baggage. As the design team was playing around with it, we realized the Moon trait not being tied to dial turning meant it had more room for variation than Lycanthrope had. Games could play out more smoothly with the same amount of strategic richness. Simply – it was fun! So, we were able to expand it out to other lunar, and decidedly less wolfy characters like Moon Knight.

As you crack open Wheels of Vengeance packs, be sure to keep an eye out for other characters that power up when you roll that d6 for the Moon traits. Of course, there are sources of power than some mere celestial body. Older, darker powers…

̸͙̝̟̮̩̹͂ ̴̘̠͛͆͠ ̷͙̼͇̂̉͒ͅW̶̖͕͔̦̫̅̀͑͛͘H̷̤͓̋Ȁ̷̭̖̠́͛T̵̩̒̊̀͋͘ ̴̢̣̐͠D̸̩̤͇͂̈̋̂Ẉ̷̙̚Ȩ̷̞̜̲͕̃L̴̛͙͚̾̌͝L̸̘̎͌S̶̛̤̿̊͊͆ͅ ̴͙̞̋̂͗̍B̵̝͖̲̄̔͊͂E̴͎̎Ǹ̵̛̜̩̃́͝E̶̱͖͋͝Ā̸̰̮͚̰͓̀͐̌T̵̡̢̮͇͕̽͌̾H̴͖̻͓̎̄̌͂̔ ̴̧̙̹̄S̵͕̣̦͂̎̅͗͒Ḧ̶̠̠́̒̚̕͝A̷̤̘̬̰͒͛͑Ļ̸͖̯̮̽͘L̷̠͕̼̹͌ ̸̞̼̝̬͛̃̒͠Ŕ̵̤̘̾̚Ỉ̷̞̹̜̆̐S̴̟̟͎̑̑̑́̌Ḙ̸͈̬̓ ̸̱͕͙̎ ̵̯͗̀̚͝͠

Chthon is another mechanical callback, this time to equipable characters. The design team hasn’t touched equipment-characters in years, because as we added more effects that interact with equipment, equipment that wasn’t objects lead to some unusual rules complications. As design started to work on Chthon, though, we kept coming back to those old equipment-characters. An Elder God trying to claw its way into the world, offering poisonous pacts to those foolish enough to seek its power? Yeah, Chthon needed a way to empower your characters from the Sideline. “Elder God: Demon of the Darkhold” taps into that design space, but without making Chthon an equipment. Any character with the Mystical keyword can strike that terrible bargain with Chthon, granting them +1 combat values but costing them a click of unavoidable damage whenever they get an action token. Then, when they finally run out of clicks, Chthon offers one last bargain: let him onto the map with all the power a 300 point figure can offer, but you have one turn to win. Of course, you could fully commit to He Who Holds The Darkness and field Chthon on your main force. At 300 points Chthon is your entire team, but his SIDELINE ACTIVE traits work even when he’s on the map. Chthon would grant himself +1 combat values, then respawn the first time he’s KO’d.

And as our comic fans know, Chthon might be the greatest of his terrible brood, but he’s not the only Elder God…

The last thing to discuss today is a minor rules update. Starting with Wheels of Vengeance, extended base figures will no longer be able to be positioned diagonally. This is a change to a long-standing rule, but the increased attention the design team was paying to extended base figures while working on this set brought several rules corner cases into focus. We decided it would be healthier for the game to just remove that option and limit extended base figures to orthogonal (up/down, left/right) orientations.

And that’s all we have for today! Prerelease events for Marvel HeroClix: Wheels of Vengeance kick off on October 25, with the full set releasing in stores on November 8!