Greetings HeroClix Masterminds!<\/p>\n
Welcome back to our 2nd<\/sup> Wheels of Vengeance Design Insight article! Last time we discussed the vehicle theme within Wheels of Vengeance, and today we\u2019ll be looking closer at the Ghost Riders themselves and the ways you\u2019ll be able to wreak terrible vengeance on your opponents.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> Ghost Rider may be the most bone-chilling mantle that any superhero has ever held. Many of those characters have rolled up into HeroClix sets. Players have enjoyed some of the recognizable tropes from Ghost Rider as recurring themes in HeroClix: the Penance Stare dealing penetrating damage, chains granting Giant Reach, improved movement from their bikes. The design team leaned on those throughout the set as well, but the main mechanic tying this set\u2019s Ghost Riders together is the Spirit of Vengeance trait.<\/p>\n<\/div> With Spirit of Vengeance, we set out to create a trait that would allow Ghost Riders to really punch back when damaged. The design team considered re-imagining Colossal Retaliation but it wasn\u2019t quite the right fit. Improving the Mystics team ability by making the damage unavoidable or greater than 1 felt close, but it felt too narrow in scope, and arguably focuses too much on competitive play. Frankly, a Ghost Rider should be able to punish opponents who hurt other friendly characters too. Finally, we settled on the current trait. It rewards clever team building, and opponents could try to time their attacks to avoid retribution, but usually your Ghost Riders will be able to satisfyingly punish your opponents with enhanced attacks of their own.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> The theme of punishing opponents carried through to other aspects of the set as well. In our last HeroClix set we introduced characters that could generate terrain with effects tied to them, like Ice blocking markers or Grave hindering markers. In Wheels of Vengeance, we\u2019re continuing that trend with Fire smoke terrain markers.<\/p>\n<\/div> Vengeance generates Fire terrain whenever he uses his \u201cNo\u2026No More Penance\u2026\u201d movement special, but other characters will have their own unique ways to generate Fire. Regardless of how they\u2019re generated, however, all Fire markers work identically. Much like the smoke terrain generated by the Smoke Cloud standard power, Fire smoke terrain disappears at the start of your next turn. When Fire terrain disappears, however, the character in its square ends up taking 1 damage!. Players who don\u2019t keep an eye on their placement might get burned!<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the only set that will feature Fire terrain, and we\u2019ll be revisiting it periodically alongside the Ice, Plant, and Grave terrain markers. In fact, some of those markers will be reappearing in Wheels of Vengeance. These sorts of named terrain can shift the flow of the game on the map and make terrain and map choice matter beyond the initial setup.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> The last theme we took to make this set feel like a Ghost Rider set is to lean on Johnny Blaze\u2019s origin as a stunt rider. Sprinkled throughout the set are characters that have \u201cstunts\u201d \u2013 effects that reward them for lining up specific conditions, or that let them risk damage for greater effects. Much like with Fire terrain, while this does appear on some Ghost Riders, there are other characters that lean into the stunt theme. For instance, Orb.<\/p>\n<\/div>The Spirit of Vengeance<\/h1><\/span>
![](\"https:\/\/wizkids.com\/heroclix\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/10\/014-copy.png\" "\\"014")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/wizkids.com\/heroclix\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/10\/014-ROBBIE-REYES-FRONT.png\")
<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>Through The Fire and The Flames<\/h1><\/span>
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>They Do Their Own Stunts<\/h1><\/span>
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>