X of Swords Almost
Marks the Spot
by Jeff Polier
After the fiasco that was Marvel HeroClix: Marvel Studios Disney Plus Miniatures Game, I didn’t even pre-order Marvel HeroClix: X of Swords Miniatures Game. Instead, I waited until somebody else opened it so I could look at the contents and then make my decision. The short version of this long editorial is that the figures aren’t spectacular but better than most of the previous starter (The Watcher being the exception) and that the Tarot Cards exclusive to this new boxed set are worth having. I bought a copy of the starter for myself after all.
The set isn’t without flaws and, again, they are flaws that should have been caught before anything went to the printers. For simplicity’s sake, I will be referring to the Marvel HeroClix: X of Swords Miniatures Game as a “starter” since a) that takes a lot less time to type and b) it is clearly directed at new players.
Typical of WizKids’ recent starter sets, there are ten figures with two playable point lines each, a separate character card for each of those point lines, and the usual action tokens, objects, terrain markers, and dice. Special for this set are an updated HeroClix Core Rules 2022 pamphlet, eight Scenario Cards, Scenario-specific bystanders, and a slightly updated Powers and Abilities Card.
Once again, WizKids has cut costs be just reusing sculpts from the main set. While I was a bit more forgiving last time because of some truly great sculpts, these are mediocre and could at least have benefited from changes in their colors to make them feel at all special. Without exception, each character is playable for 30 points (clicks 1-5 for this “a” dial) and 40 points (clicks 7-11 for the “b” dial). The 30 point versions all only have Standard Powers. The 40 point versions have standard powers plus a trait and/or special power(s). I found only a single error on any of the cards—and it would be an easy one to miss.
Going alphabetically, Cable is up first. He’s collector’s number 103 and shares a sculpt with the main X of Swords set’s figure 017. He has six range, single Bolt, Team Ability: X-Men, and the keywords Future, Past, Soldier, S.W.O.R.D., Warrior, X-Force, and X-Men. Both versions have some Charge and Toughness. The 30 point version also has Combat Reflexes for three clicks. The 40 point version has two special powers: the speed power Bodyslide (“Charge. // FREE: Place Cable in an adjacent square.”) and the defense power I Survived Into the Future (“Super Senses, Toughness.”). The extra points also provide alternating clicks of Perplex and Close Combat Expert.
Death is collector’s number 109. This sculpt is from number 034 in the main set. Both versions have four range, single Bolt, Precision Strike, Close Combat Expert, and the keywords Arakko, Horsemen, and Warrior. The ten additional points adds Charge, Invulnerability, and the trait called Son of Apocalypse (“FREE: Choose one to last until your next turn: *Combat Reflexes. *Exploit Weakness.”).
Gorgon is collector’s number 105 and shares its sculpt with both 014 and 022 in the main set. Both versions are zero range, two Bolts, have Team Ability: X-Men, the standard powers Flurry and Blades/Claws/Fangs, and the keywords Dark Avengers, Hydra, Martial Artist, The Hand, and X-Men. The 30 point version also has Charge, Incapacitate, and Combat Reflexes. The 40 point version has Super Senses, Willpower, Exploit Weakness, and a special speed power called Grasscutter and Godkiller (“Charge, Flurry. // When Gorgon hits, after resolutions you may give an action token to an adjacent opposing character.”).
Isca the Unbeaten is collector’s number 107 and shares her sculpt and color scheme with main set 031a. She is unique in this set1 for being the only character with an Improved Ability—specifically Improved Movement Characters. She has zero range, one Bolt, and the keywords Arakko, Martial Artist, Soldier, and Warrior. The 30 point version only has Charge, Outwit, and Leadership. The 40 point dial has Hypersonic Speed, Flurry, Precision Strike, Willpower, Outwit, and the special speed power I Don’t Lose (“Enhancement, Outwit.”).
Magik is collector’s number 102 and shares her sculpt with main set numbers 015 and 022. She has Flight (one of only two characters in this starter to have it), zero range, single Bolt, Team Ability: X-Men, and the keywords Mystical, New Mutants, X-Force, and X-Men. The 30 point version has Leap/Climb that changes to Flurry and Super Senses that changes to Toughness. The 40 point version has Flurry, Quake, Energy Shield/Deflection, Super Senses, and the special speed power From Limbo (“Charge, Leap/Climb.”).
Solem is collector’s number 106 and shares his sculpt with main set 003. He has zero range, single bolt, and the keywords Arakko and Assassin. Both versions have Invulnerability, Close Combat Expert, and Perplex. The 40 point version adds Stealth, Flurry, and the special defense power Advanced Longevity (“STOP. Regeneration, Toughness.”).
Storm is the first in both sets, being collector’s number 101 in this starter and sharing the sculpt of 001 from the main set. She’s the other character with the Flight combat symbol and has six range, single Bolt, Team Ability: X-Men, Stealth, Willpower, and the keywords Marauders, Morlocks, Pirate, Quiet Council, Wakanda, and X-Men.2 The 40 point card adds Precision Strike, the special speed power Fighting Death (“Charge, Stealth.”), and the special defense power Stealth Veteran (“Combat Reflexes, Willpower.”).
Summoner is collector’s number 110 and shares the sculpt with the rather boring looking (for a super rare) 055. He has six range, single Bolt, and the Arakko and Mystical keywords. Both figures have Running Shot, Super Senses, and Exploit Weakness. The 30 point version has Poison. The 40 point version has Perplex and the special attack power Manipulative Liar (“Smoke Cloud. Poison, and when Summoner uses it he treats opposing characters occupying his Smoke Cloud markers as adjacent.”).
War is collector’s number 108 and shares her sculpt with main set’s 033. She has four range, single Bolt, Running Shot, Hypersonic Speed, Exploit Weakness, and the keywords Arakko, Horsemen, Soldier, and Warrior. The 30 point version has Penetrating/Psychic Blast. The 40 point version adds Energy Explosion, Super Senses, and the trait Daughter of Apocalypse (“FREE: Choose one to last until your next turn: *Energy Shield/Deflection. *Penetrating/Psychic Blast.”).
Finally there’s the ol’ canucklehead, Wolverine. He’s collector’s number 104 and shares the sculpt of number 032. Wolverine has zero range, two Bolts, Team Ability: X-Men, Super Senses, Exploit Weakness, and the keywords Soldier, Warrior, Weapon X, X-Force, and X-Men. The 40 point version has a bunch more powers: Flurry, Charge, Precision Strike, Blades/Claws/Fangs, Toughness, Close Combat Expert, and the trait Berserker Rage (“Battle Fury. // FREE: If Wolverine has one or more action tokens, turn his dial to a click of your choice between 7 and 11.”).
The “a” dials are exactly what they’re supposed to be—simple dials that are easy to understand and play with. Only four of the ten even start with some Charge or Running Shot (and nobody starts with Hypersonic Speed). Except that their combat values don’t drop like meteors, they remind me of the earliest years of HeroClix. The rarity of Flight both in the starter and the main set remind me of the Indy Clix set in particular.
The “b” dials aren’t much more complex but add a lot more to their playability for only ten additional points. Cable’s ability to be placed into a neighboring square before or after Charge or even when he has two action tokens is very useful. Death’s choice of Combat Reflexes or Exploit Weakness every turn either makes him much harder to hit up close (19 or 20 defense) or means that he’ll tear through most damage reducers. Gorgon being able to give an action token to an adjacent opposing character if he hits but that it doesn’t have to be the character that was hit could be a strategic advantage. Storm is oddly a close-up piece with Charge & Stealth having her designed to strike from Hindering, Combat Reflexes to keep her safer up close than at range, and Willpower in one form or another her entire dial. Summoner’s ability to use Poison through his Smoke Cloud markers is devastating. War, like her brother Death, can each turn choose either a defense bonus (although that “only” giving her a 19 or 18 at range) or dealing penetrating damage. Wolverine’s trait puts some risk into your choice of click to have him on; his highest attack value is paired with the lowest defense on his last click but his first click is perhaps his weakest.
I still don’t see most of the “b” dials as likely to appear in competitive play. The two exceptions might be Summoner since that Smoke Cloud/Poison combo can wreck a team that doesn’t have damage reducers and Wolverine might also see competitive play if paired with other characters or equipment that keep him safer than his clicks of Super Senses and Toughness. Still, almost all of the “b” dials would be OK in a casual setting and would be figures I’d consider for weekly events.
Moving on, the new Powers and Abilities Card (PAC) has very little different from its predecessor from the Disney Studios starter. I really had to read it closely to find the differences. Except for Speed, the previous PAC indicated which combat symbol is the standard one that players can expect to see on figure bases (regular fist for attack, striped shield for defense, and burst for damage). The new PAC doesn’t show at all which are standard.
Given that the autonomous fist (attack), wheel (defense), giant (damage), and colossal (also damage) symbols aren’t explained in the PAC or the HeroClix Core Rules 2022, they might be confusing to new players—especially since all of those symbols except the wheel are in the X of Swords main set. This is something that I should have written up as needing fixing in my previous review. It needed fixing then and still needs fixing.
Four powers—Ranged Combat Expert, Enhancement, Close Combat Expert, and Empower—each add the word “action” at the end. For example, Enhancement now reads “Adjacent friendly characters modify damage +1 while making a range attack or when given a RANGE destroy action.” It’s just a bit of clarification.
Finally for the PAC, WizKids finally updated the terrain symbols for Elevated, Hindering, Blocking, Outdoor Blocking, and Destroy Blocking to match what’s been used on the cards for the past few sets.
The HeroClix Core Rules 2022 that came with the Disney Studios starter was a travesty. The one in this starter isn’t perfect but it is so much closer to perfection than the trash that the previous one was. Yes, there’s some errors that I’m going to point out but they’re mostly so very minor compared to what came before. Many of the errors come down to the placement of commas and I’m not even going to point out each one. For one thing, that’s tedious. For another, it may just be a that they’re working from a different style guide.
Page 1 is also the front cover. The components list says the box includes “32 Action, Object, and Terrain Tokens” but they’re selling themselves short since there are 42. The claim of “2 Special Edition X of Swords Six-Sided Dice” isn’t so much an error as it is hyperbole; they’re exactly the same dice that come with the X of Swords Dice & Token Pack. Finally on page one it lists “Scenario Object Tokens” in the Components List but there aren’t any (the Scenario just doesn’t use any).
On page 2, when introducing combat symbols, only the four “standard” ones are mentioned and shown. The fifth symbol used in this starter is Flight and is, in fact, used in examples in this Core Rulebook. It really should have been included here. Then, under Powers, it says, “The back page of this rulebook has a Quick Reference of Powers and Abilities…” It’s the last two pages—15 and 16.
Jumping to page 6, the description for Isca the Unbeaten says, “She back up this nebulous capability…” Clearly, it should be “She backs up this nebulous capability…” Not a huge error but still unprofessional and something that should have been caught in editing.
Page 9 has something that’s not so much an error as it is odd. It says, “A character with a Range value greater than 0 may perform a Range attack by using a basic [Bolt] action or through certain Standard Powers. Since when is [Bolt] used as a substitute for the word “range”? I don’t object to the idea but that should probably be made clear if it’s going to be a way of stating things going forward.
Also on page 9—I don’t know whose figure base that is in the description of Isca the Unbeaten making an attack but it isn’t hers. As the text says, she has “Range 0” but the figure base shown has a range of 4 and it has the Flight movement symbol. Not only does this not match Isca the Unbeaten, it doesn’t match any of the figures in this starter.
Page 12 has definitions that I really like for light objects and heavy objects. To paraphrase, light objects are things that anybody could pick up and heavy objects would require superhuman strength to pick up. That’s excellent. This is a good place to jibe WizKids for again including a light object and a heavy object that each have art of a jackhammer. By the definitions they give here, a jackhammer should definitely be a light object.
Page 13 is just missing a word. It says, “…your character must have range the square…” when it should say, “…your character must have range to the square…” Again, something simple that should have been caught in editing.
Page 14 does have what I consider a big enough punctuation error to point out. “Your team consists of three components, your characters, your maps, and your Tarot Deck” should be “Your team consists of three components: your characters, your maps, and your Tarot Deck.” On a related note, I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that “…each player brings a 5-card Tarot Deck…” when that’s just not always true. A Tarot Deck can be between five and twelve cards. Also, some people just won’t have a Tarot Deck.
At last we arrive at the Powers and Abilities Reference on pages 15 and 16. While I’m sad that there is an error, at least there’s only one this time. The description for Combat Reflexes states, “Modify defense +2 against range attacks.” Oops.
One last thing that should be in this rule book—the url to look up the Comprehensive Rules online. This Core Rulebook is a pretty good guide for beginners (again, SO much better than the last one) but new players should have something pointing them in the direction of the full rules, too.
I still don’t like the map tiles and I likely never will because they are heavy and too easy to shift out of place when playing. They are at least used creatively this time but I still think the same maps would have been better with paper. The six tiles form three maps this time: a full-size (16 squares by 24 squares) map, a battle royale map (16 squares by 16 squares with four starting areas), and a small (8 squares by 16 squares) map. All three of these maps are used in the Scenario and that part is creative. However, only the single full-sized map is something a new player could use at a local (or even competitive) event. Going back to my dislike of tiles, these maps could have been done with the full-size map on one side of a standard 2’ by 3’ paper and the two smaller maps could have shared the other side. The art on these maps is better than the extremely cartoony art on the Disney Studios starter’s maps but still below WizKids’ usual standards.
As mentioned earlier, there aren’t any Scenario Object Tokens this time. There are, however, Scenario Bystander Tokens.
First and cutest is Kitten. Kitten has the combat values of 1/1/21/1 and the tiny damage symbol. This black little ball of fluff is used in one Scenario as something for the X-Men to protect and the Arakko mutants to try and (gulp!) destroy.
Next are two Arakko characters that are figures in the main set but only bystanders here. Bei’s values are 8/12/18/3 with Hypersonic Speed and Combat Reflexes. White Sword has 10/11/18/3 with Charge and Combat Reflexes.
Lastly there are seven bystander tokens of Sevalithi Vampire. Each of these have 8/11/17/1 with Stealth, Blades/Claws/Fangs, Toughness, and Exploit Weakness.
My only complaint about these is another typical complaint about the WizKids starters. None of these have point values and therefore can’t be used outside of the Scenario in this starter. Granted, that’s probably a good thing for the Kitten, lest it share the fate that so many Lian Harper bystanders suffered years ago—Mastermind fodder!
My nearly twenty year old son, Alex, played through the Scenario Cards with me. We first played through four of the eight cards as a story (A, C, F, and H) then went back and played the Scenario Cards that weren’t part of that story. For the most part, we found the Scenario to be better written than usual and generally more balanced. By “balanced,” I mean that neither side had an unfair advantage and that character placement and dice rolls are what decided the outcome of each Scenario Card. I’m only going to write about things that particularly stand out.
Scenario Cards B (“Battle in Blightspoke!”) and C (“Calamity At the Edge of Reality!”) are very, very similar. B gives a slight advantage to the Arakko team (which lost Scenario Card A) and C gives a slight advantage to the Krakoa team (which likewise would have lost A).
Scenario Card D (“A Dance Off?”) contains the first errors in the overall Scenario. For the characters that the Arakko player is using, it says, “Generate a The White Sword and Bei the Blood Moon bystander.” There’s a few problems here. First, that’s two bystanders so that should be plural. Second, the bystanders are only labeled White Sword and Bei. Yeah, I know it should be obvious which bystanders are meant but I’ve been in the HeroClix community long enough to know there are rules ambulance-chasers who would complain loudly about the names not matching. I only bring it up in the hopes that WizKids will be more careful in the future.
Scenario D is genuinely problematic on its reverse side. The only win condition for the Krakoa player is “Break away from every opposing character during the game.” The Arakko side is even worse: “Proceed to ScenarioG.Break away from every opposing character during the game.” “Roll six “6”s to break away.” “Proceed to Scenario G.” While the alternate win conditions may be a goal, all of the other cards do specify that a win is possible by the standard “KO all opposing characters” (or a variation thereof). I have to admit, though, that I placed my team incredibly poorly and Alex did win by breaking away from my entire team with a single one of his characters in one move!
Scenario F (“The Task Is…What!”) is the only completely unbalanced Scenario Card. Unless they really mess up, there’s no way that the Krakoa player can’t achieve their alternate win condition (“Carry the Kitten to an opposing player’s starting area.”) on their second turn. If you’re playing this Scenario Card, it does mean that the Krakoa team has lost the first two Scenario Cards so this easy win seems almost to be a consolation round. There is an error on it, though. The space that the Kitten is supposed to start in (H11) is printed Blocking terrain.
As written, Scenario G (“Among the Vampires of Sevalith”) can also seem very unbalanced for the Krakoa player. Part of the setup says, “When Storm uses Willpower, generate a Sevalithi Vampire bystander within 3 squares.” Alex and I have the impression that what it is supposed to say is, “When Storm uses Willpower and succeeds…” We played it both ways. With Storm generating a bystander every time I rolled for Willpower (whether she had a token on her or not), it was unbalanced for the Krakoa player. With us playing it so she had to succeed her Willpower roll, it was much more balanced. Alex, playing Arakko, did win that time but it could have easily gone either way, especially if I’d succeeded more of my Willpower rolls.
Scenario H (“The Final Battle For Otherworld!”) has an interesting option. It can be played just with the listed figures from this starter but if both players agree than the Krakoa player may add 200 points worth of figures with the X-Men keyword and the Arakko player can include 200 points of figures with the Arakko, Monster, or Horsemen keywords. Alex and I only played it with the starter set figures and it did seem to mostly come down to figure placement and dice rolls.
The last game element for me to write about is likely to one most experienced players will be buying this starter for: the Tarot Cards exclusive to the starter. The five Tarot Cards make a playable Tarot Deck. Frankly, these Tarot Cards are probably worth the price of the starter for experienced players who plan on using Tarot Decks.
The first card isn’t part of the deck but a terrific Tarot Card Rules reference with everything one needs to know about playing a Tarot Deck in HeroClix. I’m super impressed with how well-written it is. The back side of that card promotes the upcoming (as of this writing) X of Swords Storyline Organized Play, advertises the Dice & Token Pack, and suggests joining the WizKids Info Network.
The Arcana card included is The Devil. It’s the one I’m least likely to ever use outside the Scenario. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine anyone including it in a Tarot Deck unless it’s the only Arcana card they have. It reads, “When a character attacks, after resolutions deal them 1 penetrating damage for each [6] in the finalized attack roll.” Ouch. It’s used in the Scenario so trust me—ouch!
The rest of the cards are all excellent. Ace of Cups increases the result of a Super Senses roll by +1. Five of Pentacles allows a character using Charge to modify their speed +2. Nine of Swords makes Precision Strike even better, denying the hit character any chance to Evade and making damage from the attack not reducible below 2 instead of 1. Finally, Four of Wands makes it so a character that hits with a close attack using Exploit Weakness also deals 1 penetrating damage to each opposing character adjacent to the hit character(s).
After all this, is Marvel HeroClix: X of Swords Miniatures Game worth a prospective new player purchasing? Yes! While there are some errors, this is a solid introduction to the game of HeroClix. The figures are worth playing in casual, local events. The Scenario is fun and (mostly) well written. The Tarot Deck included has four excellent cards (and one very dangerous, something-else-should-probably-take-its-place card).
Should experienced players buy this? Also yes! For all the reasons above, this is worth having. My only concern is that so many experienced players may buy this that new players might have trouble finding a copy at their local (or even online) HeroClix dealer in the near future.
Overall—well done, WizKids! Keep up the good work and I hope that upcoming starters are even better.
12 August 2022
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Marvel, X of Swords, and all characters mentioned in this editorial are the property of Disney.
This article is copyright 2022 by Jeff Alan Polier. You are welcome to share the link to this article but please do not copy it without permission.
