Holding Out For A Heroclix. Or Not.

Man, I'm not having a lot of luck with games lately. I mean, The Bureau was the video game equivalent of a giant car crash (there's bit's going all over the place, and whilst it looks kinda cool from certain angles you can't help but wonder why a merciful god would allow this level of suffering) and the pacific Rim video game was apparently designed by one of those Nigerian princes you keep hearing about.

£2.69 for a character that's ALREADY IN THE DAMN GAME? Sure......

So it was I figured I'd retreat from the realms of digital abuse back to the tabletop. It's been a bit of wait, but the Pacific Rim Heroclix are finally starting to become available. You'd have thought maybe getting the stuff on shelves whilst the film was still showing might have been a better idea, but I am not the king of marketing, so what do I know about anything? Anyway, having exhausted all other (legal) avenues for getting more Pacific Rim action I figured I'd grab the starter set. I mean, if nothing else it'd provide me with a couple of minis and an evenings entertainment, right?

Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. How could it all have gone so wrong?

To be fair there's only one major issue with the set, but it's such a big one that it really overshadows any other good features. Any other tiny flaws that in the normal course would be overlooked are highlighted and magnified. It's a curious effect. So, with that said let's start the bitching proper, shall we?

On the back of the box is written the following:

INCLUDES:

• 2 Collectible Miniature Game Pieces
• 2 Character Cards
• 1 Full-Color Game Board
• 32 Tokens
• 2 Dice

Now, can you spot what it is that's missing from this list? What fairly important, some might even say vital element is omitted? What's the one thing that any board game or starter set absolutely NEEDS to come with? The key ingredient to make it a worthwhile purchase?

HOW ABOUT THE FUCKING RULES!?!?!?!

Yeah. Bit of an oversight that. What you get is a single sheet of "Quick Start Rules". These introduce the concept of rolling dice and adding values from the miniatures and... Well, that's about it. 2D6 + Attack value, compare it to the defense value and if it's higher deal an amount of damage equal to the damage value. What it neglects to mention is ANYTHING ELSE.

So, for example what do any of these coloured lines on the map mean? Are there some sort of terrain mechanics we need to know about?

Oh. Okay. Well, what about these 32 tokens we got in the box, what are they use for?

Right..... Well, how about these point values on the cards? They seem to have like 2 different one? How does that work? How about the fact that the Kaiju seems to cost double the points of the Jaeger, how does do we balance that out?

Fine....? Okay, last question. What about all these special abilities listed on the character cards? What does any of this actually mean? I mean, they each have a buttload of abilities, so this is probably pretty important, right?

IS ANYONE ELSE SEEING THE PROBLEM WITH THIS SITUATION?

Thing is, whilst it's bad enough that the rules are entirely absent the problem is then compounded by the character cards. Whilst these list all the various special abilities that appear at one point or another on the figures dials, what they don't actually do is TELL YOU WHAT ANY OF THEM ACTUALLY DO.

So, I know that Slattern has Charge & Plasticity & Hypersonic Speed & Steal Energy & Impervious & Invulnerability & Shape Change & Exploit Weakness & Battle Fury. But no clue as to what any of those abilities actually do in the game. Which, if we're being honest, rather begs the question of what the ever loving fuck is the point of having the goddamn card in the first place? I mean, you look at the dial on the base and then look up the ability on the character card which you then have to go and look up on another, entirely seperate ability summary sheet? WHICH ISN'T EVEN INCLUDED IN THE SMEGGING GAME?!?!

I mean, why? Sure there's a couple of unique abilities detailed on there, but even then it's not exactly clear what anything is since half of them just say he can use some other mystery ability. The first line on Slatterns card gives us strange symbol which looks like nothing so much as the symbol for Psychopathic Records:

Of course, this is entirely appropriate since, much like magnets, nobody knows how this game is supposed to fucking WORK.

Of course it's not all bad news as there is a solution to these problems. As it says on the quick start leaflet, go online and download the actual rulebook & abilities summary!

Or they could have just written "Go fuck yourselves LOL". It has pretty much the same effect. To say it's insulting to sell someone an incomplete product and then tell them to go print out the extra 30 odd pages of rules and abilities needed to actually use the damn thing is something of an understatement. I thought that the xbox game was bad, but at least they didn't have an optional DLC pack to recognize the fucking controller input.

Now, just so we're being clear here, I don't actually expect or even want the full unexpurgated set of Heroclix rules and abilities in the box. What I expect is a set of rules and abilities tailored to this particular set of figures. No need to list everything, just give us what we need to run some games using this set. And maybe if we like it we'll branch out and get a regular starter for the rest of it or something. But give us SOMETHING to work with.

So, having discussed what's NOT in the box, let's turn our bitter and jaded sight onto what is included. First and most obvious is the miniatures themselves. These are actually not bad. They're fairly decent sculpts. The major issue is one of scale. In the box you get Gypsy Danger and Slattern. Slattern is, as we all know, a category 5 Kaiju. The largest ever recorded.

But since everything is on the same sized base he's actually pretty damn small, especially compared to gypsy Danger. It just looks odd. I appreciate a little fudging of scales is required, but if you're going to make this one of the starter set figures could you not have gone for a larger base size? Seeing as how Slattern is fairly unique and everything? Sure, it might have pushed the price up a little, but a double sized Slattern boxed with Gypsy Danger & Striker Eureka sounds a lot more attractive to me.

Because if you're going to be putting Slattern in the box then you REALLY need an extra Jaeger. As I mentioned earlier, Slattern has a basic point cost of 600. Over DOUBLE that of Gypsy Danger which clocks in at 225. It's a little lopsided. Playing by the quick start rules the game quite literally goes Slaterrn hits Gypsy Danger once and then wins. My limited experience with clix games has usually been whoever get's the first hit in wins as it invariably degrades the opponents ability to respond below any reliable measure of likelihood. But this is taking things to extremes.

If you really wanted to do a 2 figure set, the surely Gypsy Danger vs Knifehead would have allowed for a closer balance? It would also tie more into the films imagery.

The other problem with the starter figures is that they are, apparently, also available in the blind boosters packs. Not that you can find anywhere selling those yet, it's all singles or cases. Whilst it's nice to see Wizkids move away from the old standard of fifty different versions of the same damn miniature, I have to say this is pretty dissapointing. Indeed, this is one of the few cases where such a thing might make sense. Take that theoretical starter pack I talked about earlier. Giant sized Slattern, Gypsy Danger and Striker Eureka. So we do Gypsy with a Chain Sword and Battle damage sculpt here, whilst in the main range we do an undamaged look with a Plasmacaster. Starer version of Striker comes with the big Nuke backpack (no doubt along with the mother of all self destruct abilities), regular version doesn't. and keeping Slattern special frees up a slot in the main selection for Mutavore or something.

They have Raiju but not Otachi. How the fuck does that work?

But of course, why do something like that when you can just waste everyone's time and money by trying to trick them into buying the same thing twice? This is, after all, the principle on which all collectible games are founded.

The character cards are, as mentioned, fairly useless. Here's a little tip for: If there's not enough room on your summary card to actually summarize any information then maybe you should think about making the cards bigger. Or possibly not loading down the minis with more abilities than anyone can ever hope to keep track of.

The game board I actually quite like. It's printed on thick card and folds up quite small. Doesn't quite lay flat when unfolded, bu I don't think it's any worse than the same sort of issues you get with paper maps. it's small, but it doesn't really need to be any bigger. It i only one sided however, which is a bit odd. You'd think they'd want to have a couple of different maps to play on. The city port depicted is good for what it is, but how about including the Breach, or even some arctic ocean or whatever just to mix it up a little. That would at least go with the characters included a bit better.

Although you know what would be even better than extra maps? Scenarios. Just something to provide a bit more variety than running straight at each other and seeing who get's punched insensible first. But then they'd actually have to tell you what all the terrain lines actually meant.

Finally then we have the tokens. These are divided between square ones depicting some sort of rubble or something on one side, and the word SPECIAL on the other, and round ones depicting tanks, battleships and fighter planes. Although if you want to know how any of that is actually supposed to work then good luck.

One can infer that the jets and such like are supposed to be some sort of 1 hit disposable fodder to pad out the PPDC forces. Although since the quick start rules don't actually make mention of how using more than one thing at a time is supposed to work fuck only knows how you're actually supposed use them. The simple fact that there isn't actually enough room in the starting area to actually have enough jets to balance the points out between Gypsy Danger and Slattern is also a bit of an issue. Not quiet sure why it was nobody thought we might like to know how to handle stuff like that.

My main problem with tokens, aside from not being given the slightest clue what the fuck to do with any of them, is what a missed opportunity they represent. Because it would have been infinitely cooler to have some little miniature jets and tanks in scale with the main miniatures than just a handful of pogs with a stock photo pasted on the front. More expensive? Sure. But if you make something well then I don't mind paying a bit extra for it. Even if you only do it as a limited edition deluxe version or something.

Really I think there are just so many other, better ways that you could have done a Pacific Rim minis game. Ways that didn't involve so much bullshit. Ways that involved actually PUBLISHING THE GODDAMN RULES. Ways that made sure consumers were able to get the miniatures they wanted whilst the manufacturers, rather than the secondary market, saw the profits.

But then what do I know about anything? Certainly not how to play Heroclix.