Harvest is plenty but the scythes are few.

Hello,

           Hope everyone had a good weekend. I played the SC2 Heart of the Swarm campaign and multiplayer. Lets just say I'm not going pro in SC2. On other news, due to my gaming fun there is no episode this weekend. Good for me. Bad for you. I will try to make it up next week...maybe. I'm nearing the end of my work period so I will be gradually moving stuff back to K.C. in the next 2-3 weeks.

           The meat of today's post is about the recent preview of Harvest. Lets jjust say I'm not that impressed. You are paying over 200 points for this mediocre attacker. He has running shot pulse wave but in the end his values and his consistency does not beat Ultron or Brainiac 5. He is a wildcard that is limited by a keyword. His scythe adds another double power action option on to an already pushed figure. All in all we are stuck looking at a pretty worthless figure unless you are a fan of the story arc.
           I think by creating an object that con only be picked up on a 6 is poor game design. It doesn't fit the tempo of the game. There is no reason I would pay 15 points for this object let alone 5 for the odds presented. I have to give up a full UB or a partial IG for this I really must have some super strong game plan. I don't see that happening unless feats are involved. I mean it. Feats must be involved to make this worth considering.

        All in all they haven't sold me on Titan's like they grabbed me with Amazing Spiderman on the last half of their advertising blitz. I was giddy for Brother and Doctor Voodoo for various reasons and not just because they were broke good. With the massive amount of D.C. Batman stuff we had gotten lately with the street level grimy combat it was time to crank up the power. I think they have failed with that exercise. I don't know what they are trying create. Whatever it is it is rubbing me the wrong way. I will be amazed if I spend 100 let alone 50 dollars on this set when it comes out. You know what that means. We will see a lot more sealed events for No Man's Land Month Six to get rid of all this dud product.

Check you later,
Edward Shelton aka Darklogos

P.S. I will not talk about No Man's Land Month Six until we see all of Teen Titans set. Some venues will allow it and the meta will change. If Superboy is solid the stealth game may be dead? A big may on that. 

Smells like Teen Spirit

Hello,

           I don't know if anyone remembers the brand of deodorant called Teen Spirit? It was an interesting product that had a weird smell when combined with teenage perspiration. I fill the same way when it comes to the Teen Titans set so far. There is nothing that has really popped out in Teen Titans to make me say "Must buy that now!" I will admit that at first I was hesitant about Amazing Spiderman as well.

         I guess the thing that grabs me is that I'm not looking for the next meta piece that will make the game balanced or really unbalanced. I'm looking for fun and more importantly filling out current tactics making them stronger or at least doable. The fact that the "teen" keyword has gone the way of "mutant." Without any solid foundation it seems that the only thing Wizkids had left was gimmicks. Thus enters team dials.

       Ok, lets look at some solid modern age Teen Titans team without the Teen Titans set.
FF Hawk 100
FF Dove 100
Bats Beast Boy (Pterodactyl) 60
Blue Beetle 94
DC10 Robin 52
JL52 Cyborg 100
SM Supergirl 100
DC75 Donna Troy 79
DC75 Osiris 101
Eye of Amagato 12
Bat Signal 2

800

This team is pure bruiser Titan goodness. You have prob from Dove. Robin gives you enhancement and a potential promotion. You can have Blue Beetle pick up the the Eye of Amagato.If need be you can push Donna Troy to get prob.  Beast Boy comes in as the Pterodactyl to deploy your ream. Then he can turn into whatever you want on your sideboard. It's not comic accurate by far but at least you stand a fighting chance against some of the major meta pieces out there.

Hope you had fun with the read. Tell me your favorite Teen Titan team below.

Check you later,
Edward Shelton aka Darklogos

Trying to make up for time

Hey,

        I couldn't get to Kansas City this weekend. I was snowed in. It seems it is going to snow again here in Topeka. I tried doing an mp3 to avi online conversion but it wouldn't go down. My windows movie maker was acting up on the laptop. I've tried a bunch of stuff and it hasn't resolved. I hate to be so behind.

       After doing some thinking about ASM I realize more and more that there really isn't that much "new" tech as there is "old" tech wrapped in new packages. I've looked at Man-thing and see there is a lot of old poison tech there. You can do some things similar to LAMP but just not quite LAMP. I see some other tech that would be really strong in the monster theme team route in 500-800 pt games. Mystical has gotten off it's two year dominance break and has come back to be one the top keywords in the meta.

       What does this mean? It means that the best things you can do as a player is not to force something to be there when it is not. The next thing is to really be honest about what teams you are weak against and teams that you really want to develop for the next month and a half. Remember what I said a couple of posts ago, we are on Lab Day tech now. There is nothing that strong from prize support other than NML to fight tooth and nail for. If you are interested in a GL tank team do it. If you want to play with poison, give it a try. If you want to see how strong mind control is in the meta then play what you see fit. I would say you need to look at going back to basics and polishing those element so you can be prepared for the next big thing and that is team dials.

      As it stands right now team dials can be a mixed bag. We know that a full Titan's dial is immune to psy-blast and mind control. We don't know how they will compete against something like Galactus or Tester in bigger point games. What is clear that there may be some openings to abuse player weakness who pop of figures from the main base. The solo figures are on the corresponding point range dial. Don't let people convince you that they can play a full point popped off Robin or Raven at 300pts. They can't. They have to click to the corresponding color on their dial to the point level you are playing the team dial. This means that a person playing a Rookie team dial could easily give the opponent more than 300pts if they get sloppy with the separation mechanic.

    Last thing I want to present to you is that the IG is making a come back. I see a lot of figures in ASM that really key off with a partial or full gauntlet. Baron Mordo may never be Sorcerer Supreme but he can really wield a gauntlet in uncanny ways at a cheaper price point than Stranger. We also see that Collen Wing and Misty Knight duo can get a lot from the IG. With their deep dial they will be hard to kill before they get +1 stats or goodhood. Terrax likes the IG for the soul gem mainly. It gives him a lot of control to stay on click 2 if he chooses. He stays on a dial click with soul gem and just takes damage for not turning and he can stay on that one click and possible even heal up a bunch with  several k.o's from major earthquake power.

That is it for today,
Thanks for reading.

I'm stuffed.

Hello,

           Today's blog post is inspired by Big Will Holland. The implication of the Spiderman and Teen Titan sets is major in several areas.

1. Mole Men Assemble

         With Spiderman set having confirmed monsters in the set it means mole man will have many options to control. Dracula attacking twice in the same turn maybe really strong.

2. Teen Titans may mean more teen keyword

        A lot of general keywords have been undergoing a slow death. Teen is a fallen giant of the past. Teen Titan has the chance to bring life into the fallen. If the team dials have teen keyword then it's on.

3.  The pace has not slowed down for releases.

       This year has taught us that Wizkids can crank out major product releases at a rapid rate.  I think that is not a good thing. But we will have something the first two months of next year.

4. Fools rush in.

       With the flood of product it is best just to wait for prices to drop. I will not buy blind next year because the secondary market prices are way to cheap.

That's it,
Edward Shelton aka Darklogos