DC HeroClix: The Brave and the Bold has been released, and with the Blackest Night upon us, the dead have risen! Enter Kal-L, the Superman of Earth-2!

Weighing in at a hefty (but not unbelievable) 254 points, Kal-L brings serious power to the HeroClix table, but not without some suprises for a figure of his considerable cost. First off, the suprises. This is the only figure at this point level (250-275) that doesn't possess at least a click of Impervious or Invulnerability. Instead, Kal's less...living...form has a total of 8 clicks of Toughness backed by 3 of Regeneration. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, given that his dial toploads at a 19 defense score, never dropping to less than 16. Still, he comes apart a bit easier at the seams than he did before his death at the end of Infinite Crisis.

As a Black Lantern, Kal-L can recover from virtually any injury to continue manipulating the emotions of his targets. This is partially evidenced in his Trait -- Power Levels Rising: Whenever an opposing character is KO'd within 4 squares of Kal-L, you may heal Kal-L of 1 damage. Between this and Regeneration, Kal-L can make the most of his high cost by KO-ing figures (or being near KO'd opposing figures) after he is damaged. He also has a synergy with the Black Hand figure (via the Avatar of the Black special power) and the Black Lantern Special Object. With the right circumstances (and a little help from the Golden Age Auto Regeneration Feat Card), Kal-L can conceivably heal up to 7 clicks of damage with just those elements in play! It will be much more common to heal one click or perhaps two, but that is an extremely potent ability in any case.

As much as can be made of Kal-L's defensive abilities, he is very much a powerhouse offensively, worthy of the "S" Shield he created. Starting with 5 damage and never dropping below 3, Kal-L is an extremely hard hitting figure, which is even more devastating with the implication of the powers that go along with those statistics. Still faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, Kal-L starts with Charge and Super Strength. And because he can READ THE EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM, he deals penetrating damage via Exploit Weakness. His attack value is a respectable 10, and he possesses the Indomitable ability, but his dial is very tempting when it comes to 'optioning off' Indomitable and allowing the click of damage to occur on a push. His 10 attack raises to 11 and grants him use of another special power: FENDING OFF TWO SUPERMEN. Now, Kal-L can Charge and use Flurry for 5 base damage, and then use Force Blast as a free action on successfully hit opponents. This is advantageous because it allows Kal-L a measure of protection against a figure he may have damaged, but might not want to remain adjacent to when the attack resolves. With a little luck, Kal-L will possibly heal back to his first click at any rate.

Once he reaches mid-dial, he loses Fending off Two Supermen and gains Hypersonic Speed and Regeneration (where the auto-regeneration feat card comes highly recommended for games that it is available). His attack dips to its' lowest 9, but he is still dealing 4 base damage at that point.

Thanks to Wizkids new figure inclusion code, I can do reviews on certain figures without going through the 'joys' of getting the dial to be visible without undue work.

Brave and the Bold Sizzle Sheet

• Duos- Building off of the buzz of the most successful HeroClix figure of all-time, World’s Finest, Brave & The Bold brings high-profile Duo figures to the fore. In addition to having Duo figures at each rarity, all Super Rares in Brave & The Bold are team-ups of top-flight DC characters, such as Superman and Flash, Batman and Green Arrow, and Shazam! and Black Adam.

• Alter Egos- For the first time in its history, iconic DC Alter Egos such as Bruce Wayne, Clark, and Diana Prince appear in HeroClix boosters. The figures don’t stand alone, however, Alter Egos have the ability to change into their more famous superhero counterparts. That’s right, in game, players can change from Clark Kent into the powerful Superman!

• Army Building- Continuing the popular mechanics found in Hammer of Thor, Brave & The Bold features soldier and general units that help players use their entire collections of existing figures. Using keywords, the soldiers and generals can support figures from past HeroClix sets, allowing for creative army building from all of HeroClix’s history. Armies featured in the set include: the dangerous Batman enemies The League of Assassins, the strong and noble Amazons, the clandestine Checkmate operatives, and the powerful Apokolips alien Parademons. Here are some examples of Army Builders and the figures from previous sets that work in conjunction with these figures

• Parademon: Plays well with Lashina (Arkham) and Darkseid (Crisis)

• Checkmate: Plays well with Amanda Waller, Count Vertigo, and the thinker (Arkham), as well as Roy Harper and Red Arrow (Crisis)

• Amazon: Plays well with Wonder Woman from (Arkham) and both WW from (Justice League), as well as both Wonder Girls and Donna Troy from (Crisis).

• League Assassin: Plays well with Man Bat Assassin (Arkham), as well as Talia and Ra's Al Ghul from (Batman Alpha), and Batgirl from (Crisis). Also Merlyn and Bronze Tiger (a top tournament piece) from (Justice League).

• Holiday: Plays well with 12 different characters from (Arkham)

• “Silver Bullets”- Brave & The Bold features three “silver bullet” characters that players can use to shut down opposing players’ strategies.

• Kryptonite Man works well against Supergirl and both "chase" Superman from Crisis, as well as the two Supermen in (Justice League) and several other figures in the current Brave and the Bold set.

• Kid Zoom plays well against 15 DC characters from Justice League - Arkham, including many top tournament pieces like Flash, Black Adam, and Superman. He also plays well against 20+ Marvel characters from Avengers - Hammer of Thor, including top tournament pieces like Skrull Ms. Marvel.

• Talia counter balances 8 characters from Arkham, including both "chase" Batman, and Robin, Batgirl, and Captain Gordon as well as 3 Batmans from Justice League

• Extant (the dimension-travelling villain) destroys armies that use multiple copies of the same figure. These silver bullet figures will be must have support pieces for any serious tournament player.

• “Upgrade”- Another exciting new, non-duo mechanic debuting in the Brave & The Bold set is “Upgrade.” Two figures in the set can “level-up,” after KOing an opposing figure. By leveling, players can switch a low-pointed character into a higher-pointed more dangerous version of that character. This mechanic encourages players to use more pieces in their collection, and rewards competitive, aggressive gameplay.

• Powerful Villains- Finally, in order to battle the powerful heroic duos in the set, Brave & The Bold features powerful high-point villains that can stand toe-to-toe with the duos. Characters such as Braniac, Metallo, and Ra’s Al-Ghul have the power needed to battle the top heroes in the DC universe.!

What is not reflected in the above image is that Power Girl received a Trait that allows her to use Super Strength.

Power Girl is actually one of the bright spots in a potentially dark field when it comes to my overall anticipation for DC HeroClix: Brave and the Bold. Back in 2008, when the set was announced to be focused on the Duo mechanic that debut with Marvel HeroClix: Avengers, I joined the chorus of groans that ensued from such an announcement. Actually, I groaned when they were just talking about it. They hadn't even 'announced' it. The other thing I groaned about was that the new designer would be debuting with this set. See the Hammer of Thor impressions article for some background on my worries about dial design and then double it. When I saw Power Girl, sans Super Strength, my first thought was, "I knew they were going to louse up the dials", or something like that. Probably much more profane.

As it stands, she's not 'terrible', but at 199 points something definitely felt 'off' about her. Not to mention her lack of range, considering she is the Kryptonian version ala Infinite Crisis. Something was defintely missing, and damage reducers aplenty or no, she simply wasn't '199 points worth'. So, lo and behold, on Monday, Wizkids updated her preview with the following -

UPDATE: 03/15/10

HeroClix fans are among the most comics-savvy people on the planet, and they know that among the key abilities all Kryptonians share are the ability to Lift And Toss Very Heavy Things and the ability to Hit Other Things With Lots Of Oomph. So when our fans saw the preview of Power Girl I posetd on Friday, they realized something was missing – Super Strength. Good catch HeroClix fans!

Power Girl originally was playtested with a trait which reads “Power Girl can use Super Strength” – but that line was unintentionally edited out when we created the print master for the art team to lay out the cards. Thanks to the miracle of Print and Play, you can play her the way the design team intended. Power’s corrected cards are below, and are officially considered legal for all HeroClix play.

Keep on clickin’

-Drew

I was fortunate to have broke the story on HCRealms. I got lucky. At the time I was loading her stats into the Clix Cave, and in my habit I just happened to refresh the page, which said 'update' where it intially did not. I figured I'd better tell everybody, because she was getting her customary bad dial throttling on the 'realms (which participated in) and I knew that this could change the reactions, as well as give NECA a nice popularity shot-in-the-arm.