Blackest Night Starter

Blackest Night is NECA's first starter set since taking over HeroClix as well as their first release that they've entirely designed inhouse. While I've enjoyed Hammer of Thor and the Brave and the Bold, they obviously were working with mostly leftover product from when Topps owned Wizkids. While the Blackest Night release on a whole suffers from many of the quality control problems that have plagued NECA so far (I'm not even going to get into that map), when it comes down the actual 7 pieces, this release is an absolute home run.

This is the first release entirely composed of digital sculpts, and they look great. The set is bright, colorful, and fun to look at right out of the package. When you take the time to appreciate the little details it's really impressive. I had some reservations that switching entirely to digital sculpts moving forward would take some of the "human" element of sculpting the miniatures, but now that I can see these in hand I'm not concerned either way. These sculpts have just as much texture and depth as their hand crafted brethren. I do like that the upcoming Web of Spider-Man release will be a mix of the "green stuff" sculpts as well as digitals though. The only criticism for Blackest Night on this front is that the scale for Green Lantern is way off. This is one of the problems I think they'd be able to eliminate by going digital, but Hal still ended up looking like Kid Lantern. Put him next to Wonder Woman and it just looks silly.

MERA
The only piece I haven't played or had played against me as of yet, so I'll keep my review of her short and sweet. She's puking out red lantern powered plasma margaritas. Outstanding. Her defensive stats and powers are modest but her dial is designed for her to take damage. Her Red Rage special power is a cool concept and I'm looking forward to fielding her. Her sculpt makes her the honorary mascot of my clixing ka-tet Team Scumbag's style of play.

LEX LUTHOR
I've played Lex and had him played against me. He worked great for me and not so well for my opponent. He's tricky because he's the second most expensive piece in the starter in terms of point cost, but he's a bit of a finesse piece. He doesn't get damage reducers until the 3rd-6th clicks, and he only has two clicks with higher than 2 damage. Sexy Lexy has a lot of fun tricks he can pull off though. The most obvious is his Orange Greed special that can allow you to steal some of the more brutal powers in the game, such as Hypersonic Speed, Blades/Claws/Fangs, Exploit Weakness, Perplex or Probability Control, and use them against your opponent for the turn. He also has plenty of Poison to keep your opponents at bay (especially considering all the Outwit), and you can get creative with his Telekinesis, Mind Control and Pulse Wave. I think he's a fun piece but he's not cheap and he's going to require a lot of thought to use him to the best of his abilities.

SCARECROW
Hands down the best sculpt of the set, Scarecrow's dial is one of the more modest in Blackest Night. It is useful, and really the best possible representation the character could ever hope to have in HeroClix, but he's not going to do much without a strong team around him. As a supporting piece he creates a nice threat from range and can Perplex your team or himself up as he runs and guns. His Yellow Fear special power perfectly captures what you would hope Scarecrow would bring to the game. I would have liked to see another click or two of Poison, but otherwise this piece is exactly what he should be.



















GREEN LANTERN
Little Hal might not have been the most popular choice since we got a pretty good representation of him not so long ago in Crisis. There are a few other Green Lanterns that could have used this spot more (Kilowog, John Stewart), or had been more deserving with the deputized lantern theme (Ganthet). Add that to his wee little sculpt and regardless of his dial this Green Lantern is probably my least favorite piece of the starter. That said he's still stupid good if you can keep him on his first 3 clicks. With his Green Willpower special that lets him heal when he pushes instead of taking damage, that shouldn't be too hard. After that though he can go down pretty hard, as he has a bit of the always dreaded glass jaw.

THE FLASH
Maybe my second most favorite sculpt of the starter after Scarecrow, Blue Flash's pose is exactly what we've come to expect out of speedsters, but he looks damn good none the less. He becomes one of the nastier Hypersonic Speed pieces in the game right away, with 5 straight clicks of a 10 or better attack. He is also a great support piece with plenty of Enhancement, Defend, and late dial Prob. Keeping in mind that this is the Flash armed with a power ring, he is every bit as good as he should be. Fun, useful, not overpowered, which is true of pretty much all 7 of these pieces.

THE ATOM
Instantly the best medic in the game. The Atom is the only guy in the set who might be too good for his points. He's a pain in the ass to kill but if you don't take him out he'll ruin all the hard work you put into killing his teammates. Plus he has late dial Outwit as if he wasn't enough of a little bastard. It's interesting that he starts off on a click that doesn't feature his Indigo Compassion special power, so if you want to use him for his real purpose (Support), you've got to push him off of a click that features a 20 defense from range with Shape Change. It probably seems like a no-brainer to do it and be able to heal almost any piece on your team, but it might be harder to make the decision when push (ha) comes to shove in an actual game and your impossible to hit Atom is Incapacitating and Phasing/Teleporting anywhere he pleases.

WONDER WOMAN
Well I might have to take that back, as good as the Atom is for his points, Wonder Woman can be absolutely crushing even at the highest point cost in the starter. The thing is, even with her super deep dial and terrifying damage output, her defense never goes above 17. If you can cut through her non-stop reducers, you can deal big damage to her early and often. Unfortunately until you kill her she can still ruin your day on most clicks. Combine that with the fact that she's Indomitable and she's well worth her 215 points even before you rummage around her toolbox of tricks (hubba hubba). Probability Control, Telekinesis, and 5 straight clicks of Mind Control?? Why does she even have 2 clicks of Incapacitate when she can deal 5 damage?! Yikes. She's too much woman to handle. Speaking of which, her sculpt looked a bit mannish in the previews, but the finished product is a glimmering violet beacon of Amazon goodness.

I forget how much I even ordered this starter for, but it was well worth the price, whatever it was. Keep up the great work NECAkids!