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Of Dice and Plastic Men: A User’s Guide to Never Losing to Nightcrawler
Kyle From Kansas (08/29/2011)
Goto Comments

HeroClix Never lose to NightcrawlerImagine you and your good friend have a large disagreement- in order to resolve this issue, you decide upon the most brutal and primal means of resolution ever: a street fight. You agree on a time and spend a week preparing yourself, working the bag, etc. On the agreed upon day, you show up with several friends around to witness. Your friend shows up with a hand gun. Now there wasn’t specifically a rule against handguns. Your friends officiate that this is fair, and in reality you should have prepared yourself for this possibility and worn a bulletproof vest.

Every time I play Nightcrawler I feel like a dirty evil genius. I usually win but it doesn’t feel earned. The most common response I get when stating I don’t like playing against Nightcrawler is that Kid Zoom negates his Hypersonic Speed which makes him much less amazing. I feel like this is wearing a bulletproof vest to a street fight just in case they bring a handgun. It’s an arms race that was never intended. I don’t know what piece represents the armor piercing bullets in this case -- perhaps the Crimson Gem -- but this analogy has gone on far enough.

The statistics to beat him are astounding. Even with your [11] attack against his [19] defense, you have a 41.7% chance of rolling the 8 necessary to make the attack. Making it past the shape change roll will reduce that by 1/3 ( or just 27.5%). Reduce that by another 1/3 for Super Senses and we’re at 18%. That’s assuming you can either negate stealth or somehow get him to finish a move in adjacency or in clear terrain. Even with a [12] attack (which I rarely bring) you only move up to a 25% probability. Twenty Five percent!

To summarize the odds aren’t in you favor, and when I see them spelled out like that I don’t want to deal with it.

I’m not here to teach you how to beat Nightcrawler. I’m not that good at this game, and my track record against Nightcrawler is something like 1-9... with that one win coming against someone who picked up the game for the first time that day (I regret nothing). I’m not here to argue that Nightcrwarler is broken (he is) or that he should be banned (he shouldn’t). I’m saying that he makes your opponent enjoy their day less and I want to find organic solutions for eliminating this plague.

My solution to never losing to Nightcrawler is to never play him. I intend to create as much animosity towards someone playing that piece at the weekly friendly tournament at the local comic book store (WFTALCBS for short, because I love unnecessary acronyms) as reasonably/legally possible (obvious exception for league tourneys where major items are on the line). I just simply don’t want to think about each WFTALCBS scenario in regards to whether or not I need to bring a flak jacket.

Mike Wethington wrote a great article about how he creates a positive enviroment by making people bringing cheesy pieces play the toughest competition (see: How to Build a Successful Venue). I say make Nightcrawler teams always play Kid Zoom or Bullseye (or other Nightcrawler teams) until they quit showing up. If we all know not to bring the handgun to the street fight because you’ll get the bulletproof vest team, it will probably stop. If, however, you can’t pass such drastic WFTALCBS legislation, then I have a foolproof method that I’ve assembled into a handy guide:

(click to enlarge)


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Your Comments:
Daredevil from the deadpool gravity feed ignores super senses.

Posted by: My homie is a New God on 9/1/2014 3:10:10 PM
I was able to beat a Nightcrawler team by perplexing up Orion from Slosh's attack to a fourteen and pc twice....

Posted by: My homie is a New God on 9/1/2014 3:07:26 PM
I think many have missed the title of this article. Because you did indeed come up with a way to never lose to Nightcrawler. Of course, I would like to see what happens after the opponent gets through rubbing their shin and the fire is put out. There are some things I wouls pay to see.

Posted by: Greth on 9/2/2011 5:43:54 AM
I bet Halo and Gears characters are making Kurt nervous with their fancy grenades ;)

Posted by: Kragnorak on 9/1/2011 10:28:54 AM
If you really want to beat him, fight fire with fire and use Zen-hatten

Posted by: Lord Logan on 8/31/2011 3:07:35 PM
I for one will be glad to see Nightcrawler and cosmic spidey retired. I never play either, though I may play fuzzy elf once in a high point game to play Excalibur.

Posted by: inspired stranger on 8/31/2011 1:45:41 PM
LOL... HrC players often feel that way about SN Zombie Hulk. I have yet to see a HrC game where Z. Hulk doesn't mop up the map, and his player loses.

Posted by: Mesch on 8/30/2011 7:54:24 AM
Never tell me the odds.
How u take this article depends on how you play heroclix
lamb or lion,all it takes is one hit and he's going to sleep
cheese just let's u see how good u are in my opion.
and we don't get down like that at the lair.

Posted by: Klixkiller on 8/29/2011 9:28:03 PM
Entertaining article!

Posted by: CaptainAmeribrad on 8/29/2011 9:01:40 PM
I feel that I should have some cheese with this article considering all the whine that came with it..

Posted by: Namic on 8/29/2011 7:26:04 PM
This article has WIN all over it

Posted by: Alex M. on 8/29/2011 7:20:32 PM
@ Supreme - lol.

Posted by: WizardId on 8/29/2011 4:13:18 PM
Nightcrawler is a great piece. The problem is that white powers don't follow the point cost formula. His is really worth an addition 30 points or so, more if you look at the arc of the game over the years.

There is actually a quite simple way to make Nightcrawler players cry, but it takes a piece that is over 100 points more which goes to show how buff Kurt is. Just have WoS Iron Man fly up to him (Stark is indomitable so this is easy) and Force Blast him for free into the nearest wall.

Doing this over and over is both hilarious and cheap, and is a good way to teach cheesemeisters a lesson.

Avoiding cheese, I would still choose characters with Force Blast and work positionally. Sometimes it is enough to force NC to push off those first two dangerous clicks.

Posted by: Kragnorak on 8/29/2011 2:39:21 PM
The problem isn't beating Bencrawler, it's learning to play him well without handing your opponent 86 points.

Posted by: CallMeMOTO on 8/29/2011 1:13:16 PM
play this.... heimdall,leech, harry leland,kid zoom and lightspeedx3.

seems to nerf just about everything in modern age.

Posted by: supremepontiff on 8/29/2011 12:29:46 PM
How douchey.
How do you beat nightcrawler?
bring some perplexers (con artists in golden), a beatstick with high attack value and charge. Preferably a flier, Tk them up to Nightcrawler and beat the piss out of him.
Lather rinse repeat. Then worry about the rest of the team.

Posted by: Johnwhite on 8/29/2011 11:08:01 AM
Never had much trouble with Nightcrawler. I typically pound the rest of the opponent's team until the blue goblin is the only thing left, then concentrate my entire remaining team on him. VICTORY!!:)

Posted by: x.law22 on 8/29/2011 10:33:00 AM
Bullseye and Pulsewave.
Other than that, good luck.

Posted by: Megalotusman on 8/29/2011 9:22:38 AM
Nice article!

Posted by: Jason Williams (JR) on 8/29/2011 9:16:30 AM
Use Bullseye, he has a 12 AV he ignores super sences and shape change, and you can thunderbolt him to ultimate ta to see through stealth. Now all you have to roll is a 7. Then you hit him for three (unless you have a perplexer on your team. Then you have knocked the little blue elf off his effective clicks.

Posted by: Joe on 8/29/2011 9:09:11 AM
Yea :)

Posted by: Oreoofl on 8/29/2011 9:05:20 AM