THE THING

boot speed

100 points

Team: Fantastic Four

Keywords: Brute, Fantastic Four, Soldier

Range:  0 x 1

DIAL & CARD:

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/heroclix/marvel/figuregallery.asp?unitid=14105

STRENGTHS:

With a great Attack Value, great Defense Values, great damage and a Special Power that gets him into the fight fast and on his own, The Thing is everything a brick should be. "It's Clobberin' Time" allows him to move his full speed and either Quake or make a close combat attack with the object he can grab with Super Strength. Once in close, the new Heroclix rules banning ranged attacks there will help him be even more effective. And it pays for Thing to have company at all times because he's "Yer Ever-Lovin' Pal," his 2nd SP. If adjacent pals next to him have tokens at the beginning of your turn, a 5-6 die roll can remove a token from one of them...two if they share one of Thing's three keywords. (NOTE: the jury's still out on whether he can remove his OWN token, being one of the friendly characters on the team, or if he can remove tokens from even NON-adjacent allies so long as he meets the other requirements. Keep an eye out for July's Errata &  Clarifications document for the final word.)

Should enemies hit hard enough to get past Thing's starting two clicks each of Invulnerability and Toughness, he gets his 3rd SP "Yancy Streeter" which doubles up Toughness and Willpower. Not until his last two clicks does he lack damage reducers, sporting only Willpower and 4 damage.

WEAKNESSES:

No damage reducers on those last two clicks and mediocre AV and DV on same make that 4 damage hard to use and stick. But it's FOUR DAMAGE.

CARDS?

His relatively cheap cost makes FORTITUDE pretty affordable to make him invulnerable to Outwitters and Exploit Weakness. And PROTECTED is always a solid choice on figs with Willpower, so save the feat for his middial if you use it. But Thing is good enough not to need these cards. What he does need, ALWAYS, is UNSTOPPABLE so that hindering terrain can never stop the Clobberin' Time charge. CANNONBALL is another cheap feat to help his initial attack. Finally, his "Ever-Lovin' Pal" SP might work dandily with WARBOUND.

IN SUM:

Designed to be the ultimate close fighter in a game newly tweaked to make hand-to-hand more viable, the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing returns to Heroclix better than ever.

RATING: 5 of 5. There may not be a better 100-ish-point piece in the game not named Shazam.