So yeah I am going to start my new blog with a rant, what of it? big whoop, wanna fight about it? These games are both uber popular to the point that most gamers have played them, along with most non gamers. they both have a ton of expansions and both are very popular but both get under my skin, for at least one reason. lack of depth. When I first heard of mage knight (the predecessor to hero clix I was very interested if nothing else pre painted minis I could co opt for my D&D campaign if the game was not good. and despite looking like minis made out of melted candles me and my gaming group got pretty heavy into it same with their comic based cousin despite horrible mixes like not having more than 2 thugs but having 7 kingpins, that makes sense. and despite the fact that blind box collectibles meant a holes who were only in the game to aquire the rares and sell them on ebay ruining it for the rest of us. but for a while I was still enjoying this and many games Wizkids came up with including crimson skies and mechwarrior: Dark Ages. but one thing that began to annoy me was watching non comic fans put together oddball armies that would never work in real life, like Judge Dredd, Lobo, the Red Skull and Hellboy. after all nothing could stop them and who gives a crap about the character's origins and whether or not they would work together in comic continuity. This and realizing how little Mechwarrior did to emulate the world of battletech were among the reasons I got out of them but now everyone in my area is pushing star trek heroclix, so being a trek geek I decided to buy the starter set. and now it is even more than old hero clix it is one set of rules with minis slapped into position to play with. not one rule in Star Trek Heroclix is the exact same rules as DC or Marvel heroclix. even if it is for starships holding some 500 to 1000 cew they can literally be combined with no ill effect or change in the rules with single super heroes. so Wonder Woman can now punch the U.S.S. Reliant into inactivity in about 2 successful hits, and the Green Lantern is worth the same as the enterprise for combat effectiveness. what's more the same can be said with their new Star Trek Crew set now we can let Leonard McCoy punch a Klingon D-7 into submission. or use his tricorder on Venom.
The same thing was an issue I had with Munchkin another game I really wanted to like firstly as a quick board game for simulating a dungeon crawl, it may be ideal I also like John Kovalick's art and have no problem with a humor theme. but the game is just way too one-dimensional. if you take out the humor factor what you have is a game that wouldn't have sold much past it's initial run. but the puns and funny art is what really supports the game, not solid mechanics it is the gaming equivilent to rubber dog poop. and it is extremely popular due to being both an easy and funny game with no real strategy or depth. the big seller also has a ton of supplements that add a ton of just insane and inane combinations from pirates, to goths, to Cthulhu and superheroes. yes you can add them all together into one confusing mess of a game where you have to fight psychotic ancient goldfish with cybernetics and connections to the clan venture, but unfortunately for you and your enchanted cheese grater you have been cursed with the duck of doom. Why does this annoy me? I guess because I find slapping all of this together into a patchwork game and putting everything into the same pot cheapens the fun. there are many great starship combat games that simulate combat in a way that works within the world of Star Trek, such as Federation Commander, and Star Trek Tactical ship simulator. why then must we play with ships that have the same stats as say individual characters not using a similar system but a literal copy/paste of the same system. it would have been one thing if they had at least tried to add a few mechanics to make this game unique among clix games (mush like Crimson skies did with movement and stress, and what mechwarrior did with the heat gauge) but no changing rules costs money, and people just want the toys, not engaging rules systems that work for them. The same is true with munchkin. slap it all together isn't just implied hell it's encouraged. slap everything into one big crazy quilt of a game. In all honesty it's a perfect case of too many ingredients making what may have been a decent meal into a big mess. This is why I just don't bother with either of them any more.
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