DC Comics HeroClix: Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game Review

The DC Comics HeroClix: Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game while a mouthful of a title, is a fantastic new introduction to Heroclix. In this article, we'll have a look at what's in the box and review it as a standalone product, for those brand new to Heroclix, and veteran players.

As a quick introduction for those who've never heard of Heroclix, it's a collectible miniatures game, with pre-painted miniatures that have the character stats printed on their base. The bases also act as health dials, and as characters take damage, their bases are turned, revealing new stats and changing abilities as their hit points move towards KO. There are many different IPs available in Heroclix, including Marvel and DC comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, WWE, and more.

The Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game box acts as a starter set for this latest expansion to the Heroclix range, but also contains everything two players need for a completely standalone game, without needing to pick up any further products. For veteran Heroclix, players, as well as the new miniatures, the set also contains the new rulebook, new powers and abilities card (PAC), some double-sided card map tiles, and some special edition Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary six-sided dice.

The basic rules for Heroclix are very beginner-friendly, and most of the details you need are presented on the bases of the miniatures themselves. Characters have five stats. Movement, attack, defense, and damage, which change as the character takes damage, and range, which is a fixed stat. Characters can move a number of squares on the map tiles equal to their move value and characters attack by rolling two six-sided dice and adding their attack, trying to beat the opposing character's defense. If they hit, they deal damage to their target in the form of clix, where the character's base is rotated once for each damage that's done. All of the characters in this set have five clix before they're knocked out, but other characters from different sets can have more.

Characters have special powers and abilities, which are listed as colored squares on the stats on their bases. Players will need to refer to the Powers and Abilities Card, known as the PAC for each special ability. These also change, like the stats of the character as they take damage. Wonder Woman for example, on her last clix before KO, has STOP, Combat Reflexes on her Defense stat. This means that no matter how much damage she took, she always stops on that clix and then unlocks the Combat Reflexes power which improves her defense.

There have been some big changes with the introduction of this edition of Heroclix, which go a long way to easing play for new players. This also makes this set a great time to start playing, as all the sets released from this point on will have this ruleset in mind. 

As a standalone product, the Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game is great. It includes everything to play through a set of narrative scenarios, that change depending on the result of each game. Each game also builds up the complexity, so is perfect for introducing players, starting with a 2v2 battle between Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl vs The Cheetah and Medusa.

The set includes ten characters, five heroes, and five villains, which come with 2 different versions on the same base. Each character has a 30 point version using clix one to five, with clix six being a KO. Then a 40 point upgraded version using clix seven to eleven, with twelve being a KO. This means that after getting used to the rules and characters, straight out of the box you have an upgraded game, and also characters that can be used at two different points levels if you want to expand past the starter-set.

The ten characters in the set are:

• Wonder Woman - As the poster character for the set, Wonder Woman is pretty tough, reducing damage from each attack and able to move and attack most turns.
• Wonder Girl - Wonder Girl is great at evading enemy attacks and supporting nearby friendly characters with rerolls.
• Donna Troy - Donna is incredibly tough and able to move and make ranged attacks in the same turn.
• Miss Martian - Miss Martian is able to lock down enemy character's powers, and also has attacks that can't have their damage reduced (her ranged attacks have penetrate, which isn't detailed in the starter-set rulebook, but is listed in the full Heroclix rules on the Wizkids site).
• Mary Shazam - Mary is fast and able to smash into groups of enemies, making your opponent consider their positioning throughout the game.

• The Cheetah - Cheetah, as would be expected, is fast in movement, and is also able to evade incoming enemy attacks, allowing her to deal out her high damage at close range.
• Circe - Circe has the longest ranged attack in the starter-set and is able to evade incoming enemy attacks.
• Medusa - Medusa can target three enemies with her ranged four attack, and can also deal 1 damage to all adjacent enemies with a free poison attack.
• Star Sapphire - Star Sapphire has a range six attack, and a great defense against incoming ranged attacks, along with allowing nearby friendly units to reroll once per turn.
• Silver Swan - Silver Swan is able to move and range attack early in the game, then close the distance to deal devastating damage at close range.

The Bottom Line

The DC Comics HeroClix: Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game set is a fantastic standalone product, offering some great games out of the box with the two different points values and complexities of the ten characters. The linked scenarios give an interesting campaign to play through. It works extremely well as an introduction to Heroclix, and also includes some great components for veteran players with the card map tiles and themed dice, along with the miniatures themselves. For anyone interested in superhero games, there's a lot to love here, and it also works as a great entry-level game, with incredible depth of expansion in terms of products and strategy.

Get This Game If:

• You want a fantastic Wonder Woman game.
• You've always wanted to try Heroclix but didn't know where to start.
• You want an awesome standalone product with incredible expansion depth.
• You want an awesome entry-level miniatures game.

Avoid This Game If:

• You don't want a superhero game.
• You don't want a game with miniatures.

The copy of the DC Comics HeroClix: Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Miniatures Game used to produce this review was provided by Asmodee UK.