When you think of Captain America and the Avengers, the first thing that likely springs to mind is the star-spangled superhero shouting “Avengers Assemble!” to rally his fellow Avengers to fight the good fight. But what good is a team of heroes without a group of dastardly villains? In our newest release, Marvel HeroClix Captain America and the Avengers, we provide you with not only a full complement of Avengers characters, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and a few Asgardians, but also an entire new wave of A.I.M. agents, Dark Avengers, and most interestingly, Thunderbolts. With a long and storied history in the game of HeroClix, this new batch of Thunderbolts characters has some new gameplay mechanics and tweaks that are worth calling out.

First and foremost, the characters that formed the core Thunderbolts teams throughout the history of the title receive the trait Assembled Bolts and Masters. If your team contains 3+ characters with either the Thunderbolts or Masters of Evil keywords, you’ll be able to remove action tokens from characters with this trait or add an action token to a hit character. And, if you have a team of 6 or more characters with these keywords, you can do both on any given turn! Theming a team is always an incentive, but with a trait like this, the already formidable Thunderbolts or Masters of Evil theme teams are even more advantageous to use!

There’s a lot of characters being revamped this set with the Thunderbolts keyword, so let’s take a look at a few. Up first, we’ve got an uncommon figure from the set that hasn’t been seen since the first Avengers set back in 2007, Citizen V! The secret identity of the villain Baron Zemo, Citizen V is all about the close combat, with plenty of move and attack, blade attacks, and multiple attacks. He has a special trait called Reveal Myself to the World which increases his cost from 50 points to 75 points but allows you to replace a KO’d Citizen V figure with a Baron Zemo from this set, healing him of up to ½ a D6 of damage from his final click! This trait also protects him from Pulse Wave, making this a low cost, high impact figure for any good Thunderbolts team.

Our next figure to take a look at is making her first appearance in HeroClix since 2005 and is the uncommon Prime figure for the set – Jolt! A speedster who saw the good in all the Thunderbolts, Jolt specializes in sticking and moving with her attacks, using Hypersonic Speed, Poison, Super Senses, and Combat Reflexes to lengthen her 60-point dial. Her big feature is her trait called Hyperkinetic Agility and Bioelectric Manipulation, which takes advantage of her move powers and top dial double-digit attack values. The trait states that when she moves 1 or more squares and hits 1 or more characters, she’ll receive a Kinetic token after actions resolve. These tokens can build up turn over turn, so when she has 1 or more token, she’s able to use Willpower. 2 or more tokens grants her free use of Energy Explosion, and 4 or more tokens gives her penetrating damage! Tons of punch for a small price on your force!

Our final character we’re looking at is from the second wave of members to join the Thunderbolts, Radioactive Man! A close combat attacker who can keep his enemies close with powers like Sidestep and Plasticity, Radioactive Man is also a bit of a damaging tank, with defensive powers that keep him in the fight like Impervious, Invulnerability, Toughness, and Regeneration, and top dial 4 damage Exploit Weakness. With an option to be played at either 85 or 50 points, Radioactive Man helps tone down attackers’ abilities with his traits. First, as a long-time enemy of the God of Thunder, Radioactive Man has learned about Thor’s signature slamming of the ground with Mjolnir – and as such, his Thor, My Mortal Foe trait protects Radioactive Man by stating that opposing characters that can use Energy Explosion or Quake who attack Radioactive Man modify their attack values by -2! His other trait, Weakening Radiation states that opposing characters within 3 squares modify their damage when making close combat attacks by -1, protecting not only Radioactive Man himself with his close combat nature, but also his Thunderbolts and Masters of Evil teammates.

And these three just scratch the surface of the exciting new Thunderbolts characters you’ll be receiving in the new Marvel HeroClix: Captain America and the Avengers set when it releases. While we all love to be the hero, it sure is fun to play the villain from time to time – and with so many new Thunderbolts and Masters of Evil characters at hand, why wouldn’t you!