Enter Captain, Sidekick, and Ally!

The Fantastic Four Future Foundation set is a brand-new five figure booster release coming in early 2021! This set explores new mechanics to HeroClix along with some beloved mechanics like equipment-objects, many of which are Fantastic Four themed.

Reed Richards founded the Future Foundation in order to create a group of individuals that would be able to solve the earth’s future problems on their own. He starts with a capable group of students as well as some established heroes (and villains) who serve as teachers.

But how does that translate to HeroClix? Starting with the Future Foundation set, some figures will have Role Tags on their character cards representing relationships between characters such as student-teacher relationships or other alliances between characters. Role Tags will be referred to in special powers and traits, and characters may be granted bonuses for working with other characters having certain Role Tags.

First up, let’s take a look at one of the student “Sidekicks” to see what they are all about.

Leech comes in at 20 points, and you may notice he only has two standard powers. His dial is focused on those two things, but he also has the special “Sidekick” Role Tag next to his collector number on top of his card. The sidekicks in this set look very similar to Leech - they have a few standard powers (and a special power here or there), but with that “Sidekick” Role Tag, they can also be granted additional powers and effects from characters having the Captain or Ally Role Tag. With that in mind, you can build teams of lots of different Sidekicks whose powers can be amplified further with Captains and Allies to create strong, synergistic strategies.

To get a better idea of how Sidekicks and Captains interact, let’s look at our first Captain preview - Awesome Andy! Awesome Andy serves as a teacher in the Future Foundation. In Heroclix, this is represented by the Captain Role Tag. Awesome Andy comes in at 70 or 35 points and has the “Captain” Role Tag at the top of his card (effects will call out Captains) in the same spot as the Sidekick Role Tag on Leech’s card.

Awesome Andy’s first trait, “You Can Be Whatever You Want” allows Friendly Sidekicks to use Shape Change. His special defense power “Hello!” gives Awesome Andy Invulnerability and, when Awesome Andy or an adjacent friendly character succeeds using Shape Change or is missed by an attack, you can remove an action token from that character. Since Awesome Andy grants Shape Change to his Sidekicks, they have a chance of activating his defense power as well.

His other powers include Sidestep, Plasticity, Super Strength, and Perplex. His token removal effect allows him to act many turns in a row without clearing action tokens as long as he succeeds on his Shape Change rolls or is missed by attacks. With his solid damage values along with Super Strength and Giant Reach: 2, Awesome Andy can pump out a lot of damage as the game progresses.

Finally, we have Allies. In the Future Foundation set, the figures we have chosen to have the Ally Role Tag represent villain recruits of the Future Foundation team that form an alliance with Reed Richards to assist him against the Interdimensional Council of Reeds. It is a bit odd seeing longtime Fantastic Four villains like Dr. Doom, the Mad Thinker, the Wizard, Diablo, and High Evolutionary join the Future Foundation, but they work in the background and on the battlefield to help despite their disdain for their former (and future) enemy. The next preview we have is for Wizard!

Wizard comes in at either 60 or 30 points and has the Ally Role Tag on top of his card. His first trait, “The Council of Doom’s Advanced Tech Expert” is sideline active as well as a Unique Modifier which gives Friendly Captains and Sidekicks +1 attack when attacking 1+ characters with the Scientist keyword. As this trait is sideline active, you don’t even have to have him on your starting force to get this effect, you just have to have some Sidekicks and Captains that can take advantage. If you do want to play him on your force though, you will still get that effect as well.

His next trait, “Anti-Grav Discs”, allows him to knock back an opposing character within range and line of fire in any direction as a free action equal to half the result of a d6 roll. This is a great way to push characters away from your team or bring them in a bit closer to try to pull off an attack with another one of your characters. The rest of Wizard’s dial has great options like Sidestep for maneuvering, Quake for attacking, and Outwit and Perplex for support. He also has the Fantastic Four team ability (and keyword) so you can play him on a theme team with other Fantastic Four characters. He also has the Team Player team ability to wildcard any other team abilities you may have (perhaps Minions of Doom)! Allies are extremely helpful both on or off the sideline of teams focused around Captains and Sidekicks, and you will see quite a few more of them in this set.

Be on the lookout for more previews with other awesome stuff in this set like special equipment objects, new Mission Points alternate win condition effects, and the many faces of Doom!

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