For the month of June, there’s a whole lot of juicy Kryptonian goodness – and badness – from Knight Models for us gamer geeks out there. And it’s worth mentioning straight out of the gate that these are some of the nicest sculpts we’ve seen yet from KM, along with the fact they’re moving to playable factions straight out of the box.

Don’t believe us? Take a look.

Oh, and as always, you can win yourself some goodies – in this case a General Zod Team Pack – just by liking, commenting and sharing this post on our various social media pages.  Check out the bottom of this post for details of how to enter.

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The big blue himself arrives in a standalone pack this month.

A new sculpt with optional chest symbols, he can be built and played as Superman, Kingdom Come Superman or (super exciting) Red Son, each with slightly different strengths detailed on the card. With really well crafted glacial base detail, this model is a tremendous collector’s piece. He’s no slouch in-game either.  In fact, he’s the biggest, heaviest hitter you can recruit to the Hero side – at 18 points, he’s 2 more than anything else (indeed, 3 more than anything except the Trinity version of himself, Shazam being 15 and Wonder Woman 13) and almost a match for the likes of Doomsday and Darkseid.

Well… almost ;)

He feels really substantial and a proper step up in power level from Supergirl (who, as we discussed before, is a steal – or should that be steel?). But that’s not all – he’s also a multiverse mini, playable in BMG as a team-up with Batman to form the World’s Finest. With free, downloadable rules for epic friendly play, this allows the skirmish level game to go to another level. A great marketing ploy from KM, he’s an absolute cracker. There’s even a set of hammer and sickle tokens available for all you true comrades!

Of course, any great hero needs villains – and this month is really all about the villains of Superman. Let’s start with (arguably ) the greatest of them all, and certainly the most lethal: Doomsday.

At 20 points, he’s the second most expensive character in the game, and with good reason: he’s so lethal, you have to kill him twice, in two different ways. It’s this attention to detail from the design team that really impresses me here; much like Darkseid’s Omega Beams, the ‘fluff’ feels perfectly matched to the in-game mechanics.

Also, he’s big. Really big. Really, really, freaking big. On a 60mm base, taller than any other current mini (on a par with Hulkbuster), he feels huge. It’s interesting that it’s a more Rebirth style sculpt – which I certainly don’t mind, but in the context of other designs is surprising. Not too fiddly either, and the parts fit flush with minimum of pinning required.

Of course, everyone knows that Superman’s greatest foe is actually none other than Lex Luthor.

While we’ve already got Lex in his powersuit for DCU, thus far the only hint at LexCorp came on the card of Comic Talia for BMG. Fittingly, this is an overwhelmingly Multiverse release with cards for both games included with both the LexCorp starter (which also includes an equipment chart, much as the Scarecrow crew did) and the heavy trooper.

First up, Lex and team of powersuited minions:

Lex himself is an elegant sculpt, with only the hand holding Kryptonite a separate piece (much like Penguin). Suave and dapper, he’s tremendous in either game. For DCU, at 8 points he seems a little steep, but he’s a finesse character to buff your team and debuff your foes. In BMG on the other hand, he gives you access to every cop or criminal in the city (again, nice sales ploy there KM) , and though expensive, he gives access to an unparalleled range of strategic options through Grand Strategist, Mastermind and Exhaustive Planner.

The troopers are similarly ace, lovely sculpts (2 one-part, 1 two-part) that are very dynamic; I love the guy with the energy blade especially. In DCU, at 5, 4 and 4 points, you’re going to find a lot of awkward holes filled in rosters, but are equally just as likely to take the lot of them – their flight has the same nuisance factor as Parademons, but they’re cheaper and there’s ranged power there too if you choose.

In BMG, the cheapest is easy to underrate with no obvious weaponry, but his reinforced gloves and close combat master means he’s going to be a major nuisance. Cybernetic and medium armour means these guys are objective sitters, and will prove hard to shift. Overall, the pack comes in at 20 points for DCU – a good foundation for any team, at a 35 or 50 pt level – and 220 for BMG, again a good base to customise with a favourite character or two. I’d be inclined to pick up a good heavy hitter for the two games – Clayface springs to mind – as a starting point. A great entry-level buy that also has mileage for more experienced players.

Then again, you could go with the LexCorp Heavy Trooper. Not as fast as the lighter models, but still surprisingly agile, those big beam guns of his can cover a lot of table in either game.

A bit more of a fiddly build this one – not exceptionally so, but definitely more so than the rest – but a great pose to show for your hard work. 6 points makes him a really strong lower echelon fighter in DCU, but he is up against the mighty Deadshot at that price. Still, you could always throw all of LexCorp in alongside Doomsday and still have space for the comedy shenanigans of Harley Quinn at a round 50. At 55 in BMG, he’s comparable to other big goons, but a far better shot and pretty much as good a slugger; a great buy. And of course, invest in him and a Talia and you’ve got a ready-made, 350 point (standard tournament level) list.

Still, everyone knows that Superman’s greatest foe is REALLY none other than Zod.

General Zod, Feora and the hulking Nam-Ek are explicitly designed as a self-contained team for the DCU game, coming in at dead-on 50 points. The sculpts are really evocative of the movie aesthetic, and come complete with alternate, helmed heads. KM seem to have moved on from the excessively fiddly builds for which they gained a degree of notoriety (I’m looking at you, Suicide Squad Katana) and this is an extremely well-conceived entry-level product.

All of Zod’s “team” have Martial Pride: one of the best abilities in the game bar none, with the ability to overload (boost the power) after dice rolls. In any game, the ability to change the result after rolling dice is always invaluable, and especially so in a finite resource game such as DCUMG.

Zod is excellent, of course, and 18 an exact match for Superman (naturally). He’s very fast, with 3 speed ratings, and impressively high in the power and strength department. In some ways, he’s fairly straightforward, also, as he doesn’t have an absolute plethora of special rules: although he does have several, they’re fairly straightforward; Zod is not about finesse. That being said, he is 18 points, which is an awful lot when you consider Black Adam at 17 gets the ability to warp reality or, at 20, Doomsday just keeps coming back.

Whilst he doesn’t need to be run alongside Feora and Nam-Ek, they certainly complement one another. However, it’s not all about complex rules synergies and combos – rather, they play independently in their own right, which is ideal for newcomers. Certainly, they’ll be an interesting match-up for the existing Hero starter set (Trinity – though that would also need at least one additional hero to take it to 50 points).

Nam-Ek – the huge, brutal Kryptonian – is a really heavy hitter. Whilst not as flashy as the others, he still manages to pack a serious wallop, and his larger base size means he’s that bit harder to throw-down. And he’s cheaper at that. Above all, his ability to soak damage for the other two means he acts as a highly effective bodyguard piece, and so I think you’re unlikely to see Nam-Ek and Zod without one another.

Feora sits in a slightly tricky place. She seems almost equivalent to Supergirl, so instinctively feels slightly overcosted. Certainly useful, definitely dangerous, she is going to put the serious hurt on: it’s all about her speed. She is staggeringly quick with her special ability, plus of course has Martial Pride also; so although she is expensive, to me, she is the stand-out character from the pack, and the one I would use regardless in other Villain teams.

So there you have it, a taste of this month’s releases!

Like what you see? Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below!

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COMPETITION TIME!

To win yourself General Zod Team Pack featuring Zod, Feora and Nam-Ek you first need to like Big Comic Page on Facebook.

Once you’ve done that, you can earn one competition entry for each of the following (maximum of 5 entries in total):

– Like this post on Facebook.
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The winner will be chosen at random from all the eligible entries on Sunday 25th of June.

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The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Twitter

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