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DC 75th ends the year on a high note

Justin — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:13:05 +0000

WIZKIDS ANNOUNCES MANUFACTER SELL-OUT

DC HEROCLIX: 75TH ANNIVERSARY SET

December 16, 2010 (HILLSIDE, NJ) — WizKids Inc. announced the manufacture sell-out of their most recent set, DC HeroClix®: 75thAnniversary. WizKids’ entire inventory of DC 75th Anniversary, released December 15th, 2010, has been completely sold in to distribution in North America due to overwhelming demand.

DC HeroClix: DC 75th Anniversary brings fan-favorite characters from DC Comics’ past and present (including the mysterious White Lantern Corps!) to players’ tabletops so they can re-live their favorite comic storyline battles.

“DC HeroClix: DC 75th Anniversary is tracking above expectations and should provide a nice bump to holiday sales for retailers” said Justin Ziran, V.P. of Marketing for WizKids, Inc. “the set speaks to the rich history of DC Comics and has exciting content for fans ranging from Golden Age Superman to the White Lantern Sinestro”

Although supplies are limited, American retailers can still purchase the DC 75th Anniversary set through Alliance Game Distributors or Diamond Comic Distributors and should contact their sales representatives for order information. International retailers should contact their local distributors for ordering information. Friend us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/WizKids/133811649078

About NECA/WizKids:

A wholly owned subsidiary of the National Entertainment Collectibles Association Inc. (NECA), WizKids/NECA is a New Jersey-based game developer and publisher dedicated to creating games driven by imagination. The HeroClix brand is the most successful collectible miniatures games on the market today, with over 250 million miniature game figures sold worldwide. For additional information, visit www.wizkidsgames.com.

©2010 NECA/WizKids LLC. All rights reserved. HeroClix, the HeroClix Logo, HeroClix, and WizKids are trademarks of NECA/WizKids LLC.

T M & © DC Comics.

(s10)

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DC 75th Anniversary Update

Justin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:50:41 +0000

I'd like to give everyone and update. The DC 75th shipment from China is on the water and should be landing in stores on December 15th, 2010. Retailers and distributors are being notified of the new release date today.

We appreciate you patience and understanding.

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Clix for the Cure – Gaming for a Worthy Cause

Justin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:40:14 +0000

Hey everyone! I wanted to give a shout out to the group of people who are putting together this

years Clix for the Cure event. I asked one of the organizers, Karl, to give me some background on the event so I could share it readers of HeroClix.com, WizKidsGames.com and our Facebook fans around the world.

From what I know of the event this year, it sounds like weekend of fun will be had by all. It sounds like the event will be fun and the prizes don't sound so bad either. Besides, its all for charity so how could you go wrong?

Without stealing any of Karl's thunder, please take a moment to visit one of these stores (this weekend)

Saturday, November 6th @ Just For Fun in Peoria, IL (The original old skool Midwest!)

Saturday, November 6th @ Comic Book Ink in Lakewood, WA (West Coast)

Sunday, November 7th @ The Family Game Store in Savage, MD (East Coast)

There is also a thread on HCRealms.com with all the DETAILS.

Have a great weekend!

-Justin

_____________

The History of Clix for the Cure

Way back in 2005, Tim “Frontman” Scallon had a thought… HeroClix players come together eve

ry week to play their favorite game, so why not come together and support a cause when we get together?

At the time,Tim’s mother was battling breast cancer. Over the course of a conversation, Duane “DS-00-0, FSD” Bruun took Tim’s query and literally ran with it. Clix for the Cure was born.

The idea was to get a bunch of Clix players together and raise money for the Susan Komen Foundation. Right from the start Duane wanted this to be big. Really big. Duane immediately took to organizing the event. He worked with his local venue in Bloomington, IL to arrange a date and secure the space needed. He advertised the event every chance he could, posting on the different HeroClix forums. He even hit people up for donations of LEs to give away as prizes. It’s at this point that Karl “hair10” Markovich got involved.

At the time, Karl was the Rules Arbitrator for HeroClix and he spoke with Jason “BrotherMagneto” Mical, a WizKids employee at the time, about the event. With his help, WizKids immediately came to the aid of the event by donating LEs, including a couple of very rare Masterpiece figures. Throughout the years, WizKids has stepped in to help with this worthy cause every year except for last year when WK was ‘on hiatus’.

That inaugural year had a good showing. 34 people got together from all over the Midwest and raised a total of $891. The event received positive reviews and praise from all who were involved and discussion started on making it an annual event.

And so, it became an annual event with the 2^nd Annual Clix for the Cure. Due to some personal conflicts on his time, Duane couldn’t organize the second Clix for the Cure so Karl took up the task. The second event took place in 2006 and was held in Peoria, IL. At the time, the local venue had very little space… not nearly enough for an event like this. Working with a local hotel Karl was able to secure one of their meeting rooms for the event. Many of the same faces showed up as well as some welcome new ones. 2006 featured a raffle for a Spectre colossal figure and factory set giveaway, with WK being instrumental in providing support once again. The 2^nd Annual Clix for the Cure event drew in approximately 30 players and $770 was donated to the cause. However, thanks to a generous “matching gifts” program, Karl’s employer matched that amount thereby bringing the grand total to a whopping $1,540!

For the 3^rd annual event in 2007, Duane was back on board and getting things set up in Bloomingtononce again. This year coincided with the 5^th anniversary of HeroClix and to celebrate Duane wanted to do something a bit different. He came up with a ‘Kill It and Keep It’ idea. He worked with the owner of Gryfallia’s Aerie, Ken, who donated 2 cases of Supernova boosters. The first would be used by participants and the second case would be opened for the ‘Kill and Keep’ prizes. Each player was also given a Diamond Lil (a character in Marvel Comics that has battled breast cancer) figure to use on their force. But Duane would never let something as simple as a “play your booster” game take place. He had to include a rather unique twist! Each player in the event could also include two other figures (besides the contents of their booster and the Diamond Lil) in their force. But there’s always a catch with Duane and the catch was that those additional figures fell under a venue wide highlander rule. That meant if some player chose Superman as one of his extra figures, no other player could play Superman! This made for some interesting choices of figures that were used as well as quite a few laughs.

That third year was a great showing. 36 people got together from all over the Midwest and raised a total of $1,443. Some of that was through entry fees and some through prize raffles, but a large part of it came from yet another harebrained idea that Tim and Duane cooked up which has become a hallmark of the event…. “Probability Control for a buck”.

The idea was ludicrously simple and insanely fun. Basically, ANYONE could pay $1 to force a re-roll of the dice. It might be someone involved in the current game, or someone playing at the map over, or someone just standing by watching the event. If someone put down $1, those dice would have to be rolled again. The “PC for a buck” has become a standard at the Clix for the Cure events and driven some crazy games, especially tightly packed Kill and Keep matches where a large crowd is gathered to play and $1 bills are being thrown around from every direction!

The 4^th annual event again took place in Bloomington. The “Kill and Keep” scenario was popular enough that it stuck around for 2008’s event. This time around everyone received a booster each of Justice League and Mutations & Monsters and made a 500 point team out them. The figures the players would be facing and trying to win on the other sides of the maps were all LEs, uniques, and super rares that were donated by the HeroClix community and WizKids. All total, there were over 100 figures donated to be used as prizes. To coincide with this event, Karl ran an online auction and Michele “KitsuShel” Angelo’s homemade cookies were raffled off. “PC for a buck” was once again back in play as well. The 4^th annual event was an unqualified success by any measure. The event itself saw an attendance of 43 players raising an astounding $2,070! Additionally, $560 was raised through the online auction and $200 through Michele’s cookie raffle… a grand total of $2,830 that was donated to the Komen Foundation!

Last year was the 5^th Annual Clix for the Cure. Everyone involved knew this event was going to be a challenging one. WizKids had been closed by their parent company, Topps. There would be no help from them when it came to prize support. Duane, always thinking of new and creative ideas, turned to the HeroClix modding community. He reached out to them for donations and they came through big time. The community donated a number of very creative and very cool custom creations to be given away as prizes. In addition, part of each player’s entry fee went towards a booster which was placed into the prize pool for another ‘Kill It, Keep It” event. However, this time around the games were themed. One round featured an attack on Master Mold, where the players went up against an army of Sentinels. The second round saw the players teaming up to defeat the hordes of the Sinestro Corps. These games were made even better thanks to the donation of some custom “Sentinel Factory” and “Green Lantern Corps” maps designed and created by Steve “ibeatdrew” Coblentz. After the events were over, the maps were then raffled and auctioned off. Even with WizKids being “dead” during that time, the event still drew over 40 people and raised $1,450.

This year is the 6^th Annual Clix for the Cure. In an effort to make this the biggest event yet, it has been expanded to three locations, extending the reach of the event from coast to coast. The “original” Midwest event will be held in Peoria, IL this year. Additional events will be held at the same time in Savage, MD and Lakewood, WA. Full details of this year’s event can be found at http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288409

When the organizers left that first event, everyone agreed that it was a great time for a worthy cause. There was talk of making it an annual event. But it’s doubtful that anyone thought it would have continued on for as long as it has and continue to grow as big as it is. To date, the Clix for the Cure events, with the help of the players, community, and WizKids, has donated over $8,000 to the Susan Komen Foundation for breast cancer research. Congratulations and be sure to come out this year if you can make it!

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News from the Alliance Games Open House

Justin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:55:20 +0000

Wow! What a trip!

I've been on the road for about a week visiting a development partner in North Carolina and then I jumped on a quick flight to O'Hare to meet Lax and Drew for out drive to Ft. Wayne, IN for the Alliance Games Open House. Besides the 5 hour delay in Philly as we watched paint dry on the tarmac (true story), it was a great trip.

So there is a lot of news to catch up on.

First, I'll jump into some old business - Replacement figures. The replacement figures are on the boat headed to the US warehouse. There are still a lot of variables related to the timeliness of the shipment across the water. As soon as I have definitive dates - I will give you a heads up on how to go about requesting a replacement figure. I'd expect to hear something in December, possibly a little earlier.

The Alliance Open House - Where do I start?

We gave a small presentation about the our releases for 2011 and then had a little show and tell at the booth.

Brightest Day - We had the entire product on display. The figures looked good and so does the package. We'll start previews shortly.

DC 75th - News was mainly focused on a a few extra figures we had on display. We'll ramp up previews over the coming month. The set will feature 10 White Lantern Figures with 1 inserted in each brick.

Giant Sized X-Men - We announced the first Marvel set of 2011, Giant Sized X-Men (GSX). I must say, it was pretty exciting.

Here are some Highlights

GSX will have a new Brick Configuration - I call it the 8+1 brick - 8 regular boosters and 1 super booster. There are 8 different Super Boosters (all of which are blind and have unique content). We moved to a new configuration b/c we wanted a way to deliver "extreme" content without the "extreme" price increase. We think we struck the right balance.

Stores that pre-order GSX will be eligible to purchase additional supper boosters equal to the number of bricks they pre-order. Super boosters will have an SRP of $23.98 (they replace 2 regular boosters in the brick)

The in store brick program will return with GSX. You'll be getting Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man) when you purchase your brick at your local retailer.

I've included some images that we shared in the presentation. Enjoy!

Street Fighter - We're adding the Street Fighter property to the HeroClix product line. The game will be fully compatible with HeroClix. We're considering new product configurations for the property. More news on this in the coming months.

Star Trek: Expeditions (Co-Op Game by Reiner Knizia) was being demo'ed in full force at the show. Expeditions is the mission based game where you (and your friends) assume the role of the ST bridge crew and venture to the planet below to help thwart the Klingon insurgency. Co-Op games are big and I expect this game will be a solid contender in the field of co-op board games.

Star Trek: Fleet Captains (Starship Combat Game) - We had ~20 of the 24 ships on display and they were one of the big hits of the show. It seemed like we had a non-stop line of fans looking to snap photos of the ships. Can't wait for this one!

Battle of the Bands Clix: We got Iron Maiden how about - Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison, Guns n' Roses, Skid Row, Great White, KISS, Whitesnake, Quiet Riot, Telsa, Van Halen, Dokken, Scorpions, Ratt, Warrant, W.A.S.P. If you are still reading my wall of text, you'll know this is a joke!

We'll be releasing official announcements on each of the products I mentioned above in the coming weeks/months. Stay tuned for more info.

[caption id="attachment_2352" align="alignleft" width="368" caption="The figure is about 6.5" tall "tip to toe""][/caption]

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Normal Distribution – Web of Spider-Man added to Player’s Guide

NBPerp — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:37:25 +0000

With the release of Web of Spider-Man, it must be time for an update of the Player's Guide. I'm really in quite of a time-crunch this evening so instead of the usual long review of what's inside, all I'm going to post today are the PDFs for the updated Player's Guide. I'll come back with a review of the changes in a few days - and that includes a "summaryof changes" document that people have been asking for.

Player's Guide - Golden Age - September 2010

Player's Guide - Modern Age - September 2010

To make up for the quick post, here's a bonus - a corrected version of the Cosmic Spider-Man character card:

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Redemption Update 09/13/10

Justin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:03:39 +0000

We're in the process of switching to our backup mailer. The following fix is about to go out:

If you signed up for an account but received no email: You should be receiving a confirmation email shortly that your account has been created, but not yet activated. If you forgot your password, use the link at the top of the Wizkids website to reset it.

If you paid for a Redemption via paypal but did not receive an email: A copy of your pre-filled form should be sent to you shortly as a pdf via email.

For both of the above, you might receive our emails in your spam folder. This can be fixed by adding the sender to your contacts.

If you were previously unable to reset your password, you should now be able to do so.

Again we apologize for the inconvenience, and would like to emphasize that a Wizkids account is not required for normal redemption methods (other than paypal).

The normal redemption form can be downloaded freely athttp://wizkidsgames.com/buyitbythebrick/

Manual Paypal Payments

You also have the option of downloading the "non-Paypal" form and initiating paypal payment of $6.99 for US or $8.99 for International orders from your account. All you need to do is include you Paypal receipt, the redemption form, your store receipt and 10 UPCs from the boosters in your mailing to Alliance games.

You can send your Paypal payment to: wzkbrickdeal@yahoo.com

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Web of the Spider-Man redemption going live today!

Justin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:29:24 +0000

Within a couple of hours, we will activate the redemption page for Web of the Spider-Man. The process is somewhat different than previous online redemptions so I thought I would walk you through it. Before I get into details, here are a couple of reminders.

DO NOT SEND YOUR FORMS TO THE NECA OFFICE: Please follow the instructions on the redemption form

PLEASE INCLUDE PAYMENT (OR YOUR PAYPAL RECEIPT): You can use personal check, money order, cheques or Paypal

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR PROOF OF PURCHASE & RECEIPT: 10 Web of Spider-Man UPCs & a receipt are required, don't forget!

PLEASE PRINT LEGIBLY: If we can't read your information, we can't send you stuff!

Here is a brief overview of the process

1: Create a WK account

2: Activate the account

3: Select how you will pay for redemption (Paypal or non-Paypal)

4: Follow the instructions for each respective method

5: Mail in your forms and proofs of purchase & proof of payment if using Paypal

6: Hang tight for a couple of weeks

7: Enjoy your Brick Figure!

NOTE: The address we will ship your redemption figure to is pulled from your address on file with PayPal. Be sure to update your address

You can find the redemption page HERE

Here are some screen shots with call outs

1: Start by creating a WizKids account - Click Create Account (upper right corner)

2: Fill in all the relevant information

3: Once you submit your information, you should get an email within a few minutes.

IF YOU DO NOT GET AN EMAIL, PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FILTER

4: Check your email and activate your acoount, then login and click Redemptions

5: Once you click Redemption, you will be taken to your payment options screen. Select the method you will use for the S&H fees

6: Pick you payment option and follow the instructions

Non-Paypal redeemers: Download the form and redeem as usual.

Paypal redeemers: Select your country, Log into your Paypal account, make payment and then check your email.

You should get 2 emails sent to you within a few minutes

Email 1: A Paypal receipt from Paypal

Email 2: A pre-filled redemption form from WizKids

NOTE: If you don't get your emails within a few minutes, please check you spam folder.

Print both emails and follow the instructions on the redemption form.

Enjoy!

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Redemption Update 09/10/10

Justin — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:04:56 +0000

Hi Everyone!

We finished our walk-through/testing with Paypal today and tweaked a few items. Despite being feature ready, I asked Matt and Mike (our developers) to push the redemption go-live date to Monday, September 13th.

I want to make sure we're on site ready to pounce on any problems, should any arise.

WoS has been a big release and I expect a sizeable turnout for the brick figure and I want things to go well.

I appreciate your patience as we grow. See you Monday.

-Justin

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Seeking Redemption….

Justin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 02:08:02 +0000

Here is a quick update on the redemption system. I am going to delay the go-live of the redemption system until I have a chance to a walk through with our fulfillment partners at Alliance games. Ordinarily, I'd roll the dice and kick the system live but on something as important as redemption, I would prefer to make sure all the stakeholders are comfortable with the system. A small issue can quickly turn into a large issue when 2000 redemption hit the system at once.

I will confirm the go-live time tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.

While I have you, I thought I would share a little about the redemption process.

1: Redeemers using Paypal will need to create a WizKidsgames.com account. Yes that's right! We're starting to plan out functionality for the system and getting you contact information is important.

It's doubly important that we have an accurate email as we will use the email address to activate your WikKidsgames.com user account.

Your mailing address will be pulled from your Paypal account. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT HAS THE CORRECT MAILING ADDRESS

2: Redeemers using a non-Paypal method to pay Shipping and Handling will NOT be required to create a Wizkidsgames.com account. However, I would urge you to create an account regardless. Periodically, we contact you via email for special announcements (of course we'll ask for your permission before we do so).

Talk to you tomorrow.

-Justin

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Happy Release Day!

Justin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:44:49 +0000

Hope all is going well with your respective release events. For those of you playing tonight or this weekend. Good luck.

A quick note on Web of Spider-Man redemptions.

Given the holiday shipment schedule, I thought it would be best to wait one more day to make sure all product has hit the stores. I thought it would be better to make sure the majority of stores had their product before kicking this page live. I want to make sure we create as even of a playing field as possible.

The Redemption page should go live tomorrow afternoon (September 9th).

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