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ICONS: Hero Pack 4 $8.00
Average Rating:4.8 / 5
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ICONS: Hero Pack 4
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ICONS: Hero Pack 4
Publisher: Ad Infinitum Adventures
by Chris H. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/08/2013 09:51:15

It’s exciting to see a new release from Ad Infinitum Adventures supporting the ICONS line! This one, like the Hero Packs previously released by Adamant, presents a collection of superheroes suitable for use as PCs or NPCs in your ICONS games. If you’re looking for villains, you should be aware that only one appears in this pack (Sigma, p. 42); all the others are heroes. This makes HP4 less useful for ongoing campaigns, but a good source of pregens for cons or pick-up games. Twenty-two of the characters featured here were submitted by ICONS fans who backed the Great Power Kickstarter (in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I am one of those backers); the others were created by Steve Kenson and/or Dan Houser, and are either updates of iconic characters from earlier publications (like the core rulebook) or are previews of new iconic characters featured in Great Power (and perhaps other AIA publications to come). There are plenty of cool superheroes in this pack; some are more similar than others to existing comic-book characters. One thing that stands out is the prevalence of characters grounded in Celtic lore—Boudicca, Ruadan, Lugh—although you also have one character each drawing on Norse (Greta Dammerung), Egyptian (Sekhmet), and Greek (Shepherd) mythology. The initial release contained some embarrassing cut-and-paste errors and typos, but Dan Houser acted quickly to repair the most egregious ones in the stat blocks. The character bios and descriptions still have some inconsistencies and mechanical errors, probably due to using backers’ text “as is” without substantial editing. On the other hand, the cover price of $8 comes out to less than a quarter per character, so you’re getting good value despite the writing errors. And, as always, Dan Houser’s artwork is flavorful and evocative. Aside from my own contribution, my favorite characters in this pack (whether due to artwork or stats and backstory) are the Blade (think John Constantine with a magic sword), Dr. What (a plot device, not a PC), Ghost Fox, Gerta Dammerung (for her name if nothing else), Megaton, Megavolt (admittedly kind of a cross between Captain Marvel/Shazam and Johnny Thunder), Ruadan, and Tesla.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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