How Could You Forget Soaring??
By admironheart

Soaring is an element of the Heroclix game that is the most oft forgotten and neglected ability of the game. How can this be? More than 25% of the figures in the Marvel sets have this skill; which is very underused, and more importantly, understood. I hope I can shed some light on this skill.

Some basics:
WHY is there Soaring in the game? For this we must look at the Hovering skill. Hovering is a flyer who is low enough to move over terrain yet still ‘interact’ with non-flyers. Since most Lackeys or Thugs are unskilled, we can assume that Hovering figures are less than 15’ above the surface, as it is unlikely they could ‘interact’ with foes much higher. Now could you imagine a game where flyers could not go above 15’ in the air, or could not escape from a non-flyer? Thus we have the Soaring skill.

HOW come Soaring figures cannot ‘affect’ Hovering and non-flying figures? The answer is game mechanics. Could you imagine if the game permitted Soaring figures to make ranged attacks? Non-flyers with no ranged attacks would be helpless vs. Soaring Figures. The game would revolve around flying and ranged attacks. When was the last time you read in a comic book that someone won the day simply because they could fly?

SO now we have some ‘checks and balances’ in the game to make Soaring playable. Opponents must half their ranged attacks vs. Soaring figures to compensate for this. Mind you Soaring figures can still attack other Soaring figures, use TK on adjacent Soaring figures, or cast Barriers which ‘affect’ Hovering / non-flying figures.

WHAT is the most misunderstood element of Soaring? That Soaring figures are extremely high in the air. They may very well be; but at the same time it only costs 1 click of movement to go from Hovering to Soaring and vise versa. {Not 50 clicks!} I like to assume that most Soaring figures are the equivalent of 1 square higher than ‘grounded’ figures. Low enough to battle those Sentinels and just above the 15’ area restricted to Hovering figures. More than close enough to the fighting to quickly engage opponents!

REMEMBER that Soaring figures still block movement through their square for most opponents. Soaring figures stop Knock back movement. Most importantly Soaring figures block LOF; even from elevated attackers targeting ‘grounded’ figures. The elevated range attackers ONLY get to ignore ‘grounded’ hindering terrain and ‘grounded’ hovering or non-flying figures. Most blocking terrain and ALL soaring figures make excellent shields {read: checks and balances} from those 'all seeing' elevated attackers!!

WHERE is the use of soaring? Besides some of the hints mentioned above, non-soaring opponents cannot attack with close combat attacks. Now you can place a Soaring figure on those stairs and block most opponents from using them, as well as they being unable to hit your Soaring figure. Soaring is great for blocking LOF as well, while remaining out of your opponents halved range! With this skill you can bypass opponents to get to your target by flying overhead! Finally it is a great escape tactic when falling back from your opponent.

In final thought….try using Soaring in your game and tell your opponent to: ”Soar This!”

This would be a good spot for a question. If you are hovering and you try to roll break-away and fail, Could you switch to flying mode and then get away?

Consider also that with charge or running shot you could leave soaring mode and move a few more and get a hit in on someone whereas without soaring you might have gotten shot for being within 4 squares or whatever. By starting as soaring your opponent may need an 8 range or higher to shoot you while you only need to charge 4 to smack them.