Category Archives: Super Heroes

He’s a jerk…but he’s OUR jerk! A Super Mission Force AAR

You gotta love Northstar. The stereotypical snooty Canadian-French skier, Jean-Paul Baubier epitomized superhero douchiness long before he became the poster boy for gay marriage in comics. A while back I repainted Alpha Flight for use in Supersystem 3. I never got around to using them until now, and it’s for my second Super Mission Force AAR! To battle!

Alpha Flight!

Watch oot! Sentinels, eh?

Dang robots! Get off m’lawn!! (Just ignore him. He has no part in the battle.)

The scenario is a simple one. Alpha Flight has been called to a remote area of Canadian wilderness, intent on investigating a distress call coming from an ice-fishing shack. It’s all a ruse to capture Canada’s mutant superhero, Northstar! (Aurora is a mutant, too…but no one seems to know that.) Sentinels appear on the horizon, and battle is joined! The Sentinels must capture Northstar and flee the board. Alpha Flight needs to stop that from happening.

Turn 1

The Sentinels make use of their Metamorph Ability at the start of the first turn. Until further notice, they will have the following profile: Enhanced Senses, Flight, and Entangle in addition to their other base powers (see below).

Alpha Flight gains initiative for the first turn. Puck moves first, cartwheeling towards the center of the board.

Sentinel #1 flies 20″ into the middle of the board. Sasquatch trades his move for a Leap and leaps into combat with Sentinel #1. He manages to inflict 2 damage to the robot on the charge!

The squad of Sentinel Troopers moves, flying 20″ to the middle of the table. (This is a 10-man Henchman squad, but I only have 6 models. So we’ll just have to imagine the other four. Any damage inflicted on the squad will come off the imaginary models first.)

Guardian flies close by the Trooper squad, blasting them for 2 damage! (The squad now has 8 members, but since I only have 6 models I didn’t remove any). Sentinel #2 activates and flies into the fray. He uses Entangle on Guardian and succeeds in trapping him in serpentine sinews of strength-sapping steel! (I’m here all week, folks.)

Shaman reaches into his medicine bag and teleports 10″ closer to Sentinel #1. He then blasts it for 2 more damage.

Sentinel #3 flies to the center of the board.

Laissez mon frere seul!!

Aurora moves closer and blasts Sentinel #1 for 5 damage, destroying it! (It failed its KO check). Teamwork in action!

Cochons! Rencontrez mes poings!!!

Finally, Northstar moves, flying directly at the group of Sentinel Troopers. He uses Hurricane Charge, which allows him to re-roll 2 dice on his attack. He scores 5 net goals, removing five models! That’s one pissed-off Canadian! Unfortunately, he is now stuck in melee combat with the Henchmen group. (Northstar tends not to think things through.)

Not a bad first turn for the heroes!

Turn 2

Sentinel #3 changes its Metamorph profile. It now has: Melee Weapon, 6″ extra move, Super Agility.

Graaaaaah!

Alpha Flight retains initiative. Sasquatch wastes no time and charges Sentinel #3, causing 2 damage.

The Sentinel Troopers pile in on Northstar. They can’t use their blasters, so they have to go old-school and try to punch him out. They manage to collectively inflict 1 damage on the haughty mutant. Northstar attacks back in a fit of pique and indignation, but does no damage. Merde!

Sentinel #2 quietly sneaks up (!) and uses Entangle on Northstar. He succeeds, and Northstar is rooted to the spot! Guardian uses the opportunity to free himself from his own entanglement and fires away at Sentinel #2, infilicting 3 damage!

This is not how Sasquatch thought it would go…

Meanwhile, Sentinel #3 attacks Sasquatch with its newly-formed melee weapon (let’s call it a drill. I like big robots with drills). It scores 7 goals, while Sasquatch scores none. Sasquatch is downed and fails his KO check, so he ain’t getting back up!

Sisterly devotion.

Puck continues to cartwheel along. Aurora, seeing her brother helpless and at the mercy of Sentinel Troopers and Sentinel #2, charges forward and takes out the rest of the Trooper squad! Shaman teleports again, closer to Sentinel #3. He blasts the Sentinel that just dropped his buddy Sasquatch, but does no damage.

Turn 3

At the start of the turn, Sentinel 3’s system diagnostics assess and repair 1 box of damage. Both remaining Sentinels alter their Metamorph powers to: Melee Weapon, 10″ range, +6″ Movement.

The Sentinels gain initiative. Sentinel #3 attacks Shaman from 6″ away, but misses. Northstar escapes his entanglement and flares like his namesake, attempting to stun Sentinel #2. Sentinel #2 is unimpressed (and not stunned).

Sentinel #2 attempts to grapple Northstar from 10″ away, but fails to grab the slippery skier. Guardian takes the opportunity to blast Sentinel #2 for 3 damage.

Here I come, eh?

From across the battlefield, Puck puts on a Speed Burst and charges Sentinel #2 from 20″ away! (I’m sorry, but the image of a cartwheeling, back-flipping Puck charging halfway across the battlefield made me laugh aloud.) Unfortunately, although he manages to get into combat, our diminutive friend does no damage to the Sentinel.

Aurora blasts Sentinel #2 for 1 damage, barely missing her teammate, Puck!

Turn 4

The Sentinels keep their Metamorph configuration. Neither of them are able to regenerate any damage.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Puck took down a Sentinel? Well, that didn’t happen, but he managed to inflict 1 more damage on Sentinel #2.

Unhand me!

Sentinel #3 successfully grapples Northstar and turns towards the table edge. Next turn, he’s gonna morph over to Flight and fly away with his prize unless someone stops him! Aurora frantically power-blasts Sentinel #3, but does no damage!

Shaman summons the Spirit of…whatever!

Sentinel #2 attacks Puck, but the little guy cartwheels away unscathed. Meanwhile, Shaman teleports closer to Sentinel #3 and summons…a monster! (Monster by Rattrap designs.)

Say hello to my little friend!

The summoned monster charges Sentinel #3 and inflicts 1 damage!

You would think a thank you was in order, but…

Guardian rushes to Northstar’s aid, powerblasting Sentinel #3. He scores a ton of goals, resulting in a net 6 damage! Sentinel #3 is destroyed! (After failing its KO check.)

Victoire!

Northstar is released as a result, and in a fit of rage, charges the last remaining Sentinel, #2. He does 2 damage, enough to put down the Sentinel for good. Game over!

AFTERWORD

This game took me less than 30 minutes to play, not including the time it took to build the characters, take the pics and log the action.

Here are my builds. Again, I don’t follow the Super Mission Force rules regarding power allotments or team restrictions, because I’m adapting established super-teams to the game. Of course, you can play however you like.

Here are my builds:

ALPHA FLIGHT

Guardian (Blaster): Major: Power Blasts; Minor: Force Field, Teleport, Flight

Puck (Brawler): Major: Scrapper; Minor: Super-Agility, Resistance

Sasquatch (Brick): Major: Super-Strength; Minor: Leaping, Rage, Resistance

Shaman (Sorcerer): Major: Sorcery (Power Blasts, Summoning, Force Field, Density Decrease, Healing); Minor: Flight, Iron Will

Aurora (Speedster): Major: Speed; Minor: Power Blasts, Flight, Stun

Northstar (Speedster): Major: Speed; Minor: Flight, Stun, Rapport (Aurora)

SENTINELS

Sentinel Mk II (Metamorph): Major: Metamorph; Minor: Construct, Massive, Super Strength, Regeneration

10 Sentinel Troopers (Ranged Henchmen Group) Minor: Power Blasts, Flight

Wrecker needs Twinkies: A Super Mission Force AAR

This may as well be called the Marvel Team-Up or Marvel Two-in-One you never read. That’s because…well, you’ll see.

I like to have a scenario in mind when I post an After Action Report so that it reads as more than just a random slugfest. For this one, I was inspired by all those Hostess ads in the old Marvel comics of the early 80’s…ones where a Marvel hero had to thwart a jokey villain in his attempts to steal a shipment of fruit pies or cupcakes. So I figured he Wrecker has a hankering for some Twinkies and doesn’t want to buy a box when he can just steal a shipping crate full of them. He enlists the aid of the rest of the Wrecking Crew and grudgingly promises to share his Twinkies with them. Standing opposed to this nefarious crime are none other than the Amazing Spider-Man and the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing! (I could write comics.)

A fine day in Manhattan…

Hey! That’s the Wrecking Crew in the shipping yard!

Aw, crap. And I was having a good day.

Turn 1

Ouch.

The Wrecking Crew gains initiative, thanks in part to Thunderball’s Clever Boost, which gives them one extra die towards initiative. Piledriver wastes no time in grabbing a nearby lamppost and tossing it at the Thing. The resulting hit does 3 Body damage and knocks Thing back into the wall, knocking him down.

Ouch.

Thing gets up and grabs a nearby mailbox and beans Piledriver with it, returning the favor. the hit only caused one damage, but knocked Piledriver back 5″ into a nearby Mini. Meanwhile, Bulldozer moves towards Thing to keep him away from the shipping yard.

“Out of web fluid!”

Spider-Man trades his move for a Leap, leaping 32″ down onto the corner of the shipping crate. He tries to web up the Wrecker, but fails to get even a single goal. That old Parker luck strikes again!

“Let me help you down from there…”

Spider-Man is too high up for Thunderball to attack him unless he throws something, but Thunderball tries something different…he attacks the shipping crates! His gamble pays off as he scores a whopping 10 goals, enough to destroy the crates!

Wrecker screams at Thunderball, “There better not have been any Twinkies in there or they’re coming out of your cut!”

Oboy.

Spider-Man takes no damage from the fall (it’s less than 2″), but he is knocked down in front of a huge guy with a wrecking ball. Not really where you wanna be.

Finally, Wrecker attacks the shipping crate in front of him in search of Twinkies. No luck…this crate contains only pink Sno-balls. Yuck!

Turn 2

Charge!

The Wrecking Crew hold onto initiative. Bulldozer does what he does best and charges the Thing, but ol’ Rockface just squares up and meets him head-on. They exchange punches, but neither one lands anything damaging.

Thunderball takes his shot at Spider-Man, but Spidey manages to wiggle out of the way of the wrecking ball…for now. He follows up with a roundhouse to Thunderball’s chin that cracks him for 3 damage! (For some reason I forgot to apply knockback. Not that it made a difference overall, but still noteworthy.)

Piledriver moves towards Thing, but doesn’t reach him.

I need some space…yikes!

Finally, Wrecker gets annoyed and charges Spider-Man. After all the dice are rolled, Wrecker hits Spidey for a whopping 7 damage! Spider-Man fails his KO check and is…well, KO’ed!

Best not to think about what happens next…

Turn 3

The Wrecking Crew keeps initiative. Piledriver charges Thing, but Thing sees him coming and shrugs it off.

KA-POW!

“It’s Clobberin’ Time!” Thing hauls off and decks Piledriver with a Haymaker punch, knocking him back 25″!!! Piledriver fails his KO check and is out!

Bulldozer once again attacks Thing, but does no damage.

Off-camera, Thunderball takes an action to “ace” Spider-Man. This means exactly what you think it means.

Wrecker moves to another crate and rips it open. Lemon cupcakes! Arrrgh!

Turn 4

Thing finally gains initiative! He makes a quick recharge roll for Haymaker and succeeds, allowing him to use it again this turn. He tries it, but fails to damage Bulldozer.

Bulldozer hits Thing for 1 damage, knocking him back 5″ and knocking him down.

Thunderball moves towards Thing. Wrecker moves upstairs towards a new crate. There has to be a crate of Twinkies somewhere!

Turn 5

The villains gain initiative. Bulldozer, now 5″ away from Thing, charges him! Thing takes 3 damage and needs to pass a KO check. He succeeds!

His best Sunday punch!

Thing stands up and recharges his Haymaker successfully. He hauls off and creams Bulldozer with this roll.

Can you find the Bulldozer in this picture?

Bulldozer fails to resist even one and goes flying 45″! He fails his KO check and is out!

Thunderball continues getting closer. Wrecker finds only apple-filling Fruit Pies in his crate. “Curse you, Fruit Pie the Magician!”

Turn 6

Have a camper!

Thing can barely keep standing, so he figures it might be wise to keep some distance between him and Thunderball. He picks up a nearby camper and throws it at the villain, hitting him and inflicting 3 damage!

Thunderball pushes the camper off himself and stands up, moving towards the Thing with obvious ill intent.

Wrecker rips open another container…Funny Bones???!!! How did these get here? Hostess doesn’t even make these!!!

Turn 7

Crap.

Thunderball charges Thing and hits him for 1 damage. As he loses consciousness, Thing wonders if he might have been better off just letting the Wrecking Crew have the damn Twinkies.

AFTERWORD

First off, this was a blast. It took me around 45 minutes to play this, and that was with me looking up rules, taking photos and logging the action for this AAR. Once I learn the rules completely, I would imagine this game would have taken me 20 minutes or so.

That’s awesome. This system is so easy and quick that I imagine it would be quite simple to get an entire set of linked scenarios done in a couple of hours. An entire campaign in one afternoon? Sounds good for folks like me that can’t seem to get his friends all together more than twice a year.

Also, in case anyone’s interested, here are my builds for these heroes and villains.

The Wrecking Crew

All Bricks, so all have Super Strength as their Major power. (Yes I know technically you’re not supposed to have more than one of the same archetype (except Wild Cards) on the same team, but I defy anyone to tell me that any member of the Wrecking Crew is anything BUT a Brick.

Wrecker: Minor: Melee Weapon, Resistance

Thunderball: Minor: Melee Weapon, Clever (Boost)

Bulldozer + Piledriver: Minor: Resistance, Tough (Boost)

The Heroes

Thing (Brick): Major: Super-Strength; Minor: Armor, Resistance, Tough (Boost)

Spider-Man (Brawler): Major: Scrapper; Minor: Leaping, Entangle, Enhanced Senses, Super-Agility

Again, I know I broke the rules here by giving them more powers than allowed, but as as I said before, it’s tough to picture these heroes (especially Spidey) without all of these powers. Having more powers clearly didn’t help them in the above battle. It’s not a matter of game balance for me…it’s about having fun!

Playtesting Super Mission Force

Those who read this blog know that I am a big fan of Scott Pyle’s Supersystem 3 for playing superhero battles on the tabletop. Well, Scott dropped a bombshell on The Miniatures Page to all us fans last week with the announcement of Super Mission Force, which is a new project of his. Originally billed as “Supersystem Lite”, Scott made sure to stress that that is no longer the case. The game has evolved beyond that.

So naturally, as a huge fanboy of SS3, I asked : why should I want this? Not trying to be a prick, just wondering what would appeal to me as a SS3 player. Here’s what Scott replied: The game plays a lot faster than any version of Supersystem, and there’s no number crunching in the build system. None. Zero. So it’s a different sort of game. you’ll use archetypes and menu selections to build characters, and once you know how powers work and what to expect, you’ll be able to build a character in a couple of minutes.

He is so right.

Scott was kind enough to provide TMP members with a version of the rules thus far, and I’ve done some solo gaming. (Check out my first two After Action Reports, here and here. )

Here is my review (spoiler: it’s a glowing one).

REVIEW

Let’s start with character generation. It’s blindingly fast. You can build a team of heroes from scratch in about 15 minutes, whether you like creating your own, or whether (like me), you enjoy adapting classic comic book heroes and villains for your games. If you’re doing that, I found some of the power selections and limitations didn’t fit “classic” heroes very well, but of course, you’re free to change whatever you want. Most archetypes are built around one major power and two minor powers. I imagine this is done for overall game balance when creating your own heroes, and that’s fine. But if you want to adapt an established hero you may find this too limiting.

Example: here is my build for Spider-Man: Brawler: (Major) Scrapper, (Minor) Leaping, Entangle, Super Agility, Enhanced Senses. It’s kind of tough to see Spider-Man without any of those minor powers, so following the limit of 2 wouldn’t make much sense in his case. As far as “game balance” goes, I don’t really care, considering I don’t play competitively. Also, let’s all admit that some heroes are just better than others. Some are more powerful, more experienced, and just better at what they do. Who are you putting your money on? Wolverine or Starfox? (If you asked “Who’s Starfox?” then you’ve more than proven my point.)

Moving onto powers, SMF differs from SS3 in a lot of ways, most for the better. Powers are much simpler and there are no more dice control pools, which worked well but take a bit of bookkeeping (and a familiarity with a power’s cost and abilities) to manage from round to round. Some powers require a recharge roll before they can be used again; most don’t. Either way, you are often rolling fewer dice than in SS3, which is a good thing if you like quick resolution.

Combat is smooth and quick, and most of all easy as pie. Every model performs a combination of actions on their turn; such as moving, attacking, or interacting with an object. There is no point cost to keep track of. Attacks and damage are grouped together, so any “unsaved” attacks translate into damage without calculating a separate damage roll. I didn’t realize just how much this speeds up combat resolution until I played a couple of games, but it’s a huge time saver. Every archetype has access to unique abilities they can use in combat (Bricks can throw Haymaker punches; Speedsters can Hurricane Charge, etc.), and these really add a lot of fun to battles!

I confess that aside from the Henchmen rules, I didn’t really look too deeply into the rest of the rules so far. The Henchmen rules will also be familiar to any SS3 players, although they’re also easier. Henchmen exist to be smacked around by the numbers, and SMF makes it easy to make groups of henchmen in about 2 seconds that fill this role nicely. Whether you want gun-toting goons or brawling thugs, it’s quick and easy to do.

Every character has the option for one or more background choices which may give bonuses to certain activities “off the battlefield”, such as following up on clues, solving scientific puzzles, etc. If you like a bit of roleplaying in your miniatures campaigns, these help. Also, there are rules for carrying injuries from story to story and for developing heroes throughout adventures.

But if you’re like me, you’re looking for quick and easy gaming action that’s faithful to the superhero genre. Super Mission Force has that to spare.

Another thing I love about this game is the learning curve. It takes almost no time to learn these rules, as everything is based off of a 4 dice pool, plus or minus a couple of dice depending on your powers or desired combat actions. This makes this game very easy to teach to newcomers, which is very important if, like me, you want to get right into the action with people who aren’t necessarily wargaming geeks, but who love superheroes.

But enough about that, you want to see how it plays? Again, you can check out my first two games, here and here!

If there’s anything negative to say about the game, it’s that it’s still in the playtest stage. I had a couple of clarification questions, but nothing game-breaking. Also, people who want more detail may want to look elsewhere. Scott also said ” All [the quicker, simpler mechanics] comes at a cost of some detail, which longtime Supersystem fans may not like. All I can say is download the play-test doc and give it a look.

At this time, you can download the play-test doc here.

As a longtime Supersystem fan, all I can say is I think I may finally bid a very fond farewell to SS3 ( I will always love Supersystem 3), at least for the foreseeable future. I love and champion Supersystem, but Super Mission Force is exactly what I’m looking for to quickly adapt existing comic heroes to the tabletop, and to get in some quick, easy and fun games with my friends.

I can’t recommend this game highly enough, and I will certainly buy the finished product!

A Handful of Heroclix Repaints

I’m always repainting clix in between my other projects, since I know eventually I will use them for Supersystem 3. Here are a few I’ve done recently.

First up, Daredevil and Elektra. This Elektra model is from the first Infinity Challenge set, and TBH I like it the best out of all the Elektra sculpts that have come since. While painting her costume I was once again struck by how ridiculous it is. It would take her an hour just to wrap those stupid scarves and sashes around her arms and legs, but hey…I guess it looks cool.

The Daredevil figure is also my favorite clix version of him. These miniatures were very easy to repaint…I just added shading and highlighting to what was already on the miniature. Red is an easy color to work with. I think Daredevil took me about a half hour. Elektra took longer (stupid costume).

Some loser villains, L-R: The Grey Gargoyle, Blastaar, the Wizard, and Batroc “zee Leepair”! I’ll need the first three soon for SS3 games, but I couldn’t resist repainting Batroc just for laughs. He may be one of the most ridiculous villains ever, which is perfect for a fun game of SS3. Apparently, a stray brush strand adhered to Grey Gargoyle and I only just noticed it while messing with the picture. Let’s hear it for hi-res cameras! This assortment of miniatures is a good example of how I repaint batches of miniatures with similar color schemes all at once, even if I won’t be using them anytime soon.

Lastly, a repaint of The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android! Definitely crying out to be used in a series of linked scenarios. I’ll get on that soon…

Riddle me this…

A few weeks back I decided to repaint and rebase a Heroclix Mr. Freeze for Supersystem 3, and the Batman bug has bitten me again. This time I decided to put a little extra effort into one of Batman’s “Big Four”: The Riddler!

Here’s what Riddler looks like on the dial. This is one of the original ‘clix from the first DC Hypertime set. Riddle me this…when does a Heroclix miniature look like it was painted with craft paint? Answer: far too often.

Clearly, this would not stand.

Much like the smoke on my Mr. Freeze conversion, I took the pedestal with the question mark from another Heroclix model: The Question. As soon as I saw this figure I knew I was using the question mark for something else. Anyone familiar with the Batman: Arkham series of video games will recognize that this looks exactly like one of the Riddler trophies video game completists like me spend hours trying to collect. I could have painted it green to be more in-line with the game, and I still might. But for now I’m fine with the red.

Here’s a WIP shot. I knew I wanted to include a riddle on the base, so I planned out how much space I would need. Turns out a 60mm base did the trick. This conversion was becoming more and more like a diorama! I used a Dremel engraving tip to sculpt the flagstone pattern before painting the riddle in white. I picked a fairly easy riddle that everyone should know the answer to…or do they? One can never tell with the King of Conundrums!

I painted the riddle bright green and cleaned up some of the mess I made trying to freehand it. The base was looking a bit empty, so I decided to add some moneybags from the Bank of Gotham. I sculpted them out of green stuff, which was surprisingly easy as there’s very little detail to sculpt on a sack. I considered giving Riddler a pistol, but in the end I left him as is.

I was originally going to just paint the stereotypical dollar signs on the bags, but it looked crappy. I decided to label them with the bank name instead. It looks slightly less crappy.

I’ve never been a stickler for base size, but 60mm is pretty big. I may have to do another version of the Riddler if I find his base is getting in the way of terrain and such. But for now I’m happy with him. Since I love Batman’s villains, I think I’ll put extra effort into every member of Batman’s rogue’s gallery to really make them stand out.

The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

My next big Supersystem 3 game is going to be based on The Breeder Bombs, the classic (if not-so-great) TSR Marvel Superheroes adventure from the mid-80’s. Last time, I rebased and repainted the Uncanny X-Men team of my youth. Now, I bring you…The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!!!

From left-right: Blob, Toad, Magneto, and his wayward offspring Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. All have been repainted and rebased from their original dials. I decided since Magneto is such a badass, he should have a unique base. I used this large junk base from Taban miniatures. He has a pretty solid bottom which was easy to drill and pin, making it look (IMO) better than a Heroclix flight dial. Quicksilver was extensively repainted in his original “evil” green costume and rebased on an Armorcast urban base. The Scarlet Witch is rebased on a Micro Arts Studio tech base.

The Breeder Bombs features robot doubles of the Brotherhood rather than the actual mutants themselves, which I find really dumb. It takes nothing away from the plot of the module to simply use the Brotherhood rather than robots (and it makes more sense). You might think that aside from Magneto, these guys are a bunch of second-stringers, and you could be right. But remember: “NOTHING-NUH-NUH-NOTHING-NUH-NOTHING MOO-MOVES THE BL-BLO-BLOB!!!!” (Kudos to anyone who gets that referential joke.)

A view from the back. And now, in the immortal words of Magneto: “X-MEN…WELCOME…TO DIE!!!!!”

The Uncanny X-Men

I’m gearing up to run the next Supersystem 3 game based on the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG by TSR. Up next is MSH-1, The Breeder Bombs, so I’ve been busy repainting and rebasing the X-Men. This time I remembered to take a picture of the heroclix before and after my efforts.

Above, L-R, Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat), Wolverine, Colossus, Professor X, Cyclops and Storm. These are the X-Men of my youth (early to mid-eighties), so in selecting my clix I went for authenticity and made sure I had a mohawk-sporting Storm. Kitty Pryde was known as Ariel back then, and she wore a completely different costume. So did Wolverine.

So here are the repaints, sandwiched between Nightcrawler and Rogue, who round out the post-Dark Phoenix Saga/ Secret Wars era team. I couldn’t find a Heroclix Nightcrawler that I liked (and many are expensive), and I couldn’t find a Rogue miniature that was time-specific, so I had to use these old TSR metal miniatures from the Marvel Super Heroes RPG line. They scale pretty well with the clix.

As you can see, Wolverine is resplendent in his Autumn ensemble (i.e. brown costume). I don’t remember Cyclops ever beings so light blue, so it was easy enough to darken his costume up. Rogue’s costume has changed about a dozen times over the years, and unfortunately the TSR model shows her in her “orange tunic/legwarmers” look. Although I can’t imagine using Professor X much in Supersystem 3 (he’s way too powerful), I decided to include him for completeness. I changed his suit color and wheelchair and gave him a nice plaid blanket to keep his legs warm. I did the least with Storm, who only really needed some minor highlighting and rebasing to fit right in.

I had to change Wolverine and Ariel’s costumes completely from the original Heroclix models. I’m pretty happy with the results (although Ariel’s face could be better.) Kitty’s costume isn’t 100% accurate (she had a bigger collar and no shoulder pads), but I like it. No Lockheed the Dragon, sadly.

Here are the closeups of the TSR models. Nightcrawler isn’t too bad, but the Rogue miniature is really not all that great. Her pose is mystifying and like most of these TSR models, the facial sculpt is awful. I did what I could with her. I don’t know what kind of alloy TSR used in their miniatures line, but it really doesn’t hold paint well, even when primed. Paint rubs off easily, even just handling them during the painting process.

Now I just need to paint a certain Master of Magnetism and his cronies and we can play!

Mr. Freeze

Mr. Freeze has long been one of my favorite bat-villains, due in large part to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brilliant, iconic performance in the 1997 film Batman & Robin.

OK, maybe not.

But I really do love Mr. Freeze. Especially any episode of the Batman Animated Series in which he is featured (voiced by the late, great Michael Ansara). He is also really cool (pardon the pun) in the Batman: Arkham City video game, as well as the Arkham Origins downloadable content “Cold, Cold Heart.”

I’ve been rebasing and repainting a lot of Heroclix lately, but they’ve mostly been Marvel clix. I’ve been sadly neglecting the DC line. I decided to have some fun with this one and make a really nice conversion I can base a scenario or two around.

Anyway, here’s what a Heroclix Mr. Freeze looks like out of the box. That’s a stock photo, not the actual model I used. I really need to remember to photograph these clix before I repaint them, but this kind of happened as a side project.

The Mr. Freeze model has a removable helmet and shoulder piece, which is good since the helmet is so opaque it obscures the face almost entirely.

From Wikipedia: Mr. Freeze (Victor Fries) is a scientist who must wear a cryogenic suit in order to survive, and bases his crimes around a “cold” or “ice” theme, complete with a “freeze gun” that freezes its targets solid. In the most common variation of his origin story, he is a former cryogenics expert who suffered an industrial accident while attempting to cure his terminally ill wife Nora Fries.

I like him because he’s actually a bad guy you can feel sorry for. Freeze does some bad. bad things, but it’s all for love of his wife.

Here are a couple of better shots that show him without the helmet. I considered adding a bit of snow to his gun barrel and the tanks on his back to simulate frost, but decided against it. The smoke is from a this Marvel Ultron clix model:

I also used the Ultron model for Mr. Freeze’s wife, Nora. I painted her a frosty blue and based her on a dime, which, coincidentally, is exactly the right diameter to use if you want to place her in this spiffy bio-tank, made by RAFM.

The other miscellaneous sci-fi machinery was made by TMP’s Russell95403, I think it goes well as lab decor. For the ice piles, I used Chris Palmer’s method described here, using sea glass. I think they look great and I’ll be making more ice soon.

So now I have Mr. and Mrs. Freeze ready to go for a nice Supersystem 3 scenario.

And that-dare I say it?- is pretty damn cool.

Day of the Octopus!!!!

Back in the day, I was a big fan of the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG from TSR (still am, in fact). I thought some of their adventures might make fun scenarios for Supersytem 3, and it turns out I was right! First up is the introductory adventure included with the basic set: MSH0: Day of the Octopus!

A brief synopsis: That tentacled creep Dr. Octopus is at it again! This time his scheme is to become “Supreme Ruler of New York City” (yes, really). To that end, he has created a 30-foot tall robot duplicate of himself that will destroy Manhattan unless the heroes can stop it! (Because, you know, that’s the best plan an insane, genius nuclear physicist could come up with.)

FYI ALL of the published adventures, as well as the rulebooks for TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes are available at Classic Marvel Forever in PDF format, and they’re FREEEEEEEE! Many of them are delightfully terrible, with questionable storylines, lame villains, and encounters that make you scratch your head and ask WTF??? But all of them seem easily adaptable to SS3, and 99% of the heroes and villains used in all of them are available as Heroclix models!

Without further ado, the dramatis personae:

The heroes (L-R): Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Captain America, and the ever-lovin, blue-eyed Thing!

The main villains (L-R): Beetle, Scorpion, Dr. Octopus, Radioactive Man and the Fixer! (Fixer looked different back in the day, but this newer version is the only Clix model of the Fixer, so I’m stuck with it.) And of course, looming menacingly in the back: The Octodroid!!!!!

As is usual with most starting adventures, the heroes far outclass the villains. I assumed the bad guys would need some help, so I added Constrictor and these killer robots as reinforcements. The robots are repainted and rebased Horrorclix Carnage Bots.

If you’re wondering about the Octodroid, he’s this old Toy Biz Marvel figure, spray-painted silver. I picked him up on eBay for 8 bucks including shipping. Not bad, eh? Onto the game!

An otherwise quiet day in Manhattan. Ben Grimm, Peter Parker and Steve Rogers are all spending some personal time in the park. Thing is buying a hot dog and feeling sorry for himself. Peter is having a picnic with Aunt May. Steve is on a date with his girlfriend, Bernie Rosenthal. Captain Marvel is on duty at Avengers Mansion (remember, this adventure was from 1984!)

All the heroes notice two well-known goons, Turk and Grotto, entering a building across from the park. They are up to no good! All the heroes in the park start to make their excuses and head over to the building, just as a huge explosion blows out the front wall! Who emerges but Grotto, accompanied by Turk, in full Mandroid armor!

(If you’re asking WTF??? allow me to explain: A suit of Mandroid armor was on display in the lobby of the building. You might think there would be extra security, or that the suit of Mandroid armor would be somehow neutralized for display purposes, like a cannon at a park, but you’d be wrong. It’s just sitting there in a glass case in the lobby, along with the plans for a new power source made by Tony Stark. Or it was. Until Turk stole it.)

Alerted by the explosion and able to fly at lightspeed,Captain Marvel arrives on the scene instantly. The Thing wastes no time rushing across the street and ruining Grotto’s day before closing with Turk! And at that moment, the super-villains arrive!!!

What are they doing here? What could they want? The heroes have no time for speculation, because combat erupts!

Thing beats up on Turk, but fails to KO him. Meanwhile, Spider-Man webs Turk to the ground. Turk is entangled!

Captain Marvel and Beetle exchange energy blasts! Captain Marvel is wounded!

After firing off a blast of radiation at Thing, Radioactive Man gets slammed by Cap’s shield and gets KO’ed instantly! (Cap rolled a ton of goals to hit, and it carried over to damage. Radioactive Man rolled poorly, and that’s all, folks!)

Scorpion shoots at Spider-Man, but fails to hit. In the next round, he bounds atop the building closest to the web-slinger, but before he can close, Spidey webs him to the roof! Meanwhile, Thing takes out Turk once and for all.

On the other side of the park, Captain Marvel gets the worst of it in her fight with Beetle and is KO’ed! Cap takes out the Beetle with a shield toss, and Thing rips up a lamp post and cancels Christmas on the Fixer! With three villains KO’ed, the bad guys bug out and flee the table! But not before a sinister-looking steel tentacle snakes up from a nearby grate and steals the plans for a new power source…the villains’ goal all along! This was but a diversion! Mu-hu-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

In the original TSR RPG adventure, the heroes had to search for clues to find Dock Ock’s hideout. But we jumped right into it! The heroes track Doc Ock to his lair in an abandoned warehouse, where he awaits them with Scorpion and Constrictor!

“It’s Clobberin’ Time!” Doctor Octopus barely has time to activate his security robots before the Thing is in his grill. He decks Doc in two rounds, which made for a very quick end to this scenario. Meanwhile, Captain America shield-bashes Constrictor into submission! All in all, not a good round for the villains. But as he lapses into rocky-fisted-induced unconsciousness, Doc Ock manages to activate his most villainous automaton:The Octodroid!

BEHOLD! THE OCTODROID MARCHES!!!

The Octodroid begins its path of destruction, shattering buildings to the left and right. The heroes move quickly to intercept! Spidey tries to web its legs together, but the Octodroid will not be bound! Captain Marvel fires a blast of energy, inflicting damage. In response, the Octodroid pauses its attack on New York to fire at the heroes with the plasma cannons contained in its tentacles, but fails to hit any of them.

Then after a few more exchanges, Captain America once again saves the day. He hurls his shield with uncanny precision, striking the Octodroid in its eyes! Something shorts out and the Octodroid comes to an abrupt halt, toppling over a few seconds later. New York is saved! (Once again, Captain America rolled a shit-ton of goals that failed to be resisted by the Ocotdroid. Even I was surprised by how quickly the robot fell!)

This was a lot of fun and I plan on adapting more of the published TSR adventures to SS3 soon. Up next: MSH-1: The Breeder Bombs, featuring the X-Men!

Rebasing and Repainting Heroclix

I own a lot of Heroclix miniatures, but I don’t play Heroclix. Instead I use them with my favorite Superhero rules system, Supersystem 3. I use Heroclix miniatures because I game with established Marvel and DC comics characters rather than creating my own heroes. (Until recently, there was a terrific online archive of SS3 stats for Marvel and DC Heroes, but that seems to have disappeared. Bummer.) I never liked the Heroclix system. The dials really annoy me, and it doesn’t seem right that heroes gain and lose powers as the dials get clicked. For example: I think Superman should be able to use his heat vision whenever he wants to fry something, not be limited as to when he can use it based on how much damage he’s taken.

There are a lot of companies making superhero miniatures in 28mm. I would get into some of them, but my fellow supers enthusiast from across the Atlantic, Carrion Crow, has already done that comprehensively over at his blog, and there’s really nothing I can add. (Incidentally, Carrion Crow has done a bunch of articles on converting Heroclix that are well worth the read, as they’re quite inspirational and really show the versatility of these miniatures, even for games outside the Supers genre.)

So why use Heroclix? The answers should be obvious, but…

Heroclix have been around for almost 15 years. The range is vast, and chances are you can find a clix model for almost any hero in the Marvel or DC Universe at this point. Most characters, in fact, have multiple sculpts and/or versions.
As you will soon see, Heroclix are easy to repaint and rebase (and convert, should you wish to do so).
With the exception of some promos and unique figures, most Heroclix models are cheap and easily obtainable. Online retailers such as Miniature Market and Troll and Toad offer a large selection of secondary market singles. eBay is a good place to pick up singles and lots, and don’t underestimate your local Craigslist listings! I picked up a lot of clix on Craigslist.
Many Heroclix models can be used for games outside the Supers genre. Thugs, criminals, aliens, cops, and military clix can all be adapted to other games such as pulp, horror or sci-fi, to name but a few. And don’t forget there were several sets of “Horrorclix” as well. Some are tough to find nowadays, but they’re every bit as useful across genres.
You can use Heroclix for other games without doing a thing to them, if that’s your preference. They come pre-painted and if you can overlook the dials, they’re ready to go out of the box. Convenient.

The quality of the sculpting and the factory paint jobs seem to have an inverse relationship over the years, at least in my opinion. In the beginning, the sculpting seemed to be generally ok, while the factory paint jobs bordered on the atrocious. As the years and releases accumulated, it seems the reverse is now true. Scale, especially when compared to the earlier releases, is disproportionate. But the paint jobs are generally better.

Still, they’re not good enough for me, so what follows is a tutorial of sorts on working with Heroclix, specifically rebasing and repainting them. I will say in passing that converting Heroclix is a breeze, as they’re made of fairly soft plastic, so weapon/head swaps are easy. (Again, if conversions are your thing, I highly recommend Carrion Crow’s Buffet over in the sidebar, as well as Dick Garrison’s Rantings from Under the Wargames Table.)

Rebasing Heroclix

Base Designs

Heroclix bases have changed over the years. Above you can see the three types of bases. On the left is the original design, in the middle is the original “flying” base design, and on the right is the current design. A few words about each:

Original clix came with a different-colored ring on the base, denoting the experience level of the model (Yellow=Rookie, Blue=Experienced, and Red=Veteran). This made a difference in the Heroclix points cost for including the model on your team. (A more experienced version of a hero cost more points.) Silver or other colored rings denote unique, promo, or special versions of heroes and villains. Some of these can get quite expensive to purchase on the secondary market, although many, especially from the older sets, have come down a lot in price.

Generally speaking, a more experienced version of a model costs more money on the secondary market, but this isn’t always the case. Regardless, many of these miniatures used the exact same sculpt regardless of experience level (see above) which is great news for those of us who don’t use them for Heroclix, as any version will do. So, just buy the least-expensive version available!

Flying bases come in two varieties, shown above. As you can see, the Human Torch model sits on a plastic disc that fits over the top of the flying base. In contrast, the Green Lantern model has a peg on his foot that fits into the flying base. For whatever reason, flying bases no longer exist in the latest Heroclix sets, and even models that fly are sculpted on the ground, like Ms. Marvel above. I only rebase the flight stands in the “peg-leg” cases like Green Lantern. When rebasing models such as the Human Torch, I pop them off the plastic discs and rebase them without flight stand. (That’s my preference, but YMMV).

The newer bases are bigger and blockier, and have no color rings denoting experience levels (something else they decided to do away with, it seems). Fair warning if you plan on rebasing miniatures on these bases: they are MUCH harder to work with than the earlier colored bases. models are now sculpted onto a plastic crescent, and it’s often easier to remove the crescent from the dial than to remove the model from the crescent.

Rebasing Technique

There are several ways you can remove a Clix model from its dial. First is brute force, which I don’t recommend. Bigger models, such as the Hulk above, can be wrested off the dial without much worry of damaging the model, but why risk it?

The second way is by using a hobby saw or Dremel to saw the figure off the dial. Again, I don’t recommend this as at high cutting speeds, the plastic will melt. This stinks, and can also alter the shape of the model’s feet.

The best method I have found to remove a Heroclix model from its base is the following. First, throw the model (or the flight stand) in the freezer for at least an hour. This makes the plastic brittle. Then, remove it from the dial with a pair of nippy cutters. If you go slow enough, it should pop right off with no problem. Note that clix models with thin legs are vulnerable to snapping even if this method is used, particularly if you don’t take the time to cut slowly. One good thing about Clix, however, is even if they snap, the break is usually clean enough that you can heal it with some superglue. That was the case with the rebased and repainted Judge Dredd model above, and you can’t tell the difference now.

Rebasing Choices

Once you have the model off the dial, it’s up to you what kind of base you want to put it on. I find that Heroclix adhere readily to resin bases with superglue, but you may want to take the added steps of drilling and pinning in order to secure a firm transplant. The Dr. Strange model is based on an old metal RAFM fantasy base. He’s a good example of a transplanted peg-mounted flying base. Electro is glued to a Micro Arts Studio Tech Base. Power Man is based on an Armorcast Urban Base, while Iceman is based on a piece of MDF, snow-flocked and enhanced by me.

Again, the choice to rebase or not depends on how much you hate the dials. I loathe them, but I’ll still use Clix models on the dial in a pinch. If you want to see an example of an AAR using rebased an repainted Clix (as well as other models), check one out here. If you want to see a Supersystem 3 game using unaltered Clix, look here. I think the first game looks better, but both were a blast regardless.

Repainting

As I said before, it’s no secret to anyone with eyes that Clix models generally have poor paint jobs, especially the early releases. As you can see in the picture above, repainting a Clix model really achieves some dramatic results over the factory paint job, and repainting is a surprisingly easy and often fast option for those who can’t abide poorly painted figures (like me). Above is a before and after comparison. Although not a true before and after, as they are different figures, you can see what a factory painted miniature looks compared to one I’ve repainted. The one on the left is a new “Superman Robot”, which I repainted and rebased to be a perfectly adequate Superman. The one on the right is Marvel’s Beetle. I added highlights rather than a giving him a full repaint.

Step 1: To strip or not to strip?

While it’s easy enough to strip metal miniatures, plastic miniatures such as Heroclix pose a problem, as the chemicals used on metal miniatures will most likely melt plastic. There are many threads on the net regarding stripping plastic miniatures and the best way to do so. Some say Simple Green is the way to go, as it’s non-caustic and won’t melt your plastic miniatures into goo. I haven’t tried it, so I can’t speak to its effectiveness. In fact, I don’t strip Heroclix miniatures at all!

Step 2: Priming and painting

Since I don’t strip my Clix, I have no need to prime them. The factory paint job is perfectly fine as a first coat. Although some of the early Clix models are so heavily painted that you may find subsequent coats obscure detail, this is usually a problem with individual models and is easily remedied by simply using another figure.

In many cases, repainting a Heroclix model is merely a matter of adding highlights rather than starting from scratch. This Northstar miniature was painted with highlights only. In contrast, the green on Iron fist was originally red (it was the only version of him I had), so I needed to paint a dark green basecoat on and highlight from there. Captain America was originally a much lighter blue. I repainted him a darker blue and highlighted upwards.

These criminals and henchmen were completely repainted to give them some variety.

In the above picture, the Thing was given a black wash over his original paint, and then highlights of orange. In addition, I trimmed his eyes because they were way too big on the original paint job. Radioactive Man was repainted a darker basecoat and highlighted upwards, much like Captain America.

Step 3: Going fast

If all you’re doing is highlighting the existing paint job, you can blow through repaints in record time and still enjoy quality results. But here is another tip to speed-painting Clix:

Heroclix generally use the same paint shades, as seen in the picture above. If you want to repaint a lot of Clix all at once, it makes sense to grab a handful of miniatures that use the same colors and do them in batches. Of course, if you need specific heroes and villains, this may not be an option in the short term. But, if you’re planning a game down the road, you may want to paint some miniatures you may not have a use for immediately simply because you’re painting similar colors on the miniatures you do need. For example, even though I have no immediate plans for Superman, I painted him at the same time as Captain America and the Fixer because they use the same colors. Neat, huh?

I plan on doing more Supersystem gaming in the near future, so watch this space for more Clix repaints and AARs!

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The Angry Piper's miniatures and gaming blog.