The Scenario: The X-Men follow Magneto’s trail to Arganistan (not Afghanistan; much like Roxxon Oil, Ryder’s Island and the Maggia crime families, Marvel changed the real world name ever-so-slightly here), where the next Breeder Bomb awaits! Magneto placed it smack in the middle of a farm close to the Soviet border, much like the Ust-Ordynski Collective that was the childhood home of Colossus!

Unfortunately, Colossus has little time for nostalgia. Magneto has alerted the Russian government that the X-Men are on their way. The Soviet Super Soldiers, along with a contingent of Soviet Super-Troopers, are dispatched to neighboring Arganistan (borders? what borders?) to confront and arrest the X-Men on charges of espionage, and, in Colossus’s case, high treason against the Motherland!

Setup: I used a 4′ x 4′ area of farmland with some outbuildings, pastures and the odd tree or two. A large water tower and some farm machinery are part of the terrain as well. The Breeder Bomb is in the middle of the play area.

The X-Men deploy on one side of the table opposite the Soviet Super Soldiers.

Special Rules:

The Breeder Bomb: The X-Men’s objective is to defuse the Breeder Bomb. Attacking the bomb is not an option as it could result in detonation.  In order to defuse the bomb, one of the X-Men must get into base contact with the control panel and use a Special Action to make an attempt. This attempt is a Science check, so Kitty Pryde gets a +2D bonus to an attempt. Defusing the bomb requires 4 goals and may not be attempted if there are any enemy models within 6″ of the bomb. Failure to defuse the bomb results in a radiation leak!

If the bomb begins leaking radiation, the X-Men and the Soviet Super Soldiers each take an automatic 2D attack at the start of each round. This may be resisted normally, but Armor has no effect on any damage received. This damage is cumulative (to a maximum of 6D) with each failed attempt to defuse the bomb (i.e. 2 failed attempts = 4D per round, 3 or more = 6D per round).

Capture the Traitor: The Soviet Super Soldiers have standing orders to stop the X-Men from doing whatever they’re doing. In addition, they have been ordered to capture Colossus, as the Soviet government views him as a traitor for joining an American super-group rather than putting his powers to use in service of Russia. Crimson Dynamo and Ursa Major must attack Colossus if it is possible to do so, and will prioritize him over other targets.

ROUND 1

The X-Men win initiative for the first round. Storm flies over to the left, taking some cover behind the trees before blasting the Soviet Super-Troopers (henchmen group) with a lightning bolt. She takes out two of them, bringing their number down to eight. Darkstar activates, flying over to her left on an almost mirror image course from Storm. She fires her darkforce power blasts at the hapless Kitty Pryde, inflicting 1 damage to her. Cyclops fires back at Darkstar, but fails to achieve even a single goal. Looks like Cyclops is off to another great start.

Red Guardian rushes forward, trying to get close to the Breeder Bomb. Colossus and Ursa Major both move towards the center of the table.

Rogue activates next, flying 20″ towards the center of the table, prepared to meet Red Guardian and Ursa Major should they charge, but unable to do anything this turn. Titanium Man activates, flying around the side of the Breeder Bomb and power blasting Rogue for 1 damage. Kitty Pryde moves towards the bomb’s control panel. Crimson Dynamo flies towards the center and has a clear shot at Colossus. He takes it, but Colossus shrugs off all damage.

Wolverine activates, moving quickly to close with Titanium Man. Unfortunately he doesn’t get there this turn. The Super Troopers activate as a group, moving forward 6″ around the woods.

Finally, Nightcrawler teleports into melee with Darkstar. Although he doesn’t count as charging, he still manages to inflict 2 damage on the Russian mutant, dropping her from 6 to 4!

ROUND 2

The Soviets gain initiative handily! Titanium Man charges Rogue. Since she’s on the ground, he has to land to do so, but when all is said and done, he smacks her for an additional 2 damage and knocks her back 8″! She manages to keep her footing, but that smarted! (No picture of this; I got caught up in the game and forgot to snap one!)

Wolverine activates and charges Titanium Man (who probably shouldn’t have landed after all…), shredding him for 4 damage! That drops Titanium Man’s body by half! Ursa Major moves forward a plodding 5″ (Bricks don’t move fast).

Storm flies around her woods and blasts Crimson Dynamo for 3 net goals worth of damage, dropping the ex-KGB agent to half his body! The Super Troopers activate, concentrating their fire on Storm. It pays off, and Storm takes 3 goals worth of damage, dropping her to half her body as well! Rogue activates, charging Crimson Dynamo who is still feeling the effects of Storm’s power blasts! Rogue decks him, dropping his body to zero and knocking him back 15″! Luckily, he makes his KO check and his knockdown check, so he’s still up (barely), but certainly not feeling all that well!

Crimson Dynamo activates next (probably because he won’t have too many more chances to activate!). He fires at Rogue, inflicting 1 damage. Hardly fitting retribution, but better than nothing. Cyclops activates, firing a wide-beam optic blast at the Super Troopers. You would figure that with 6 dice to roll against the Troopers measly 2 dice to resist, he would have scored enough goals to at least take out a few of the henchmen, but you would be wrong. Cyclops proves yet again that he sucks (at least in this campaign), failing to achieve even one goal. He does no damage to the group.

Darkstar attempts to entangle Nightcrawler and is successful, hoping to pummel him at her leisure next round. Nightcrawler tries to escape but fails. Next, Red Guardian moves, getting within the 5″ range needed to hurl his shield at Rogue for 1 damage, chipping away once again at her overall health. Colossus moves forward, but is too far out of range to charge anyone. Finally, Kitty moves right up to the control panel but can’t attempt a disarm as there are too many enemies within 6″ of the bomb.

The end of a bloody round, which saw the Crimson Dynamo nearly KO’ed, Titanium Man and Storm each reduced to half their overall health, and Rogue suffering 3 damage!

ROUND 3

The X-Men gain initiative. Rogue activates and charges Ursa Major, smacking him for 4 total damage, dropping the big bear by half his body in one shot and knocking him back 20″! He manages to keep his footing, but he’s a lot farther back than he was a minute ago. Red Guardian charges Rogue; after all the dice are rolled he inflicts 1 damage to Rogue, slowly but surely whittling away at her health.

 

Storm activates, power-blasting the Soviet Super-Troopers for 3 more damage, dropping 3 of their number. The troopers fire back at Storm, but they miss! Cyclops takes out another 2 of them on his turn. Titanium Man is locked in combat with Wolverine, and any attempt to leave would mean that Wolverine would get a free shot at him. Instead he decides to attack Wolverine, inflicting 1 damage on Wolverine and knocking him back 4″. Titanium Man then takes off and flies away, putting some space between him and those adamantium claws.

Nightcrawler breaks out of his entanglement and attacks Darkstar, but does no damage. Darkstar successfuly breaks from  melee without Nightcrawler landing a blow, backs off a few inches and recharges her power blasts, opening fire on Nightcrawler. But Nightcrawler proves too agile, and is unharmed. Kitty Pryde activates but still has no opportunity to disarm the bomb, and no one within range to attack. She does nothing.

Crimson Dynamo charges Rogue, who is in combat with Red Guardian. He rolls his normal 5D attack, plus 1D for charging, +1D for assisting Red Guardian, and scores a net 7 goals! That’s more than enough to drop Rogue permanently! She is knocked back 21″ and fails her KO check! Rogue is out of the battle!

Colossus moves steadily towards Titanium Man, Red Guardian and Crimson Dynamo. Ursa Major activates, moving slow as molasses back to the fray. Finally, Wolverine moves quickly around the Breeder Bomb in support of Colossus and the two are ready to rumble next Round!

ROUND 4

The X-Men keep initiative. Wolverine easily regenerates his lost health and is back to his maximum. He activates and charges Crimson Dynamo, who had to land last turn in order to pummel Rogue. Wolverine rolls poorly and inflicts no damage against the Russian.

Titanium Man sees an opening, and rather than attack Colossus or Wolverine, he opts to charge Storm instead! He inflicts 4 goals of damage, enough to force a KO check. Storm fails and is out of the fight!

 

Colossus charges into melee with Red Guardian and Crimson Dynamo. He attacks Crimson Dynamo, inflicting the necessary damage to put the Dynamo down for good!

Any celebration is short-lived! Darkstar activates and, after a successful recharge, power-blasts Nightcrawler for 6 total damage, enough to drop him from completely healthy to a KO check! Nightcrawler fails and is overcome by the darkforce blasts!

Cyclops fires at the Troopers again and finally wipes them out. Ursa Major moves ever closer to the fight, but is still out of it. Kitty can’t do anything for the same reasons as last round. Red Guardian attacks Wolverine, but does no damage.

Another bloody round, which saw the end of Storm and Nightcrawler, as well as the Crimson Dynamo!

ROUND 5

The Soviets wrest initiative away from the X- Men! Ursa Major, bellowing like the bear he is, charges into combat (finally) with Colossus and Wolverine. He uses a Haymaker and cracks Colossus for 2 damage, but knocks him back 24″ with the “Way Outta Here” Brick maneuver! Colossus manages to keep his footing. Wolverine attacks Ursa Major with an Acrobatic Attack (a Brawler maneuver), scoring 3 net goals and dropping Ursa Major’s body to 1! Red Guardian attacks Wolverine with an Acrobatic Attack of his own, inflicting 3 damage on Wolverine, dropping him from 8 to 5.

Cyclops steps up and blasts Titanium Man for 7 net goals, 3 more than needed to force a KO check. He passes (barely), and manages to remain conscious although much the worse for wear. Darkstar teleports closer to Colossus and attempts to entangle him, but fails to roll a single goal. She’s left herself quite vulnerable!

Colossus takes advantage and charges Darkstar, winding up with a Haymaker that whiffs for no damage! Talk about lucky!

Titanium Man decides to charge Cyclops as he does better in melee than with power blasts. He could shoot it out with Cyclops, but his chances are much better if he takes the fight directly to the mutant. He also tries a Haymaker, doing only 1 damage, but with the triple knockback from Way Outta Here, Cyclops is knocked back 12″ and is knocked down!

Kitty Pryde charges into combat with Darkstar, since she’s having no luck disarming the bomb. She manages to inflict 1 damage on Darkstar. Darkstar has seen better days…she’s locked in hand-to-hand with Kitty Pryde and Colossus, and any attempt to flee will allow them both to take a shot at her. What to do?

ROUND 6

The X-Men regain initiative. Wolverine regenerates all his lost health and is back to full. Cyclops stands up and moves 4″, blasting Titanium Man for 4 damage, enough to KO the Super-Soldier for the rest of the game! Ursa Major attacks Wolverine, scoring 3 goals and undoing his Regeneration for the round, dropping him back down to 5 body!

Colossus recharges his Haymaker and clobbers Darkstar for 3 net goals, enough to knock her back 12″ into the fence. She fails both her knockdown and KO roll, and is out of the fight!

Red Guardian recharges his Acrobatic Attack and attacks Wolverine, inflicting 2 more goals of damage on Wolverine. Kitty Pryde moves back to the Breeder Bomb’s control panel, but Red Guardian is still within 6″ and she can’t attempt to disarm it until he’s gone!

ROUND 7

The X-Men keep initiative. Wolverine rolls a ton of goals on his Regeneration roll and heals back up to full health. Wolverine recharges his Acrobatic Attack and attacks Ursa Major, but inflicts no damage. Ursa Major responds with a net 5 goals, knocking Wolverine 20″ back and dealing 5 damage! (Good thing he’s got that healing factor!)

Cyclops uses a Blaster special maneuver, Radius Attack, which allows him to blast Ursa Major and hit anyone within 5″ (in this case Red Guardian) with a residual blast. He hits Ursa Major for 3 goals, enough to KO the big bear (after a failed KO check). The residual blast encompasses Red Guardian, who ends up taking 2 damage from the explosion.

So at this point, the only Soviet left on the table is a wounded Red Guardian, who is facing down Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus and Kitty Pryde. There’s no real point to playing out the scenario for a few more rounds until the inevitable happens. Once Red Guardian flees the field, Kitty has no trouble disarming the bomb. Victory for the X-Men…but at what cost?

Afterword:

I changed this scenario quite a bit from the original Marvel adventure, particularly with regard to the opposition. In the original Breeder Bombs adventure, the X-Men faced off against the Crimson Dynamo and a bunch of Soviet Super-Troopers (2 per X-Man). In a roleplaying game, that might have worked; in Super Mission Force, this is some weak opposition indeed as the X-Men would have little trouble taking out a henchmen group and one lone villain. So in addition to the troopers, I opted to include the entire Soviet Super Soldier team: Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar, Red Guardian and Ursa Major; along with sometime teammate Titanium Man. This worked out well and provided much more of a challenge to the heroes.

Storm, Rogue and Nightcrawler all got KO’ed this scenario, which means there may be some lingering effects for the last scenario of the campaign. Some quick rolls on the “Fate of the Fallen” tables yielded these results: Storm is seriously injured (-3 to Move, -1D to attack rolls for next battle); Rogue is lightly injured (-2 Move for next battle); and Nightcrawler is grievously injured (misses next battle), which means the team will just have to do without him next time as they face down Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!

My builds for the Soviet Super Soldiers are as follows:

Titanium Man (Super) Major: Super Strength, Minor: Power Blasts, Flight, Armor, Entangle

Red Guardian (Brawler) Major: Scrapper, Minor: Shield, Super-Agility

Ursa Major (Brick) Major: Super Strength, Minor: Enhanced Senses, Melee Specialist

Darkstar (Sorcerer) Major: Sorcery, Power Blasts, Minor: Barrier, Entangle, Teleport, Flight

Crimson Dynamo (Blaster) Major: Power Blasts, Minor: Armor, Super Strength, Flight

Soviet Super-Troopers (Henchmen) Minor: Power Blasts, Armor

 

If anyone cares, I used U-Men for the Super Troopers and I used an old Grenadier werebear miniature for Ursa Major. That’s because the Heroclix Ursa Major looks incredibly silly.

Up next, the finale to the Breeder Bombs as the X-Men face off against Magneto and the Brotherhood in…The Savage Land!!!!!