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…

Classic Grenadier Wizards

This boxed set was the second set of miniatures I ever bought, the first being the well-known “Tomb of Spells”. I bought them when I was in 6th grade. Like all of the miniatures I painted back then, I covered them in Testors gloss enamels and thought I did a swell job. Many years later, when I discovered things like acrylic paints and shading, I realized they looked truly horrendous and stripped them with the intent of repainting them later. Years passed and they languished. Then came Warhammer, and all my painting time was taken getting my armies ready for the table. I wanted to paint them last year for WizarDecember, but couldn’t find the time. Now, at age 43, they have finally been repainted.

I painted these first five to resemble the Istari, the five wizards of Middle-Earth. From l-r: Pallando, Radagast, Gandalf, Saruman, and Alatar. Who are Alatar and Pallando, you ask? Well, they are the Blue Wizards, referred to by Tolkien as “lesser” wizards, of which little is known other than their names. After their arrival in Middle-Earth, they quickly “passed into the East”, where nothing was ever heard from them again.

Of course, Iron Crown Enterprises, who once held the license for the Middle Earth RPG and the Middle Earth: The Wizards CCG, did much to expand (i.e. create) the lore of these two wizards. In the CCG, players take the role of one of the wizards. Pallando is portrayed as a diviner/seer, and many of his card effects allow some sort of precognitive ability. Alatar is a very martial wizard who can dish out some heavy damage. So I chose the Illusionist miniature for Pallando and the Druid (with shield and sword) for Alatar. The others were also fairly easy choices: Radagast is a “Druid with dart”; Gandalf (Enchanter)has the big floppy hat, and Saruman (Sorceror) is holding a crystal ball (a palantir?).

I don’t normally rebase these old classics, but I decided to make an exception with this set. I considered adding a sword to Gandalf to represent Glamdring, but chose to leave him unmodified.

The remainder of the set is above. From L-R: Wizard, Cleric, Archmage with spell, Magician, and Warlock. The wizard was my least favorite miniature to paint because his detail is somewhat ambiguous; there are times I didn’t know what I was supposed to be painting. His “familiar” on his shoulder is horribly sculpted as well. I have no idea what it’s supposed to be. The Archmage comes with two “spells”; the hand shown above and the head of something so poorly sculpted it also defies description. I chose the hand. The Cleric and Magician models are my favorite miniatures in the set, and to this day when I think of a wizard or cleric these guys come to mind. Last is the Warlock; not one of my favorites but I did what I could with him. I decided to paint him as a Bright Wizard; someone who can fling a fireball or two. I hate painting orange, but I think he turned out ok.

Painting old school miniatures like this is always fun. I think I’ll paint another Grenadier boxed set soon.

Red Dragon

I don’t often paint large models, but I’ve had this fellow on my painting table in various states of assembly and painting for a couple of years now. It’s a red dragon from Grenadier’s Julie Guthrie’s Dragons line, circa late ’80’s-early 90’s.

Of course, nothing says I had to paint it as a red dragon. In fact, I was considering painting it a greenish-black and using it as a swamp dragon. I even went so far as to basecoat it green, but then changed my mind and went with the red scheme. I used mostly Vallejo colors (Red Black, Rusty Red, Gold Yellow) and Citadel paints (Stegadon Scale Green, Sotek Green, Scorpion Green).

Compared to some of the dragon miniatures available today (i.e. Reaper), this one is pretty small, but is perfect for representing a young dragon rather than an ancient wyrm.

I have a love for Grenadier miniatures, as together with Ral Partha they were pretty much the only game in town for Fantasy miniatures when I was young. These dragons could be a pain in the ass to assemble, and this one was no exception, requiring copious amounts of green stuff to fill the gaps where the wings join the body. Nowadays it would probably be cast from plastic, or at least the wings would be, which would make it easier to assemble as the weight of the wings wouldn’t require pinning.

For the base, I added an axe along with a bit from an Army Painter accessory pack (the helmet with the snake). I smoothed out the contours with green stuff and added sand, tufts and static grass.

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.

Dead Dick's Tavern and Temporary Lodging

The Angry Piper's miniatures and gaming blog.