Zombie Strippers!

Well, these lovelies have been languishing on my desk for almost a year. In fact, I was planning on painting them for ZeDecember last year, but I got distracted by life. All I can say is “better late than never”. And anyway, it’s not like these girls are in a hurry for anything anymore. They’ll be making an appearance in my No More Room in Hell games.

These are Reaper’s Zombie Strippers, from their Chronoscope line. The bases are from Armorcast. I especially love the gal on the left holding the customer’s hand, still clutching some dollar bills.

The strip club (a better view of it above) is a paper building from TommyGun over at Model Paper World. You can find it here. And it’s FREEEEEE!

Death Soldiers of the Jade Hood: Part 1

Since I bought .45 Adventure 2nd Edition, I’ve been itching to run some Pulp games with the new rules. In accordance with my new play style, I thought a miniatures campaign over the course of several weeks would be a good way to introduce all my friends to .45 Adventure while not necessarily needing to have them all present at once. It’s easy to jump into an episodic pulp game at any point, as each scenario doesn’t require much of a backstory.

With that in mind I decided to run Death Soldiers of the Jade Hood, the published campaign for .45 Adventure 1st Edition. It will take a bit of fiddling to get it to run smoothly in the new edition, but I don’t think it’s beyond my abilities. I will give a brief synopsis of each scenario (including special rules), the full After Action Report, and any major differences between 1st and 2nd Edition that I encounter along the way.

The basic plot of the campaign is as follows: The nefarious Jade Hood, criminal mastermind of the city of New Commerce, has hatched a diabolical scheme to turn ordinary, unsuspecting citizens into bloodthirsty maniacs. He hopes to use his mind-controlled army to take over the city once and for all. Standing in his way is Ace Reporter Bridget Rourke, her faithful friend and ex-prizefighter Mo Shrevnitz, and the enigmatic vigilante of New Commerce…the Gargoyle!

Scenario 1: The Waterfront Mystery

The board is set up as shown above. It’s a warehouse district at night, which limits visibility to 12″. Four streetlamps shed light in a 3″ radius. In the middle of the board is a white truck. The bad guys are loading the truck with crates (represented by the tokens) of chemicals that the Jade Hood needs to make his Death Soldier formula. Bridget Rourke has to get behind the truck and snap a photo of the crates being loaded, then get off the board with her evidence. The bad guys need to stop her or at least prevent her from snapping a picture and get away with the crates. My buddy Matt decided to play the heroes, leaving me with the bad guys. He started with Bridget Rourke (placing her on the left table edge, above). Mo started off the board until his encounter card was drawn. I started with 2 Grade 1 Brunos (Flanagan and Baldy), and 4 Grade 1/2 Mooks. I put two of the Mooks on guard duty and armed them with pistols. The other two Mooks were armed with a knife and club, respectively, and they were loading the truck.

A couple of turns into the game, the Mooks have successfully loaded the truck with a few crates. Bridget has managed to avoid being spotted thus far, but she can’t get anywhere near the truck without being seen. A deck of cards is used to simulate random events, such as Mo arriving, random guard movement, and an opportunity to snap a picture. I was a little unclear as to whether or not we should shuffle drawn cards back into the deck, but I decided to reshuffle as there were ten cards and only two chances to take a picture. (What if we drew the picture cards early? Does that mean there’s no chance for the heroes to win?)

A few turns later, Bridget is spotted. She sprints across the street, trying to avoid the bad guys. Flanagan, Baldy and one of the Mook guards are in hot pursuit. The Mook fires his pistol at her, but it jams. Flanagan gets close but can’t tackle her this turn. The other Mooks continue to load the truck.

Mo arrives!

Suddenly, Mo arrives just in the nick of time! He sees his friend Bridget is in trouble and rushes in, meaty fists swinging!

This…HURTS.

On his activation next turn, Mo charges into combat. Now, here’s how 2nd Edition really differs from 1st: combat runs much more smoothly. Most models roll one die and add their Shiv score, keeping the result. Mo, however, is an ex-prize fighter, and he knows how to land a few punches. He has One-Two Punch and two levels of Brawler, which means he rolls four dice and keeps two. Plus, he charged into combat, so he gets to roll an additional die, bring his total to five dice, keeping 2 results. Yeah, Mo is pretty tough.

Among other results, Mo rolls two 10’s. This makes it impossible for Flanagan not to get hit and increases the strength of Mo’s fists from 7 (which is already stronger than most folks) to 9 (which is as powerful as a demolition charge) for two hits to Flanagan’s torso. Since 9 is three times stronger than Flanagan’s defense rating of 3, Moe does three wounds to Flanagan’s torso. Twice.

Being Grade 1, Flanagan only has one wound. So, Flanagan pretty much craps out his bones and keels over.

Ka-POW!

The next turn, Bridget runs away, still trying to get to the back of the truck. At this point, I pretty much gave up with the random event draw, as most of the results weren’t making sense. (The guards had been roused already and were pursuing Bridget, so it wouldn’t make too much sense that they would suddenly get the urge for a smoke and randomly move off.) On his activation, Baldy charged Mo and tried to rough him up, but Mo wasn’t having any of it. Predictably, he floored Baldy with little effort.

WHAMMO!

A couple of turns later, the pistol-armed Mooks ganged up and fired on Mo, but failed to hit him. Mo closed the gap, and using his Sweep ability, knocked both of them into next week with one punch!

Meanwhile, Bridget moved closer to the truck’s rear end. Since we were no longer using the random deck, I ruled that if she could get into contact with the back of the truck, she could attempt to take a picture. The Mooks loading the truck finally decided to drop their crates and get involved. They moved towards Bridget with murderous intent, seeking to silence the nosy broad once and for all!

Bridget popped the flash on her camera, taking a picture of the incriminating chemicals and blinding the Mooks in the process. Despite having their Shiv score reduced to 1, the knife-wielding Mook managed to land a vicious hit on the Ace Reporter, and would have gutted her like a mackerel! But Bridget Rourke didn’t live so long covering crime in New Commerce without being Lucky. Matt spent two Hero points and Bridget managed to miraculously avoid the blow altogether. Now, however, she was locked in hand-to-hand combat with two armed Mooks, and while Mo was on his way, he wasn’t there yet…

Next round, Mo ran to help his friend Bridget. Bridget couldn’t leave combat without taking some free hits from her assailants, so she craftily raised her camera again and ignited the flash, once again blinding the Mooks…and Mo.

Don’t Look Now…

Later, Bridget’s blurry picture was developed. It showed the last few seconds of consciousness for the two Mooks, and incidentally fulfilled a bonus victory condition: she got a picture of combat taking place!

When their eyes cleared, Mo was locked in combat with the two Mooks. Another Sweep, and another two unconscious Mooks. Bridget and Mo were able to exit the board with proof of the Jade Hood’s chemical designs and the fight. A clear victory for the heroes! That’s a wrap, boys!

Rules Synopsis and Differences:

There were a couple of rules differences I noticed between 1st and 2nd Edition. In 1st, Night limits visibility to 6″, whereas in 2nd, it’s 12″. This vastly increased the Spot distance for the guards. In the published scenario, spotting was handled with another deck, giving a 50% chance to not spot, a 25% chance to attempt to spot with a penalty, and a 25% chance to attempt to spot with no penalty. It doesn’t detail the penalty or what happens when the enemy is spotted, so I just threw out this whole mechanic and ruled that once a model was spotted, every model on the board was aware of it.

Also, once a model is spotted, it can’t ever hide again unless it has a special ability allowing it to do so. Bridget didn’t have any such ability, so once she was seen she was effectively screwed until Mo arrived.

Speaking of Mo, he clearly outclassed everyone on the table in combat. In the last edition’s combat system, Mo was nowhere near as tough. The new system really makes a difference.

Lastly, there are no Grade 1/2 models in 2nd Edition. Basically, they made Grade 1 models much weaker and did away with Grade 1/2 models altogether. If I was playing 1st edition 45 Adventure, this would have been a bit more of a challenge for Mo and Bridget, as the bad guys would have been able to stand up to Mo a bit longer. I played the next scenario the same way (coming soon) and it was even more one-sided. From now on, when converting from 1st to 2nd edition when I see Grade 1/2 models, I’ll make them Grade 1; and when I see Grade 1 models, I will make them Grade 2. That way it won’t be as much of a cakewalk for the heroes.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode, coming soon!

Bringin’ the Thunder

Two posts in one day! I did a little more work on my Dwarf Army recently and I thought I’d share the latest additions to my bearded host with you. I decided to paint up the artillery and some handgunners, so here they are.

First up, the artillery: two Dwarf cannons with crew. The one on the left is the old-school metal cannon, the one on the right is the plastic (much smaller) cannon from Battle for Skull Pass.

Next is a unit of Dwarf Thunderers from Battle for Skull Pass, along with an OOP Dwarf Lord holding a pistol. Ten Thunderers do not a unit make, IMHO, but there are enough for a skirmish or two.

This is my organ gun (painted previously). Together with the cannons, it should make life difficult for anyone in front of them.

Here are most of the shooty units in my Dwarf Army…coming along slowly but surely. Apologies for the blurriness. Up next: Miners!!!!

Making Mescalero: Part 1

I had the week off last week, so I decided to devote some time to terrain-making. I was inspired by the awesome series of Youtube videos by The Terrain Tutor, which I had been watching at my desk the week prior. Hey, I can productively waste time at work like nobody else. In particular, I was inspired by this video, which is a comprehensive guide to using foamboard. A lot of the tips I already knew, but there were a lot of things I didn’t know and I’m glad I watched it.

I recently decided I wanted to get into Old West skirmish gaming, and to that end I have purchased a bunch of cowboys from Blue Moon Manufacturing. Not sure what rules I’m going to use yet, but I’m leaning towards Blackwater Gulch, as it’s a free download and seems pretty easy to play. Another possibility is .45 Adventure, just because I love it so much. In their Thrilling Tales Quarterly magazine, volume 2, there was an article by a guy named “Grimm” on how to make quick adobe buildings. So, between Grimm and the Terrain Tutor, I figured I was well-prepared to start on a Mexican village, which I have decided to call Mescalero. (And yes, I know it’s an area in New Mexico and the name of an Apache tribe. So what?)

I figured I would share with you the process I used. Please note that between the two sources I mentioned above, there’s very little I did that was original or new. I’m not claiming to be an innovator when it comes to building terrain. But thought the time/process and end results might be of interest to all four of you who read this blog.

Here’s what I started with: in addition to black foamboard, I used a couple of steel rulers with cork backing, a few different types of razor knives, some Elmer’s glue and a heat gun. I traced some basic building templates on 5″x7″ index cards and cut them out.

I used the templates to trace patterns on the foamboard, then cut them out using the knives and rulers. The Terrain Tutor has some great tips on how to cut foamboard cleanly and evenly, especially in hard to reach places like doors and windows. I wasn’t too worried about getting precise cuts since I was making adobe walls.

Once this was done, I used a heat gun to heat up the corners so I could easily remove the paper backing of the foamboard, creating areas where the walls have cracked. Prior to this, I did not own a heat gun. I picked this one up at Home Depot for 20 bucks.

Once the paper is peeled back, it’s easy to sculpt a brick pattern onto the foam itself. I used this old butter knife.

Quick tip: Heat guns are not hair dryers. They get hot quickly and will melt the foam if you keep them on too long. Too long is more than a couple of seconds. Then you get something like this, above. Notice the bottom left corner, it melted away from the paper. Oh, they can also burn you, too, if you’re not careful, so watch where you put the tip when you’re finished.

Once everything is cut out and sculpted, I assembled the buildings using the Elmer’s glue. I secured them for a good bond using pins inserted into the joins, as well as this painter’s tape. Painter’s tape is great because the adhesive is pretty weak. It will hold the joins together, but it’s easy to peel off once you’re done.

Quick tip: although painter’s tape has a weak adhesive, that adhesive will get a lot stronger if you let it sit for a while, as anyone who has ever used it to paint a room will know. In other words, It’s fine to let it sit overnight, but you should remove it the next day. Letting it sit for a few days or a week will make it very difficult to remove in one piece and may damage your foamboard. (Of course, if you’re making adobe buildings like me, that might not be a big deal. See below.)

I deviated from Grimm on the next step. He recommends cutting your base out and wrapping it in textured wallpaper to create a floor. Then he mounts the building to the base. I didn’t have any textured wallpaper, but I did have some extra Mayhem tiles from World Works Games that I hadn’t used. Considering it was going to be the floor of a building, I thought I would just use those. You can see I made several buildings before proceeding to this step.

I traced the inside of the buildings onto the WWG tiles to get a template for the floors, then cut them out and glued them on with paper glue (somewhat stronger than Elmer’s) for a tight bond. You can see the results above. I also traced the inside of the building onto foamboard so I could make a ceiling.

Quick tip: Make sure you trace the inside of the building on the correct side. For example, if you’re making a ceiling, trace the inside top of the building, not the bottom. Don’t assume the floor is exactly the same dimensions as your ceiling. I know it should be, but it’s not, as unless you have a perfectly vertically-level join (which you won’t).

When that’s done, it’s time to give the adobe building it’s distinctive look. Here, too I deviated from Grimm’s instructions slightly. I used this awl I had laying around (I have no idea where I got it) to poke some holes in the walls a few centimeters below the top, then inserted some balsa wood as ceiling supports. I used my hobby saw to cut the balsa wood to about a 1″ length. If you don’t have balsa wood and don’t want to spend the whole 60 cents it costs to pick up a rod of this size, then you can cut the heads off some wooden matchsticks and use those. In fact, that was Grimm’s method, but I found the matchsticks I had on hand were too thin.

After that, attach your buildings to whatever you’re going to use as a base. I used cork tiles, as it’s easy to cut and shape. This next part gets messy, so be sure to wear latex or vinyl gloves. Using your fingers, spread a coating of wood filler or spackle over the building. Don’t worry about how messy it is, as adobe structures look rough. Make sure you avoid the areas you cut out and sculpted as you want those to show through later. I had both spackle and wood filler on hand, and I used both just to see the difference. Although the end results were much the same, I found that wood filler was easier to spread and work with, so I pretty much abandoned the spackle after the first building. But YMMV.

I decided not to use wood filler on the interior of the buildings, at least not these small ones. Instead I covered a few centimeters of the top interior, as this is the part that would be visible once the ceiling is in place. Remember when I said it wouldn’t be a big deal if you damaged the foamboard by waiting too long to remove the tape? It’s not, considering you’re covering the walls with wood filler and that will cover the tape, too. You can also leave the pins in, if you want.

Let it dry overnight. Then you’re ready to paint it. I used craft paint, and started by painting the walls a light brown color.

Once the brown dried, I drybrushed it with successively lighter shades of tan, ivory and eventually, very little white. I painted the “exposed” brick areas a dark brown color and added a wash of black to make the bricks stand out. Oh, and I also added a stovepipe to the roof with a bit of old metal tubing I had laying around forever, and inserted balsa wood doors. I scored the doors with a hobby knife to make individual planks, and painted them brown. You can see them in later pictures.

Once the walls were painted, I used a mixture of sand, ballast and wood flue to flock the bases. Then I painted the base brown, and built up the highlights with a lighter brown and ivory paint.

Quick tip: Don’t throw away your foamboard scraps. The piece above was made with some irregular leftovers. Put together, they make a good ruined adobe wall. I’ll be making more of these later.

I figured with the bases done, I could get creative by adding some things to them. I decided on some cacti. I bought this box of Pegasus Hobbies cacti for this purpose.

There’s enough bits in this box for over 60 little cacti (which is more than I’ll ever use). Painted up, they really look nice and add a bit of Old West flavor to the scenery. The box retails for $8.50, so not a bad deal.

I decided to make a well as a cool little flavor piece, or maybe even a game objective. I bought a couple of sheets of modelling plastic in a Spanish tile pattern at a hobby shop for about $6, and cut a bit to cover the well. Then I painted it with terracotta craft paint.

Here’s a picture of the finished well. The well itself is from the now defunct JR miniatures (which sucks…they made some great stuff!). The bucket was an accessory from an army toy.

Here’s the first batch of buildings in Mescalero. It didn’t take me very long to do…a few days between the cutting, gluing, filler application and painting. A fair amount of time was spent waiting for things to dry. As you can see, I added the balsa wood doors and painted them brown. Overall I’m pleased with the results.

What’s next? Well, I’m working on a few other buildings…a stables and a small church, complete with a bell tower and graveyard. I’d like the church to be the focal point of Mescalero. I’d also like to make some two story structures and maybe a couple more small buildings. I’m also toying with the idea of an outdoor mercado, and of course, more ruins. I’ll keep you all updated with more Mescalero as it takes shape.

It’s all about Gnomes.

With The Recent Demise of My AD&D Campaign, I have decided to share some of the miniatures I was holding back from the blog for fear my players would see them too early. I figured I’d start with the last (and final) adventure, in which the PCs explored the long-abandoned laboratory of an eccentric (but legendary) Gnome inventor.

These three gnomes hired the PCs to help them explore the lab in the hopes they could find something that would be of use in repelling the evil svirfneblin who were attacking their homeland in force. The miniatures, L-R, are Reaper’s Balto Burrowell (02510) and Marius Burrowell (02959), as well as an old-school Ral Partha Dwarf, repurposed as a gnome because he scaled nicely.

Of course, the opposition had already invaded the lab in the hopes of sacking it themselves. I decided to use Reaper’s Bloodstone Gnomes for svirfneblin. I went with a brownish skin tone as opposed to the blue of true BSGs. The majority were Bloodstone Pinners (06212). I also gave them a couple of Beetle Lancers as sergeants (14548), as well as a captain (Bata, Beetle Rider Captain 14568).

Along the way the PCs ran into some of the gnomish inventions, still active and guarding the lab from intruders. These Brass Arachnids and the Arachnid Swarm are from Wyrd’s Malifaux line. I actually never got to use the Brass Arachnids, but I’m quite happy with how they turned out. On a side note, the Arachnid Swarm was a cast iron bitch of fiddly parts that I never want to assemble again. I lost count of how many times a leg broke off. In fact, I had two Arachnid Swarms, and I gave up trying to assemble the second one. The Iron Golem is from Reaper (02728), and I can certainly find a use for him in other games as a robot or something. He was originally supposed to accompany the PCs in their quest. If you were paying attention, you may remember they’re already hanging out with an animated scarecrow. Scarecrow…Tin Man…off to (stop) a wizard…you get what I was going for here. all the above miniatures are based on junkyard bases from Taban.

Lastly is the big Boss miniature my friends never got to face. He’s Frank-n-Steam, from Armorcast. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be available any longer, although there are still some similar Frank models on the site. Being resin, he required a lot of filling and cleanup before I painted him, and even then he still shows some bubbles and seams. I scratch built this base out of junk and bitz I had laying around. And yes, that’s a guy’s face in the chest. Much like the Iron Golem, I can use this thing as a mech suit or a robot body for a mad scientist in SuperSystem or .45 Adventure, so I’m not that bummed out that he never made it into my AD&D game.

The Demise of a Campaign

I recently made the decision to pull the plug on my AD&D campaign after several game-free months. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. But it still sucks.

Some quick background: I got the idea for the campaign a few years back. Get my friends to re-create their favorite all-time character for AD&D 3.5, start at 1st level and go. I decided to keep it light and focus on the characters, so I created a world all my own and dumped them in it. It was to be a fairytale-themed game, where familiar characters and situations from classic fairytales-both Mother Goose and Brothers Grimm-often made appearances. I came up with a basic plot: an evil wizard places a curse of eternal darkness on the kingdom, and refuses to lift it unless the princess marries him. The only way he can be stopped is to gather ten special gems with divine properties, scattered all over the world. The characters have a year and a day to lift the curse.

Of course, in truth, the characters have as long as they need to lift the curse. I figured we’d just play the campaign out and once they got all the gems, we’d have the final confrontation. Kind of like in any video game RPG.

Like I said, I wanted to focus primarily on the characters. Each had a story to tell, and truth be told, I wanted the players to care more about them than they normally would, since these are their “favorite” characters. And I wanted to use miniatures, since I had never really used them successfully in a rpg before.

We played the game for a few years and we all seemed to have fun. But we never got very far in the overall story, because our game sessions grew farther and farther apart. In my opinion, here are two reasons I feel the campaign ultimately failed:

1. Too many players: I play with four other guys, all good friends of mine. We’re all around the same age: early forties. Some us have families, some of us don’t. You would think for a game like AD&D, a four-character party would be just about right. And it is. But the simple truth is that coordinating the schedules of five adult men should not be as hard as it has been. It seems that there are nights when 3-4 of us can get together, but the nights when all 5 of us were available and ready to play were rare, even when we attempted to stick to a rigid schedule planned well in advance. Ultimately, I was running the game, and I decided that unless all of us were available, I wouldn’t run my campaign. I wanted all my players in order to run the game, because I wanted all the characters there for the story.

2. Miniatures are a bitch: especially when you’re the only one buying and painting all of them. I look at all the miniatures I purchased over the last 2-3 years, and at least half of them were bought solely for this game. The expense is not the issue…it’s the time I needed to devote to painting. I chose some monsters I already had (like GW Orcs and Goblins, of which I had an entire WFB army) for the first leg of the campaign, which allowed me to paint miniatures I would need for down the road. The theory was that by the time we got to a particular point in the campaign, the miniatures would be ready. Of course it didn’t work out that way. Real life gets in the way of painting, too; and I needed to take a couple of brief hiatuses from running the game in order to catch up on the painting. In the meantime, someone else would run something. Even though using the miniatures was fun, the amount of time needed to buy and paint them took up a lot of time we could have been playing. And I don’t know about you, but when I HAVE to paint something, it seems like work and takes a lot of the joy out of painting. (I’d rather paint those Wargames Factory Greatcoats, but I need the three gnome NPCs the players are going to meet, as well as the Elven Swordmaster they’re going to encounter and the Otyugh they’re going to fight, all by Saturday night. This happened a lot.)

By the time I pulled the plug last month, we hadn’t played as a complete group since early November. Granted, the holidays are bad; but we always managed before. In addition I hadn’t painted one miniature since early December. Partly that’s because I got obsessed with Batman: Arkham City and played that until my fingers bled. But I stopped playing that in January and I didn’t return to painting until last week, mainly because I just didn’t feel like it.

I think the reality of our gaming situation is that we can no longer seem to commit to a long-term game as a group. Sure, we can play one-shots or short 2-3 session games, but the days of a long campaign in any rpg system seem to be behind us. That makes me sad. If you asked any one of us, we would all say we would like to play more. We all miss those weekly gaming sessions when we were in high school or college, but that’s just not us anymore. I guess its better-for our group, at least- to game when we can with whoever can make it, and play whatever we can; whether it’s miniatures skirmish, published adventures with pre-generated characters, or just a quick one-off here and there.

It’s better than not playing at all, right?

More Stuff for Sale

With the recent demise of my AD&D campaign, I have decided to downsize some of my miniatures, especially those that I will no longer have a need for now that the game is over, as well as those “Oooh, shiny!” bits I bought on impulse but will realistically never use.

Shipping will be in the cheapest USPS flat rate box I can fit it in. Of course I will combine shipping on multiple items, but I’m only shipping to the lower 48. Sorry!

First up: a mess o’ GW Lizardmen. 38 skinks, assembled and primed. 8 Saurus riders on cold ones, assembled and in some cases, partially painted (not by me). A Terradon rider, New in Blister, and Kroq-Gar on Carnosaur, New in Box, still shrink-wrapped. Plus, I’m throwing in a Saurian Idol from Hydra miniatures, just because I’ll now never use it and it’s a cool terrain piece, as well as a ton of lizardmen/skink bitz.. Buying this stuff new from GW would cost over $175, not including a bunch of skinks and the Saurian Idol. Of course, I’m not GW, so I’ll take $100 for everything, plus shipping.

Fourth: A Hordes Legion of Everblight Thragosh the Messiah, New in Box. Retails for $45, I’ll take $30 plus shipping.

Fifth: Some Malifaux odds and ends: Kirai Ankoku, New in Blister, and a full sprue with cards of Ten Thunders Archers. I bought these guys at Gen Con a couple of years ago, and I threw out the box so it would fit in my carry-on. But everything is there. About $40 retail for both, I’ll take $20 plus shipping.

Last: a Rogue Trader commemorative marine, in Finecast. It’s missing the banner pole. Came to me in a trade, and I don’t want it. $10 plus shipping and it’s yours.

Email me at angrypiper@angrypiper.com or PM me on The Miniatures Page if interested.

I’ll also entertain trades for the following:

GW Mordian Iron Guard troopers. No special or heavy weapons, just guardsmen.

28mm Old West miniatures: Blue Moon, Foundry, Copplestone, Brigade Games.

I’d like a few more of those Dwarf Wall Obstacles that came in Battle for Skull Pass, if anyone’s got them.

If offering cash money, you should be aware that I only take Paypal.

Thanks for looking!

Batman vs. Two-Face: A SuperSystem 3 Scenario and AAR

Well, ZeDecember didn’t really work out as planned, mainly because I got distracted halfway through it and failed utterly to rekindle my painting spark. Some of that was due to the holidays, some due to real life, and some due to the fact that I’ve been in a painting slump lately.

One thing I have been doing is re-reading lots of my old comics and playing copious amounts of Batman: Arkham City on PS3. Yeah, I know I’m late to the party, since this game came out in 2012, but I’ve never been one to rush out and buy a new game when I have dozens of games I haven’t even opened yet just laying around. Suffice it to say, however, that aside from playing PS3, I haven’t done all that much for the past couple of months.

In an effort to get my ass in gear, I came up with a scenario for SuperSystem 3 involving a “Year One” Batman and Captain Gordon vs. Two-Face. Even Year One Batman is pretty damn formidable (my build came in at 120 points) despite his inexperience, and Two-Face just isn’t all that powerful a villain (my build came in at 71 points), so I had to tweak the rules a bit to make it more of a challenge for Batman. Here is what I came up with:

The Scenario: Two-Face decided to rob the Gotham Savings and Trust building. Actually, the coin decided for him. He put together two squads of highly trained goons, came up with two plans, and went to work double-quick.

A specialized GCPD SWAT team, led by the arrogant and trigger-happy Lieutenant Branden, arrives on the scene shortly afterward. Also rushing to the scene, hoping to avoid the certain collateral damage that is to occur when Branden and his team is unleashed, is Captain James Gordon. But neither the SWAT team nor Two-Face counted in the new player in Gotham City: The Batman.

Forces: One player controls Two-Face and his two squads of goons. The other player controls Batman and Captain Gordon. The SWAT team begins play under the control of the hero player, but that may change (see below).

Setup: The board represents a section of Gotham City. The buildings are mostly not important, but there needs to be a building big enough to represent a bank, complete with interior. The bank has 2 exits and several windows. Two getaway cars are parked outside the bank on either side. There should be a separate escape route off the board for each getaway car.

Deployment: Two-Face and his goons begin play inside the bank, looting. Gordon begins in a squad car on one corner of the opposite table edge, while Branden and his SWAT team deploy on the other corner. Batman may be deployed anywhere on the board, but must begin at least 20” from the bank.

Objectives: Two-Face wins if he can loot the bank and make his escape off the board by one of the predetermined escape routes, or if he kills Batman. Batman wins by stopping Two-Face.

Special Rules:

TWO-FACE

The Coin: Any time the Two-Face player wishes to do something where there are two clear alternatives, he must flip a coin and let the coin decide. Examples include choosing which way to exit the bank, choosing which getaway car to use, choosing which escape route, choosing who to shoot at, etc. The only exception to this is that Two-Face can always elect to shoot at Batman without tossing a coin.

Two Squads: In order to give Two-Face better odds than he would otherwise enjoy, he is allowed two squads of Veteran henchmen for this scenario.

Looting the Bank: At the start of the game, roll a d3. The result is how many rounds Two-Face and his goons must spend looting the bank before they can attempt their escape. Looting the Bank is a Difficult (2) Mind roll. Two-Face doesn’t have to make the roll (but he has a better chance of doing it than his henchmen).

THE COPS

SWAT Team: Lt. Branden is a bit of a psycho, and is just as likely to shoot at Batman than at Two-Face or his goons. If the SWAT team ever has line of sight to Batman, they activate immediately and open fire. This happens outside the normal activation sequence and control of the SWAT team reverts to the Two-Face player for as long as they have line of sight to Batman.

Gordon Takes Command: If Captain Gordon can get within 10” and has LOS to the SWAT team, he can effectively take command and the SWAT team will not fire on Batman. This command is lost if Gordon ever leaves command distance, however.

BATMAN

Batman won’t attack cops no matter how much he may want to.

“What are you??!” Batman has a special power for this scenario: Fear Aura. Anyone in short range must make s Difficult (2) Resolve roll or be afraid. Batman gets +1D to Attack and Defense rolls against models he has frightened until they make their Resolve roll. Two-Face is immune to this power.

RESULTS:

I gamed this scenario a couple of weeks back. Sorry, no pictures this time. I played Two-Face, while my friend took the role of Batman and the cops. Although it was fun, it had its share of problems.

First, it’s not all that hard to keep Batman out of the SWAT team’s view, so he never had to worry too much about getting shot at by Branden and his men. This could be further abused by the fact that the same player has control of the SWAT team and Batman at the start of the game, so if they wanted to be unscrupulous about it, they could basically ensure that Batman stayed far away from the SWAT team. (My friend didn’t do this, however. He’s a good sport.)

Second, the game quickly degenerated into the SWAT team and Gordon firing away at Two-Face’s goons (and vice-versa) for most of the game, without either side really doing any significant damage to the other. I think this is because they were too similar. They had the same Vitality, similar stats, and they were all Veterans.

Third, even with a big screen of goons to hide behind, Two-Face is just no match for Batman. Although he managed to flee the bank, Batman brought him down in short order without too much trouble. Two-Face spent three turns just trying to break out of Batman’s Entangle power while Batman waded through his goons without breaking a sweat.

It was fun, however, and we both enjoyed the randomness of the coin tosses and the moment when Batman got to use his Fear Aura on the goons in the bank.

ZeDecember Week One : Crazy Oscar!

In honor of ZeDecember (courtesy of SamSagace’s blog) , I have painted a new zombie apocalypse survivor: Crazy Oscar!

Oscar wasn’t exactly sane (or hygienic) before the dead started walking around and eating people, but he’s even less so now. The miniature is from Mega Miniatures; however with the recent selloff of that company, I have no idea what company now owns the rights to the mold. I tried to paint him to look as dirty as possible (as a guy named Oscar who lives in garbage should), so I used a lot of black and brown washes over my highlights.

Although you can’t really see it, I also tried a new technique with Oscar: I used MIG productions rust pigments on his axe-head and on the old tire on his base. This dust looks different than a rust-colored paint (my go-to rust paint was GW’s Tin Bitz) , and I like the results.

I posed him with an Armorcast Dumpster and Trash Pile, just because.

Ill-Met in Lankhmar

Figured I’d post a few of my painting projects from a few years ago. First up is a duo likely familiar to any classic Sword-and-Sorcery devotees out there: Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser!

I’ve loved the Lankhmar stories since I was introduced to the characters in TSR’s Deities and Demigods, way back when I was a kid. Both of these are Reaper miniatures, sculpted by the legendary Sandra Garrity. The Mouser is (02034) Kurff the Swift, while Fafhrd is (02152) Fafnir of Kjord (an homage if ever there was one). These miniatures together would make a very cool diorama if done properly, with the Mouser preparing to scale a wall, and Fafhrd covering his back. Unfortunately, I painted Fafhrd years ago and the Mouser only a few weeks ago, which is why they’re based differently (and why I think the Mouser looks better.) I’m not wild about this picture. I can’t account for the shiny, glossy look on Fafhrd. Must be the camera flash, as I never use any kind of glossy paint or sealant and he certainly doesn’t look shiny in real life.

Up next is another duo, from my current AD&D campaign, the Tears of Yevona. This is Scarlet and Rouge, a pair of renowned “crime-fighters”. Many bards have written songs extolling their deeds of derring-do. Unfortunately, every time they’ve appeared in my campaign, the PCs have had to rescue them from someone or something. (“Of course, a few more minutes and we would have managed to free ourselves and overcome our dastardly captors. But your aid is appreciated nonetheless, comrades!”)

I actually forget which one is Scarlet and which is Rouge, so I’ll just call the girl Rouge. Rouge is another Sandra Garrity Reaper sculpt, (02006) Sidrith, Sword Sister; while Scarlet is (02430) Rictur Deihn, Assassin, sculpted by Bobby Jackson. (I used Rictur Deihn as a character miniature myself in a GURPS fantasy game years ago, and found a new use for him as an NPC in my AD&D campaign.) I painted both of these several years back. I think they could use more facial shading, but overall I’m ok with how they turned out.

Dead Dick's Tavern and Temporary Lodging

The Angry Piper's miniatures and gaming blog.