Tag Archives: Super Mission Force

Terror of the Toyman! Part 2

The Scenario: Just in time for Christmas, The Toyman has planted a bomb somewhere in the town square! He scattered piles of Christmas presents around, which naturally attracted the attention of the locals. The bomb will go off soon, making this a Christmas to remember…unless Superman can stop it!

Superman’s goal is to find and defuse the bomb before it goes off, and to protect as many civilians as possible. The Toyman’s goal is to make sure the bomb goes off by delaying Superman long enough for it to detonate.

Game length: The game lasts a maximum of 12 rounds, or as long as it takes for the bomb to detonate or be discovered.

Setup: The play area is a 4′ x 4′ section of  a park or town square. There are several piles of Christmas presents scattered around the area, as well as a few structures, monuments and buildings. Each of these is a possible location for the bomb. Randomly place a face-down counter under each possible location. All of these counters should be blank except for one, which should represent the bomb. (Obviously, if you’re playing this game solo, as I did, make sure you don’t know the location of the bomb.)

Scatter 6 civilian models or counters around the board. Each one represents a hapless civilian who has wandered into harm’s way and who must be protected!

Superman deploys in the middle of the board. The Toyman and the clockwork soldiers don’t deploy at the start of the game. Keep them off the board for now.

Special Rules:

The Super Mission Force turn sequence is slightly altered for this scenario. It is as follows:

  1. Move civilians.
  2. Draw one card each from the location and event decks.
  3. Place hazards or resolve effects of cards.
  4. Determine initiative.
  5. Activate normally.

Civilians: Per the SMF rules, civilians move 4″ in a random direction at the start of the turn. If a civilian wanders off the table edge, he or she has made it to safety. Civilians can also be escorted off the table edge if Superman moves into base contact with them and then moves to any table edge. Civilians have a Body of 2 and are quite vulnerable to attack.

Card decks: This game uses a special card activation mechanic to randomly determine when and where hazards (usually malicious toys) appear. Using a standard deck of cards, make two separate decks (red and black). The red deck should contain as many cards as you have locations (in my case, 7). Assign each location a corresponding card (i.e. Ace = fountain, 2 = Church, etc.) The black deck needs to contain 12 cards, including a Joker. (Ace-Jack, plus the Joker). These cards represent events or hazards that will take place. Feel free to make up whatever events you want based on the Toyman’s hazards (see below). You can use hazards similar to mine or make your own.  The Joker card represents the bomb’s detonation, and you should be sure that at least 4 cards are “no event” to give Superman some breathing room.

My black deck event list looked like this:

A-3: nothing happens.

4: Teddy appears.

5: Santa bot appears.

6: Robots appear.

7: Planes appear.

8-9: Clockwork soldiers (Toyman’s henchmen) regenerate (if they are on the board and damaged), or nothing happens

10-J: Presents shuffle!  The Toyman has made use of tricky teleportation technology! Randomly swap the places of two stacks of presents, being sure to move the counters underneath with them. This may mean that Superman may have to revisit a section of the board he has already scanned. Depending on the location of the bomb, this may also mean the bomb has moved!

Joker: The bomb explodes! If this card is drawn before Turn 4, ignore the result and shuffle it back into the deck. Also, when this card is drawn, ignore the corresponding red location card. The bomb explodes wherever it is on the board.

Hazards: Hazards deploy at whatever location is drawn that round. Hazards are there to delay Superman and to cause mayhem. Hazards do not get an initiative roll of their own, which means that until Toyman arrives, Superman automatically will act before any deployed Hazards. A hazard will always attack Superman if he is within range of its attacks or within its charging distance, as appropriate. If not, it will attack any civilian it can reach instead. If neither Superman or any civilian is a viable target, the hazard will move towards Superman at the fastest speed possible. Generally speaking, hazards pose little threat to Superman other than forcing him to spend valuable time dealing with them when he should be looking for the bomb. But hazards are very dangerous to civilians!

Toyman: Toyman deploys at the end of Turn 3. He can appear wherever you want, but I deployed him via a huge present that parachuted into the center of the board. He rolls for initiative as normal starting on Turn 4. Prior to this, Superman automatically has initiative over any Hazards that may have activated.

Toyman also has some special characteristics for this scenario. First, he functions as both a character and a henchman group. When he activates, his clockwork soldier bodyguards activate with him. They move as a unit and can make use of concentrated fire. In addition, the clockwork soldiers function as a type of armor. All damaging attacks on Toyman must target the clockwork henchmen first, removing them as casualties before the Toyman loses any Body. Once all henchmen are destroyed, Toyman takes damage as normal.

Lastly, Toyman can fix any damaged toy (other than his clockwork soldiers) on a successful Chance roll if he moves into base contact with it. Return the toy to full capacity. It can activate as normal on the following round.

Superman: Until the Toyman deploys at the end of Turn 3, Superman automatically has initiative. It should be noted that with Superman’s Speed and Flight powers, he has a Move of 60″, which means he can reach any point on the board from any other point on the board in 1 round. This is good, because he’s going to need it. He has a lot of ground to cover and not much time.

Usually, Perception checks are opposed Free Actions, but not in this scenario. The Toyman has encased his bomb in lead, which means Superman can’t simply use his x-ray vision to spot it. In order to scan for the bomb, Superman must get in base contact with a possible location. Then he must use a Special Action to scan for the bomb. This is automatically successful; if Superman scans for the bomb, reveal the counter at the location. If it’s blank, the bomb is somewhere else. If it’s the bomb, Superman automatically destroys it by whatever method you feel is appropriate (heat vision, freezing it with his super-breath, hurling it into space, etc.)

Scoring: Superman gains 1 point for every civilian he rescues or who exits off the board, and get 5 points if he finds and destroys the bomb. Toyman gets 1 point for every civilian injured, and 5 points if the bomb explodes. Thus it is possible for Superman to still win the scenario if he saves all the civilians before the bomb goes off.

Next post: the After Action Report!!!

Terror of the Toyman! Part 1

When it comes to superheroes, Superman isn’t one of my personal favorites. Of course, if I could be any superhero, I’d definitely pick Superman for x-ray vision alone (but having super-strength, invulnerability and flight wouldn’t suck either).  Despite this I never really found him all that interesting on his own.

That’s because it seems there are only three main ways to challenge Superman’s obvious superiority. Take away his powers (à la kryptonite), hit him with magic or mental manipulation (à la Mr. Mxyzptlk), or just be tougher and stronger than him (à la Doomsday).

The Toyman doesn’t really fit any of these criteria, and yet, he’s primarily considered a “Superman” villain.

For those not all that familiar with the Toyman, I could write a brief description of the character here. Or, I could just block quote and attribute a perfectly good description that needs no editing or embellishment. So, from DAMN Good Coffee, the blog of  Mr. Charles Skaggs, I present his description of the Toyman:

Created in 1943 by Don Cameron and Ed Dobrotka, The Toyman first appeared in Action Comics (vol.1) #64 as Winslow Percival Schott, a criminal who used various toy-themed devices and gimmicks when committing crimes. After Superman’s continuity was relaunched following the Crisis on Infinite Earths event miniseries and John Byrne’s The Man of Steel miniseries, The Toyman was reimagined in Superman (vol.2) #13 as an unemployed British toymaker who blames Lex Luthor for being fired from a toy company.

Years later, The Toyman became a darker, more sinister character who abducted and murdered Adam Morgan, the son of Cat Grant.  The character was reimagined once again in Action Comics (vol.1) #865 as a toymaker who lived with his wife Mary and agrees to sell his shop after Mary is killed in a car accident.  After learning that the buyer lied to him, Schott proceeds to bomb the business with an explosive teddy bear and Mary is revealed as one of his first robotic creations.

I can add nothing of substance to Mr. Skaggs’s words. That’s pretty much the history of the Toyman.

However, my favorite version of the Toyman is this one from the DC animated universe. This version is the unnamed son of Winslow Schott, and is obsessed with revenge against mob boss Bruno Mannheim, who he blames for his father’s imprisonment and eventual death, and his own miserable foster home upbringing as a result. He wears this creepy doll head and you never see his real face.

Anyway, about a year ago, I got an idea for a Supersystem 3 scenario featuring the Toyman. But, now I play Super Mission Force pretty much exclusively, and SMF being predominantly a game of Supers combat, I was in a quandary as to how to effectively use Toyman against Superman. After all, he has no super powers, and Superman could pretty easily wipe the floor with him in a straight-up fight. Toyman could, of course, have some super-tough toys for Superman to brawl with, but that just seemed kind of boring and not very imaginative.

I decided that Toyman isn’t really a threat to Superman, but he could easily be a threat to normal people. Protecting normal folks is what Superman is all about, so what if, for the purposes of the scenario, Superman had to protect as many civilians as possible? An idea took shape…

But first, if I was going to use the Toyman, I would need some toys. Behold what I found at the local dollar store:

For a grand total of $3.oo, I purchased these cool rock’em, sock’em robot finger puppets and some cars I could cannibalize. Some nippy cutters and superglue later, here is the result:

Instant toy-themed robot menace!

I did a quick search for a Heroclix version of Toyman. Sadly, it seems Wizkids don’t have the rights to the DC animated universe (Knight Models does, I think…) so I couldn’t get a version of the doll-head wearing Toyman that I like. I had to settle for this guy:

Not a bad start, and it naturally got me thinking about Christmas, which would be an ideal time of year for Toyman to start some trouble. With that in mind, I did a quick repaint and scoured my miniatures for other things that could be used as deadly toys.

My repaint is in the center. I purchased some (sadly OOP) Parroom Station clockwork soldiers (in the back) from Matt Beauchamp of Hydra Miniatures, and I took advantage of Armorcast’s 20% off Christmas sale to pick up the Santa bot. I already owned Wyrd’s Teddy from the Malifaux line.  I just needed to paint him, and I did.

Turns out these Hydra War Rocket Galacteer fighters are just the right scale to double as deadly toy planes. So I planned on using them, too.

If Christmas was to be the backdrop for the scenario, I would need some thematic scenery, like piles of presents! I thought a ring box would make a good giant present (from which something deadly could emerge). I bought some wood cubes from an art store and glued them together in random formations. A little red, white and green craft paint and I’d be good to go.

I figure once I’m done with this scenario, I can repaint the blocks to use as crates and boxes for warehouse scatter terrain.

Stay tuned! Scenario to follow next post!

Gotham Girls

 

It’s funny how sometimes projects get completed without any clear plan whatsoever. From the crime-filled alleys of Gotham City: three of Batman’s most notorious femme fatales: Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Lady Shiva!

These miniatures were in the freezer bin wherein all the Heroclix models I intend to repaint and rebase currently reside. A couple of months back I was painting up some Hasslefree martial artists, and I thought a Heroclix Lady Shiva might make a good addition to the theme. I fetched her from the freezer and rebased her, intending on repainting her whenever I got the chance. No rush, you understand. Just a miniature to add to when I had some extra paint I needed to use.

Then I picked up some miniatures in a Craigslist lot that included these AD&D hyenas. I immediately thought of Harley Quinn, and into the freezer I went yet again. A quick rebasing and she joined Lady Shiva in the side pile.

Then, while playing Arkham Knight on the PS4, I thought about the Heroclix Catwoman figure who was cooling her heels in the freezer. I took her out and rebased her with this Reaper cat familiar, and off to the side pile she went.

As fate would have it, these miniatures got painted at pretty much the same pace: a dab here and there while I did other things. Then one afternoon I took them out of the side pile and finished all of them off. I added some highlights and shading to the pre-painted hyenas and the Gotham Girls were done! I’m not wild about how Lady Shiva’s raccoon eyes look, but she’s ok for tabletop gaming. Maybe I’ll touch her up a bit. I’m also thinking of adding some gloss varnish to Catwoman’s costume and whip, but I’m not sure yet.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering about the conspicuous absence of a certain red-headed botanist-turned-arch criminal, all I can say is stay tuned. She’ll be here soon!

 

Tick, Tock…Time to Feed the Croc!

I find the Knight Models 32mm Batman miniatures to be terrific sculpts, but they’re generally too pricey for me to justify their purchase, except in rare cases.  I caved and bought the Frank Miller Batman, for example, because I just had to have it. Same thing with Killer Croc, here.

This version of Croc is based on the Batman: Arkham series of video games by Rocksteady. In total, there are four games. Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins (a prequel), and Arkham Knight, which closes out the series. Croc appears in every game as a boss except for Arkham City, where he is mentioned, but doesn’t actually appear. (Technically, he doesn’t appear in Arkham Knight unless you purchase the DLC Season of Infamy, which is so good and so worth it I don’t know why you wouldn’t.) In the comics, Croc started out as a big ex-wrestler with a skin condition. He has since devolved through a half-man/half-reptile all the way to a full blown human/dinosaur hybrid complete with a tail!

This version most accurately reflects Croc’s appearance in Arkham Asylum (no tail yet), the first game in the series. Much like the game, I love the miniature, too. I posed him with a couple of reptilian friends. The one on the left is a child’s toy I got at a flea market somewhere. I’m pretty sure I got two, but I can only find one.  The other one is a large Dungeons and Dragons Dire Crocodile. I bought it for use as a Pulp monster, but when I decided to paint Killer Croc I thought it was a good excuse to paint the Dire Crocodile as well.

The Dire Crocodile is quite large. Here he is next to a 28mm Reaper Inkeeper. I built a lip of green stuff around his base and applied scenic water with an eyedropper (sayonara, eyedropper). Three days later, the water still hasn’t cured and it sticks to everything it touches. Hugely annoying. Looks ok, though. It will look better when I can add some flock/leaves to the rim of the base, whenever the “water” dries.

Speaking of huge, even scaled at the 32mm range, this Killer Croc is gigantic. Here he is posed with a Heroclix version of himself. (I’m a big fan of Heroclix for many reasons, but I think everyone seeing this picture can understand why I splurged on the Knight  version of Croc.)

And here he is with a Reaper Ogre, a Heroclix Hulk, and a Heroclix Question. (Incidentally, here are my repaints of Hulk and The Question.) The Question model should give a good indication of how a “normal” 28mm model looks next to Croc.

This is somewhat problematic. Croc is big, but he’s nowhere near the size and mass of the Hulk. From a scale perspective, I find this irksome. Doubtful I would ever use them in the same scenario, but still…

I tried to repaint a Heroclix Solomon Grundy recently, but standing him next to Croc was laughable. In the comics, they’re about the same size; so too in the Knight Models range. But mixing and matching Knight Models with Heroclix may work fine with normal sized figures, but not so well with big guys like this.

Which means I’m probably going to have to buy the Knight Models version of Grundy. And while I’m at it, their version of the Hulk. But at $35 apiece, that’s a lot of cheddar for only two miniatures.

Luckily, ’tis the season. Black Friday is in two days….who knows?

We Are the Champions

Here’s my latest team for Super Mission Force: The Champions of Los Angeles! L-R: Darkstar, Ghost Rider, Angel, Hercules, Iceman, and Black Widow!

The original Champions debuted in the mid-70’s, and to call them a lackluster team would be an understatement. Despite some interesting roster choices, the Champions never really gelled as a title or as a team. Nonetheless, I figured I’d give them a little repainting love. (Actually, that kind of happened by accident. I had painted up Black Widow and Darkstar for unrelated projects and realized I had one-third of the team. I decided to paint the others up when I could.)

Angel isn’t completely faithful to the Champions version, which is a good thing. Angel’s costume back then was one of the most hideous costumes ever to grace a superhero (look it up). This one is much better, and I am a big fan of this particular sculpt of Angel. Keen-eyed visitors to Dead Dick’s Tavern may recognize some superhero overlap: Darkstar was painted some time ago along with the rest of the Soviet Super Soldiers for my Breeder Bombs campaign, while Iceman was also done a while back. Last post he made an appearance as one-third of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

Both Iceman and Ghost Rider contained that translucent plastic I loathe so much on Heroclix models. With Iceman, it’s his whole body and the ice slide he rode in on. It wasn’t much of a big deal to just dry-brush him with white and build a base out of frosted sea-glass, the same technique I used on the Penguin and Mr. Freeze. The base took longer than the model itself. (As a side note, I’m particularly happy with the way Hercules looks. His original clix paint job was underwhelming, to say the least.)

Ghost Rider had that translucent yellow plastic everywhere on the model where there is flame. I painted proper flames on his head and bike and this is the result. Originally, I thought this model was a tad too small to be in scale with the rest, but it’s not so bad after all. (The whole time I was painting him I was humming the Rollins Band’s version of “Ghost Rider Motorcycle Hero”.) I contemplated adding a chain, but then remembered this is the original Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider, so no chain needed…which turned out to be good, since I was considering buying some spiked chains from Reaper, only to find a pack of them costs 10 bucks! A bit steep for bits I will probably only use once. I also thought about making the flame trail go all the way to the end of the base by sculpting extra flames out of green stuff, but I lack the confidence and skill to do so. Oh well.

I’m much more likely to use the individual models in games rather than basing a scenario around this particular team, but you never know what could happen!

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends!

 

I was born a bit too late for the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, although I watched it in syndication faithfully. When I was a young lad, this is what we had for a Spider-Man cartoon: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends! The problem, of course, is that that’s a terrible title for what turned out to be a terrible cartoon, and Spider-Man’s friends were not all that amazing.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends aired on Saturday mornings here in the USA, back when they played cartoons on Saturday mornings. It starred the voice talents of June Foray as Aunt May and the great Frank Welker as Iceman. It also featured narration courtesy of smilin’ Stan Lee. And yet, it still sucked.

The series ran for 24 episodes, and is technically the first appearance of Firestar (whoopee!).  I say it ran for 24 episodes, but I’m pretty sure my local network affiliate only had access to two of those episodes, because it seemed like they chose to alternate between these two episodes every week. I speak of season 1, episode 5: SWARM!, and season 1, episode 7: Videoman. I’ve seen both of these godawful episodes more times than I care to remember. Until recently, they were available on Netflix, but that seems to no longer be the case here in the USA.

The series had a couple of ok episodes, one featuring Captain America, Sub-Mariner and Dr. Strange and one featuring the Uncanny X-Men (in which Wolverine was inexplicably Australian). But all in all, it was mostly about Iceman and Spidey fighting over Firestar’s attentions. Kinda like if Firestar was Archie, and Spidey and Iceman were Betty and Veronica. Oh, and they had a cocker spaniel who was even more annoying than they were.

Anyway, I have had a painted Spider-Man for a while, and I recently painted up Iceman for another project. So I figured I’d paint Firestar for the hell of it. And here they are.

 

Watch out, true believers! It’s Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends!

 

The Invaders!

A few months ago, my fellow supers-enthusiast Carrion Crow hosted the Forgotten Heroes challenge. I submitted the Liberty Legion, which got me thinking about all those great WWII-era comics: Sgt. Rock, Our Army at War, GI Combat, and of course, the Invaders! I have always loved the Invaders; in fact, I love almost anything where Nazis are the main bad guys (they’re just so suited for it).

I dug this old photograph out of my grandfather’s trunk in the attic…

From the battlefields of WWII, America’s first super-team: The Invaders!!!  From left-right, Toro, the (original) Human Torch, Bucky, Captain America, and Namor, the Sub-Mariner; with special guest Sgt. Nick Fury (sans the rest of the Howling Commandos)!

The Human Torch is a Heroclix Fantastic Four Human Torch. Since there’s very little difference in their appearance, I decided he could pass for his WWII predecessor. Toro is yet another Human Torch miniature, this time from TSR’s old Marvel Super Heroes line. I’ve used some of these old TSR miniatures before in my X-Men team. The TSR Torch miniature is noticeably smaller than the Clix version, which makes him ideally suited to represent the original Torch’s sidekick, Toro.

You may remember Bucky from the Liberty Legion post. Captain America is a “unique” Heroclix version of Cap from the first ever Infinity Challenge set. It’s essentially the same sculpt as the regular Cap, but with a kite shield instead of the round one. I painted him a brighter blue than my other Cap to distinguish the two.

Side note: to make the flame and water effects on the bases, I used a pretty simple trick. I applied some Elmer’s wood filler to the base (wear gloves unless you enjoy having it on your fingers for days) and teased it into shape. Let it dry overnight. When painted, it looks pretty good!

I actually painted “Nick Fury” a few years ago, but I couldn’t resist including him with the rest of the Invaders. This is Sgt. Mack Torrey (50120) a Reaper miniature from their Chronoscope line. He just looks so battle-weary and badass that I knew he had to be my Sgt. Fury.

Now I need to get some cheap 28mm Germans and play some skirmishes!

 

Forgotten Heroes: The Super Mission Force Builds

As I said a few posts back, I first encountered the Liberty Legion in an adventure for TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes RPG that was published in Dragon magazine #104. Although the adventure was pretty good, I was surprised by how low-powered the Legion was by “modern” standards. Even the other “big” WWII-era supers team, the Invaders (watch this space soon!) far outclassed the Liberty Legion in power level. Nonetheless, I sought out all the appearances (up until then, anyway) of the Liberty Legion in Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight and The Invaders, and I became a fan.

Painting and converting the team for Forgotten Heroes has been a blast. As promised, true believers, I present some background and the SMF gaming statistics for the Liberty Legion!

With a couple of minor exceptions, these profiles and builds are based only on what I knew about the Legion as presented in the Dragon adventure. In other words, more “current” versions of these characters probably exist (see Carrion Crow’s explanation as to why Thin Man uses knives nowadays in the comments section of this post), but these are the versions I am familiar with (and would use if I was gaming with the Legion).

First up: Miss America. Madeline Joyce got struck by lightning while visiting a lighthouse. When she woke up, she found out her “powers” had awakened. After the War she and Whizzer got married and had a son, Nuklo. That didn’t turn out so well.

Red Raven’s parents were killed when their plane crashed into a floating city of Inhumans called the Bird People. (Don’t you hate when people just park their floating cities anywhere? You’d think Red’s parents would notice something as big as a city before they crashed into it, but perhaps they were the worst pilots in the world.) The Bird People raised him and gave him a bird costume. Then he joined the Liberty Legion. After the war, he placed himself and the Bird People in suspended animation. He woke up, fought the X-Men, went insane and committed suicide when he discovered the Bird People were all dead due to a malfunction in the life support. Ahhh, happy endings.

Patriot was a reporter for the Daily Bugle who quit his job to put on a costume and root out Nazi agents working in America. He had no super powers other than a good right hook. As his name suggests, he was quite patriotic and made stirring radio broadcasts to bolster the war effort. He was a founding member of the Liberty Legion. After the second Captain America fell in battle, Patriot took up the mantle.

Whizzer got bitten by a cobra when he was a boy. A mongoose killed the cobra (of course). Then, for no sound medical reason,  his scientist father injected Whizzer with some of the mongoose’s blood, which inexplicably gave Whizzer his super speed. Then his father died. He and Miss America joined the All-Winner’s squad and got married after the war.

Under Jack Frost’s background in the TSR adventure, it simply says: “Jack Frost’s personal history at this time is unknown to anyone.” Works for me. Anyway, his powers basically make him a much less cool (pardon the pun) version of Iceman.

Thin Man discovered a lost city in the Himalayas where people can flatten themselves as thin as paper. Why they do this is not really explained, but they gave him a chemical that let him do the same and also made him age so slowly he’s effectively immortal. Somewhere along the line he picked up a special plane that only he can pilot safely (presumably because the controls require flattening and stretching of the appendages in order to operate).

Blue Diamond, along with Pink Heart, Yellow Moon, Orange Star, Green Clover and (later) Purple Horseshoe, formed the ill-fated super team the Lucky Charms. Blue Diamond was the only survivor when a homicidal cannibalistic leprechaun slaughtered and ate the remaining members of his team. Actually, his true origin is almost as stupid as that. He was a normal guy standing next to a huge diamond when it suddenly exploded, embedding millions of diamond shards in his skin. This gave him super strength and durability, rather than shredding him to bits (which is the much more likely outcome when the human body is bombarded with diamond shards).

Like Patriot, Spirit of ’76 has no super powers and got his start fighting Nazi espionage at home. Unlike Patriot, Spirit of ’76 is a complete douchebag in a really stupid costume. Early in the war, he went to England and joined the Crusaders to fight the Nazis. He is an awkward and constant reminder of the American War of Independence (from the British), he has no super powers, and he wears a really stupid costume. How Union Jack didn’t constantly kick his ass is a mystery to me. He eventually becomes the second Captain America when the original Cap disappears (after being frozen in a block of ice).

Bucky needs no introduction. He’s Captain America’s sidekick! At least until he “died in an explosion” only to resurface as the Winter Soldier decades later.

Finally, Union Jack is Lord James Falsworth, a peer of the realm and brother to bloodsucking vampire Lord John Falsworth (Baron Blood). He was active during WWI, then resurfaced in WWII, offering his home to the Invaders to use as a base during the war. His brother threw a giant rock on him, effectively ending his career as Union Jack. Luckily, his son eventually took over. Union Jack is just a badass. He has no super powers, but packs a Webley. And his costume is cool.

Here are my Super Mission Force builds:

Miss America (Wild Card) Minor: Leaping, Super Strength, Enhanced Senses, Iron Will

(I really had to work to make a version of Miss America that (just barely) doesn’t suck. Her ONLY power in the TSR game was that she could levitate for up to 2 hours and she can make “controlled leaps”. She’s not even particularly good at fighting. In other words, Wonder Woman she ain’t. She should probably be a Street-Level archetype, but I pored over her pre-Marvel bio and found some minor, vague mentions of other powers possibly retconned out by the time she joined the Legion. It mentioned super strength, and the ability to “project X-Ray energy.” I guess this could be power blasts or enhanced senses. I chose the latter.)

Red Raven (Wild Card) Minor: Armor, Flight, Power Blasts, Reflection

Red Raven’s powers all come from his suit. He can shoot frikkin’ lasers out of his wings and use them as a shield.

Patriot (Brawler): Major: Scrapper, Minor: Clever, Melee Specialist

Patriot has no powers. He’s just good at hitting things.

Whizzer (Speedster): Major: Speed, Minor: Melee Specialist, Super Agility

Whizzer is really good at using his speed powers to their maximum potential in combat.

Jack Frost (Blaster) Major: Power Blasts, Minor: Armor, Entangle, Flight

Jack is a poor man’s Iceman. He can use his ice powers to travel on slides as a form of Flight.

Thin Man (Super) Major: Metamorph:Elasticity, Minor: Resistance, Savant, Immortal

A “super” archetype only because of game mechanics (i.e. power slots). Thin Man isn’t really that impressive.

Blue Diamond (Brick) Major: Super-Strength, Minor: Armor, Resistance

Blue Diamond is a tank, pure and simple.

Spirit of ’76 (Brawler) Major: Scrapper, Minor: Armor, Melee Specialist

About the only thing good about Spirit of ’76’s costume is that he has a bulletproof cape. This is unfortunate, as it protects him from getting shot.

Bucky (Brawler) Major: Scrapper, Minor: Power Blasts, Grenades

I thought about making Bucky a Wild Card or even a Street Level archetype, but then I remembered he was a soldier who was trained by Captain America.

Union Jack (Brawler) Major: Scrapper, Minor: Power Blasts, Melee Specialist.

Another non-powered ass-kicker, only British this time.

In the comics, the Liberty Legion often faced off against low-powered goons and tons of henchmen. This was ideal, as most members were also low-powered. This works for roleplaying games like the old TSR Marvel game, but in Super Mission Force the heroes can easily dispense with hordes of henchmen. They’re actually more powerful in SMF because the henchmen rules favor the heroes. Also, there are a lot of Brawlers in the Liberty Legion, and Scrapper is one of the best powers in the game (IMO). This means the Legion would probably do fairly well in Super Mission Force combat.

Black Tree Design is having a 50% off sale on WWII miniatures until July 4th and I’m tempted to splurge and buy a bunch or Wehrmacht. The only thing that’s stopping me is that I don’t game WWII, so I would only be buying them as henchmen for this team to face off against. I think some of the mechs and walkers from Dust Tactics and AT-43 might work as opposition, too…guess we’ll see if I take the plunge or not!

 

 

Forgotten Heroes: The Liberty Legion: The Conversions!

Yesterday I posted the repainted members of the Liberty Legion. But of course, they don’t really count as far as Forgotten Heroes is concerned…they’re just an added bonus! The remaining heroes, to my knowledge, have never been released in miniature form, and thus they required the conversions below.

Before we start, a big thanks to Russ Dunaway from Old Glory miniatures for very generously providing me with some 28mm heads wearing three-cornered hats. I thought I might use one in one of my conversions (see below), but it turns out they were a little too small to scale with Heroclix. Still, his kindness is most appreciated, so I say again: thank you, Russ!

Next, a couple of disclaimers. First, I am not a sculptor. I use green stuff to fill gaps, and I am in awe of anyone who can work with that substance without it sticking to their fingers and making a mess. Yes, I know enough to wet my hands and use color shapers, but I still suck at it. Second, I am (and have always been) terrible at painting anything freehand. Give me a design that’s sculpted onto a miniature and I’m good. Make me draw it with a paintbrush and nine times out of ten it’s going to look like complete ass. Please bear all this in mind and don’t judge my efforts too harshly!

First up, the Patriot!

For the Patriot’s body, I chose the Wrecker. He had the gloves I needed and his costume was such that it could easily serve for the Patriot with a quick repaint. Trimming away his crowbar gave him a two-fisted tough guy stance (tough for a guy with no superpowers). For his head I used one off of a Kree Warrior. The Kree helmet has a central fin similar to Patriot’s cowl, so it was a perfect fit!

The end result, though, is a bit disappointing. As I said above, I suck at painting anything freehand, and the chest eagle and little stars proved very difficult. Using the Wrecker’s body may have been a close fit for the costume, but it resulted in Patriot being a lot beefier than he normally is depicted. Someone’s been sneaking shots of the Super Soldier serum!

Patriot’s head is where I had the most problems.  I never strip Heroclix prior to repainting (it’s rarely necessary), but this is one occasion when I wish I had. The Kree Warrior is a first generation Infinity Challenge clix model, and they are notorious for being covered in gloopy paint. By the time I repainted his helmet into Patriot’s cowl, I found it difficult to maintain any level of detail. To me, it just looks like the model has way too many layers of paint. This is by far the conversion I am least happy with.

Next is Jack Frost!

Jack is another basic head swap conversion. I had an old Scorpion miniature laying around that somehow lost his tail, so I decided to use that as the body. I packed some green stuff around the hump on his back and filled in the hole where the tail used to be. I removed Scorpion’s head and used the head off a Quicksilver model, since it seemed a good match for Jack Frost’s wavy hair.

A quick prime of white paint, a wash of some ice-blue ink, a touch-up of white, and Jack Frost was done in about ten minutes, by far the easiest conversion and quickest paint job of all the Legionnaires. I’m not sure why I painted his gloves and boots (Jack is usually barefoot and gloveless), but I guess I could fix that pretty easily. I added some sea glass “ice” to his base and flocked it with snow. Done!

Next, arguably the most powerful member of the Liberty Legion: Blue Diamond!

Blue Diamond began as a DC Heroclix Hawk figure, from the Hypertime set. I trimmed away his tattered cape-thing, sanded him down a bit and rebased him before priming him black.

Once primed, I repainted him as shown. I had a tough time “drawing” the diamond on his chest with a paintbrush (my eyes aren’t what they used to be), but I guess I’ll just live with it. I think Hawk’s modified costume is a good match for Blue Diamond. What do you think?

And last but not least, another special guest star: Spirit of ’76! (Dear Lord, is this guy a tool or what?)

To make him, I used the body and cape of the Adam Warlock clix on top, combined with the legs and forearms of Doc Samson. I sculpted the gloves, buckles, cravat and hat (turns out it’s not really a three-corner hat after all) out of green stuff and rebased him before priming him black. I considered trying to sculpt his domino mask, but decided to quit while I was ahead. I’d just paint it on later.

Here is how he looks repainted. I’m pretty happy with the way he turned out, even though his face could be a lot better. Turns out painting that domino mask on wasn’t much easier, and I didn’t even attempt the little blue stars around his chest (I just painted little dots). He was the most challenging conversion by far. Like I said, I’m no sculptor.

Tomorrow: as promised, I will provide some background on the Liberty Legion members, as well as my Super Mission Force builds for each hero! Now that I’ve painted them, I need to use them in a game!

 

 

Forgotten Heroes: The Liberty Legion: The Repaints

Sincere apologies to my fellow participants, but I have been unable to post an update to my Forgotten Heroes contribution until now. First up: the repaints. These are members of the Liberty Legion who already had a released miniature, and who required only a fresh coat of paint and a few minor adjustments to be ready:

Here’s what they looked like before repainting. All I did here was rebase them.

And here’s how they look after my brushwork. From l-r, Miss America, Whizzer, and Thin Man! Miss America has an annoying habit of leaning back, which isn’t something I can seem to correct. I really hate the plastic “effects”, like Whizzer’s speed blur, on some of the newer clix, but this one’s pretty much impossible to remove.

For some reason unknown to me, Thin Man came equipped with a couple of knives and was sporting a handlebar mustache. Not the way I remember him. the Thin Man I remember was clean-shaven, had a different costume (this one is better!) and he didn’t have any knives. (After all, he can become almost completely two-dimensional, so if he had need of a knife, he could just make his hand into one.) Needless to say, I decided to remove the knives. The mustache was trickier and I opted not to remove it; rather I just painted over it in the hopes we could all pretend not to see it, much like Cesar Romero’s Joker ‘stache. (If he looks too shiny, it’s because I took the picture before I had a chance to give him a spray of Dullcote!)

 

Here’s a closeup of Miss America. Note the annoying lean.

Red Raven began as an X-Men Angel miniature. His original yellow costume was ideally suited for Red Raven, and all I needed to do was paint him red! I really like the way he came out.

And finally, some special guest stars: Union Jack and Bucky! Bucky’s gun is bent and there’s no way to fix it short of giving him a new one. I don’t have a spare Thompson, but I may add some grenades or a knife to his belt (remember, Bucky was a soldier!). We’ll see.

Here’s a shot of all the repainted miniatures.

Tomorrow, the real Forgotten Heroes submissions. I mean full-blown conversions of the remaining members of the Liberty Legion: Jack Frost, Blue Diamond, and the Patriot! Plus a very special guest!