Bayonet Leadership: Crisis on Infinite Earths

On Saturday we held a special DCU mega-battle event at our local hobby shop, Lords of War Games and Hobbies, for their 3rd birthday party. I wrote a special scenario for the event. The premises was that portals to the multiverse were opening up, bringing other heroes and villains to earth Zero.

I also made 20 different Multiverse cards. Each model in the game was given one card. The card gave a brief description of that Earth and a bonus ability and/or stat upgrade based on the theme of that world. So one player may get Vampire Superman, while another player would be using Animated Batman.

The objective of the game was for the “heroes” to protect 5 civilians, while the “villains” were trying to destroy them. There were other ways to gain bonus victory points as well. If you are interested in reading the full scenario and seeing the multiverse cards you can do so HERE.

We had a total of 6 players. Each player brought 30 levels (so roughly 90 per side). I broke the players into two teams of 3, ignoring individual allegiances (a Justice League player could be teamed up with an Injustice League player etc).

Here is the roster for the teams.

Villains:
- Steppenwolf
- Atrocitus
- Superman
- Aquaman
- Zod
- Lexcorp Heavy Trooper
- Lexcorp Trooper
Heroes
- Rebirth Batgirl
- Flash
- Shazam
- Zod
- Killer Frost
- Red Hood
- Atrocitus
- Deathstroke
- Ravager

We had several of the same model on the table, I encouraged this. Since each model was going to get a unique upgrade card, they would still be different and enhance the Multiverse feel. There was some pretty wacky combos; Aquaflash, Magical Superman, Atrocitus the Speedster, Animated Deathstroke etc.

Chris, one of the store owners painted up a fantastic Ultraman for the event. We held him in reserve to join whichever side needed a little boost.

The Villains figured out a very devious strategy to kill the civilians early on. They sent their faster models straight at a civilian. Who would then throw them back toward another member of their team to finish it off. In the first round of the game we saw Superman throw a civilian at Steppenwolf, who dispatched him with haste. The heroes had a hard time after that keeping the other civilians alive.

Ultraman shows up and levels the warehouse

In retrospect I think I would have changed how the civilians worked (to see how they worked in our game please see the scenario posted). Throwing the civilians backwards really allowed the villains to get into the lead quickly and the heroes just could not make up the points. One suggestion that was made for next time was to say that the civilian model represents a group of civilians and therefore cannot be thrown.

The...death stroke...of Zod

After reflecting on it for a bit after the fact, I think I would have ran them like this instead. I would have dropped the defenses down to 10 and gotten rid of the endurance. However Civilians models would represented groups of civilians instead of individuals. They could not be removed from the table or thrown. Every time a villain inflicts damage on a model they gain one victory point, up to a maximum of 3 per turn. Every time a hero uses the bodyguard rule to defend a civilian they gain one victory point, up to a maximum of 3 per turn.

In the original scenario the villians killed majority of the civilians early into the game, leaving little way for the heroes to make up the victory point deficit. By having the civilians being able to generate victory points every turn there is an incentive to protect/attack them at all times.

Shazam throwing a GCPD car at Vampire Aquaman

With only 3 victory point awarded each turn, it would also increase the incentive for both sides to go after the bonus victory points. The way we played it, the villains had no need to go for bonus since they racked up a lot of victory points from the civilian kills. While the heroes where behind in VPs by a large margin that the few bonus victory points awarded each round would not make a dent in the difference.

Even though the game was fairly one sided in the end (34-20 for the Villains) everyone had seemed to have a blast. The villains earned the most victory points but they only had 3 models left on the table in the end. The heroes did a lot of damage and managed to almost wipe out the villains. All six players where heavily invested and focused till the very end. We had a great group of dedicated players involved.

Here are some of my favorite moments of the game.
- Hero Zod and Shazam beating down Superman to a single endurance point. Then Killer Frost walking over and dealing one final point of damage to finish him off, scoring 4 victory points! (one for taking out a model, one for Girl Power bonus, and two for Titans Fall bonus).
- Stepenwolf killing almost every model that was thrown back toward him by his allies. In the end I think he killed 2 civillians, the Flash, Batgirl and almost finished hero Zod.
- A heavily wounded villain Zod kills a civilian. Deathstroke runs over hoping for a crit with his irresistible sword to do some more damage and get revenge. Deathstroke rolled double 8s on his attack, dealing a crit and double damage with his irresistible sword due to his Assassin ability. Beheading the evil kyptonian. He also did this by rolling a red and blue die to match his outfit.
- The Lexcorp Heavy Trooper and Regular Trooper keeping one half of the table busy for 3 rounds. They took on Atrocious, Deathstroke, Ravager, Killer Frost, Zod, and Red Hood.
- Ultraman showing up turn 3 to help the Heroes side (ironic?). He then proceeds to destroy every building in the middle of the table over the last half of the game. He was a one man wrecking crew. The +1 Strength (making him strength 7) from his Multiverse card allowed him to pick up city buildings and throw them at his opponents.

For the event I painted up two civilian models quickly the week before. I used two models from Infinity; The Dragon Lady and Neoterran Corporate Executive. For the other 3 civilians I used three Discworld miniatures from Microart Studios; Foul Ron, The Duckman, and Lord Downy that I already had painted.