16/100 Cyborg and the Multiverse

The world of comic books can be a weird place.  Especially when all the stories and characters that are produced by one company share a united universe.  DC created a early version of the Multiverse back in 1940 when it published the Justice Society of America.  This was very rudimentary shared universe, it brought together heroes from their own publication into a single title.

Years later in the Silver Age of Comics (late 1950 till 1970) DC relaunch one of the most powerful characters, The Flash.  The Flash ran so fast that he went to a different universe, inhabited by the Golden age (1940s-1950s) heroes.  This lead to the first "Crisis" titles, Crisis of Earth One.  Over the years there have been many "crises".

Why do I bring this up now?  I have been working on another special DCU event for a store Birthday Party at my local retail shop, Lords of War Games and Hobbies.  You my remember a few months ago we ran a large DCU game called Invasion.  We saw the Justice League take on and Endless swarm of Paradeamons and Darkseid himself.  Each side was about 150+ levels!  It was a blast.
 
For the birthday celebration we wanted to run another DCU themed scenario game.  Chris liked the idea of doing one based on Crisis on Infinite Earths.  So we started to brain storm ideas.  One of the problems with running a big themed game is; what do you do when two people want to bring the same character?  For the Invasion game each side talked about it and everyone decided which characters to use.  For a game featuring the multiverse, we had a unique opportunity.

I made 20 Multiverse cards.  Each character will get one card at the beginning of the game.  The cards have a brief description of that earth as well as one or two upgrades that that character gains for the game.  This way everyone could bring Superman, but everyone would have a slightly different Superman.

Here are a few examples of the cards:

I wanted to paint a new model for the game.  For Invasion I painted up Starfire.  So I figured that I would continue with the Teen Titan trend and paint up another member (well former member), Cyborg.  This model was fun to paint.  The Scale 75 metallic paints are very nice to work with.  I painted the red on this model twice because I was not happy with how I originally did it.  This was my second attempt at painting a darker skin tone and I think it turned out much better.

So remember that next Saturday (February 10th) is the birthday celebration at Lords of War Games and Hobbies.  Come by and check it out, and bring a DCU (or Marvel) mini and partake in "Crisis on Infinite Earths"!

Kevin

DCU WAR recap and BMG v2 First Game

The Justice League WAR event at Lords of War Games and Hobbies last Sunday was a blast.  We had a solid turn out.  6 players playing the Justice League (Superman, Flash, Swamp Thing, Bat-Mite, Rebirth Batman, Aquaman, Hawkgirl, Suicide Squad Harley, Starfire and Wonder Woman on a Warhourse).  3 Players stood against them fielding Darkseid and Zod and about 26 Parademons!   The game went back and forth, with Darkseid dominating most of the table for the first 3 turns.  However in the end the Justice League pulled off a late game upset (thanks to White Lantern Wonder Woman) and achieved victory.  Notable Moments:  Every time Superman or Swamp Thing threw a non-winged parademon onto a roof, forcing them to jump back down, only to be thrown back up next turn.  Wonder Woman holding 1/3 of the table alone then coming back to life in the final round to clear out a group a parademons.  Aquaman fighting against Zod and about 10 parademons and surviving for like 3 rounds! and Zod not able to hit, shoot or grab Batman...ever...

I was a little worried about the scenario I wrote up going into the event.  I have done wacky scenario mega battles back in my GW hay-day.  However I wanted this one to be different.  Instead of a big exciting game to keep a group of kids entertained, I wanted a big exciting game to keep a group of grown up kids (me included) entertained...and still be fair and use the rules.  In an old GW megabattle it was very common place for me to favor one side over the other (it really depended on which kid was getting on my nerves).  For the WAR event I wanted both teams to have an equal chance at winning and to not have one side win because rules were changed.

I was especially worried about the Power Crystal tokens I made up.  To keep the game interesting I added 2 tokens each turn randomly on the table that players could grab.  They then got dealt a Power Crystal card.  It would either be a bonus for the player or a trap.  I tried to keep most of the cards fairly balanced by just using different abilities that were already in the game (like giving a player Heavy Batarmour, or the Fly ability).  I did make some more powerful cards too (activate a model twice in a single turn, return a model back to life that died earlier and heal/hurt an objective etc).  It worked out well that both teams got an equal amount of the powerful cards.   

There was a lot of excitement and strategy discussion around the table.  It looked like everyone had a lot of fun!  And to show that I was not biased for the JLA side, I was the first (and only) player to have every one of my models killed!  If anyone is interested in the scenario, let me know and I would be happy to post it.  

A few days later, I was able to get in my first game of the new Batman Miniatures game Version 2.0.  I am very happy with it.  The movement was simplified and the game moved very quickly.  I had Batfleck in combat first turn!  The new sewers are great (we actually used them for once).  The change to the batclaw was the biggest adjustment for me.  I know a lot of people are complaining that it can only be used every other round, but I kinda like it.  I had to be a lot more strategic with Batgirl.  I did not just want to batclaw into combat with no way to make a speedy retreat when it goes south (and with my rolling, it always does). 

I wanted to try out some of the new objectives too, the Fire Drum and the Ace Chemicals.  While they appear to be good, they were not the greatest for my crew.  Due to them being placed in no
man's land, Chris was able to get some early victory points from them and I just could not catch up.  Batfleck did punch a lot of heads though.  Looking forward to round two!

Kevin         

Wonder Woman (queue electronic cello solo)

I took a break from my Scarecrow crew to paint up the second member of my DC Trinity box, Wonder Woman.  I had the sudden urge to paint her after watching the new movie.  Part way through the film I realized I was doing what I used to do when watching the Lord of the Rings in the theater;  figure out a colour palette.  "If I use a Mepheston red then mix it with a evil sun red, then give the whole thing a red wash, it should be close to that red" etc.

I really enjoyed the movie.  It had some great messages but they were not beating you over the head with them.  There was some very funny scenes.  It was basically a "fish out of water" story, but they did not make Wonder Woman goofy or silly about it.  Also the fight choreography was amazing.   The only real down side I found was with the villains.  As a whole, super hero villains are usually very campy, but these guys were so two dimensional.  Luckily the hero and the supporting actors where strong enough to make  up for it.

Wonder Woman will be a good addition to my Justice League team for the DCU game.  She is hard to bring down with her high hit points, "Bracelets of Submission" (+3 to physical and energy def) and the "Indestructible Shield" (pass and agility role and cancel a physical or energy attack).  The "lasso of Truth" can also be great to drop the defense of a tough opponent; so Wonder Woman's allies can bring the pain (Super Punch anyone?).  In most games I expect that she will be up front with Superman dealing the damage, while the rest of my team goes for objectives or runs support.

Here is my current 60 levels of Justice League.  Superman and Wonder are the tanks and attackers.  Green Arrow will lay down some range support and go after objectives.  The Flash and Batgirl are my main objective runners.  That leave Batman to support and be a secondary tank where needed.

I will have to play a few games to see if this team will work.

Kevin (queue electronic cello solo)