OMEGA DOOM: A Superhero AAR

My oldest was unable to play in the Pokemon tournament at the hobby shop today, so I decided to make it up to him by bringing out the superheroes for a bit of action instead.

Doctor Doom and his HYDRA allies had managed to intercept a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. shipment of Omega Energy crystals, (not so) cleverly disguised as a Weetabix truck.  Who could stop him from seizing this awesome source of  destructive power?

Luckily, the Fantastic Four were in the area.

Masato readies the Thing and Human Torch

Kiyoto gets Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman prepared

 Doctor Doom knew he was in trouble and braced himself for the attack.

As Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman raced down the street, the Human Torch took to the air and the Thing charged Doctor Doom.  However, Doctor Doom got the best of the Thing this turn and managed to injure him with his electric shock gauntlets.

 The Human Torch fired off a nova heat blast at a HYDRA trooper, but unfortunately missed.  The initial combat was going in the villains' favor.

 Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman make it to the fray, taking on a HYDRA trooper who gets knocked out.

 
 This time Human Torch hits his target, taking out another trooper. The Thing manages to score a few licks on Doctor Doom behind the truck, but a HYDRA trooper manages to score a hit on Mr. Fantastic with an RPG.  Luckily his rubbery body absorbs some of the damage.

 The Human Torch scores against another HYDRA trooper who tried to take cover behind the truck. Mr. Fantastic takes out the trooper with the RPG, while Thing and Doctor Doom continue to slug it out.

 Doctor Doom is finally knocked out by the Thing, leaving Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman to mop up the last of the HYDRA troopers.

The Fantastic Four returned the Omega Energy crystals to S.H.I.E.L.D., keeping Superhero City safe once again from Doctor Doom's nefarious plans.

VSF Game with Sactanks Group

Over the holiday weekend I went up to Sacramento to visit family and was invited by Skrapwelder to join the Sactanks group for a VSF game using the Martian Empires rules.

Rather than a Martian invasion, this battle was set in the Harry Turtledove "Southern Victory" world. Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and his troops were tasked with holding the Montana border against a British invasion from Canada.

The setup at the start of the game.  The American defensive line is on the left, and the British and Canadian forces  gather on the right to start their push.

I was tasked with holding the center against two light tanks and British postal troops. The Gatling guns proved ineffective against the tanks, and the infantry had partaken of a bit too much whiskey to hit anything.Some British lancers  came down the road and engaged one of my units in hand-to-hand combat

British and Canadian dead litter our left flank, but of their steam coaches managed to get across the line.

My unit finally managed to come out of its drunken stupor (either that or they got the lancers drunk), and managed to hold out for  five rounds of combat, delaying the British advance.

However, they eventually broke, leaving a gap in the line that the British began exploiting.

On our right flank, an American areonef arrived, drawing the attention of the British tanks and lessening the pressure on our infantry.  This is a beautiful scratch built model by Skrapwelder.

I had managed to drive back the postal troops, but they were rallied by an officer and came back with a vengeance.  Eventually I was down to just the Gatling guns, which were overrun in the flank.

Our areonef managed to disable the British heavy tank, but eventually was unable to steer after being hit by both light tanks.

At the end of the night six British units had made it across, but we inflicted enough casualties for it to still be an American victory.

Overall it was a lot of fun, and it was great to meet Skrapwelder, Leadfool,  Alfrik, and some of their other club members.  Hopefully I can work it into my schedule to visit again.

Pterosaur Attack!

I have some Doctor Who figures on the way, including some Silurians, and I decided a Pterosaur would be just the thing to add to their forces:

I found this Copplestone figure several years ago in the discount bin (only $2!) of a hobby shop that was clearing out their miniature inventory, and I figured at that price I could find some use for it.

Current thinking is that the crests were for sexual display, so I've given mine some orange bling to attract the ladies.  I also used a pointillist style on the skin to give it a bit more of an interesting texture.

As you can see below, the figure is quite large, with a wingspan of 11cm.

I think this should be just the thing to put a bit of fear in the U.N.I.T. troops.

Superhero Gaming with My Kids

Another old project. Late last year, my sons started taking an interest in my painting and modelling, and wanted to know if they could play a game with me and my figures. At their ages (5 and 3), I felt my games would be a bit complex for them, and I was a little worried about broken gun barrels, so I wanted to come up with something else for them.  Both are big superhero fans, especially for Superhero Squad, so I thought that would be a good avenue to go down.  

Heroclix would be the obvious choice, but I don't like the random nature of the figures in most boxes, and I'm not generally a fan of the sculpts.  Plus, my kids were interested in trying to paint and I wanted to encourage making your own toys.  So it was off to the FLGS to pick up a few Reaper figures to get us started, along with using some Urban Mammoth figures I had purchased a while back.

I knocked out a quick set of simple home brew rules to use for the game.  They don't cover everything, so I fill in gaps as things come up.  For each character, I generated a stat card listing their abilities and wounds.  Needless to say, the rules weigh heavily in favor of the heroes.  I didn't want characters like the Hulk and Superman to dominate the game, so I assigned a cost in pennies for each power (the stronger the power, the higher the cost).  Each of my sons gets a tub of pennies to spend, with a set number of new pennies received each round.  Spend all your money, and your characters are too tired to do anything that round.   This helps them practice their counting and in learning to plan and prioritize (with coaching on their options from dad).

Single page rules to cover the basics.  I add details on the fly if needed.

Stat cards for the characters, which team affiliations noted.  The targets denote the number of wounds before being knocked out, and the pennies denote the cost to use a power.

Kiyoto (age 5) and Masato (age 3) sit down for a game. Kiyoto made the Fantastic Four building, and Masato the Avenger's headquarters (with scissor help from dad).

Spending pennies to attack

My sons always play the heroes (of course), so I run the the villains for them.  Generally the most they can handle is 2-3 characters, and I try to keep the games under 20 minutes or their attention wanders.

The first game went well (though my 3-year old sulked off when the Angel was knocked out of play by Doctor Doom), so for Christmas we ordered some new figures from Reaper, Crossover, and Old Glory.

We still have more to go, but here's what the boys and I have painted so far.

Spider Woman, Hulk, Iron Man

Cyclops, Angel, Firestar



Flash, Superman



Kiyoto's Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing.  I painted the eyes on the torch for him.

 

Masato's Green Lantern Boy (he likes sidekicks), Green Lantern, Ant Man, Ice Man, Spiderman.  I again helped with eyes.

Doctor Doom and Deadpool

Hydra Troopers

The boy's Lizard, Spaceman Red Skull, Green Goblin Girl

It's been really fun to have a project to work on with my sons, and I hope this will start an interest in miniatures for them.

Petrol Station and Garage

The second building I completed this weekend was the Garage kit T017 from Scalescenes.com.

This is a very simple kit and easy to build (I did it in an afternoon), but you get a lot of bang for your effort. You have a variety of shop names to choose from, and you can make it a BP, Shell, or Esso station. However, what I really like is the interior detailing.

For the interior of the garage, you almost need to do a double take to make sure you are actually looking at a model; there are even tire mark on the floor.

Finally, the Lledo cars even fit, which is great.

Overall, one of the easiest kits I've build from the series, and I love how good it looks for such minimal work.  Needless to say, control of the fuel will be a major objective of my VBCW games.