Crew assembly

Well I have spent a little time with the new Batman models. They are unboxed, pinned, green stuffed, glued and based.

As usual I have been pinning all the joints as I go. The GW glue that I use just does not do the job. I have taken onboard the suggestion of using a small blob of green stuff to aid the process and this has worked a treat.

The new models came with a rubble base. This is the first time I have seen textured bases being supplied with models. I have decided to give them a go to see what they will look like fully painted up.

I really like the Deathstroke model a lot. I am giving great consideration to his final colour scheme. I want him to stand out on the playing surface. I am thinking that I might go for a purple with orange highlights, tipping my hat to the Joker. Not sure how this will look. It might be better to uses a different highlight especially as the main colour for the henchmen is orange. Much to ponder. However happy with the progress so far.

I have been reading other blogs and have been struck with the thought of Prisoner tube stealing someones weapon during a game. It does sound like a fun concept.

350 rep Joker crew with Deathstroke

350 Rep Joker crew - $1,500

I have been looking at options and have come up with the following crew which uses Deathstroke and has an emphasis on ranged abilities. Batman does spend a lot of his time flouncing around at distance!

Leader
95 rep - Joker

Free Agent
145 rep - Deathstroke ($250)

Henchmen
26 rep - Triston ($300)
25 rep - August
25 rep - Turk ($400)
15 rep - Clown (knife)
14 rep - Clown (tube)
10 rep - Prisioner (tube)

Extra ammo clip ($200)
Clown Paint x 2 ($300)

Total 350 rep & $1,450

I think that there is a nice balance to this crew. The Joker is still the ultimate threat with the 1:6 chance to kill the best model in the opponent's crew, using the One Shot Gun. I do love that weapon.

Free Agent

Deathstroke is my new purchase and he really does look like he can do serious damage and much of it is Blood. He has ranged and close combat abilities and a lot of attack dice if desired.

He is agile - Acrobat makes his movement 12cm instead of 10cm and Undercover allows him to set-up unto 20cm away from his own deployment zone. Stealth means that you have to be closer than 20cm to see him at all.  He can be in the face of the enemy incredibly quick.

He is hostile - his weapons all to 2 damage and he can have 5 attack dice. The automatic gun does 1 Stun and 1 Blood with a Rate Of Fire of 3.  The Reinforced Bo strikes 3 times for every 2AC doing 2 Stun and comes with Handy and Reach giving him a 3cm stretch re-rolling failed Hits. The Sword does 2 Blood and is Sharp re-rolling failed damage rolls. He also has Counter Attack so can strike back in the opponents turn. He can do some very serious damage especially to lower level crew members.

He is durable - his starting Endurance is 8 but he also has Soul Armour which allows him to restore 2 wounds once per game. He is also a Martial Artist and so ignores being out numbered. I reckon he will be happy in a crowd of unfriendly cops :-).

Tactically I think the plan should be to push him forward onto the enemy henchmen. Hit them hard and fast and allow support to arrive. He should be able to survive an initial onslaught whist doing a fair amount of damage himself. This should keep enemy henchmen in their own deployment zone and away from Objectives.

Henchmen

After that I have kept with Triston and August. They served me well last time out although I will make sure that Triston is shooting at low level Henchmen in future. Trying to Hit Batman was a waste of time. I like the steady Blood damage that they can both dish out. I am also including Turk and hoping that he will act like Triston, a mobile firebase.

Then I have included some grunts to do all the running around, objective holding etc.

I have added some Clown Paint for Triston and August and with the remaining money bought myself an Ammo clip. Probably for Triston.

I have dropped Sniggering for the present although I find myself in two minds about this, especially as there should be more low level henchmen against me and he might fair better against such targets. I see him as a defensive character. He needs to be static to maximise his shooting abilities and in the darkness of our first games he struggled to apply the long range threat I was hoping for. I think that in order for him to be effective I would need to purchase a flare. This would improve his threat no end.

That is my eight man, 350 rep crew with plenty of firepower. I will need to remember that Turk, Prisoner (tube) and Deathstroke will not be able to alter their counters at the start of their activation. A little more pre-planning and concentration required.

In order to make this playable I will have 3 new models to assemble Deathstroke, Turk and Prisoner (tube). I am looking forward to that challenge.

Batman continues

After the first few 200 rep games we recognised that we really needed to be playing games of a higher value so that we could introduce some of the 'big boys'. The world of Side Kicks and Free Agents awaits. We have decided that the next Batman Game needs to be played at 350 rep points. We are figuring that this will allow a nice balanced Crew. There will be the ordinary Henchmen and then some characters that will be meaningfully better in terms of base statistics and Traits. The impact should be that there will be more death and destruction and as such more fun!

To this end I got out my wallet at Salute 2015 and added to my Joker Crew.

A few of my early lists included one or two prisoners. As I didn't have the models I couldn't make use of them so that was the first purchase. I have noticed online that a lot of Crews seem to include Turk. I will have to look into this a bit more closely. He is a cheap gun and that might well be the reason.

I love the SWAT van that Knight models do.

I am really getting along with the whole laser cut experience so I made the purchase. It looks like it will be a bit more complex than anything I have assembled so far and I am looking forward to it. It is also a good size so should play well.

And so to Sidekicks.

I absolutely love the Solomon Grundy model.

He is huge and carrying a tombstone of all things. I hadn't realised what a weighty lump of metal he is. He should be fun to paint and play - a real cop crusher!

At this point I was nearly done and then the Dark Templar drew my attention to Deathstroke. Emmmm - he does look cool and I couldn't resist.

I like the pose. Full of drama and completely different to Solomon Grundy. I figure it will give me some wide ranging options.

I have yet to review the rules - I can safely say these purchases were from the heart.

I rounded out my purchases with some blue gem stones. I already have a load of yellow ones and a few red. We have found that counters are really important in BMG. I even bought a couple of black pouches to hold them in.

My final purchase of the day was a complete foible and very unlike me! We spent quite a bit of time on the Black Scorpion stand. There were some wonderful models. Great options for Blood Bowl and a whole load of other cool stuff. It was then that I spotted some wild west characters. I have felt the whole wild west thing 'knocking on the back of my eye ball' for some time now but have resisted. Today I took the first step and purchased some rather lovely Cowgirls.

They are single piece, resin models and beautifully detailed. I have never purchased models other than for being part of a game that I was playing, so this is a complete departure but I think that they will be a joy to paint. Paint for paint sake - now who planted that seed in my head?

It was a great Salute. Normally we arrive at 11am, go around everything, have some lunch, go around again and  make some purchases and have departed by 3pm. This time we arrived at 11am and left after 3pm having only made one circuit and skipped lunch. There was just so much really cool stuff to stop and admire. A credit to the hobby. Well done indeed.

We were chatting going home in the car and started to think that maybe Kick Starter and the like is changing the people that participate in game creation. Cashflow can be such a barrier to a good idea. It did feel like more good ideas, especially at skirmish level, are being realised. I can imagine that it must be difficult to pitch a gaming idea to big business. They might struggle to 'get it'. However a direct approach through Kick Starter is different. If the idea / concept is good enough to those of us that play and love gaming then we can support directly thus over coming the initial cashflow barrier.

Fill my hands with dice - and lets game!

Salute 2015 - an inspiration and a new project

Yesterday was the annual outing to Salute. I always travel in hope and sometimes, just sometimes you come across little gems that surprise and delight. It makes the day worthwhile. Yesterday was filled with such moments - a great day out.

I found a new game that I have high hopes for, Guild Ball!

We enjoyed Blood Bowl last year. It was pure joy and a pity that it is unsupported. Guild Ball can hopefully provide a similar experience. I watched some of the game play at a couple of demo games and fell in love with models.

The idea is that it is a ball game played between Guilds. Each team has unto 6 players. The Guilds are the Butchers, Fishermans, Brewers, Masons, Alchemists, Morticians and Engineers. These are supplements by a group called the Union. I have yet to read the rules and work out how it really works but it looks in interesting.

My team will be the Masons. The female models called to me.

There was a deal at the event that got me two starters sets (one for me and one for the Dark Templar) and a book of rules for £50. Each set comes with three models which, I am told, is all that is needed to get a feel for the game.

The models are beautiful. I have Honour, Harmony and Mallet.

I seem to have an alternative sculpt for Honour but hi ho. The models themselves are metal and have separate arms that will require pinning.

I was also surprised and delighted to find a football in the box.

Mr J - a happy man!

Today was the day that we have been waiting for and we finally got a couple of games in. Two huge victories for Mr J's Crew. Both games finished something like 20 VP's to 3 VP's but to be fair we were more interested in play testing the rules than really playing and the Crew composition really favoured Mr J. You just have to have henchmen in this game.

200 rep Crew's

Batman Crew - Batman AC (130), Robin (68)

Joker Crew - Joker (90), Sniggering (25), Triston (26), August (25), Clown (knife) (15), Clown (tube) (14)

We played the Skirmish Scenario for both games.

Game 1 - The Dud!

The Joker crew brought an Ammo Crate, Titian Dose & 2 Gas Canisters. Batman brought 2 Riddles, an Ammo Crate and a Titian Dose.

I decided to keep the Objectives as close to my starting position as I could. I placed them in a line on the edge of Batmans deployment area.

The idea was to Run my guys in turn one directly towards them. I put Clown (tube) in the Sewer and kept Sniggering back to defend Batman's Ammo Crate.

The game almost had a hugely dramatic start because Batman was deployed next to a Sewer (to use his Explosive Gel) but close to a Lamppost and more importantly in Line of Sight of Sniggering. I started to think about the possibility of 9 Blood damage.....

If I could just get the first turn ..... but No! Batman got to go first and used his Explosive Gel to take out the Sewer and the Lamppost. Back in darkness and safe.

My Crew piled forward getting ready for the clash that would surely come in Turn 2.

I got to go first in Turn 2 and was able to manoeuvre Mr J forward and into range for the famous One Shot Gun. Now I had gone to the trouble of putting the One Shot Gun in Mr J's hand. I just knew that it would make the difference. I announced the shot with glee. 'Automatic Hit' I said and '2+ to damage'. What did the Dark Templar retort? 'anything but a one then'. He should never had said that .....

Sure enough - thats what I rolled. Utter disappointment! The opening salvo - a dud!

In truth this became a theme for the day. We both rolled absolutely useless dice. We couldn't get beyond the 1's and 2's most of the time.

Batman took to the air after that. The Batclaw is pretty cool and very characterful.

I moved onto the Objectives and Batman jumped Triston using his Sneak Attack. Our poor dice rolling continued but even so, Triston was taken down.

The game finished up with a bit of hand to hand combat involving Robin, Mr J & August. We knocked lumps out of one another but no one went down. August did a couple of Blood damage so he has earned the Blood on his shirt ;-)

The Joker crew amassed loads of Victory Points by sitting on the Objectives. I thought it was funny to be suffering Gas damage when claiming VP's. We had tested the movement rules, the hand to hand rules and the shooting rules. We found them a bit alien but that is usually the case with any new rule set. Counter management was proving to be a real pain - just something else to get used to.

We were disappointed that that so little damage was done by the combat and equally recognised that our dice rolling had been poor. Maybe Game 2 would be an improvement.

Game 2 - Handbags

This opened up with a bit of fun as I placed the Gas Canisters next to Batman and Robin. When they activated they both failed Willpower tests and took some damage. A very funny moment.

Batman set-up his Ammo and Titan Container along the line of my deployment zone. This was going to be more interesting. I advanced as I did in the first game. This time Batman did not mess around and took straight to the air. He got in position and used his ranged attack to take down my Clown (knife) Ouch.

The Joker was not impressed and reached for the One Shot gun. Ha, ha - this time there was success and the Batman was splatted with Blood damage.

We had allowed the Riddles to be placed up high so Batman & Robin stepped up and solved both Riddles. 

Batman was now ahead in terms of VP's and I was a man down. Could he keep me from getting to the Objectives? I had high hopes of taking out Batman himself. He had taken half damage and all Blood. I had a few turns to make it tell. He would have to come down from his high place to capture the remaining Objectives and start to score. 

How would it play out? As an aside you got to hand it to the Dark Templar - his painting is just outstanding.

I fired Explosive Teeth and Shotgun rounds at Batman for a couple of rounds and nothing! Crap dice! I was getting frustrated. My Henchmen did their job and made it the Objectives.

And Yip - you guessed they started failing Willpower tests and taking Blood damage. At least I was getting VP's. The Joker and Triston stayed in my deployment zone to challenge Batman & Robin. A major hand to hand combat broke out on the Batmobile. Very funny.

Tristan went down. Mr J ran out of Ammo and stepped in with the knife - but, yet again, rubbish dice rolling. It was like 'handbags at dawn'. Funny though.

Yet again - huge victory for the Joker Crew but this was more about learning how to play the game and we learned a lot.

Summary

It was fun. We both would have liked there to be a bit more carnage and it feels like Batman is very under powered. A lot of thinking to do but good fun. I think that the games lacked drama - there were no belly laugh moments and no great tales to tell. That might come on another day and lets face it we both rolled rubbish dice. I even passed a Willpower test of 4. Yes - that is two dice less than or equal to 4. I rolled a 1 and 2!

We both felt that 200 rep was nice to learn but really it needed 350 rep to get a bit more power into the Crews. Maybe then the stories will unfold.

For today ..... suffice it to say ..... Mr J has a big smile on his face.

Joker Gas Canisters

So with time ticking down there was one more visit by the post man. We do like the post man :-)

The Joker Gas Canisters arrived. They have been quickly assembled to get ready for some paint. They are disappointingly plain. No detail on the main body at all which is a real missed opportunity. It would be just as easy to make your own and save the money.

The actual rules card was in the packet.

This will be interesting because in order to gain the VP a character has to be standing in base contact. When he activates next turn he will need to pass a Willpower test or take 1 Blood damage. With two in play I will be killing my guys trying to get VP's. That should be funny. I suppose the thing to do is use the members of the crew that have high Willpower, where possible.

The postman also brought some Urban Furniture in the form of boxes and crates.

I am really impressed with these. Very sturdy and plenty of detail. They will make a great addition to the board and can be used for other games too. A worthwhile investment if anyone was thinking of making a purchase.

It looks like the Containers that I have ordered will not make it for the big game but I'm sure we will be fine without them.

Now - I am off to see if the glue has dried so that I can undercoat and start on the paint job. Well we can't have unpainted models on the day the Dark Templar is fielding a fully painted Crew, now can we ;-)

The Opposition reviewed - Batman & Robin

I thought it was about time I had a look at my opposition this coming Sunday.

I will be welcoming a 200 rep, two man Batman Crew to the Fun Park: -

Batman (Arkham City) - 130 rep
Robin (Tim Drake) - 68 rep

So lets have a look at what they bring to the table. For a start they are both decent characters and have  good basic statistics so it will take a concerted effort to cause any damage, or at least enough damage to take them from the game.

Batman

Weaponry
Batman is armed with a Batarang. It has a Range of 40cm and does 2 Stun damage, (no Blood, this means I can attempt to recover some damage at the end of the turn). It has a Rate of Fire of 2 and comes with 3 ammo.

This means that it can be used 3 times during the game unless Batman can pick up more Ammo from an Objective.

Each time the weapon is fired it can do up to 4 Stun because of the ROF of 2. Also the trait Throwing is applied so the ROF is never reduced by moving. This encourages Batman to move around and he becomes hard to pin down.

The weapon is Remote Control so there is no need for Line of Sight. Batman also comes with Total Vision so does not have the standard Range reduced to 30cm due to Darkness.

Batman can also perform a Sneak Attack that can't be Blocked. This is allowed if the target could not see Batman when activated.

This is a nice steady amount of ranged firepower and could be very effective against my low Endurance Henchmen. - Ouch!

Agility
Batman can put 3 dice into Movement. He can exchange his basic Movement to use the Batclaw which allows movement of 30cm but must also have a height element to the move. Dice can still be used to extend movement both before and after the Batclaw move. This is a really cool piece of movement and far better than any of the Joker crew.

The Batman's Batcape also means that he will take no damage from Falling or Jumping. So he is happy to be in the high places that the Batclaw allows him easy access to.

Defence
Batman has a high Endurance of 8. It is going to take a lot to put him down. Bat Armour and Counter Attack are Batman's two defence options. The Armour gives a 5+ save and Counter Attack allows Batman to strike back at the opponent if he is forced to Block during his turn.

Robin

Weaponry
There is no ranged abilities to consider although Robin does have the use of 2 Short Range (up to 20cm's) grenades that can Blind opponents for a turn and do 1 Stun damage. Mechanical also means that it damages on a 3+ (I think). They have a template effect so will be good against groups. These could be nasty but he will have to be close to use them.

His other weapon is a Bo(a staff) that does 1 Stun damage. It has Reach (3cm's) and is Handy (reroll failed to Hit). Robin can put 3 dice in Attack.

Agility
Robin can put 2 die in Movement and like Batman Robin has the Batclaw but none of the other benefits so if falls or is Pushed off a building he will be in trouble.

Summary
So should I be worried? Well the game should be a challenge as both sides are adopting a very different approach. My Joker Crew have the numbers but are slower and many come with low endurance so are vulnerable to sustained damage dealing. Batman's high level ranged attacks could be hard to handle.

Batman looks like he will also be a hard nut to crack but if I can get him on the ground and out numbered the task may become more manageable.

Robin is impacted by Darkness and will have to get close to do damage. His Endurance of 6 is not a mountain to climb but I will have to be careful not to present a nice target for those Grenades.