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!