Melee of Champions - Part I

This project was going to be a bit more "background" than most, but given the huge amount of interest I got on the Super Miniatures Gaming Facebook Group, I thought I'd get going on it now. I've had the idea for a while to run supers games at various community festivals and events which my club attends, but I wanted to make the games more engaging and accessible for people unfamiliar with miniature wargames. Though I'm not much of a video gamer, I knew about the Disney Infinity figurines and Nintendo Amiibos and thought there was some potential there, but SuperSystem just seemed a little too complex for what I wanted to do.

Thankfully, Scott P came up with Super Mission Force [SMF], a lighter, and faster-playing version of SuperSystem which would be easier for new players and young people to pick up. Thanks to my chronic under-employment, it took me a lot longer than I would have liked to get this project going, but I finally managed to get my hands on SMF and play a few games to get a feel for it. As I've said before, I'm not so much of a fan of it as a game for me, but the rules work fine and only require a couple of tweaks for the kind of game I want to get people playing at a convention or festival. Specifically, the changes I make are that all attacks do Knockback and there is no Dice Pool Cap for bonus dice, there are a couple of reasons for these changes. With the Knockback, I'm running the game on a smaller area and use "ring-outs" as a second win condition, so characters flying all around the place makes this happen a bit more often. For the Dice Pool Cap, I found with my Ultimate Alliance games, which are aimed at a convention crowd, more dice meant more fun, especially when a player got lucky and could make a huge attack.

So lets talk theme for a minute. With my SuperSystem games, I built my own "Platinum Age" setting, complete with history, teams, aliens and even alternate universes; this gives me a chance to tell my own stories and flex my creativity. For Ultimate Alliance, I wanted a game where I could combine all of the various characters I had from different publishers and continuities and do all the crazy stuff that copyright laws and corporate interests would never allow. When I came to SMF and had bought some Disney Infinity and Amiibos (ok, so I did already have some, I do own a Wii-U, 2DS and Switch), I decided to approach it from another angle. Given I was was aiming at a younger audience, my mind drifted to a favourite of mine, Super Smash Bros. 

It's a tad obvious when you think about it, take a crossover game franchise filled with popular characters and reproduce it in miniature form. Of course, being me, there's more to it than that, there's a healthy dose of Contest of Champions in there as well, which is how I'm thinking of framing it for players; "Choose your champions and battle to decide who is the greater power", kind of deal. Incidentally, if you haven't read the new Contest of Champions, pick up the two trades, they're really good. 

So now I had the rules and some figures, what next? Thankfully, the online community for SMF is pretty awesome. Through the Lead Adventure Forum, I found this site: http://smfcards.000webhostapp.com/ which has a couple of hundred stat cards for heroes already done up, plenty of Marvel and DC, but also some indy stuff and even a few anime characters. That lot only covered five of the Marvel characters I had, so being time-poor in the extreme at the moment (in the middle of an 18-day work week as I write this), I went the easy route and decided to just adapt characters that were already in the huge amount of work done above. I'm not much when it comes to image manipulation, thankfully Marc P from the Super Miniature Gaming group came to my aid and put together some great images at no expense. You can find Marc's work at the end of this article, for the originals, please support the previous link.

Some of my Disney Infinity; Thor, Nick Fury, Black Widow, Iron Man and Hulk. 

At the Whitehorse Community Festival here in Melbourne, Australia, I had my "Melee of Champions" stuff out and ready to go, intending to do my best to sell the hobby of miniatures gaming to the general public, despite the popular image of neckbeards and body odor. Whilst I had a lot of interest and even ran a few turns, what I talked about most that day was my profession, that of being a counsellor, primarily working with youth, especially those with diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder. This kind of work is just something I fell into, finding that I had a talent for it as well as the interest. Some of my best work has involved the use of board and card games to help develop a rapport with clients that may not have a great deal of interest in verbal communication. To help with this, my Counselling kit includes such exotic paraphernalia as copies of Infernal Contraption, Kill Doctor Lucky, Man Bites Dog, One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Rhino Hero.

The Incredibles, courtesy of Disney Infinity 

After this past weekend though, I'm thinking that maybe there's room for wargames in my Counsellors' toolbox. I doubt I'll ever have the audacity to hand out "Getting Started in Age of Sigmar" books at any school were I'm working, but Melee of Champions, as well as games like Tribal, Wars of Insurgency and whatever my kaiju project turns out to be all have potential for being educational and theraputic as well as fun. Games are a great way to get students involved with mathematics, estimation, strategic thinking and, for ASD and other youth that have trouble reading non-verbal ques, learning to gauge the truth of what a person is saying. Not so much teaching people to lie that may otherwise have trouble, but to better pick up on when someone else is being untruthful. Obviously, games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf are better for this than miniatures gaming, but there is an element of bluffing to wargames that I feel many overlook, especially once hidden objectives and unexpected combos come into play. 

Disney Infinity Gamora and Rocket Racoon represent the Guardians of the Galaxy I have so far. 

One of the better aspects of this project is the cost, or lack thereof. I tend to game a bit on the cheap anyway, being chronically underemployed, but I also don't mind spending money on my hobby to get the pieces I want. For example, I have a Flesh Eater Courts army for Age of Sigmar, which I really enjoy playing, but damn if it wasn't one of the more expensive armies I've put together. For the most part, the Disney Infinity figures can be found second-hand for a few dollars each, and I tend to buy the Amiibos on sale for around $9AUD each. As mentioned above, I use the Amiibos for my Nintendo hardware, so the price also includes the added play I get there. SMF is a pretty affordable book and the Stat Cards are printed on photos, around 10c each at the local office supply chain store. 

Some of the Disney Infinity really exaggerate the proportions, I'm not keen on Syndrome, but it looks good on Ahsoka Tano and Rey. 

Part of the appeal of a cheap project also helps with my public displays, where the aim isn't so much to convince people to join my particular wargames club, as it is to raise awareness of the miniature wargames hobby and how people can start playing quickly and easily. Something that's as affordable as SMF and some toys that many parents may already have too many of laying around looks a lot less daunting than Warmachine or Age of Sigmar. I've found that most children over around 10 (depending on developmental skills) can pick up SMF after only a few turns, especially with the nice cards that cover most of the Powers and skills. I struggle sometimes to not use phrases like "D6" and "Alternating Activation", after so many years of playing with wargamers, but practice makes perfect and all that. 

Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa from Disney Infinity and Captain Falcon Amiibo make for a trio of Captains. 

So this is the part where I ask for help. Not so much for anything in particular, but to start working on something we can all use. As mentioned above, the stats I have for The Incredibles, Syndrome, Rocket Racoon, Ahsoka Tano, Captain Falcon, Falco, King Dedede, Meta Knight and Bowser are simply rebranded versions of existing cards taken from the link. Not to mention needing stats for new acquisitions Rey, Barbossa and Captain Jack. Whilst Marc has expressed an interest in making up more cards, I've never actually done up the stats of a SMF character, and do need to learn, but of people out there, in the community are keen to have a go, please do. Perhaps we can build a database or wiki somewhere? I'm not great with computers, so would be willing to hand that idea off to someone. If you want to help out, comment on this post, in the the original link to this I posted in the Super Miniatures Gaming group. 

Falco, King Dedede, Meta Knight and Bowser, the Amiibos are actually really nice for the money, well sculpted and the painting is crisp. 

Thanks for sticking around til the end of this one, I have a couple more ideas for figures for this one, if Disney, Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Nintendo aren't enough for you. First of all DC did a line of "DC Animated Universe" style non-posable heroes called "FIGZ", which look perfect, but I can't find anywhere anymore: 

Seriosuly, if you find any of these, please let me know, I'd like to grab a few. The alternative is the Schleich versions, but at $20+AUD a pop, they're out of my range. Similar designs can be found with various Anime franchises, but I'm, again, waiting to find some in my price range, mostly Dragonball. If video games are more your thing though, you may want to take a look at the Playstation Totaku collectables, but wait until they go half-price at your local EB or Gamestop. 

Personally, I'm waiting for a Ratchet and Clank, but the Tekken stuff is tempting. Hope all of this is helpful or at least interesting for those who got this far. I'm starting a proper counselling job again next year, with a look to do more "games as teaching", so expect something more along these lines in the future. 

Coming Soon to a Table Near You!

Reposted from my wargames club's Facebook group: 

In order to get some people playing some SuperSystem, I'm proposing a little "mini-campaign" in the months of November and December. Nothing terribly involved, just teams of three characters and playing a handful of games over the seven meetings that fall in the given months. Think something along the lines of "Contest of Champions" or "Secret Wars"; a big goofy crossover relying more upon showy splash-panels than actual plot. I'll be posting up on my blog about the games we play and probably laying over some Silver Age justification. 

As I said, we'll start with three-character teams, so easy to build up a team or find some already in your collection. I'm happy to help with some of the stats, but I'm not doing it all for you sorry. 

Need some inspiration? I dug through the web for some "left-field" team ideas and put them here.

 Nazi Occultists, classic pulp villains, ready to menace the free world! 

 The Ghostbusters (any version) make a perfect team, the similar power-set can be used with slight differences to have a team that work well together. 

 Voodoo priest, cultists and zombies, not only a lot of fun, but there are already heaps of comic examples to draw on. 

 I'm not a huge fan of the pop-culture team-up in general, as it often comes across as goofy (see the above LXG April Fool's for example), but they can be fun if they make enough sense.

Problematic recent film aside, the Suicide Squad has an interesting history and the "Supervillain Dirty Dozen" idea has been around in a variety of forms since the Silver Age. If you're better at being bad than good, this is a pretty fun option. 

Movie Monsters have been part of comics since the beginning, getting shoved into the Marvel and DC universes thanks to Lee and Kirby being just the right kind of crazy. They don't have to be Hammer classics either, Aliens, Terminator and Predator have all fought the likes of Batman and the Avengers. 

Sometimes it seems like I'm the only person that likes Martial Arts superheroes anymore. Ok, so Dragonball Z is not to everyone's tastes, but what about Kung Fu, TNMT or Iron Fist? Lots of potential here for fun games and characters. 

A few of other points to note;

1. A typical game of SS4 takes between 30 and 60 minutes if we all know at least vaguely how to play, so we don't have to give up Frostgrave, Warmachine or any of our regular games. 

2. Teams of henchmen run from 5+ and count as one "character". 

3. For those who don't have the book, I recommend Lulu Print-on-Demand, just make sure to get SuperSystem 4th Edition by Scott Pyle and David Lewis. 

4. For those that do have it, try making an 85 point character or two, we can change down the track if we want to, so don't feel locked in to the first effort. 

5. Taking any suggestions for a name for our "Crossover Event", something like the classic Secret Wars or Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

6. At the moment, I'm considering having a big finale game on the last meeting of the year, let me know what you think. 

Excelsior!  

Reboot

So this year, I've played a lot of Empire of the Dead, tried out some new games and done a few Ultimate Alliance games. I haven't got as many SuperSystem games in as I would like, but I've watch a lot of films and television that I'm slowing getting through making Superhero Media[s] for (seriously, there are nine in the backlog, and I don't know how many DVDs and recordings, plus actual comics). On the plus side, I've managed to plan out a great deal off stuff for SS4 that I'm finally getting to, and play a bit of Retro DBZ, which I'll post more about down the track as well. For now, I want to share with you my SS4 supers, who they are, the world they inhabit and what they fight for. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of miniature wargamers the world over never quite work out and teams don't get painted in order.To remedy this, I'm going to do something of a "primer" for readers, so that I can just post what I finish as I finish it. (for a quick catch-up, click the "Equalisers" tag) 

There are four "time periods" that I'm working on for supers gaming so far; French Revolution [FR], Golden Age/WWII [GA], Silver/Bronze Age (though in the 1980s rather than the 1960s) [SA] and the primary Modern/Platinum Age Equalisers stuff [EQ]. There'll also be some time-travel and alternate dimensions, because what's comics without time travel and alternate dimensions? There are also vague plans for adventures in space (thanks Jim Starlin) and after the apocalypse (blame Old Man Logan). Each era has its own heroes, villains, teams and themes. A big Secret Wars/Infinity War style crossover will have to happen at some stage as well, because why not? 

Starting at the top, the French Revolution [FR] centres around magic, secret societies and hidden power struggles. The revolution itself is the perfect cover for an epic power-play that can reference historic events and annoy pedants. I plan to run a campaign around these heroes, so far consisting of the Minions of Robespierre, the Illuminated Order, the Knights of Dracul and the Heroes of the Revolution. Watch this space for more. 
I figure Golden Age (WWII) games will be a good way to trick historical players into trying out SS4. Once again, there'll be an element of Historical events involved as well as classic Captain America style plots with crazy Nazi experiments and ancient artifacts. The teams will focus on the UK, USSR and Germany, again, plenty of stuff in the pipeline for this. 
The Silver age of Equalisers Earth kind of grew out of the background I wrote when I ran the Equalisers as a Mutants and Masterminds campaign about a decade ago. Like all good comics, I wanted some continuity. Were the (player character) heroes the first on the planet? How long had mutants been around? How do the governments of the world deal with people who can punch holes in the planet? The Silver Age enables me to build a mythos for the Equalisers setting and leaves opportunities for more time travel. 
Equalisers is the "main" story, the 616 if you will. There are more metahumans than ever before and they fight to keep the earth safe. There are more teams, more individual heroes and villains and more action. Some heroes and even teams carry over from [SA] and characters develop over time. 

Sorry for another big text-based post, more minis and games coming really soon! 

Getting Started in Supers - Part 1

SuperSystem 4th Edition is on its way! The Kickstarter is live (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/222965736/supersystem-4th-edition-super-miniature-battles?ref=live) and a mere $6USD will get you the rulebook. Pretty cool huh? 
To celebrate, I thought I'd take a look at just how easy it is to get a team together for this fantastic game. To that end, I pulled out 5 miniatures from my collection (almost at random) that I purchased for games other than Supersystem and I'm throwing together some quick fluff for them to be a team. 
Turns out that it's a villain team, not sure what that says about my minis collection... 

Introducing: Crocomanagator, Kaptain Killa, Hug-Bot, Splashback and The Baron. 

 

Kaptain Killa (Classic 40K Ork Freebooter): A vicious alien pirate from a distant galaxy, KK was shipwrecked on Earth when a team of nosy "Superheroes" prevented him from stealing the Millennium Dome. To exact his revenge on humanity, KK gathered other criminals to aid him in his campaign to destroy every monument and landmark on the face of the planet.

Splashback (D&D Water Elemental): Few people realise that, sometimes, water just goes bad. Not merely stagnant, but occasionally, downright evil. Splashback evaporated into a bad cloud and shortly thereafter started its rain of terror. Despite its hatred of all "solids", Splashback is forced to work with them, because it needs an occasional topping up with a hose. 

The Baron (Eureka Pirate): Born on the Bayou, this former Accountant turned to crime the day he discovered that he could keep the money he stole if he ran a church. A Google search on Voodoo later, the Baron was born. The Baron has no powers to speak of, but is excellent with money, especially hiding it from the Government. 

Hug-Bot (Horrorclix Carnage Bot): Hug-Bot was designed only to love. Programmed by a lonely scientist, Hug-Bot was intended to provide companionship for geeks who couldn't talk to women. Fortunately for Hug-Bot, there was a flaw in its program and it started a killing rampage. Nothing makes Hug-Bot happier than killing, so it got a job as hired muscle for Supervillains; nothing's better than getting paid to do what you love. 

Crocomanagator (Hordes Gatorman): Crocomanagator was hired by The Baron to be his personal bodyguard and dependent (for tax reasons). He is relied upon to do most of the actual crime, which suits him fine. No one is too sure where Crocomanagator came from, but his Facebook profile lists "Twin Peaks" as his hometown and "Sicily, Alaska" as his place of birth. Guess he likes TV. 

There you go, Villain Team origins from random minis in 30mins. Hopefully this may tempt a couple more people into Supersystem. Although I'm pretty sure most of my followers play it already.