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Re: Tig #2: The March Of Conquest
Well met!
The Gang of Four spent 8/27/14 from Noon to practically Midnight, with breaks for food and conversation, playing through 2 games of chas'
The Infinity Gauntlet #2 - The March of Conquest!
There were many interesting features about this map, but, during both of the games we managed to get in, all of the action was on one or the other of the Snow and Sand plateaus on either edge of the table.
In the first game, it pretty much went as chas [in Red throughout] had predicted going in.
The first game of this two game campaign, "The Infinity Gauntlet," saw Thanos rushing around our large board with the Gauntlet, trying to gather up the six Soul Gems. He was successful after a long game, with major help by Professor Zoom. PZ was so good that in between games in the back story, while other evil characters were rewarded with becoming solar system governors in the new Thanosian Empire, PZ mysteriously disappeared! Thanos didn't like anyone else getting so much glove time; he might get ideas...
I started off TIG2 making myself a player aid (my board game specialty in general) that summarized all the Soul Gem powers by the phase in the round/turn when they were used. This was passed around to others who got the gauntlet in the much longer Game Two. I had printed out the C3G gauntlet and gem glyphs on seperate cards for Game One, but this helped out in organizing all their powers, as adding them to a large Supers team plus a few new scenario rules was a lot to handle for a single player brain. Not to mention trying to psych out the abilities of the other players' teams. In fact, we had to establish an early round sequence of steps for powers that worked before and after the Initiative Roll, just to get things started.
In Game One my Master Plan worked perfectly; and they so rarely do ("Curses, foiled again")! Having built my team around powerful teleporters (a Soul Gem now made Thanos himself into one of them), this is How I Did It in only five rounds:
Round One:
1. Teleport Thanos with two Fire Demons from the star zone to the central Shi'ar Empire Control Space, the only one whose normal terrain would allow me to teleport out again without 'Teleportation Disorientation,' as did initial teleporting from my normal terrain start zone.
2. Teleport Vanisher to the Kree Empire Control Space with the entire rest of the team (except for the Bad Cops, who were mostly along for comedy relief). Teleporting again from the start zone meant no TD.
3 Teleport Vanisher (alone) back to my start zone adjacent to the two cops--again, not invoking any TD.
As the three other players had taken no teleporters and couldn't lay a glove on me yet, I now conquered the Shi'ar Empire at the end of the round.
Round Two:
1. Teleport Thanos to the Kree Empire Control Space from which Vanisher had now vanished, leaving it almost completely surrounded/protected by Spiral, Lady Deathstrike, Lady Shiva (who gave the former enhanced powers), and the other two Fire Demons.
Luckily for me, my closest opponent was using the brand new C3G Guardians of the Galaxy as his team (they had come out only days before the game after we'd all gotten to see the film and were charged up about them), and the GGs turned out to be very slow on this large and difficult terrain movement board. Taeblewalker moved his powerful tank Drax the Destroyer up first, but had terrible dice luck and I took him right out of the game unexpectedly after only a couple of melee attacks. As no other enemy was close by, I now conquered the Kree Empire at the end of Round Two.
During the next three rounds, where the action focused around the remaining Skrull Empire, the two players who occupied it had been busy whomping on each other painfully to get body count points in typical Scape fashion. I was able to seize and hold the last control space by teleporting in Spiral to get some of her multiple attacks against two different enemies, and then Thanos arrived to seize and hold the Control Space and win on Round Five. It was a whirlwind conquest, and in the Game One Universe, the entire known galaxtic cluster of space was now under the thrall of my evilness! Mwahaha! As giant space battles raged over the galaxies among billions of beings (as conceived in the back story, anyhow), it was the Supers' actions that decided the fate of the Universe, comic book style.
And for a second time in the campaign, It was Thanos for the win, and all the marbles!
In the second game, Taeblewalker, whose lack of mobility had handicapped him badly in the first game,
swapped out two of the Guardians of the Galaxy team members for two faster moving characters, the also brand new C3G card Indigo-1 (Iroque), a master teleporter like Vanisher who could also carry passengers, and Kid Flash.
We rerolled for position, and this time chas and Sherman were opposite each other on one edge, while Taeblewalker and I shared the other.
This time, I kept my army together, and let Taeblewalker have our shared plateau. From this bridge, I was able to keep my army intact for most of the game.
This time Thanos once again took out the first two empires quickly. There were many exciting incidents with all four players getting to and fighting in the last surviving (Skrull) Empire at the northern portion of the battlefield. This time the wise team choices of my opponents got to strut their stuff, and my own team was challenged to the utmost and practically wiped out (but then, so was everybody else).
"I am resurrected!"
--Mara the Demon, Oh My Goddess
This time I wanted them to thin out each others' ranks a bit before I went in a second time for the third and final Conquest Space, as all of them were now a presence there on or near the Skrull Empire plateau.
So after Thanos' first defeat, I left him dallying with Death a while, off the board and therefore supplying no possible further victory points for my enemies, until I had defined the key moment to strike once more. [In spite of his even declaring that this was what he was doing, Sherman, Taeblewalker, and I decided to eschew a stall, as we were convinced that Thanos' scheme was doomed to failure by that time in any event.]
So it was pretty dramatic when, around Round Seven, I returned him to the field, adjacent to a Fire Demon who had spawned close the the titanic melee taking place on and near the Skrull Empire for exactly that purpose! He's ba-ack!
But eventually he was killed twice and lost the game.
A few exciting moments I can recall include:
* "The Goddess of Death arrives!" Spiral getting four of her six possible multiple attacks on two different targets after teleporting herself in to the Skrull Empire. (Hey Novaraptor, that power should read "Sextuple Attack," rather than "Septupile Attack," but thanks for being the only one so far to make a card for her).
*Lady Deathstrike, without a single order marker ever placed on her, holding out as a blocker, adjacent to Thanos--himself on the final Control Space for a while, threatening my three opponents with a possible second victory for me. I always say, if you can't win, make sure you give your enemy a few hair raising moments! [I had moved Robin into contact with them all, but the Lady's peculiar talents negated Robin's and led to his demise.]
*Two of my C3G Fire Demons pinning and seriously wounding Braxas from height, and holding her there most of the game. [As Braxas was my bane in game one, I welcomed this turn of events.] Eventually at the end I even brought Vanisher in a final time with the Bad (Space) Cops, who then stalked the dragon queen, although they were unable to finish her off. I'd been holding this card in reserve for a while to spring on my opponents, who I figures would not be familiar with it.
My initial game start placement of the four Fire Demon's four Lava Field hexes were identical in both games; between the ladders leading to the empires' plateaus and at diagonal corners (farthest away from me). Although they were all evetually killed, I did get a couple of resurrections for them, and some were in the final melees at the end, where one pinned down Kid Flash who had the Gauntlet on other Lava Field hexes just below the Skrull plateau.
*Lady Shiva in a great martial arts duel with Robin, while he occupied the final Control Space himself for quite a while. Hiii-yaaa!
*Thanos fully using the powers of the Soul Gems while he had the Gauntlet, which he was unable to do in TIG1.
A few pre- and post-game comments:
Chas Pregame Comment On Other Teams
"Whoo, kids--this is scary!"
--Count Floyd, SCTV
This is what I like to see in a "Mixed Supers" Game alright; a wacky mix of Army Cards. We've got Marvel, DC, heroes, villains, a Classic figure and a squad! There are the work of independent designers and C3G designs that just came out a few days ago!
Okay fellas; lets MIX IT UP!
Tornado's prediction:
kolakoski's pod is evil. I have no love for Graviton and Punisher is arguably the best value in all of C3G, considering points vs. firepower. However I am going with Sherman and Braxas. All Hail the Queen.
Sherman's comment:
Thanks for the vote of confidence Tornado, but we played the scenario twice and chas won the first time and kolakoski the second. Braxas managed to destroy Graviton in the first game, but was not much of a factor in the second.
You're right about that Graviton/Count Vertigo pod though - it was pretty nasty once I realized what it did. I worked hard to get around it, but I made a key error in the second game (missing an opportunity for Green Lantern to destroy Count Vertigo) that I think ended up costing me the win.
And mine:
It took me a moment to realize I ought to place opponents' units exactly 4 spaces from Graviton, not more. Sherman played against Graviton/Count Vertigo pretty well. Count Vertigo wasn't as all that as I thought, as he did not reduce the range of Special Attacks, and could not handle Braxas at all. Graviton is, as aforesaid, sick.
I am not sure about the "key error," but Sherman might be referring to my surprise launching of Baron Zemo off the bridge into deep snow and slashing Green Lantern to death with his Master Swordplay.
But Sherman said:
Actually, I was referring to the fact that I moved Green Lantern down there at all when he had a better position in which he could shoot at Count Vertigo without Graviton preventing it.
My experience with Supers is limited. But chas' TIG scenarios has given me a feel for playing Supers, and building armies with them, such that I'm eager to play them again.
In regular 'Scape, squads dominate, and relatively homogeneous armies rule. I find such armies (4th Mass. x whatever) boring to play. In Supers 'Scape, squads are far less important, and involving multiple units in a single hero's turn is also less important.
Army building is mostly about finding or creating synergies among a team of heroes, with a squad or two thrown in - Hired Guns = 8 attacks/turn! The only drawback is the necessity of screening armies ahead of time for broken combos. In a typical four player game, this is mitigated by the possibility of 3 against 1 - see what happened in TIG #1.
Toward the end of the game, the evil er, I mean good Kolokoski, had pulled ahead of his other two opponents, and I was out of the win. We finally counted up the points, to confirm out estimate of who was ahead by how much. Not wanting to be king maker, but having mostly Fire Demons left, I made one attack against Taeblewalker and one against Sherman Davies, because I was more or less role playing the Fire Demons, who I figured would continue to try and accomplish their former Master's goal by fighting for the final Control Space, until his control spell dissipated and they returned to the nether regions. As they were already locked in melee, I said "Let the dice decide!" All players had taken part in bloody fighting and by now, Turn Ten of Twelve, the casualties had been high. But my attacks only had the effect of confirming Kolakoski's win, and we called the game at that point.
Final Approximate Score TIG2 Game 2:
Kolakoski: 1900
Sherman Davies: 1300
Taeblewalker: 1200
Chas: Thanos out of the game; dallying with Death once again. Deprived of their leader, the last remaining forces of his once proud army now disperse to various lairs and taverns to lay low---except for the Bad Space Cops, who just go back on their government jobs, their pensions secure, since Sherman Davies says "My Braxas can't talk."
Thanks to my regular playing buddies of The New York City Gang of Four for doing this two game comic book campaign with me. Special thanks to DrewmanChu for continuing to make my favorite Silver Age characters like nobody else does, with old comic drawing but ingenious new powers. Vanisher was my other big DMC surprise for my opponents this time around, as his Space Phantom had been in TIG 1. DMC is fine tuning these cards as I advance their play testing.
Thanks to C3G for many of the cards used, and especially the Thanos, Infinity Gauntlet and Soul Gem glyphs which inspired this campaign after they came out last Christmas, and for the new Guardians of the Galaxy, whose figures I'm trying now to find. DMC has just issued cards for all of the old Guardians of the Galaxy too, so together they may become a big faction in my Supers games eventually, along with the Star Jammers and other Outer Space types. Martinex was in Game TIG2 Game 1 and my figure for Charlie-27 proxied The Punisher in both games. And again thanks to Novaraptor for Spiral.
And finally... I furnished three of the game teams with their figures and cards, and finding proxies as needed was lots of fun--see my comments on team building including the list of proxies used in the TIG2: The March of Conquest thread (Marvel Maps and Scenarios section). For the board, I got to use my custom sand and snow 24 hexers for the first time. New toys are often the inspiration for fun new games! Players wanting to check out new supers possibilities might want to look at my newly updated Chas Quickscan Master Lists containing over 700 Supers from many different design sources, dozens of which are listed on various Supers Team Rosters there also for your viewing pleasure and consideration in your own games. Keep on Super Scaping!
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