The New York City Gang Of Four

[chas]

KOLAKOSKI ARMIES (* = New C3V)


Kolakoski Army I

Romans x3 150
Marcus 120
Mogrim 120
Kha 75
General Simon Frasier 45
Isamu 10
______
600


Kolakoski Army II

Red Mantis Blade Dancers* x3 240
Tandros Kreel 120
Van Nessing 105
Kha 75
Elaria The Pale 60
____
600

Kha, who appears in both armies, is a Soldier of Valhalla (SOV) custom designed by Kolakoski himself! All of us have had some influence on committee designed customs, except for Ishmel I think, but we've all also designed our own customs.

Customs are always allowed in our own games (but not Marvelscape unless noted; usually only in pure Marvelscape games). However, our own customs are only allowed by permission--but Kha is now a canon Custom, and always available.

[chas]

After a year delayed due to the Pandemic, we finally held our REUNION GAME DAY! The NYCG4 gathered from 1 PM to 9 PM, with time out for a rare dinner out at the local diner. We played two great games of Scape, using a different map for each.

Ishmel took pictures, and hopefully you'll be seeing them soon here. He also totally revived my C3V collection! Since that committee began I've been printing out their cards in black and white. He brought over all new cards in color and on more durable cardstock for the entire C3V/SOV collection. Our newest member also brought over some terrain and figures he was downsizing, and I've got it all here now for group use, from C3V customs to interesting proxies generally usable in future games and about a Master Set's worth of terrain. Thanks, Ish!

In our eight armies we experimented with 13 of the 20 new C3V figures (some served in more than one army). I listed upthread which were released during the Pandemic, when we were inactive as Scapers. There were also about half a dozen SOV cards I'd never seen before, so they will go into the mix as I hold Scissors Mania over the next few weeks to cut them all out from their sheets. I don't have enough card sleeves for all to be permanently protected as my Classic Cards are, but with C3V we sleeve the ones we are using for each game. Maybe I'll buy more sleeves!

I had a "Welcome Scapers" sign on my door, and provided beer and snacks. Kolakoski brought over a now legal mood enhancer which was much appreciated. Also now that T.'s and K.'s Scape is currently in storage, I supplied all the gaming equipment for everyone's armies but I.'s!

Taeblewalker made his three hour trip from upstate--he's a driving fool! What a guy. Sherman Davies looks forward to getting vaccinated and joining us next month. He says he hasn't been here on the site for quite a while, but besides many other contributions, including for the C3V, his own libraries of of regular and Superhero customs are onsite here for your enjoyment.


GAME ONE: Free For All on Jungle Rot map.

Armies: (See lists upthread)

Chas II
Ishmel II
Kolakoski I
Taeblewalker II

This game offered the usual mayhem with everyone bashing everyone else. Two of us were using the new Marro Re-Tak Shi, so before each turn we both rolled for our Rise From The Swamp power, and sometimes relocated either or both. I was trying to hit K., but got hit hard by T., and had to divert most of my efforts against him. Meanwhile I. squared off against the other two. I. and I were the only two players who didn't fight each other, being diagonally across from each other on the large map. We used our Marros. I.s Wildwood Army didn't actually benefit from all the water and swamp, and wasn't in this game.

I managed to put some hits on K.s Mogrim with Myrddin. Mogrim, Marcus, and Simon Frasier gave much support to K.s Roman army. My Viceron The Blood Knight took out three of T.s Marro Warriors, at the self sacrificing of his last wound, so he was a Suicide Squad member indeed. Then someone else took out T's last Marro Warrior so they could no longer water clone, and my sacrifice was not in vain. Myrddin did great service for me and Kelda healed him, but he finally went down. The same for my new Marro.

Toward the end my Kelda took a leaving engagement to heal my Marro, with only one life left. Re-Tak-Shi had attacked T's same figure, just for fun (duelling Re-Tak-Shis) But both of my last figures went down, the Marro when she took a leaving engagement to try and make a final attack. We fought to the end!

After a long while I was finally eliminated. I. had only three of his own Marro Warriors left, K. had only Kha, and T. his own Re-Tak-Shi. So the other guys figured they would be dancing around on the big board for another long while, and called the game. We went out to dinner and had a rare time to socialize in a group.


GAME TWO: Team Game: Chas and Ishmel vs Kolakoski and Taeblewalker on the Basalt Cathedral map.

Armies (See lists upthread)

Chas I
Ishmel I
Kolakoski II
Taeblewalker I

This game turned out to be much more one sided, as the I.'s Wildwood army reigned supreme. At first Morsbane threatened it with the only real peril which could really threaten it. But he got sidetracked by the dueling Syvarrises, going after that of T., who put the wizard down with some help. Then the invincible march of the "Ents" began, and could not be stopped, even when it took casualties.

Meanwhile I saw that K. was veering off to double team my partner I., so I veered off to the center. My HimmelWyvern did some damage, as did my Caucasus Rifles. I'd also moved up my Honor Guards, but they didn't get into it all that much, although like the other new cards, I learned to use them. By the time my beast Breach came out, he was mostly doing clean up! I. had some great "non-Official" proxies in all three sizes for the Wildwoods; he says he really does plant figures! Our enemies resigned after T. was wiped out as the plant men rampaged through his start zone. And I had been afraid the "Ents" would be too slow to be effective on the large map.

K.'s Kha had messed me up in Game One so I vowed revenge on him for Game II, but I never got to him, so I definitely owe the Serpentfolk figure some payback. His nice design always entertains in the games we've had him in!

When we finally knocked off, the guys dismantled the two maps for me, so I could put them away another day. There are terrain, figures, cards, and other gaming components all over the place, and tired and happy, I called it a night, after watching the last half of and then a summary of President Biden's Address To Congress speech on TV.

***

I've got two days to clean up before my first nonScape "Postpandemic" live game here on Saturday, which will be Hellenica: Story of Greece. Meanwhile, I just got shipping notification that the first Kickstarter of six that will be coming from now into the Fall should be here any day now. This game is Titans. Meanwhile, I've got a continuing game of Star Trek Ascendancy tonight on TTS as the awesome Andorians! Its been a particularly full week, with one on one or solitaire games of various C&C games: Commands & Colors Tricorne American Revolution, Medieval, and the new Samurai Battles earlier on. Whew!

(Note: Ishmel's photos and commentary appear below!)

[IshMEL]

Welcome!



chas made this sign to welcome us!

Dignan's maps:





maps are ready to go!



Two of my Skull Demons caught between K's Romans and T's Kee-Mo-Shi. I really could not get my Acolyte / Demon combo to work. It was a slaughter. But somehow my Marro Warriors survived...






Post-Demon-slaughter, the action continues on the east side of the board. Here Marcus & some Romans are caught in a crossfire between my Marro Warriors and T's Microcorp Agent.


C's Viceron the Blood Knight, about to take out T's Marro with a Bloodstorm Ritual.










It's Warlord v. Warlord!





And Re-Tak-Shi vs. Re-Tak-Shi! Note chas' Kelda, who was supposed to heal all the heroes who had to wound themselves to power up. Things didn't quite turn out that way, but she played a vital role nonetheless!






Game 2: Morsbane was the big threat to the Wildwoods, since if any of their cards were neutralized, they wouldn't be able to bond or regenerate. Here the Monarch and a Sentinel (proxied) face their mortal enemy:







Now it's Deadeye Dan's turn to face the Sylvan Wrath!





The Wildwoods were just crazy last night, hardly anything got through that 5 defense. While chas harried K's forces to the west with Gas Grenades and Arc Lances, the plants just tore through the cowboys and elves. After the way my Demons and Acolytes were crushed, it felt good to do some crushing of my own.



Thanks again @chas for a welcome return to Heroscape!

[chas]

The following two lists will be relevant to future games:

1. New C3Vs yet unplayed (6)

Unless I miscounted, there should be 7, but these seem to be all of them:

Corvan The Tainted One 175
Z'thoth, Mouth of the Abyss 140
Motley Max 135
Cal The Smuggler 60
Clawfoot Interceptor 50


2. "New" SOVs I haven't seen yet (9)

SOVs are not displayed on the Home Page when they are released, so its easy to miss them:

Xundar 150
Lilju 115
Uzog 110
Rendar Fy 85
Spectors of Aldorn 60
Maltis Tez 35
Shadow Fiend 35
Shadow Hound 35
Shadow Binder 25


Players may wish to try these out. Or they may wish to replay new ones they tried yesterday. The guys might want to play cards others played yesterday.

As for Soldiers of Valhalla (SOV), the secondary group for Customs, if you check out their lists you may find others I've tried out and you have not seen before.

These are all food for thought, and I'll be checking out their cards as I cut them off their sheets by the hour. They are already giving me ideas for more armies for next month!

Does anyone know where they are still selling the square 5 1/4" x 5 1/8" card sleeves?

[chas]

"And now for something completely different..."
--Monty Python

I've been watching youtube walking tour videos of many interesting neighborhoods here in NYC by this comedian/actor. Here is one of Kolakoski's Secret Island Base (Roosevelt Island), which as the tour guide mentions, many New Yorkers themselves have neve actually visited:

YouTube

[chas]

And here's one of my own neighborhood, home also to the Chas Game Palace:

YouTube

[chas]

Taeblewalker has moved upstate for a few years now, to a beautiful area of the Catskills. But before that, he lived on City Island, an unusual NYC neighborhood where I use to come out and sleep over to game, explore, and generally hang out.

YouTube

[Taeblewalker]

I actually know the sister of one of the guys they talked to in the video.

[chas]

The NYC Neighborhood Walking Tour Videos and C3V/SOV Card Connection

(Say what?)


I've just discovered these youtube walking tour videos; there are dozens of them on different NYC neighborhoods. Another good videographer is Action Kid, who did the camera work on the first two I posted here. Where Tom's vids run about half an hour, AKs go for an hour. These are all on youtube, so just type in NYC Walking Tours and you'll see them. There are other people posting them as well, like the guy doing the City Island video.

NYC has so many areas of interest that I've already video toured a number of places I've never actually visited, as a native New Yorker! And its also fun to see ones where I know the area, to compare what they focus on with my own favorite places! If you're not from The Big Apple, you might enjoy checking them out too, and find out places you may want to see when you come visit, now that the "Postdemic" Reopening has begun (Thank God).

There are also places covered that are not in NYC. (To people who accuse me of thinking NYC is the Center of the Universe, I just laugh and say: "Of course not--the Center of the Universe is Brooklyn!") My borough was its own independent city until 1898, and populous enough to be the fourth largest city in the USA today, if it was still its own municipality!

I've always loved traveling, and have been to 20 or so foreign nations and about half of our own States here in the USA. Now that I've more or less stopped travelling after hitting my last bucket list foreign (Japan) and domestic (Vicksburg, MS) destinations in the last few years (I'm 69 now, and don't get around like I used to), I love video travelling and have a bunch of travel CD series people like Rick Steves and Rudy Maxa. But I'll be checking out some on youtube now too!

***

I started watching the videos during hours long sessions of Scissors Mania, when I cut out the entire catalogue of C3V/SOV cards that Ishmel brought over to our NYCG4 Reunion Game Day. Perhaps a third came one per sheet, but the others were three per sheet, and that took a lot of patient cutting! Now having finished, I purchased 200 card sleeves that are similar to the old ones from a poster here on the site (see my thread here in General Discussion on Card Sleeves).

So starting next month, my previous B&W Collection of C3V/SOV cards will be in glorious color, and pre-sleeved, where before this I was sliding them into the limited number of "extra" sleeves I used for each new game. And I'll keep the old extra ones for that rare game when players use the same card(s) in their armies for the same game!

Of course I bought more than I need right now, so I'll be able to cover future production of Custom cards. Then I'll use the "extras" for Superhero games. Back when I retired some 14 years ago, I did The Great Superhero/Villain Card Hunt in January when it was too cold to go out much. Then I printed out hundreds of Supers cards from C3G but also from many, many independent designers (you can see my own thread here too), which you can find in the Marvelscape and Custom sections. And of course Sherman Davies of our own gang has made dozens and dozens of his own. Now after years many of these have become unavailable due to graphic site obsolescence and etc., but my hard copy archive is pretty large!

Now I have collected so many Supers, including multiple versions of the same character, that I'd never get enough sleeves for them all. So I can just sleeve them up for each game ahead of time, as I've also been doing with the C3V/SOVs.

[chas]

The next NYCG4 Scape Session will be here at noon on Wed. May 26. You can join us if you are in the neighborhood by letting me know ahead of time, or just check out the session report here.

Scape on!

[chas]

But of course we don't have to wait until our next group meeting to Scape. Ishmel is coming over tonight for some one on one action. Once again we'll each have two 600 point armies, this time on a 2 Player map chosen from our huge hard copy Heroscape Map Library that I keep here.

Ish will be playing some of his own customs, and I'll keep on with all the new C3V/SOV cards on the lists posted upthread. Hopefully we'll get two games in!

[Taeblewalker]

Originally Posted by chas

The next NYCG4 Scape Session will be here at noon on Wed. May 26. You can join us if you are in the neighborhood by letting me know ahead of time, or just check out the session report here.

Scape on!

I guess it's my turn. I want a free-for-all. Each person will pick two army lists from below and build two armies. We will have two games, and each player will use one of their two armies each game. No repeat figures are allowed; you must pick two different lists! Armies are 560 points.

I randomly determined that list choosing will follow this order:
@Sherman Davies , @chas , @IshMEL , @kolakoski , @Taebelwalker for the first list, then reverse the order for picking the second list.


The lists are:

Agents: All agents plus Laglor

Aliens: All Marro plus Nagrubs and Wulsinu

Ancients: Sacred Band, Roman Archers and Legionnaires, Marcus, Parmenio and all gladiators

Asians: All ninjas, samurai, monks, ashigaru and Kato Katsuro

Dwarves: All Dwarves plus Mok

Elementals: Elementals, Elementars, Kurrok the Elementalist

Elves: All Elves, Half-Elves and Eladrin

Feral: Fyorlag Spiders, Predators, Quasatch Hunters, Dzu-teh, Wolves (including all Varkaanans!)

Medieval: Knights (yes, you may take the Phantom Knights!), Human Champions, MacDirk Warriors, all Vikings

Soulborgs: All Soulborgs

Terrors: All Undead



VC figures welcome! Feel free to suggest additions to a list if you think I overlooked something.