Themed Marvel / Classic armies for new 'scapers

[IshMEL]

So I have the pleasure of introducing a few of my 9-year-old sons' friends to Heroscape. I thought I'd start them off with some pre-made armies they can pick from, so we don't have to spend an hour on drafting. Since they're all going to want a Marvel character, I'm giving each army one Marvel and creating a themed (or not-so-themed) army around them. I figure on using Warlord Alpha's "Overrun" map, which I can actually build using the sets I have, and have two teams of 2 (evil vs. good, natch.) Here are the armies, which are 700 points, which is probably too big for a first game, but big armies are fun, right? Anyway, any feedback is welcome. Here ya go:


Doctor Doom's Minions
Doctor Doom
Deathreavers
Zettian Guards
Deathwalker 9000
Krug
Sir Hawthorne
526.5 (Modified Point Value, based on Power Rankings)

This army fits Doctor Doom's powers of high-tech combined with sorcery. I can totally picture Krug and Sir Hawthorne tromping around Latveria doing Doom's bidding. I thought about putting Warden 816 in this army, to help the Zettians and to have more Soulborgs, but I think Sir H is better. Still, this is the weakest of these armies.

Thanos & The Alien Swarm
Thanos
Stingers x 2
marro warriors
Ne gok sa
me burq sa
marrden nagrubs x 1
578.5 MPV

Inspired by the "Chitauri are the Marro" thread, Thanos here leads an alien swarm.

Abominable Orcs
Abomination
Arrow Gruts x2
Blade Gruts x2
Grimnak
Nerak
Swog Rider
563 MPV

Why the Abomination and Orcs? Well, why not? He's green, they're blue.

Red Skull's Red Army
Red Skull
Cyprien Esenwein
Marcu Esenwein
Sonya Esenwein
Taelord the Kyrie Warrior
Isamu
Brunak
559.0

The Red Skull is a Nazi. Nazis are evil. Vampires are evil. The other guys look pretty evil, too. And: all red!


Venom's Monsters
Venom
Mimring
Fen Hydra
Torin
Shurrak
591.5 MPV

Venom's army doesn't have much of a theme, just a bunch of big monsters. The bigger they are...

Cap's Soldiers
Captain America
Airborne Elite
Sgt. Drake Alexander
Roman Legionnaires x 2
Marcus Decimus Gallus
Tarn Viking Warriors
611.5 MPV

Cap leads the highest ranked army here, with lots of theme and synergy going on.


Iron Man -- SHIELD & Samurai
Iron Man
Major Q10
Izumi Samurai
Krav Maga Agents
Agent Carr
Shiori
558 MPV

So the idea is that Major Q10 is a robot that Iron Man built, the KMA and Carr are SHIELD agents, and heck, why not recruit some samurai and a ninja to join the party.

Silver Surfer -- Kyrie & Vipers
Silver Surfer
Venoc Warlord
Elite Onyx Vipers
Raelin the Kyrie Warrior
Kelda the Kyrie Warrior
595 MPV

The Silver Surfer and the Kyrie seem to go together. And, um, vipers.

Hulk's Green Army
Incredible Hulk
Charos
Greenscale Warriors x 2
582.5 MPV

A big green fighting machine. Nuff said. No range on this one, though.

Spider Man, Elves & Dwarves
Spider Man
Sonlen
Syvarris
Axegrinders of Burning Forge, The x 2
Mogrimm Forgehammer
Kyntela Gwyn
585 MPV

Spider Man teams up with elves and dwarves. I'm sure Peter Parker will crack lots of LOTR jokes during the fight.

So, there you have it. Any suggestions on these armies? Or other good maps for a 2v2 game (I have one each of SOTM, RTTF, FOTA, and ROTV).

Thanks!

[puzzlemonkey]

I like it! These'll be a fun way to introduce them to the game. Despite all the recommendations against it, I'm always looking for ways to intermingle classic and C3G in ways that don't break everything. Let us know how it goes!

[IshMEL]

The Battle Was Joined!

The kids chose: Venom's Monsters (my son chose this one -- every kid loves those huge figures!)

Abominable Orcs (the kid who plays D&D)

vs.

Cap's Soldiers (the kid who likes history and really wanted the Romans)

Spider Man, Elves & Dwarves (the kid who really wanted a wizard).

After picking armies, I taught them the game, which went pretty well with a group of 9-year-olds. Evil went on the offensive, with the Fen Hydra grabbing the Glyph of Gerda, the Orcs establishing themselves on the western bunker, and Shurrak stomping around on the eastern bunker. The forces of Good were nervous. The Tarn Vikings and some Legionnaires went for Shurrak, while the elves mostly shuffled around and the dwarves sat waiting. Then Mimring advanced on the eastern front. The Airborne Elite saved the day, with a grenade attack wiping out a bunch of orcs and wounding Mimring, and an AE held the Glyph of Astrid despite repeated attacks (from height!) from the Abomination who Super Leaped to the central height. Around this time the kid who was turtling Spider Man's army had to leave. Bravely, I stepped in to take his place. (Woe is me, I had to play Heroscape!) Sonlen and Syvarris got into action, although Sonlen's dragon proved useless nearly every time, and the dwarves attacked the Orcish base. I convinced my fellow Good army leader that if he spent all his time retreating, he'd never get to attack. ("So, you're just going to have Captain America keep running away?") Finally the Legionnaires got some action with one taking down Mimring. I sent some dwarves over to help, since he was really nervous about the Grimnak / Venom combination coming at him. Syvarris and Sonlen took down the Fen Hydra, while one company of dwarves took out Grimnak and the other began their assault on the Orcs.

The game was called for time after about 3.5 hours, which was fine since we didn't have any official "losers." Mostly the kids "got" the game, although they never quite figured out the benefits of bonding and auras, and I gave a fair amount of "strategic advice." The kids pronounced the game "awesome," and one dad who came to pick up his son saw the game and his eyes grew wide. I think I may have a new convert, and a fathers-and-sons battle was already proposed. In all, I think it was a great success, although my son was right when he said, "Dad, next time let's do 500 point armies so we can finish a game!"

[Yodaking]

Sound like everyone had a good time and it was a big success. I would just echo the idea that you keep the armies a bit smaller when teaching the game. Less OM management issues to deal with and not as many new powers to overwhelm a new player with that way.

[IshMEL]

Yeah, good point.... I know I got carried away with these! 500 point armies, next time.

[chas]

I'm a little late to this party, but I just wanted to mention that in planning for a big game with eight or so mostly adults tomorrow out in Nassau county, Long Island, Sherman Davies is doing exactly the same thing in building premade armies (of 1,000 points) of either superheroes or supervillains. Our other host, Girznakh, will be contributing his wonderful buildings and car throwing rules! I'm looking forward to it immensely!