The New York City Gang Of Four

[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.

[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 Mariedians, agents and Primadons

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!), Red Ants of Aunstrom, Xualtiaca Fire Ants

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.

PS: I look forward to any help choosing a 5-player map! Unless @chas wants to free build as is often the case.

[chas]

Ishmel came over for three games and my favorite meatball and mushroom pizza! We had a good chance to test lots more new cards, and Ish won the first two of three games. He had three armies, I replayed one that lost, which then won! For sentimental reasons, I built the good old reliable Highways and Dieways map. Ish used his own untested customs, which worked quite well and were very thematic. They are all available here onsite. He also took a few photos.

My 600 Point armies:

Chas Army I

Xundar 150
Shadow Fiend x3 105
Shadow Hound x3 105
Shadow Binder x3 75
The Varja 160
TOTAL: 595

Chas Army II
Breach 145
Ztoth, Mouth of the Abyss 140
Lilja 115
Quorik Warwitch 110
Specters of Aldorn 60
Bol 10
TOTAL: 580

Xundar was fun to play with his Shadow Army. I made a proxy by crazy gluing a toothpick to the back and free hand of an extra Pelloth I happened to have, and then painting it black with a gold tip. Originally I wanted to paint it all gold, but the card photo my pal printed out showed it as black, so I went for verisimilitude. Then I checked the photo onsite and it showed all gold there! Go figure. In fact, Ish's police customs did a number on me with lots of good shooters in general. They were interestingly named as descendants of Classic Scape figures. Lieutenant Woo, granson of Master Woo, was particularly heroic against my Evil army.

The Shadow Army was great and well integrated. I didn't think the Shadow Binder was very powerful, but its powers turned out to be subtle, using the basic Scape rules in interesting ways, and worked quite well.

(On a side note: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I]The Shadow knows!"[/I] Don't miss the movie The Shadow with Alec Baldwin--an underrated classic, faithful to the original pulp hero and with a terrific cast!)

The Varja Kolakoski would have loved to see what happened, as in an old game I one shotted this very powerful figures he was running right out of the game with Bolt of Witherwood, a power I was ridiculously successful many times with way back when. Last night the same happened to me, as a modern SWAT sniper type who needed to roll a 19 or 29 shot him right off the board on Turn Two! Yikes!

Breach A super powerful guy, who hardly got in the game last Saturday, earned his points against an all melee army of Golems. We pounded away at each other for quite a while.

Ztoth, Mouth of the Abyss Try saying his full name dramtically each time you use him, as I did, and it becomes quite a tongue twister! Yeth it doth. It took me a while to figure out how to use him, as was true for some of the others.

Quorik Warwitch A very old C3V I've admired never used; I have a nice but different winged custom proxy for her. She made a nice clean up character.

Lilja doesn't last long, but she "blowed up real good" (SCTV's Farm Film Review). It was all I could do to keep my own figures away from her when that happened, as it did to Viceron the Blood Knight in last Saturday's game!

In the first game, Ish used a super powerful vampire army, then the police, and lastly golems--who didn't have the specialized terrain that would have powered them up--there was no rock or sand on the map. His customs in general were great--ingenious and thematic. And I didn't see anything that needed adjusting after this first play of them all. Pretty cool. Ish also showed me his supers, which had particularly nice images on other people's designs, some of which were by Sherman Davies.

The Game Palace (Kolakoski's nickname; he also named the NYCG4) is even more messy than usual, as I had to move things around to clear the way for a new deluxe mattress delivery, as well as getting rid of the old queen size. I'm still waiting for it now, and sleeping on the couch!

[chas]

Here's a video of Park Slope, Ishmel's old neighborhood, and my second favorite here in the borough of Kings County (aka Brooklyn) after my own. Its great fun, beautiful, and right next to Prospect Park, created by Federick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park in Manhattan, and just as nice in its own way!

Its also close to the major class Brooklyn Museum, The Beautiful Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and the Main Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library--all of which are awesome. The park was the site of most of the Revolutionary War Battle of Brooklyn (often 'misnamed' as The Battle of Long Island, but it took place entirely here in Brooklyn).

Kings County Trivia: From where can 1 in 20 Americans trace their ancestry within only a few generations? Hint: We're talking Brooklyn here, ya know?

YouTube

[chas]

And now that were reeopening back up, here's a recent unsolicited testimonial from www.boardgamegeek.com:

@fastbilly1
Posted,Apr 21
I have to say the adventures of the Gang of Four are some of the best parts of Heroscape. Ive followed yalls topic at Heroscapers for years.

***

Hey, thanks man! Everyone is always welcome to post here, and come Scape with us if you visit here in NYC.

[chas]

Sherman Davies lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, so here are a couple of very different videos on his neighborhood. This short one with no narration shows the nice older residential blocks in the area. Note the sign which reads "Welcome to Brooklyn, the Fourth Largest City in America:"

YouTube

This longer one shows the main street, with its many shops and restaurants. It is narrated with information about the area:

YouTube

[IshMEL]

Some battlefield pictures and reports from the game chas mentioned above:

Game 1: Law vs. Shadow
@chas let me try out some of my untested cards. First up was "The Namesakes," a group of Lawmen who are descendants of some official Heroes. You can see the cards (and read the story, if you're so inclined) here.

My army was:
Lt. Jane Murphy
Det. Addison Carr
Det. James Woo
Det. Joan Sullivan
Sgt. Al McCreech (called "Bullock" throughout the game once we remembered the name of the Batman figure)
Ofc. Daniel Maverick
78th Precinct Patrolmen x 2.5

The long arm of the law, in the start zone:


Here is the nice paint job that chas did on Pelloth to make a Xundar:


Appropriate proxies for the shadow things and the Varja:


Det. Carr surrounded by 2 Shadow Binders and a Shadow Hound:


Det. Woo takes on Xundar and a Shadow Hound:


The Lawmen did pretty well. There's a *lot* of synergy, which means a lot to keep track of. On one order marker, I might end up taking two Lawmen hero turns, moving figures with Lawmen Dispatch, and using Call for Backup to get my patrolmen into the mix. But they mesh together well. Ofc. Maverick, descendant of Deadeye Dan, certainly earned his points using Sharpshooter to take out the Varja. Sgt. McCreech (not Guilty!) huffed and puffed his way to a center island, but got knocked out pretty early. Det. Carr held his own, but it was Det. Woo who ended up using his martial arts skills to save the day.


Game 2: Vamps vs. Golems
I next tried out some of my vampire customs, namely Morbius Esenwein, Marcu Esenwein Uncursed, my card for @Son of Arathorn 's Ileyana Esenwein, and the Bat Swarm. You can see those customs here.

I was eager to see how Marcu Esenwein Uncursed would do. At the beginning of Round 2, the Esenwein Curse returned! So much for that. The vamps were pretty powerful, and Ileyana's Vampiric Domination took out several of chas' figures. I didn't get a chance to test out the Bat Swarm, so it remains to be seen if it works (and if it's underpriced).

Game 3: Golems vs. Golems.
chas re-ran his Golem army, and I brought up some of my Golem customs (which you can see here), along with the Iron Golem and Augamo. Augamo fell quickly, and the Iron Golem was no match for Breach. Without stone or sand terrain, the Stone Golem and Sand Golem were hampered, and my golems splintered into pieces before the onslaught from Breach and Lilja.

A great night of 'Scape, and it was fun to get to test out my customs!

[chas]

My 200 additional Heroscape card sleeves have now arrived and been loaded with the entire C3V/SOV (VC) card list in color, and will be available from now on. Only 34 sleeves remain for future issues. All we have to do is get proxies for them and they are ready to go, for your gaming pleasure.

[chas]

The army draft for TW's upcoming session is now complete. Ishmel found us a nice five player map we'll be using, which GM Taeblewalker approved, which is Bridges of Stella Lucides by Lamaclown

Here are the army lists chosen:

Sherman Davies: Aliens, Dwarves
Chas: Elementals, Asians
Ishmel: Soulborgs, Agents
Kolakoski: Feral, Medieval
Taeblewalker: Terror, Elves

Once finished, we can all build our two 560 Point armies from the lists.