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Theophony wrote:I think the bus fits the zombie look better. It's more ramshackle than prison transport....but then again it's the bat-verse where criminals seem to get out really easily.

So true! I think armoured prison themed bus should cut both ways.

Gitsplitta wrote:Well, for one... you can't really do any proper scale shots when your buss has no wheels. Block it up to the proper height and you might be able to make a judgement.

True enough

Dr H wrote:I'd have thought that a round base for the batpod would have taken up too much space for gaming purposes? Not that I know about such things, hence questioning.

Modelling-wise, it gives space to make a nice display base, but so would an oval of the size required. So you wouldn't be loosing out on that front either way.

Good progress all round.

Yeah it's a tough call. 60mm is still alleyway width though (alleyways are typically 70mm because reasons).

endtransmission wrote:So, did you get many new toys for Father's Day?

Bus looks cool btw. Looking forward to seeing it all painted up in whichever style you end up on.

Cheers! Actually, it was more food based this year: Beer (woo!), crisps, massive Pork Pie, very dark chocolate. However, Ticket to Ride Europe Edition, which is basically awesome.

Ruglud wrote:Great stuff, that bus is cool - is it easy though to clean up the rough casting edge underneath? Looks a bit messy as it is.

Love the Studio Minis Dorothy gang, i bought a set of them a few years back and actually managed to paint them up and make a custom scenic display stand for them all (have them in my gallery...)

I have that worry too. I won't know till I have a chance to give it a thorough soak and scrub. Yeah, they're cool minis. Yours are cool, love the posters on the base

So I did get some dad time, also, to build:

Started on SuperLex (see Rebirth)


spare chest piece from Elseworlds Superman, cape from Huntress.

Speaking of the big blue:

Went with Kingdom Come. Because in a game of asset management, why wouldn't you take the version that gives you more asset

And Lex proper:

plus minions:

Annoyingly, my heavy trooper is missing his back guns

Also, started on the Street Demonz:

Mostly layering blues.

Onwards!
Graven

Those street demons must be in disguise .

Cheers Theo, fixed now.

DC City is growing in population I see

Yeah spawning like mad. I am almost out of room in my massive army bag, it's terrifying.
Having bemoaned how useless my mates are, they've pulled their fingers out their collective... ears and we're playing DCUMG tonight. 35 point (a fast game, allegedly:
Supergirl
Flash
Arrow
Hawkman
(I'm going with a CW theme)

vs

Lobo
Zoom
Deathstroke
Deadshot
(all his favourite villains bar Doomsday)

My opponent is an ex-GW painter and he's offered to do Doomsday for my birthday. Well, it would be rude to refuse

I'll get some shots, terrain and all, later,
graven

You'd be a total cad if you didn't allow him to do that for you .

Glad you had a good Father's Day and jealous of the plastic goodness .

^Well, quite

So, we had our game. I thought I'd do a little review/discussion of the game generally as, you know, I thought folk might be interested (it's like this is a place for gamers or something...)

The game is played on a 36" square board - and that's the first point of note: inches, not cm. BMG is cm, so it's a bit of a brain-flip, but it points to a fundamental difference. BMG is a fiddly, micro-managing game, a bit like Helldorado or Confrontation - very European, in other words. DCU is big, chunky and more like a conventional British or indeed American wargame. And, it really pains me to say this, probably more fun.

Don't get me wrong, I love the tactical depth of BMG, and I love how organised it requires you to be, but you need a good 3-4 hours to get a proper game in, along with all the bits and bobs in the world.
As a complete novice, DCUMG is playable in 2 hrs. I can complete see why they're starting to push this as a tournament game, as it is very, very quick indeed. And it does, certainly, have tactical depth - it's just much more streamlined. It helps, also, that this was essentially at 2nd edition before it even hit the table, as it followed on from the late-lamented Marvel game - oh, and did I mention THAT IT'S FREE As sales pitches go, they don't come much better, to my mind.

So what do you need to play? Well, with average teams, you're looking at 5 or 6 heroes max. We played 35 points - an intro game - whilst the conventional cap has been 50, but new tournament level is 60 (partly to account for the really big hitters, Darkseid and Doomsday). You'll be running 4 models minimum, realistically, as this is still an objective based game - just blasting your opponent to bits won't cut it. That being said, we just decided to have a big throwdown, just to get the hang of it.
Interestingly, you cannot kill opponents. The more damage you take, the more you weaken. You have 3 sections to your health bar, Grey Zone (where you usually have a bonus also), Pale Zone (maybe some penalties) and Dark Zone (lots of penalties). If you are in the Pale or Dark, you must make a Stamina roll at the end of turn not to be knocked out. There are ways of KO'ing your opponent also, naturally - but, crucially, EVERY turn, you have the chance of getting back up again, albeit weaker. Very, very comic feel to it.


The core mechanic of the game is Power - approx 8 tokens (dependent on character) to do "stuff" - 1, 2 or sometimes 3 to move (all characters have a 1 or 2 move, some have a 3 - eg Supergirl's Power 3 move is the same as Flash's Power 2) and the rest to use abilities. You can always spend a Power (if you have one) reactively to increase your Defense against attacks, and your have 3 kinds of abiilty, Green (any number of times per turn), Blue (once per turn), or Red (once per game). It leads to some really interesting tactical decisions, as a result.
Activations alternate: you do everything for one model, including combat. Keeps everything ticking over nicely, and melee and range use the same rules. Card layout is properly intuitive and clear - we checked the rules twice in the game we played, and were right with how we'd interpreted them.

I set up Green Arrow and Hawkman on rooftops, Flash and Supergirl down below and out of firing line for Deadshot, who was across the board on a similar vantage point, with Lobo, Reverse Flash and Deathstroke behind buildings also.

Flash and Reverse Flash feel very much like speedsters. This isn't a redundant statement - Speedsters are still pretty flawed as a mechanic in BMG. Here, they ran through buildings, up buildings, darted back and forth (they can take 2 move actions, plus can teleport once per game) and were a general nuisance. Lobo was generally a tireless killing machine, and Hawkman was an absolute monster in combat. Deadshot really put the hurt on Supergirl, whilst she managed to keep going as an all-rounder. Everyone felt, well, fluffy.

Because it's a big old super game, a key part of it is throwing stuff (cost: 3 Power) , so you need plenty of scatter terrain. In Marvel, the game solely became about this mechanic, so the tweaks to the rules/damage in the DC version lead to much better balance and playability.
That being said, it was very satisfying to try to hit Lobo with a Jersey Barrier.

Sadly, I missed, but made up for it by throwing the swat van at Deathstroke and then Arrow filled him with holes.

What are the drawbacks? Well, it's not overly crunchy, which is fine for beer'n'pretzels, or indeed a bit more serious, but it's not the ultra-depth of some games. I can see me playing it with the kids: though the basic mechanics are a bit more advanced than, say, X-wing, it's easier once you get going.

Sadly, I'm very impressed - because ultimately, in time-limited RL, when I get to game it's about a 2hr window now.

Found my new go-to game, I have.

Cheers y'all
graven

Thanks for the review graven. Glad you found something you like that suits your life better. I look forward to more pics and battle reports so we can share in your good fortune!

Quick note: a model reduced to 0 Endurance is Incapacitated and removed from the game, so its still quite possible to kill a model permanently. It's often not worth expending the resources to do so if they get KO'd, but its absolutely possible.

Also, keep in mind that when you spend a power to up your defenses, that defense is enhanced against all attacks that target it until the model activates again or you spend power to boost a different type of defense. I find this really does a good job of encouraging diversity in attack types among your models and making it expensive to try and gang up on a single model that has yet to activate.

I recently picked up both systems and have been learning them together and finding myself preferring the DCU game overall. The big drawback I'm feeling with BMG is just that the movement feels extremely restrictive and it just costs to much to get anywhere. ~4" is slow in any game I've played and d6 cm is such a weird addition given that a third of the time it doesn't even move you a full base length. Definitely going to continue to give the game a try, but at the moment I think my focus will likely be on the DCU stuff. Some of that might also just be a matter of Hal Jordan being my favorite comic character.

One thing to note: I played a bit of the Marvel game and for some reason I feel like the power economy "feels" better in this game. When I played Marvel I felt like I didn't have a lot of choices when it came to how my turn went, but DC feels a little more open for some reason, or at least, does a better job of removing redundant options from cards. In any case, I'm liking it thus far and I'm looking forward to seeing how it expands in the future.

Wait .."Deadshot really put the hurt on Supergirl," She can be hurt by bullets? I thought she was 'SUPER' . Is that Cannon?

I'm looking forward to WW. Just .. well.. because.

If Deadshot got a lot of crits he could hurt her okay over a couple of rounds with his pair of once per games. She doesn't need to cower in fear of him or anything but she's a lot easier to damage than her cousin.

Gitsplitta wrote:Thanks for the review graven. Glad you found something you like that suits your life better. I look forward to more pics and battle reports so we can share in your good fortune!

Indeedy, me too!

LunarSol wrote:Quick note: a model reduced to 0 Endurance is Incapacitated and removed from the game, so its still quite possible to kill a model permanently. It's often not worth expending the resources to do so if they get KO'd, but its absolutely possible.

Also, keep in mind that when you spend a power to up your defenses, that defense is enhanced against all attacks that target it until the model activates again or you spend power to boost a different type of defense. I find this really does a good job of encouraging diversity in attack types among your models and making it expensive to try and gang up on a single model that has yet to activate.

I recently picked up both systems and have been learning them together and finding myself preferring the DCU game overall. The big drawback I'm feeling with BMG is just that the movement feels extremely restrictive and it just costs to much to get anywhere. ~4" is slow in any game I've played and d6 cm is such a weird addition given that a third of the time it doesn't even move you a full base length. Definitely going to continue to give the game a try, but at the moment I think my focus will likely be on the DCU stuff. Some of that might also just be a matter of Hal Jordan being my favorite comic character.

One thing to note: I played a bit of the Marvel game and for some reason I feel like the power economy "feels" better in this game. When I played Marvel I felt like I didn't have a lot of choices when it came to how my turn went, but DC feels a little more open for some reason, or at least, does a better job of removing redundant options from cards. In any case, I'm liking it thus far and I'm looking forward to seeing how it expands in the future.

Ah... That makes sense. I Love BMG but it's vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvery fiddly. And yeah, I can see that about action economy in Marvel. This seems much more slick. Loving the new stuff (Wonder Woman, Amazons, Dr Fate and Martian Manhunter, oh my!)

LunarSol wrote:If Deadshot got a lot of crits he could hurt her okay over a couple of rounds with his pair of once per games. She doesn't need to cower in fear of him or anything but she's a lot easier to damage than her cousin.

Yeah, this. Lobo's gun, on the other hand, is frakkin terrifyin.


Got my 60mm base through for the 'pod:

Pretty happy with it:


Yes, overhang, but still. This month's rules update specifies Huge models on 60mm bases (new Wonder Woman is on horseback and cites motorcycles also, so I suspect we'll see this having to be on a 60mm regardless.

Bit more work on Penguin:


Weirdly grainy photo, huh. Sorry bout that.

Working on Big A, the new bodyguard/thug:


Lovely, lovely fig.

and a sense of scale:

Probably the best view of them, also

Birthday tomorrow, let's hope for plastic crack!
Cheers chaps,
graven

I really like what you're doing with these latest figures graven.

Great work on penguin and the boyz, also Happy Birthday

Good work on the fig's. Base seems to work well for batpod.

Happy Birthday.

Gitsplitta wrote:I really like what you're doing with these latest figures graven.

Thanks mate. I'm enjoying taking my time with them.

Theophony wrote:Great work on penguin and the boyz, also Happy Birthday

Cheers! Twas a good one.

Dr H wrote:Good work on the fig's. Base seems to work well for batpod.

Happy Birthday.

Grand, glad you approve, and thanks!

Yeah, great birthday was had - out for breakfast, Wonder Woman in afternoon, and dinner at German brewery / restaurant. Some good Loot too - TIE STRIKER from my boys, walking dead expansion from the wife, nice set of sable brushes and walking dead solo game from parents (God bless you, amazon), and a circle cutter (and batman lunch box ) from erythromycin. Also much beer and geeky apparel.
Aside from kids driving me nuts, all well
End in sight - 1 1/2 days of term left
Cheers chaps
Graven


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ah, I forgot. Cake this year was Courgette and lime with a cream cheese and lime frosting, home made lime curd and crushed pistachios. If that sounds odd (Courgette / zucchini) is no more weird than carrot. Stunning BUT wife managed to give herself lime burns (wtf? Who knew that was a thing?!)

Sounds wonderful graven, happy belated birthday my friend. That cake sounds AMAZING... burns and all.


BTW, what is courgette? I've never heard of it.

Zucchini


Automatically Appended Next Post:
& thanks mate

Congrats on the haul , wish my family would buy that stuff. I usually get a shirt and new socks .

Also not well known about limes (beware of some language)


Great comedian and actor, died too soon, but that's drug abuse for you .

^ So very true
Hey, I got socks.
Star wars socks
I also got a Sheriff of Beer County T-shirt from my parents. They're very aware.

Happy birthday mate. Many more to come.

^Depends how much cake I eat Cheers bud.

Happy belated birthday, the cake sounds fantastic.

^ Cheers, yeah it really was
So, birthday shenanigans done for the year (well, not seen in-laws yet but that won't hit the geek spot ).
Did get some other cool toys from my mates, DC deckbuilding game, the dynamic duo for bmg, a promo bmg card of Detective Bullock (very chuffed, they're like gold dust) and Hamlet in Klingon
Also got a very nice parting gift from some of my leaving pupils of lego Darth Revan (from KOTOR), yoda keyring, a Tie striker and a Tie defender I think they know I'm a geek

Anyway, I think I'm ready to call Arkham Penguin and his bodyguard, Big A, done:






Off on me holidays tomorrow, driving down to Dorset. Expect tales of Bovington tank museum, new Walking Dead expansions, digging for dinosaurs, and me trying very hard not to kill my parents and children

Till then,
graven

He looks fantastic! Needs eyes though...

Cheers! Which one? Penguin or Big A?

Well, the both look great, but in this particular instance I was talking about Big A.

Okeydoke. I wondered cos ozzy's are def done

Fixed!

Big A is a bit large there!