Introducing myself to HeroClix

In light of my likely not posting much for the next few months, I thought I'd post this from my practically defunct other blog. It's about my introduction to HeroClix. I should write another post about them later.

**First published May 13, 2014**

An little aside here before launching into this post. I can in no way say that I have ever been a super hero/comic book fan. I could probably count the number of comics I read in my lifetime on my fingers, I might have to borrow a toe or two. Not that I don't like them. I just never 'got into' them.

I did have a Dr. Doom action figure I got as a birthday present from my grade 1 teacher. It was totally by chance because she had a number of potential presents in a big bag and so my pick was quite random. Dr. Doom survived in our household for years and his career would include battles against G.I. Joe and Army Ants. I think he was finally sold at a yard sale in my late teens, his cape and weapons long since lost.

Fast forward to now and the relatively recent conversion of comics to cinema. Each movie has made me a little more interested in the genre. Except for some issues of Hellboy, I still haven't been particularly driven to 'get into' comics. But the interest is started and I'll admit that I have gone to the Marvel wiki to get current on some of the characters' back stories.

Then I found the Stronghold Rebuilt blog while I was looking at pictures of scratch-built airplane miniatures, or maybe for game rules, not sure which any more. The blogger there, calling himself Kaptain Kobald, put together rules for a superheroes fighting game he calls Clobberin' Time. His descriptions and photos from game sessions interested me more and I wanted to try it out, but it would take a third influence to push me to where I would actually do it.

That third influence was my daughter, who, through playmates and mass commercialization, has been exposed to some of the characters featured in the cinema franchises. She has an interest enough to be pleased in herself when she can name the characters appearing on the Avengers DVD case as well as to want to know the names of characters she doesn't recognize. Her current favourites are Spider-Man and Captain America.

My wife and I like to play board games and as parents we want our kids to at least have some experience with them, even if they decide later on that they don't care for them. The Stronghold game seemed simple enough that my daughter, 4, could grasp the concepts of how to play very soon if not right now.

So I bought a lot of 20 Heroclix (HC) figures on ebay for under $20 (including shipping). The lot was a random selection of used pieces, so I got to experience some of the joy that is inherent in the mystery of purchasing them new like the thousands of HC fans out there. Reading well enough about the game, especially complaints, I half-expected maybe getting a couple of heroes, a couple of villains, and the balance made up of various lackeys, red shirts, and other non-descript characters. With my limited comics background, I also expected not to recognize more than two of the characters I would end up with.

In between ordering and receipt of package, I did jump the gun and buy two sets that I spotted in Dollarama. For total of $5, why not? I debated it in my head, but one of the sets had Dr. Doom (the figures were visible in the package), and that triggered the nostalgia part of my reasoning (you know, the part that car manufacturers play on to sell Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, and Beetles). So I came away with the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, and the Mole Man. The other reasoning decided that this way I would at least have a few characters that I knew who they were. But I mostly did it for Dr. Doom.

The lot arrived almost two weeks ago now. I was wrong in both of my expectations (though in the one, just barely). There were only three characters that I would put in the lackeys category. While I didn't recognize the majority of the others, I did recognize Daredevil and Johann Shmidt (only from having watched Captain America). But I am also counting Hercules, and Mr. Hyde in that while I didn't know their Marvel universe stories, I knew their traditional stories and figure the Marvel stories can't be too far removed.

So yesterday, for those who are interested, I finally played a little skirmish with some of the figures (by myself, which I see a lot of these games being in the future). I played a mix of HC rules and CT rules. I used the official figure values printed on the bases to create a couple of teams (as recommended in the HC rules). The teams were:

Team USSR: Crimson Dynamo and URSA Major (246 points combined) vs.
Team Hydra: Johan Shmidt, Scientist Supreme, a Hydra technician, and Jackal bringing up the points to a comparable sum (244 points combined).

I used the Clobberin' Time rules for movement and the clicky bases to keep track of stats, but I didn't use any kind of buffers or enhancements from powers indicated by the coloured portions of the click dials (might have turned out different if I had). As it was, Team USSR won handily, mainly due their high attack and defence stats and to low attack rolls by Team Hydra. I even forgot Crimson Dynamo's flight ability, allowing anyone to attack him.


Sorry, no pictures.

**End of old content**

I have since played another scenario combining Clobberin' Time movement rules with HeroClix combat rules. This pitted the Fantastic Four against Mister Hyde, Klaw, Mole Man, Cobra, and A.I. Marine Hulk. I played solo (of course) using half my in-laws' pool table (they all think I'm crazy to play by myself). I also decided on a playing card activation system to make the solo experience a little less biased.

The objective was for either side to find Blind Al and bring her back to their respective starting area. Only problem was that she could have been at one of three marked areas on the board, decided by a die roll of 6; die roll took place of a character's action and character must be on the marker token. It's been too long for me to remember a play-by-play of the action, but the bad guys found her first. There was fighting at all three sites. The Thing battled and defeated Mister Hyde, who had Blind Al. Marine Hulk arrived shortly thereafter to pick on the Thing who was now escorting Al. The Thing just barely avoided a K.O. when Invisible Woman showed up to help after leaving her fray with Mole Man undecided. Mr. Fantastic was K.O.ed as was Human Torch. I think only Mister Hyde and Klaw war K.O.ed on by members of the Four before the Thing successfully escorted Al to the Fantastic starting area. So, in all, a very close game and I remember it being quite intense, wondering if the Thing could take the punishment being delivered by two heavy hitters.

I really need to try the full Clobberin' Time rules sometime. I think they would make things very interesting.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

For the last 8 years I have been driving one hour and a bit to get to work every day. Barring the first 2.5 years when I was working on my thesis, my position has been a "soft money" position. Meaning that I could work so long as the company, then center, continued to win projects and receive funding to keep up the staff. This resulted in a number of times not knowing if I would be employed in two months. Then one month. Then at the end of the week.

Thus far, things have always worked out, but it has always been in my mind to get a more stable position, and hopefully one closer to home. That day has come. And with it, a different schedule that will see me with less time for home projects and gaming during the summer. And, with that, less time to write and less material to write about.

However, winter will hopefully see increases in those areas. So this might be my last post for a while (most likely).

I convinced my wife to let us play Conspiracy for our most recent game night with our Hill Spring friend, Andrew. I think I liked the game more than they did. Three spies had their covers blown (can't help but think of it as assassinations). Andrew won the game with some clever pay-offs and patiently biding his time to make his move. He basically waited for me and Jenni to finish killing off enough spies that we used up all our pay-offs and couldn't challenge his moves.

We also played Master Labyrinth, a game I really like. I don't remember who won, I just remember it wasn't me. Not by a long shot. Jenni and Andrew both doubled my final score.


I feel like this entry looks sad, being so short and all. But, the winter could see more detailed reporting, which I think I am looking forward to almost as much as the potential gaming.

Man, I want to win a game some time! Later, all y'all!

One-Pager

I bought a bag of soldier minis while browsing Value Village a couple of weeks ago. All I knew was they were soldiers and that it was a good price for minis. As a bonus (maybe) they were all painted. Got them home and found out that they are from the Warhammer 40K line; Cadian Imperial Guards apparently. WH40K seems to be the common abbreviation, so I'll just continue on that.

I looked into finding out more about the WH40K universe 'cause, you know, I now own a piece of it. I'd heard of it, of course, and knew that it involved space marines, but that was about all. I found the wiki pages for the game and I read a little about the game/story. The back story is interesting, but for a few reasons, some of which I can't even identify yet, I just kind of got turned off. Maybe it's too similar to Starship Troopers, a movie I only saw the first part of and didn't care if I ever finished. Maybe it's all the skulls. Maybe it's the premise of the human civilization/war machine being modeled as a grotesque derivative of the Roman Catholic Church (maybe it's some kind of subtle satire about making war into a religion). Probably some combination including all three and a few other things.

I do like the Spaceships designed to look like the fusion of a Gothic cathedral and a Roman trireme. And there was one of those in the bag too. So it got transferred to live with my scratch-built space fleet.

Of course, another reason not to get involved in the WH40K scene is the cost. Having read the rumours and being curious, I took a look at ebay prices and found that if I were interested, I could get a good WH40K army for about the same amount I spent on my last car purchase. After seeing this, I am now considering trying to sell the minis and use the money to get some that fit a theme that I am more interested in. But, even if I don't unload them, they are at least generic enough to use as any kind of modern/futuristic army.

In the meantime, I figured I should at least try out some game or other with these soldier dudes. So in searching around for some simple rules, I got directed to One Page Rules, a site listing a few rule sets that take up only one page. Other game aides like faction tables and unit strength tables are included in additional pages, but their use in a given game is obviously conditional or optional. Coincidentally, a couple of the games are written with WH40K in mind. I downloaded three rule sets: One Page Fantasy, One Page Skirmish, and One Page Warstuff.

The other two being fantasy-based entries, I printed off Warstuff as the rule set to try out. Sorry, no pictures. It was getting late and I wanted to play.

This was a solo play-through. A few of the dudes were painted grey and the rest were green, so I chose three from each colour to face off in my arena. I assigned each model a number (1-6; kept track with a die beside each model) and used cards numbered 1-6 to decide movement order. Each team consisted of two riflemen and one sergeant. In this rule set, riflemen shoot long range and sergeants shoot short range and have a leadership ability which gives the chance to give up to three near-by friendlies a free turn. There are a number of special abilities listed and they take up roughly half the page of rules, so you know this is a simple game to play.

Here is my "arena":

The Grey side lost, mainly due to a leadership bonus for Green on the second turn that took out the Grey sergeant. I don't remember much of the rest of the plays, but it was fun. I'll have to try it again. And maybe I'll see if Jeanette wants to play.

A Little Bit of Minecraft

We had a daughter's friend over for a day. He's really into Minecraft so I thought it would be fun to make him a little Minecrafty thing. I downloaded a papercraft print-out to put together. But knowing him, I wanted to make something he wouldn't squash or break right away. I got the idea to just cut a bunch of blocks and wrap them with the papercraft bits. Then I drilled some holes and cut some doweling for a better hold when gluing the joints. So here is the one they call Steve (next to Lego Batwoman for scale).

Joints don't move, though I initially wanted to, but the wood I used was a little soft and the hole not big enough for the doweling and I was afraid of splitting it, so I just glued it all.

Painting Mister Hyde Pt. 2

I decided I wasn't happy with my repaint of a Mister Hyde HeroClix miniature (see pt. 1). There were really only two reasons:
1. too much brown
2. really don't like that cape-type thing on his shoulders

So, it was out with my knife and off with the cape, shaving it down a millimetre or two in the appropriate areas to look like it wasn't there any more. I shaved off  some more areas of the overcoat, mainly to get the paint off, though a less bulky look was welcome. Then I tried to carve in new rumples where shaving had smoothed out the relief. I had already painted his hair yellow and it just seemed fitting to paint the coat grey. After that, I got an idea and looked up some American Civil War era Confederate States uniforms. Using the general look of the uniforms, I added some buttons and a (hard-to-see) chevron on each sleeve. I left the tie-strings (presumably what held the cape on) but shaped and painted them to look like a Southern-style tie. I may end up removing it eventually, as it's the only thing I'm still not sure I like.

I like this modification much better than before. And the paint went on to the bare plastic much better than many of the mod forums said it would. Now I just need to look into re-basing HeroClix sculpts; in a DIY sort of way of course.

Now, I know I haven't kept up a weekly post, but I didn't expect to. Since it's my blog about playing games or making things and I haven't done either one for a while, what could I do? I have been thinking about making things. More specifically, I have been thinking about building a playhouse kind of thing for the kids, but that's a story for another day.

How did I get into miniatures?

That's the question that popped into my head the other day. I thought I'd take some time to think about what has influenced me enough that I would develop a such a draw toward miniatures.

Like most North American kids, I had Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars. But I don't think they really count. Sure they happen to be miniature models, but playing with them doesn't seem to increase the likelihood that a child is going to get into minis. In addition, there isn't really a sense of structure in most kid's experiences of "playing cars".

I think my earliest experience playing a structured game with minis was an overnight stay at a cousin's house when I was somewhere around 10 years old.

This particular cousin had a modest collection of medieval fantasy miniatures. The impression has stuck with me that he was into Dungeons & Dragons at the time, though he may have just liked painting minis, I don't know. I remember that he put together a simple skirmish - styled game and we played three or four teams: he, me, and one (or both) of our brothers. Don't remember much else except we rolled a kind of die I had never seen before (a d20) and that my favourite piece was a soldier in chain-mail and a white tunic (crusader-style).

That game definitely had an impact on me. However, I don't think it was the game itself, which was very simple, that was most striking to me, but the fact that we used little figures to play it. Thereafter, my siblings and I would set up similar games using Lego or plastic soldiers on a checker board. What's kind of funny is that it never even crossed my mind to find out where/how to get myself some little pewter men.

Fast-forward a few years to the advent of Micro Machines. Man were those cool! They started cranking out models of Star Wars and Trek ships as well as an original line-up of space-battle- or futuristic-battle-themed models. We thought they were some of the greatest things ever, but we didn't end up getting very many - $8-$9 for three very small toys always seemed like too much. I still balk at the prices I see for miniatures.

But we would set up Imperials and Rebels on opposite sides of our big rug in the living room and flick marbles at each others ships. This was merely an extension of something we were already doing with plastic army guys and dominoes. Sometimes we would play Galaga-style: one ship vs. all the dominoes and the ship gets three hits. We did the same with WWII airplanes.

Then we moved while I was in high school. A lot of things changed at that time. Actually a bit before that. We got a Super Nintendo for Christmas and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat for the computer. A large portion of our play/gaming shifted into those machines.

Fast forward again to about five years ago. I've snapped out of my "I'm in college and too busy for gaming" mindset, I'm losing much of my interest in video games and my wife and I are starting into board games and I'm wanting to get back to carving like I did when I was younger. I just need a subject. An expansion comes out for Ticket to Ride featuring a rather large lizard and an alien in a spaceship. I wanted to try that expansion, but I didn't want to spend $25 to do so. Voila! I had a carving subject! And that's where my home-made miniature-making started. That's right, I have not been making miniatures for long.

It has now been four years, I think, since those TtR minis. My previous posts cover the period between then and now, so I can bring this post to an end.

Getting a game in edgewise...

Sunday the family was invited to a games night at a friend's house. Just before we headed out to the party, I had gathered a couple of our own games in case anyone wanted to play. At the last moment, I just decided to take a kids' game as well, just in case. I dropped Snail's Pace Race into the bag.

They had invited a few couples to get together. There was lots of food and chatting and general good times being had. But after almost two hours, no sign of games.

It's fine, really. I know I was was least social person in that party and I get tired of talking pretty quickly. However, everyone else seemed to be having a good time and I didn't want to spoil it, so I found a deck of cards and set up Beleaguered Castle* for myself. At about the point that I realized I had no further moves, our host's 4 year-old son came over to see what I was doing. He proceeded to grab up piles of cards to show me something he could do, which I'm pretty sure from what he was saying that he was talking about doing a bridge shuffle. He didn't actually perform one, but he could sure tell me all about it.


 By the time we had finished picking up the cards, my 5 year-old, Jeanette, was standing by me as well. I asked if they wanted to play a game. Yes! I would get a play in that night, didn't matter what! So I pulled out Snail's Pace Race, told our host's son how to play and the three of us were off to the races!

It was a hit! As we finished our first game, he asked if we could play again. Same after the second play. Unfortunately for him, it was time for us to go home (it was after 9:00 and Jeanette had school the next day). In our two games, the red snail was the snail to put your money on. The way the game is supposed to be played (though I haven't introduced this rule to the kids) is that the players "wager" on a snail. You win if you bet on the snail that comes in first, which was green snail the first game and orange snail the second game. You also win if the snail you bet on comes in last; the red snail was the slowest of the slow in both of our races!

So there's my story of inspiration. I am very glad I listened to that inner voice and grabbed a game for kids.

* I have recently learned that I play a variation of Beleaguered Castle which has added rules to make it easier to win. I do still do not find it easy to win, I maybe complete 1 in 20 games.