Marvel Team Up ... Spiderman and Captain America!

Having updated Clobberin' Time the other day, I felt I ought to play a game. I'd found a few buildings on Junior General, and decided that it was a chance to tart up my rather improvised terrain in previous games. So, whilst it's not the majestic skyscrapers of Manhattan, my playing area does at least look a little more urban:

On with the game. Evil villains have planted three bombs in the city - those red counters you can see in the picture above. Two heroes rush to defuse them - Spiderman and Captain America.

Their abilities:

Spiderman - Agility, Adhesion, Leap, Hinder (M)
Captain America - Outwit, Block, Martial Arts, Ranged Attack (M)

And the villains - Mysterio, The Vulture and Juggernaut

Their abilities:

Mysterio - Hinder (M), Ranged Attack (S), Shape-Shift
The Vulture - Flight (+3")
Juggernaut - Super-Strength, Charge, Invulnerable

All characters were Level 3.

Clobberin' Time uses playing cards to determine initiative. I have ones that are appropriate to the game.

The face-down card in the middle is the bomb countdown timer. Each turn I dealt one card, which wasn't revealed until after all characters had acted. If it was a picture card or an Ace, then that was one tick of the timer. On the third tick, and each subsequent one, I would roll a D6. If the score was equal to or less than the number of counters still on the buildings, then the bombs would go off and the heroes would lose.

The bombs could be defused by a hero moving next to them and expending an action. They could make an opposed roll, with one hit removing one counter and two hits removing both.

So our heroes had to get to all three bombs before time ran out.

Spiderman took to the rooftops, whilst Captain America ran through the city. The Vulture circled overhead.

Spiderman headed to the nearest bomb, and set about defusing it.

The Vulture swooped in, backed up by Mysterio.

 As a team they were dangerous, Mysterio limiting Spiderman's actions with his smoke attacks (Hinder), whilst The Vulture attacked him. Spiderman stuck to the task in hand, and defused the first bomb, but had already taken two of his three hits.

What of Captain America? He was moving towards the central building, when Juggernaut hove into view.

But Captain America has Outwit, which gives him an advantage in initiative. Before Juggernaut could charge, the Captain had scaled the building. Juggernaut moved to a nearby car ...

... and threw it, but Captain America dodged. he retaliated with his shield and inflicted a lucky hit on Juggernaut.

He then turned and swiftly deactivated the second bomb. At this stage the timer hadn't begun; not picture cards/Aces had been revealed. Things were looking good for our heroes.

Spiderman was still in difficulties; despite his agility he couldn't evade The Vulture, and with Mysterio keeping him off-balance he couldn't fight him effectively either. Captain America rushed to his aid, but Mysterio is a tricky customer, and kept evading Captain America's attempts to hit him (his Shape-Shift ability means that he can roll to automatically negate attacks declared against him before they are made - and he rolled well).

With nothing better to do, Juggernaut ascended the building on which the last bomb had been planted. Anyone wishing to defuse it would have to go through him.

The heroes struggled to either hit or evade Mysterio and The Vulture, and now the clock was ticking ...

Finally! Spiderman webbed The Vulture ...

... and sprang onto the opposite rooftop whilst Mysterio was distracted by Captain America.

The Vulture followed ...

... but after evading more webs decided that a close pursuit wasn't the best option.

Spiderman and The Vulture race towards the third bomb. And the clock was still ticking ...

They arrived at the rooftop together, but Spiderman was ready with his webs, entangling the winger villain again.

Just in time! Juggernaut charged into the attack, but rolled very badly; Spiderman easily evaded his attack.

Disaster! The third tick of the clock, and a roll of 1 or 2 would see the remaining bomb explode ...

BOOOOM!

Our heroes ran out of time. Tonight, at least, evil had triumphed!

Our heroes quietly depart. Maybe they will see justice done in Part 2 ...

I wasn't sure how the balance of this scenario would work, but it didn't seem too bad. The heroes had a difficult task, but had more abilities than the villains, making them harder to defeat. Although Captain America's Outwit ability gave him an edge in initiative, Spiderman was wrong-footed by Mysterio and The Vulture for a lot of the game, and rolled badly to avoid being pinned when he did get to act, leaving him unable to move for about half of the game. When Captain America moved to assist him, Mysterio got very lucky and avoided being attacked. In the heroes' favour, they were lucky that the bombs didn't look likely to activate early on, but an unlucky run of picture cards in the last three turns, followed by that roll of one saw the game slip from their grasp.

This was great fun to play, and I was pleased with the look of it as well.

Update: I replayed it after writing this report. Still at ground level Spiderman came under attack from Juggernaut, and Captain America rushed to save him. With Juggernaut occupied, Spiderman evaded Mysterio, defused one bomb and leaped across the board to the second. The Vulture and Juggernaut laid into Captain America, who managed to knock out The Vulture before falling to a massively lucky hit from Juggernaut. Spiderman defused the second bomb, but arrived at the third at the same time as Juggernaut and Mysterio. Unlucky rolls prevailed again; Spiderman couldn't break off from Juggernaut to reach the third bomb before it went off, and the heroes lost again