Batman's Bookshelf Brawl

The thing, you see, is that my Batman Heroclix figures are on a shelf next to my computer desk. So are the dice, counters, cards and tape-measure. And there I was, pondering what I was going to do for another test game of my superhero game rework, when I realised that another shelf had a few boxes, batteries and bits and pieces on it that might make useful terrain. And it was convenient. And one thing led to another.

I played the game on a bookshelf.

The inevitable shadows made for some really crappy pictures, but you'll just have to slum it today ...

The story so far.

For whatever reason The Scarecrow and Bane are blackmailing Gotham City. They have planted a Great Big Bomb on the Main Thingy at Gotham Power-Station - the bit that looks suspiciously like a plastic wine-glass.

The seconds are counting down ...

Enter Batman and Catwoman. Only they can stop the dastardly plan. They must get past the villains and defuse the bomb.

(Robin was still recovering from yesterday's savage beating)

The heroes and villains approach each other - Bane moves to confront them directly, whilst The Scarecrow hangs back, ready to use his psychological trickery on them.

Although beating up Bane is tempting, that isn't the objective. Since The Scarecrow can slow down the heroes he becomes the primary target - Batman leaps over the advancing Bane and scores two hits on The Scarecrow.

Catwoman is yet to act, and Bane goes first, attacking her. Her agility isn't enough to save her from taking a hit ...

... but she hinders Bane with her whip and moves past him. Meanwhile, see that white counter on Batman? It means that he's partially under The Scarecrow's mental control.

 On the next turn Catwoman moves first, racing towards the bomb.

The Scarecrow follows, hitting her with fear-gas in an attempt to slow her. The mentally-controlled Batman also hurls batarangs at her, but she dodges them.

(Sorry about the blurry picture)

Free of The Scarecrow's mental control, Batman also moves towards the Main Thingy. He gets initiative on the next turn and that enables him to reach it and use his action to defuse the bomb.

The villains' only option now is escape, but they need to slow our heroes down first of all. The Scarecrow hits Catwoman with more gas, leaving her unable to act this turn. Bane has raced up the board and is ready to take on Batman.

The characters pair off - Catwoman attacks The Scarecrow and misses, and falls under his mental control.

Meanwhile Bane inflicts a hit on Batman, but Batman gives Bane a good pummelling, inflicting two hits back on him.

Catwoman is scared into running away, and ends up cowering in a corner, whilst The Scarecrow prepares to run the other way.

And an enraged Bane lays into Batman big-time, inflicting two solid hits on him. Added to one he took earlier that's enough to knock out the Caped Crusader.

With Catwoman scared away and Batman unconscious the two villains flee the scene.

This game took about five minutes to set up and about fifteen minutes to play. There was a countdown mechanism in play for the bomb, based around die rolls, but it had no effect on the game in the end.

Batman had the same abilities as the previous game. Catwoman had a short range Hinder attack (her whip), plus agility which allows her to reroll a defence dice.

Bane is a heavy hitter, combining strength (which makes one of his hand to hand dice a more effective red one) and martial arts (which allows combat rerolls). The Scarecrow also had a short range Hinder attack (fear gas), combined with Mind Control. This uses the same opposed die roll mechanism as Hinder (see the previous post), but one counter allows the controller to perform either the target's move or their combat action, whilst two counters allows them to perform both. You can stack up counters for extended control. This is the first time I have tried it out and it seemed to work OK, introducing a few decisions on the timing of initiative.

I also tried out a different way of doing Batman's Outwit ability, giving him an extra card instead of allowing the ability just to break ties. That seemed to work OK as well. In fact it was his Outwit that gave him the edge when it came to reaching and defusing the bomb.

I have started to write up the rules properly now, but there's a few abilities and character designs I want to try out before I reveal them to the world.

I may try some Marvel characters next - I know where I am with Marvel characters.