The Devious Device Of Doctor Doom

I played another game of Clobberin' Time last night, and took lots of photos. This was mostly because I realised that, despite the name of the rules, I hadn't featured a game involving the Fantastic Four on this blog yet.

I played a variant of the bomb scenario from the other day. At the far end of the board from the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom had an awesome and terrible device, which needed to be disabled. The roll to do this was set such that it would be very hard. However the difficulty could be reduced by solving one or more 'clues' elsewhere on the board. meanwhile, of course, Doom and his minions would be trying to stop the Fantastic Four. There was no ticking clock; the Fantastic Four had all the time they needed to stop the device, but Doom and friends would be whittling them down as they tried.

Here are the stats I used. I still don't have a Human Torch figure, so I used Firestar instead. One day I will find and acquire a Human Torch figure ...

The Fantastic Four

Mister Fantastic - Level 3, Gadgets, Science!, Range (M), Superleap
Invisible Girl - Level 3, Block, Invisibility, Hinder (M)
The Thing - Level 3, Superstrength, Invulnerability
Firestar - Level 3, Flight +3", Power Blast (M), Rage (on Power Blast)

('Science!' is a new ability I was testing, which allows the character an extra dice when trying to solve clues. Firestar's 'rage' represents the Nova Blast)

Doom And His Minions

Doctor Doom - Level 4, Flight, Power Blast (M), Invulnerability, Rage, Leader
Puppet Master - Level 3, Mind Control (L)
Doom-Troopers X 5 - Level 1, Range (M), Rapid Fire

(The Doom-Trooper's 'Rapid Fire' represents them having machine-guns.)

Here are the Fantastic Four.

And here's Doom and his minions.

The playing area. the red counters across the middle are the clues, whilst the blue ... thing ... at the top of the picture is the Devious Device.

Firestar zoomed over to investigate one clue. Out of shot Mr Fantastic went for the one in the middle.

The Thing and the Invisible Girl moved to investigate the clue on their left. In the distance the Puppet Master was moving into position.

Firestar was engaged by the squad of Doom-Troopers, who inflicted a hit on her.

Mr Fantastic investigated his clue, but even his Science! ability seemed unequal to the task of solving it (Translation: He rolled like a complete novice. Two turns in a row.)

Firestar set about solving her clue with more success, whilst the Doom-Troopers kept up a steady fire.

Doom himself stepped in, and Firestar took another hit.

The Invisible Girl reached her clue, and solved it with no problems. Whilst invisible.

Firestar was in trouble - under fire from Doom-Troopers, and under attack by the man himself. But she kept on at the clue.

Some of the Doom-Troopers moved over to engage the Invisible Girl.

And what of The Thing? He was wandering aimlessly, under the mental control of the Puppet Master.

With her clue solved, the Invisible Girl turned her attention to the Puppet Master, distracting him with her force-fields.

Despairing of solving his clue, Mr Fantastic decided that making a run to deactivate the Devious Device was a better plan. On the way he knocked out a Doom-Trooper.

Free of the Puppet master's mental control, The Thing took out another.

The Puppet Master retreated to the cover of some rubble.

Firestar solved her clue. Doom had moved away to protect the Devious Device.

She then flew over to the clue Reed Richards had abandoned, and started work on it with more success than he had managed.

The Thing clobbered another Doom-Trooper.

Under the Puppet Master's influence, Mr Fantastic rushed over to Doctor Doom and came under attack.

The Thing moved towards the Devious Device.

Mr Fantastic evaded Doom and the Puppet Master, and also moved towards the Devious Device.

The Thing now came under the Puppet Master's mental control, and moved towards Mr Fantastic in a menacing fashion.

The Invisible Girl continued to try and distract the Puppet Master.

Doctor Doom attacked Mr Fantastic ...

... and knocked him out.

Firestar zoomed over to the Devious device.

And the Invisible Girl continued her attack on the Puppet Master.

Firestar partially deactivated the Devious Device.

Before Doom ...

... took her out.

The two surviving Doom-Troopers were moving back into the fight, taking The Thing under fire.

But shrugging off the bullets he climbed up to the Devious Device, and finished deactivating it, thwarting Doom's plans.

The surviving heroes.

Doom swears veangeance!

Doom's forces were an experiment in mixing levels of power in one team. The Doom-Troopers were an annoyance, and if there had been a ticking clock they could have been more dangerous, as whilst they weren't dangerous in themselves they could hamper and delay other characters. Doctor Doom was tough in combat, but is still limited to one action a turn. I'm not likely to change that, but it does make him less dangerous than you might think. He does slowly whittle down a Level 3 character, though, and is hard to break away from. There's plenty of scope for tweaking abilities in both teams for future games, but I was pleased with the basic flow of the scenario.