Excalibur in 'Bank Heist!'

Breaking News! Three costumed villains, led by the enigmatic Mysterio, have robbed the Rymansville bank and stolen two cases of rare and valuable jewels! Even now they are making their escape. The police are helpless to stop them (aren't they always).

The villains: Mysterio, Hobgoblin and Mr Hyde.

Fortunately members of the superteam Excalibur are on hand to stop them - Captain Britain and Nightcrawler - plus this week's special guest-star, The Scarlet Witch.

The scene is set. All the villains have to do is get the jewels past the heroes and exit off their base-edge.

The heroes took the initiative and moved into position - Nightcrawler teleported to a rooftop, Captain Britain flew boldly down the centre of the street and the Scarlet Witch hung back ready to provide support where needed.

The Hobgoblin was carrying one case of jewels but launched into an attack on Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler easily dodged the fiend's rocket-sled.

Mysterio and Mr Hyde raced towards Captain Britain.

Mr Hyde stopped to try and heft a nearby car at Nightcrawler, but couldn't get a decent grip on it and abandoned the attempt.

Meanwhile Nightcrawler rained a flurry of blows on the Hobgoblin and took him down ...

... before teleporting behind Mysterio in order to distract him ...

... so that Captain Britain could zoom into the attack!

The Scarlet Witch attempted to hold up Mr Hyde with her hex-bolts, but he shrugged them off.

With Mysterio now locked in combat with the Captain, Nightcrawler teleported over to Mr Hyde, trusting to his agility to protect him from the monster's mighty fists.

It didn't. Momentarily disorientated by his teleport Nightcrawler fell to a single mighty punch.

An overview of the fight, with both sides now down by one character.

The Scarlet Witch moved up to try and slow Mr Hyde, who was trying to pick up the Hobgoblin's case of jewels. However she was surprised when Captain Britain charged towards her, hypnotised by the malevolent Mysterio into thinking that *she* was one of the villains. Fortunately Mysterio's control over the Captain wasn't strong enough, and he stopped short at actually attempting an attack.

The distraction was enough for Mr Hyde to recover the second case of jewels, however.

Enraged, Captain Britain piled into Mysterio again, landing a damaging blow.

Meanwhile Mr Hyde lumbered down the street towards the Scarlet Witch who, once more, found her hex-bolts unequal to the task of slowing him down.

Seeing the he'd been distracted from the task in hand, Captain Britain attacked Mr Hyde, and scored a decent hit on him.

However Mysterio's trickery dazzled him for a moment, allowing Mr Hyde to return the favour.

Mr Hyde continued to make his escape.

Mysterio moved up, and used his illusions to convince the Scarlet Witch that her companion was, in fact, the Hobgoblin.

As Captain Britain flew past to engage Mr Hyde once more, she launched a hex-bolt at him. Fortunately, in her confused state, her aim was off.

She moved to the sidelines to recover, as the Captain and the monster traded blows ...

...  and with her wits now returned, engaged Mysterio.

WHAM! Britain's protector downed Mr Hyde!

Tricking the Scarlet Witch once more, Mysterio broke away from her, and ran to where the jewels were, hoping that his illusions would protect him from Captain Britain.

They didn't. The Captain had had quite enough of Mysterio's smoke and mirrors, and took him out of the fight as well.

The heroes had won the day, and prevented the robbery!

But wait. Was that really Mysterio they had defeated. Things are sometimes never what they seem ...

This was a game of Clobberin' Time, my own fast-play, low-detail superhero skirmish rules, which can be found on the Free Stuff part of this blog. The stats for the protagonists are as follows:

Mysterio - Shape-Shift, Hinder (M), Mind Control (S)
Mr Hyde - Superstrength, Resilience
The Hobgoblin - Flight, Charge, Ranged Attack (S), Hinder (S)

Captain Britain - Strength, Block, Flight + 3"
Nightcrawler - Teleport, Agility, Adhesion
The Scarlet Witch - Hinder (M), Ranged Attack (M)

All characters were Level 3.

The mix of abilities worked well to give an interesting game. Both sides had a hard-hitting close-combat specialist, one with more mobility and another that could provide support. Mysterio's mind-control came close to giving the villains a superior position twice during the game, especially the second attempt which saw the Scarlet Witch in a position to hinder Captain Britain sufficiently long enough for Mr Hyde to take him down and make his escape. Only a bad roll on her part prevented this.

I still need to fiddle with some of the abilities in the game; at its core it's a very workable system, but there ideas I've had floating around in my head for new things characters can do, and refining some of the existing abilities.

Observant readers will notice that the characters have all been removed from their Heroclix bases, and transferred to very nice perspex ones from Aetherworks. Whilst the clear perspex has its issues - highly reflective and prone to reacting to superglue being two of them - it does mean that the character blend in to any environment on which I place them. I'm not sure what colour I'm going to do the flying stands yet, though. The white looks less obtrusive than I thought it would be. The stands are florist's wire, with an outer sleeve made from the plastic tube of a cotton bud. The wire acts to pin the character and the base together, since it can be glued into good, deep holes on both. The plastic tube stops the wire bending, as well as providing a small amount of additional support.