The Return Of Sky Ace

A few days ago we watched 'Spiderman: Homecoming' for the first time. It was OK, but whilst I liked the effects they used for The Vulture, I kind of missed the classic 'old guy in lycra with wings' look of the original. This led to me wanting to play out a fight between Spiderman and the classic Vulture, and that led to me getting out a game I'm pottered around with a few years ago called Sky Ace.

Sky Ace is an abstract superhero skirmish game driven by standard playing cards. Whilst a bit odd, and possibly flawed in a few places, it has a rather clever mechanism where the position you lay your cards affects the kind of attacks you make.

Rather than repeat all of the rules I will refer you to two comprehensive posts from a few years ago. The first has a description of the game, some changes I made to it (obviously) and the report of a fight between Captain Britain and Slaymaster: Sky Ace

The second is simply a report of a Batman vs The Joker fight: More Sky Ace

The two reports together should give you the background to the rules and how they play, saving me repeating a lot of it here.

Anyway, I've played a few games during odd moments this week, come up with a few minor tweaks and decided that it was time I tried a fight with more than one character on each side. I'd played out the desired Spiderman vs Vulture fight, and added to it - Spiderman was joined by my favourite X-Man, Nightcrawler, whilst The Vulture was teamed up with The Hobgoblin. I threw together some quick stats for them, which will only make sense if you've read the rules and my posts linked above:

Spiderman

Hand to Hand - Every Time

Distance - Occasionally

Charge - Rarely

Stealth - Almost Never

Hardiness - Rarely

Dodge - Every Time

Cunning - Occasionally

Shield - Almost Never

Nightcrawler

Hand to Hand - Occasionally

Distance - Almost Never

Charge - Rarely

Stealth - Every Time

Hardiness - Rarely

Dodge - Every Time

Cunning - Occasionally

Shield - Almost Never

The Vulture

Hand to Hand - Rarely

Distance - Almost Never

Charge - Every Time

Stealth - Occasionally

Hardiness - Rarely

Dodge - Every Time

Cunning - Occasionally

Shield - Almost Never

Hobgoblin

Hand to Hand - Almost Never

Distance - Every Time

Charge - Occasionally

Stealth - Rarely

Hardiness - Rarely

Dodge - Occasionally

Cunning - Every Time

Shield - Almost Never

(I tried a few games with the original defence mechanism, but prefer the extra option my new version offers)

In previous games I'd somehow played the hits wrong, applying full damage to character, when in fact you halve the combat score difference. However this creates weird situations where either a hit can never score damage, or it's not worth playing a defence because it can't affect the result. So in this game I experimented with increasing the number of hits a character can take - normally you have five lives, and five cards, with the latter going down by one each time you lose a hit. In this game I gave each character ten hits and five cards; they lose one card for every two full hits they take, and you don't halve the damage. So a single hit can still be significant.

Anyway, here's the cast of characters, with their initial position draws. 

With the highest card this left Hobgoblin setting up the positions. The sequence of play would be Hobgoblin, Nightcrawler, Vuture and Spiderman.

For his opening moved Hobgoblin moved to the side of Spiderman, which meant initiating a Stealth attack hitting on Royal cards. However Hobgoblin had a hand of these, scoring three hits (one for each card played).

Spiderman was on a Club, so used Cunning as a defence (the initial letters of things are used as mnemonics throughout this game), blocking hits with odd-numbered cards. He only had one of these, so blocked one point of damage, taking the other two. This put him down to eight hits and cost him a card from his hand.

Now it was Nightcrawler's move. He also initiated a Stealth attack, teleporting to the side of Vulture. Nightcrawler's Stealth attacks hit on Even cards, and he played one. But you also count the card on which you're positioned, if that is valid, plus that on which the target is positioned as well. Nightcrawler was on an Even card, but Vulture wasn't, so that added an additional hit. Vulture was on a Club, so defended with Cunning, requiring Odd cards. The card he was on was odd, so he automatically blocked one hit, and he could play another from his hand to block the second hit. So he survived unscathed.

And now it was Vulture's turn. He moved down onto the card vacated by Nightcrawler; you can play your card on top of a previously played card, so long as it maintains the red/black checkerboard pattern. Simply replace the original card with the new one. This move put Vulture in a position to either attack Spiderman with a Hand To Hand attack, or Nightcrawler with Charge attack. His hand meant that the Charge attack was his best option. He played two Even cards for two hits, but got an additional two hits for being on an Even card himself and for Nightcrawler being on one as well - a grand total of four hits! Nightcrawler was defending with his Dodge, so was also looking for Even cards. However he only had one, so took three hits, reducing his hand to four cards.

Finally Spiderman got to act. He also had two targets, Hobgoblin to the side and Vulture above him. He made a Hand To Hand knockback attack against Vulture. This allows you to play your card directly behind your target, and then move the target onto the card, replacing the normal play a card and move onto it yourself move. Note that the placement also replaced a card previously in play.

Spiderman's Hand To Hand hits on Even cards. He played one, and got two extra hits for the card he was positioned on and that on which he'd placed Vulture, so his punch did three hits. Vulture was on a Club (again) do defended with his Cunning using Odd cards. He had plenty of those and blocked all three hits.

So at the end of the first turn Spiderman and Nightcrawler had both taken hits and were down one card each. The villains had them at a disadvantage.

I didn't keep a detailed track of the rest of the game - the first turn above was just to show how the game plays - but in the second turn Nightcrawler did manage to get in a couple of hits on Vulture, who returned the favour, whilst Spiderman scored a single hit on Hobgoblin. At the end of the turn Spiderman was still on four cards, but Nightcrawler was now down to three, whilst Vulture was on four cards and hobgoblin was still fighting with a full hand of five.

Miller joined as an observer at this point.

In the third turn Hobgoblin inflicted a telling Distance attack on Nightcrawler who was unable to block it.

(Ignore that nine in Hobgoblin's played cards - that was an error I corrected)

Nightcrawler failed to respond effectively, and Vulture finished him off with a Stealth attack.

So now Spiderman was fighting alone. A knockback attack did little damage to Hobgoblin, but did put him away from the main fight for a while,

Spiderman moved the fight further up the play area, away from Hobgoblin, so that he could concentrate on Vulture

But Vulture was up to the task, and a lucky draw of Aces and Jokers saw him able to launch an effective Distance attack (his worst attack) to pretty much finish off Spiderman. Down to one card, and facing two foes with four cards each, I decided that Spiderman would retreat to fight another day.

So Vulture and Hobgoblin won a fairly straightforward victory.

I still have a few rules issues to tweak, including in my own changes, but the game ran very smoothly for the most part, and gave an entertaining fight. For all that it is very abstract, it still feels like a free-wheeling superhero fight, and scratched that initial itch caused by watching the film over the weekend.

Sky Ace is another addition to my 52 Games project.

52 Games - Game 24

Ace And Joker

I've been playing more games of 'Sky Ace' today, fiddling with how many cards each character should get, and trying to keep it tied with the number of hits they can take. For this set of games I used Batman and The Joker.

I tracked one short game to give a partial example of how it plays. For this game I gave both characters four hits and a hand of four cards. This does mean it's possible for one to take down the other in one attack. In a two character game that makes for a brutal, short game, but it may not be so much of an issue with multiple figures on each side.

To fully understand the mechanisms refer to the posts linked above.

Anyway, this is the start. The characters both drew a card with the Joker getting the Queen of Spades and Batman the 8 of Diamonds. With the higher value card the Joker gets to position the characters. They have to be placed in an alternating red/black pattern, however, so the Joker is obliged to place them orthogonally. His best position is side by side, and that is a Stealth attack, his best move. But in fact his hand doesn't contain an even card, which score hits on that attack. With his hand, the Hand to Hand attack is best, even though it hits on Royal cards only. The Joker scores a 3 hit attack - the Queen he is positioned on, plus two Royals from his hand.

Batman is on a Diamond allowing him to Dodge - his best defence. He can use even cards to counter the attack. He counts the 8 he is on, and can play two more cards from his hand to block all 3 hits.

It's Batman's turn. He plays a King of Hearts in a knockback attack. This means that Batman stays where he is, placing the card behind the Joker and moving him onto it. Hearts are the Joker's worst defensive posture, representing his Hardiness.

The attack is still hand to hand - Batman's favoured option hitting on even cards. He counts the 8 he is positioned on, and adds two more cards from his hand to score 3 hits.

The Joker can only defend with Aces or Jokers, and has none, so takes all 3 hits. Ouch!

The Joker plays a 10 of Clubs on his turn, moving on to it. Clubs are his best defensive position. Since he's not adjacent to Batman, no attack takes place.

Batman plays a 3 of hearts, enabling him to move into another Hand to Hand attack. The Joker is on an even card, which means Batman automatically scores 1 hit. Unfortunately Batman's hand is rubbish, and that's all he can manage. The Joker is able to block it with an even card from his hand.

The Joker plays a 7 of Spades and moves to the side of Batman to launch a Stealth attack - his best move. Batman is on a Heart, which is not a good defence for him (he relies on Cunning Clubs and Diamond Dodges to survive). The Joker plays a 10, which is a hit and Batman can't block it.

Unfortunately that wasn't a clever move for the Joker. Batman can return the Stealth attack, using the knockback move again. Batman hits on odd cards as well, so gets one hit for his own card, one for the Joker being on an odd card and is able to lay another odd from his hand. The Joker takes 3 hits.

The Joker is on a Diamond, which would normally be a good defence, needing odd cards. But he doesn't have any. The 3 hits are enough to take him out.

I'm really happy with how the card-play pans out, but still need to think about how many cards a character should have and how many hits they can take. I like the idea of a fight with up to six characters involved using a single deck - the original game has a deck per character, which is fine for a two character game, but becomes clumsy for multiple characters. But a single deck limits how many hands you can have in play; you simply start to run out of cards, given that some are in play as the board as well. A deck per side might work though, and I may try this in the next game. I actually found a hand of four cards nicely limiting, but may give characters 5 hits

For my next game I may try multiple characters on each side and see how that plays out.

Sky Ace

'Sky Ace'  is a superhero combat card game developed by Jeff Moore. Originally it was written as part of a 24 hour RPG contest, but there is a later version which cleans up and changes the mechanisms a little. It appears that Jeff no longer designs games, but you can find his output as downloads HERE.

The game uses standard playing cards, including the two Jokers. You need one deck per player. Your character is represented by a suitable figure, or pawn.

During the course of the game cards are laid on the table to form a grid of alternating red and black cards. Each character occupies one of these cards. When two characters are adjacent, either diagonally or orthogonally, an attack can be made. The nature of the attack depends on the relative positions of the two cards, and uses a series of mnemonics:

Adjacent along the short edge of the card or Head is a Hand to Hand attack
Adjacent along the long edge of the card or Side is a Stealth attack
Adjacent on the diagonal with the number/symbol of the card, or Digits, is a Distance attack
Adjacent on the corner with no number/symbol, of Clear corner, is a Charge attack.

These four types of attack are how a character is defined. There are four attack frequencies, which dictate how easy it is to score damage with an attack. Again, they use mnemonics:

Every Time hits on Even cards (2,4,6,8,10)
Occasionally hits on Odd cards (3,5,7,9)
Rarely hits on Royals (J,Q,K)
Almost Never hits on Aces and Jokers only.

A character is designed by assigning a frequency to each of the four attack types, with an optional bit of fluff. So, for example:

Captain America

Hand to Hand = Every Time (Skilled martial artist)
Stealth = Almost Never (Surprise move)
Distance = Occasionally (Throw shield)
Charge = Rarely (Attack with shield)

On a player's turn they take a card from their hand, and lay it on the grid in a legal position, such that it fits the chequer-board pattern, and is adjacent to both the player's character and at least one other. It can be laid over another card (effectively replacing it). The character is then moved onto the card. An attack may then be resolved. The nature of the attack is based on the relative positions, and the player can play cards from their hand with any which match the condition counting as a hit. Extra hits are scored if the attacker and/or the defender are on matching cards.

The defending character then plays cards from their hand matching their frequency, with each card negating one hit. If the attacker's score is still higher the defender takes damage.

There is an option for the phasing player to stay where they are, and to move an adjacent defending character onto a newly played card placed behind them. This is a knockback attack, and is resolved the same as a normal attack.

After attack and defence cards are played and compared, both characters draw new cards from their deck.

As a character takes damage, the number of cards in their hand is reduced.

And that's it. The game allows for multiple characters in play, and different levels of power are represented by higher or lower health points/hand size.

I played out a quick game this lunchtime but, as ever, decided to tweak the game. In combat the defender plays cards based on the incoming attack, so if they are attacked in Hand to Hand their defence is based on their Hand to Hand frequency, for example. I wanted a mechanism where a character's defence was independent of the other character's attack method. I noticed that the card suits were not used in the game, so tried building a defence mechanism around them. This is what I came up with ...

There are four defence methods each linked with a suit:

Clubs are Cunning (The character confuses the attacker in some way)
Diamonds are Dodge (The character ducks or avoids the attack)
Hearts are Hardiness (The character is tough or regenerates)
Spades are Shield (The character has some kind of active block)

As with attacks a character assigns a frequency to each defence. So to use Captain America again:

Cunning = Almost Never (Duck into cover)
Dodge = Occasionally (Martial arts dodge)
Hardiness = Rarely (Roll with the punch)
Shield = Every Time (His shield, of course!)

When a character is attacked, the defence they used is based on the suit of the card they are stood on. They then play cards from their hand matching that defence's frequency, scoring an extra block if their own card's value matches the frequency and another is that of the attacker matches.

Other changes I made were to discard cards from the board at the end of each character's tun if they were not adjacent to any character. Also, for simplicity, I used a single deck, since I was only playing with two characters.

I created two characters - Captain Britain and his arch-foe Slaymaster

Captain Britain

Hand to Hand - Occasionally
Distance - Rarely
Charge - Every Time
Stealth - Almost Never
Cunning - Almost Never
Dodge - Rarely
Hardiness - Every Time
Shield - Occasionally

The Captain flies into the attack hard and fast with little subtlety, relying on his strength and fists. His defence is based on being tough and his suit's force-field.

Slaymaster

Hand to Hand - Occasionally
Distance - Rarely
Charge - Almost Never
Stealth - Every Time
Cunning - Occasionally
Dodge - Every Time
Hardiness - Rarely
Shield - Almost Never

Slaymaster is a devious assassin, although not incapable in a straight fight. He often uses exotic weapons and always has a trick up his sleeve. In defence he relies on martial arts or trickery.

Here they both are, with their initial set-up cards.

The highest card gets to position them in any legal manner and take the first turn, so Slaymaster initiated the fight. Since they had to be positioned diagonally in order to create the correct grid, and Captain Britain is good at Charge attacks (on the 'Clear' diagonal) I positioned them for an initial ranged attack.

I didn't record a blow by blow account. Captain Britain took a hit early on, which cost him cards from his hand. In this shot he is launching a charge. Because it is his best ability, he hits on even cards, and gets bonus hits because both he and Slaymaster are positioned on even cards.

Slaymaster got to retaliate with a brutal attack - his hand to hand is 'occasional' so hits on odd cards. He could play three from his hand, and scored a bonus hit because Captain Britain was now on an odd card as well. So 4 hits!

Jokers are wild cards in terms of colour, with it being implicit by their position in the grid. I allowed them to be either of the two relevant suits for the purposes of defence.

I played the game at lunchtime, but not at work. I like to get out of the office at lunchtime, and just around the corner we have a lovely communal workspace, which is a co-venture by two community groups, Society City (which runs a second-hand bookshop, and organises poetry nights and similar story and word-related activities) and Hidden Harvest (who are about educating people in using 'waste' food and host a fortnightly 'recovered' food dinner). You can look both of them up on Facebook if you're that way inclined. I buy book and relish there, sometimes get to the dinners and use it as a pleasant and relaxing space to spend lunch-breaks when I'm not walking or shopping.

Anyway, Captain Britain was on the back foot for the whole game and here you can see him being finished off by Slaymaster. You should be able to work out the attack by now ...

The game was more interesting to play than I thought. I assumed that a character would always play to their strongest attack, and that's obviously the way to go if you can, but sometimes your hand doesn't let you go there, and you have to make the best of a bad job. Also playing to the enemy's weakest defence can pay off, even if it's not your best attack.

There's probably a couple of things I'd change based on this first game. Firstly I'd have the number of hits equal to the difference halved, but rounded up instead of down, so if the attacker beats the defender they score at least one point of damage. I'm also not sure about halving the difference to determine hits, as it creates situations where blocking one scored hit doesn't make a difference in terms of damage scored. Also I wasn't happy on the death spiral effect of a character losing cards as they lost hits, so may consider allowing a character to keep their full hand until they are defeated, increasing their options a little. How this will play out in games with multiple characters I'm not sure.

The defence traits were interesting, but I may try a game with the actual defence mechanism too, and see how that plays out.

Anyway, it was a pleasant way to while away a lunchtime.

Forgotten Heroes - Slaymaster - Part 7

Slaymaster is complete!

I won't go through the tedious painting process in detail; It was mostly block colour and dry-brushing, with a thin ink wash into some of the recesses to pick out detail.

In the comics it's unclear what colour hair he has. It looks black, but is sometimes coloured with a little bit of brown, which may just be artistic highlighting. I opted to paint it black and give it a token brown dry-brush.

It was no trouble at all to use a fresh, sharp and sturdy scalpel blade to remove the figure from its original Heroclix base. I then glued him to a clear perspex base from Aetherworks.

Here he is in comparison to the original Daredevil figure. Yes; I had a duplicate; that's why I used the figure for the conversion in the first place. 

On the whole I'm very pleased with how Slaymaster has turned out, given that I wasn't sure I'd be able to deal with one or two of the technical or modelling issues involved. Once again, making things up as I went along stood me in good stead.

Here's all of the posts covering this conversion:

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

Old foes fight once again!

And finally, here he is with my Forgotten Heroes entries from last year (including the Marvel Girl I did as a practice run). From left to right: Captain UK, Marvel Girl, Slaymaster, Jenny Everywhere

Thanks to everyone who's followed this project over the past week or so. I'm not sure I will start a new figure this month, but I do have one I started and half-completed earlier in the year, so I will probably finish that off just to stay in the game.

Forgotten Heroes - Slaymaster - Part 6

It's time to start painting Slaymaster!

First of all, a grey undercoat.

It may have missed a few bits. No big deal.

His costume is yellow. Dick Garrison suggests that yellow is always fun to paint, and I know what he means; a lot of yellows are horrible to use, and mine are mostly very old GW paints, which are the worst. Fortunately his costume isn't a bright yellow, and I have a rather nice Derivan 'Desert Yellow' which covers beautifully. I brushed it over the top of an orange-brown base, the brushed a brighter yellow over the top for highlights. The result is ... yellow.

I painted the belts in a darker orange-brown, and did his face the same as a base for the flesh-tone.

In the next post - the finished figure!

Forgotten Heroes - Slaymaster - Part 5

The final modelling stage for my Daredevil to Slaymaster conversion was to equip the assassin with some weapons. The version I am basing my figure on uses a rather impressive claw device attached to his right hand, and I decided to try and build it.

Of course, what I hadn't thought through was just how I was going to do it, since claws are small, fiddly things to model. I considered thin card, but thought it might be too flimsy. Also pieces of toothpick. At one point I just considered scrapping the whole thing and giving him a weapon of my own design (as in 'something easy). Then I was looking at the mess on my painting desk, and saw a small piece of foil I'd taken off the end of a tube of acrylic paint a few days previously. A couple of minutes with a scalpel shaped it into the claws I was looking for, and I attached them to his hand.

Ah, you say, but foil is no more robust than card. Yes, that's true. But it was easier to cut and shape and, once I'd fitted it, I hit on a cunning plan. I coated the claws with a couple of alternating layers of superglue, then white wood-glue using the end of a cocktail stick. Each layer was left to dry in between. When it was done I had something that was solid, but still maintained the thinness I was after.

Why is the inside of the device green? Because the foil it's made form came from a tube of green paint, silly!

One it was all done I added the body of the device, and then what the Lego people call 'greebling' from more card and a piece of tube from a cotton-bud.

On his other wrist I added some spiky weapons, the nature of which I'll leave to your imagination and mine. They're just three pieces of wire, cut to length and carefully glued into position. They help balance the figure out.

So, unless I think of anything else, that's the conversion work finished. The next stage will be a thin coat of PVA glue just to seal all of the joints and help everything hold together, and then I can undercoat and consider how I'm going to paint him.