Saturday 25 July 2015

Superheroes vs Necrons (Savage Worlds Skirmish)

Inspired by the trailer to Suicide Squad, I went ferretting through my shed and found about 80 HeroClix prepainted plastics.  I recall buying them in a job lot for about $20 a few years back (I think with the intent of adding them to a Secrets of the Third Reich Weird War 2 game) then forgot all about them.

Until now.

I simply jimmied them off their clix bases and put them on 25mm slottas, and dabbed a bit of brown wash over them to get rid of the "artificial pre painted plastic" look.  I'll get around to tidying up their bases and neatening the paintjobs, but they're table ready at least.

 Ever wondered why super villains seem to re appear so quickly after being incarcerated?  Doing deniable black ops for the government to shorten their sentences, that's how.

I've been having great fun researching and statting-up heroes for the Savage Worlds system. My wife even got involved, compiling a brief bio/powers list of the minis. 

So far I've only converted my duplicate minis, which tend to be the more obscure ones.  This is good, as I can keep them "low powered" without any preconceptions of what they should be like according to movies/comics etc.

In Savage Worlds superheroes are rated pulp (one or two minor powers, or perhaps only gadgets), four colour (standard comic fare with significant powers, say Wolverine), heavy hitters (Magneto, Pheonix), and cosmic level (Superman etc).    Since SW heroes are already quite powerful compared to the average mook, I'm trying to keep things to pulp level where possible, and keeping the powers toned down. 

Personally, I think superheroes should be restricted in their abilities.  Ever wonder why there hasn't been a good Superman movie?  He's just so "overpowered" it's hard to connect with him.  You don't fear for his safety either.  Plots have to be on cosmic scale to be even vaguely threatening. Weaknesses have to be contrived.  Batman vs Superman? It isn't even a contest.  Who'll be the underdog everyone cheers for?  ....well, perhaps it depends more how much they hate Ben Affleck...

Anyway, there has been a power surge deep beneath the Nevada desert at Area 52.  A alien device which was regarded as inert has suddenly powered up. It's a homing beacon.... a warpgate opens, disgorging undead robots, who naturally want to "destroy all humans."

Supported by a sniper team, The Darkness corners a Necron... gosh, it's so long since I played 40K... it's some sort of tomb-thingy?

The beautiful android assassin Aphrodite IX leads a fire team through the underground corridors... (Magdalena is about to engage Necrons with her own fire team in the background)

Scarab swarms are no match for the arcane powers of the Witchblade...

Some of the minis I've rebased so far. The cool ninja chicks are Noh agents from Kabuki.  They could be tidied up, but the prepainted schemes are perfectly table-worthy...


A few thoughts...  Savage Worlds is not really balanced for warband vs warband combat from what I can see. It's more a rival to Two Hour Wargames type narrative/co-op stuff.  Also, I'd like a program where I simply select from dropdown boxes and then print out player stats on Warmachine/Gruntz-like cards as writing them out is too clunky - there's a lot of prep time. That said, creating superheroes is really good fun in itself - so it's not a great hardship.

 I'm enjoying it do much I'm delving into the rest of my box, and putting in a few bids for random clix bundles on eBay.  (...don't get any ideas from this post and overbid me, damn it!  grrr - postage to Australia sucks)

7 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I'm exploring "modern pulp."

      Superheroes are a bit cliche (I'm thinking more paramilitary psy-ops STALKER/FEAR style) but I was inspired by a recent SW supplement - what can I say?

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  2. Very nice. Gives my Idea of a paranormal pulp/dr. Who/low tech sci-fi new food.

    I also bought the Solomon Kane book recently after reading your review. My only criticism to these rules is their publication format, which is still very much rpg-ish (read: a gamemaster does a lot of work on preparing, villains and monsters are crammed together, stats are not clearly readable in standardised tables), instead of the McDonald's approach used by succesful wargames.
    I still admire GWs Lord of the Rings Companion in that respect: all units are presented with a picture good readable typesetting, easily findable special rules and even a points value.

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    1. SW does have lots of extra RPG stats and special rules, and its non-std layout is a bit of a pest* - but I love the one page 'at a glance' summaries at the end of each chapter. Every wargame ruleset should do this.

      *Random Rant: Malifaux has an even more annoying layout, with fluff sandwiched in unlikely places)

      In short, a very cheap, handy generic toolbox for pulp/fantasy/sci fi - but not a balanced wargame per se (it's naturally more narrative/co-op - i.e. a better more comprehensible version of 2HW rules) and useless for competitive play.

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  3. Cool write up. I love Savage Worlds. Simple, fast, and cinematic.

    Who makes those modern soldier minis in this post?

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    1. Empress Miniatures. They are really excellent, though not helped by their camo paint schemes or my photography, which was cringeworthy.

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  4. Thanks! I'll check out their website.

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