Super Mission Force Game 2: Rooftop Rumble

So I've been putting off continuing my Super Mission Force (2nd Edition [SMF2]) campaign because of terrain. Actually because the real world is just too damn busy right now but terrain was my excuse.

At the end of my first SMF2 game, I rolled the next scenario and got "Rooftop Rumble". I like a nice-looking board and planned to make some convincing rooftops with water tanks, air-conditioning units and such. When life intruded and delayed my terrain-making, I stubbornly refused to play until I could get back to the rooftops.

After a particularly busy few weeks I realized, for my sanity, I needed some gaming. So I slapped down a couple of foam board sheets I sprayed with gray acrylic paint, cut one of them into two parts, and put all three resulting rooftops at slightly different vertical levels. I raided my bit box to grab a few nurnies and greebles to act as roof vents, antennas, and other scatter. I would rather have painted all the bits gray as well but hey, at least I now had a board.

And I'm glad I broke down and played on a "substandard" board. This game is so fun! The narrative that emerges through play is incredible.

The bad guys, The Phantom Satellites lost the first game when their secret Weapon was destroyed by the heroic team, The Cabinet. The MVP of that first game was most certainly Master Astra, the shuriken-wielding Street Level character whose rocket-powered nitro-stars did the bulk of the damage to the weapon including the coup-de-grace. My subplot rolls for the second game revealed an "Art" connection, which didn't make much sense. Since it was a "Rooftop Rumble" game, and Master Astra is definitely a Daredevil-like gritty urban character, I said that the evil mastermind known as The Phantom Sun had tracked down the source of Master Astra's shuriken arsenal. The villains then intended to abduct the hero's artist friend, secretly a brilliant inventor who crafts Master Astra's various hi tech throwing stars. For some weird reason, the intense battle during their first encounter also caused Master Astra and the mentalist frog-alien Ssluuzurom to develop a temporary psychic bond, making it difficult for them to attack each other in this game.

Heroes on the right

The game started with all characters randomly placed, except for the Free Radical Squad, who I decided could begin mounted on the armored hero Heavy Fist. I regret this now because it gave the heroes an advantage. I should have let the villains begin with the psychic frog-alien adjacent to his boss, The Phantom Sun, so that the cosmic mastermind could've carried him into battle.

Combatants rush forward!

Turn 1 began with everyone moving forward on the offensive, with Heavy Fist's leaping power carrying him and his shrunken infantrymen passengers to the rooftop blockhouse for cover. Since this was Rooftop Rumble and anyone leaving a building edge suffers falling damage (excepting flyers and a few others), I knew the villains' strategy was to use Ssluuzurom's Mind Control to force the heroes to "willingly" leap to their own dooms. The heroes felt the dreaded effects of the Mind Control last game and therefore targeted the alien mentalist immediately. The evil android known as The Upgrade used Power Blast with its awesome 30 inch range to hit Madame President, the good guy leader, with a massive 5 Body attack. First blood almost had the heroes down one figure!

The Phantom Sun activated his Flight power and rushed forward to intercept Heavy Fist, not quite reaching his prey. Master Astra then revealed their X-Factor chosen for this game: the rocket-powered grappling-line shuriken (adapted from the Archer Archetype's special maneuvers), which allowed the hero to effectively duplicate the Leaping power. Using the special throwing star, Master Astra swung across the rooftops, engaging a surprised Phantom Sun in aerial hand-to-hand combat. The mastermind proved a worthy opponent, shrugging off the attack.

11 hits; daaaang!

Turn 2 started with a bang and proved to be the most exciting turn, although as I write this I realize I violated the rules to the villains' detriment. The heroes won initiative and Heavy Fist activated, managing to recharge his jet pack (Leaping) and blast across the board, conducting a Death from Above attack against the feared amphibious alien. Action-packed as this was, I realize now that Heavy Fist began without line-of-sight to his target and therefore could not have made this attack. Dang. Well, the following is what happened, based on my illegal attack...

The armored hero smashed into the alien psychic rolling an incredible 11 point melee attack, which the unfortunate Ssluuzurom could only reduce to 9 damage. I was unsure of what to do with that much excess damage but the game's creator, Mr. Scott Pyle, graciously and quickly provided me with the official ruling (excess damage is lost). Remarkably, the alien villain made his KO roll, staying conscious while suffering an incredible 18 inches of knockback! I then rolled for his last ditch attempt to hang on and he made it, preventing himself from flying off the roof to the street below. Pulling himself slowly back onto the roof, the alien's eyes glowed as he activated his Mind Control, commanding Heavy Fist to leap off the building, with his tiny soldiers in tow. Perhaps our hero had built up a natural mental shield after being manipulated so often last game: he shrugged off the attack!

Multiple Arms power = distance melee!

The Free Radical Squad rushed forward and despite their short legs, could still pummel the alien with the Reach ability afforded by their Multiple Arms power. Another amazing roll saw the frogman face 6 potential points of damage, enough of which got through for the auto-KO. Combined with knockback, the blows sent the alien plummeting to the concrete below.

Master Astra attempted a similar maneuver against The Upgrade, swinging on a grappling line across two roofs to plant a foot in the android's face. Despite the telling blow, the android remained standing and nearly felled the shuriken-wielder with a devastating energy blast.

KA-RACKATHOOM!

Turn 3 saw the villains reduced to three but still pressing the attack with the Mindhound leaping into the Free Radical Squad's midst, causing terrible damage. Returning the favor to the villains, Heavy Fist activated his jump jets and sailed a giant power fist straight into The Phantom Sun's face, knocking the would-be world conquerer cold with one blow!

The Upgrade went down in a flurry of punches from Master Astra, after the helmeted mystery-hero blocked the android's energy blast with a brilliantly timed albedo-cloud star! (Note: that's flavor only, my interpretation of Master Astra winning the melee combat with the help of some Gadget rerolls. 

The final melee

The Mindhound was the only villain standing at the beginning of Turn 4. That didn't last long. The Free Radical Squad pounded the beast with dozens of tiny fists. Although still suffering a severe injury from the previous battle, the strange beast mounted a a vicious counter attack, knocking out the little trooper squad. Master Astra then eliminated the threat, swinging into the melee and onto the beast's back, knocking it unconscious.

So, at the end of turn 4 it was a decisive ass-kicking with every member of the Phantom Satellites unconscious and three of The Cabinet's four still standing. In hindsight the illegal attack Heavy Fist conducted against the psychic delivered the easy victory to the heroes. It shouldn't have been that close.

The post-game had the Cabinet earning two "bumps", one of which I gave to the Free Radical Squad, the other to Master Astra. The Squad earned a +2" Move increase, an incredibly useful bump as they suffer from the Slow hindrance normally, and had their already low movement temporarily lowered due to a severe injury suffered in this fight. Master Astra earned another +1D bonus die to Image-based Pre- and Post-game Sub-Plot rolls.

The villains managed to avoid capture or death but both the Mindhound and Ssluuzurom suffered severe injuries. The Upgrade woke up unscathed while, fittingly, The Phantom Sun woke up ready to "Settle the Score" (giving him a bonus to next game's attacks).

Super Mission Force First Game: the Weapon!

The Phantom Satellites guard the Weapon

I did it! I got a game in before the Equinox! Technically I finished the game after Spring started but I rolled the first dice on Friday, when it was still officially Winter here.

I set a goal back in January of focusing on getting one game to the table by Spring without getting distracted by other projects and despite the challenges of real, non-hobby life. I just barely made it, with only hours to spare but it was worth it. It's been ages since I've played a tabletop game and this one was a blast. I also now have more terrain applicable to all sorts of genres.

On to the game... I played the first bout in a planned campaign using Scott Pyle's Super Mission Force (2nd Edition). The game featured my super-hero group, the Cabinet, versus the villainous Phantom Satellites. The scenario was "The Weapon" from the SMF2 rulebook and the Cabinet just managed to pull off a win by destroying the weapon. It was a nail-biter though, with most of the good guys down to one Body or Psyche box and the bad guys generally unscathed before the heroes pulled it out.

I played the game solo and even though I have the new Athwart Time supplement which features solo rules, I didn't use them. I simply played each side aggressively against each other. Since the scenario had a specific goal, it was easy to set each side's strategy and then try as hard as I could to oppose it when I activated the respective enemy side.

Prior to rolling the scenario I rolled for Subplot, with Madame President on the heroic team and The Upgrade on the opposing side both choosing an Image Subplot. The villains rolled a mere one Bonus Die but the heroes received a whopping five rerolls! Since both teams earned bonus dice, the two characters had a bond making it harder for them to attack each other. Trying to tie this with the Weapon scenario, I imagined that Dr Regina Movella's highly suspect public behavior led her good friend Sara Washington, aka Madame President, to investigate and discover the doctor's murder and replacement by The Upgrade. A deeper investigation revealed the construction of a super-weapon on the Patagonian plains, and upon arriving Madame President attempted to appeal to The Upgrade, whom Washington hoped had some of Doctor Movella's humanity imprinted on her android brain.

Heavy Fist and the Free Radical Squad ready to attack

The heroes were selected randomly as the attackers and I placed each figure randomly. The battle plan was to use Heavy Fist's Leaping power to carry him directly onto the Weapon to begin attacking it. I made two judgement calls here: first I said that the Free Radical Squad (using the Shrinking power) could begin the game mounted on Heavy Fist. Second, I said that the Charging Melee bonus applied to the Breaking Things action as well.

The heroes won initiative so they executed the plan to brief: whoosh, Heavy Fist's backpack jets fired carrying him and the shrunken GIs to the objective. Thunk! Despite rolling seven dice to attack the thing, Heavy Fist's blows bounced harmlessly off the weapon. I used two of the heroes' five subplot rerolls but still didn't do a single point of damage.

Mind Control is powerful!

The alien Ssluzuurom then used his Mentalism power to place Heavy Fist under Mind Control, forcing the hero to super-leap off the weapon directly into the tar pits (I rolled "Difficult Ground" as the additional feature). Amazingly, Heavy Fist's super-strength was no match for the tar pits and he was trapped.

I gave the Free Radical Squad the benefit of the doubt and presumed they got off of Heavy Fist on top of the weapon before he was forced to jump away. The Squad attacked the Phantom Sun using their Multiple Limbs power and incredibly scored two Body hits and knock-back.

"Destroy them" the would-be despot commanded The Upgrade, who then hit the Free Radicals with a massive Power Blast that scored seven successes. The little soldiers rolled only one success and took six Body damage and then failed their KO check. In hindsight I should've given the Free Radical Squad a +2D hard cover bonus but it certainly made the game more interesting having 1/4 of a team eliminated in the first half of the first turn.

Suddenly, a throwing star whizzed by the combatants, imbedding itself in the Weapon before exploding spectacularly, revealing bits of machinery beneath the artifact's armored exterior. "KACHUNK...KRACKATHOOM!" The street-level hero Master Astra used their X-Factor power to begin the game with the Archer archetype's "Rocket-Powered Nitro Arrow", or in this case a Nitro-Shuriken, gaining a 6D Power Blast. For the entire game I forgot to include the +1 reroll that a major-level Power Blast gets.


The Mindhound rushed forward to engage this new threat to the Weapon, carefully avoiding the tarpits.

Not a single success for the Nitro-star

Turn two started with the heroes winning initiative again. Master Astra passed a recharge test and flung another Rocket-powered Nitro-star but it couldn't damage the tough Weapon.

The frog-like alien psychic couldn't recharge its Mind Control, so instead hit Heavy Fist with a devastating Mental Blast.

The Upgrade wheeled and blasted the trapped Heavy Fist but the awesome energies just washed over him without effect.

Perhaps the android's attack blasted away the muck and vines because Heavy Fist easily passed his escape check to break out of the tarpit, only to fail his Leaping power recharge check. Forced to walk out, he ended up facing the Phantom Sun, who then hit the armored hero with an ineffectual Power Blast.

Madame President made her way closer to the center of the fight, trying with little effect to use Enhance to grant her team bonus dice.

The Mindhound finished its charge into Master Astra, attacking with a nasty Parasite psychic mauling.

Turn three was almost all close combat, with Heavy Fist charging the Phantom Sun after amazingly resisting another Mind Control attempt by the alien Ssluzuurom.

Madame President rushed in to help Master Astra against the Mindhound. It was only in a post-game review of the rules that I realized how good a tactic this could have been, as the master of throwing-stars could've left the melee without suffering a free attack. I didn't know that and was just trying to get the +1 team-up bonus.

Turn Four got exciting with the heroes winning initiative again. Heavy Fist finally recharged his hyper-Leap and elected to exit hand-to-hand with Phantom Sun, enduring an inconsequential free attack. The hero crashed once more into the Weapon but again failed to damage it.

The Upgrade's blasts again proved useless against Heavy Fist's battle suit.

The Phantom Sun could not allow the destruction of his super-weapon and activated his flight power, charging Heavy Fist and doing an incredibly lucky four damage. More importantly, the 4 inches of knock-back temporarily eliminated the threat to the Weapon as Heavy Fist toppled to the ground, unhurt.

Take that Brain with Legs!

Meanwhile, Master Astra was down to a single Psyche box and faced a desperate struggle against Mindhound. The black-clad hero dodged a mauling claw and sunk an electro-star deep into the beast's left lobe and it howled in psychic pain as it fell unconscious, defeated at last.

Madame President was within charge range of the Upgrade but failed her Chance roll to attack, due to the shared Subplot. A very cool rule that threw another unexpected wrinkle into the game! I imagine MP running up to the android, trying to find some vestige of its creator's thoughts in its mind.

Heavy Fist continued his assault against the Weapon, and for the third time failing to harm it. The alien mentalist then returned the favor by again controlling the armored hero's mind and forcing him to run back into the tar pits.

Madame President then engaged the alien frogman, trying to prevent further Mind Control attempts. Heavy Fist easily broke out of the muck, again leaping onto the Weapon and this time finally doing another two points of damage! In the meantime he took a nasty blow from The Upgrade's Power Blast and was finally showing some wear.

The Phantom Sun managed to recharge his flight power and again charged Heavy Fist, getting the one point of damage he needed to cause knock-back. I judged that there was enough room for Heavy Fist to recoil onto, provided he made his knock-down roll. He failed and the hero plummeted to the earth unhurt but no longer a threat.

Seven successes without the forgotten Reroll!

Things were not looking good for the heroes but as a new turn began they won initiative. Master Astra successfully recharged the Nitro-Star and flung it, scoring an amazing Seven successes. "NNNOOOOOO!!!!" screamed Phantom Sun, as the throwing-star imbedded itself in the super-weapon's transmitter before exploding in a shower of metal fragments.

The post-game review of the KO'd characters revealed the Free Radical Squad were fine but now looking to Settle the Score against The Upgrade, earning them a +1 to attack the android in the next battle. The Mindhound didn't fare so well, suffering a Serious Injury with a -3 inch Move and -1 attack penalty in the next game.

What a fun game. Since there are so many powers I messed up a lot of rules. For example, I have three characters with Gadgets and I forgot to dice for their potential reroll bonuses until the third turn. Also each team has a Savant and I forgot to give either of them their respective Free Move at the game's start. None of this affected the enjoyment of the game however, which is fast and fun being simple but tactically deep with all of the interplay of powers and backgrounds.

I'm definitely already working on the next battle. I've rolled up the subplots and the next scenario will be Rooftop Rumble. I'd be playing again this weekend but unfortunately I don't have any rooftop terrain ready.

Super Mission Force (2nd Edition) Team: The Cabinet (Continued)

And now the remaining "two" members of my Super Mission Force superhero team: The Cabinet.

Master Astra

BIO: The vigilante known as Master Astra prowled the dark alleys of a major metropolis before joining Sara Washington's Cabinet. Slight-bodied with a voice-distorting helmet, Master Astra jealously guards every detail of their identity, especially the source of their myriad of specialized throwing stars.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Street Level

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 6"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 5

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 5

-Minor Powers: Gadgets, X-Factor

-Background: Blue Collar, Criminal

MINIATURE: Servant of Sutekh from Black Tree Design's Doctor Who range. Another beautiful sculpt but it's difficult to see the details with this color scheme. As mentioned in a previous post, I painted all of these Doctor Who miniatures true to their on-screen appearance. Unfortunately that meant all black for this figure, as depicted in the Pyramids of Mars episode . I did mix in some dark green in the base coat, and added grey highlights, just to try to pick out those great sculpted features like the hands and cloak folds.

NOTES: It's not apparent from the figure but Master Astra is an expert with the throwing star. Not shuriken as they were actually employed but more like the Hollywood version. Each throwing star is customized with internal gadgetry, such as grappling line stars, explosive stars, magnetic tracking stars, smoke screen stars, etc. I was originally going to use the Archer Archetype to model the hero's complement of trick stars but I wanted to try out a lower powered Street Level character. Combining X-Factor and Gadgets I should be able to model almost any effect, which is exactly how I envision Master Astra, who always has the right throwing star for the occasion.

    I realize the name is kind of dumb: it sounds like "Master Ashtray".  It's better than "Starmaster" though, which sounds too close to "Stairmaster" to me.

The Free Radical Squad

Bases are US pennies for scale reference

BIO: Sgt. Joe Sharla's squad "disappeared" in the USA's desert Southwest in 1955 while on maneuvers. That's the official story anyway: the GIs actually fell victim to a cover-up, unwitting participants in a highly secret experiment. The A-bomb detonated while Sgt. Sharla's squad motored across the Nevada desert on highly modified tanks, tanks fitted with the same gravitational displacement field generators pioneered during the Philadelphia Experiment. The scientists behind the scheme predicted the weird energies of the tanks' generators would protect the men from the atomic blast with no other effects. They were wrong. Instead, the tanks and their riders disappeared from 1955 and reappeared in 2015 at 1/10th the size! Readjusting to their new timeline and size, the squad quickly proved their worth as micro-spies, becoming the Cabinet's infiltration specialists.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Wildcard

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 3" (Slow)

    --Body Damage Boxes: 6

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 6

-Minor Powers: Duplication, Multiple Limbs, Shrinking (Mighty Mite option), Stun

-Background: Espionage, Military

MINIATURE: A group of 11 Argentinian Infantrymen from Pendraken's 10mm Falklands War collection. I bought these in 2019 to represent late 1950s US forces since they're wearing the correct helmets and their rifles can pass for M-14s at this scale. After painting these guys up, I'm really fighting the urge to ditch all my other projects in favor of 10mm post-war/historical. 10mm is an absolute joy to paint when the sculpts are this good. Just prime white (with brown ink mixed in), then airbrush olive drab, then hit the rest of the base colors with about two brushstrokes each. A little flesh mix for the hands and face, Beastly Brown for the guns, Black and Gunmetal mix for the barrels, magazines, and machine-guns. A quick wash all over with a floor polish, water, and (yellow and brown) ink mix brings out a lot of detail, and then two drybrush passes with lighted olive drab and then Bone White makes them pop. The bases look inconsistent because I was experimenting with different media and application techniques.

NOTES: So obviously there is more than one figure here. I plan to treat the five stands of troops (one not shown above) as a single entity, with the SMF Wildcard Archetype modeling the capabilities of an organized group of trained, miniaturized humans.

    The collection of five stands will remain in base contact at all times, treated as a single base. Although there are 11 troopers grouped together, their ability to quickly disperse still gives the collective the (permanent) effects of the Shrinking power. Multiple Limbs represents one or two men running forward to attack. Stun represents their pint-sized infantry weapons: not big enough to kill but enough to disrupt an opponent's action. Duplication represents splitting off a significant section of the squad; the stand with Sgt Sharla, the squad-leader, represents "the original" while one or two of the other stands become the duplicate. Finally, I gave the squad the "Slow" drawback, due to their tiny little legs. They do get a +1 reroll benefit from this which I think will go to melee attack.

    Oh yeah, I mentioned a tank or two above in their bio... where are those? Well, if I roll up the Guest-Star Ally special event during the campaign, guess who's showing up? Tiny Tank! 

That's it, all the forces for my upcoming SMF campaign are present and accounted for. Grad school is kicking my ass but I hope to get a little terrain-building in today and over the next few weeks in order to meet my goal of one game by the Equinox.

Super Mission Force (2nd Edition) Team: The Cabinet

Now that we've seen the super-villains for my upcoming Super Mission Force (2nd Ed.) game, let's look at the heroes.

Introducing the first two members of Gondwana Global Republic's Cabinet of Extranormal Affairs. Also known as:

<<< The Cabinet >>>

Heavy Fist, the Free Radical Squad, Madame President, and Master Astra

Madame President

BIO: Sara Washington, a plucky agent in the early 80s CIA, found herself transformed after falling into a deep Antarctic crevasse. Chasing a Soviet double-agent across the frozen wasteland near a secret polar listening post, Agent Washington nearly perished when the ice gave way, leaving her body broken hundreds of feet below the surface. Miraculously, Washington plummeted into an eons-old super scientific laboratory of the primeval world-spanning civilization of Gondwana. Sensing her presence and dire state, the automated laboratory awakened, using its fantastic equipment to regenerate the agent's body. The facility's seeming altruism masked its true purpose: reigniting the glory of the great Gondwana Global Republic. Carrying out its main programming, the subglacial lab activated a psycho-imprint ray, fusing Agent Washington's psyche with the tremendous personality of Gerus Milotak, Gondwana's greatest President and general. Now, four decades after the incident, Sara Washington uses her age-defying regenerated body and the cunning, almost limitless experiences of her fused mind to lead the Cabinet in thwarting extra-normal threats to Earth.


SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Super (Mastermind)

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 6"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 6

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 6


-Major Powers: Enhance

-Minor Powers: Gadgets, Melee Specialist, Savant

-Background: Espionage, Social Science

MINIATURE: Sara Kingdom from Black Tree Design's Doctor Who range. Beautiful sculpt with crisp details, especially the face.

NOTES: I probably could have made her just as tough and saved some cost by making her a Wildcard Archetype and taking the Enhance minor power instead of major.

Heavy Fist

BIO: An able spaceman employed by a freelance interstellar salvage ship, Halco Jun found himself abandoned in the void when his vessel involuntarily shunted to hyperspace after encountered a gravitational anomaly. Although his heavy salvage suit protected him from the harsh vacuum, the anomaly soon reappeared. Drifting towards the event horizon and his doom, Halco desperately jettisoned his left outer heavy-demolition glove, shifting his mass at just the right moment. Somehow, in typical comic book physics fashion, the sudden momentum shift and strange energies of the anomaly interacted, drawing the space salvager unharmed across the lightyears to Earth. Finding himself the unwilling "guest" of the megalomanic Phantom Sun, Halco used his suit's awesome strength and his wits to fight his way to freedom. Eventually joining the Cabinet, Halco adopted the name Heavy Fist, fighting evil while learning about his new home and hoping to find a way back to the stars.


SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Brick

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 5"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 7

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 5


-Major Powers: Resistance

-Minor Powers: Armor, Leaping, Super-Strength

-Background: Alien, Exploration


MINIATURE: One of my recently painted Rogue Trader-era plastic Space Marines.

NOTES: I used the Trade Off option on SMF page 10 to reduce his Body and Psyche in order to get an additional minor power. Although he has the Alien background, outside of his salvage suit Halco passes as a normal human.

Next up: Master Astra and the Free Radicals Squad!

Super Mission Force (2 ed.) Team: The Phantom Satellites (Continued)

Presenting the remaining two members of my Super Mission Force super-villain team, The Phantom Satellites.

Ssluzuurom The Despoiler

BIO: A champion of the alien Kluvergiz race, the Despoiler nearly perisher when its invasion fleet was destroyed by a nano-black hole, harnessed by the peaceful inhabitants of Gondwana in Earth's ancient past. Surviving via escape pod, Ssluzuurom used its psionic abilities to infiltrate the inner circle of Alerceron, the brilliant but mad scientist who captured the black hole. The alien invader then struck, disrupting the humans' attempt to neutralize their dangerous creation; as the summoned black hole threatened to consume the entire ancient Earth, Ssluzuurom thought its revenge was complete. Alerceron however succeeded in reversing the hole's growth; in a final attempt to avenge his race, Ssluzuurom attacked the scientist and both were seemingly consumed by the weird cosmic whirlpool. Protecting itself in a psionic bubble, the Despoiler emerged unscathed in the present but vastly overmatched by the transformed Phantom Sun. Allying with its old enemy, the amphibious alien sees contemporary Earth as ripe for conquest, all the while secretly plotting its ultimate revenge against the chief scientist of Gondwana.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Mentalist

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 8"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 5

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 8

-Major Powers: Mentalism

-Minor Powers: Amphibious, Enhanced Senses

-Background: Alien, Military

MINIATURE: A Space Slann from Citadel Miniatures, circa 1987. The Space Slann were always my favorite force in Rogue Trader and around 1998 I was lucky enough to get all 12 of the sculpts. I'm proud of this paint job not because it's great (it's not) but because it was my first proper attempt, over 20 years ago. It was painted with a combination of Citadel paints and washes over gray primer, with some old Ral Partha paints in there as well. I remember it taking me forever to do.

NOTES: The Despoiler's helmet is the source of its psionic abilities. I was going to make the character a Wildcard Archetype and choose the Magic Artifact power to model the helmet, but SMF obviously intends it to replicate the "Thor with Mjolnir" type. That's OK though, as this highlights SMF's great strength: the power list is complete enough and broad enough that one can model nearly any type of ability and simply change the window dressing. Psychic powers due to mutation? Sure, why not. Due to super-science? Yep, same rules, just call super-science the source instead.

The Upgrade

BIO: The biomechanics genius Dr. Regina Movella modeled her greatest creation, a synthetic assistant with a DNA computer brain, after herself. Dr. Movella 2.0 initially helped her creator make extraordinary breakthroughs, until the menace known as the Phantom Sun invaded the good doctor's lab, seeking the tools to create the Mindhound. Leveraging the amorality of the replicant and convincing her to murder her creator, the Phantom Sun welcomed "The Upgrade" to his team.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Construct

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 5"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 7

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: -

-Major Powers: Power Blasts, Soulless

-Minor Powers: Hinder, Savant

-Background: Created, Medicine

MINIATURE: One of the Dalek-hating Movellan androids from Black Tree Design's Doctor Who range. A wonderfully sculpted miniature with lots of simple but effective detail. I used a zenithal prime but left the prime coat way too dark. Lesson learned: if I'm going to paint a figure primarily white, just do a plain white primer undercoat.  I should've used the airbrush to try for a glowing effect on the cone blaster as well.

Excuse me ma'am, your foot-pegs are showing

NOTES: I imagine the glowing pink cone-shaped gun on her right hand can project a tractor-beam type effect, hence the Hinder power. It'll be interesting to see the Construct Archetype in play, and if the immunity from Psyche-based attacks is really that advantageous.  I was contemplating the name, "Flesh Drill"... probably wouldn't pass the Comics Code Authority.

Super Mission Force (2 ed.) Team: The Phantom Satellites

Scott Pyle's Super Mission Force 2nd Edition has been sitting on my bookshelf for a year now, and I'm almost ready to take it for a test spin.

I've been trying to stay laser-focused on a single gaming project; fortunately (unfortunately?) a combination of work and totally unnecessary, late-in-life grad school leaves me with only enough hobby time for one endeavor. With only a few minutes of hobby time on most days (and none on others), it's taken me over a month to paint six figures to table-top standard. I finally have my two super-teams ready to duke it out however and I'm pleased with the results.

Rolling up the first scenario of the campaign I see it'll be "The Weapon" with Dangerous Ground in the form of sinkholes as the additional detail.  I'm crossing my fingers that I can play this next weekend; it's still not ready because I need to build the terrain.  More likely I'll be gluing foliage to trees and cutting out hills.  No worries though as that will pay forward to future games in a variety of genres.   

I sourced all figures, by design, from other ranges to support a wider range of future potential games. I therefore painted all the miniatures in genre-appropriate colors (as in their originally intended games). Half of the eight team members come from Black Tree Design's wonderful Doctor Who range, and I painted these as close as possible to the characters' depictions in the original Doctor Who episodes.

Now to introduce the individual characters. I'll split this up into multiple posts since I'm busy, with this first one highlighting my cosmic megalomaniac The Phantom Sun, and his team, the Phantom Satellites.

>>>  The Phantom Satellites  <<<

Ssluzuurom, The Upgrade, Mindhound, and The Phantom Sun

The Phantom Sun

BIO: Once the greatest scientist of the advanced society populating the primeval supercontinent we now call Gondwana, Alerceron was also known for his arrogance and rashness. When the alien Kluvergiz threatened to subjugate the planet, Alerceron proposed capturing and releasing a nano-black hole amongst the invaders' fleet, a plan dashed by the ruling council as reckless. Taking matters into his own hands, Alerceron destroyed the Kluvergiz fleet but at a terrible cost; his summoned black hole growing uncontrollably, threatening the entire ancient Earth. Determined that he alone could save the planet, Alerceron succeeded in reversing the hole's growth, seemingly consumed in the attempt. Instead of destroying the scientist the weird cosmic energies instead flung him far into the future, to our present, altering him beyond all recognition. The man of flesh and blood once known as Alerceron became a being of pure energy, held together only by his force of will. Wielding vast cosmic powers, the being now calling himself the Phantom Sun retains only the megalomanic genius and cruelty of his former self.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: Powerhouse (Mastermind and Controller)

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 6"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 6

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 7


-Major Powers: Power Pool (Metamorph[Elasticity], Power Blasts 10" +1D[2], Force-field, Flight, Barrier), Enhance-Major

-Minor Powers: Servitor, Gadgets, Iron Will

-Background: Dimensional, Science

MINIATURE: Omega from Black Tree Design's Doctor Who range. The miniature started off as a joy to paint, looking gorgeous after the base coats of Vallejo game colors. Then I decided to do a wash of red Liquitex acrylic ink over the entire figure. Big mistake. I barely watered the ink down and it gave a horrible stained effect. I then tried to cover that with a black ink wash on the helmet, leading to even more staining. He's good enough for gaming but I'll eventually strip the paint and start over.


NOTES: My Dr. Doom analog, The Phantom Sun would be a tough opponent on his own but has many powers that allow him to instead stay in the background and influence his team's success.  I picture his Metamorph Elasticity power not as a stretchy Mister Fantastic ability but more of a reflection of his total control over his energy body, allowing him to split into multiple parts to attack at a distance, avoid hits, and generally hinder opponents.

The Mindhound

BIO: The Phantom Sun's genius extends beyond high-energy physics into many realms, including genetic engineering, as evidenced by his creation the Mindhound.

SUPER MISSION FORCE PROFILE:

-Archetype: N/A (Servitor of the Phantom Sun)

-Basic Stats

    --Move: 6"

    --Body Damage Boxes: 4

    --Psyche Damage Boxes: 4


-Minor Powers: Parasite

-Background: N/A


MINIATURE: Intellect Devourer from the old Grenadier Miniatures "Dwellers Below" AD&D boxed set. Very fun model to paint; the base colors went on via airbrush in about two minutes followed up by some targeted ink applications in all those great nooks and crannies.


NOTES: Taking a Powerhouse archetype for this team limited me to fewer figures... initially. The Phantom Sun's Servitor/Sidekick minor power allows another lower-power figure and this little guy is perfect. Originally I planned to paint up another Doctor Who figure but then found this old box of Grenadier minis in my closet. I'd forgot I'd purchased them!  Mindhound had the Telekinesis power at first and after playtesting I may go back to that; the Parasite power just seemed so right though.

...Next up: the remaining two members of the Phantom Satellites: the alien psionic terror known as Ssluzuurom the Despoiler and The Upgrade, an android bent on conquest.