I'm Alive! Catch up and Tournament news.

Greetings everyone its certainly been a very busy time in the Brummie household working on a project with a long commute for a good while has basically led to very little free time apart from the doing important stuff. That all finished two weeks ago and I've had a week off so its been good to get back to normal.

Well what have I been up to Hobby wise recently? Mostly its been focused on the Batman Miniatures game. Myself Pulpcitizen of Eclectic Gentleman and Kieron of Cheaphammer!!! all attended another tournament at Titan games on the 2nd July. Originally I'd planned to take a Green Arrow crew but I've only had one game with the emerald archer and the new list I had prepped hadn't been tried and didn't feel confident enough with them. I only barely made my mind up on the morning of the event!

I had been working on some additions for my bad guy lists just to freshen things up by changing characters here and there.

First up a Free Agent Ravager (Daughter of Deathstroke) very fast and armed with two double dealing swords she is an excellent Henchmen killer and has some neat traits like Power Dampening (prevents heroes with invulnerable from soaking damage) and Self Discipline (Can't be Hypnotised).
I needed to include a Free agent in my list as Bane has a new piece of equipment called Venom Factory (Can only be taken on a Free agent as he currently has not Sidekick models) which allows the combat drugs available to his faction to be gotten a bit cheaper and allows characters to use Titan doses more than once per game. I could of used Deadshot but I wanted Ravagers swords to help finish off people who Bane KO's

Next up are a couple of prisoners. The first one is Prisoner 4 or more commonly known as Bodyguard prisoner his bodyguard ability allows him to soak damage on Bane or other Sidekicks if within 5cm. Venom Soldier also fulfils this roll but I had plans for his 2 Titan Doses and planned on giving him a grapple gun to be a more mobile threat.

With 10 rep left to spend I needed a cheap filler in my new list and Prisoner 1 or Pipe prisoner as he is more commonly known fits the bill. Pipe isn't that great at anything but is useful for holding onto loot or sitting on objectives.

The Tournament itself was great  it had only had a small turnout this time around sadly there was another event up North which some of the regulars went to instead. All in all there was 6 players in total.

Crew wise there was myself with a Bane crew, Court of Owls (Pulp Citizen), Birds of Prey team (Kieron) Poison Ivy/Swamp thing crew, a Cyborg/Starfire batman crew and finally another Batman crew with Batman/AK Redhood.

My Crew was as follows

Origin Bane

Ravager + Venom Factory

Venom Soldier + Grapple gun and Venom Dose

Dallas + NVG's and Ammo

Smash

McGregor

Prisoner 4 + Venom Dose

Prisoner 1

Typically of a freshly painted model Ravager died horribly in the first game against a Poison Ivy crew being bashed about by Swamp thing then being finished of by Poison Ivy's Toxic claws.

Jane's Poison Ivy led crew. This was a close fought game resulting in a 23-22vp Draw to me (1-5pts difference). Borj was a nuisance hypnotizing Dallas and Mcgregor then shooting McGregor in the back after walking them both off of objectives. I managed to take Poison Ivy down and Swamp thing was a beast soaking lots of damage with his heal ability.



The Second game was my favourite of the day. I got to play against Kieron's Birds of Prey Team. This is a new way of playing batman crews you can take teams of heroes from a particular list. They can have some extra rules and unique strategies. They are also one of my favourite comics teams and I am planning on painting up my own version soon.



It was Patrol which is a proper slog to my objectives for my slow moving Bane list. I was hampered in my Deployment zone with a large building forcing me to move up around it. It was close fought and they were hard to get to grips with Katana was awesome one shotting Ravager and slaying both my Prisoners. Bane and Venom soldier played kiss chase with Catwoman eventually KO'ing her. Dallas managed to take out the BoP's Leader Black Canary a she tried to Canary Cry him and Smash but he managed to pass his Will Power roll and then ripped her apart with his assault rifle. I lost in the end 25-14.

The final game was a massive defeat against Kris Burton's Cyborg/Starfire combo. I probably shouldn't of ended up playing the top player but with how the games had drawn and the low number of players meant I ended up playing the lead player rather than facing Jane again having already fought her earlier in the day.

 I lost this game terribly 45 to 8 or something similar. Kris was using the Bat Signal objective alongside ammo and titan. The Bat signal had been FAQ'd recently allowing it to placed on top of terrain rather than ground base like all the other objectives. It has quite a unique scoring mechanism basically when the controlling side turn it on they score 4 vps a turn and don't have to remain in contact. For every turn it remains switch off your opponent scores 1vp.



Kris was a great opponent (won the tournament) and used his crew really well. The Bat signal was deployed next to Dallas in my deployment zone on top of two cargo containers. Starfire swooped down in round 2 pushed Dallas off and then switching it on. I struggled to get my slow moving crew across the board to my own objectives whilst Cyborg, Starfire and Swat Bravo shot the crap out of my crew. Bane was took out by Starfire as he tried to climb to get to the bat signal objective. My Venom soldier was tied up defending my opponents Titan objective and couldn't get over to the bat signal in time to do much else. Kris managed to keep on the signal for 5 roundss and Cyborg sat on there teams Ammo for 3 rounds netting 20vps and 9 vps something I just couldn't claw back.

Kris agrees the bat signal is too overpowered being able to be installed on top of terrain and being immune to strategies that can affect objective manipulation. A lot of crews like mine just don't have the characters available to them to get up and take on tough mobile characters like Cyborg and Starfire. A lot of heated discussion is going on at the moment as to whether this should be reverted back to its original rules of being on the ground. A tournament held a few weeks earlier was also dominated by Batman crews at the top with the signal.

I finished last in the end but it was another cracking day of gaming against great friendly people.

I am going to try out a Birds of Prey crew next but will also be experimenting with speedsters and my Green Arrow crew.