Tomsey, Wyrm and I got together on Good Friday to have a day of MUMG battles, which ultimately saw me play three games. Tomsey hosted, so we got to play on his excellent urban table, featuring Flamin’ Amy’s Burrito Barn, a particular favourite piece of scenery.
The first game saw my X-Men square off against Tomsey’s Dark Avengers. I ran Cyclops, Colossus, Rogue, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Emma Frost with the Uncanny X-Men team card. Tomsey’s team comprised Venom, Sentry, Green Goblin, Ares and Ms Marvel.
For the table we agreed sizes for terrain as follows:
Size One – rubbish piles, barrels, rubbish bins, and stools
Size Two – trees, signs and barriers
Size Three – statues
Size Four – Cars
Size Five – Trucks
Size Six – shipping containers and the burrito barn
Size Seven – Big container, crane and nightclub
We rolled for scenario, excluding a few we didn’t want to replay (Relic and Pillars from memory), and ended up with Big Combat, where your highest level characters deploy base-to-base in the middle of the table and victory points are scored for incapacitating characters. With Emma Frost my highest level character, I knew I’d be up against it if I didn’t win initiative, especially with Sentry starting off in contact.
Round One
Tomsey wins initiative (despite the odds stacked to me from Mastermind), and, not unexpectedly, Sentry activates first. He starts by making his Deathblow attack on Emma Frost, overloading it for dice, but misses, luckily for me. He then makes a grab and throw, tossing Emma aside.
I pick Colossus to start, who throws Wolverine before moving straight up after him.
Ms Marvel flies forward, and makes an overloaded Mega Blast attack on Wolverine, but Colossus elects to Bodyguard it off him and takes the hit instead (I think in hindsight that this was a poor choice, as Wolverine wants to hold a little damage to get out of the hale zone to get the extra POW back, but anyway, he’d already taken a smack from Colossus’ throw so maybe it made sense at the time).
Emma Frost moves forward and makes an overloaded PsiBolt attack on Ms Marvel, which hits.
Ares, moves forward and throws the nearby ice cream truck at Emma Frost, who doesn’t manage to dodge out of the way, taking the truck to the face and getting knocked out to boot. Ares then uses Pounce to move back away from the action.
Next, Jean Grey flies forward and makes two overloaded Psychic Illusions attacks on Ms Marvel (which was a cheat on my part as that’s a once-per-turn attack…), hitting with both.
Green Goblin passes his serum test and flies forward making a Fly Past attack on Emma Frost and Wolverine, as well as tossing some Pumpkin Bombs at Emma Frost.
Wolverine gets up and moves into contact with Ms Marvel, makes an overloaded Snikt attack which hits her.
Venom moves into contact with Wolverine and triggers Fury, after which he makes two Claw strikes, followed by one overloaded Claw strike which hits and incapacitates Wolverine.
Cyclops moves forward and makes an overloaded Massive Blast on Venom which scores a critical hit.
Rogue flies into contact with Green Goblin and makes an overloaded Superstrike which hits.
At the round end, Ms Marvel tests stamina and is KO’d.
Round Two
I win initative and have Cyclops activate first, moving forward and making an overloaded Optical Devastation attack on Venom, which hits and also hits Ms Marvel as well. He follows this up with a Focussed Beam which hits. I attempt to use Master Tactician but fails his willpower roll.
Sentry activates and flies forward, then makes his Fury of a Thousand Suns attack, hitting everyone in my team. Cyclops manages to makes his agility roll, but everyone else fails and this sees me under significant pressure.
Jean Grey makes an overloaded Psychic Electrokenesis attack on Sentry which goes critical, followed up by an overloaded Psychic Illusions attack on him, which also scores a critical. Jean Grey is my MVP here, having dished out eight damage in one turn to Sentry!
Green Goblin makes a grab on Rogue, throwing her into Cyclops, knocking both of them down. He then follows up with a Fly Past attack on them both, easily hitting them on the ground.
Colossus moves into contact with Sentry, makes an overloaded grab on Sentry, and throws him into the nearby container, incapacitating him.
Ares moves forward and throws a car at Cyclops, through Rogue, causing enough damage to incapacitate Rogue and putting an additional damage on Cyclops.
Venom then moves into contact with Cyclops, and makes a Symbiote Bite attack, overloaded for dice, which hits and incapacitates Cyclops.
Ms Marvel wakes up, moves back away from the action and launches a Light Beam attack on Jean Grey which hits.
Jean Grey and Ms Marvel both fail their KO test this turn and slip into unconciousness.
Round Three
I win initiative, activate Colossus and make an Ossium Punch attack on Venom which misses. He then follows up with an overloaded grab attack, throwing Venom back into the Burrito Barn sign.
Venom gets up and moves straight back towards Colossus, making an overloaded grab and throwing him into the nearby trees.
Jean Grey attempts to wake up but fails.
Ares moves into contact with the knocked down Colossus, makes an overloaded Godstrike which criticals, then hits with a Hammer of Zeus attack, leaving Colossus smarting.
At this point, I save Tomsey the mop up and call it there.
Conclusion
That was a brutal game, and I didn’t seem to get off the starting line. Sentry is a powerhouse, and if he gets a good Fury of Thousand Suns turn, like he did here, he can almost single handedly win the game. Fury also seems like a crazy-good ability, and it feels that the downside can be mitigated, either by the fact that your damage output will be so high, or via positioning. As it was in this game, I couldn’t bring my team’s full compliment to bear on Venom which saw him survive the turn after Fury. This was a good learning game, albeit quite disheartening that I didn’t even survive half the game!
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