Heroscape Battle 02: Mountain of Fate vs Batcastle 3v3

It had been a while since we played Heroscape, and my brother Grant, who had found most of my collection at thrift stores for me, was coming up for visit, so it seemed like a great reason to get a battle in. I still had the castle and ice mountain I had built for a previous battlefield (see the post here: Our First Heroscape Battles), and wanted to use them again before tearing them down.

We were eager to start, so as a group we threw together a battlefield quickly using ice mountain at one end, and the castle at the other. We elevated the terrain to accommodate a bridge, and then put some ruins on either flank.

We had 6 players so we did a 3v3 team battle. Darren and I were the most familiar with the rules, so we decided to be team captains, and then we randomly decided who would be on which team. The way we run these team games is that we have a D20 roll off between all the players to start, and the team who has the player with the highest roll decides whether they want to draft first, or choose starting zone first. We then alternate between teams in descending order of rolls so that no team gets to draft twice in a row. We do the same thing for initiative each round, so that no team gets to use two units in a row.

After acquiring many sets of Heroscape (4 or 5 base sets, 2 Marro Swarm, 1 Castle, and more), I finally got a Marvel set complete in the package. It comes with a cool set of heroes, but we really wanted to make use of my extensive Heroclix collection with the Comic Hero Custom Creations (C3G project) at Heroscapers, to get some of our favourite heroes into the battle. Thankfully, almost every hero and villain you can think of has been created and tested by the Heroscapers community.

Using these customs, I first picked Dr. Fate, my favourite super hero of all time, and since it’s the first time we’ve played since I printed his card, I had to choose him. He is quite expensive at 290 points, but has teleportation. Darren ended up picking up the 200 point custom Batman as his first pick, who is an awesome all around character with a special movement ability, special multi-target ranged attack, and a special defense that can hit back! Thus began the schism in the Justice League, money vs magic! Which team will triumph!?

Now on to the teams of three, 400 point armies:

Dr. Fate’s Team Magic; Base = Ice Mountain

Brad: Dr. Fate (290) + Syvarris (100) = 390 – My plan was to teleport Syvarris around to various high ground sniper positions.
Zach: Wolverine (285) + Krav Maga Agents (100) = 385 – Zach chose one of his favourite custom heroes as well, along with the Krav Maga agents, who are always solid.
Dakota: Nilfheim (185) + Mimring (150) = 335 – Double Dragon! One of the armies I was considering as you can rarely go wrong with mobile monsters. Dakota was 65 points short and we had units to make that up, I’m not sure why he didn’t… (in the future we started allowing teams to share excess points)

Batman’s Team Money; Base = Castle

Darren: Batman (200) + Raelin, the Kyrie Warrior (120) + Finn the Viking Champion (80) = 400 – Get buffed guys in close.
Marcus: Deadpool (285) + Agent Carr (100) = 385 – Get in close and wreck.
Grant: Spider-Man (160) + Venom (150) + Tagawa Samurai Archers (65) = 375 – Mobile, ranged, and versatile.

Team Magic’s strategy was to take the broken wall area to our right. Zach left Wolverine back and used all his order markers to move the Krav Maga up into firing position around the wall, and start taking shots at the advancing enemies. The plan was for me to come back later with Dr. Fate and teleport Logan into close quarters.

With my first move I teleported Dr. Fate and Syvarris to atop the crumbling wall for a great sniping position to abuse Syvarris’ range of 9 spaces, the most of any figure we have. From there I spammed Syvarris’ double attacks like a turret, filling up our foes with arrows.

Mimring, the Red Dragon, caught Deadpool and a Samurai Archer in his Fire Line special attack, but both were able to dodge the flames. Deadpool then drew first blood of the battle moving up and putting a couple bullets in the dragon for firing at him.

Grant pushed forward with his Samurai Archers to secure the bridge, and started returning fire. Batman swung down from atop the castle to join Deadpool in moving towards the broken wall contention point. Raelin flew down also to protect her allies with her defensive aura.

Funnily enough, I realized that there is no safe way to get down from atop the crumbling wall without risking damage, so my line was pretty clear. I teleported Dr. Fate back to get Wolverine, and continued to reposition Syvarris and volley arrows.

Dakota retreated Mimring, who had just 1 life left, safely out of range. He then moved King Nilfheim, the Ice Dragon, up into the fray. Zach continued to menace with the Krav Maga agents while dodging the retaliations.

Finn the Viking Warrior moved up to buff his comrades, while Batman and Deadpool continued the fire fight with the Krav Maga, whose ranks were starting to dwindle. They also started taking shots at Syvarris who continued to be a bane in their side. Grant’s Samurai Archers continued to deal a few hits while Team Magic focused on the heavier hitters. Grant used this time to start to bring Venom and Spidey up into range.

Dakota moved Nilfheim up onto the bridge and started spraying ice shards over the area, taking out Raelin and Finn, but getting rushed by Venom.

Dr. Fate teleported himself and Wolverine to the bridge to give Nilfheim some back up. Logan went berserk, cutting down samurai left and right. I started blasting away with Dr. Fate, targeting whoever was closest to death. The Krav Maga and Syvarris were finally able to take down Deadpool, but his buddy, Agent Carr had already snuck up and flanked them. He entered the ruins and cut down another agent, and threatened to finish Mimring.

At the end of the round, a wounded Syvarris jumped down from the wall and moved into a better position to lay down support fire without risk of being killed. With his samurai mostly gone, Grant started engaging with Spidey & Venom, who are very hard to kill, especially Spider-Man. Each of them has a special movement that ignores terrain and elevations, a ranged web attack, and web dodge defense that allows them a free web swing if they succeed, potentially moving them out of range for future attacks. They are identical in stats except Spider-Man has a better spidey-sense, and Venom more attack dice in melee combat.

So, as we head into the final rounds, to summarize the battle state: Dr. Fate & Syvarris are still pretty healthy and active. The Krav Maga have only 1 agent left, so Zach will most likely just be using Wolverine. With Mimring at 1 life, and Nilfheim on the frontline, Dakota will probably put all his order markers on Nilfheim.

With Finn and Raelin dead, it’s down to Batman for Darren. Since Deadpool is dead, Agent Carr is the only figure Marcus has left. Grant however, saving his best til last, still has most of his power left in Spidey & Venom.

So it looks like it will be Fate, Wolverine, & Nilfheim swinging for Team Magic, versus Venom, Spidey, an injured Batman, & a wounded Agent Carr left for Team Money.

Mimring pulled off a surprise attack and finished off Batman. The Krav Maga agent pulled back, and with the help of Syvarris, finished off Agent Carr. Venom tore into Nilfheim, and the ice dragon fell. Venom then slipped below the bridge while dodging a Dr. Fate attack. Wolverine ripped up Spidey with the help of Syvarris and Fate.

Cornered by Fate and Logan, and with no one left to help, Venom slithers off to fight another day, but Team Magic claims victory this day!

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