“The Punisher is an emotional dead zone, unable to be shaken in any way by any form of fear. Combined with his extraordinary aptitude with brutality and his mastery of guerilla warfare, this makes Punisher the perfect soldier—in times of war, at least.”
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that work by projection of munitions far beyond the effective range of personal weapons. These engines include specialised devices which use some form of stored energy to work, whether mechanical, chemical, or electromagnetic. Originally designed to breach fortifications, they have evolved from nearly static installations intended to cut a single obstacle to highly mobile weapons of great flexibility in which now reposes the greater part of a modern army’s offensive capabilities.
Since cannon was developed, the word “artillery” in practice has largely meant cannon; in contemporary usage it usually refers to shell-firing guns, howitzers, mortars, and rockets.
However, in the world of superheroes, the term artillery may include the legendary (and awesome) Fast Ball Special. The Fastball Special is a popular tag-team move in superhero fiction. In a Fastball Special, a hero with superhuman strength literally throws a (usually) willing partner toward a target. The maneuver first appeared in the Marvel Comics series Uncanny X-Men #100, when Wolverine had Colossus hurl him in a battle. It quickly became a favorite tactic of the two heroes. It has also since been used by many superheroes, (i.e. Spider-Man and X-23 VS. Iron Maniac), some from companies other than Marvel.
The Fastball Special was perfected and is most commonly used by Colossus and Wolverine of the X-men. The attack allows Wolverine to reach speeds much faster than he ever could on his own, causing him to do much more damage when he enters the battlefield. It also allows him get to areas that he couldn’t before, such as extreme heights or distances. In the move, Colossus holds Wolverine in his hands and throws him with as much force as he can muster. Sometimes the throw is like a javelin and other times it looks like a baseball pitch, but the result is the same. The size difference between the two heroes involved makes this move easier than when it is tried with others. Colossus is very big so a small Wolverine fits right in his hand.
Heroclix makes a model of this, and it’s pretty damn cool. The problem is that it’s (of course) a rare model and usually costs around $24 which is a little more than I am willing to spend just to use a single model for casual games of Heroclix, Herscape, or Weird War games like Secrets of the Third Reich and Incursion.
Heroclix sells a Feat card for the Fastball special that usually costs under $1.00 if you’re interested. You can find it on eBay or at Troll & Toad for sure.
In Heroscape, GreyOwl has done all the work for us. The custom cards for Colossus and Wolverine are featured below, and I am fairly certain that G won’t mind me sharing his work. The Fast Ball Special is added to Colossus’s card as a Special Ability.
Here’s my best try at making the model for myself. WOLVIE is pinned to a brass rod that can be removed from the cork set into COLOSSUS’S base. That way I can use my other WOLVERINE figure for when Mr. Weapon X lands and starts slashing his enemies.
I was playing around with making a custom card for Wolverine and Colossus as an Artillery Team for Incursion. I’ll probably update the card now that Jim has given permission on the forums (and to me by email) to make custom cards for Incursion.
If you have any ideas of how to stat out Colossus and Wolverine as a team in Incursion and Secrets of the Third Reich, add a comment. I’m very interested in hearing your ideas.
Just to mix things up, we’re planning out some STAR WARS games in the near future using the original Star Wars mniature rules, as well as, the HEROSCAPE ones.
“Might have been A.I.M. or S.H.I.E.L.D. or STARK or even that rubbish that Reed was talking about with an alternate dimension crossing over with ours.”
“Zombies. Don’t call them that. They are Walkers.”
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, the point is that those Dead Things showed up and started eating everyone.”
“Yeah, that sucks.”
“Cap got wind that the Red Skull was headed out to the old ruins of a small biochemical lab in the middle of nowhere. Apparently Red Head thought he had found a cure for the Plauge of Zombies. Before we knew it, it was a full on slugfest between the New Avengers and the Sinister Six. All the while, Zombies are swarming everywhere picking up the pieces like vultures.”
“And then Batman showed up.”
“Yeah, but let’s be serious. It was Bruce Wayne. Secret Identities don’t matter now. Everyone is just trying to survive them ugly Walking Dead types.”
“At one point, Doctor Doom was facing off against The Hulk. Batman was there, too, but didn’t help Hulk. Amazingly enough, he teamed up with Metal Face.”
Hulk and Doom battle it out while Batman watches. Zombies swarm on the streets below.
“In the end, the Zombies overwhelmed the New Avengers. Spider Man and Iron Man went down first, torn to pieces by those blood thirsty fiends. Captain America – good old Steve Rodgers – made a last stand against the horde of zombies. He fought hard, but damn if the monsters didn’t chew him to bits. Thanos and Abomination didn’t blink an eye, using the heros as a distraction while they moved on towards the biochemical lab. Thanos was the only one who had no fear. He claimed that he would be Rejected By Death thanks to the powers of the Infinity Gaunlet.”
Red Skulls shouts a warning seconds before a horde of zombies rampage through the streets. Iron Man and Spidey are torn to shreds, and Captain America lasts only a few moments more. Abomination and Thanos flee towards the biochemical lab.
“In the end though, Silver Surfer ended up flying into the biochemical lab and sailing off with the tube of stuff that Red Skull was after. Who knows if the formula is really going to turn out to be something that Reed can use to cure the disease. All we can do is wait … and hope.”
Well, the viewers have spoken, er viewed… It seems that one of the most searched and accessed posts on my blog are the custom Heroscape cards. It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted one, so in honor of Star Wars weekend, I’ll post one a day for the next three days starting with:
Since this is the first of the cards from my Star Wars set that you’ll be seeing, let me say that Yodajunkie did an awesome job on the backgrounds for the Jedi/Sith cards. The lightsaber swirls really add an extra WOW factor to the cards. And as you’ll see, he matched the color to the lightsaber the figure is holding – uber-cool.
Lightsaber Deflect is an ability that comes standard with all of the Jedi and Sith figures that I’ve created to date. It gives Vader a little added protection from rebel trooper blaster fire that…
The Taer is a Nuetral Evil Frost Giant-Kin. Basically, it is a man-sized ape related to the Frost Giants. Although I would love to see the WotC guys make this as a D&D HEROSCAPE unit, they probably will not. I have about 8 of these guys in my collection, so I made a custom HEROSCAPE card to use it within my games. It is no way official and has not be given any official “thumbs up” from the Heroscapers community.
This card is roughly based on a combination of other HEROSCAPE cards, plus the abilities from the D&D Miniatures game. I believe I pulled the basic stats from the Sasquatch figures from Wave 10. I figured that between 90 and 100 points sounded good, so went for 90 points.
I got a chance to play another game of Dungeons & Dragons Heroscape with a friend of mine the other day. We chose the scenario involving two 400 point armies invading the Black Dragon‘s Lair and trying to escape with the Treasure. The tricky part was that you had to grab the treasure, and then eliminate all your enemies in order to win. Each turn, acid would drip from the ceiling, and possibly do 1 wound to your guys. The only way to avoid the acid damage was to be standing in water, or to have the Treasure which provided protection from the acid thanks to a Cloak of Acid Resistance.
I took a mainly Drow army. I had Pelloth, 2 units of Deepwyrm Drow, and an Ogre Warhulk. This left 10 points, and I said “What do you suggest I take for 10 points?” He immeadiately told me to take a non-D&D model from a previous Heroscape set. This model was called Isamu. Shrugging, I agreed. I figured that Isamu probably sucked since it cost 10 points. But, that would give me a full 400 points, so who cared? Right?
Not so much. Isamu (assuming I have the name right…) is a fancy looking assassin with red clothing, a sword, and knife. He can move through other figures without taking a hit for leaving engagement. He also has a cool ability that if you roll a 9 or more on a d20, he avoids all attacks and can move 4 spaces. This combination of abilities ended up winning me the game!
My friend took a collection of Heroes. His tactic being that Heroes have nifty abilities plus they all have more than one wound so they wouldn’t die like dogs to the Acid Drip each turn. I believe he had: Darrak Ambershard, the Ice Elemental, a female rouge, and a warforged wizard. Something like that.
Anyway, Pelloth died right away, killed by ranged attacks from the Warforged Wizard. I lost a lot of Drow to the Acid Drips each turn as well. However, I was able to get about half of them into water to protect them. It didn’t help much as the rouge was able to bounce around, make her own darkness, and kill them. Also, Darak was hiding out in shadows and nearly impossible to wound.
Somehow, I managed to get Isamu to a treasure tile, and avoided the trap. I was lucky enough to pull the Treasure Chest, and so he was protected from the Acid Drip. It turned out he was the best model to carry the Treasure, thanks to his awesome abilities.
My Warhulk faced off against the Ice Elemental towards the end of the game. They traded shots back and forth, but the Warhulk ended up winning. He’s really tough with all of his wounds, and he packs a powerful punch. The only drawback is that his chain weapon tends to wound my guys as well as the enemy. Keep your friendly models away from the angry Warhulk, boys and girls.
In the end, Isamu faced off against Darrak and the Warforged Wizard. Isamu kept avoiding attacks, and moving away. My tactic was to position him away from shadow spaces and to keep him at least a level above his enemies. It was very close, and shots were traded back and forth … but in the end Isamu eliminated both of his enemies.
It was a good scenario. However, we downloaded it from the Wizards of the Coast website and there were two problems: (1) The colors did not match well to the original book, so it was a little confusing when building the game board. The colors of the Dungeon Pieces looked fairly the same as the Rock pieces; and (2) the map did not match throughout the building process. Level One from the Level One build was not the same as the Level One shown on the Level Two Build. So it was a little confusing.
Either way, it was fun. And … Red Ninja wins the day!
Burnside’s Bridge played a key role in the Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War. It is named after Major General Ambrose Burnside. The bridge is 125 feet long, 12 foot wide, and has three arches. The bridge spans the Antietam Creek. It was intended to move frieght, animals, and people to Sharpsburg, Maryland.
The Real Bridge
When it comes to playing a miniature game, having objectives to capture and fight over makes the game more exciting. In fact, when I play miniature games with my wife, she usually demands that we have some sort of scenario or capture point to add to the flare beyond the “kill everyone else” objective.
Bridges are great objectives, and can be placed in the center of the board to allow both players to duke it out and struggle to capture (and hold) the objective.
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On a recent trip home to visit the In-Laws, we stopped over at a gaming store in Pottstown, PA called Hobbytown USA. The store has a good variety of toys, games, and model railroading goodies. One of the things that caught my eye was the fact that they carried BMC toys.
Now, hear me out. I love the BMC toy line and don’t want to talk bad about them. They offer some really cool plastic army men stuff, and I respect their company immensely. However, I do have to post a hobby review of their Burnsides Bridge.
BMC offers a bagged set of 54mm models and figures of the Burnsides Bridge. I purchased the playset for $12.95 at a Hobby Town USA near Pottstown, PA. The parts of the bridge are crafted of plastic. There are mould lines that need to be removed before the bridge can be dry-fitted. The task of dry-fitting was somewhat mind-bending. The parts that I received in my package did not fit together in any reasonable way. I ended up having to bend some of the pieces using a hair dryer and cold water. I had to cut some of the other pieces to properly fit together. This model is intended for ages 6 and up, but the assembly process with take someone with a little creativity, patience, and hobby skill. After adjusting the pieces so that they will dry fit, the assembly process itself was very frustrating. The model is supposed to be snap together using small plastic pegs and drilled holes. Most of the pegs will not fit in the pre-drilled holes. I attempted to dremel the pegs to make them smaller, but the fragile plastic tended to snap off under the dremel’s grinder and sander. I then attempted to make the holes bigger using an x-acto knife blade, and this seemed to work fairly well. I used Gorilla Super Glue to fix the parts in place. Snapping together was impossible. The fully assembled bridge looked like this when finished:
This is the assembled bridge.
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Detail is not bad. Requires a repaint.
♣
This model itself is nice. It’s big so it will make a nice objective on the gaming table. However, the inferior build of the parts is rather infuriating and frustrating.
BMC Toys produces inexpensive 1/32 scale plastic figures, accessories and playsets. Buying a model this size would normally require spending $50 or $100 dollars if it was intended for model railroading or miniature wargaming. While historical accuracy and basic human anatomy take a back seat with BMC sculpting, these figures are ideal for children and for use in school history projects and offer excellent play value. In the end, I guess you get what you pay for in quality.
My final word on the bridge is this: If you’re looking for an inexpensive bridge for miniature wargaming, this is a good choice for the price and scale. Just be aware that it is not “easy snap together” as advertised and will require a maddening amount of skilled effort to overcome the flaws in the parts.
I was messing around the other night with my Heroscape stuff, trying to figure out how to build a big bridge out of the Castle sets. I’m going to do a rebuild soon, but this was my first shot at it.I think that using the big hexes for the base at the sides will turn out better.
I was looking around the internet today and discovered that Miniature Market is selling bitz for Heroscape. I missed out on buying squads of the Drow, however I picked up a bunch of tiles for fairly cheap. Although the bitz are selling out fast, I thought I would share the love.
And don’t forget to use the 5% off discount good until 1/31/10 … I posted it a few days ago.
I was reading Heroscapers and then surfed on over to WordPress.com to look at the Heroscape blogs. I found this blog post and discovered a new store that I didn’t know about. The store is Auggies and they have HEROSCAPE bits, too!
Children of the Ampersand 
