So after Gen Con, I thought I’d have more time but sadly, that didn’t happen as I had another trip planned- a belated anniversary trip to Scotland.
Scotland was sufficiently moody and fantastic but very light on gaming.
I still have some Gen Con recaps I want to finish up but the events of this weekend are still fresh in my mind so I’ll start there instead.
The biggest thing this weekend was the reveal of the Batman Miniature Game 2.0 rules. The rules and compendium are available on Knight Models’ website for free download. Some enterprising Facebook posters had the good idea to run the PDFs over to Staples and make copies.
Sadly, that endeavor runs about $56 and that is way too much for a first draft rulebook. I assume the printed final one will run only slightly more than that. I liked the spirit of the idea so I decided to go cheap and print in black and white.
This ended up being only $16 and I will now be looking at Staples for future such printing needs as the cheapest I could get it done at FedEx Office was still over $25. The quality is poor but I didn’t print these to look at the pretty pictures, I just wanted a physical rules reference book.
I read some summaries online and then blitzed through the new edition and set up a game for the weekend.
While waiting for my friend to arrive, I pulled out Flip Ships to run through some solo dexterity action. Flip Ships was one of my Gen Con acquisitions but is due out now or very soon from Renegade Games.
At it’s core, Flip Ships is essentially Galaga in a dexterity board game medium. In between Gen Con and our Scotland trip, the missus and I threw this one down on the table and found it very fun. I’ve been eager to hit it again and this was a good opportunity to try it out alone.
To play, you flip your ships off the edge of the table, into the air, and try to land on the incoming enemy fighter ships. When you do, you destroy them and more come out. Eventually you run through the enemy fighters and have to face off against the mothership (that ominous box in the backfield). To attack the mothership, you have to flip your ships into that box to damage her. This can be done any time during the game but if you wait until the end, you only get one round to finish it off and win the game.
I did just that and completely failed to get even one of my fourteen ships into the motherbox and ultimately lost the game.
I doomed Earth and decided I needed more practice before trying this one again. Great fun though.
My friend arrive just in time to see my humiliating defeat and so we moved on to the main event: Batman 2.0
Using our light up lamps to set up the moody world of dark Gotham, we discussed some of the rules changes and decided to simplify the game and remove the objectives (this having nothing to do with the fact that we both forgot about prepping the objectives and not having enough for a proper game…).
We decided to move up to 200 points so that meant I could add my favorite sculpt from the Suicide Squad starter set, the Panda Man! Nothing says wacky fun like a silly panda costumed villain toting a high-end assault rifle.
My friend swapped out one of his regular cops with my Commissioner Gordon.
Using my B/W Walking Dead scenery to fill in for Gotham, we set up and were ready to play. Scenario 3 (Patrol) was pretty easy, especially since we ditched objective markers. It centered around getting the first damage in and then leaving a non-Boss character in the opponent’s deployment zone (the two corners of the map).
The game opens easily with both our teams focused on moving out. We quickly realize that to even get to the opponent’s deployment zone, we’ll have to use the sewers (lamely represented by the Riddler question mark in the above image). The rules for sewers have changed a little in that they act more like teleporters now. While this makes things a bit odd story-wise, it does improve the gameplay as we saw last time, going into the sewers can lead to some pretty boring turns as characters are out of the game for at least one full round.
My friend send Gordan into the sewers and decides to pull him up on the other side of the map but in striking distance of Batman, standing sentinel on the rooftop. Unfortunately, the sewer Gordan chose was really close to a lamppost which means he was lit up for everyone to see. Including… Panda Man!
Lucky for me, I could just shift over a little and take a nice long range shot at the Commissioner. “Ping!” rules for the game changed and were simplified so that instead of rolling for “Ping!” for each intervening piece of terrain between you and the target, you check to see if there is anything and roll one per hit. For each successful “Ping!” roll, a hit would be negated. I was able to hit him on the single shot so I drew first blood and got a VP for it. I also drew the first activation next turn and with Panda Man lined up I could unload for my full rate of fire (3 shots). All three hit but one was eventually deflected by the “Ping!” roll. The other two landed home and I got a crit, which was enough to drop Gordon.
Not allow me an activation advantage, Batman swoops down on Eyeball Man and throws a massive 6 attacks against my pathetic defense and Eyeball Man goes down hard.
My friend knows what I’m going to do and I send Joker into the sewers (after whiffing horribly at some short range shots on Batman) pop up right next to Gordon and curb stomp him into oblivion on the next turn. Fat Cop decides to be heroic and intervene. At the end of the round, Gordan wakes up but Eyeball Man is still unconscious.
Gordon activates first and jumps into the sewers very much wounded but has a job to do as he can arrest Eyeball Man (assuming he stays unconscious) and remove him from the game permanently.
This leaves me with Joker and a very worried Fat Cop.
Joker proceeds to beat the holy hell out of one of Gotham’s finest. Fat Cop puts up a little bit of a fight and lands a blow on Joker but it does nothing to stop his fate.
For the last round, I’m presented with a choice, neither of which will change the outcome but I’d been sneaking Panda Man (who had run out of ammo and was pretty useless) to the opponent’s deployment zone but Batman was close enough to swoop in and take him down. Joker also really wanted to kill off Fat Cop as that seems to be his MO in all our games. Going with one, leaves the other one vulnerable. I decide to let Panda Man fat-suit hustle to the deployment zone and leave Joker to take his licks.
Batman swoops in but totally whiffs his 6 attack rolls and Joker is left to smile and straight up murder Fat Cop in front of Batman. No wonder the Caped Crusader can’t sleep at night.
To add insult to injury, Joker then disappears into the sewer to pop up right behind Gordon. If we had another game round, I’d be beating down the good old Commissioner as well but alas, the game ended with that final round.
Gordon does his civic duty and arrests Eyeball Man and that ends the game.
Joker Crew: 8 victory points
Brave and the Bold: 2 victory points
The game ended a bit lopsided but we were fumbling through rules, weren’t using objectives, made some mistakes, and didn’t even buy equipment to augment our crews. With 2.0 out, we’ve got a good taste of what is going on so we’ll prepare a bit better for the next session. All in all, it was still a fun game and quite a good story.
As a little post script, right before Gen Con, I painted up the Golden Fleece figure for the Santorini expansion of the same name and played a few more games to conclude that game’s 6 x 6 challenge.
We tried the Golden Fleece expansion out a couple of times and found it pretty interesting. It made for some closer games so we’ll definitely use it more in the future.
