The HeroClix Roleplayers' Society!

A Finer World Part II (Episode 16):
Earth War Chapter 6: Suicide Squad

Are you tired of brawl after brawl without a story behind it? Have you wanted a bit of plot to go along with your Clix related mayhem? Do you want to help create the rosters for superhero teams and supervillain societies? Do you like weirdly fun mashups between different Clix sets? In the Heroclix Roleplayers' Society, decisions like these are yours for the making! So grab your Clix, your dice, and join the HeroClix Roleplayers' Society!

To get caught up:
A Finer World, Part I:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10

Part II: Earth War
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Heroclix Roleplayers' Society - A Primer

The Heroclix Roleplayers' Society (HRS) is a large scale role playing game where the story is based on games played by the players, and the events are based on the story. Every other week, a new chapter will be posted that does two things.

First, each posting will start with a story update. These updates will advance the plot of the story, update players on the rosters of active teams, and layout the plot behind the next battle. The story will be heavily influenced by the actions of the players that post their results to the HRS threads. While the overall story is planned ahead of time, huge portions of it will be created by you, the players!

Secondly, each post will come with an event for HRS members to play in. These events will be similar to events run by local venues. They will have point values, team restrictions, and/or special rules that are in affect for the game. These events can be run with a friend, or in a tournament setting if your local judge is running HRS events.

After you have completed a HRS event, simply post an after actions report to the HRS thread, and your game will help determine what happens next!

NOTE: While games played in earlier chapters won't count toward canon, new players are always welcome to play older scenarios and post their results.

Now onto Earth War Chapter 6: Suicide Squad. (Episode 16 of A Finer World.)

They didn't call her the Wall for nothing.

Amanda Waller, director of SHIELD, was tired of hiding. Her Spiders and the Captain America Corps had been playing a game of hit and run, jabbing at the Kree armies where it hurt and fading back into the shadows. But each attack had become less and less effective, and the Kree were learning how to deal with SHIELD tactics.

But all of these forays had a purpose. Amanda Waller was looking at a layout on her screen of a Kree base where the right squad could do two things: steal their plans for a major offensive, and plant a form of SHIELD-designed malware that would kick back Kree communications directly to Waller and her analysts. The best part, Waller thought, was that the Kree were likely to know their plans had been stolen, which could potentially be enough of a distraction that the cyberattack would go unnoticed.

Unfortunately, the heavily defended Kree location would mean a suicide mission for most of the people sent in. All, maybe. Waller was more than willing to sacrifice the battle plans if the malware could be injected.

Despite her reputation, Amanda Waller hated sending her soldiers to their death. It was necessary. She did it without hesitation. But she did not throw away lives needlessly. No, when she asked for a Suicide Squad, it was because there deaths would benefit the rest of the world.

She tapped a button on her keyboard, summoning her commanders into her office. John Stewart, Captain America White; Flash Thompson, leader of the Captain America Black program; and the Widow, the commander of the spiders all walked in.

"Where's Captain America Red?" she asked.

"On his way back from a raid. Should be here within the hour," Stewart said.

"Fine," Waller said. "We have an opportunity I don't plan on missing."

She outlined the plan, the parameters, the virus. She showed them the layout of the Kree base and asked for their input on the right attack vectors. And then she asked the hardest question. She said it without hesitation. Not a hint of worry in her voice. They all thought she was a heartless monster. But no. She just had a job to do and she would not fail because of sentiment.

"The likelihood that this is a suicide mission is astronomical," Waller said. "I will choose the team if necessary. But in this case, I'd like to ask for volunteers. Put together a blended team between your units. I want to see tactical suggestions and plans. We'll meet again at midnight to finalize. Dismissed."

Waller watched them go and looked down at the slight tremble she hid in her hand. Not anxiety, not fear, not regret--the tremble was neurological. Maybe I should volunteer myself, she thought, wondering, not for the first time, how much time she had left.

But no. Someone needs to be the Wall against this invasion. And that someone has to be me.

Scenario: Suicide Squad

Choose a map to represent a KREE BASE. Any interior will do, but something sci-fi and cramped would work. Point total determined by the players--each player starts with an equal total number of points.

The Scenario: Suicide Squad

Team 1: Agents of SHIELD
Build a squad built from any combination of Spiders, SHIELD agents, and Captain America Corps characters as detailed in the Dramatis Personae. Dedicate ONE character as the HACKER. They don't necessarily need to be a hacker in the comics--just someone who is charged with planting the malware.

Team 2: The Kree Offensive
Build a team using Kree, Inhuman, or Klingon forces. Dedicate ONE NAMED CHARACTER as the Base Commander.

Special Rules: To win, The HACKER character must spend THREE ROUNDS at least three squares outside Team 1's starting zone and out of combat (Not moving, attacking, or being attacked). Place a token on the board to represent the BATTLE PLANS. Any member of Team 1 can pick up the battle plans by spending one action adjacent to it. As long as someone from Team 1 has the BATTLE PLANS, Player 2 can't attack the HACKER character. If the HACKER character is KO'd, the Kree win the match (feel free to play out the match to the end afterward however--those results will have a KEY IMPACT on the ongoing story even if the hacker dies.)

Post your results:
Who were your teams?
Did the hacker succeed or die?
Did SHIELD escape with the plans?
Did you play until one side was KO'd?
Who survived?

Reserved for bonus mission.

Dramatis Personae:


The Changers:
Stephen Strange: A powerful magician wielding powers not of this world, he leads the Changers as they try to course-correct a timeline where everything has gone wrong. CURRENTLY MISSING, presumed deceased
Emma Frost: A powerful psychic who receives signals from other timelines, telling her people to pinpoint who, by altering their actions, can make this world better.
Nightwing: Dick Grayson is a constant throughout the multiverse--he is always a paragon of heroism. He represents the optimism the team needs. CURRENTLY MISSING. Can be played as part of another faction, but should not be played with the other Changers this week.
Moon Knight: A loose thread in this timeline because of his split personality, Moon Knight represents the member of the team willing to do anything in battle necessary to win. CURRENTLY MISSING. Whereabouts unknown.
Lockjaw: A dog. Who teleports.
Peter Parker, who was used by SHIELD in this timeline to create spider-powered super soldiers.
Courtney Whitmore, the newly anointed Blue Lantern.
The Blue Lantern may use the following optional rule:
The figure costs 20 points more than normal, but gains the following trait:

CONSTRUCT: When building your force, you may attach a construct (Lantern) to this character by paying its point cost. Give this character a power action and replace the construct with any other construct, up to 2 points higher than the original construct. If this character has no action tokens and the new construct is a lower point value than the original construct, this is a free action instead.

Agents of SHIELD:
Director Amanda Waller
the Widow, her lead assassin (IDENTITY TO BE ANNOUNCED)
The Spiders, her elite task force
Sasha Bordeaux

The Captains America:
Captain America Red: Taskmaster. Captain America Red is the black ops / wetworks captain.
Captain America White: John Stewart. The peacekeeper Captain.
Captain America Blue: TBD: The public face of the super soldier program.
Captain America Black Division: Venom symbiote-bonded supersoldiers. Currently there are two members of this team:
Flash Thompson
Frank Castle

Venom-bonded characters may use the following trait: The character costs 20 points more, and can use any character with a name of "Venom" as a possessor following the following rules:

EFFECT: At the beginning of your turn or after this character is clicked, you may choose 1 power on the equipped dial and 1 combat value on the equipped dial higher than this character's same printed combat value. This character can use that power and modifies that combat value by +1 until your next turn or clicked.

The Crimelord of Gotham: Batman - Bruce Wayne
His Loyal Lieutenants:
Catwoman
Shocker
Harley Quinn
His Betrayers:
Hammerhead
Two-Face
Bullseye
Penguin
Captain Boomerang

Gotham PD:
Commissioner: James Woo
Harvey Bullock
Renee Montoya
Frank Castle (formerly)

The Robins:
Jubilee
Cloak
Dagger
Cassandra Cain
Stephanie Brown
Nico Minoru
Tim Drake

The Alien Who Fell: Kristoff Von Doom, a Kryptonian

The King of Latveria: Victor Von Doom

Namor, the Red Lantern.

The Rule of Wakanda: T'Challa
Wakandans:
White Wolf
W'Kabi

Of Themiscyra: Diana
Hippolyta
Tigra
Cheetah

The Furies:
Storm
Artemis
Scandal Savage
Giganta
Duchess

The Mutant Liberation Front: Magneto - leader
Polaris - field leader
Poison Ivy
King Shark
Static
Alopex
Element Man
Havok
Black Lightning
Nightcrawler
(more to come)

The Atlantean Council: Queen Mera
Her consort, Arthur Curry
Their niece, Namorita
Lori Lemaris
Ariel
Ocean Master
Attuma

The Fantastic Four:
Hank Henshaw
Firestorm
Abyss
Bruce Banner

The God Among Men:
Thanos, the God of Death

The Warlord Inventor:
Tony Stark
His army of Iron Man suits.

The Rogues:
Captain Cold
Pyro
Terra
Electro
Riddler

The Hellfire Club
Black King: Black Knight
White King: Ra's Al Ghul
Black Queen: Moondragon
White Queen: Talia Al Ghul
Executioner: Deadpool

The Nova Corps
Wally West
Fandral
Captain Kirk
Star-Lord
Korvus

I lost track of time and thought I had another week for the last chapter! My bad.

Definitely still play last week's scenario out if you want--I intentionally made sure this week's was not contingent on last because so few people had time to play it out.

Very cool, can't wait to play this up.

Can we add more members of the Captain America Black Division? I've had some ideas since 5 chapters back.

Absolutely. I like the idea that Waller's been experimenting with the symbiotes since the last time we met them. Feel free to use the same power boost as Flash and Frank have in the Dramatis Personae for anyone you want to add.

Well, I had so many characters I wanted to use on the SHIELD team that this game ended up as a 1000 point battle. This should be interesting.

Agents of SHIELD
HACKER: ffsog001 Oracle (Barbara Gordon) - 50
+ sfsm023a Venom - 20
cw048 Taskmaster (Captain America Red) - 139
wf028 Blue Beetle (Jonathan Law/Tarantula) - 60
sfsm052 Spider-Gwen - 95
nfaos011 Agent May - 65
nfaos012 Agent Ward - 55
fl012 Captain Boomerang - 73
dxf018 Domino - 90
adw034 Elektra - 50
dp034 Venom (Flash Thompson) - 96
cwsop032 Venom (Mac Gargan) - 90
sfsm044 Carnage (Cletus Kasady) - 100

TOTAL - 983

THE KREE OFFENSIVE
BASE COMMANDER: gotg207 Captain Marvel - 200
ffgotg001 Black Bolt - 150
ffsog004 Black Canary - 100
gotg101 Captan Atlas - 120
si042a Captain Mar-Vell - 185
btas056 Clayface - 125
uxm043b Sunfire - 120

TOTAL - 1000

I had several ideas for Captains America Black, but I cut it down to Gargan and Kasady who seemed disposable, and Gordon who I desperately wanted to add. The rest of them are pretty obvious, except for Jonathan Law. I found him while looking for spider-themed DC characters, and found out that he used the name Spider Man 20 years before Peter Parker. I also almost forgot to add a character with "Fire" in their name, but luckily I had exactly enough points to add Sunfire.

Babs-Venom is an inspired choice. Love the idea that Waller's using both decent people and sociopaths (Gargan, Cletus) with the symbiotes.

My backstory for Barbara so far is about halfway between her original backstory and Agent Venom's backstory. So, she gets in too deep in a personal investigation into Batman, ends up paralyzed (up to you whether it was Batman's idea, one of his lieutenants, or an accident), and ends up volunteering for the Captain America Black program. I'm not sure how to fit it in to the write-up, so I thought I'd leave it here for consideration.

Question: Who places the BATTLE PLANS token and are there any limitations to it's placement?

My son and I had a blast playing and writing up the last chapter, so we're planning on running this one as well. We'll probably be playing with the following teams:

Build
125 SFSM060 Superior Spider-Man
120 WKM15-008 Spider-Man
75 TMT007 Spider-Man
80 CWSOP026 Taskmaster
35 NFAOS021 Fitz
65 NFAOS011 Agent May
68 DP041 G.W. Bridge
35 NFAOS004A S.H.I.E.L.D. Infiltrator
Total: 603


Build
120 GOTG101 Captain Atlas
76 GOTG017B Kree General
120 GOTG208 Ronan the Accuser
225 AIG013E Sentry #459
60 GOTG022 Talon
2 AVASS100 Pym Particles
Total: 603

Both teams at 603, but we'll play it as 600 points (6 actions per turn).

Excellent question and one I should have answered in the write-up! For fairness, It should be placed roughly center of the map (within the most central room if you're using an indoor map, or anywhere logical along the center fold).

Glad you dug the last chapter!