Channel 7 News Report (last thursdays Game)

“Sian Hidachi here reporting for channel 7 news here in Gotham city, where we meet ex criminal turned pillar of the community Oswald Cobblepot, here to tell us about his new initiative ‘The Iceberg Watch’ Mr Cobblepot; tell us all about it?”

“Hi Sian, and please, call me Oswald… well as you mentioned I was once a hardened criminal, forced by desperation into acts that some even called terrorism, but by the grace of the good people of Gotham I was given a second chance, and I have done my best to earn the trust placed in me that day.. and that is what The iceberg watch is about, second chances; these men you see around me are all one-time criminals, low level thugs and enforcers who had no choice but to sell their services to one costumed lunatic after another just to put food in their families mouths.. well no more! The Iceberg watch is a private security firm, which exclusively employs these ex ‘goons’ so we are better informed, and better equipped, to deal with so called ‘super-villains’ such as Mr Freeze and the Scarecrow than regular forces, after all we know how they work from the inside out, plus it keeps these noble men, desperate for a calling, from swelling the ranks of these villains”

“Thanks Oswald, merely moments ago we witnessed the Iceberg Watch in action, as Bane himself, seemingly aided by the Joker, broke out from nearby Arkham Asylum, with no security forces in sight and the police fighting off the riots downtown, Mr Cobblepot sprang into action, wounding and driving off the Jokers crew, whilst bravely attempting to engage Bane in dialogue, re-capturing several of his men, If not for a camera fault we would be able to show you Oswalds heroism”

“It was nothing more than the good citizens of Gotham deserve my dear, should we allow thugs like Bane, or psychopaths like the Joker to run free in Gotham when we had both the men and the means to stop them? No! Although not currently contracted by the Asylum we cannot allow thoughts of profits to distract us from the cause of justice”

“And you received some unexpected help during the escape in the form of the Batman, is this a formal arrangement?”

“Not at all, in fact as you can clearly see from this footage the batman threw the joker from a second storey window, and then pummelled him unconscious while he was defenceless, another brutal act that tells us all that we cannot rely on masked vigilante, the Iceberg Watch is a registered private security firm, our address is on file for any who wish to find us, which is more than I can say about the Batman..”

“Indeed, this next footage shows Bane hurling the batman across Arkhams driveway, and the caped crusader was unable to prevent Bane’s escape, in fact you say his presence prevented you from talking Bane down?”

“I had risked my own life to talk to Bane man-to-man, and he had respected that, he was on the cusp of surrender when that winged fool arrived and aggravated him, escalating a situation that we had under control, and in the mayhem his entrance caused the Joker also disappeared”

“Well thanks again Mr Cobblepot , sorry, Oswald, and there’ll be a special edition  of ‘Gothams Finest’ tonight at 9 where you can see the full footage the Iceberg Watch’s heroic defence of the city, only on channel 7”

Clown Cars

ok, I managed to take very bad, almost unusable photos of the game, so I won't be using them:P instead I'll have to do with (almost) finished photos of the Jokers Crew, plus the second game report-

Game two- Clown Cars

GCPD: two cops- one rookie, one vet
Joker: The Joker himself.

Scenario- The Police are driving one car each- a police cruiser which holds the goons, and the jokers truck which holds the jewels from the heist. each goon, the truck and the jewels are worth one VP each to whoever holds them at the end of the game.

Terrain: a street in the Narrows

The Jokers attention span may not be great, but when the truck didnt arrive at the pre-arranged meeting point even he was suspicious, mainly that his insane henchman had run off with the loot... with instructions to Harkey, the Ringmaster and Mime to check the prisons, the asylum and the morgue, he stole a nearby car and raced off to the narrows  to find his jewels.

Imagine his surprise when after only a few minutes drive down the deserted streets he found himself face to face with a police cruiser, closely followed by his own truck, only a clown could get arrested in the narrows...

Turn 1: The joker slammed his foot on the accelerator, and aimed his headlights straight at the cruiser. The Rookie driving was still unsuspecting at this point, as was the Vet in the Jokers truck so they slowly came on.

Turn 2:  The revving of the engine, and the obviously smashed up windscreen finally caught the attention of the Rookie, who saw the beat up station wagon coming straight for him, getting on the radio to the Vet he tried to take evasive action but the narrow street hemmed him in too much.

Turn 3: In a last ditch battle of nerves (the Joker decided that he wasn't going to lose at chicken today whatever I did) the Rookie managed to veer at the last minute,(coward!!) swerving to the left of the Jokers car, and drawing his pistol opening fire through his own window at the speeding Lunatic, he hit nothing but the Vet behind saw the gunfire and skidded to a halt, blocking the street but slamming himself around inside the car.

Turn 4: The Joker may be mad, but even he knows T-boning a car wasnt going to end well for him, slamming on the brakes he swept the station wagon to one side, and as it came around he tumbled out of the drivers door, before rolling to his feet, by the time the car slammed into the side of the purple ruck he had come about and was climbing over the bonnet toward the stunned Veteran, The rookie saw the clash in the mirror, and screeched to a halt, climbing out with his radio in one hand and his pistol in the other.

Turn 6: It was his truck in the first place, so the Joker can hardly be blamed for wanting to get it back, he dived through the drivers side window, landing on the Veterans lap he slammed his fist into the cops chubby abdomen, with a buzz of electricity (he rolled critical damage with his punch!)  the Vet began coughing up blood , heaving the clown off him into the passenger seat he clambered back out the way the clown came in, this time into the station wagon! All the Rookie could do was call for back up as he couldn't see anything.

Turn 7: having gained control of his loot surprisingly easily, Mr J climbed back into to the drivers seat, gunned the engine and sped off into the darness, leaving nothing but a beat up station wagon, an unconscious cop and a trail of purple paint behind him... his goons he would have to come back for, so we'll call this one a draw...

here's the almost finished gang (still need to finish the orange on all but the Auguste, plus a few details)

 The clown truck is from Ainsty Castings Carpark range, and I couldn't resist:) the 'Extra'  crew member is Mime, a 1980's batman villain who appeared in maybe 2 comics, but fitted with my spare models available and sort of matches the jokers theme...

The Batquisitor Campaign Rules

Todays tea is a lovely Whittards Mango tea, very soothing, and along with it Matt has supplied the next step- campaign rules! Incoming transmission... :)


People of Gotham, your attention please. We all must come before the judgement of a higher power, and today is Gotham's judgement day.

Too long has this city been torn between opposing ideals. The oppressive order of the GCPD. The reckless anarchy of the Joker. The destructive greed of the Penguin. And though you may not realise it, the hopeless vanity of the League of Shadows, attempting to bring balance to this chaos.
The time has come for Gotham to face its final judgement. And, like all who stand before the inquisitor, your judge shall be... yourselves. The people of Gotham will make their choice: order, anarchy, greed or balance. Those who embody the paths not chosen, will be eradicated.

A final word to Gotham's erstwhile protector: do not try to find me. We each of us wear two faces. If you read my words, you will find only riddles; if you ask my name, you will hear only silence. I might be your oldest friend, your earliest enemy, or perhaps even the face in the mirror. You may call me... your Inquisitor.

=][=

Ideals
The 'soul' of Gotham is broken into three ideals, and each of the factions is devoted to one of them: this is their 'faction ideal'.

• Order, affiliated to the GCPD and the Batman Family
• Anarchy, affiliated to the Joker
• Greed, affiliated to the Penguin
• The League of Shadows is different, in that it is devoted to achieving Balance between the three ideals.

Loyalty
During the campaign, characters will be pulled between the various ideals. If they are pushed too far, they may leave their faction to better pursue that ideal. The affiliation of characters is tracked with points.

• All characters begin with no points to their non-faction ideals.
• Leaders begin with D10+6 points to their faction ideal; Ra's al Ghul begins with D10+6 points divided evenly between the three ideals.
• Non-leader sidekicks begin with D6+6 points to their faction ideal; League of Shadows characters begin with D6+6 points divided evenly between the three ideals.
• Non-leader henchmen begin with D6 points to their faction ideal; League of Shadows henchmen begin with D6 points divided evenly between the three ideals.
• If a character is taken out of action during a scenario, his faith in his faction's ideal is shaken. He gains 1 point to his non-faction ideal with the least points. A League of Shadows character gains 1 point to his ideal with the most points, disrupting his Balance.
• If a character takes at least one enemy out of action during a scenario, his faith in his faction's ideal is strengthened. He gains 1 point to his faction ideal. A League of Shadows character gains 1 point to his ideal with the least points, increasing his Balance. A character may only earn 1 point per scenario in this way.
• Characters may gain points to their various ideals for other narrative reasons, as decided by players during the campaign.

Defection
At the end of a scenario, players must determine whether their characters remain true to their faction's cause, or defect to another faction that better represents their interests.

• If one ideal exceeds the sum of the other two, the character defects to the faction that embodies that ideal. If all three ideals are in balance, they defect to the League of Shadows.
• The receiving faction can decide what to do with the new recruit: add them to their roster (use a spare model, or your opponent's if they're willing!); interrogate them for information; or just keep their stuff and throw them into the river.

Territory
In addition to the loyalty of a player's crew, the campaign also measures how their actions are perceived by the people of Gotham. Each faction controls a section of the city, divided into territory hexes: see map. During the campaign, these territories will be won and lost, as the people's faith ebbs and flows between the various ideals. Each territory is worth 1 territory point to the faction that holds it.
At the end of a scenario, players must determine the state of their territories.

• For each character lost to a rival faction, also lose one territory to that faction (opponent's choice).
• In addition, the faction that wins the scenario gains a territory from their opponent (winner's choice).

Note that the actual location of the territories isn't important: factions may win territories even if they are not adjacent to their existing territories.
The Batman Family is different to other factions. They only start with a single territory, Wayne Manor, which is worth 6 territories to whichever faction holds it. The Batman Family can only gain additional territories if their total number of territories does not exceed the number of characters on their roster.

Preparations are key?

Okay so the first nights gaming didn’t go exactly to plan, mainly due to the fact that I was the only person who had ever written up inquisitor characters before, so we spent the night filling in paperwork, but hey, that’s the way it goes sometimes, from prior experience I’m sure it will be worth it, a brief post today on Weapons-
The weapons of Gotham are largely going to be those of the real world, and that means we have to eliminate a large chunk of the guns from inquisitor, this is a good thing however as armour is going to be rare, and anything bigger than a heavy stubber (or 30m machine gun) would be unbelievably deadly. Obviously there are exceptions to this ‘real world’ rule, but most of them have some game equivalent we can base rules on; Mr Freeze’s raygun (stasis weapon), Penguins umbrella’s (various weapons mixed up, plus a helicopter), scarecrow’s fear bombs (scare grenades) and jokers googly eyes (auspexes) and so on. We also need to assign a ‘rep’ value to each weapon, plus a new ‘common’ ‘rare’ rating etc
Whilst meandering on this point it’s worth noting that many of my fellow inquisitor players moans from the past about game balance centred around the difficulty in writing balanced warbands, the ‘ready reckoner’ at the back of the book simply goes on common, rare, unusual etc, so something as overpowered as a Frost Blade counts as much toward your rep as a servo skull that takes notes… for me it’s never been a huge issue as I choose not to play with muppets who would abuse the system, but I may at some point ‘point up’ the equipment in the basic Inq book, just to see where it would lead. Anyway enough meandering- here’s the Gotham weapons chart-

Name	Type	Range	Mode	Accuracy	Damage	Shots	Reload	Weight	avail
Stubber	pistol	F	single/semi(2)		2D6+2	15	2	15	common
9mm clip fed pistols									5 rep
Autopistol	pistol	A	single/semi(4)		2D6	20	2	20	common
submachine guns (uzi etc)									10 rep
Autogun	basic	C	single, semi(4), full(10)		2D6+2	30	2	30	rare
Assault rifles (M16, Kalashnikov etc									20 rep
Revolver	Pistol	E	single		2D6+2	6	*2*	15	common
6 shooters, colts etc									5 rep
Shotgun	basic	E	single		2D6+2	1	*1*	30	common
									15 rep
Sawn-off Shotgun	basic	A	single	-10	2D6+2	1	*1*	20	common
									15 rep
Double Barrelled Shotgun	basic	A	single/semi(2)	-10	2D6+2	1	*1*	20	common
									20 rep
Pump action Shotgun	basic	E	single/semi(2/3)		2D6+2	8	*2*	35	common
									20 rep
Automatic Shotgun	basic	C	single/semi)2/5)		2D6+2	20	3	40	rare
									20 rep
Hunting Rifle	basic	G	single		2D6+4	10	*2*	40	rare
bolt action rifles, police snipers etc									20 rep
Heavy Stubber	Heavy	C	semi(4/6)/fully(10)		3D6	40	3	45	rare
									50 rep
Hand Flamer	basic	*15*	Flame	-25%	2D6	4	6	25	rare
									25 rep
Flamer	pistol	*25*	Flame	-25%	2D6+4	6	8	40	rare
									50 rep
Exterminator	*	*25*	Flame	-25%	2D6+4	1	xx	10	rare
									15 rep
Disposable Rocket Launcher	Heavy	A	single (A1B6)	-5	3D6	1	xx	30	rare
loaded with super Krak to represent R/L bazooka, could swap for super frag for hollywood effect									30 rep
Throwing Knife	Thrown	E	single	-5	D6	1	xx	10	common
									1 rep
Throwing Star	Thrown	E	single/Semi(2)		D3+1	1	xx	10	common
									1 rep each
Smoke Grenade	Grenade	E	Blast 4			1	xx	10	rare
									5 rep
Name		Reach	Damage	Parry P	Weight	Availability		rep
Knife		1	D6	-25%	5	common		1
Short Sword/Machete		2	D10	-15%	15	common		2
Sword		3	2D6	-10%	20	common		5
Axe		2	2D6+2	-15%	20	common		5
Flail/Chain		2	D6+1	-40%	20	common		5
Spear		4	D10	-15%	40	rare		5
Staff		4	D6	-15%	40	common		5
Hammer/Club		2	D6+2	-20%	20	common		5
Falchion		3	3D6	-15%	35	rare		7
Great axe		2	3D6+2	-20%	45	common		10
Great Hammer		2	2D6+2	-15%	45	common		10
Knuckle Dusters		0	Unarmed +3	-30%	5	common		2
Armoured Gauntlet		0	Unarmed +4	-35%	5	rare		2
Improvised Weapon		1	Unarmed +3	-20%	special	special		0
Bayonet		special	D6	-20%	5	rare		2
Buckler		1	D6	special	10	rare		10
Shield		1	D6	special	25	rare		20

Batman Miniatures game (or not...)

I’ve been a fan of Knight models http://www.knightmodels.com/nueva/ for some time, their sculpts are usually fantastic, their paintjobs mindblowing (see ironman here http://tinyurl.com/mm8maaa  or as my mate Gav said ‘caution: may not look as good when painted by actual humans’). So when they said they were releasing a Batman miniatures game based on the Arkham computer games I was quite excited, and was even more giggling with girly joy when my wife bought me the Joker starter set for my birthday – there’s a few shots of it WIP around here somewhere-

and when they game rules came out in Spanish I could barely wait until they got translated to play, and that’s where my excitement began to wane a little…

For many years I’ve seen European or eastern gamers comment on PP, GW or other games forums about the lack of well translated rules, or translated rules at all, and for the first time I can say I feel their pain, and will never mock them for it again. The Knight Models alpha rules are full of weird incongruities and dead ends, and although some are fairly easy to work out (weapons with ‘tough’ are probably meant to have ‘heavy’) others (I can buy the jokers guys the special rule ‘Bengal’ for throwing weapons, which means nothing in the rules, or to me, unless I can throw tigers at people, which would be cool…) and the game when played seems massively biased towards ranged attacks (they hit easily, wound easily, get multiple attempts per attack, and always bleed which is bad) which are then unusually cheap to take, as long as your models actually have them. As for game balance- against my Joker starter set (Joker plus the melee armed goons) with Harley Quinn as an add on, my last opponent had the Penguin plus 7 other goons, 4 of which had multiple shot ranged weapons, It didn’t go well for me as outnumbering is a huge advantage, and the rules have very little to discourage ‘clumping’, having one big blob of models swarming up the table, pointedly ignoring the ‘skirmish’ part of the game, which always irritates me.

Some game concepts (always at night, sewers and others) are great, the models are beyond great, but as a group we all felt playing the Alpha rules was just a bit dispiriting, and that maybe we should wait for the next set, which shouldn’t be too far off and hopefully will have picked up on the quirks. In the meantime we were left with a bunch of pretty models and nothing to do, until one of the chaps suggested Inquisitor- the characters are very customisable, It requires very few models, the game is very story led (let’s face it- we love comic book characters for the story), and we can easily shoehorn in the bits of Knight Models rules we liked, (and he had owned the book for years and never played it). Now I love inquisitor, and have played it at both 54mm and 28mm scale on and off since its release, so was obviously well up for it, all that remained now was to convert the rules into a format usable in Gotham, and away we go, first games in Firestorm in Cardiff this Thursday:)

Firstly- some house rules I’ve always used in Inquisitor to help the game along, plus warband creation, tomorrow we'll cover weapons.

Main characters

Players may design and stat up to 3 of the following, using the ready reckoner at the back of the book to work out how much they cost - players main characters should cost no more than 300 creation points in total.

 1 Heroes/Villains- (batman, joker, penguin etc, all get 'heroic' and 'leader' skills)
0-2 Sidekicks/Partners in crime- (Robin, Harley Quinn, Lark etc)
0-1 Vigilantes/Mercenaries- (Catwoman, Deathstroke, Red Hood etc)

For all of the above be reasonable, only 2 statistics may be over 90, humans may NEVER have S or T over 80 without some form of enhancement, (Bane on Titan for example- although Titan can easily be represented by the combat drugs taken by archeoflagellants) whilst it seems reasonable that some characters (batman, freeze  etc) can have some crazily esoteric kit its unlikely that most characters will have access to more than one or two rare things, also bear in mind lets try and keep to WYSIWYG models, and what a human can physically carry (again batmans belt is his trump card here, he is going to be a beast, but hellishly expensive) also feel free to make new special abilities up to fit your characters, as we can discuss them when we meet up on thursday.

the above characters will form the bulk of your warband, and after that it's just allies, allies have lower stats, and when shot at only two locations (you still roll for location to see if cover is in the way, armour etc, but any location that isn't the head or chest is 'wounding', the head and chest are 'lethal', this makes them faster to kill as is right with walk on parts, and means even with larger numbers the game doesn't become too bogged down.

Allies 
Each Gang starts the campaign (or any one off games) with 100 Rep, this can be spent on allies from the list below, plus additional equipment and skills for them, you may add every point of Rep under 300 your main characters are to this total, if we do run through the campaign then allies will gain skills and injuries just as main characters do, and their cost in rep will be affected by these, bearing in mind these guys are MUCH easier  to kill than usual characters, hence their very cheap cost comparitively.

Swat teams/elite henchmen 25 repWS=60+2D10, BS= 60+2D10, S=50+2D6, T=50+2D6, I/WP=40+2D10, LD/SG/NV=60+2D10
Equipment- may have ranged or melee equipment, may have riot armour or equivalent (flak I'd suggest)
Skills- as appropriate- shield bash on riot police, shooting skills on swat teams, combat skills on henchmen etc, one skill is free, each additional adds +5 rep

Beat cops/generic goons (choose from melee/ranged/smarts) 15 repWS=40+2D10, BS= 40+2D10, S=40+2D6, T=40+2D6,  I/WP= 30+2D10, LD/ SG/NV=40+2D10
Melee reduce their BS by 10 but increase their WS and S by 10, may only use melee weapons and pistols.
Ranged reduce their WS by 10 but increase their BS by 15, may use any ranged weapon (appropriate to model) and a single knife or club.
Smarts reduce both WS and BS by 10 but increase their I, LD and NV by 10, may use any weapon. have access to specialist equipment like scanners,  etc, they can have one piece of esoteric stuff chosen from the book for an amount of rep agreed by the players.
Skills should be appropriate, one is free, each additional skill is +5 rep.
Beat cops can also be taken by Raas al Ghul, the Penguin, the Scarecrow and the Riddler as goons.

Gang abilities- Penguin gets ranged goons at 1/2 price but they get -15 LD and NV (mercenaries are only so brave), joker gets melee goons 1/2 price with some sort of insanity(roll on the hallucinogen table on creation, if they fail a NV test they must take a WP or apply the results), Raas al Ghul gets ninjas- extra D10 on WS, BS and I but no guns (they can be either elite or melee goons). there is no such thing as a melee cop, they must be ranged. Poison Ivy may swap all goons for plant creatures, these are basically the same stats but only claws and teeth, and may take demonic abilities. everyone else gets generic goons as above.

House rules- after years of playing inquisitor we amended the following rules, we don't have to use them but they do make the game much more realistic (and fun)-

Characters always get at least one action, regardless of how terrible your action rolls are Using a flame/fully auto weapon reduces your BS by 25%, instead of reducing it to 25%, for fully auto it also decreases by 5 for every target after the first. (so a BS 80 character firing on full auto is BS 60, if they spread this between three ‘targets’ they are BS 45) 'Stunning' is for actions and not turns, and they happen concurrently not consecutively, otherwise it's too easy to stun a character out of the game.  regardless of your strength, you can't jump further than you can sprint without help. (space marines could jump a bazillion yards per action...)  Blademaster- all to hit rolls of 01-10 are criticals, not ALL hits are criticals, seriously now... Experience is slightly less massive (half all amounts gain per point spent, special abilities/talents cost 10 for the first 10, 20 after that)