One of the best things about the Chicago Skirmish Club is the way we find new life for figures from other miniatures systems. HeroClix is a superhero collectible miniature game using a combat dial system that I have played off and on since its debut in 2002. For the past five or so years I have drifted away from the game as the rules got more complicated, the figures got more and more convoluted, and the release schedules accelerated. But I still liked the idea of playing out comic book battles!
When Tim mentioned wanting to try out the SuperSystem for some super miniature battles, I bought the 3rd edition of the game. I liked the clear rules and the variety of powers included in the system -- but I knew it was the game for me when I realized not only would I be able to give my HeroClix figures a new life, but I'd also be able to break out my old Monsterpocalypse dice.
In SuperSystem, any d6 roll of 4 or 5 counts as a success and a 6 as a double success, just like the white Action Dice that are used in Monsterpocalypse. Four Color Figures has a product line of more than 100 superhero figures, but it's too easy to gather up some old HeroClix figures and rebase them.
Tim had already rebased a large assortment of figures from various comic book universes when we sat down to try out SuperSystem last week, so we had a large selection of heroes to choose from. In the SuperSystem, each character has four traits: Strength, Agility, Mind, and Resolve. They have a number of Action Points for how much they can do in a given round.
Their traits and powers go into creating the seven dice pools: Physical Attacks, Mental Attacks, Damage, Physical Defense, Physical Resistance, Mental Defense, and Mental Resistance. As attacks land, characters lose Vitality, and when they lose all their Vitality they are knocked out of the game.
Various feats are unopposed rolls where the character rolls against a target number. Combat rolls are opposed rolls. The attacker rolls their Attack dice, physical or mental, while the defender rolls the appropriate defense dice. If the attacker rolls as many successes, or more, the attack hits. Then the attacker and defender roll for damage. If the attacker rolls more successes, the difference is taken from the defender's Vitality.
Of course, what makes the characters in any super miniature rules are the superpowers. The bulk of the 84-page rule book is dedicated to the various powers characters can be given.
In our game, Tim and I squared off in a simple scenario to try out the rules and see how the combat system worked. For our introductory scenario, I pulled four super archetypes from an appendix in the rulebook: Brawler (Captain America), Blaster (Hawkeye), Brick (Hulk), and Speedster (Quicksilver). The rules suggest using characters worth 85 points for balance. For this scenario, I wanted to see what the difference would be, so I set the Hulk for 91 points and the other three from 58 to 69 points and set those three heroes against the Green Goliath.
This disparity was clear in close combat, as the Hulk was rolling his nine dice for attacks and defense against three to six dice for the other heroes. But, since you are both rolling dice against each other, a bad roll for Hulk opened the door for the other heroes to hit him. Of course, even if they managed to hit him, there was another contested roll for damage. So any attack would take two good rolls. This does a nice job of keeping one exceptional roll from ruining a scenario.
I took the Green Goliath while Tim ran the other three figures. My plan was to move around the map and wait for one of Tim’s heroes to hurt the Hulk and then go after that hero. I moved to the top of the largest building on the battlefield and waited. I didn’t have to wait too long as Tim moved up and Hawkeye connected on his second shot.
Using Hulk’s Super Leap, it was easy to move in on my next turn to attack Hawkeye. Then the other two heroes closed in on the Hulk. While Hawkeye and Captain America were able to hit the Hulk regularly, only Hawkeye was able make the second die roll to land any damage. This just enraged the Hulk, and he went after the puny archer for hurting him.
The way the game played out made sense, the Hulk was easy to hit, but hard to actually hurt. On the other hand, Hawkeye kept dodging the Hulk's attacks, but when they did land, they did a lot of damage. On the third hit, Hawkeye was out of Vitality points.
Once nice touch in the rules is that even when a character loses all their Vitality, they get a second chance to make a KO Check and stay in the fight a little longer. In our game, when Hulk knocked out Hawkeye on that third hit. But the archer made his KO Check and got off one last shot on the Hulk before getting knocked out of the game next turn.
After Hawkeye went down, Tim and I felt like we had learned what wanted to learn about the combat system, had fun with the scenario, and decided to end the battle there. This scenario was a great way to try out the system. The characters were straightforward, it was easy to get them into combat, and it was fun to see how the mismatches played out in the game.
If you are interested in playing Supersytem, I highly recommend finding some Monsterpocalypse dice. It's just easier to count the hits on the dice rather than figuring out if the die is a success and then tally them. Just like when I first started playing HeroClix, I am looking forward to recreating some of my favorite comic book battles using these rules. Next time it will be a more in-depth scenario where flight and more powers come into play.
Now I just have to decide which of my HeroClix figures I want to keep for playing HeroClix and which figures I want to rebase for future SuperSystem scenarios!
-- Terrence, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member
