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Necessary Evil Episode 4: The Wretched Hive

Evil Mike as the GM. He’s Evil.

The Scum of the Earth:

Ben as Hobo Jack: (I’m sure he has super powers. I just haven’t seen them.)
Lee as Mal “Hex” Hexington: can go insubstantial and packs a powerful punch when substantial.
Shawn as Viridian: Greatest Atlantean scientist ever! (Just ask him.)
Steve as Strike: Produces and controls lightening at will.
Mike as Arclight: A super sorcerer and a handy guy to have around.
Owen as Professor Moriarty: Able to animate inanimate objects with just a thought.

Our monthly Necessary Evil game continued this week. Owen joined us for the first time as Professor Moriarty. Ben’s new character, after the timely death of his last one, showed up as well. What didn’t show up were the figures we used for our supers. Evil Mike forgot to bring them. We were all able to find replacements, but next month we’ll be completely confused trying to remember who is who on the map. There was much talk about all of the new upgrades for our new lair aptly named “The Wretched Hive”. (We each gave one or two power points to get these upgrades.) Evil Mike informed us that the lair does not have these upgrades yet. They are all sitting in crates waiting to be installed. That means our lair is currently just a big dank hole in a bridge support near Star City. I guess we’re called the Scum of the Earth for a reason.

We are still trying to get back in Dr. Destruction’s good graces after some previous “unforeseen circumstances”. Since we were on our way back from Aruba, Dr. Destruction had a new super villain, called Professor Moriarty, watch over The Wretched Hive. Apparently it was immediately overrun and taken over by a K’tharen warlord named Surgot. (Thanks Professor.) The professor did escaped with his life. (So much for giving his all for the team like what’s-his-name did.) This warlord seemed to be a K’tharen traitor. Per Dr. Destruction, it’s now our job to convince him to join the resistance and to get him the heck out of our lair. Let’s see how that goes…

There was much discussion on how to approach Warlord Surgot without killing him or being killed ourselves. Had our upgrades been installed we could have just overridden the Evolving Mind-Like Computer Core (or EVIL MIKE for short) and take control of the lair back. As it was, we went with a plan from Hobo Jack. We should have known better.

Hobo Jack entered the tube lift that leads to our lair. He carried a com-link that had Viridian on the other end ready to plead our case and win Warlord Surgot over to our cause. Warlord Surgot is not impressed by this tactic and had his men attack Hobo Jack. Arclight goes in to smooth things over while Hex tries moving through the floor insubstantially.

All attempts at negotiation fail.

Our team “Negotiating”.

Our team “Negotiating”.

Hobo Jack takes two wounds from the failed negotiation attempts. Arclight is able to soak his two wounds. Professor Moriarty shows up and animates a crate that attacks a K’tharen. Strike has had enough of the nonlethal approach. He steps in the room, fries a K’tharen and Shakes four others.

Hobo Jack runs and hides.

Arclight, still thinking we’re negotiating, merely ensnares a group of K’tharen. Finally Viridian shows up and mind controls the warlord. Viridian has him order his men to stand down.

To get the warlord on our side, one of us must fight him. We all point at Hex who we know packs a powerful punch. Hex agrees to fight. In the meantime we discover some K’tharen war spheres. We think these are Surgot’s ace in the hole if things go badly for him.

The fight begins. Surgot acts first and misses Hex. Evil Mike spends a benny and he still misses Hex. Hex pounds the crap out of the warlord resulting in two wounds. Surgot responds by giving Hex two wounds of his own. Hex gets off Shaken an attempts to intimidate Surgot. He fails on the first attempt…and second attempt.   Next round Hex gets to act first. He attempts to intimidate once again and scores a raise! Warlord Surgot concedes and agrees to join the Resistance. He will also give us back our lair in exchange for the one we cleared out in Aruba. Being a shrewd negotiator, Warlord Surgot also gets one of our lair upgrades.

Dr. Destruction is quite pleased with our results and we’re back as one of his go-to teams!

Can’t wait to see where Hobo Jack next time! Or what nefarious plans Dr. Destruction has for us.

Chaos Steve

World War II: Mission 4, Holding the Bridge

War Master (Owen): Yes, a great War Master Indeed.

Lambert’s Losers
Lt. Dick Dan (Ben): Our fearless squad leader, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-2) Destry Lambert (Evil Mike): Our commando medic.
Private (E-2) Charlie Winters (Mike): Not sure what he does, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-3) Hector Goldman (Steve): Armored Vehicle Crewman, bronze metal.

We’d had a long hiatus from our Savage World War II game. I think we were all ready to see just how well we could hold the bridge against the German onslaught. Some of us were less than prepared. I brought an old character sheet and Ben’s character was still written on a small yellow piece of paper. Oh well. (Later, I did find my latest character sheet tucked away in my Weird War II book.)

Since it’s been awhile, I’ll recap our mission. Hold the bridge until reinforcements arrive. If we can’t hold the bridge, we’re to destroy it.

Lt. Dan and Goldman check the buildings on the German side of the bridge. The buildings are clear. Winters and Lambert do a dramatic task to set the demolition charges under the bridge. On the first round they get a club and Winters needs a 7 (after all of the penalties) for a success. Lambert’s help gives him a +1 and together Winters ends up with exactly a 7! …using his d4 demolition skill. One success down and four more to go. Things didn’t go well after that. On the fourth round they still need three successes to get the charges set. They managed a single success for the round. Now they needed two on the last round. Winters critically fails his demolition roll…BOOM! The damage is rolled. Lowest damage ever—only 6 points. This Shakes Winters and Lambert. That could have gone much worse. Thankfully they are lousy at demolition.

A German truck followed by a Panzer IV appear at the edge of town and are heading towards the bridge. Lt. Dan and Goldman open fire. About that same time a French women with a baby carriage is also heading along the banks of the canal towards the bridge. She loses her grip on the carriage and it rolls into the water. “Epargner mon bébé !” she cries. (Translation: Save my baby!)

Winters rolls another critically failure while trying to climb around under the bridge. He falls into the canal. He can’t swim.

Lt. Dan fires the bazooka at the German truck and rolls 8 points of damage. I point out that he’s rolling the wrong dice for the damage. He rolls the correct dice and gets 13 points of damage—still not enough to stop the truck. (Loser.)

The French woman jumps in the canal to save her baby. She doesn’t appear to know how to swim. Lambert skillfully does a somersault dive off of the canal bank into the water. He plans on saving the baby and the women. Winters splashes to the canal’s steep bank. (At least he didn’t drown.)

As the truck turns down a side street near Goldman, he throw a potato masher into the open window of the truck. Goldman doesn’t have a throwing skill and its medium range and it’s a difficult shot. A -6 penalty. Goldman rolls an eleven and makes it! The explosion kills the driver and the truck hits the building Lt. Dan is in. The Panzer IV shoots at Lt. Dan’s position in the building and misses. The shot goes wide and hits the building across the street where Goldman is. The building partially collapses, but Goldman is unharmed. Lt. Dan jumps out of a second story window onto the truck and rolls a critical failure! He takes 18 points of damage. Lt. Dan soaks it all. (That’s our leader!)

Write-up note: My notes from my iPad says “Winters doors a German.” I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, so I’m going with “Winters shoots a German.”

Winters shoots a German. He was one of two German officers that were heading along the canal banks apparently searching for the French woman. Lambert is able to grab the baby.

Now the battle with the Germans is in full swing. Goldman is having a continual firefight with Germans who are continually outflanking him, but he is holding his own. Lambert now has the baby and the French woman and is heading for the Allied side of the canal to get them to safety. Winters has scrambled out of the canal and moves towards the action to help Lt. Dan and Goldman. (Write-up note: it occurs to me that for this entire time Lt. Dan and Goldman have been holding off a truck full of German soldiers and a Panzer. Yeah, that’s the stuff we’re made of.)

Lt. Dan drives the truck out of sight of the panzer. A German throws a potato masher through the window of the truck. Lt. Dan takes a wound but soaks it. The truck takes a wound (its door is blown off and the steering is affected. The truck can’t turn left.) Another German notices the truck but not Lt. Dan. He assumes a German is driving the truck and jumps in beside Lt. Dan. Lt. Dan draws his pistol and shoots the German besides him. This is the beginning off a short, up-close gun battle between the two. It ends badly for the German.

We sight more Germans entering the town—a tiger tank and halftrack. The allies are coming towards the town from the other direction, but we can see they are woefully outgunned by the Panzer and Tiger tanks. Lt Dan calls for us to blow the bridge. Unfortunately the bazooka is laying in the road. Only Goldman has a chance to grab it, but he’s doing a fighting retreat against a squad of Germans. . Lambert, the baby, and the French woman all make it out of the canal and head for cover.

As I said earlier, the gun battle in the truck ends badly for the German. Lt. Dan Kills him then throws the truck into reverse to get the back to the bazooka.

The panzer destroys the oncoming Allied Sherman tank.

Goldman runs across the street and grabs the bazooka.

Lambert and girl run towards the Americans.

Winters and Goldman jump into the truck.

Another German Tiger tank shows up.

Lt. Dan backs the truck out from behind the building and heads towards the bridge…in reverse. Somehow Goldman and Lt. Dan switch positions in the truck. Goldman’s now driving and Lt. Dan has the bazooka in the back of the truck. Winters grabs the bazooka from Lt. Dan and shoots the panzer IV for no effect.

Us escaping backwards in the truck trying to cross the bridge and escape the advancing Germans.

Us escaping backwards in the truck trying to cross the bridge and escape the advancing Germans.

Goldman crashes the truck (intentionally) on the Allied end of the bridge and bails out. Knowing the Panzer will shoot the truck next, the smart move would be to jump into the canal. Goldman has a phobia of water so he instead jumps to the nearby shore—well within the burst radius of the panzers shot. Winters and Lt. Dan are still in the truck.

The panzers shot misses the truck and hits the bridge! The bridge collapses. The truck falls into the canal. Winters and Lt. Dan jump free.

A perfect ending for us! The bridge is destroyed. We’re all safe. And by the looks of it, we followed our orders perfectly.

Lt. Dan gets the Distinguished Service Cross for acts of heroism. Goldman and Winters get nominated for metals, but only Winters gets one—the Distinguished Service Cross! Unfortunately Goldman’s goldbricking past still haunts him when it comes to medals and such.

Write-up note: I know the guys (especially Mike B.) will read this and catch that the account for Winters is a little off towards the end. That’s because my notes conflicted about just where he was during the end of the battle. So I went with something I made up.

Oh, and image you just read this as an entry in the journal of Pvt. Goldman. I forgot to write it that way, but I’m sure you have a good imagination.

Pvt. Goldman, E-3

Holiday Game Day 2012

We were able to fit in a holiday game day this week. We held it at Owen’s new place. Best game day ever. He had all the accoutrements a bunch of gaming guys would want—mostly delicious food, snacks, and drinks. He also recently purchased a dining room table that was the perfect sixe for gaming. Especially when you consider the first game we played was Civilization.

Civilization

We played the 2010 version of Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game by Fantasy Flight Games. Apparently this version is in no way related to the 2002 game by Eagle Games which has the same name. Owen did a stellar job going over the rules with us. We had played this game at least once in the past, but I only vaguely remembered it. Mike seemed to remember a good bit about it. Ben wanted to skip the rules and just start playing it. We’ll see later what happened to Ben.

Ben was Egypt, Mike was China, Owen was Russia, and I was Germany. Mike decided to take the Culture Point path to victory. Ben mentioned that this was how I won the game the last time we played. I didn’t remember, but was glad I did so well. Being Germany I concentrated on military might. I’m not sure what Owen’s overarching plan was, but his cities flourished. Ben seemed to flounder. Maybe he should have listened to the rules. Owen and I were the first to get three cities on the board. Mike soon followed. I don’t think Ben ever had three cities. And if he did, it was only for a moment.

Soon it was a Culture Point race between Ben and Mike. Mike found many ways to use his Culture Cards…usually against me. Apparently my military might was scaring my neighbors. (I don’t think I lost a battle the entire game.) Owen’s country prospered.

Coming down to the end of the game, I had already destroyed one of Ben’s cities and I had my eye on his capital. (One of the ways to win the game was to destroy an <evil> opponent’s capital.)  Another way to win was to get the level five tech advancement of Space Flight. Owen was only a few tech’s away from that. Both Ben and Mike had slowed their Culture Point advancement. (You could also win by getting to the end of the culture track.) Suddenly I found myself with another military player on the block. Owen has raised his mounted forces all of the way to tanks! He too was heading for Ben’s capital. Mike attacked one of my city’s, mostly to weaken my military stash of units. It worked to a degree, but he ended up losing the battle.

Owen was now in position to attack Ben’s capital and win the game. Even with his tanks, he didn’t think he could do it. “But you could win the game!” we all said. Instead Owen attacked and destroyed one of Ben’s cities. The city contained a general so this weakened Ben. What was Owen up too? It appeared that his move only helped me to more easily take Ben’s capital. I pounced on Ben’s capital, only to be stopped by a Culture Card played by Owen!  I could NOT march on Ben’s capital this turn. We all knew Owen had something up his sleeve, but none of us could figure it out until he played that card. Now he had another turn to build his forces and attack Ben before me…but he didn’t.

On my next turn, I once again pounced on Ben’s capital. Once again Owen played the same Culture Card to stop me. He had TWO of those stinking cards! Ben’s forces were next to nothing, but he got a huge bonus from his capital. I decided to use a single army, consisting of 3 units to attack him. Ben had 3 units as well. My only hope was that Ben’s army was crap. It was! I won the battle by a slim margin, winning the game.

We all enjoyed this game and hope we can find the time to play it again soon. It took us six hours to complete it.

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As the Munchkin box says, “Kill the monster. Steal the treasure. Stab your buddy.” So it was with us. This is a fun, lighthearted card game of trying to be the first player to get a 10th level character. During our game, Ben lagged behind—maybe because he didn’t have a “Boots of Butt-Kicking” or “Flaming Armor”. Maybe because he didn’t listen the rules and just wanted to start playing the game. I don’t know. I was the steady leader until Mike got a bunch of treasure for helping out (taking advantage off) his friends. He got 3 or 4 quick level-ups to put him at 9th level. To reach 10th level you must kill a monster. On Mike’s turn all he had to do was draw or play a monster and then kill it. He got one. Fortunately I had a card to divert his monster to Ben. Ben got the level-up, not Mike. I reached 9th level next, but I did it the old fashion way, by fighting and clawing my way there. Around to Mike again—no monsters showed up on his turn, nor on my turn. Owen reached 9th level. Again, no monsters for Mike. No monsters for me. Owen got a monster…a level 2 monster—something he could kill in his sleep. We played everything we had against him, but it was too little, too late…until Mike played his card and sucked a level from Owen. Owen killed the monster and was back up at 9th level with Mike and I. Again no monsters for Mike or me. Mike and I were hoping against hope for Owen to pull a 20th level monster; something he couldn’t easily kill. Owen pulled a 20th level platinum dragon from the deck and defeated it to win the game.

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We all love 7 Wonders. We played two games of it. During the first game, we pretty much thought Ben had it sewn up with his green tech cards. He was close, but somehow I squeaked by him with 57 points. Ben had 55. Owen had 50 and poor Mike had 33. Mike’s constant cry during the third phase of the game was “Why don’t you turkeys have any glass!!”

The next game Mike made up for it by handily winning with 54 points. I was second with 47. Ben had 45 and Owen had 40.

We had a great day! Thanks to Owen for hosting!!

Chaos Steve

History of the World

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The week Mike showed us how to play History of the World. Oh, we’ve played this games lots of times over the years, but this week Mike took it to a whole new level.

The game started normally with all of us vying for the best empires of the current epochs. Points were scored, names were taken, enemies noted. At the start of the third turn Mike realized we hadn’t changed the point counters on the territories after the first epoch. Crap. That meant our scores were off. After some memory gymnastics we were able to recalculate everyone’s turn two score and continue on. Had we not discovered our error when we did, the world would have ended day sooner.

My game was going fine even though I could not seem to win an epoch and thus get a special “I won an Epoch Counter” worth extra victory points. Things went completely south during the fifth epoch. The defining moment was when Ben gave me Chola for epoch 5. You’ve all heard of Chola right? Exactly. No one has ever heard of them. That’s because they suck! My points for the epoch dwindled.

On epoch 6 Mike got the 2/2 Incas and Aztecs and still rockets up the scoring track to 179 scoring 42 points.

Here’s a chart of our point progression throughout each epoch. As you can see… What? You don’t see a chart? Then complain to Mike why our site won’t let my upload images! [Edit: See my constant whining worked. Here’s the chart.]

History of the World

As I mentioned earlier, Mike took the game to a whole new level by winning it with 246 points. Ben slithered by me to take second with 198 points. I was third with 195 points. Owen was last. Well not just last—way dead last. He had 175 points. This fulfilled the prophecy he proclaimed at the beginning of the game where he claimed First Loss.

Chaos Steve

Necessary Evil Episode 3.1: The Lab in the Grass

Evil Mike as the GM: evil, cruel alien being from another planet.

The Scum of the Earth (no, really, that’s their cell’s code name).

Ben as Mr. Smith: able to duplicate himself with ease. (Lord help us!)
Lee as Mal “Hex” Hexington: can go insubstantial at will and packs a powerful punch when substantial.
Shawn as Viridian: greatest Atlantean scientist ever! (Just ask him.)
Steve as Strike: produces and controls lightening at will.
Mike as Arc-Light: a super sorcerer and a handy guy to have around.

(This week the talented new guy who wrote last session’s write-up has been replaced by a guy they found loitering behind Burger King.)

After the debacle of our last mission, Dr. Destruction was not pleased. We were the laughing-stock of the super villain community, while Dr. Horrible was credited with preventing the presidential family from being executed live on TV.

Nevertheless, Dr. Destruction gave us a chance to redeem our self-respect. We were to find Dr. Horrible. Supposedly he knew another source from whom we could get the information Dr. Destruction had wanted from the first family. We found Dr. Horrible in a hole-in-the-wall bar thoroughly enjoying his moment in the villainous limelight.

He was happy to see us. After all, his newfound popularity was because of us. He revealed to us that the man we were to look for was named Vijay Gupta. Gupta was the assistant to the villain called Dr. Devolution. (To be a real villain you must have to get your doctorate.) Dr. Devolution was killed during the alien double-cross that destroyed the super heroes of the world. When he died, most thought the location of his secret laboratory died with him. There’s a chance that Gupta may know the lab’s location. If so, Dr. Destruction hopes it holds the information he seeks.

Strike set out to intimidate a few thugs to see if they knew anything of Gupta. He was less that successful. Arclight took a different approach. Through some clever connect-the-dots research, he determined that Gupta was acting as a servant in the very home that Dr. Devolution used to own. It was now owned by a V’Sari General.

We cased the place and spot Gupta leaving. Mr. Smith tracks him to an open-air marketplace. There we confront him and he eventually agrees to help us. He does mention that to find the lab we will have to be shrunk down to the size of…well, a size where ants seem huge. We are to meet him that night in the garage behind the house.

Feeling uneasy about the entire arrangement we do let Gupta shrink us. We suspected Gupta of some kind of double-cross, but that never happens. The V’Sari kill him first. Using the shrink ray alerted the V’Sari. They stormed the garage; literally bringing it down upon our heads and blowing Gupta to…goop-ta. Fortunately for us, our super small size enabled us to survive.

Gupta died before telling us the whereabouts of the lab. Viridian, being a mechanical super genius, McGyvers together a device that will be able to locate the lab’s power source—we hope. We head off into the jungle…er, tall grass of the backyard. Ants of monolithic proportions ambush us! (Ok, they are regular ants, but we’re so small as to make them seem huge!) We are immediately in trouble. Both Veridian and Arclight are incapacitated with life threatening wounds, leaving Hex and me to deal with the ants. Right away I kill three with my lightning strike. There are still plenty more. Hex cuts one in half with his vibro-knife.  We’re doing ok, but we’re not killing them fast enough! That’s when Evil Mike (the GM) gets a joker. Somehow Hex and I survive. The ants begin dragging Veridian and Arclight off into the grass jungle.

Oh, I completely forgot about Mr. Smith! He and his clones are surrounded by ants. I try a few times to kill some of them (the ants, not Mr. Smith and his clones) and fail miserably. Mr. Smith attacks and critically fails. He ends up with three wounds. Hex realizes that two attacks are better than one and begins killing two ants a round by smashing them to a pulpy goopta. Hex saves Veridian and Arclight from a fate worse than death in the ant queen’s harem. (I’m just guessing at what the ants wanted with the two of them.)  I get a joker and attempt to save Mr. Smith. My lightning strikes fail to hurt the gigantically tough creatures. Mr. Smith dies under the ant onslaught. We’ll miss him greatly.

Hex and I eventually kill the rest of the ants. We both roll Smarts to figure out how to use Veridian’s healing device. We both fail our rolls. Hex spends a Benny and with his élan, he makes it. Hex revives Veridian. Veridian uses the device to heal one of his own wounds. Then he revives Arclight.

We rub ant juices on ourselves to hide our scent from any other ant patrols. Battered, wounded, and short one party member, whose name I can’t remember, we follow Veridian’s device to the laboratory.

We find the lab. It’s cool. Hex goes insubstantial and recons the lab for us. Unfortunately, Hex fails to notice the spiders of monolithic proportions hiding in the rafters. They surprise us. Arclight is incapacitated again. Veridian is incapacitated again. Thanks to Ben pointing out he had élan he does not die. Ben’s new character, Stalker, bursts out of one of the cryro tanks and aids us against the spiders. My lightning is slightly more affective against huge spiders than it was against huge ants. Stalker helps me finish off the last of the spiders. Hex uses the equipment in the lab to heal Veridian. The machine works on Veridian, but fails to work on Arclight. The whole place begins to shake and we realize that the V’Sari are digging up the yard! Hex comes up with the great idea to grab the hard drives and look at the data later. We also grab a prototype shrink ray device on our way out. Using a drilling machine we discovered earlier, we escape the lab.

So in this adventure we say goodbye to…that other guy and say hello to Stalker. Arclight and Veridian come away with lots of cool scars and Hex emerges as one heck of a two-fisted fighter. I realize that I need more power in my lightning bolts. (Giant ants? Really!?)

Strike

Rails of New England, part II

This week we finally got back to our Thanksgiving Rails of New England game. We were about halfway through when we stopped last time.

Mike and Owen quickly became the kings of the Depression. Whenever the economic indicator turned to Depression, they earned tons of cash. I wasn’t doing too badly, but my big money came during times of Prosperity. Unfortunately so did Mike’s. But back on the fortunately-side,  we had several Prosperity turns in a row just before the game ended.

Ben did pause the game a few times to let us know about a rule or two he had forgotten to mention. One such rule was explained to us on the very last turn of the game! And this rule we would have probably been used throughout the entire game! Oh well.

Owen and Ben, mostly Owen, were hit by a few events that cost them revenue. One turn it cost poor Owen $40. That doesn’t sound like much, but that was probably more than half his earnings that round. Neither Mike nor I were affected by events the entire game. (Go us!)

It became clear as the turns quickly dwindled that you had to be careful what you spent money on. You wanted actions that would give you a positive cash flow by the end of the game. This was made slightly more difficult because the game could end at any time certain conditions were met. This could cause the game to end sooner that you might have planned for.

At the end of our game, it was hard to tell who was in the lead. Unfortunately for Ben it wasn’t too hard to tell who wasn’t in the lead. I wanted the game to end before we hit another Depression turn where Mike and Owen would earn big money. Mike almost ended the game for me which would have cost him money, yet gain him very little. (I would have been very happy.) He came to his senses though and let me end the game—which cost me a little money to do, but I had to do it. Darn Depression.

Here’s what our scores looked like at the end of the game.

 

Mike

Steve

Owen

Ben
Property

85

113

92

99
Cash

210

222

242

73
Depots

48

51

48

60
Bonuses

35

40

0

25
Loans

-20

-20

0

-20
Total

358

406

382

237

We determined two things from the score. 1) Ben over bought on depots, thus costing him money. 2) Never, Ever, take out a loan!!  We didn’t learn of the -20 penalty until Ben enlightened us during scoring. Ben strikes again!

I think if Owen had not run into some hard times with the events, he would have been the hands down winner. As it was, he still did well, coming in second.

Chaos Steve

 

 

Railroad Tycoon

This week we played Railroad Tycoon. Evil Mike is on vacation out in Las Vegas celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary, so the “just” Mike came and took his spot. We played Railroad Tycoon in a record time of less than two hours. I can only surmise that it’s been Evil Mike holding us back all this time.

The game started out very well…for me. I went first and got the 5 points for shipping the first cube to a city with a service bounty. There was no stopping me, although there was “passing” me. Mike passed me in just a few turns to take over the lead. Mike never looked back and we never caught up to him. He was a Railroad Tycoon machine. He wasn’t just in the lead; he was WAY in the lead.

Meanwhile the rest of us would-be rail barons meandered our way through building tracks and scoring a few measly points. Ben and I were building up around Chicago. Mike and Owen were fighting over the east coast, with Mike winning that battle and Owen bemoaning the fact. I was also on the east coast, but only to connect to New York. Connecting to New York helped me get a big line bonus and my Rail Baron objective. To meet those goals I had to build a rather expensive piece of track through the mountains. Maybe that’s why I ended up with 13 loans at the end of the game. (No “maybe” about it.)

At the end of the game, Owen had the most money with $51,000. He did not have the Rail Baron objective that would have given him points for it though. Still, we all completed our Rail Baron objectives. Those 13 shares really hurt my final score. Mike did win with 78 points. Ben sneaked passed me to take second with 56 points—twenty-two points behind mike!  I had 54 points and Owen had 51 points.

We had a great time and didn’t miss what’s-his-name at all. (Hurry back Evil Mike!)

Chaos Steve

Rails of New England

Last week on Thanksgiving eve we started a game of Rails of New England. The name implies that it’s a train game. While it does have tracks and train depots it is really more a business management game where location is key. Players build businesses in various cities to generate money. Each round the game has an economic condition (Prosperity, Normal, & Depression) which affects how much money is generated. Building depots on the cities where your business are helps “connect” them. Connected cities earn you more money. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the key to winning the game is money. There are also special actions, state subsidies, and special routes that players may claim during the game. Most of these generate even more money. Money, money, money.

In a couple hours we got about half way through the game. (This includes going over the rules.) Like many games we play, the rules and bits of this game make it appear complicated. It’s really not. Once you get a few simple concepts down, you’re soon on your way to building a business and railroad empire.

We stopped the game on a high note—a year of prosperity where we all earned lots of money. We’ll pick the game back up where we left off in about two weeks. Until then we’ll be planning and strategizing our next moves.

Who am I kidding? When we get back together, we’ll spend the first 30 minutes remembering how to play the game. Then it’s all luck and bickering for the rest of the evening.

Chaos Steve

Necessary Evil Episode 3: The First Family

Evil Mike as the GM: evil, cruel alien being from another planet.

The Scum of the Earth (no, really, that’s their cell’s code name).
Ben as Mr. Smith: able to duplicate himself with ease. (Lord help us!)
Lee as Mal “Hex” Hexington: can go insubstantial at will and packs a powerful punch when substantial.
Shawn as Viridian: greatest Atlantean scientist ever! (Just ask him.)
Steve as Strike: produces and controls lightening at will.
Mike as Arc-Light: a super sorcerer and a handy guy to have around.

Dr. Destruction called the villains via his telepathic link to meet his emissary at the Crooked Nose bar to find out the details on their next mission.  Striker was left out of this mission as this one calls for subtlety well beyond Striker’s skills.

The contact (Dr. Horrible and his moist sidekick) told them they were to rescue some prisoners from a V’Sori compound in Connecticut. They are being held in a renovated state police headquarters building. The team seemed more interested in getting paid for their troubles than finding out just how much trouble they would be in. Assuming they live through this, they may be more curious about the specifics next time. Dr. Horrible was less than impressed, but Mr. Smith surreptisously took a mug that Dr. Horrible used in order to frame him later.

They quickly headed to the airport in their disguises. Mr. Smith and Arc-Light had no trouble getting on the plane. Hex seemed to think his disguise as a mild mannered graphic designer would be sufficient and Viridian was certain his “Big Momma” drag outfit would fool any TSA agent based on his past experience at airports. They were both wrong. Lucky for them, the TSA just had them removed from the airport as they had “real criminals” to look for.

So, while Mr. Smith and Arc-Light waited patiently in Connecticut, Hex and Viridian rode the train. Hex, turned ghostly and spent most of the ride trying to find Viridian. Viridian built himself a fancy coffin with HDTV and a coin operated vibro-bed (might as well have) and shipped himself to Connecticut.

Finally getting together, the unlikely voice of reason (Arc-Light) suggested they steal a vehicle to get to the coordinates. Mr. Smith insisted on talking to a bank manger, taking out a loan, getting Dr. Destruction to co-sign it, and then leasing a van…where he would then place the stolen mug to frame Dr. Horrible. Eventually reason won out as they realized (after the GM re-read the line about them being villains) that Dr. Destruction is not concerned with how “legal” they are.

Finally arriving on scene, Hex and Arc-Light sneek onto the property…Hex is soon convinced by Viridian that since he can be seen in his ghostly form, he should go underground, then just pop up behind the bad guys as necessary to take them out. All Hex needs to do is make a simple Smarts roll (d4) to not get lost under ground…sometimes it’s a pleasure to be a GM when the players can’t re-roll critical failures! Hex spends the next 4 rounds hopelessly lost underground.

Meanwhile, Arc-Light is inside the building…but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Viridian and Mr. Smith decide it’s time to make their move. Viridian, pops the locks on the front gate, rewires the cameras to send a looped signal back to the monitors, set’s up a broadcast station to send the real camera video to his helmet and directly into his brain. Not bad. Mr. Smith spends 6 rounds moving 3″ at a time towards the enemy.

Now back to Arc-Light. He’s inside the cell block, killed a drone, (invisible and intangible) and desperately avoiding detection by the mass of drones and K’Tharen troops. He finally figures out what he’s going to do just before the prisoners are to be taken outside.

Unfortunately, the rest of the Scum are focusing on taking over the large M’Bunta ship, even though all the K’Tharen and drones seem to be concentrating on the smaller Manta. Hex finally pops up out of the ground (8″ behind where he started) and has worked his way to the drivers seat of the M’Bunta…except he can’t pilot…when he realizes that the smaller ship is more likely where the prisoners are headed.

Viridian has been mind controlling the crap out of drones and K’Tharens leaving openings for the rest of the Scum. Mr. Smith has moved another 9 inches…but then finally gets to open fire, drops a few drones. Arc-Light, rapid teleports into the midst of a K’Tharen squad and tries to teleport blind with the three prisoners, but fails. The K’Tharen’s beat on him but his toughness proves to be too much!

Now with the prisoners outside Arc-Light tries once again to teleport the prisoners and succeeds! With a mighty shout of “Suck It!” to the K’Tharen Warlord sitting in his ship. Shavak decides better to kill the prisoner than lose them, and as he flies away, he blasts the prisoners to smithereens…the Scum escape in the M’Bunta but know they must ditch it in minutes or risk dying from the V’Sori Man O’ War bearing down on them.

Dr. Destruction is not happy and certainly will not be donating to their lair…Dr. Horrible spends months basking in the glory of being identified as the mastermind behind the plot based on his fingerprints being found in a van nearby. His status among the other villains is growing quickly!

World War II: Mission 4, The Taking of the Bridge

War Master (Owen): Fair minded and makes beautiful sounds when he speaks. (Yes, I still need Bennies.)

Lambert’s Losers
Lt. Dick Dan (Ben): Our courageous (stupid?) squad leader.
Private (E-1) Destry Lambert (Evil Mike): Our commando medic.
Private (E-1) Charlie Winters (Mike): Still not sure what he does.
Private (E-2) Hector Goldman (Steve): Award Winning Armored Vehicle Crewman.

Journal Entry June 4th 1944 (still)

This has been a pretty busy morning for us. I’m not sure why they need the 16 million other guys.

Our next goal was to take over a nearby bridge and hold it until reinforcements relieved us.  The bridge was in some nameless French town. We stealthily advanced upon the town. That’s when the German machinegun opened up on us hitting Lambert and Winters. Fortunately neither was wounded. I laid down suppression fire in the area around the machinegun and Lambert rushed the building in true commando style.

During Lambert’s assault on the two German’s manning the machinegun, Evil Mike needed to roll a 6 on a d6 to hit one of the defenders. Mike was rolling FIVE d6’s. He missed—not a single 6. So he through in a Benny and rolled again. He missed again—no 6’s. Evil Mike spends a second Benny and rerolled. He missed a third time! Not a single 6 was rolled after rolling FIFTEEN d6s! Now Lambert is stuck in a room with two angry Germans.

I did manage to kill one of the two Germans with Lambert right away. It was close though. I tried twice more to kill the remaining German but my gun (dice) went cold. I eventually killed the last German. I have no idea what Lambert was doing while I was trying to save his life.

In the meantime, Lt. Dan and Winters where cleaning out the buildings on the other side of the street. Winters took a couple of wounds during the action and decided to join Lt. Dan. With the Machinegun nest cleared out, I laid down suppression fire so Lambert could make it to the building where Lt. Dan and Winters were holed up. Lambert patched up Winters.

The fighting through the rest of the buildings went pretty smoothly for us. In no time at all we were ready to assault the bridge.

Lambert and I took one side of the bridge’s defenses, while Lt. Dan and Winters took the other side. Our plan (Lambert and me) was for Lambert to assault the bridge while I covered him. Unfortunately we didn’t count on the superior reflexes of the Germans (nor the incredible Agility rolled by the GM.) I watched as the Germans cut down Lambert like so much Swiss cheese. Enraged, I charged the bridge with my combat knife. Fortunately Lt. Dan and Winters had easily handled their side of the bridge and were able to come to my aid. My assault with my knife failed miserably. Also fortunately the German solider I attacked was so surprised he missed me with his attack. Lt. Dan killed him. I’m able to kill the remaining German and bridge is ours.

Now we must hold it. What could go wrong?

Private Goldman