Ambushed by (the Masters of) Evil!

SYSTEM: ICONS

So I took some of my Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes builds out for a spin. As usual, I might well have gotten something wrong, and I think I had the Coordination on Hulk and Abomination too high...but other than that, it went fairly well.

Page 1

Hawkeye, Wasp, and Hulk are out for pizza to discuss the latest thing Hank has done. They order their usual (personal pizzas for Hawkeye and Wasp, ten pizzas for Hulk) and are deep in conversation when Abomination walks out with the pizzas.  He shoves them in Hulk’s face, along with a side helping of fist. The others appear during this panel.

Abomination hits, because he rolled a 6. Hulk was surprised, so the difficulty is 0, and he might stun the Hulk. That’s Strength versus Strength; Abomination gets 9+6 (15) versus Hulk’s 10+6. No stun. I wish my dice rolled like this during a game…

Living Laser and Whirlwind appear, causing much collateral damage that Tony will have to pay for. Living Laser is in energy form in order to travel fast.

Page 2

Roll initiative. Combat order is going to be Abomination, Wasp, Hulk, Hawkeye, Laser, and then Whirlwind.

Abomination follows by grabbing the table and whacking the Hulk with it. He shreds the table, but his ulterior motive was to clear some space for fighting.

Abomination rolls 2, but his Prowess is 6 and his Martial Arts are on Prowess, to be a 9. Hulk rolls a 2 so this hits, but there’s no slam or stun, just damage 9. Hulk is down by 2 stamina now. The regeneration will kick in.

Wasp shrinks and hits the Abomination with her stings. Even if she gets both shots, it’s not going to affect him, so he ignores her.

Hulk roars (of course) and tries to smash Abomination. 

Hulk rolls a 4, Abomination rolls a 2, so Hulk hits but it’s not a great hit. He deals out 10 damage, but there’s no slam or stun.

Hawkeye whips out his bow. As the one with the most common sense, he sees that the other two can be trouble, and should be eliminated, so he acrobatically leaps to wherever his friends won’t be affected by the blast and fires a burst arrow, hoping that Parks isn’t in light form.

Parks is insubstantial, so we’ll ignore him until he’s solid. Whirlwind is not, so the two burst shots hit him and combine, for damage 7. They hit with a massive success and a major success, so let’s roll stun and slam. Hawkeye gets 11 for the stun; Whirlwind gets 5. Hawkeye gets 9 for the slam, Whirlwind gets 10.  It’s a massive success for the stun, so Whirlwind drops unconscious. One down, two to go.

Living Laser is not a guy with finesse, so he decides to unleash his shooting damage on Hawkeye. Hawkeye’s tough to hit, though.

Living Laser rolls a 6, Hawkeye a 5, so it’s 11 to 11…except Hawkeye’s also being acrobatic. That makes it a 12. The shot just misses him. 

The shot misses, and Hawkeye quips, “I can’t believe Iron Man said you were trouble. You can’t hit the broad side of a—“ And he stops as he faces Crimson Dynamo, who opens fire.

Crimson Dynamo rolls a 2, Hawkeye’s still acrobatic as all get out and rolls a 5, so it’s 6 versus 12. Total miss. Hawkeye gets a Determination Point because I had to bring in Crimson Dynamo.

Page 3

Abomination follows up with another shot to the Hulk, trying to slam him outdoors and fight there.

Abomination rolls a 6 for 13, Hulk rolls a 4 for 10. That’s a major success…will there be a slam? No; it’s 13 to 13.  No effect, but Hulk takes 1 stamina. 

Wasp is going to fire at the Abomination’s eyes to distract the Abomination.

This is a maneuver (Coordination versus Coordination, I think) that the Hulk can use. She uses her Aerial Combat specialty and gets +3 for being shrunk; and rolls a 2, he rolls a 1, so it’s a major success: she creates one advantage, and she activates it. Hulk can use it now.

Hulk takes advantage of the momentary distraction and rushes the Abomination, surging out of his position to charge into the Abomination.  Hulk uses the advantage to get +2 to his effort. He rolls a 6 and Abomination rolls a 2, and +1 damage for the rush…so that’s 3 stamina, and a Prowess vs. Prowess roll for the rush. He rolls a 6, Abomination rolls a 6; he doesn’t do anything successful on the Strength vs. Strength roll that follows it.

Hawkeye grabs an arrow and decides to try to shoot through the faceplate, hoping that he’ll be able to knock out Anton once the plate is gone. It’s a called shot, so +2 to the difficulty. He rolls a 1, Crimson Dynamo rolls a 5, so it’s 10 versus 9…a moderate success. He does half damage with the arrow (3) against resistance to damage 4. The arrow bounces off harmlessly. “Uh, guys? I know you’re busy with the other big green thing…but I’ve got a big red thing here.”

Living Laser has picked a target: Hawkeye. He fires again at the acrobatic archer. The Living Laser rolls a 2, Hawkeye rolls a 4 for 7 vs 11. The Living Laser's shot missed, but gave Hawkeye an idea.

Crimson Dynamo says, “You are practice for the day I destroy Tony Stark!” and opens fire on Hawkeye.

Crimson Dynamo rolls a 2, Hawkeye rolls a 1, so its 7 versus 8. Once again, the Dynamo misses, but the diner looks quite ruined by this point. 

Abomination has one target: the Hulk. And he’s hitting him repeatedly. He’s going to stunt Fast Attack so he can combine the attacks. Both attacks succeed, but only marginally so they do no damage that gets through the Hulk’s resistance.

Wasp knows she can’t hurt anyone here: Parks is insubstantial and the other two are tough. But maybe she can overload the Crimson Dynamo’s senses by shooting directly at the antenna array…

Called shot, and she’s going to try to make it with Fast Attack, combining the attacks so they do extra damage. She’s also going to spend a determination point to activate her own Founding Avenger quality to push the damage. If she hits once, that’s 5 damage, and his resistance provides only 4 against a called shot; if she hits twice, that’s 6 damage. She rolls 2 and a 5, plus her 3 for being shrunk, plus her 1 for Aerial combat…that’s an effort of 11 and 14. Crimson Dynamo rolls a 1 and a 3, for opposing values of 5 and 7. In both cases, a massive success, so he takes 2 stamina and gets the “All Shots Are Called Shots” quality, which is active. No one needs to spend a point to activate it; it just is.

Her stinger blasts land true, and the Crimson Dynamo starts moving more slowly, less able to weave and duck.

Hulk has a hate-on for the Abomination, so he tries a second time to hit.

He rolls a 4, Abomination rolls a 1, and Abomination’s specialties are all on attack, so it’s 10 to 7, or a major success. He does his full damage, but he also spends a determination point to activate his “Hulk is the strongest one there is” quality and increase the effort on his Slam. He rolls a 2, so it’s 14 versus Abomination’s 12.

The Hulk’s mighty blow from above knocks the Abomination prone.

Hawkeye decides he’s going to maneuver so that when Living Laser fires at him, the blast will hit the Crimson Dynamo. 

This sounds like a Coordination+Athletics (7) versus Intellect (5) test. Both parties roll a 4, so it succeeds. The Living Laser’s attack was good enough to hit the Crimson Dynamo but not Hawkeye, so Crimson Dynamo takes the damage, 4 more stamina.

“I’m sorry,” says Hawkeye, “you can hit the broad side of a barn. Crimson Dynamo is Russian for barn, right?”

Crimson Dynamo can’t send a request to Living Laser…his comms are shorted out. So he decides to rip up a section of counter to use as a burst attack against Hawkeye. He rips out the counter and bats at the bowman.

Crimson Dynamo rolls a 4, Hawkeye rolls a 1, for 9 vs. 6, or a Major success. The Slam test is 11 versus 8. Hawkeye goes from full stamina to 2 in one shot.

The chunk of counter hits the tumbling archer and knocks him to the ground…and knocks him almost unconscious.

Page 4

Abomination smiles. “They taught us how to fight from the ground.” He starts by grabbing the Hulk.

He rolls 3 for 7+3 versus the Hulk’s 1, or 10 vs 7. The Hulk is hampered by the move, and is at -2 while held.

Wasp sees the waitress who was hiding under the now-absent counter and flies over to get her to safety. “Run! I’ll cover your exit!” She interposes herself between the waitress and, well, everyone else.

Wasp gets a determination point for that.

Hulk struggles mightily against the Abomination’s grip.

It’s wrestling, Strength versus Strength to try to escape. They each roll a 5, so no effect.

The Living Laser realizes that he can use the waitress instead of hitting the Wasp directly. So he’s going to fly around her very quickly (he’s light, after all), turn solid, and threaten the waitress.

His prowess is only 4, but it’s a surprise to the waitress, so she’s difficulty 0 to catch. He rolls a 4, she’s difficulty 0…massive success.

“All we want is all of you. Come quietly or she gets a laser lobotomy. Hulk can’t get here in time to save her. I am, after all,  as fast as light.”

Wasp says, “Hulk…I think we have to…”

What next?

So not bad. Wasp turns out to be more difficult to hit than I thought. Having to roll again and again for Slam or Stun is a bit of a pain, and I'd like to see a mechanism for deliberately slamming things...but overall, very pleased.