My first real exposure to the world of four-colour heroes was in 1976, when my Dad took me and my brother into a comic book emporium and allowed us to choose a comic each. And these were proper comics, not black and white reprints for the UK market, but imported full-colour American comic books...
My brother predictably picked an issue of Ghost Rider, but my eye was caught by a dark-haired, muscular man in a blue costume with a red cape. No, not the Big Blue, but this reasonably obscure Marvel hero and this particular issue;
That was it, my fate was sealed and I haven't looked back since.
So, what relevance has this got to miniature gaming? Well, my first exposure to Superhero miniature gaming wasn't Heroclix, but a game run at EuroGenCon in 1980-something, using a cut-down version of the original TSR Marvel Super Heroes RPG. The organisers had created a scenario, converted various existing figures (mainly Grenadier, IIRC) into Marvel heroes and villains and built three game-boards, each featuring a different environment. Heroes were randomly assigned and I ended up with Ghost Rider (boo!). As Captain America had not been assigned, I asked if I could swap and the organisers let me.
Our group of 16 heroes were split into two teams and sent through mystical portals to retrieve an artifact from the place we were in. One team ended up in WWII Germany, fighting against the Red Skull and the Super-Axis, whereas the my team ended up in Mephisto's realm, fighting against resurrected villains. One memorable event was when villain from the other realm was swapped with one from Hell, they got Hyperion, thankfully for us and we got U-Man, who promptly dehydrated and fell into a pool of lava...
Objects were retrieved, we returned to fight the Big Bad (possibly Dr Doom, possibly the Grandmaster) and at the end, only four heroes were left standing; Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, Gambit and...Captain America. And the reason that these four heroes survived, when all others had fallen, was that the people playing the characters knew them - knew what the characters were capable of and how they'd react in any given situation.
One of the best participation games at a Con I've ever taken part in.
So, when Heroclix came out I was tempted to buy it, to try and recreate some of the magic of that game. Bought the boxed set, read the rules, played a couple of games with some friends and we all decided it was a bit...meh. Whilst the clicky-dial thing was quite clever, the actual play was nothing like how super-hero battles should be. If I've got four heroes, they should all be able to do something, not just a couple of them. Since when does Iron Man and Thor stand around idly whilst the rest of the Avengers fight? Or Green Lantern lean whistling up against a wall, while the Justice League battle on? Not good.
I read through the shortened rules for Super System that were published in Harbinger Magazine and they didn't grab me either (Sorry, Scott).
So, necessity being the mother of invention, I made up my own. The rules system that has come to be known as Liberty Force was originally called Superfight, then Super Mayhem, branched off into fantasy territory for a while as BattleAxe, then made it's way back into superhero skirmish gaming via the Wild West, where it went by the name of Gunsmoke.
The advantage of your own system is that you know it back to front, it will constantly evolve as you play and no rules lawyers can argue a rule with you, as it's not actually written down, it's all in your head. However, the last part is also the major drawback, as no-one can play unless you're around...
In the beginning, I used figures re-purposed from the Lead Mountain. The advantage of superhero skirmish gaming is that covers almost any genre of miniature you can think of, so nearly every wargamer will have at least one suitable figure (possibly those recreating Napoleonic battles may be an exception...) - a cowboy, elven archer, WW2 GI and a werewolf? No problem, anyone can play in this sandbox...
Now, I buy figures one of two ways - come up with a character concept and source a figure to match OR see a figure whch immediately suggests a character to me. Heroclix may not be the best superhero game on the market, but they do have a surprising large (and cheap) range of singles to fulfil (nearly) all your superheroic needs. And we also have Reaper, Crossover, Black Hat and Four Color Figures as well.
And if you haven't made up your own set of rules, there are various systems out there, such as Scott Pyle's SuperSystem, Atomic Super Humans from Radioactive Press, and obviously Heroclix itself.
Truly a Golden Age for superhero gaming!
Coming Next Issue: The Official Handbook of the Liberty Force Universe (or my excuse to show my converted and painted figures, such as the chap below. Who is he? Why is he so angry? and, most importantly, which figure was he originally?)
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