A Different Kind of Battle Report

    Click here or on the photo to read my comic book style after action report on my Mean Streets game

I took my Mean Streets game up to Drums at the Rapids 2022 this past weekend. Both of my games were completely full and the players said they had a blast. I wasn't 100% sure introducing a new class of characters (Heroes) above Gang Bosses would work. I found that there is definitely enough granularity in the d6 system when paired with multiple modifiers that results were no preordained. There were heroes knocked out of action and there were heroes who were still up and fighting at the end of the game.

    The gangs begin to arrive and are met  in the streets by the Bexley Blockwatch in 'Invasion: Bexley'

In fact, more than one player seemed excited about creating new abilities (Skills in Mean Streets) for the heroes. I'd added a few for the scenario and don't think any were particularly over or under powered. My mind has been whirring with new ideas -- usually when I'm trying to sleep! Does anyone else have that problem? I seem to get a lot of game system ideas while I am lying in bed trying to shut my brain down and go to sleep. I thought of a character who can choose to abort an enemy attack (leaping backwards out of contact) by sacrificing one of their future actions. The player selects to do that immediately before the dice are rolled, giving them a chance to negate a badly disadvantageous melee roll. I also thought of one who can choose to attack while executing a Run action anywhere along the path of his movement. Normally, if you choose to Run (as opposed to Move) you may not attack. Pair that ability with Sprinter and you have a Quicksilver/Flash type character.

    The players controlling the street gangs got victory points for knocking out the scattered civilians

Another idea I had was for a character who plows into an enemy, receiving a bonus for movement in a straight line on the same turn as their attack. I know I should probably also come up with some heroes with missile type attacks. I am worried that it may be overwhelmingly powerful if others can't respond -- especially if they stick to the rooftops and hurl attacks at the characters below them. I don't know, though, maybe I just need to try it and it will work out.

    One of the hero abilities was being able to leap from a rooftop and land on an enemy below

Either way, the response to my games was positive enough that I will keep working on new hero abilities. I should also find a source for miniatures, too, while I am at it!

Indianola Mohawks close in on an unsuspecting Bexley citizen in their bid to take over the streets

By the way, summer is here, so what else is on my painting or project table? Number one was to finish gluing the shields and weapons on for my 28mm Republican Roman Saga army. I am going to do a first and mail it off to Ted Bender to be painted. I know it is so far down the list of me getting to it that I figured I would help Ted out and give him some business! I also have another batch of six 28mm Mongol horse archers for my Saga army. A few more batches and I will actually be finished with this army! An entirely mounted army tends to paint up a bit more slowly than foot ones! Now that it is summer, I also hope to be able to finish up a few odds and ends for my post-Apocalyptic games so I can begin running them for the Sunday night gang. So, it should be a busy summer for me, painting-wise. So, stay tuned...and check out my comic book style battle report on the game at Drums!