Captain America: Fighting For Victory

Yesterday saw me heading down to Wargames Foundry to participate in yet another 7TV Day. This time the theme was 'Pulptastic' and the release of the new 7TV Box, and so the day was filled with stalwart heroes and vile despots battling for the fate of the planet under the guidance of either the Strategic Scientific Reserve or HYDRA.

After previous daliances with HYDRA, this time I was on the side of the angels, and fought to good fight with none other than Captain America himself.

My 30 rating cast were as follows:

• Captain America, Costumed Champion
• Bucky Barnes, Stalwart Sidekick
• Lieutenant Dan, Army Officer
• Sarge, Army Sergeant
• Curley, Larry & Mo, Army Privates
• Doc, Doctor
• Professor Cushing, VIP

Episode 1: The Ambassador's Reception (vs Christopher)

Captain America had responded to information from Professor Cushing that an sinister scientist known as Doktor Morbius was seeking ancient knowledge to open an intergalatic portal that would threaten the world.

Heading straight to Cairo with his crack team, Cap discovers that this shadowy enemy had already plundered the secrets of the pyramids and awoken an ancient evil, Pharaoh Rocher and his undead minions, who were now in pursuit of their lost treasure.

Cap knew that he must quickly gather as much intel as he could so that he could pursue Morbius, and avoid the clutches of the evil Egyptian, who would not distinguish between the forces of democracy and those who had plundered the tomb. He order the squad to move quickly to secure anything that looked like a clue.

Cap himself noticed something glittering on a nearby roof and leapt up there to discover a crystal skull throbbing with power. Immediately he knew that this was what the Pharaoh was searching for. If he did not get it back, the ancient evil would tear Cairo apart in its rampage.

The squad operated with speed and efficiency, securing many clues and began to extract them away from the dessicated denizens of the pyramids.

However, whilst laying down covering fire, Bucky suddenly found himself assailed by the towering form of an avatar of Anubis.

The squad were suddenly enveloped in a veil of darkness emanating from one of the Pharaoh's servants. Cap realised that unless he acted quickly they would be caught and cut down by the malicious mummy.

He leapt into the fray, slamming the Pharaoh to the ground with his mighty shield, whilst shouting to his men to get moving. However, the evil Egyptian was not finished and slowly began to rise.

Bucky also managed to free himself from the grasp of the avatar of Anubis, but as he made his escape, a preserved priest appeared and its ancient mumbling took over brave Bucky's mind.

Cap was suddenly wrapped in the smothering veil of darkness and so was unable to defend himself when struck by the mighty bandaged fist of the mummy. Just as its ancient blade was about to be brought down...

...the Crystal Skull rolled out from beneath our hero. The Pharaoh suddenly stopped, reached down to retrieve the skull and then he and his followers dissolved into clouds of flies and returned to the tomb.

Cap and the team had secured enough information track Morbius to his hideout, but had been left badly bruised by their Egyptian encounter.

Episode 2: Venice is Burning (vs Mike)

Following the clues left behind in Cairo, Cap and the team track Doktor Morbius and his nefarious minions to a floating laboratory in Venice. Unfortunately, they arrive as the allies unleash Operation Bowler to destroy the Venetian shipyards.

Morbius and his accomplices were busy packing the last of their gear, unaware of the impending assault from land and air.

Meanwhile, Captain America led his team towards the docks, intent on securing the laboratory before it could escape.

The mechanical minions of Morbius become aware of the arrival of the team when rifle fire begins to ping of their armour.

Cap rushes forward to engage Maria, Morbius' hulking henchman in single combat, aware of the threat she would pose to his companions, as more fire rained down in support, knocking out the the red robot.

Meanwhile the squad move up the quay, firing at whatever they could, even Morbius' pet dog.

However, their advance is halted by the alluring form of that fatal female, Brittney Storm, assassin and seductress. She unleashed her weaponry on the hapless GIs, and then she shot at them too!

Suddenly, bombs rain down from above as the first wave of allied bombers strike, setting this portion of the docks ablaze, and knocking both heroes and villains flying.

Unfortunately, at least one reel of this episode is missing, lost somewhere in the store rooms of Hollywood. It is believed that it featured Captain America and Morbius' minions battling for control of the ship, Lieutenant Dan in a shootout with a hunchback, and Bucky in flames.

We rejoin the action with Cap having been hurled off the ship by Maria.

As Morbius started the engines, Cap leapt out of water and unleashed his last resort, the terror has he had been given by Professor Cushing. The hallucinogenic effects of this substance cause Brittany and, somehow, Maria to flee from the wheelhouse, preventing Morbius from fully gaining control of the ship

As more bombs fell, ultimately sinking the lab, Morbius slipped away. He would not be able to use his equipment to open a dimensional portal that would swallow the Earth, but he did retain the knowledge to open a smaller portal that could perhaps bring something through to aid his nefarious schemes.

Captain America would have to make sure that whatever came through was shut down properly.

Episode 3: The Merciless Monarch of Mongo (vs James)

Morbius opened a small portal to a planet called Mongo, where its Emperor, Ming the Merciless offered the Doktor secret knowledge in exchange for rulers hip of planet Earth. Morbius agreed, even though it was not his to give, and Ming led a small party through the portal to survey his new domain and assemble a terrible titanium titan that, when complete would allow Ming to stride across the planet crushing all in his path.

Captain America had tracked down Morbius' portal to a small village in the Spanish hills, and knew that if they could destroy the titan before its shields were activated, they could drive Ming back through the portal and close it behind him.

However, the titan was protected by a detachment of Ming's Royal Guard, his daughter, Princess Aura and the Emperor of the Universe himself, Ming the Merciless.

The Royal Guard advanced bravely, using a formation that although effective against the ray guns of Mongo, made them extremely susceptible to SMG fire from Sarge, and they took heavy casualties.

Concerned for his titan, Ming and Aura moved to defend it 

They took heavy fire from Lieutenant Dan and the boys advancing cautiously through the woods, Aura was then taken out if the fight by a spray of fire from Bucky.

Isolated on the hill, Ming could only watch as Captain America clobbered the last of his guards into submission.

Alone and surrounded, Ming realised that escape was now more crucial than victory.

Ming now looked to retreat, abandoning his titan to its fate.

However, his escape was cut off as the soldiers started to splash across the river towards him. He was forced to abandon his dignity and run.

This left Bucky free to clamber up the riverbank and plant explosives to blow up the titan.

After Doc had patched up the wounded Princess Aura, Cap nobly allowed her to return home through the portal, before he, with the help of Professor Cushing, closed it for good, saving the world from enslavement by Ming.

The End...or is it? Will Pharaoh Rocher spoil the celebrations? Is Morbius still on Mongo? Will Ming return in a flash?

The day was great fun, as usual, and not only featured lots of like-minded gamers playing silly games in good spirits, but also a Q&A session from Karl of Crooked Dice and the Edge Hill team that had helped develop 7TV: Pulp.

At the end of the day the big news is that somehow, according to a scoring system nobody fully understood, both SSR and HYDRA had scored 95 points each, so everyone was a winner.

Also, everybody who wanted one was given a sprue of Warlord Games plastic miniatures (I got more zulus), hard copies of the Children of the Fields programme guide (I only had the pdf before), and pulp postcards.

In addition there were prizes for nicest person, best superweapon and best board. I entered the superweapon contest with no real hope of winning as I'd seen some of the other entries (which included James' giant robot) online. However I offered television as my weapon, as ultimately it would come to destroy the movie serials that 7TV: Pulp was based on (very meta).

Finally, there were prizes for most points, and due to Christopher, who I played in my first game and had won the superweapon contest, I snuck in at the bottom of the prize category.

My prize was about a dozen sprues of overly large fantasy miniatures from Parrabellum Games which I promptly gave away to anyone who wanted them for fear of adding too much to the lead and plastic pile.

Matt had finished higher than me and had amassed a haul of Lucid Eye pulp miniatures and a variety of WW2 items. In exchange for some of the Parrabellum sprues he gave me two Soviet anti-tank guns (a Zis 2 and a Zis 3) as I have Bolt Action Russians and he doesn't. Additionally, Simon (off of Brummie's Wargaming Blog) gave me some Victorian Police to use, so all in all it was a good day for gaming, but a bad day for the tallies.

To make matters worse, earlier in the week I slipped, fell and accidentally bought a Scourge starter box for Dropzone Commander, adding a grand total of 53 models to my acquired tally, with only the TV for the superweapon being painted.

Acquired: 145

Painted: 79

Ouch!