Friday 17 June 2016

Vampifan's Superheroes and Supervillains 01

During the 1980's when I was games mastering my group of wargaming and role-playing friends there was one superhero RPG that we played many, many times. It was Villains and Vigilantes (V&V) by Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU). V&V was far away FGU's most successful game and more supplements and scenarios were produced for it than for any other game in their range. In the late 1990's we switched to GURPS Supers. However, I converted a few of the V&V scenarios to GURPS for my group to play. Carrying on from my recent posts for the Forgotten Heroes challenge I thought you'd like to see some some of my earlier superhero figures that I made and converted for those two superhero RPGs. The majority of the figures I created back then came from various supplements and scenario packs for GURPS Supers and V&V. In this post and the next few, I'll show you some of them, starting with this trio of lone supervillains.
At the far left is the supervillain, Doctor Apocalypse. He was the primary protagonist of the scenario set, The Island of Doctor Apocalypse, published in 1982 for V&V. Pietor Apoucalos was a megalomaniac whose powers came from the mystical Apocalypse Gem which was grafted to his forehead. This allowed him to use any six super powers of his choosing at any one time. I forget which six powers he used in V&V but in GURPS Supers, I kept the six powers limit and gave him up to 1200 points to spend on them. In his current incarnation he chose Enhanced Strength: 80 (200 points), Extra Hit Points +40 (200 points), Immortality (140 points), Increased Speed +10 (250 points), Laser level:10 (270 points) and Teleportation level:30 (self only) (120 points). I spent 1,180 points on his super powers and his total points cost came to 2400 points. When I ran The Island of Doctor Apocalypse scenario using the V&V rules, he wiped the floor with the superheroes of my players. This was the one and only occasion that they lost a fight. He was simply too tough and too powerful for them. Much later, with some trepidation, I replayed the scenario using the rules for GURPS Supers and a team made up of Gothique (a player created Dark Elf superheroine), Vampirella (obviously played by me) and Wolverine defeated him.
The figure was sculpted by me and is based upon the front cover illustration of Doctor Apocalypse that appears on the V&V scenario book. His head is far too big, I realise but I was happy with him at the time so never bothered changing him.
Next up are my two winged flyers. In the centre is Blue Demon, who was one of the villains featured in the GURPS Supers supplement, Super Scum. This was a collection of supervillains both loners and teams. Blue Demon was unwittingly summoned to Earth by a coven of witches (now all dead). He caused carnage wherever he went and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of humans. Annoyingly, he has been killed several times but he always comes back later. His super powers include Doesn't Breathe, Flight, Hardened Skin (metallic blue in colour), Pressure and Vacuum Support, Regeneration, Regrowth, Super Strength and Unkillable. In GURPS Supers he cost 1400 points. My players had no problems in defeating him in both games, although they could never kill him and thus, like any good villain, he would always return. For my figure of him I used the wings of an old Citadel Khorne Demon of Chaos. Being made of metal, these helped to anchor him to his base. Note that his feet do not touch his base. The rest of his body was made out of Milliput modelling putty. He looks exactly like the illustration of him (see below) and I'm very pleased with my sculpt of him.
Finally, we have Talon, another character from the GURPS Supers supplement, Super Scum. Jani Yamahito, a brilliant geneticist, was transformed into the monstrous, reptilian Talon after a failed laboratory experiment. She is not truly evil, even though she has killed, her violence is mostly unprovoked. Her super powers include Chameleon Skin, Claws, Clinging Ability (she can walk on walls or ceilings at half Move), Flight, Regeneration, Regrowth, Super Strength and Toughened Skin. Although she cost 900 points in GURPS Supers, she could still be taken out by a single superhero and she'd be no match for a team of heroes. My figure of her is a conversion of an old Citadel Dark Elf Harpie (similar to the one I used for my conversion of Purgatori). I simply remodelled her head and added a long tail with a forked tip.
I'll leave you with illustrations of this trio of supervillains drawn and digitally coloured by me.
Doctor Apocalypse

Blue Demon

Talon
Blog News. Those of you who are interested in the Shadows of Brimstone game should check out my review of it on The Gamers Cupboard blog here - http://thegamerscupbard.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/shadows-of-brimstone-overview.html
If you think you've already seen it before, think again. It has been rewritten and greatly expanded.

22 comments:

  1. Interesting read Bryan. I love V&V, but my players have never been as fond of the system and its idiosyncratic ways, alas. :)

    Was Blue Demon also in V&V? I know he was a GURPS Supers character, from its first edition onward, but not having yet read Opponents Unlimited I didn't know if there was a same/similar character in thee. :)

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    1. Now that you mention it, I think you're right. I've just checked and Blue Demon was a GURPS supervillain who I converted to V&V and not the other way round. Oops! I'll amend that in my post. Thanks, Pulpcitizen!

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  2. Nice work dude, I'm sure these games were tons of fun to play in!

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    1. They were, Andy, and we did play a lot of them.

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  3. That is very cool, Bryan. Excellent work and a good translation of illustration to model.
    I was a "Golden Heroes" boy myself, which was a fun little game. I did consider translating some of the characters from this into my homebrew system, but have yet to do so. If I do, I'd need to create figures for them...and I have far too many characters I haven't done yet that I want to. To the back of the queue they go.

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    1. Many thanks, Jez. I bought "Golden Heroes" as well but I never played it. I didn't like their rules system and much preferred V&V and GURPS. However I did convert quite a few of the "Golden Heroes" villains to V&V and GURPS Supers characters. I'll be showing some of them very soon. You'll probably be one of the few people to recognise them.

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    2. I shall look forward to seeing them. And I'm sure Simon will be able to identify them, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things spandex.

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    3. Ha, ha! You're probably right, Jez.

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    4. "I bought "Golden Heroes" as well but I never played it." - Shame on you Bryan, as that was the definitive set of Super Hero rules for me until TSR produced "Marvel Super Heroes"; a rule set I played for years and years as a result of Captain America, Captain Marvel and The Thing joining together to create "The Captains Fantastical"!!!

      I thoroughly enjoyed this post as I was taken back to my own days with "Golden Heroes" courtesy of your wonderfully-worded flashback article, even though I never created my own minis using models - simply cut out cardboard stand ups. I am also much taken with your Blue Demon, possibly because he's so much more impressive looking than "DC Comics" Blue Devil, who I used to follow when reading "Shadowpact". Terrific stuff, and I'm looking forward to testing my spandex knowledge with your future postings ;-)

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    5. Many thanks, Simon. I think because I loved V&V so much I never took to the "Golden Heroes" rules. I played a few games of "Marvel Superheroes" but unusually for me, as a player, not a games master. I remember the cardboard cut-outs for GH and MSH very well. I could have used them but in those days if I wanted a specific figure for a scenario I'd make him or convert him. I was a very prolific sculptor back then. Happy days! The purpose of this post and those that follow is to showcase some of my unique figures that I sculpted and converted.

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    6. Definitive supers rpg was MEGS/DC Heroes from Mayfair for me. Loved the MEGS system. :)

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    7. That's not a system I was very familiar with, Pulpcitizen. In fact I don't know of anyone who owned it or played it.

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    8. I have to admit I loved the elegance of the design principles even more than I loved the IP (and the DCU is in my top 5 IP's without doubt). :)

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  4. Gurps Supers appeals but alas I have never heard of V&V. Good painting on these. 2 years ago I was tempted to do a superhero show game. I still think it would look spectacular.

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    1. Thanks, Clint. V&V was very popular in the 1980's but nowadays it is very much forgotten unless you're an old school gamer like me. Personally, I loved it.

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  5. My supers rpg of choice was Champions back in the 80's. I have been meaning to try my hand at converting some models for a bit of golden age supers action and seeing your heroes makes me want to get at it that much sooner. I have my eye on some superfigs as a starting point but finding a wargaming supers ruleset that interests me seems a bit of a chore.

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    1. I remember Champions very well. Just about every V&V product had rules for converting characters from V&V to Champions. It's good to hear that you want to get back to superhero gaming. I wish I could recommend a good set of rules for you to use. My current superhero gaming is confined to Heroclix at the moment. I'm not sure what rules system for non-Heroclix figures I'd use nowadays.

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    2. Great post Bryan and some lovely sculpting on those figs, especially Blue Demon, I too was a "champions" boy but only as a player not a GM.

      Horridperson, one of the "Forgotten heroes" participants has a set of simple homebrew rules that Jez seems to be rather enamoured with, you can check them out here if you wish,,,,

      http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.co.uk/p/free-stuff.html

      look for "Clobberin time"

      Cheers Roger.

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    3. Thanks, Roger. I'll be checking out "Clobberin' Time" myself.

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  6. truly amazing, utterly mouth droppingly excellent Bryan. I`m so very impressed.

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    1. Many, many thanks, Hil. Coming from you that means a lot to me as I know you're a very skilled sculptor yourself, even though, like me, it's not something you feel the need to shout about.

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