Blast From the Past: SuperSystem

Let's do some thrilling heroics!

SuperSystem is another game from West Wind Studios. The same people that did Road Kill. As such, the rules are almost exactly the same, just not as brutal. It's designed to be about heroes and villains duking it out in the streets of a city, not a gritty skirmish in the ruins of a wasted world.

As with all West Wind games, you can use any model you want, but they had a setting and rules based around ones they make (or had a partnership with another minis company). The setting of Supersystem is very simple, but weird. There's something about Atlantis and Lemuria, aliens, and weird radiation. There's also some weird kind of Soviet super team, even though the USSR ( or CCCP for my Russian readers) had collapsed long before this game's release. Does anyone under the age of 30 even know what the USSR was? Leave a comment if you do. They've got a super smart, super villain ape guy and his minions. A “legally distinct but closely resemble” X-Men team, with a dash of the Avengers, group. Some mercenaries are there. There's a government group that seems to be there to “solve problems” that crop up. And some terrorists that are connected to Atlantis. Or is it Lemuria? I don't remember.

As I mentioned, the system is the Goal 4 System (even though it doesn't use that name). You roll d6s equal to your stat plus any modifiers and each 4 or better is a Goal. The modifiers come from the many, many super powers. There's actually quite a few and are customizable enough that you can come up with a reasonable approximation of whatever you can think of. Want to fly? Got it. Be invisible? Done. Super strong? You know it. And the powers look appear balanced enough that there's no One Power Everyone Needs. However, if you don't plan right, there are some you can get royally screwed over if you're not prepared for. They also have rules for using street lights, Dumpsters, motorcycles, and other models as improvised weapons. You know it wouldn't be a good super hero game without that. There's also rules for making groups of henchmen that are... Okay? You make them like a hero, but their health is based on how many models you have in the group and if you want them to be even remotely survivable, you have to bring a lot of models. They also seem to come very close to messing up the rules because of how they work in the rules, as you can buy a group big enough to cover enough of the board that only fliers are going to be able to move or hit anything and the group would take forever to remove from the board using melee combat.

The game does want you to cap your stats and points per model, but you can ignore that if you want. If you want to have a Superman level one on one battle, you can go for it. I might actually do that for a one off fun game... But, the game wants you to have a team of 5 or 6, as well as a group of henchmen, to keep things balanced. I do agree with having a team of 6 or so, that way you can have a variety of models and powers on the board, but not too many to bog things down.

My sticking point with this game, as it seems to be with West Wind's games, is the initiative system. In Road Kill, you would draw a card. In Supersystem, you roll initiative for each individual model. Which is both time consuming and annoying. Most skirmish games try to make this easy and fast. West Wind does not. I've been kicking around a few ideas of how to fix it, but you should find one that works best for you and your group. You might want to borrow one from another game that actually works and doesn't take forever.

But what do you do with your forces, now that you're ready to play? Well, there's six scenarios they provide. Some are clearly better than others. There's a simple one, where you just go at each other in a city, an old classic. The mission I dislike the most is where one member of each team gets kidnapped by aliens. It really seems to require a third player, which you don't always have. Other missions require having a VIP mini that can be abducted, be ambushed, and so on. The missions aren't bad, they just require having being prepared for all of them, as they are randomly rolled and each has a random event table that also requires some extra models. I will say that it does give it a bit of longevity because you'll want to try them all with the variations. Or you could roll the same mission over and over again and get bored quickly. I would have liked something like “basic” missions and “advanced” missions, to let you get used to the game and then have more crazy stuff happen. I know you can just do what you want, but I tend to get distracted by things and want to do everything. So, I like it when the creators start slow then build to the cool stuff.

One of the things that kind of impresses me is the Experience System. It does seem fair,as every model gets some, win or lose. It does seem a little random about how you can “earn” new powers, but you can always just do what you want. I think it's important to have things be fair, as it always suck when you lose a lot (like me) and get quickly outpaced by your opponent by the second or third game. Of course, since XP increases the model's cost, you're going to need to make sure that the points limit for games start moving up, too... The point of the XP system is to give you a reason to start a campaign and keep playing, so you can get more XP and advance the narrative. It's based on comic books, remember?

One thing that doesn't impress me is the half-assed “Morality” system. Each model is a Hero, Villain, or Mercenary. Heroes don't kill KO'd models. Unless they want to? There's nothing in the system to punish heroes that kill. And if you want to be good but also be able to kill, you just make every model a Mercenary, and it doesn't matter. I would like to see an XP penalty for heroes who kill and for villains that kill too much. Since there's a post battle recovery system, having your model not be killed, just KO'd, is important. My thoughts are this: If you're going to put something in there about morality and heroes and all that stuff, you need to make sure that you have a mechanic that enforces it. For example, maybe if your villain has reached a high number of “Bad Karma” from killing every hero they can, then you have the army start shooting at him when he appears. By turn two or so, he has to avoid random shots from them. And if you have a Mercenary that's killing too much, they lose that morality and become a villain. Same if they do more good things than bad. It's all about balance, both in game and as part of the narrative. The game clearly wants to be a narrative game, not that it's a bad thing, but it has more of “Beer and Pretzels” feel without that mechanic.

When you get down to it, this game isn't a bad one. But, I wouldn't pay too much for it. It is much better edited than Road Kill and the book itself isn't as poorly made, it's actually decent quality. It is still available from West Wind Productions and even has two expansions. The first is about an alien invasion (very much “on brand” for comic books) and the second is called “Showdown!” but there's no information on their website about it. I picked up the core book for $5 used and it was worth it. If you check my Project List, you'll see that I have some super hero minis I'm working on. Of course, since Marvel and DC have launched some minis games (to get more sweet, sweet nerd money), you can use this game to have your dream crossover fight between the characters from both worlds.