The tabletop game this city needs

I've already written about the DC UNIVERSE MINIATURE GAME from the Spanish company Knight Models, but recently I've been putting some more play time into its older sibling: The BATMAN MINIATURE GAME. Originally it was a rather clunky but tactical intense system. The 3rd edition threw a lot of things out but introduced a deck-building system that really helps making each faction feel distinct. And as you might have guessed, it is also very good for homebrewing other franchises into it.

Originally the game was based on the Arkham City videogame and it was about gangs of villians from Gotham City duking it out with each other. The Joker had his clown henchmen, the Penguin had well equipped goons in winter gear and Batman got supported by police officers. The set-up just appealed to me. While I do enjoy the superheroes-only matches of the DCUMG, there was something about the "down and dirty" feeling of bringing something as disposable as a Bat-villian henchman to the table.

One of the first releases the game got.

Due to quite a few translation issues, the first edition of the game was rather difficult to get into it. Each character had a number of action points or Counters that were allocated to movement-, attack- and defense options every round in the "Raise the plan"-phase. This was incredibly cumbersome, but also kinda cool. You could try to guess at what your opponent would do with each model. Oh, this one is getting a lot of move counters? Better prepare for him moving up towards the goal. And then there were special traits that allowed the opponent to mess with your counters, like taunting them into giving up one of their defense counters. And then of course there was the Joker gang where everyone is crazy and you had no idea what they'd do since they could swap around Counters at will.

A 1st edition character card.

The game was complicated but had some neat ideas. For one thing, you didn't just buy your crew members with available Reputation Points, a 2nd resource called Funding was used to pay for characters armed with ranged weapons and additonal equipment for your henchmen. 

Since it's always night in Gotham City, you could only see so far across the table as long as your target wasn't standing under a street light. Sewer entrances could be used to basically teleport across the table. And you could pick your own objectives to score with, but they had to placed on the enemies side.

After a while the game evolved and while it stuck with the core rules it introduced a lot of new elements: Speedsters like Flash and his evil counterpart could be hired as mercenaries who drew from the Speed Force to trigger special powers. New crews based around Bane, Mr. Freeze or Lex Luthor and super teams like the Teen Titans or the Suicide Squad. Even magic was introduced with an extra expansion bringing characters like Zatana and John Constantine into the game.

Photo: Knight Models

Now as before, I don't want to spend too much time talking down on things. But as with the DCUMG, Knight Models did a lot of things that didn't quite make sense from a consumer perspective. They introduced vehicle rules in an Arkham Knight-themed expansion, but never made any of the other vehicles outside of the Batmobile availabe to buy. The "Multiverse"-approach of releasing models that could be used in both games, BMG and DCUMG, was dropped entirely. And they released a new starter box based on the Dark Knight movie trilogy years after it was over and announced the 3rd edition shortly after. And while the new edition confused the fanbase at first as it not only introduced a lot of new elements but also completely ignored some bigger expansions like Speedsters and Magic, it turned out to be a great new way to play the game.

Out was the Counter-system, instead a limited number of models each round have the ability to use multiple actions (moving, attacking) instead of just one. And instead of Objective Counters that are placed at the start of the game, each model can place a "Suspect Marker" that it turn functions with the deck each Crew brings to a game.

The Foot Clan (counts as League of Shadows) controls the harbor.

Now this is actually a really cool system. A Suspect Marker can represent basically anything on the table, like the Joker spreading poisen fish around the city or Two-Face planting a time bomb. And depending on your deck, interacting with the enemy's markers can give you points as well, like the police collecting evidence by "revealing" them.

Objective cards can also be played as action cards
to mess directly with the opponent.

The decks really go a long way in making each Crew feel like they are doing their thing. It's not just the League of Shadows meeting Bane's forces in some alley, both of them are working to fullfill their own goals and the other party is just in their way.

The game would be pretty great on its own. If Knight Models could only just be a bit faster in supporting it. When 3rd edition launched, only Batman and Joker had their own Objective decks and the other crews had to stick with a lame generic deck for over a year now. Some of them still do, because for some reason Knight Models chose to release a gang based on a terrible sitcom instead of finish their version of the universe. 

And then there is homebrewing. The game already had a pretty active community during 1st and 2nd edition, bringing in more MARVEL content after Knight Models dropped the licence. Now for 3rd edition, people make cards for the factions KM just doesn't get around to.

And while the Deck Building makes introducing whole new factions a bit more complicated, it's also a creative challenge I'm looking forward to. Because this whole game, with it's focus on combat by night, dangerous villians and their legions of disposable henchmen, is just the perfect system to bring my favourite franchise to life on the tabletop.

IDW Comics: TMNT The Secret History of the Foot Clan