Speed Comics #6 - pt. 4

One last visit to this issue, and we'll resume where we were with Lt. Jim Cannon of the British Navy. This page will give you a good sense for how hard it is for a low-Hit Die mobster/low-level villain to hit a target. Jim isn't far off when he mocks Devilfish for not being able to hit the broad side of a barn.

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While this author was spot-on last time with the British using 15-inch guns, the Germans had already switched to metrics by then. These German "6-inch guns" were really 15 cm naval guns, and yes, the Germans were using those (the scale being to the ammunition, of course, not the gun itself!).

However, there seems to be significant artistic license going on here with the "torpedo cruiser." I've seen no pictures of torpedo cruisers that looked like small motorboats, nor have I seen any that launch from the bow of the boat yet.

Moving on, we're going to look at a super-creepy installment of Landor, Maker of Monsters. Voldemort's Dad here has created a new mobster-type, the cat man, in the most disturbing way possible. He's apparently shrunken a woman's body down to the size of a large cat, say 3' tall, traded her head for a real cat's head, and made it so that it would act in very un-cat-like ways, like listening to you when you tell it to do something.

So they just happened to be within sight of Landor's castle. Maybe not the safest place to take your niece for a picnic? And if they know this is Landor's castle, why do they leave it unguarded? Or why not buy it and raze it to the ground? Or convince the nearest municipality to annex the land and rezone it?

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Cat-people are good for fighting half-pints and small dogs, but pretty useless against full-grown men. I would be generous giving this poor thing 1-1 Hit Dice.

The hammer toss is an unusual grappling maneuver, but I'm not sure if we need to add it, as this could be replicated with the throw result. In game play, I would say Torrence's player asked if he could throw Landor into the generator and make it explode. The Editor then said, let's break this down mechanically; you can roll to grapple Landor, then you can roll to hit the generator with Landor, then you can make a wrecking things roll vs. the generator. Torrence's player then got some pretty good dice rolls!

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"If only we could be sure! If only...we could wait for the fire to die out and then check the ruins for his remains. Or watch the entrance and see if anyone comes out..."

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Moving on to Smoke Carter, we find some unusual clues to find at an arson scene, including blood, a counter cut away with an automatic inserted in the opening (like finding a trap), and a letter addressed to himself from the arsonist (not generally a good thing to be carrying when you're committing crimes, but it makes things really easy for your players!).

Guard dogs makes a lot of sense from a mobster's perspective, though it makes things tricky during game play -- do you discourage your players from beating up on dogs and make them outsmart them, or let the players play out the encounter anyway they want (spoiler: odds are 50/50 they will beat up the dogs)?

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Hey...where did Smoke get those steaks from? Are you telling me he routinely carries steaks around in his car for emergencies just like this?

And lastly, we're just going to peek in on Spike Marlin, with a more whimsical than normal adventure courtesy of George Tuska (whose figure work is as stiff as ever here).

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Spike pulls off a coupe most players of H&H would be envious of: a two-man press gang fails to capture him, so he beats them up, disguises them, and sells them back to their own boss -- netting him XP and $!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Speed Comics #5 - pt. 4

I have just a few leftovers to discuss from this issue, starting with this page of Texas Tyler. Two things: one, kicking over the table is good strategy because, if it hits it could be a disarming attack, and even if it misses it will still serve as soft cover. Two, until the henchmen reveal themselves, Tyler doesn't have to worry about anyone else and can beat on Croker with a chair to his heart's content. After the henchmen reveal themselves, then Tyler has to save vs. plot to keep dealing with Croker, and otherwise has to deal with the henchmen first.

These filler pages are handy for statting air transportation in the game, particularly the cruising speeds listed here.

And lastly, this is Spike Marlin, holed up in the armory of a bunch of gunrunners. The "high-powered" rifle is likely a Gun +1 or a rifle doing trophy weapon damage (1-8 or better). The way he's picking them off like rabbits makes me think the gun is +1, for the attack bonus.

Trophy weapons are supposed to be rare, so that Spike picked the one Gun +1 in the entire armory just by chance seems unlikely. However, the Editor could have given him a 1 in 6 chance of grabbing the right one by random, like finding a secret door, or could have allowed him a skill check to evaluated each rifle until he got to a better-than-average one.

Throwing oil into an enclosed room with Heroes is sound strategy; Spike would take 1-8 points of damage per turn spent in the room until leaving.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Speed Comics #4 - pt. 4

This is Smoke Carter, and here is some interesting evidence that helmets should count as armor for Armor Class.

Police were apparently already doing psychological profiling in 1940, so best to head to the police department and read up on those rogues galleries!

This story did a lot to inform my write-up of the arsonist for the Mobster Manual. The arsonist write-up first appeared in Supplement V: Big Bang, but I've since lowered his morale save ("I'll burn before I'll let you take me!") and added a passage about using 1-6 cigarettes to start a fire.

Poor New York City. Before getting famously razed by the Sub-Mariner, NYC was razed by ...a bunch of guys in asbestos suits using flamethrowers? Here, we see his killers have suits that are both fireproof and bulletproof (combining the function of two different trophy items). Those seem to be especially effective flamethrowers with increased range.

This looks a lot like the vampiric robots from Mercury that debuted in The Trophy Case v. 1 #2. Not sure why the brain needs a window.

When I add this robot variant to the Mobster Manual, I'll have to include a note about how fire can make the robot run amok. It needs the Raise Car power too.

Texas Tyler may think this town is unfriendly, but they sure are equal opportunity employers! I can't think of another example of an Hispanic female bartender in all of 20th century fiction.

I also don't think recognizing unfriendliness would be a skill check; things like this are best observed through roleplaying.

We haven't seen one of these filler pages in a while. They're handy for plane trivia that could affect statting them later.

This is Spike Marlin, as the mug tells us. Sometimes I see evidence for allowing critical successes in the game. In this instance, the mug not only identifies Spike Marlin, but know his secret profession too -- sounds like he rolled a 20 on his save vs. plot!

On the prior page, Spike had an automatic pistol in hand, but was disarmed by being grappled from behind. I include this page instead to illustrate that an entire brawl ensues afterwards, and not one person goes for the gun, which must still be laying there on the deck. There has to be a reason, like maybe it takes a full melee turn to pick up a dropped weapon and leaves the picker-upper effectively prone for that turn.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Speed Comics #1 - pt. 3

This is Spike Marlin. This is not the first time we've seen whalers in the comics. This is the first time, though, that the whaling has been background detail. The real scenario here is the mutinous attack on Spike while the rest of the crew is fighting the whale.

This is Smoke Carter. Note how the gangsters are car-based; the 2nd ed. write-up will also be car-based.

Am I going to have to stat brutes as something new? I was going to treat them as a sub-category of thug, but this looks more like a flesh golem...

Oh, and this is Landor, Maker of Monsters.

Three air speeds (though I can probably get that from Wikipedia too).

This is Biff Bannon of the United States Marines, but I share it for the yellow peril hoodlums, and demonstrating that they can be armed with handguns and rifles too, not just daggers and hatchets.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)