Gotham Invitational - Game 6 Penguin v GCPD/Batman
- johnjsalango1
- Oct 12
- 13 min read
The final league game in Pool A of the Gotham invitational sees The GCPD who are flying against Penguin who really isn't. However both can still either qualify for the semis or be relegated so plenty at stake. Because of the self inflicted condition that to count as a victory the margin must be greater than 5 VP every match to date has been a draw and so if this game is also a draw it will come down to VP totals.
Joker and Riddler who have completed their games can now only watch. It is not 100% certain that Joker is out of contention but it would need a very low score draw for him to qualify as his total points score is 79 which is bettered by Riddler at 84. With GCPD on 64 already a draw scoring 21 would see them though to the semis but on the other hand a loss would see them relegated. a reasonably conservative strategy should see them home.
For Penguin after two games they have only 52 points so need a win or a draw having sored 33 points which is a tall order. This mean't they were going to go for a win by killing as many GCPD as possible to deprive them of scoring opportunities. This would mean taking out the easy targets and leaving Batman alone essentially. This is risky but having played Penguin less than well in two previous games I am not sure 33 points is feasible.
GCPD
A good starting hand for the GCPD with the chance to get 3 out at least with only get them off the street less likely turn one as it would need someone from Penguin's crew to advance pretty rashly. The crew remains the same as in all previous games lead by Chief Mackenzie and Lt Gordon with an extra magazine. Pattison Batman and Kravitz Catwoman provide mobility with the rest of the crew GCPD guys, Martinez with radio and magazine, Horse cop for ride by arrests, truncheon guy with a whistle and a grapple gun weirdly and my favourite edge hugger Stop Cop with an invaluable radio and Patrol training. Worth her weight in 'Secure the perimeters'!
Penguin
A less start friendly draw for Penguin with only 'Smuggled' likely to score unless someone from either GCPD or Penguin's crew being rash turn one...requiring accessible enemies and suspects. Penguin 52 remains in charge with Looselip (Loosey) as sidekick. Toxic, Deadshot and Hypno are the usual Audacity pieces along with Elite thug who has a grapple and radio. Gun Thug has an extra magazine and hopefully will live long enough to use it this game. Rounded out by Hi Vis thug who is literally there to drop supects and create outnumbering situations for the 'Everyone has a price card'. The gunmen and Toxic will be key to the killing stuff plan.
Round One deployment
Above - GCPD set up except Catwoman who is out of shot left
Penguin crew at start above and below
Penguin won initiative and opted to have GCPD activate first having put the only PhaseI/II card into play 'Smuggled Goods' where Toxic could move late and hopefully have a decent Business counter number to shove it further. It was after this game I realised i had been playing Smuggled Goods backwards and was pushing it towards the enemy DZ! To be honest it made no difference mechanically for scoring as it always starts near the centre line but now I know.
Truncheon activated and weirdly used his grapple to leap to the edge of the board and pop down a suspect in prep for 'perimeter'. This seems an odd use of grapple but what else is he going to do, he is armed with a stick and doesnt have the detective trait so cant help with many scoring cards.
Without audacity Penguin moved and used Handyman to drop a suspect just to get ahead should the 'Long game' card come out which needs two more suspects in play than the opposition.
Stop cop began her reign of scoring by dropping a suspect using her radio then moving 4" further ready to do it again!
Hi Vis manipilated through the sewers to the roof of the Iceberg lounge and dropped a suspect as he could use Loosey's inspo range at the start of his own manipulate move.
Chief without Audacity just wandered over to the corner of the Iceberg lounge in order to give a wide Inspiration and to get a bit of cover.
Also without Audacity but keen to spread his Inspo range moving forward Loosey jumped off the building and moved up
.
Horse guy also audacity free but within Chief's inspo range moved and dropped a snitch. This was not impossible to reach for Penguin but was difficult.
Hypno dived through the sewers in a reprise of his game two move but this time much more successfully. Using inspo from Penguin he dropped a suspect and immediately scored a 'Goods raid' . This had been obtained by phase I/II play of 'Smuggled' - 'Profitable negotiation'? More importantly he successfully hypnotised Martinez into shooting Chief for 3 blood & stun and moved him away from the sewer stopping Martinez from doing the same type of move. This also put him into a closer position to Penguins crew. All in all a good activation.
Martinez woken from his hypnotic state with a warm gun in his hand quickly climbed onto the Iceberg Longe and dropped a suspect to score 'Plant evidence' which had been drawn after Snitch went into play. Toxic now had at least one Business Counter (BC) for 'Smuggled Goods'
With ammo to spare Gun Thug just took a pot shot at Gordon and hit causing three blood. This was part of the 'kill them' strategy as both Chief and Gordon were killable in a way Batman and Catwoman were not as they could essentially dodge away any shots at range.
Gordon bleeding profusely shot at Hypno and turned the resulting hits into 'non lethal ammo' which was a nice move. He then Ordered Batman to move over to stand in contact with Hypno who was now likely to not survive the turn!
Deadshot after reading his own traits carefully for probably the first time realised that he was not bound by shooting into the night penalties and just casually killed Chief Mackenzie as netting off modifiers left him only one die down and two hits added to the friendly fire from earlier finished him off. Nothing was scored but the kill them plan was doing well as now Gordon was boss but with only a 4" inspire range. Deadshot then moved into cover but within 4" of Penguin for reasons.
Batman gutted by seeing Chief die was a bit harsh with Hypno and literally knocked him into next month, revealed the enemy suspect he was stood on and then grappled into total cover behind the clock tower.
Toxic with a couple of BC in hand now moved up to the 'Suggled Goods' counter and moved it enough to score at the end of the round. Using inspo from Penguin he then dropped a suspect by Truncheon and played 'Profitable negotiation' choosing a 'Get them off the streets which would score in 3 if not successfully achieved by GCPD.
Catwoman in a change of plan moved to the sewer by KO'd Hypno and scooted through to Penguin's DZ. In retrospect this might have been an error but was an attempt to lure Elite thug into a fight away from the action rather than on top of the Iceberg Lounge. In any case it failed as Elite Grappled onto the Iceberg Loung within 4" of Martinez and dropped a suspect to score 'This is mine'
At the end of the turn Smuggled Goods scored for Penguin as did 'Perimeter' and 'Snitch' for GCPD. Profitable negotiation was still in play with one activation left until it scored. Hypno did wake up against the odds which was a huge bonus but at the end of the round GCPD lead by 10 points to 6.
Turn 2 Penguin has initiative, Gordon is now GCPD boss. Secret equipmnet bases was put in play by Penguin but I forgot to put the actual markers down initially. The start of turn 2 photo also shows the 'perimeter' markers from the turn one scoring unmoved but this is quicly corrected.
Taking advantage of having initiative Deadshot shot at Gordon and sadly for the GCPD and Gordon's career prospects killed him. He then used an inspo from Penguin to drop a suspect and checked he was within 4" of Penguin. Profitable negotiatons now scored from round one.
With Horse Guy now the Boss, Batman enraged leapt into Penguin to do as the Bible says " a boss for a boss through the eye of a camel". He serumed and everything but helped by his magical smallness and 2 efforts Penguin survived taking 4 stun on top of his 2 effort. This left Penguin one stun from oblivion but Batman was now possibly in trouble. If the Penguin crew could rack up enough attacks to force Batman to reach his effort limit he might be vulnerable.
To this end Penguin fired his Umbrella cannon but between effort and Batarmour no damage was caused. However Penguin pulled a rabbit from his hat and using Mobster ordered Deadshot to shoot at Batman. Ha Ha! the whole within 4" of Penguin thing became clear! However a closer reading then revealed this only applied to minis with the Mob keyword so all that shenanigans was for nought!
Curses!
Thinking quickly Penguin moved as his second action to the base of the building on which lurked Gun Thug and instead ordered Gun Thug to fire. Gun Thug did not disappoint and pushed through 6 blood of two hits. Batman Pattison does not have Acrobat and relied on Ballistic bat armour which removed 2 dice but the remaining two cut through. Finally.
In less effective firing Martinez shot at Elite but hit nothing then in disgust at his own ineptitude jumped off the building to be nearer Horse both to bait Elite but also to receive future Inspo.
Seeing an imminent KO and arrest in his future Hypno moved towards Horse and hypnotised him. Or rather failed to hypnotise him and then simply stood awaiting the inevitable. The inevitable arrived on horseback rendering Hypno KO, using his special action to arrest him and scoring a nice 3 pointer 'get them off the streets' this did provide 2 BC to Penguin. However Penguin did pop a quick 'not buying dont touch' on Horse
Hi Vis with inspo from Loosey simply toddled along and put down another suspect on the Iceberg loung roof to score 'Long Game' This same suspect would score 'Not buying dont touch' played by Penguin the activation before.
Stop Cop did her thing again dropping a suspect via radio and moving along. Nothing to see here except another probable perimeter score.
Loosey with no inspo just climbed on the Iceberg lounge roof to join the others in Penguin crew. The roof seems to have some sort of attraction for the crew in every game half the Penguin's crew end up there.
Truncheon now with no possiblity of getting any inspo to allow the completion of a 'perimeter' decided that total cover was a good idea and moved behind the Clock tower
In an attempt to finish off Batman via stun to blood damage Toxic forgo a scoring opportunity and moved into base contact with Batman and triggered electric storm for an automatic 2 stun then laid in with his reinforced gloves but to no avail despite 3 efforts to Batman's one! Still another 3 Stun meant Batman was essentially a dead bat flying.
Seeing the way things were going Catwoman decided to try and just keep scoring going with a reveal and a 'comb through everything'
Elite then did a clever thing I was quite pleased with which sort of shows the learning curve I have ascended doing these batreps. With two 'This is mine' cards in hand but no way to access a GCPD suspect close enough he burned one to move an enemy suspect 4". This then allowed him to use his 11" move to reach this suspect. This scored the other 'This is mine'. It may not sound like rocket surgery but I was pleased!
With his own activation and weirdly his last ammo by the end of round 2 Gun Thug blasted Horse for another 6 blood. He has been deadly this game. He also dropped another 'Long game' to keep scoring ticking over.
End of round 2 Penguin 19 : 15 GCPD Penguin scored 'Secret bases' and 'Not buying' but the lack of inspo to Truncheon meant a second 'Perimeter' was not to be. This was a poor round for GCPD. The loss of Gordon was compounded by the near demise of Batman and the lacklustre actions of Catwoman. Penguin had scored well and with GCPD getting close to lacking scoring pieces went into round three looking for the win.
Round 3 Penguin initiative again! 'Smuggled goods' in play
Not unexpectedly Penguin took first activation putting his card 'My house, my rules' into play'. With the death of Batman the objective it was not intended to score but allowed Penguin to burn zero resources and do 3 extra actions. Firstly however he hopped back over the fence (which count as -2" terrain on my table) and gave Batman a quick stabbing to finish off Batman. He then did the stuff on his card, moving Elite 4", having Loosey drop a suspect and throwing away a Snitch card from the GCPD hand.
Still battling Horse stood up and moved into Elite with a vague hope of an arrest and in fact it was more than a hope as depite now being on a 3 lehhed horse he walloped Elite, arrested him and scored another 'Get them off the streets' Horse was looking at a definite Equine of the match award. Should he survive....This prospect became bleaker as Elite again showed why he was Elite by playing 'Everyone has a price as a resource' to allow him an attack back which KO'd Horse guy! Catwoman became the fourth boss of the game!
Deadshot forwent shooting in order to move up and move the 'smuggled goods marker' a decent distance with so many BC. Remembering the BC he also used one to restore 2 health to Penguin removing stuns. He actually could have shot as he had ammo on his handguns but forgot he had handguns....this would be crucial.
Martinez again trying to keep scoring put his gun away and moved to reveal a suspect and score 'find a suspect' - despite losses the GCPD have done well to keep scoring.
Toxic with limited scoring opportunities moved to Martinez and did the whole electric storm/ reinforced gloves combo thing putting some decent stun on Martinez then using the Penguin inspo played a get it fast which even
with the number of BC in the bag was noy going to be got fast.
Catwoman (above) now did her best work of the game moving into contact with Toxic and forcing him to effort 3 times to nullify her attacks. Which he did taking only one stun but nonetheless allowed her to score 'Wont see me coming' and play her special ability 'Steal' to throw away the 'This is mine' Penguin had just drawn and would definitely score! Essentially a 4 point swing.
Gun Thug out of ammo jumped(fell) down from the building hoping to be of some use. Maybe. He took 2 blood in the fall but going into round 4 that was irrelevant.
Unlike Stop Cop who did her thing even better than ever dropping a suspect which became a snitch and would score 'perimeter' in phase IV.
Loose lips and Hi Vis both did the same action either side of Truncheon's activation. Both moved and jumped off the Iceberg Lounge into base contact with Catwoman hoping for an outnumber card score in round four. Loosey took 2 blood as he had to move somewhat before the fall but again it's round 4 next so all good.
Truncheon ran down the board edge again hoping he might survive to drop a suspect for 'perimeter'. He could have absolutely guaranteed survival had he remembered his grapple gun!
End of round 3 - Almost unbelievably GCPD are now in the lead 26 to 22 and in good news the heroic Horseguy has woken up! 'Smuggled goods', 'Snitch' and 'Perimeter' all scored.
Round 4 No Phase I/II cards played. Hard choice here for the GCPD as it seemed that either Martinez or Catwoman were going down so they decided that Martinez should leg it to the sewer and using inspo from Catwoman dash through the sewer into Penguin's DZ where he could use his detective trait to drop a suspect and score 'Detective work'. The hope was that Catwoman might get lucky and survive.
As I have said before it is the hope that kills you as Toxic extinguished that hope. First he resourced away a card and drew 'Everyone has a price'. Then he 'Electric stormed' and combo'd with reinforced gloves. Catwoman efforted but was overwhelmed and KO'd scoring 'Everyone has a price' due to the outnumbering.
Horse was now boss (again)
Truncheon who now had Audacity due to losses moved and dropped a suspect. Finally he might score a 'perimeter'! Mission accomplished. Sort of.
Deadshot remembered he had guns but had no feasible target and out of inspo range needed to score so moved into GCPD deployment and scored 'Goods raid' with a suspect drop. At some point before this the 'Get it fast' from round 3 had also scored.
In a final heroic charge Horse guy executed yet another successful ride by arrest on Toxic who had rather over efforted taking down Catwoman. Unbelievably he scored another 'Get them off the streets.' That is 9 points by Horse Guy alone. Outstanding performance.
Hi Vis moved into contact with Horse guy but did not attack him. I think we can all guess what is happening here!
With no more GCPD activations to go the Penguin crew needed to think hard about the cards remaining in hand. Penguin went next moving and popping down a suspect to put a 'Get it fast' into play. The dice roll would be crucial as even with 6 BC in hand a roll higher than 8 would be a fail with only 2 activations left. The law of average worked out with a roll of 7 so it would score once the total of BC counters was taken into account!
Still needing scores Gun Thug moved and dropped a suspect to score a final 'Long game' whilst Loosey did the dirty again as he had last game against Harley moving in to kill the outnimbered Horse Guy and score 'Everyone has a price'. Posthumous medal for Horse guy who I will call Phillip from now on.
End of round 4 situation
Final scores
Penguin 33 :32 GCPD. Another knife edge game ending in a draw. I thought for a while in round 4 that Deadshot's failure to shoot Truncheon would came back to bite Penguin but as it turned out he had made the better choice by getting Smuggled Goods across the line.
Final table for pool A in the Gotham Invitational - Remember as all games finished as technical draws with no team winning by 5 points or more the deciding factor became total victory points. First place will go on to play second place in pool B whilst second place will play first place in pool B. Bottom place will be relegated and replaced in future with a team from the second tier!
Winners GCPD 96 victory points
Second place Penguin 85 victory points
Third place Riddler 84 victory points
Relegated Joker 83 victory points
I am surprised!
Really surprised.
I thought Joker was a cert for top two with Riddler or Penguin for relegation, Penguin especially after scoring so poorly in game one. To be honest apart from GCPD who have scored solidly even after losing key pieces any of the other three could have been second or relegated and I would not be surprised if I had made mistakes whereby each gained or where denied extra points. However that is Pool A completed and I am now in the process of building some 'themed' terrain for each of the crews in Pool B which are:
Bane Soldiers of fortune
Court of Owls
Oraganised Crime
Batman who Laughs
While I am finishing up this terrain why not have a read of some of my other Batreps in the animal version of Gotham -'Burrows & Badgers' series (link below) or follow the upcoming Frostgrave seies campaign set in medieval Gotham.
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