The Time Travel Caper--A DC Universe Campaign

Corbomite—a rare element with a very short half-life. It occurs only when, by chance, certain chemicals in the Earth’s crust come together in a specific manner. Then, unless it is recovered and placed in a status field within a few hours, it will deteriorate and cease to exist. No one has ever been able to reproduce it artificially.


Corbomite—the one element the villains Brainiac and Lex Luthor need in order to build the universal mind control machine that the two evil geniuses have designed. With just a small amount of Corbomite, they could power up the machine and achieve TOTAL DOMINION OVER THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!


But the sinister duo has searched the world over and failed to locate any Corbomite before it deteriorated. The main trouble was that it could be years—sometimes centuries—between moments when it appears. Finding it in the present seems unlikely.


So Lex and Brainiac decide to search the past and the future. Lex builds a time scanner attuned for Corbomite. They locate two sources---one in Sicily in 1943; the second in Metropolis in the 31st Century.


The villains gather together other members of the old Legion of Doom and divide them into two teams. Using a time portal built by Brainiac, the two teams will travel to the past and the future, obtaining the Corbomite.


But the JLA has learned of their plans. The Atom has picked up residual energy from both Lex’s time scanner and Brainiac’s time portal. By studying the exact frequencies of the chronal energies (and by figuring out the riddle e-mailed to the JLA by the Riddler), Atom deduces both what the villains are searching for and where (or rather when) they have gone.


Themselves dividing into two teams, the JLA travels in time to put a stop to the Legion of Doom’s latest nefarious scheme.


In this campaign, one player will operate the Justice League characters, while the other will be handling the bad guys. Heretofore, they will be referred to as the Hero and the Villain respectively.


TEAMS: Both players will form a pool of characters out of which they will form teams for each scenario. Some scenarios also include guest stars.


THE VILLAIN: The Villain forms a pool of characters using the following characters: The Unique Lex Luthor from Icons or the Lex Luthor from the Justice League set, the Unique Braniac from Icons (or any one version of the Hypertime Braniac), any one version each of the following characters: Gorilla Grodd, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, Captain Cold, the Riddler, Bizarro, Scarecrow, Black Manta, Toyman, Giganta and Sinestro. (All these characters are considered to have the Legion of Doom keyword.)

In addition, Lex has built a number of “Lex-bot” battle robots. Include any four Lexcorp Battlesuits in the pool to represent these robots.


SINESTRO SPECIAL RULE: The Villain picks any version of the regular-sized Sinestro for his pool. But when using him in a scenario, the villain may choose to swap him out for the big fig Sinestro for the duration of that battle. (He may use him at any level he chooses as a big fig.) This represents the sort of tactics Sinestro has chosen to use in that fight.


THE HERO: The Hero forms a pool of characters using any characters with the Justice League of America keyword.


FEAT CARDS: Both players may use Feat Cards freely when building their teams, with the following exceptions:The Villain cannot use In Contact with Oracle. The Hero can only use it in the last scenario—Oracle’s advice isn’t available to those heroes traveling to other time periods.Only the Villain may use Lazarus Pit, but only in Scenario #1.


THE TIME TRAVEL SCENARIOS: Both players secretly form two 600 point teams, one to travel to the past and one to the future. All teams are revealed simultaneously. Both players include both characters from their pools and the following guest stars on their teams when building their respective teams:


HERO’S PAST TEAM: The Hero is REQUIRED to use any one version of Sgt. Rock and at least three Easy Company soldiers. He may also include an Easy Company Medic, but the medic would only be allowed to use Support on Rock or other Easy soldiers during this scenario. Optionally, he may use the R/E/V Blackhawks (one of each) instead of Rock and Easy.



HERO’S FUTURE TEAM: The Hero is REQUIRED to use at least three members of the Science Police. He may OPTIONALLY include up to three characters with the LSH Team Ability.


VILLAIN’S PAST TEAM: The Villain is REQUIRED to use any one version of Ra’s al Ghul (REV, Unique or LE). He may OPTIONALLY include any number of the various League of Assassins generics. (Yes, we are borrowing generics from the Marvel Universe, but ninjas are ninjas.). He must also include either Lex Luthor or Brainiac from his regular pool of characters.


VILLAIN’S FUTURE TEAM: The Villain is REQUIRED to include at least one of the following figures: Mordru, Persuader, Emerald Empress, Validus, Mano, Tharok, Time Trapper, Professor Zoom, Abra Kadabra. He may OPTIONALLY use more than one. He must also use either Lex Luthor or Brainiac from his regular pool of characters (whichever of them he did not send into the past).


SCENARIO #1: WEIRD WAR


The bad guys travel back to a small Sicilian fishing village. The Corbomite is located in a warehouse there. As they travel to the warehouse, they meet up with Ra’s al Ghul, the nearly immortal villain who even then was himself scheming to achieve world domination. Ra’s knows the area, so the villains make a deal to team up with them.The good guys, meanwhile, try to reach the Corbomite first. Along the way, they meet up with the combat-happy Joes of Easy Company, who have recently liberated the village from the Germans.


The two factions arrive at the warehouse simultaneously. To the surprise of absolutely no one, a fight breaks out.


MAP: Use the Warehouse map from the Marvel Premiere set. If this map isn’t available, the players should be able to agree on a reasonable substitute. Roll dice to resolve any disputes.


SET-UP: Roll normally for first player (who then picks the Warehouse map by default). Set-up and place objects normally.


LENGTH: After set up is complete, the first player rolls one die. The scenario lasts 10 rounds + the die roll.


VICTORY: Normal victory conditions apply.


SCENARIO #2: METROPOLIS MELTDOWN


The villains arrive in the future and search for the Corbomite in 31st Century Metropolis. Once there, they meet and team up with one or more future villains.The good guys arrive to stop them, contacting the local police for assistance. It’s possible that one or more Legionaries may respond to the call for help as well.


MAP: Use the Metropolis street map from the DC map set. . If this map isn’t available, the players should be able to agree on a reasonable substitute. Roll dice to resolve any disputes.


SET-UP: Roll normally for first player (who then picks the Metropolis map by default). Set-up and place objects normally.


LENGTH: After set up is complete, the first player rolls one die. The scenario lasts 10 rounds + the die roll.


VICTORY: Normal victory conditions apply.


BACK TO THE PRESENT:If the heroes win both fights in other times, then they have foiled Lex and Brainiac’s evil scheme. The Hero wins.


BUT—if the Villain has won either of the time displaced battles, then Lex and Brainiac have obtained enough Corbomite to power their mind control machine. The JLA (helped by another riddle—why anyone invites Riddler onto their team is beyond me) locate their secret base and attack to try and destroy the machine before it is fully activated.


SCENARIO #3: THE FINALE


Both players form 800 point teams out of their pools. The guest stars from other times are no longer available.


MAP: Use the Secret Base map from the Indy starter set. If this map isn’t available, the players should be able to agree on a reasonable substitute. Roll dice to resolve any disputes.


SET-UP: Roll normally for first player (who then picks the Secret Base map by default). Set-up and place objects normally. The Villain also places a special marker anywhere in his starting area during his set up. This is the mind control machine and is considered blocking terrain.


LENGTH: This scenario is to-the-death.


MIND CONTROL MACHINE: After setting up, the Villain rolls one die. Add this result to 5. This is the number of rounds before the Mind Control Machine powers up and begins working.


At the beginning of the Villain’s turn on the round the machine begins working, whichever of the Hero’s still active figures with the lowest point value is mind controlled. This figure immediately switches sides and becomes part of the Villain’s team.


Ignore Feat Cards when calculating who has the lowest value. Base point cost is all that’s used.
Roll dice to resolve any ties.


The mind controlled figure has access to all Feat Cards assigned to him except for In Contract with Oracle.


This repeats itself at the beginning of each of the Villain’s successive turns until the scenario ends or the mind control machine is destroyed.


To destroy the machine, the Hero must inflict 50 points of damage on it.

All attacks automatically hit. The players keep track of the cumulative damage. When it reaches 50, replace the machine with a debris marker. All mind-controlled heroes immediately switch back to the Hero’s team.


VICTORY: Victory goes to last man standing. If the mind control machine is destroyed, but the Hero’s team is wiped out anyway, then Lex and Brainiac have time to rebuild it.


If the Hero wins, the world is saved.


If the Villain wins---well, we didn’t need that pesky free will thing anyways.