"Has Anyone Played An "Eight Legged Freaks" Scenario?" Topic

You know what I mean. Just like in the 2002 movie . . .

- Small mining town.
- Huge (man-sized) mutant spiders come out of mine shafts and start hunting down people, in and around town.
- A handful of people fight back.
- A carefully placed explosion could solve the crisis.

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If so . . .

1) What figures did you use?*
2) What terrain pieces did you buy/make?
3) What rules?
4) Do you have photos of the game(s)?

Thanks.

Dan
* I imagine that the spiders would be the easiest to obtain:
auction
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Of course, figures of Kari Wuhrer and Scarlett Johanson would just sweeten the deal a bit more:

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By the way, if someone wants to do a mall terrain, here are some ideas:

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Dan

I had a couple of armies for HoTT. Townsfolks using Matchbox pickups and model railway civilians, and toy spiders and spider miniatures for the Spiders.

hurcheon,

I don't suppose you would want to post your HotT army list, would you? Sounds like a couple of fun armies. Thinking about it, HotT might be good for playing out those bad SyFy channel movies.

That flick would make a good scenario. The flight and rearguard action at the mall would be cool, except the part about building your own mall out of foamcore!.

My own dream bug scenario is one where I could fool the players into thinking they were initially in a more mundane scenario, then the mystery unfolds and it is a giant spider infestation. Maybe start a few teams of citizens off on a bank robbery scenario: a SWAT team, a gang of hoods, security at the bank, innocent bystanders/armed good semaritans. Start each group with a different objective, then gradually introduce the spiders as the main threat and see what happens.

And to make things more chaotic, the spidies get to enter from random directions, climb up and down buildings, leap, etc. A battle with no flanks.
They also move at least twice as fast as a person.

The jumping spiders from the movie come to mind. Does anyone make a mini or a toy of a jumping spider? The real-life version has a comical old man face with a mustache and multiple goofy eyes.
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You guys may want to play this one on mute:

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At least it gives an idea of the stuff that's in the mall.

Dan

A few cocoons could be included as possible "saves", meaning a slight chance of rescue for some.

What do you guys think?

Dan

The coccoons are a good idea. Some male spiders will capture prey and present them to females as a courtship ritual. The give the female a little fly mummy. Maybe the giants will do something similar.

This gives a chance to rescue captured characters.

I think it would be pretty easy to make those cocoons, don't you think?

Dan

ooops…I missunderstood the title…thought it was about four fantasy wargamers…

LOL!!!

Dan

There is a great D&D module, A Boring Problem?, it was in Dungeon magazine where You stumble into a village beset by giant boring beetles I'm thinking of using it for My weird west games.

been a while since I used those armies, as I recall they were something like

Spiders
Queen Spider Behemoth General 4
Jumping Spiders (3) Rider 6
Burrowing Spider Sneaker 3
Trapdoor Spider (2) Lurkers 2
Spider Swarm (9) Hordes 9

Townfolk
Chris McCormick Hero General 4
Young folk on Motorbikes (2) Riders 4
Rednecks in Pickups (3) Shooters 6
Townsfolk with Gardening Equipment (3) Spears 8
Trucks/Big Rig (2) Knights 2

I've never done this scenario, but it sure would be fun.

Reaper makes a "Giant Spider With Victims" model:
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The victims can be purchased separately (though obviously the spider himself is also useful) and would make excellent objective markers, considering the objective of the hero of the movie was to rescue his Gladys (his grandmother?) from the eight-legged freaks.

I would love that movie if they had just toned down the goofy sound-effects, but the giggling and shrieking spiders ruin it for me. The eerie silence of spiders is a huge part of their creepiness factor.

Oops, mistake in that list there, just one Truck or Big Rig

Cool pic here:

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Dan

Variation on the theme . . .

If anyone would like to consider the idea of bugs infecting people, and players not knowing if they are infected or if they are human:

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Dan

Reminds me of an episode of Roswell Conspiracies, someone messed with an insect or spider (can't remember which at the moment) and they got loose, attacked the town and started gathering captives to feed to their young.

Which could make for an interesting second game as a continuation of the first.

Humans start out with a slight disadvantage, but there are caches of cocooned allies scattered about the board that can add to your forces.

jeff valent has some spiders
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I haven't specifically played an Eight Legged Freaks scenario but during playtesting of The Swarm I played a swarm of spiders versus my son's squad of infantry.

We used basic plastic spiders and army men both of which were sold by the bag for about $1. USD

For terrain we used Megabloks for the buildings and felt pieces as water and forests.

After that we played ants versus spiders. :)

-Ken
Radioactive Press

Would smaller spiders make the game more interesting?

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This month you can get bags of spiders for cheap!

Dan