suedenim

My arc "Females for Hire" doesn't have the same feel, really, as JSA, but does have a character whose career was loosely, non-actionably, inspired by Power Girl.

Apologies if this has been discussed already, but if so I can't find it. Which seems odd, considering the obvious aggravations file size causes.

Is there any chance the file size limit will ever be raised a little? And why does the limit exist in the first place? Is it actually a disk space thing, or some genuine technical limitation of the mission engine, or what?

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Oh, I wasn't complaining about his difficulty level - I was on low difficulty so he wasn't even an EB for me, just a Boss. I felt that defeating a single boss is a little too straightforward for the final mission of the story arc, which ideally should be more of a dramatic finale. Continuing along the theme of making the Lobster Men more mysterious, perhaps you could initially be sent in with the objective of "Discover secret controllers of gorilla guerillas" which would be a glowy somewhere, then clicking the glowy gives you a clue that is photographs of lobster men climbing out of flying saucers (or something similarly incriminating; a crazed mad scientist hostage babbling about lobster men would work too) and triggers the Lobster Man's group to spawn, and then your objective turns to "Defeat Lobster Man from Mars"?


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Ah, OK, I understand now, and your idea sounds like a good one - though I may not be able to implement much unless and until they cut us a break on file size (which I assume will never happen, though!)

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Yeah, that's legitimate, really... but the premise of your arc is working with the Blackhorse Squadron, so I did think it was strange that none of them actually ever stopped to help me. Keeping the named bosses in a separate faction is a good idea (at least until I15) to prevent spawning duplicates. You might consider having the patrols of the generic Blackhorse Commandos, then additionally having just one or two "ally" Blackhorse characters, low ranking minions or lieutenants that follow the protagonist around but aren't powerful enough to steal too much glory (or could be ditched by the player if desired). I wouldn't mind seeing some of the named lieutenants from the training exercise reappearing in this way. Totally up to you though.

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Makes sense to me.

I think if and when I do an adaptation of "Ashley Porter and the Death's Head Legion," I might just make it "YOU are Ashley Porter in this interactive adventure based on the classic 1941 film!" Might be a good way to have fun with the MA concept in a way I don't think I've seen yet - the characters playing *other* characters!

(These particular adventures are actually fictional both to us and to our characters!)
http://68.178.145.67/index.php/Ashley_Porter

Thanks for the thorough review!

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Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War review (arc id 130809)

Mission 1
Briefing: It is Lady Blackhawk! I'm supposed to work with her, but she wants to test me, so I'm sent to "Blackhorse" Island for a training exercise.

Inside the mission, the objectives are not terribly clear - the nav tool says to Bang on Drum to end the Training session, but the briefing says to defeat each of the top officers in order to pass the test. Maybe defeating the named officer should be an objective too?


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Hmm, I'll have to look this over again, I thought it was pretty clear - i.e., "Bang on the drum any time you want, makes no difference, but the gals will make fun of you for it" being the gist.

I may have over-corrected on this mission. I wanted to introduce Ashley Porter and the Blackhorse characters, but thought people might be annoyed by having to fight a series of bosses in a mere "training" mission. And didn't want people having to repeatedly butt their head against the wall if one of the bosses was particularly troublesome for them. As it is, it seems like people are more annoyed by the various half-measures than they would've been by a more standard mission construction.

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The Blackhorse costumes look great. Nice map choice too. Would be nice if they had some dialog though - maybe commenting on testing the new recruit, or whatever.


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Like a patrol, maybe? That could work. I did try to give each of the bosses some colorful dialogue.

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A little confusing that the contact says to defeat "top officers" and there are also "Blackhorse Officers" in the mission that don't count towards this. Only the named Blackhorse characters do, and they do not stand out very well against the background, so I ended up clearing most of the map before I found the first one.


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Good point, I should probably be more consistent with my nomenclature, perhaps just using the term "Lieutenant," boring as it sounds....

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[NPC] Blackhorse Mechanic: Hi Ho, Shadow Team, away! Let's see how the Mystery Men handle surprises!

Nitpick: I'm actually a solo female character. But "mystery man" is the period term for comic book heroes, so maybe it's okay.


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I was indeed trying to use the term in its generic sense as the '40s term for "superhero." Which seems to generally be used in a unisex way, at least in modern stories set in the '40s.

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I defeated all the named characters up to and including Lady Blackhorse, and cleared all the Blackhorses from the island entirely, but the mission still doesn't end despite having "passed" the test. It looks like I have to "bang on drum to end training session" but the briefing warned me that I would fail the exercise if I did this, so I'm kind of reluctant to do this.

There doesn't seem to be anything else I can do on this map though, so I clicked on the metal drum. There should be some text on the progress bar, like "Banging on drum".

Maybe defeating Lady Blackhorse should give you some sort of clue indicating you passed the training exercise.


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The clue is a great idea, which should hopefully clear up some confusion (I thought the parameters were pretty clear, particularly that there was no penalty for banging on the drum whether or not you "succeeded.")

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Mission 2
Inside the mission, I like the dialog from the Blackhorse patrols and the mix of 5th Column, Red Army and gorillas. The gorillas look pretty good, though I confess I'm confused as to why Uzbek Gorilla Fist is wearing a kilt.


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Ah, but Gorillas in the Ashley Porter universe are all tribal in nature, you see... And the kilt seemed to be one of the better outfits for looking kinda tribal while also disguising the fact that the body models aren't terribly gorilla-like.

Embarrassingly, I have a whole history worked out for the gorilla tribes, who are non-verbal iron age types (hence, the fact they're using guns is kind of a shock even to in-world gorilla experts ). The Uzbek Lowland Gorilla lands mark the easternmost expansion of the Roman Empire. The (sadly unseen) Uzbek Gorilla Chieftain even wears a Roman breastplate and helmet that have been passed from alpha male to alpha male over the centuries....

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Red Army Soldier has no description.

You may want to change Major Wolfgang Hochstetter's description (the default one refers to the Council takeover).


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And here we run into the verdammt file size limit, which has been a constant thorn in my side for this arc.... I'm literally at 99.9something percent now. (BTW, even if I wasn't, is it actually possible to change the description on the Major and other "stock" characters? I thought that was hardwired unless you make them "custom," which then goes back to the file size thing....)

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I saw a Blackhorse patrol, but thought it was a little odd none of them actually would work with me.


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Unfortunately, unless there's a trick I don't know, I don't believe there's any way to make ally patrols more actively supportive.

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I like Colonel Burkhalter's dialog.

I found Ilsa Kopf, a hostage guarded by gorillas; I think she could use some dialog before she is "rescued" expressing dismay at the gorillas turning against her. She gives a nice clue though.

Debriefing: "Major Kopf" should probably be "Doctor Kopf"? She wasn't in uniform and was never referred to by rank prior to this that I can recall.


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Burkhalter's fun, yeah.

Ilsa, unfortunately, is another file size casualty. I wanted to have her in uniform, but my custom NPC didn't make it, and I had to select an only-sorta-good stock NPC instead. She's a recurring character in the Ashley Porter movie series, though.

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Mission 4
Briefing: I like this briefing and how it refers to one of the other named Blackhorse operatives. All these briefings have been nicely in character.

Mission title: Considering the contact tells you she doesn't know what to expect in this mission, having the title be "Defeat Lobster Man" and the objective be "Defeat Lobster Man from Mars" seems like a huge spoiler. Maybe should rename both these to something less spoilery, then have the discovery of the Lobster Man be uncovered as a clue, or be a surprise when you run into him.

In the mission, suddenly Lady Blackhorse knows about the Lobster Man. How did she find out?


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Good points, I should tinker with that a bit.

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Fought the Lobster Man; all his dialog appears to be in Korean, except for one word. Was a neat effect though.

Actually fighting and defeating the Lobster Man seemed awfully easy, though; I simply beat him up and then the mission ended.


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The one English word is supposed to be yet another inscrutable clue about these very inscrutable aliens. Not sure what to make of his difficulty level, though. As with a lot of EBs, he seems tough for some characters, less so for others. "Canonically" the Lobster Men are kind of paper tigers in the Ashley Porter movies, though - apparently used more as sources of weaponry and plot devices for the major human powers than as actual threats. (Also, renting out that rubber suit was expensive!)

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Overall
Love the overall period look & feel that this story arc has. Very much feels like a WW2 period piece with generous amounts of weird science.

Despite the plot's focus on the Blackhorse squadron, however, the actual gameplay made it feel more like I was fighting adjacent to the Blackhorse commandos, and not really working with them. The Blackhorse patrols in the middle missions had some nice dialog, but never really cooperated with me. I think you should consider adding a few Blackhorse operatives as (low powered) allies in each mission, to give more of a feeling that they're on your side. Perhaps you could re-use some of the other named Blackhorse characters from mission 1? After a promising introduction in mission 1, none of those characters reappear again except Lady Blackhorse herself, so I feel they were rather underused.


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I'm starting to think you're right. I thought about doing something like that, but shied away for a couple reasons:

1. The Blackhorse Squadron only has "named" bosses, so with a sufficiently large player group, they might run into clones of themselves.
2. I really wanted to avoid the "Come tag along while my favorite character has all the fun" syndrome you see in a lot of arcs, and maybe went a bit too far in the other direction. Plus (cf. #1), the players won't see Su Lin, Saakje, or Monique at all unless they have a big group, so better to risk them meeting their clones than not have them at all....


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Anyway, thanks for the review, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Ashley Porter Will Return

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The rest of the missions are you being thrown at the latest bit of action, rather than building on any information you find in your previous steps.
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I was hoping the missions would build on each other fairly well,

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It isn't that you do not get information in the missions. It's that the next mission isn't led to by you going on the last mission. Mission 2 has no lead up as mission 1 was just a getting to know your allies thing. Mission 3 has a pilot find the enemy base. Mission 4 has a techie find a singal source. Had nobody done mission 2, the base would still have been found. And the strange signal could have been found without any of the preceeding missions. It would be really easy to link to each next mission using the clues you find in the previous one.


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Ah, now I see what you mean. There's a lot of info that probably could be conveyed by "item" clues, but I got a little gunshy about those due to the sometimes-erratic placement of them by the MA.

Thanks for the review, glad you enjoyed it!

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Originally posted in...Bubbawheat's weekly reviews!
Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Author @suedenim
Arc ID: 130809

I rated this * * * *

Good bits: My kind of humor, challenging foes, quick.
Bad bits: A few of the troops had no info text, ending was maybe too much of a surprise, led by the nose.

I'm a big fan of badly made B movie flicks, classics like Quatermass or more recent efforts like Razorback (or as I like to call it "Pig on rails") or Carnosaur. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise I liked this arc.


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You might enjoy the original Ashley Porter movies on which this adventure was based, then!

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Your contact is the variably excellent Ashley Porter AKA Lady Blackhorse. I say variably as when you fight her in the training ground of mission 1 she's one tough broad. In mission 4, as an ally, she spams web grenade. On the up side she does stay funny throughout the whole arc, mostly thanks to her irrelevant animal metaphor spouting grandpappy.


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Hmm, interesting, I thought/hoped the "/Devices characters constantly spam Web Grenade" bug had been expunged, but I guess not. FWIW, "enemy" Ashley and "ally" Ashley are exactly the same character in the Mission Architect. The last few times I tested the mission, Ally Ashley mostly stuck to arrows.

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Mission 1 is an interesting experiment, which I eventually decided was a bit of a wash with its positives and negatives. The idea here is that they want to see what you are made of before they take you on the mission, but you can exit whenever you like by clicking the glowie. Its a great idea to get to know your allies before you fight alongside them, but the named allies you bond with (aka set on fire) mostly do not appear in the rest of the arc. It would also be useful to know in advance the order and names of the people you are looking for as they are pretty similar looking.


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I haven't quite been able to make up my mind on this mission, whether it's too self-indulgent or extraneous or whatever. I think it'd probably be better if all the Bosses spawned at the same time, but when I tried that, things got buggy, and typically some of them wouldn't spawn at all.

The other part is that apart from Ashley, the other named Blackhorses aren't guaranteed to appear later... but I thought it'd be cool to see them show up leading Blackhorse commando teams in the later missions, which could happen depending on team size/challenge rating.

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The rest of the missions are you being thrown at the latest bit of action, rather than building on any information you find in your previous steps. At least all the missions are funny. The final mission is a total surprise; and its worth noting that there are very few ways to get one up on Nazi controlled primates and the climax doesn't quite do it.


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I was hoping the missions would build on each other fairly well, each giving the heroes a bit more clues about Uzbek Gorilla behavior. I definitely found myself wishing I could include a cut scene of the "barracks" sequence from the movie version, though!

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All in all this is arc is a lot like a B-movie with comedy.

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That's definitely what I was going for here, so I'm glad it worked on that level for you! I'd be curious to get more feedback on the ending, if you'd like to PM me about that.

Sure, screenshots are always good!

The higher level characters might enjoy this (maybe the lower too, but I can't vouch for that difficulty-wise.) But I defy to to find another arc with this many Uzbek Lowland Gorillas.


Arc Name: Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Arc ID: 130809
Faction: Uzbek Lowland Gorillas, Abwehr Section 2, the Blackhorse Squadron, and the Red Army! Plus a mystery villain!
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Level Range: Intended for any
Suitable for Heroes and/or Villain types who still don't like National Socialists.
Soloable?: Should be. There's an EB in the final mission.
Length: 4 missions, none especially long.
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate. If you're clever, you can get various warring factions to fight each other and make your job easier. Last mission intended to be challenging, but not ludicrously so.
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the classic 1938 film Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War (see also: Ashley Porter Diamond Anniversary Special.)

Ashley Porter, the famed Western heroine, has stabled her trusty black mare, Shadow, for the duration of the war, as she leads an all-girl aviation commando team, the Blackhorse Squadron. And "Lady Blackhorse" needs your help, because the Uzbek Lowland Gorillas are revolting!

(No, no, not like the fellas in the Spanish Civil War. The big primates.)

All-out military action in the classic Ashley Porter style, featuring the Blackhorse Squadron, the sinister Germans of Abwehr Section 2, the Red Army, and Uzbek Gorilla Partisans!

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And I hope that players who had informational posts in this forum purged will re-post so that people like me who have recently gotten back into reading the forums can see all the good information you were putting out there!

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I may do that now that I have some guarantee that everything I post won't be deleted immediately. I actually thought they were seeking out and destroying "advertising" or something until reading this thread.

I didn't even realize they were regularly purging the "normal" threads now. How often does that happen?

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Yeah, I gave the British soldiers this to give them a sort of pugilism set, to match the French having martial arts and the Russians having super strength. It may be a little too shiny; I'd rather give them Fighting pool (with Boxing and stuff) but that isn't an option. Maybe I can just give them a nothing secondary like low regen.


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One of the problems CoH has always had is that there simply aren't many ways to make "non-powered" characters who both look like it *and* have diverse and interesting skills.

I've run against that myself, and I kind of lean toward rolling with it, even if the powers don't make complete sense, it's just part of the CoH environment. Better that than having everybody armed with a plausible but dull AR/Regen build or the like.

Looks like my old arc threads got deleted?

Anyway, you might enjoy:
Arc Name: Females for Hire
Arc ID: 110723
Faction: Females for Hire, Knives of Artemis
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Soloable?: Yes
Length: 3 Missions
Difficulty Level: Moderate - no Elite Bosses or AVs
Synopsis:
What you see is what you get... with Females for Hire!

Meet Paragon City's fastest-growing all-girl, all-stereotype mercenary group. Studies have shown that over 95% of all mercenary hiring managers are men... so Females for Hire consciously plays to male stereotypes of "action girl" operatives, while maintaining top-notch professionalism.

You're playing with fire... with Females for Hire! From Independent International Pictures. Rated PG.

Fun new custom group, a bit of mystery, a bit of humor, a bit of romance. Very loosely inspired by this wonderfully cheesy radio ad for a '70s B-Movie.

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The Steel you Lack: I'd capitalize "You" in his name. Also consider adding some dialogue to the encounter. Maybe give the Outcasts a line. I realize that the ally himself is supposed to be silent, but it may help to drive the point home by having him say "...", rather than leave the player to think maybe you just didn't bother giving him any lines.


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Oh yeah, this is something I meant to mention in my own review, though for a slightly different reason. If he gets lost or stuck (which seems to happen relatively often in the Abandoned Hospital map in particular), he can't give the usual "Hey, come back and get me" line, so you might not notice his absence for a while.

While we're talking pipe dreams, I'd love to be able to insert clips from my The Movies productions, like a bit from about 8:20 in this movie to illustrate a plot point in the arc version of Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War....

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i hate to counsel this but... you would be amazed at how much space one custom toon takes up. maybe 5-6%? i had the same problem in one mission arc, but rearranged my toons a bit and took one out, that freed up 7%, which is a significant amount of space. it is worth considering.


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Unfortunately, I've already gone through several rounds of this, and think I've cut down about as far as I can without hurting the story and/or flavor more. I already had to cut the Red Army down to a single type of minion Soldier, replace custom Ilsa Kopf with a not-entirely-right pre-generated civilian, had to lose the Gorilla Shaman and Alpha Gorilla boss....

I could cut the Blackhorse bosses, but that'd mean losing a lot of the flavor of an all-girl Blackhawk-esque group. Likewise, I could cut the Blackhorse Mechanic, but I'm reluctant to do so, as I like her visual, which is distinct from the "combat" Blackhorse, and it's fun having her running around bopping people with wrenches.


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it is fine, but i like the details that people blowing through miss. it is the AE missions that have detail that i appreciate the most. it is not always necessary, but it is icing on the cake. otherwise your mission is really good.

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I love the little details too, and the story is actually packed with oddball little references that about 5 people will get.

Anyways, I'll continue to see what I can shave off here and there. Thanks for all the feedback!

I just fixed the bad map, and was able to squeeze in a little more flavor text, including interaction bars.

I wish I could fit more character text in. The main ones lacking anything now are the Blackhorse Squadron regulars, though the Bosses each have individual text.

Did the Lobster Man give you much trouble? Appropriately difficult, not too hard? Did you fight him with Ashley's help?

Dang, thank you for pointing out the problem with the 2nd mission. It did indeed use the "burning forest" map.

When they did the latest patch, I noticed that the arc wouldn't load, but went in and just changed a bit of text, which made the arc "OK" again. Should've tested that.

As you have guessed, I'm pushing right up against the file size limit, so each and every addition of flavor text has to be accompanied by a deletion from somewhere else.

Off to revise... Anyway, glad you mostly liked the arc, and check out the movies it was based on, if you like!

http://www.tmunderground.com/watch/6...ersary-Special,-Part-One
http://www.tmunderground.com/watch/f...he-Gorilla-War

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i have not played a high level blaster in ages. the original ridiculous girl is a fire/fire blaster. but i brought her to 50 ages ago and then took a three year break. my AR/DEV blaster is the first blaster i have gotten that high since RG. so i do not remember what it is really like at the high levels. that might be that case though. i have been mostly testing with the mid 30s group of toons that i have. when i took SS with my blaster i accidently aggroed her while i was laying the first trip mine. i did not even get one of those off. it may just be the build too. who knows... but i would grealy appreciate it if you played all the way through and came back and told me how it went.

it is funny though with the high level toons... i get grief from high level scrappers on the last boss often. that he is too hard, but it is predominately the high level scrappers that say this. i think people just get so used to playing a certain way that when the boss exploits their particular weakness they are very surprised. this is why i really like the MA system. we can get creative with the custom groups and if you fail to keep on your toes for new combination of powers, you are going to be hit hard. i was also thinking that it is never a good idea to get in a long distance shooting match with a EB level blaster...
RG

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I just played it again on Heroic, and was glad I did - this is a really great arc, one of the most creative I've seen!

As far as difficulty, the downgraded Secret Shame wasn't much trouble, though the geography of that final room can be a little tricky. Tough to get a sniping angle to draw her out of it, but that ended up being largely unnecessary. The allies ended up Wound up using the trip mines on the Red Cap bastards while my allies mostly kept SS pinned down in the room.

The still-an-EB at the end wasn't much trouble either, for whatever reason. I did have to rapidly gobble some green Insps at one point to survive, but managed OK.

The "accidental aggro" thing reminds me of one oddity I've run across, which is that escorts like the Therapist can't find you if you're using stealth (I tended to turn it on anyway in the final battles and to heck with whether he could see me or not! )

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Well, I just tried Hero Therapy with my 47th level Archery/Devices Blaster, and it's one of several that I've found troublesome to review... because I REALLY liked it, up to the point I go up against an undefeatable enemy.

Despite several tries, I simply couldn't get past the Secret Shame and her 578 point Fireballs. Allies are a good thing in this regard, but the problem is, once they get killed off, they can't come back. Not to mention that she has those little Red Cap bastards with her, too! (Also, I never found the Librarian in that one, not that it would've made much difference.)

But I love the overall concept and the execution, and how "dreamlike" the settings are.

The Little Nightmares... those things are NASTY, but appropriately so in this case. I'm not actually sure what they *are* (ambushes? patrols?), and they come out of nowhere, apparently, which is quite appropriate. Unless I was prepared for them, they'd kick my butt.

Anyways, here's mine:


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hey suedenim, what challenge level were you playing? SS is a tough one, i even toned her down to /fire armor standard awhile ago. with that mission you only have 2 allies, vanity and the SYL. were you looking for a third? if you were looking for the second and could not find her, that would be odd since it is a small map and i have not encountered that problem yet. but, yeah, once you lose the allies it is a pain. if you were playing anything other than heroic or rugged, it would have been nightmarish for the solo, semi squishy, player. i did tenacious with my lvl 50 tank, which was tough but not impossible. i have tested it at most levels and archetypes, though i do need to run it with one of my squishier controllers. if you were playing it at a high setting i would encourage you to try again on heroic. then you can smell the roses. but your feedback is appreciated, i am glad you gave it a try. i will put your arc on my list. though it may take me until late next week to get to it, since i am off to london for a few days.

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I was playing on Rugged, and I did have both available allies. (I was thinking perhaps the Librarian was around somewhere too, since she was in the previous mission.) I laid down a field of Trip Mines and Caltrops for her the first time, and got her down below 25%, but it took all my Inspirations to get there, and I couldn't finish her off.

As I think about it, I'm wondering if perhaps my character just sucks. Ashley's my first high-level Blaster, but I remember some conventional wisdom from a couple years ago, that Blasters become the most sucktastic archetype in the mid-to-late 40s. Like all the other archetypes catch up and surpass them in damage-dealing, but they can all take a punch, while the Blaster still can't. And come to think about it, I've been having a lot more trouble soloing Elite Bosses on regular missions too.

So it might be more that the game hates high-level Blasters than any problem with your arc as such.

I'll definitely give it a try on Heroic, or maybe with a different character, though.

While we're talking ambushes, it'd be nice if you could make defeating a particular ambush a victory condition.

You know the scenario... you defeat the boss, then click on the final glowie, and hear ambushers saying "No, don't let her escape with the MacGuffin! Kill her, now!" And you just sit there and click on the "Mission Completed" Exit button, neatly avoiding the ambush.

I suspect that's a difficult if not impossible thing to change, though, as it happens a lot in Dev missions too.

Well, I just tried Hero Therapy with my 47th level Archery/Devices Blaster, and it's one of several that I've found troublesome to review... because I REALLY liked it, up to the point I go up against an undefeatable enemy.

Despite several tries, I simply couldn't get past the Secret Shame and her 578 point Fireballs. Allies are a good thing in this regard, but the problem is, once they get killed off, they can't come back. Not to mention that she has those little Red Cap bastards with her, too! (Also, I never found the Librarian in that one, not that it would've made much difference.)

But I love the overall concept and the execution, and how "dreamlike" the settings are.

The Little Nightmares... those things are NASTY, but appropriately so in this case. I'm not actually sure what they *are* (ambushes? patrols?), and they come out of nowhere, apparently, which is quite appropriate. Unless I was prepared for them, they'd kick my butt.

Anyways, here's mine:

Arc Name: Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Arc ID: 130809
Faction: Uzbek Lowland Gorillas, Abwehr Section 2, the Blackhorse Squadron, and the Red Army! Plus a mystery villain!
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Level Range: Intended for any
Suitable for Heroes and/or Villain types who still don't like National Socialists.
Soloable?: Should be. There's an EB in the final mission.
Length: 4 missions, none especially long.
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate. If you're clever, you can get various warring factions to fight each other and make your job easier. Last mission intended to be challenging, but not ludicrously so.
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the classic 1938 film Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War (see also: Ashley Porter Diamond Anniversary Special.)

Ashley Porter, the famed Western heroine, has stabled her trusty black mare, Shadow, for the duration of the war, as she leads an all-girl aviation commando team, the Blackhorse Squadron. And "Lady Blackhorse" needs your help, because the Uzbek Lowland Gorillas are revolting!

(No, no, not like the fellas in the Spanish Civil War. The big primates.)

All-out military action in the classic Ashley Porter style, featuring the Blackhorse Squadron, the sinister Germans of Abwehr Section 2, the Red Army, and Uzbek Gorilla Partisans!

I just played Axis and Allies with my little-used (but highest-ranking Villain) 10th lvl SS/Inv Brute, Miss Amerikommando. As the Praetorian counterpart to that goody-goody 50th level Inv/SS Tanker Miss Americommando, she enjoyed the premise....

Anyways, I liked it, but I don't think the arc scales down very well for a low-level solo Brute (or, possibly, my character sucks at this level or I just suck playing her.) The Mastermind powersets are particularly overpowering for low-level opponents, I think. The various knockdown/back effects were hard to deal with too.

I made it through the first 3 missions OK (two defeats along the way), but was totally clobbered by the Heroine in the 4th mission. She basically chain-stunned me into oblivion, and even if she hadn't, I wasn't really laying a finger on her.

I don't know if this is really a *problem* per se, as I think an awful lot of custom groups don't scale down well, but perhaps it should be labeled "difficult at low levels" or somesuch.

I liked the look and feel of the arc, though. Any time you can punch out Mr. Hilter, that's a good thing. Nice uniform choices and some clever power additions (I was amused to fight "General Winter" so to speak.)

Potential quibble: Going by the alt-history premise, it would be unlikely that there would be a Battle of Stalingrad like the real-life one. Certainly there would be a decisive battle of some sort, though. I might either change things around a little or have the mission text "hang a lampshade" on it - something like "How strange that even with all the changes in history, there would still be a decisive battle at Stalingrad!"

The Stalingrad map is a bit on the large side, a bit annoying.

For the "big battle" missions, I'd recommend adding a liberal number of Patrols to both sides. I've found that this greatly adds to the "chaotic battle going on" feel of things, and adds some tactical spice (getting surprised by hostiles, leading enemies toward friendly patrols, etc.)

I played around with a lot of similar stuff in my 1941-set arc here:

Arc Name: Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Arc ID: 130809
Faction: Uzbek Lowland Gorillas, Abwehr Section 2, the Blackhorse Squadron, and the Red Army! Plus a mystery villain!
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Level Range: Intended for any
Suitable for Heroes and/or Villain types who still don't like National Socialists.
Soloable?: Should be. There's an EB in the final mission.
Length: 4 missions, none especially long.
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate. If you're clever, you can get various warring factions to fight each other and make your job easier. Last mission intended to be challenging, but not ludicrously so.
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the classic 1938 film Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War (see also: Ashley Porter Diamond Anniversary Special.)

Ashley Porter, the famed Western heroine, has stabled her trusty black mare, Shadow, for the duration of the war, as she leads an all-girl aviation commando team, the Blackhorse Squadron. And "Lady Blackhorse" needs your help, because the Uzbek Lowland Gorillas are revolting!

(No, no, not like the fellas in the Spanish Civil War. The big primates.)

All-out military action in the classic Ashley Porter style, featuring the Blackhorse Squadron, the sinister Germans of Abwehr Section 2, the Red Army, and Uzbek Gorilla Partisans!

Arc offered to which character?: Ana Cruz
Arc Name: Females for Hire
Arc ID: 110723
Faction: Females for Hire, Knives of Artemis
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Soloable?: Yes
Length: 3 Missions
Difficulty Level: Moderate - no Elite Bosses or AVs
Synopsis:
What you see is what you get... with Females for Hire!

Meet Paragon City's fastest-growing all-girl, all-stereotype mercenary group. Studies have shown that over 95% of all mercenary hiring managers are men... so Females for Hire consciously plays to male stereotypes of "action girl" operatives, while maintaining top-notch professionalism.

You're playing with fire... with Females for Hire! From Independent International Pictures. Rated PG.

Fun new custom group, a bit of mystery, a bit of humor, a bit of romance. Very loosely inspired by this wonderfully cheesy radio ad for a '70s B-Movie.

This is a neat idea!

Arc offered to which character?: Edwin Schmidt
Arc Name: Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War
Arc ID: 130809
Faction: Uzbek Lowland Gorillas, Abwehr Section 2, the Blackhorse Squadron, and the Red Army! Plus a mystery villain!
Creator Global/Forum Name: suedenim
Level Range: Intended for any
Soloable?: Should be. There's an EB in the final mission.
Length: 4 missions, none especially long.
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate. If you're clever, you can get various warring factions to fight each other and make your job easier. Last mission intended to be challenging, but not ludicrously so.
Synopsis:
An adaptation of the classic 1938 film Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War (see also: Ashley Porter Diamond Anniversary Special.)

Ashley Porter, the famed Western heroine, has stabled her trusty black mare, Shadow, for the duration of the war, as she leads an all-girl aviation commando team, the Blackhorse Squadron. And "Lady Blackhorse" needs your help, because the Uzbek Lowland Gorillas are revolting!

(No, no, not like the fellas in the Spanish Civil War. The big primates.)

All-out military action in the classic Ashley Porter style, featuring the Blackhorse Squadron, the sinister Germans of Abwehr Section 2, the Red Army, and Uzbek Gorilla Partisans!