Meanwhile, in Gotham

The Christmas-themed Batman Miniatures game finally got played over the weekend. It's been a long time coming, and certainly lived up to our expectations. Wayne set up the scenario which featured a trio of villains, Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold and Killer Frost and a handful of their cronies kidnapping the mayor's wife and holding her hostage in the square. Green Arrow and Nightwing along with Arsenal and Black Canary all arrived at the scene to rescue old girl and teach these Grinches something about the Christmas Spirit!

I took control of Arrow and Nightwing, Ziggy led Canary and Arsenal and Wayne commanded all of the bad guys.

Our blurry battlefield. Green Arrow and Nightwing started in the blue and white car in the lower left. Arsenal deployed near them while Canary was able to infiltrate back towards the fire station, in position to activate the Bat-Signal. The mayor's wife was in the center next to Santa.

Arsenal sets upon a thug near the dumpster. Arrow parks the car in a blocking position to keep the rest of the bad guys from getting clear lines of sight to our first fight location. Captain Cold watches from the roof top. Wayne was a bit put off by our plan of overwhelming one side of the battlefield. Much of his force would have a very long walk to join the fight.

Nightwing uses his Batclaw to zip up to the top of the building to duke it out with the Captain.

It was a harrowing fight for sure! The first step is a doozy.

Captain Cold gets away for a moment but Nightwing's persistence pays off. Captain Cold plummets to the cold pavement below. Oof!

Black Canary quickly scales the hook and ladder to try to activate the Bat Signal. She must disable Mr. Freeze's goon first though!

Speaking of Freeze, he's joined the brawl by the dumpster. The first thug we encountered was a real John McClane though and kept up with Arsenal and Arrow like you wouldn't believe. Arsenal took one hell of a beating in the process and hung on by a toenail. Oliver Queen discovered that Mr. F was a tough nut to crack and perhaps better left alone.

Canary's scream paralyzes the crook atop the firehouse. She takes the opportunity to activate the Bat Signal. Help is on the way!

It should be stated that at this point of the game, Zig and I were getting absolutely wrecked. Other than Captain Cold, we couldn't get anything going and Wayne was just eating our lunch. Wayne was gracious enough to allow both Batman and Batwoman as reserves via the Bat Signal.

We showed our appreciation by having Batwoman slam the Batmobile into a thug, taking him down. Wayne was not amused.

Arrow and Arsenal continued to struggle with Freeze and Friends.

Captain Cold somehow managed to shake off the 30 foot drop, but no sooner had he stood up, Batwoman was kicking him in the chin!

Arsenal ran over to the Batmobile to heal, being down to a single health point. Nightwing thumped another thug, this time in the snow.

It takes Bruce and Kate to knock out the 9-turn thug! Good Lord that guy was full of piss and vinegar!

As time expired, Arsenal ran over to the mayor's wife and uncuffed her from Santa's sled. Mr. Freeze shook his fist at Nightwing while the others scanned the streets for more targets. There were none to be found and the episode wrapped up.

Now that's a proper game of Batman! Loads of action, loads of memorable moments and excellent characters. The nameless thug who went toe-to-toe with Arsenal and Green Arrow was incredible. His associate dubbed "The Shoveler" was a wrecking machine. Poor Captain Cold and Killer Frost got a raw deal between gravity doing its thing and KF getting the fists of fury from Nightwing and friends. Killer Frost's long run and short fight meant she didn't even make the write up!Really though, Nightwing was out man of the match - he was an absolute wrecking machine that just ran through the opposition. We'd have done well to just send him right into the center, king of the mountain style. He could have handled it.

Great game Wayne. Looking forward to the next of course!