The first supervillain team I ever created for the original V&V system included one villain with flame powers and another with ice powers.

Years later, it was fun seeing that someone else had picked up the same idea in this module.

I gave it the top score.

It all in all is a great resource mod for building on FORCE.
It continues the legacy of FORCE like no other mod in all the V&V stable does or has.
This is not just a PART 2 of the original mod... it is the continued growth of a villain (and a damn good one at that!).

I will admit... I cringed at the title.
Assassin... meant someone was either going to die or it would have to be thwarted (not that killing was beyond the leader of FORCE).

When I read the initial intro to the mod. I was like... DO THEY HAVE TO PUT A SCI-FI convention next to a Political speaker session. Just didn't seem likely. So I made the other room full of a Woman's auxiliary club for beautifying the city.
So it was all pretty much everyone in formal clothing (thank God for Dreamweaver's abilities).

The only problem with the Senator Bennet scenario is he just kind of pops into their lives. So I decided to pop in another political individual... namely Congressman Phillip Maxwell (fortunately I had just purchased the Mod with him in it 2013... look it up). He was there at the fundraiser as well.
As this was the start of the Crusaders heavier involvement with the Government (and they had proven themselves during the Destroyer/Dr A and original FORCE mods).

Enter the Assassin (I used the infiltrated the dignitaries and was seated amongst them scenario - master of disguise option). Great looking character by the way.
His shots rang out, senator went down and all hell broke loose.
Making matters worse the Assassin was disguised as one of the dignitaries, but the PC cosmic guy Thunderstar spotted him and pointed him out to the team. Dreamweaver dropped her illusion and WHAM! six plus costumed heroes were in the midst of the already panicked crowd. (moves were reduced down to 1/10th)... it was utter chaos.
Well this didn't stop Thunderstar as he launched himself into the air and bee lined at Assassin. Who grabbed a civilian and put the gun to her head, then promptly threw a (successful) Flash grenade in Thunderstar's face and ran.
At this point Dreamweaver telekinetically yanked him into the air. So he threw Smoke Grenades at her... adding to the already ensuing chaos of the surroundings.
Gunfire rang out as secret service agents fired on Assassin, which were blocked by Enforcer (Dead men don't talk).
Manta Man soared into the air and lit Assassin up with some tech-backed electricity (which shredded his disguise clothing revealing his Assassin outfit underneath)
Assassin fired on Dreamweaver for a special attack to her right arm and she was forced to let him go (save vs Int on % to maintain concentration). He dropped into the crowd, grenades Manta Man and ran for it.
Unfortunately for Enforcer... they had similar looks and Enforcer was shot at by the secret service and police, who thought he was the assassin. allowing Assassin to get a head start on his get away as Enforcer threw up force fields to protect himself.
In the floundering Chaos of screaming civilians. The ground based heroes (particularly Speed Demon and Titan) were locked in the crowd and forced to move at 1/10th their normal speed (both of whom had turned to see if the Senator was alive - discovering his true nature)
Assassin ran towards the rear exit and almost made it... except Laserfire hit him with a flash of his own (failing), Assassin slipped on an icy ground (Blizzard) and he was taken out by Evergreen and Wraith (PC). Then secured by Blizzard. (Assassin was questioned and jailed… though his successful attack did have his payment transferred to a secret account… just a tid-bit)

It was a kick butt start… plus the four hour compounded accusations of the heroes being a part of the assassination attempt highly annoyed the Brick and the Speedster. Which of course was cleared up.
But so far as everyone knew… Senator Bennet was dead.

Boy… this game sure loves Robots and Androids!
Because of the Mod. “ISLAND OF DOCTOR APOCALYPSE“… the heroes initially thought this was one of his S.L.A.M.s (Simulated Life Android Model).
Almost going nearly so far as to have the cosmic hero Thunderstar, along with Titan and Wraith (all PCs) fly to Nacht Island. Fortunately Mr. Scarlet let them in on the fact that the Androids of Apocalypse were of a wholly different design than the Bennet one. (Not that the players were altogether convinced)


I felt like the ASA/Mr. Scarlet thing was kind of forced down the Players throat… I know a couple of them were not very happy with the undertone threats of Mr. Scarlet.

ASSASSIN: COOL ASPECT - scads of travel… the Crusaders really get to use their vehicles in this one!

ENTER: SYN-TECH! (I have a gorgeous remapping of this place somewhere in my stuff).
This part was fun… it was set up to be a hero vs. hero thing. My only problem was that with the Government backing them… the Crusaders under a federal warrant could search the premises with no problems, They met the super powered security team (Psistorm “LOVE HER!!” Ward, Antaeus and Avalanche) and things seemed to being going well… but there was one… Evergreen.
One thing you should know about my world’s Evergreen is… she is a lot like Starfire from the New Teen Titans. Emotionally impulsive and as much as she loved her tranquil moments… she also loved a good fight. (UNRELATED SIDE NOTE: in my world… since Evergreen was basically a humanoid-mobile plant… she was a complete carnivore, well and she got her nutrients from the sun and soil - mud baths for her took on a whole other meaning! LOL).
In a minor blurb about the trees outside the Syn-Tech parameter grounds, it is said how Syn Tech had basically created the trees, increasing growth at the expense of wood strength. This pissed off Evergreen (who due to her abilities needed neither a degree in botany or biology - her powers sufficed) who started yelling at  Psistorm for this. Trying to separate the two woman, Ward (The Syn-Tech guard) slid a force field between the two. Evergreen saw this as an attack and forced plant growths (I’ll post this sometime) to burst out of the ground underneath and tangle her up… it was on. Antaeus grabbed Evergreen, Titan Punched Antaeus, Avalanche tried to make earthen walls to separate everyone and stop the fight. Speed Demon beat him up. Blizzard, Laserfire, along with Wraith also jumped in… but it was all stopped by Enforcer and Ward by directions of Manta-Man (who was forced to paralyze Antaeus).
It was kind of a funny scene. Just because I took a totally different route than suggested in the mod and personalized it.
Anyhow once this scene was cleared up and no hard feelings (well mostly) were felt. They got down to business of finding the mysterious Dr. Raymond Long.
The Syn-Tech team and employees of Syn-Tech fully cooperate with the government sanctioned Crusaders in their investigation of Dr. Long. (The mod suggests the heroes of Syn-Tech offer to help but that the GM should discourage it… screw that… Psistorm is there!! - So both Ward and Antaeus stay behind and the Crusaders already considerable numbers are boosted by Psistorm and Avalanche).

Now the fun begins… Fictional places!! I LOVE FICTIONAL PLACES!

The Cabin in the mountains scene is investigated by Enforcer, Thunderstar, Psistorm and government agent Mr. Scarlet. These four easily work the place over and find the Key North (fictional Island in the Keys of Florida… by the way… I have spent a considerable amount of time in the Keys… I know it very well - if it wasn’t for my daughter here in Michigan… I would live there).

SIDE NOTE: Mountain Man (MWv1 p13) makes a brief cameo in this story, As Thunderstar sees him enter a cave quite a ways away from Dr. Long’s cabin. Mentioning it quietly, of course to co-leader Enforcer, both make a note to come back and investigate later, as they travel on with his companions.

NORTH KEY ISLAND! Nothing spectacular happens here. Though they do hear in the news that the L.A. team of Justice Patrol is in pitched battle with some Giant Creature Serpent (Which I eventually just mapped the Star Devourer onto) in San Francisco, with resident area heroes Skyhawk and Unicorn.

The heroes eventually track Force to his hideout in the Fictional country of Chinilaya and Delmarion Cove… All of which are great (some of my favorite maps come from the FORCE mods). Distrupt his finely laid plans (If not for the Assassin’s actions - shooting android Bennet - one wonders how this might have gone for Force).
There are plane and helicopter fights (Gave the flyers some aerial fun) and the virtually doubled amount of goons.
And of course the main base and the villains -
Force: he is such a great foe. This mod is not only about him and his organization… it is about how his fingers seem to be everywhere. Force gets two pages in this Mod describing his activities both now and former and the state of affairs (not including the end blurbs).
Frankly one could actually lose Intercrime, Replace it with FORCE and you have essentially the same thing (only better defined - though you could use some of the design elements of Intercrime - course I didn‘t… I used everything!).
Deflector - good character. Became a hero. Not super fond of his costume. But he has a great back-story. Nice powers too!
Pyre-Hailstorm… come on… who doesn’t love twin. These two are pretty wicked. Sinister back-story on these two.
Photon - Great character again. Not totally cool with her back-story… “Government school” thing. But I kept it and eventually made a connection to my world’s Serena (Who is vastly different from the one from GICon). I played her a lot like Moonstone - overly confident and certainly evil. I also gave her a background in computers.
Oscillator - my least favorite costume in V&V. Cool powers though. GREAT back-story.
Continued next Post

I've run pretty much all of the V&V modules at least twice (with two different groups for two different campaigns) and some of them I've run three times.  Assassin is one I've done twice, and the first time I did it was for our high school group (so probably soon after it came out (in 1985).

For our current campaign, I took our original superhero team (Justice Force) through the first part (FORCE) in 1991, then ran the sequel (Assassin) for the second team (the Guardians) in 1993 (both were part of the same campaign).

Since I do "issue summaries" (many of you have seen them over at Critical Fumble or on the old forums), I'll post the wrap-ups of this adventure, including some foreshadowing of this from earlier issues:

One little bit in issue #9 told:
Senator Matthew Bennet receives a death threat from the American Freedom Force (A.F.F.).

and issue #10 closed with:
The A.F.F. hire a freelance hitman known as the Assassin to kill Senator Bennet.

#11 - Assassin - The Secret Service solicits Dr. Desist and Entropy to aid them in protecting Senator Bennet during a fund raiser at the Municipal Convention Center in New York.  Despite many precautionary measures, the heavily armed Assassin penetrates the secure area and guns down Bennet, cutting down the heroes and most of the Secret Service agents as he escapes.  Shockingly, Bennet is found to be an android of sophisticated design!

#12 - The Corporation in the Desert - The Guardians are assembled by Mr. Scarlet of the secretive American Security Agency (A.S.A.) and asked to investigate syntho-biologist Dr. Raymond Long, the possible creator of the android.  The team, made up of Dr. Desist, Entropy, Zap, Banshee, Flaming Star, and Quiasar, are joined by ally Spectre as they journey to Syn Tech in Arizona to find Dr. Long.  Confronted by the company's super-powered security team of PsiStorm, Ward, Antaeus, and Avalanche, the situation erupts into brief hostilities before misunderstandings are worked out and they find that Dr. Long resigned several months before.

#13 - Assault on Delmarion Cove - The trail of Dr. Long leads to his mountain cabin in Colorado, then to the Key North Yacht Club in Florida, where a recent photograph shows the scientist on the San Marqual, a yacht registered to President Carlos Calvione, leader of the Republic of Chinilaya.  The team, accompanied by Spectre and Freeze, learns of the nation's history, examines satellite scans, and then ventures to Central America.  Miles from their destination of Delmarion Cove, the adventurers are attacked by fighter planes and bail from their craft.  Scattered and wounded, the heroes struggle to survive against the bullets and missiles of the jets as they make their way towards the beach.  Once on land, they assail the main house and are engaged by the Chinilayan military, which has them hopelessly outnumbered.

#14 - Behind it All… - Quiasar demolishes the enemy with explosives, and the invaders figure out that they have come up against Force when they discover an underground complex and a familiar tram system.  Making their way past many guards, the superheroes combat Force's henchmen while he launches his Seakiller submarine, armed with a cruise missile bound for Dallas.  Most of the team stays behind to secure Deflector, Pyre, Hailstorm, and Clamor, search the base, and recover Dr. Long, who had been involved with Force in the creation of biosynthetic androids.  Zap and Spectre pursue the submarine, and Zap is swiftly killed by Photon.  Spectre lives long enough to detonate the fusion reactor, and dies heroically in the explosion.  Oscillator and Photon escape, and Force is apparently killed.  The villain appears to the victors on video monitors to promise revenge.  Epilogue: Force speaks menacingly to an aide about Project Ultimatum.

The hero Spectre (played by my brother-in-law) was one of the early members of Justice Force, and he met his demise in issue #14 (as an ally of the Guardians).

I love those drawings,  his art there reminds me of  Hilary Barta, Peter Bagge, or Kyle Baker.  Very different from his Assassin stuff.

This module upset my players more than any other, and it was because of the military nature of the mission (the invasion of Chinilaya).

As the PCs (of our long-running Guardians campaign) made their way to the island nation in their craft/vehicle, they were "gunned down" (blasted) out of the sky by missiles, and it got ugly from there.  They barely reached the coast (taking gunfire from soldiers on land, IIRC) and were quite frustrated at C.H.E.S.S. for sending them on an assignment better assigned to the armed forces (or so they thought).

It ended up being the reason they broke away from C.H.E.S.S. in our campaign.

The Cougar wrote on Dec 6^th, 2009 at 11:01am:


Yeah, if only we could get in touch with him and find out what he's up to now. 

Rick wrote on Dec 6^th, 2009 at 11:04pm:


And the suspense builds as to the actual identities of our board members. 

Someone filled me in on the Jarka Secret I.D. that was mentioned earlier. Not sure what all the "lips sealed" suspense was all about. It wasn't that illuminating.

Very cool, wish I had an ounce of artistic talent.

dsumner wrote on Dec 7^th, 2009 at 10:09pm:

You didn't do anything to offend me. But if I had a friend who didn't want his real identity announced on the forum, I wouldn't even imply that I might know who he really is. I just wouldn't bring it up. That's what I would do.

Majestic wrote on Dec 10^th, 2009 at 1:29pm:


Thanks for naming the characters on this mock up. FORCE had the best cover of any book in the game.

ASSASSIN, unfortunately, had what was probably the weakest cover. As others pointed out, though, the inside art in that book was fine.

In my game world, the Syn Tech "heroes" were just as bad as the villains, just with their own devious agenda.

Majestic wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 3:15pm:


Well the Syn-Tech guys don't really have an agenda, other than protecting their employer's property form intruders.

Not a big fan of the militaristic themes in this one.

I love Panosian's art too. Which V&V adventures did he work on?

Troy wrote on Feb 25^th, 2010 at 7:03pm:


Thanks Troy!
Great Iridium Con! He did a really nice job.

The only thing that made me do a doubletake with the Assassin art was the picture of the woman making the Scarlet Witch / Gene Simmons "love" signs while using her powers, with that funky vampire mullet cut. She still gives me the heebee geebees.

I bought the module to be a completist, but we're not using this one in my campaign. I have to concur with others that the art was a turnoff. Some of the powers described inside make for good reading, though.