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What are Eurostar's strategy, logistics, operations, and tactics?


AlgaeNymph

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37 minutes ago, Terminax said:

I told you exactly what material I gave them - the 4E Classic Enemies entry on Eurostar and 6E Villains Volume 2: Villain Teams entry on Eurostar. I let them go over the canon presentations as written and simplify solicited ideas of how they could be used with actual European viewpoint. Nothing more, nothing less. I've simply relayed their remarks back. And, just in case it isn't obvious my interaction was with each of them individually and there was no group discussion between us. In your first reply you've flat out said they must be defensive and/or don't understand things because they don't have a superhero tradition. I called you out on that already. So let's not keep attacking people you don't know, much less interact with. Stick to discussing the topic.

 

 

I thank you for clarifying the circumstances under which you presented this information. The way in which you addressed some subjects in your post, such as your Esperanto remarks which aren't officially stated for 4E or 5/6E Eurostar, led me to erroneously conclude you described Eurostar to your friends from your perspective. I also apologize that my attempt to contextualize their perceptions of the team by raising other possibilities came across as attacking them personally. I should have been more careful in my wording, and I'll try to think that through more carefully in future.

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I'm not familiar enough with Major Disaster (DC character?), to combine him with (Marvels) Helmut Zemo to get Fiacho. I think the earlier mention that he was a bit of a Utopist is pretty bang on. He got angry at the disunity of the European parliament and cracked, leading to his change of tact. Zemo is a Nazi (well the comic version, the cinematic version is... something else), and I don't get that vibe from Fiacho. But beyond that we haven't had much detail about him which led to all this discussion.

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Just now, Ninja-Bear said:

Those stereotypes of Eurostar are a stretch.  Especially the  one about Pantera.

...we don't know what that was, actually, it could be a pretty blatant pun, false cognate, or idiom or something....

 

...wait, wasn't 'Pantera' a band?

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7 minutes ago, Opal said:

...we don't know what that was, actually, it could be a pretty blatant pun, false cognate, or idiom or something....

 

...wait, wasn't 'Pantera' a band?

 

Yes it was. It means Panther in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.

 

So as I said before, the sexual slang version of it I thought it was a stretch but I'll take her word for it that it's true. I have zero reason to distrust her commentary or think she's making a crack.

 

And I'm surprised so many of you can't accept that other people can have different opinions than yours, trying to dismiss them in so many ways. I hardly think these people were just waiting to be offended. None of them expected me to hit them up for their thoughts. They just read the material I handed them which was verbatim from the books and by and large all viewed them as shallow stereotypes or bad jokes. I can see their POV, even if I don't wholly agree with them. I'm not shitting on anybody for having views here that differ with mine, it's supposed to be just conversation.

 

Be glad I didn't show them 4E European Enemies. Even if Eurostar gets a pass for whatever reason from you guys, 4E European Enemies is just chock full of ethnic/national stereotypes and I sat on sharing bits of that book with them after I got such a negative view about Eurostar.

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41 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Those stereotypes of Eurostar are a stretch.  Especially the  one about Pantera.

 

If I've learned anything, its that you need to trust people about when something is or is not a stereotype of an ethnic group that includes them.  They deal with it more and they have stronger opinions.  Telling someone who deals with it when you don't that it isn't that bad doesn't land well.  If actual Europeans think Eurostar is a bunch of shallow stereotypes we should maybe believe them.  Just because they aren't as bad as the guys from European Enemies doesn't mean they are good.

 

When you watch stuff made in other countries and the guy from the USA  has a cowboy hat, a gun & a Confederate Flag belt buckle I personally don't take offense (I actually know those people), but it *is* a stereotype (The Guy from the USA is never from South Dakota and dresses in sweater vests).  I'm willing to bet the people who choose to write their shows that way never really think about what that says about how they think of my countrymen.

I've said a few times that I feel like Eurostar as written makes a lot less sense in 2021 than it did in 1984.  While the European Union isn't a paradise it is a long way from the cold-war divided Europe with a post-franco Spain and the Irish troubles going full-bore.  (also, while I am an American and likely don't understand everything going on, didn't the active IRA violence mostly end in the late 90s?  If so, Scorpia is at least pushing 40 and is likely older.)

Fiacho's "united Europe" motivation is pretty interesting, but it needs to evolve a bit if it is going to make sense in the 2020s.

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31 minutes ago, Opal said:

...we don't know what that was, actually, it could be a pretty blatant pun, false cognate, or idiom or something....

 

...wait, wasn't 'Pantera' a band?

Yep. A heavy metal band.

 

I got the POD version of Champions CV1. I'm hopeful that in about a half year CVV2 will be available.  I have the pdf, but nothing beats have a dead tree pulp between your fingers 

It should be noted that Eurostar was made by Americans who only have vague ideas of what is cool and what is not over in Europe. I would love to see what would be a native European's take on improving the group into something better.

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8 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

 

If I've learned anything, its that you need to trust people about when something is or is not a stereotype of an ethnic group that includes them.  They deal with it more and they have stronger opinions.  Telling someone who deals with it when you don't that it isn't that bad doesn't land well.  If actual Europeans think Eurostar is a bunch of shallow stereotypes we should maybe believe them.  Just because they aren't as bad as the guys from European Enemies doesn't mean they are good.

 

When you watch stuff made in other countries and the guy from the USA  has a cowboy hat, a gun & a Confederate Flag belt buckle I personally don't take offense (I actually know those people), but it *is* a stereotype (The Guy from the USA is never from South Dakota and dresses in sweater vests).  I'm willing to bet the people who choose to write their shows that way never really think about what that says about how they think of my countrymen.

I've said a few times that I feel like Eurostar as written makes a lot less sense in 2021 than it did in 1984.  While the European Union isn't a paradise it is a long way from the cold-war divided Europe with a post-franco Spain and the Irish troubles going full-bore.  (also, while I am an American and likely don't understand everything going on, didn't the active IRA violence mostly end in the late 90s?  If so, Scorpia is at least pushing 40 and is likely older.)

Fiacho's "united Europe" motivation is pretty interesting, but it needs to evolve a bit if it is going to make sense in the 2020s.

And I’ve learn that before you jump to conclusions stop and listen. Just because something is culturally not cool here doesn’t mean it has the same weight there. I remember watching a show and Brits pointed out that the c-word isn’t a big deal in England. However say that in America and oh boy!

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10 hours ago, Jhamin said:

Fiacho's "united Europe" motivation is pretty interesting, but it needs to evolve a bit if it is going to make sense in the 2020s.

For a half second I misread that as "Fiacho united Europe."

Y'know, you could take a sinister conspiracy twist on Eurostar and have them either long since officially disbanded or reformed, but, in secret, Fiacho was the power behind the scenes that got the EU together, and now rules from the shadows, and Eurostar will come out of those shadows to put down any heroes that stumble their continent-wide conspiracy.   

 

 

10 hours ago, Jhamin said:

When you watch stuff made in other countries and the guy from the USA  has a cowboy hat, a gun & a Confederate Flag belt buckle I personally don't take offense (I actually know those people), but it *is* a stereotype

Seems like this just came up in the Australia thread, too.  Yeah, there are stereotypes of Americans, and no you might not freak out over them.  And superheroes are, seen in a good light, Archetypes -  even, perhaps especially, the better, more memorable/successful ones -  but, spun the other way, archetypes become stereotypes, that could be offensive, or just shallow.  

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Jhamin said:

the active IRA violence mostly end in the late 90s?  If so, Scorpia is at least pushing 40 and is likely older

 

So she'd be a MILK

 

Mother

Insane &

Likely to

Kill you

 

9 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yep. A heavy metal band.

Where they Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese?  No?  Texan?   Ok, whatever.   I guess when the genre exemplar is 'Blue Oyster Cult' I can't go reading too much into the names.

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I admit, I'd never heard of the stereotypes Terminax listed. Like, I'd never heard anyone suggest that someone was, "Oh, just another paranoid French person." But I'm not that up on popular attitudes in any form, so I guess I have to take his friends' word for it. They're in Europe, I'm not.

 

I assume 'Pantera' as sexual slang is loosely cognate to our 'cougar.'

 

Just going from my own knowledge base, most Eurostar characters seem like they could come from the US, or anywhere. Feuermacher? Mercenary. Apart from a Germanic name and German being his native langage, nothing in his origin story says he's from anywhere in particular. Mentalla? Upper-class old money family that secretly serves Dr. Destroyer (why?). Could just as easily be from South America, or British gentry, or Boston Brahmins, or just about anywhere with money and a class structure. Ultrasoniquye? Yet another character who became a crazed villain after being injured in an accident. (And the Brain Damage = Evil trope is a discussion we can have another time.) As for the late Bora, I admit I associate super-vain mean girls with California, not Italy. Pantera is a genetic construct raised to be a monster; it's the sort of thing one associates with Nazi biologists, but I can imagine other lunacies that could lead to such a result.

 

Durak 'works' as Soviet since he comes from a tinme and place where a group of soldiers could turn some random punk over to a military/spy agency for unspeakable experiments and no one would blink. But I wouldn't say the USSR was the onbly country where that could happen.

 

Scorpia's background options are also limited, since she grew up in a time and place with endemic terrorism.

 

Fiacho, of course, has to be European because it's Eurostar, but let's face it, "Embittered, he turned to a life of crime" is far from distinctive, either.

 

Well, now I know why I never paid much attention to Eurostar. There's just nothing here that interests me.

 

Dean Shomshak

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This goes for anyone, but Deen, what changes would you make to make Eurostar more unique?

 

I myself have an ultra national criminal group myself (Orochi, who wants to strip Japan of western influences and return the power to the Shogun, especially the Tekkage Shogun ["Metal Shadow Shogun"]), so that is not in itself unique. 

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My guess (and I hint a little at this in Champions International: Transnistria) is that they are suffering from a bit of Nostalgiya. (If I say that, does it make it cannon?)

 

Oh, and they still want to take over Europe, even in comic-book-slowed middle age. But most megalomaniacs want to take over Europe. It's just that they have superpowers.

 

 

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I find Eurostar fine mostly as is. Superheroes and supervillains in general are exaggerations of real people. I don't dislike Scorpia because she's an Irish terrorist. I hate her because she's an amoral psychopath who will kill you for even the slightest offense. Durak is despicable because he treats normals as toys to be played with and broken whenever he feels the urge. Being Russian is merely incidental and...to be blunt....not his defining trait. I think we're overthinking this a bit. Supervillains don't need to be PC. If they wanted to be shining examples of humanity and proper representatives of their nationalities, they probably wouldn't be villains. For my part, their sociopathic personalities define them way more than their countries of origins. When I think of Scorpia, I think of the "crazy wench with the claws" and not that she's former IRA.

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2 hours ago, pawsplay said:

So now I'm imagining him targeting Brexiters.

 

Probably.  That would at least make sense in 2021 for a guy who wants to rule a united Europe.

 

I feel like there is more nostalgia than actual examination going on here.  Eurostar makes sense in 1984.  They sort of make sense in 1994.  Every decade after that they get less relevant.  If we want to keep replaying our high school games with villains from the 80s thats cool, but if I introduced a bunch of High School kids to Champions today... these guys don't make any sense.
The EU has been a thing their whole lives, the IRA mostly stopped blowing things up years before they were born, It isn't about being PC its about being in any way modern.
That doesn't mean they have to go away, it just means they need their motives & backgrounds rethought a bit. 

 

In the MCU Black Widow was introduced as a SHIELD agent who used to work for a vaguely Russian/Slavic country instead of being a Communist dedicated to bringing down America (which was her original backstory).  Her powers didn't change, her look didn't change, but at no point did she talk about ending capitalism.  That version of her hadn't made sense for some time.
Exactly *which* war Tony Stark got hurt in & built his first Power Armor suit for is famously variable, but back in the day it was about defending America against the Russians.  Now it's about keeping his weapons away from the bad people who were misusing them.  If his goal was *still* to keep the Communists at bay Iron Man would make a lot less sense.

I think that Eurostar needs a similar update.  We need to keep Scorpia but drop the IRA from her background.  She should still be someone who got started as a terrorist before moving on to supervillainy, but It makes more sense that she got started with Right-Wing extremist groups fighting against immigration, assuming you don't want to recast her as someone who got started as a religious terrorist.


(I also feel like a bunch of Americans deciding what is and is not a stereotype of Europeans according to Europeans feels a bit off, but as an American I don't really know so I'll not press that)

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Without trying to drag that part of the discussion any further into the mud, let's move on from what my European friends thought. I did not intend their remarks to be so controversial, just what a bunch of Europeans all had to say on the subject.

 

I think if I continue to use Eurostar, it'll be as I've already outlined before. It's a little late in the game to toss out them out given their place in both canon and my personal campaign world. Not to spoil any possible future plans but I think going forward I'll run a dedicated campaign with Eurostar making a full press run for European conquest  with the options being successful (small or large scale), flaming out or even possibly passing of the torch to the next generation of Eurostar.

 

Out of those three NPCs I've added to the team mix, Výrobca (The Manufacturer) is my favorite closely followed by Cadavru (the Body or Corpse depending on the translation). The third, the Extemist didn't work terribly well for me but was created to be a player's Hunter, so allot of his background was mixed with the player's backstory so I think I'd have to retool him if I use him at all going forward.

 

As mentioned before Výrobca is a Dieselpunk style engineer who combines a bulky, strong and metallic machine aesthetic with rune magic/magical smithing special effect. So he's sort of a magic gadgeteer mixed heavily with magically forged golem-like robots and vehicles. Combined with the added group of agents, Výrobca gives Eurostar a military force, albeit a small one that gives them allot more flexibility in terms of them actually taking/holding ground. He's less of frontline asset for the team and functions as a lesser lieutenant of the team, but still fully capable of combat if needed. He more fell into the group out of combination of self-interest/preservation than honest belief that a unified Europe under Fiacho's rule is possible but the chance of power it offers is too much to resist so he's along for the ride for now. He controls a total of 256 (+40 pts worth) of assorted enchanted mech minions and 32 (+25 pts worth) of assorted enchanted vehicles. He is also, almost unique in Eurostar in that he maintains a proper secret ID, as a very wealthy Slovakian oligarch with ownership in heavy industry and electronic manufacturing.

 

Meanwhile Cadavru was a cold-war throwback. Created in the late 70s and active from 1981-1987, Cadavru was originally known as the People's Champion. Touted as Romania's best trained soldier combined with cutting edge science, he was on the surface a super tough and skilled martial artist and national symbol and was used to advance Romanian/International Communist propaganda. However for reasons unknown to the world, he vanished in 1987 and nobody with the knowledge of why or the program that created him survived the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The truth is very dark and didn't come out even  after Eurostar somehow found him, and incorporated him in Eurostar with a name change. Cadavru was in fact the result of Romanian scientists making both a super solider serum AND longevity serum based on what were believed a trio of vampires (but were they??? nobody knows for sure) dug up from an ancient vault who were experimented on using blood farmed from hundreds (thousands? again nobody knows) of children in state care. By 1987, Cadavru / The People's Champion was undergoing negative side effects from his treatments and was "preserved" and buried at a secret site. The scientists and bureaucrat (the hunter of Cadavru) in charge of the program saw the flames of revolution coming and vanished (perhaps to VIPER or some other organization?) with the fruits of their labor and test subjects. Eurostar *somehow* got wind of his location, dug him up and with "coaching" by both Fiacho and Mentalla has slowly adapted to the modern world. Cadavru's basically turned into some sort of undead thing who can function during the day (outside of full strength sunlight, which he is susceptible to) but his full strength comes out either underground or at nighttime. He's basically yet more muscle for the team, doing what Fiacho (and Mentalla) tell him to do and doesn't really have a life outside of the team.

 

The likelihood is a multi-tier plan where Fiacho establishes a real foothold, possibly even several and consolidates a real powerbase to act as a springboard for future conquests. I know allot of people look to Eastern or South Eastern Europe as places to start, but somehow I still feel Fiacho is a Dane, thus a Western European at heart and would very much like to have power at the core of what he'd consider Europe even if he also has his mitts in going-ons in the "hinterlands" of Eastern and South Eastern Europe. This is where I wanted but didn't get any guidance from my friends. My knowledge of Europe is pretty much limited to my cold war era education and travel guides/youtube videos or research into criminal organizations for game material. I want Fiacho to live up to his name/reputation and make a real go of it.

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Fixing Scorpia.

 

1) Give her 1 point of Life Support: Longevity. Her former employer liked to test formulas to elongate the life span, among other things. E would sometimes force his formulas on them.

 

2) Replace IRA with a more generic terror/criminal organization. Having her train VIPER agents in Ireland is kinda poetic, don't you think?

 

3) Kill off Scorpia then replace her with a younger double.

 

4) Have Mentala copy her mind and paste it on another body...a younger one. (Much like the plot to the movie Get Out.)

 

5) Did someone say clones?

 

6) Scorpia never existed. All she is is a shadow of a rumor.

 

7) I'm positive someone said clones.

 

😎 Cyborg.

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18 hours ago, steriaca said:

Fixing Scorpia.

 

1) Give her 1 point of Life Support: Longevity. Her former employer liked to test formulas to elongate the life span, among other things. E would sometimes force his formulas on them.

 

2) Replace IRA with a more generic terror/criminal organization. Having her train VIPER agents in Ireland is kinda poetic, don't you think?

 

3) Kill off Scorpia then replace her with a younger double.

 

4) Have Mentala copy her mind and paste it on another body...a younger one. (Much like the plot to the movie Get Out.)

 

5) Did someone say clones?

 

6) Scorpia never existed. All she is is a shadow of a rumor.

 

7) I'm positive someone said clones.

 

😎 Cyborg.


I think I like options 1 and 2 the best.


Option 1 gives her a feel a bit like the Black Widow in the comics, who has some kind of super-soldier serum in her veins.

 

Option 2 also has appeal, and it gives her a more flexible timeframe for her origins. Marvel does something like this with their floating ten years of history (like it’s only been 10 or so years since Captain America was defrosted, the Avengers and Fantastic Four were founded, Spider-Man got his powers, etc).

 

Options 3 and 4 could be combined. It could be part of her insanity, an existential crisis that she knows she’s not the original and gets replaced as needed. This would also give her a scarier kind of longevity. Perhaps Fiacho has some kind of financial arrangement with Teleios?

 

That actually opens up an interesting possibility. Perhaps Eurostar in the modern day is composed of clones of the originals, an experiment of some kind by Teleios.

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As far as "What would Eurostar be doing now" goes, I wonder what Fiacho thinks about Europe's resident Muslim population. Would he find the hatred of Muslims -- whether new arrivals or descended from immigrant labor -- offensive because it's so often tied to nationalism, or would he feel the same hatred because he too is at heart a nationalist -- only his 'nation' is a united Europe?

 

The latter might be easier. Fiacho's "Europe" is white, Christian, has a certain body of culture and tradition, and anyone who doesn't fit the pattern must be driven out or exterminated. Europe for Europeans!

 

But the former might be more interesting. For one thing, it makes the European Nation even more a product of Fiach's own imagination. He's just trying to bludgeon the world into the image he wants, completely without regard to anyone else. In his mind, the difference between a German whose ancestors lived in Germany for 1000 years and a German whose ancestors came from Turkey 50 years ago, or from Syria last year, is irrelevant: No more Germans, you're all Europeans now.

 

Also, one of my writing teachers suggested this exercise: Take some viewpoint you agree with, and write it into the mouth of someone you find horrible. A Fiacho who talks Enlightenment values such as religious toleration while engaging in mass murder might achieve a degree of horror suitable for a Master Villain.

 

Dean Shomshak

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This is the kind of thing that used to be good for magazine articles: a series on each major Champions villain group telling their basic goals, tactics, strategies, resources, along with a handful of adventure ideas and ways to use them in your campaign.


Back when The Dragon was around you'd get that for monsters, for example in D&D/

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This is wagging the tail part again. Part of the whole problem is Fiacho is a bit of a blank canvas beyond his ken for European unity under his benevolent (haha...right) vision. We know what he wants. We've seen how he tries to get it but we really don't see the thinking that fills in his thought process like we have with Doctor Destroyer, Mechanon and many of the other Master Villains. In some sense, that is okay since it gives us plenty of room to choose for ourselves how to to draw the lines from A to B to C to D etc etc

 

Whereas Dean's put out the idea Fiacho might be White/Christian in view, I'd definitely eschew the Christian aspect and go with an athiest technocratic outlook. He's a politician, who's outlook has gone 180 degrees from his idealist/utopist youth of a Europe united, where cultures can grow side by side, everyone needs are taken care of and can advance the arts, sciences, technology and importantly themselves transforming Europe into the world's exemplar super-nation. Sadly he's cracked, and he's about driving Europe together for his need for power, and as a politician he's collected the tools to do just that. He's obviously a hands on type, but not necessarily a micro-manager. But those are my strokes added in, rather than what they might actually be.

 

Given Fiacho's actions, he's already worse than every single other terrorist/thug since World War II - I'm sure he'd be pretty hypocritical and view Muslims poorly in a secular, technocrat way that facists hide behind. He'd couch them as non-compatible with European morals and views, that they don't add anything of weight to European culture and in fact actively hinder Europe by not dealing with their own problems, and attempting to take over Europe with all the usual racist garbage views. I think similarly, he'd view the British negatively for Brexit and he should be smart enough to back Scottish independence/desire to return to the EU if only to divide attentions of his enemies. The UK team(s) have always been the major opposition to Eurostar so anything that hurts them is good for Eurostar. In fact, while I bet he rails at Brexit and wants to punish the UK for betraying the dream of an united Europe, I'm pretty sure he also recognizes that having them on the outside only makes him stronger on the continent.

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A couple of thoughts regarding Fiacho. One, in his 4E incarnation, Danar Nicole's change in mindset came not just from disillusionment with European politics, but from political rivals actually fabricating a scandal to destroy his reputation. (Individual GMs can decide whether they acted at the direction of some controlling agency.)  Their actions could have included altering Nicole's perceptions and behavior through drugs or psionics to cause him to say and do incriminating things; and that alteration may have had permanent effects on his mind.

 

Two, Fiacho's name, "very bad," in conjunction with the radical alterations his 5E version made to his body, strike me as potentially significant. He could have developed a psychotic perception of Europe as a chaotic, self-destructive monstrosity, and because he was once a believer in it he too is a monster. So he changed himself to reflect that distorted perception, one he doesn't consciously recognize in himself. While Fiacho professes to have the goal of uniting Europe, and believes that to be true, he's actually acting out of destructive self-loathing, trying to destroy everything that reminds him of his past idealism.

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1 hour ago, steriaca said:

Any thoughts about an "Euroguard" organization to counter Eurostar?

 

Yes, thanks to Bill "Bunneh" Keyes and Denver "Hermit" Mason.

 

Digital Hero #31: EUROGUARD

Someone has to stop Eurostar! And this team assembled for that task has a mighty good chance. PAGE 20

 

 

 

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