In the game City of Heroes, players can team up for special missions known as Task Force, where 4-8 players run through an elaborate storyline / series of missions all the way up a Villains chain of command to the Archvillain of that dastardly group.

The advantages of a Task Force are that you rack up incredible amounts of experience and influence: Experience to getting the next Level, Influence needed to buy enhancements and inspirations. You also win enhancements along the way, and if you defeat the Archvillain, you win a Single Origin enhancement (very expensive!) well above the average level of the villains you've faced.

The disadvantages are that the TF can take about four to six hours, maybe half a day; and that people can drop out of a Task Force but cannot be brought in once it starts. A poorly built team could have troubles even getting past the first mission. While early on, very few Task Forces had been successful, as players' abilities improved, Task Force survival and success improved.

The Sister Psyche Task Force out of Independence Port is known for it's fine wines and heady ch...no, wait, that's the local Italian restaurant Pomodoro's. Sister Psyche is the Task Force after Synapse, and one you find yourself missing more often than not because you're suddenly leveling too fast in other places like Dark Astoria and Terra Volta (and now, Striga Isle). At least, my older characters Blue Arc and WittyLibrarian and Vectura missed their chances at this TF. Even Witty the Controller leveled too quickly playing through Striga Isle, being at the right level for the Issue 3 special mapzone and focused more on getting to the Hess TF. Although to be fair, Blue Arc Anom did have a go at this, back when he was Level 21. But the team he was on was so lousy (the Defenders all quit two minutes into the door mission way back then) that he lost interest in working for Psyche.

When the call went out one Saturday evening, I had been waiting with Vectura to see about getting her Respeced. Deciding I had nothing else to do, I switched over to my tanker Greystone Anom, and got the Invite from Hiccup (Blaster). He'd already gotten Tesla Angel (Defender), Boom Town Child (Controller), Violet Volt (Blaster), and mini ikaika (Defender). They needed a Tanker and there I was. And so, Sister Psyche's Task Force went out in search of pasta and alfredo sauce.

Actually, we went hunting for Freakshow. In the original TF setting, it started with a simple street hunt of 30 Freakshow. However, people quickly found out they could just do that starting mission, get wild XP and Influence far more than a standard street hunt would go, and then quit the team and start over. Repeated often enough and at the right level, you could have Power-Leveled 3 times within a hour, maybe 2. After too many people blabbed (open requests on the message board to run this, for example), the Game Devs switched the missions, forcing the first mission to be Investigate Freakshow, a door mission. Players, of course, found other ways to PL. But I digress.

So now, the first mission is a door mission, Investigate Freakshow, essentially a Defeat-All mission to clear the sewer map. With this, I had my tanker's first run-in with, well, other Tankers. Freakshow Tankers are huge, menacing lifeforms capable of making life miserable for non-Tankers, but incredibly they are fragile enough to where they go down quick. Very aggressive but not very defense-buffed. Their greatest talent is Rezzing, or reviving after a 'kill' where they ambush you after you've moved on. The only response to that is to move slowly and make sure they don't rez before attacking the next mob. Which is why this TF takes a little longer than it would.

There is a beauty about playing a Tanker different than other character ATs. With Grey, I can charge into a mob and not even worry about dying...ever. Having played Blasters more often, who are defenseless and so die more often, this is a nice change. Better still, with Healer types on the TF, especially one with Fortitude (defense boost), I can charge into THREE Boss Tankers and not even break a sweat. Look at that photo of Grey taking on three Bosses at once. TANKERS LIVE FOR THIS! WAHOOO!

The second door mission is a Defeat Gang Leader and Crew, but in reality a rescue mission to Find Brent Thomas. He's easy to find, and the Gang Leader, Shriek, goes down like butter. Warm butter. That's been left out too long on the countertop of my kitchen. Oh, heck, I hope the kitties didn't get into it...

The missions, by the way, are strewn about the city zones: you start in IP but rarely if ever play there. Most of the door missions were in Talos, Skyway, and Kings Row. This is one of the complaints about a lot of Task Forces actually: Positron starts in Steel but has almost no door missions there; Synapse starts in Skyway but plays most door missions in Steel; Psyche is in IP but plays mostly Talos; Bastion is in Talos but plays mostly IP. I think Manticore is the only one that sticks to its map of Brickstown (and Crey's Folly). Numina, as mentioned elsewhere, ends up going all over the place! Again, I digress...

Brent gives up a clue, a piece of equipment that need to be Delivered to Andrew Fiore in Talos. Avoiding the ambush is easy: it's the clean-up afterward that's hard. From that, we get a series of missions to stop sonic bombs from going off. This is where we get a little variety in our lives: the door missions are special outdoor maps accessible only via the train stations.

The first one was in an abandoned factory district (looks much like Kings Row or Crey's Folly), requiring us to find and kill Punkadelic and his crew as well as finding the glowy bomb. Stealth here was easy as the mobs were pretty far apart, and Punkadelic was found awful quick. Our only problem was time: a couple of players were AFK for moments at a time and it took awhile to get the team together.

Once done, I used my Tanker's Gift to Teaming Called Taunt to aggro the nearby mobs, to whittle down the mess before we attacked Punk. Over there is Punk's mob...

Once done, I charged into Punk's circle and taunted them much like those French soldiers taunted the Knights of the Round Table during their quest thingee. There's nothing like playing a Tanker on a TF. You just wade into a mob, even one with a Boss, and just sit there and enjoy. Having 20 bad guys try to swing at you, I mean, the rush of it, that you go in and not even worry about death. Anyway, this shot is Punkadelic getting taunted by me while his buddies circle about me and while my buddies line up their sniper shots. A few shots later and he was eating slightly toxic factory dirt. After that the team found the glowy and zppft door mish completed.

The second train mission took us to a quarantined city block where the mobs of Freaks were more tightly packed, and thus a lot harder to navigate. Tesla Angel found that out painfully quick: she died trying to scout with the speedsters (who can run the map without detection) and ran into the wrong mobs. Twice. We finally escorted her to a decent corner of the map where the Boss Devastation awaited. This time we cleared a corner first, then charged into Dev's mob. Again, we held our own. Another scout for the glowy found the bomb in a poor spot: right next to another Freak Tank or three. It got hairy but we distracted the bads long enough for the glowy to be picked and the door to be completed.

The narrative shifts a bit at this point: it turns out the bombs are using Fifth C...uh, Council technology, and the Council are not amused. The TF next traveled into a Council tunnel base to Kill All Freaks and Soldiers. The team went this way, the team ran that way. We found all concerned and made them pay...by certified check, of course. Then we beat them up.

Following this is another Delivery, this time to Koslowski. There's another ambush for this one, this time with Council troops who were unhappy we didn't clean up the bloodstains off their banners from the last door mish. They regretted their actions and have since sent teddy bears as a form of apology. Well, guys, apolog... (teddy bear bomb explodes), okay, time to die you Council pig-dogs!

This leads to another raid on a Council stronghold, only this time we have to find more clues about Clamor. The killing, the destruction, the mindless...wait, I lost focus. How mindless was it? I...huh. Can't remember. Odd. It must have been pretty mindless for me not to mind too much. Easy joke. Let's move on.

One more door mission, yes? Let's face it. Most Task Forces are door missions. There's not too much in the monotony as long as the maps (or tilesets) have some variety to them. This one's another Freakshow and Council raid along with a hostage rescue objective (save 3 hostages), clearing out room after room, hallway after hallway, of mostly Freakshows. The Council really only show up at the end, holding the last hostage in a back hallway.

It was at this point one of our Defenders, Boom Town Child, had to depart. Personal life issues regarding a hospital emergency popped up. Oh, man, best of luck with that and here's hoping whoever was involved came out okay.

The next mission required us to Patrol Talos Island. The patrolling is a common feature in TFs, usually to allow any speedsters on the team a chance to show off, and also to let other team members take a break from the fighting and sell off any unwanted enhancements (remember, it's vitally important to keep a slot open for the SO enhancement prize at the end). Ambushes are meant to occur but if your speedster runs fast enough the ambush will come to naught.

After a decent break time, we followed on to the next mission: Bust Freak Leader. Heading through the mission again wasn't too difficult, and by this point your team ought to have the combat rules down pat. From my perspective is was all the same: jump in and draw the aggro, and get in so close you can see the pixel count in the Tank Swiper's chin. If there was any fun on this mission, it was running into the Freak Leader: Axel-F, another Tank. When I jumped at him his dialog battlecry flashed onscreen "Welcome to the Jungle!" Heh. HAHA. Shouldn't that be Axl Rose? Oh, right. Copyright/trademark infringements.

From here we get the tail-end of the Task Force: Three more door missions. The next two are back-to-back and essentially the same mission: Disable Sonice Devices. The first one was in Kings Row. The second one was in Skyway, and the door to Skyway was one of the tougher ones to find (hidden underneath an elevated street bridge and behind concrete bunkers). Each one had one target to worry about: click the glowing barrel bomb.

The last one is Defeat Clamor herself. Also in Skyway, so we didn't have far to travel. This mission takes longer, as there are hostages to rescue this time. Each hostage, by the by, were complaining about the noise of the sonic device. Each and every one. No variety in dialog bubbles. Sad really.

We worked our way down the sewer pipeline until we got to the main room. There was a bomb here as well as the last hostage, with luck both right next to each other. And then, down the way, is the Boss. The Arch-villain. The Hostess With the Mostess. Clamor.

Clamor's origin was that she was rejected and/or dejected by the 5th Column before they were wiped out by cultural considerations to the Europeans playing CoH. From there she worked as an office management coordinator of supplies and incidentals (ie, secretary) and was fired for her excessive love of body piercing...not on herself, but on her co-workers. From there she got a new haircut and was hired on with the Freakshow.

As the Tanker, I got up real close and personal, and got her phone number. Tattooed on my forehead when she delivered a knock-out blow on my sorry stone hide! Of course, it took time to wipe her out, and she used a good amount of regen powers and boosts to keep going as the fight went on, but well within 3 minutes we brought her down. With that, Mission Completed. To celebrate we actually stayed on map and cleared out the surviving Freaks.

I explained to the team that I take pictures of the Task Forces from time to time (mostly, the ones not yet documented). So I asked for a pose/salute on the Skyway street alley before we logged off.

Of the Task Force itself, it's not too bad. It IS Freak Tank heavy, and counts toward that Tankbuster badge. You also level well enough, at least once, during this. Greystone leveled twice, being so close to leveling early enough in the Task Force to do so. So remember, Tankers, always take with you an Empathy healer type with Fortitude! That way you can enjoy taking on three Bosses at once and even go toe-to-toe with an Arch-Villain!

Suggestions to run this TF:
1) A balanced team is nice. A tanker is definitely needed due to the high Freakshow Tank count. Defenders and Controllers are a must. Scrappers may fend better than Blasters but any damage dealing will do.
2) It'd help to have the Tanker(s) with some Energy-resistant armors against the electric attacks the Freaks dish out.
3) Be forewarned: Freaks can rezz back to life. And you'd worry about the Vahz eating your brains...!

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