GASLIGHT AAR- the Breakout

Basement Con night #1 started off with a 9 player GASLIGHT mega-battle. We had guests from come in from out of town for this one.

The Anglo-French forces were surrounded and attempting a breakout from a small Belgium town on the frontier. Among them were the Secret Six, a band of British heroes carrying top secret plans. They needed to get off the table without being captured.

The German plan was simple: contain and destroy. They were aided in this by the Nefarious Professor Nightshade and his mechanical minions.
The Anglo-French devised an good plan. As the Germans were attempting to cover all exits, the allies would stack their units on one side and try to overrun the enemy with numbers. But you know what they say about plans and contact with the enemy?

Apparently the crews of the French contraptions had had a bit to drink the night before. Their boilers were cold. They spent the first 3 turns of game trying to get started.
Meanwhile, the Germans moved in. The Luftmarine captured the strategic farmhouse in the middle, while their vehicles lumbered forward.
The British infantry bravely charged across the open ground alone, while the French Marines cowered in the woods. They assaulted the Luftmarines and routed them despite taking heavy casualties from both farmhouse and the sputtering Jaguar velocipede.

The Commander of the French Zuoaves and the Luftmarine's colonel talk

politics in the woods.

The British, in turn were driven out by the Rokkittruppen.
Let me stop here for a minute. We've been playing this game for many years. Over that time, many troops and vehicles have developed legends and lore to them. The Rokkittruppen, for the most part, have a terrible rep. Yes, their rocket packs let them hurtle across the table, but almost always to their doom. Their clockwork automatic carbines can wreak terrible damage, but only at close range. This time, however, they charged in and drove out the Brits.
Another unit with a past, is the Wespe. An ungainly steam powered helicopter with a penchant for falling out of the sky. This time, he dropped bombs and strafed with abandon.
Finally, the Lady Hussars. These girls have been holy terrors. Maybe its the bright red dresses, but the last 4-5 games their gunfire has been deadly, routing troop after troop. Never fired a shot this game

The Jaguar. More dangerous to crew on a good day.

Ultimately the allies never got moving. The Six puttered around, when they should have made a bee-line for the table edge. Only one the Brute Class Land Ironclad escaped. Three separate German units attacked it, without slowing it down.

Thanks to everyone who showed. Tonight, night #2 of Basement-Con, will be Hail Caesar Fantasy.

Luftmarine

These guys will be showing up tonight for the kick off of Basement-Con. Tonight is a GASLIGHT mega game. Some people will tell you GASLIGHT really slows down with a lot of people. I'm here to tell ya it ain't true. We recently added a turn activation houserule that had the last game humming along.
For tonight lets just see how the new guys turn out. And of course, there's the age old questions: Will the Killenkanner even start? When (not will) the Rokkitruppen be slaughtered to a man? Can the Lady Hussars miss a shot? Ever?
Above minis by Brigade games growing Steampunk line.

On another note, got to spend some time last weekend on the back patio BBQing, smoking a cigar, drinking a nice beer and reading what is that....?

Updates & News

First, last Thursday's game:
John & Jason brought over their lovely collection of 28mm ACW. They both wanted to give "Bullrun to Gettysburg" a whirl. I can say one thing about Foundry's rules now. They're consistent. Wow. Worthless QRS. Had to constantly check the book. Casualties are by figure, but firepower is based on stands? Morale is almost impossible to fail so you hammer away until a unit's almost gone. There were optional save rolls to, huh? And, I'm supposed to keep track of the number of volleys I've fired. No thanks. John gave a full report over at his blog with pictures at Johns Curio Clashes .
There are plenty of better rules out there that do it better. But, as I said on John's blog, I still spent 3 hours with good guys, good minis and terrain, and good beer. That's all that mattered.
Basement Con:
Here's the schedule if anybody out there is interested.
Thursday: GASLIGHT, starring the Secret Six.
Friday: Hail Caesar Fantasy in 15mm with all the goodness from Lead Addict.
Saturday 1pm: completely open. Might do a role playing game, might be good old fashion board games.
Saturday night 6pm: Pulp Alley, Into the Caves of Madness
I will post all the lovely-ness.
Update: Almost done with the read on "In Her Majesty's Name". Great as I suspected. Interested to find out "In the Emperor's Name" got a 3.0. What I found odd was the newest version doesn't use a d10 as IHMN does. The d6 of ITEN always bugged me. Why not make like IHMN? My retro Sci-fi fgs might finally have a ruleset.

The Secret Six

Made up of Her Majesty's finest.

Left to right: Lt. Barnibus Smythe, late of the Queen's Horse. Armed with Electro-Galvanic Pepperbox.

Professor Bunson Honeydue, famed inventor, wearing his steam pwered walk-abouts.

Lord Greystoke, recently returned from the Dark Continent.

Lady Coddingham, inventor of advanced optix to study the Fae world, and a crack shot.

The man known only to HQ as Carruthers.

And finally,Carruthers' stalwart companion, Sgt Angus McKay, on loan from Her Majesty's Highlanders.

Perfect for Heroes in GASLIGHT or the beginnings of an Adventuring gang for IHMN. Pulp Alley would work, too.

Figures from Brigade Games growing Steampunk line. Next, some dirty Krauts.

This just in....

Just got my copy of "in Her Majesty's Name". Being a fan of both VSF and "In the Emperor's Name", the predecessor of IHMN, I think I will be very happy. This should allow us to do smaller games in our GASLIGHT universe. Special Ops if you will. I'll post more after a read, and of course a play.

Golden Age Supers - A Divine Wind

I love Supersystem, particularly version 2, and particularly Golden Age. We've played for years and battles go one of two ways (much as battles do), nail-biters and complete blowouts. This game was the latter of the two, but didn't make it any less fun.
The scenario involved a secret Japanese base on an undisclosed island. The Allied Freedom Force would have to battle past the Japanese Supers to get the secret plans.
The Japanese got set up first and chose an All around defense. Most of the powers for these particular guys were defensive in nature (more about that later). The Allies came in all in one place in hopes to overwhelm.

Rikishi, the Sumo slugger

Tsunami, a human wave

Tengu surveys the skies

It was a slaughter from the get go. With much goading from his peers and questions about his martial spirit, Tengu, the crow warrior flew out to hit Jack-O-Lantern head on. His mystic spear proved ineffective and left him the target of everything on the ground. Soon, there was a mass of burnt feathers littering the ground.

When Hachiman, human embodiment of the Japanese War god, strode forward to fight, first Scarlet Speedster, then the Sentinel leaped forward to hand him a beating.
Before the battle, there was much fear from the Allied side about the Kamikzae bots. They were tough to take down and when detonated, could take out a hero single handed.

They did not. Bot after bot exploded to little effect. One by the one the Japnese dropped. Tsunami, Rikishi, Oni, one by one. A brutal Allied victory, with no losses. A divine Wind, just blowin' the wrong way.Like I said still fun.

Major Victory blasts Oni with his Star Spangled Vision

One thing to change. I based the Japanese stats on the figs I painted. They had little in ranged attacks. The suma super alone was designed to take a beating and keep going. But no shooters. So, next time they meet, the Allies will have to face Raiden, master of lightning, a mind flaying geisha, and Rising Sun, solar powered super.

It is coming....

The convention in my basement is back.

Pulp Alley RECRUITs redo....

... or the "Little Injun That Could".

I reran the Pulp Alley Scenario I ran at RECRUITs last month, this time for the Basement Generals. Some things were the same, some different.

The battle for the gas Plot Point was again brutal. This time it pitted Wu Fang's minions against the Red Raptor (run by the Boy) and his League. Ace, the Raptor's dog sidekick held off most of Wu's endless henchmen while Pappy grabbed the gas.

The Gray Ghost lost a few of his followers to gunfire from the Royal Society, while climbing the mountain.

The Cultists of Chimera spent most of the game cowering in cover. Skulking types for ya.
And as the title says, Little Bear, sidekick to Pecos Pete took what seemed to be buckets of bullets thrown his way by the Iron Legion's robot soldiers. Little Bear managed not only to survive the constant fire but put a few bots in the dirt with his bow.
It was hard to get an 8 player game in, in 2 1/2 hours so I called it. Got lots of compliments on how fun the game was. I'll probably do a bimonthly game with the players keeping teams and letting them build.
Next time: Episode 48: Across the frozen Wastes...

Introducing the Grand Duchy of Fennwyck

"The Empire is a large and diverse place full of minor kingdoms, duchies and baronies. For the past 500 years the emperors have maintained power by keeping all those princes, dukes and barons at each other's throats. They are allowed to own small, personal armies. These armies may be called up in an instant's notice to defend the Empire from its vast number of enemies, or used to settle petty grudges and territorial disputes between nobles. War in the Empire, seems to be the pastime.
Fennwyck is a small Duchy of the fringe of the Empire with big plans. It is a foggy dismal place, populated by people much the same. THe current Grand Duke, Oswald the Bold, tired of being a backwater, has decided to extend the boundaries of Fennwyck. Better government through ruthless expansionism. Oswald has left the command of his armies to General Vanderwalt Klegg, an able tactician of intemperant nature."
Following an earlier post, most of our group is building their armies for Maurice. We have settled on each person taking a barnyard animal as their personal sigil. I have chosen the rooster (or cock) as it matches my Chinese zodiac symbol. Here's the army, their colors and standards:

Coming in September...

I am very excited for this:

Courtesy Catalyst Games

I started playing Battletech back in Junior High with original boxed set and its cardboard counters. I loved it, but even then it was hard to play a game any time quickly and with anything more than a couple of mechs. So, I moved on.
Last year, I heard rumblings about the Quick Strike rules for Battletech. They were a hidden gem, locked away in a very pricey and hefty Strategic Operations Handbook released years before. Now, it looks like Catalyst Games has heard the masses and will be releasing the Quickstrike rules as a stand alone called Alpha Strike. Huzzah! To be 14 again.

UPDATE: Screw it! I'm writing my own.

A lovely night for Maurice

It snowed last night. In May. I mention this because said snow kept most of the Basement Generals home. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've really been wanting to give Maurice another go, especially run the campaign system with our group. Rather than wait the year it will take those involved to paint armies I went with paper troops to give everyone a feel for the rules and field some troops.
So, rather than getting the whole group together to run through the rules we only had 5. Turns out, that was just right.

The serried paper ranks

We did the whole she-bang. Drew cards for terrain, scouted for advantage and who the aggressor was, and drew Notables. The only thing we didn't use this time was National Advantages.
Based on scouting rolls, Purple was the Aggressor. Their Notable was particularly good at Rallying troops.
Blue was Defender and got a hothead Notable who likes to charge.
The terrain was Plains. Seven pieces were rolled for and placed. The result was pretty open, but still caused problems for the Aggressors. They had a town to take.
The game moved along really fast. Cards were earned and burned. A cavalry force charged and was repulsed. (Have to wear those infantry down first).
The infantry in the middle annihilated each other. Here's where the "do I volley?" question was learned. A deck was gone through.

All of the sudden Purple was down to 3 morale points left, and Blue 5. It was late, the weather was getting worse, and we called it.
Love these rules. Can't wait to get some "real" troops on the table. Also has me VERY excited for Longstreet. Until now I have held firm against painting 28mm ACW. But, for how long?
The warring Factions, again based on barnyard animals: