Holiday Gaming

Belated Merry Christmas to all. In the never ending attempt to find that ruleset that combines the right balance in playability and fun for my collection of Mechwarrior minis, I picked up Battletech: Alpha Strike. LeadAddict and I played the original Battletech when it first came out many moons ago. We liked it mainly for it's concept of giant stumpy robots duking it out on the war ravaged battlefields of the future. Never mind that using giant, expensive (as in the GDP of most countries) in just plain dumb. A lowly grunt with a shoulder fired missile launcher could bring one down, and missing is almost impossible. Never mind that the original models were direct rip-offs of Robotech. We were 13!

Yes, the buildings need paint...

Infantry try to keep pace with the mech.

The original rules were a grind. Hundreds of little ovals to fill in every time you took damage. Keeping track of heat build up. So, when I read a several positive reviews of the new, improved quick rules, boasting of fielding several mechs at a time, I had to at least try.

Infantry disembark

They were worth it. The rules are split into introductory, standard, and advanced. The Intro rules are very basics and really only use mechs. As I have a ton of tanks and infantry, I used Standard.
Everyone had picked up the rules by turn 2, with the only reason to check the QRS, was for movement modifiers to hit. Where the game could real shine is with all the bells and whistles.
Now, I just need more mechs.

That was last week. Last night there were only a few of us. I've had some old boardgames around that needed dusting off. One was an old standard, Wizard Kings by Columbia Games. It's a "block game". Really, an upgrade of the old chit games of old. All the info on you troops is there on the wooden block. You get the added bonus of Fog of War as only you see what on the blocks by standing them on their sides. The was a titanic struggle between Orcs, Amazons, Elves and Undead. As the Undead player, I had cheap troops, but slow (Oh, zombies..) or really expensive highly class undead. My swift moving vampires captured two cities single handed. We played 10 turns, and my undead hordes pulled out a win. The geomorphic maps make replay endless. The would be a great campaign system for Mayhem.
That's it. One more week of freedom, then back to my job that lasts only tip February. Then the grey unknown.

Bolt Action

Rather than just repeat what John over at Curio Clashes did, I thought I'd just link to his post on last Thursday's Bolt Action game HERE . I will add, however, I have really liked what Warlord has done so far (Black Powder, Hail Caesar). These not so much. I will give them a replay as I think we probably did some things wrong, but I find them way too vanilla. So far, I'm digging Victory Decision more, and am excited about the their newest Future Combat.

More painted minis, more Longstreet

Up first, some retro Sci-Fi miniatures for a top secret project in the works. Emperor Xorg's Imperial Navy. I wanted these guys to have a Naval Landing troop color scheme/vibe.

After that, more 10mm goodness for Maurice/Might & Reason. The Elite Swiss Guard of the Arch-Duchy of Volborg.

Finally, battle one of the year 1863 for Longstreet. This is the midpoint of the war. The Union is getting more troops. Units are getting more experience and training, but in some cases, also getting battered. One Union regiment went to the field with 3 stands!

The scenario was #8: the Cornfields. (I gotta work on my fields) The standing crops didn't prove much of a barrier to either side. The Rebs started out aggressive, but quickly began to fight a holding action. LS favors the the side that engages in combat the most. The most an attacker takes in a charge is one stand loss. So when possible ATTACK!
The fight ended as a draw, but I think maybe the Union took the most losses. That's OK, they can afford it.

Objectives

Two different ways.

Here are some gaming objectives I painted up. They could be used for any number of games, but mostly Pulp Alley for now. I thought of painting little scenes on the amphoras, but I looked at the painting table and decided there were other things that needed work before that.

The other objectives are personal. With my job finishing up at some point in the near future I embark on the great unknown. When I found out I was getting laid off, the first thing my said was , "well, now you can do something you want. What's the point of getting up every day and going to a job you don't love?"

I don't have a job lined up, but I'm hoping it can be something from home so I can start on a life long dream of creating games and minis. Both are a tough gig. I wrote my own rules, published and unpublished for years. Many times my projects have been stalled due the fact I work all day in the creative world, and don't have much left when I get home. Also, my mac died many moons ago.

I bought a new one last week. Top of the line. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.

Objective one reached.

The sketch book comes out tonight.

Thursday Night Mayhem

Three straight weeks of Fantasy! This time, it's big battles using a set of rules I've been wanting to try for awhile: Mayhem! by Brent Spivey. Mr. Spivey gifted me his earlier work Havoc. It was a great read that I found almost Zen-like in it's approach to wargaming. Alas, I never used them in battle, but I was determined to try Mayhem.

My War of the Roses troops which are veterans of 20 years of battle would stand in as fantasy humans, and my small force of Orcs would be the only true fantasy elements. Mayhem works at any scale as each base is a unit. Not a new idea, but one I personally really like. The smaller the scale, the better o make each stand a vignette.
Mayhem uses different die type to represent a stands Movement, Combat Quality, and Ballistic Armor Rating. The lower the better. So a d6 is better than a d10. Sounds opposite of what you normally think, but it works well.

The core of the system is the Versus System. Risk vs Reward. For just about every roll you have the option of taking the default, which half the value of the die (so a d6 would be a "3", a d8 a "4") or try danger and roll the die for whatever comes up.
If your Movement value is d8, for example, you decide, do I use the default and these guys just move 4 inches, or do I risk it and roll hoping to get 5,6,7, or even 8. There's a lovely gambling element to it.
In our game, some heavy cavalry with lances charged some orcs that had just crossed the river. Because of modifiers, the knights were rolling a d4 vs the Orcs d8. The knights decided to take the default of "2" as their roll. In Mayhem, roll have to roll below your opponent in order to do them Harm. A roll of "1' always kills. This first hit, for most troops, Disorders them. A hit on an already disordered unit eliminates them. So our knights had a 25% chance to outright kill the Orcs, or take the default and almost certainly put a hit on them and drive them back into the river.
The Orcs rolled a "1". Oh, the best laid plans, etc.....

The other mechanic of note is Overdrive. Your leaders randomly (or take the default!) generate a pool of Action Points.Most Actions only cost a point. Move a unit, shoot arrows, etc. But, you can choose to make a unit go again, and again, but each subsequent action costs more. A second Action is 2, a third 3. If I move my Orcs 3 times, that's 6 points! This is great if a certain unit has the chance to turn the tide of battle, but it will be to the detriment to the rest of your force. Turns go very quickly.
We played a game with 6 players and 50 stands in about 1 1/2, including the whopping 10 minutes it took to teach the rules.
All in all, highly recommended. Would be great for a convention game or campaign. It does have some similarities to DBA or HotTs, but I found Mayhem had a lot more depth and a fun, gambling element to it.

Saturday AAR

The Baroness took a much deserved grand tour of the Kingdom this past Saturday which left me some time to paint and try out some games I've been wanting to try for awhile. I enjoy my problem of 6-8 regular players, but it doesn't allow for those smaller 1 v 1 games. So, with the help of Essjam, I tried Dux Bellorum and Richard III.

The Normans and their LPs

I gave a one read thru review a while back. The Early Dark ages or time of historic Arthur, has always been a favorite of mine. I've had, over the years several rule sets, but none felt quite right. Glutter of Ravens came close but still wasn't right for me. When I read Dux Bellorum was a refined version of Glutter, I knew the $12 purchase was worth it.

The forces face off. LPs have been assigned.

I don't actually have any Romano-Brit troops, so I pushed the limits of the rules to a Norman v Viking contest. You build forces using a small but effective troop list. Horses aren't very prevalent for the DB period, so a Norman force cost a lot, only giving me 10 stands of troops. In DB, a stand is a unit of around 50-ish men. It also uses basewidths as measurement. My 60mm x 60mm bases with 6-8 men looked just right. This isn't a army we're talking about, but a warband of a local warlord.

Red dice indicate Cohesion loss. Long term I would definitely use markers to limit battlefield clutter.

You purchase Leadership points for your forces. For this test, both sides got 8. LPs are the heart of the system and add tons of tactical depth, I'm sure me and my opponent only began to understand with our one play.
LPs are used to help move your troops, strengthen their attacks, reduce casualties, pre-empt movement, and bolster morale. You've only got so many each turn, and lots of troops. You lose LPs everytime you take losses. How to use them becomes the heart of the game.
The Vikings were the Aggressors. A normal game turn is: Place LPs, Simultaneous shooting, then move and fight.

The battle breaks up. I also used tags to list stats on each base. This isn't necessary in a real game, but thought it would save looking up stuff this first game.

Moves are further broken down to: Skirmishers first, Mounted second then your foot troops, with Aggressors always going first. My all foot Vikings limited my options to the end.
The game started with the Normans getting a pesky skirmish unit in the woods to my flank. Shooting has a hard time killing off units, but it can definitely weaken them. My troops were a mix of highly trained shieldwall (ok attack but tough on defense) and warriors (great on attack, not so much on defense and penchant for uncontrolled charges). The Warriors uncontrolled charges allowed me to attack without having to worry about Bravery Tests, which have to made to move troops around. Once the Normans got close, I just set them loose.
The fighting part became what Dark Age battles are, a shoving match. Terrain limited the abilities of the Norman horse to get around my flank, but they were tough and ended up breaking the flank they hit after 3-4 turns.
It was close. We finished within a few stands of each other with the Normans eeking out a victory. It took but an hour to play.
Can't wait to try these as a campaign. Speaking of which, yes I have read Dux Britainiarium. Like most of the Lardies rules, I liked the ideas presented, but found the actual play clunky and not to my taste. That being said, the campaign system could be lifted and use the combat from Bellorum.

We then played Richard III. I have a large Wars of the Roses collection, so a Columbia Games block game about the period was right down my alley.
I played the Lancastrians and Scott the invading forces of York. There are 3 game turns, each split into 7 sub turns. By end of round 2 I was dethroned and playing the Usurper, and in the end lost by 2 points. Again, a great game with lots of depth I barely scratched.
And on a final note, "Hey we made 200 Followers!" Welcome to the new guys and tahnks to the old, for sticking around.

IHMN Fantasy

IHMN stands for "In Her Majesty's Name", a great set of VSF rules. I was/am a fan of predecessor of these "In the Emperor's Name" which I have already used for Fantasy.
Last week we tried using Pulp Alley to find the perfect set of Fantasy Skirmish rules, this round was IHMN. PA was fun and had the perfect mechanism for traps and dangers I wanted. But, with 6-8 players I needed to speed things up even more.
The scenario involved the Barbarians trying to get a "dark gift" to the Lord of Evershade Valley across the battlefield. The Orcs and Chaos dwarves were sent to help them. The forces of Good had to try and stop them

The calm valley

Barbarians race to the crest of a hill.

Orcs enter the field

Elves destroy an evil alter

Sir Leon is swarmed by heathens!

In the original IHMN rules player alternate moving and shooting miniatures. With 6 players I speeded things up. Each player was dealt 3 cards. They had to choose one to use as there Movement turn, one as Shooting, and one as Fighting. This sped things up mightily and with trying created thing like opportunity fire. 

The Barbarians, unencumbered by armor, ran across the battlefield and delivered their gift, thus winning the game for evil. All in all, worth another try.

Last night's pairing was an easy one.

Hobgoblins

From across the endless plains come the Hobgoblin Hordes.
Another stand for our Campaign for the Kingdom. You may notice something peculiar about these guys. Though they may be GW minis, my heart is always been in the original Monster Manual. According to it, Hobgoblin range in skin color from sickly yellow, thru orange to dark gray. But they always have bright blue noses! These boys give me a Scythian vibe. Raiding caravans and stealing the valuable cloth for their unwashed bodies.
Always loved the old GW sculpts (and I have a ton) and always hated hordes of gobbos with all the same skin color. Nothing worse than a beautifully painted unit of orcs all in that nasty bright green!

Pulp Fantasy

With the delivery of a pile of Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles, it was time start messing with rules. Pulp Alley is a favorite of mine. The rules are tight and designed for small groups or Leagues, why not warbands?
I built them using standard rules. Worked great!
The scenario: The Dark Lord has slumbered in the Broken Valley for centuries, locked in a tomb by a powerful spell. Now, the forces of Evil have come to set him free, hoping to curry his favor by freeing him. Meanwhile, the Forces of Good have come to destroy the tomb once and for all.

Drax the Despoiler and his Chaos Crew

Aeloroth and the Elves

Gort the Cruel and his greenskin warband

Hrothgar the Mighty

An adventuring band led by Sir Barnstable

There were 4 minor Plot Points. One had to be captured before the Tomb could be opened.

The board

The Elves are first to capture a plot point. 

Drax tries repeatedly to open the Chaos Champions gravestone to capture a Plot Point.

An elf is caught in fireball from the Adventurer's Wizard

Forces converge on the tomb

Are the barbarians fighting for good or evil?

A clash of Leaders outside the tomb.

In the end, the forces of Good, led by Elves manage to destroy the tomb of the Dark One, sealing him forever in the Other Realm.

A good time. The rules work great as a Fantasy Warband game. I could see them working even better in a dungeon setting, using Fortune cards to trigger traps, etc. Make some wandering monsters and BOOM!, perfect dungeon crawl. 

We'll also be trying some other rules but for now I liked how they worked.

On another note you may notice a break in the action here at the Baron's Blog. I was recently laid off from my job of 20+ years. As you can imagine this is a time of uncertainty and worry for me and mine, so gaming and painting may take a back seat for awhile. This, however, may turn into an opportunity too. A chance to dive deeper into a hobby I love. I've always wanted to start my own gaming company....

Elves done

I was able to finish my Elves/Melniboneans this weekend. They are ready for battle.
Is was in a fantasy mood so started on another stand of their enemies.

Update

As you may have noticed, no new game AARs. A particularly brutal work and practice schedule has left me having cancel game night a few times, but I thought I'd show what I'm working on.
These are older High Elves doing double duty as Melniboneans. Since GW blatantly ripped off Michael Moorcock's books to create their history and design for High Elves, I thought it only fitting.
In Elric, the Melniboneans are described with "yellow" armor. You can take this as really yellow, or gold. Being alchemists, real yellow is a possibility so I tried true yellow on a test figure and though it looked cool, it was too much for a unit. Gold it is.
These guys still need another coat to their shields to make them opaque. Then, pop them off their slots and "green stuff" them to a base.
They will be fielded alongside my troops for the Campaign for the Kingdom. Orcs and Trolls have already shown their ugly mugs there, time for the good guys to get backup.
I also want to try them in Mayhem, Fantasy Mass Battle system. This little set shows some potential and I'll probably playtest some weekend before trying it with the Basement Generals. Or they get a couple extra stands and get used in Hail Caesar Fantasy.
You might also have noticed some Gendarmes hiding back there. Yes, they taunt me....