Friday, January 31, 2020

Star Wars mega battle using FfoL: Big Battles

Sometimes you have to push a game to it's limits to see if it breaks (like we tried with 45 spaceships a couple of weeks ago). So last night we packed my 8' x 6' table with miniatures until it was veritably groaning under the weight of terrain and miniatures to play test some more Fistful of Lead: Big Battles. We used Steve's huge Star Wars collection and included a fair number of vehicles, making an exception this time on unpainted minis to get as much as we could for the 6 players.
As a reminder, Big Battles uses the same mechanics as standard FfoL, just switching out single minis for units. In this case, we made units of 5 men, speeder bikes, whatever. Then added in some Heroes, like Jedis and Villains, like Sith Lords as single figure units. We just used the cards for these single from our Galactic Heroes games.
Lord Gribbit: "Follow me to victory! Burrr-rop!
 No trees on the table to hide in, so Greg finds the next best thing.
 Rebels forces quickly move forward to capture on of the objectives.
 The Imps try to make best use of cover. A Rebel land speeder, outflanked them and poured blaster and missile fire into them. 
 When units shoot, you roll a die (or two in case of this heavy blaster) for each miniature. Shock reduces the number of dice. The above unit would get 6 dice (4 blasters and 2 for the heavy) needed what you always need to hit (5+ at short, 8+ at long). If the unit had 2 Shock, it would only get 4 dice. We tried to keep the mechanics seamless between this game and the others.
 Innocent? Bystander.
 Death Troopers take position.
 Rebels let the Imps have it! 2 Shock and 2 wounds (figure removal) send the Imps packing.
 Darth Maul force leaps to the top a building to duel with the Jedi master. Single heroes use their number of wounds as they're dice (in this case each has 3).
 Vader drew a lot of fire. He managed to send most of it back with lightsaber deflections. But he was finally forced to withdraw. When the number of shock is more than the number miniature, or in this case wounds, the unit retreats.

 All the noise woke the Sarlacc
 "What's that Baby? I should fire my Disentagrator into that Close Combat?"

Poof! Bye Jen
The goal for these rules has been to take the game you know and hopefully love, and just play with more stuff! It also has to work for most every period. We done Colonial games, with and without VSF elements, Fantasy and getting ready for a 15mm Samurai game at SALUTE this year. For that, stands of miniatures just replace single figures in a unit.
How do you do it? Once again, it's about how assign traits to miniature, or in this case, unit. We had speeder bikes duking it out (unsuccessfully) with a Rebel Airspeeder, AT-STs stalking about the table reigning fire on the troops below until Rebel missile launchers brought it down. The week before, Trolls and Ogres. I don't think either of the those games felt generic.
Will everyone like these rules. Oh hell no. Button counters and rules lawyers will hate this game, but I firmly believe if you are a Fistful fan, you'll really like these.
The game fueled by bourbon. Need a big bottle in preparation for the real Big Game. GO CHIEFS!!!

Friday, January 17, 2020

Once Upon a Time in Mexico...Fistful of Lead Big Battles

Last night we had a small battle by Basement General standards, but it was another play test of "Big Battles".
Revolutionary forces were trying to capture a government gold shipment stowed away at the local leader's hacienda. They were also looking for a local priest to save him form Federal custody.
The Federales needed to reinforce the lightly guarded gold and capture the priest who had been preaching insurrection to the locals.
For this game, all troops were the same grade with no unit traits other than the mounted troops and a machine gun. Officers had traits.
 The sleepy village San Pedro
 Villistas mass on the edge of town.

 Federales in really old uniforms...
 "Vive Villa!"

 Federals cautiously advances.

 Closing to shooting range. Federales pack the hacienda and await the assault.

 Gunfire down the village road. The Federales lose 3 men right away.
 The Machine gun rains death on the exposed Villistas in the fields.
Te Fedrales went straight for the hacienda. It would prove to be their tomb. The Villistas assualted the house once but got the worst of it and spent the game blasting away at the occupants. In the rest of the village, some mercenaries were cut down before they really had a chance to impact the game. As with most games in modern times: Stay in cover!
Relatively quick, fun game. Each side had 6 squads of 6 miniatures. Both players commented it was like playing a normal sized Fistful of Lead game, just with more figures. Which is a good thing.

Friday, January 10, 2020

The Orcs are coming!

Horns sound in the mist. Torches from the hills at dawn. Garn Gorespear has come down from the North to raid with Chaos marauder allies.
Who will stand against them?
A group of Adventurers have rallied the local warriors from neighboring villages along with sympathetic giants and semi-retired War Troll.
 Orc 'Eavies charge forth.
 Bared assed brutes.
 "Defend the village!"..."What's a village?" says the giant.
 The Chieftain arrives with an old ally, Big Green.
 The forces of Chaos backed by some blue nosed hobgoblins. Blue noses and yellow spines.
 Bugbears lost in the woods...
 Sir Roderick seems distracted by the local produce. He would later be ridden down by Garn.
 Bugbears finally enter the fray. Poor peasants....
 Borax the Despoiler looks on as his Thugs die to a man under taxes of the Berserkers.
 Garn rides into the fray. Many fell under his spear that day.
 A lone War Troll stands against the Orc brutes, and sends them packing!
 Beastmen vs Hearthguard
"Burn it all!" - the village is set alight
Great fun! The field was littered with dead. The galant Adventurers slunk off during the battle. No XP for you!

Friday, January 3, 2020

Fistful of Lead: Big Battles play test Star Wars

Just today, in my basement, not far away...
I had a really enjoyable play test for Fistful of Lead: Big Battles (working title) earlier today with Basement General Steve and his wonderful collection of Star Wars miniatures.
those that follow the blog will know we've done several play tests with large amount of troops and players, but I wanted a smaller go at it 2 players and 7-9 five man units a side.

 Imperial forces: 6 units to the Rebel 8
We used stats for the troops pretty much as it from our Galactic Heroes games. The Rebels had wide array of mercenaries, loyal rebels and scum led by Luke Skywalker.
The Imps had hordes of faceless minions led by Vader himself.
Both had the goal of securing the landing pad, but each had secondary objectives.
The rules? Pretty much Fistful of Lead. Except instead of 1 card per miniature, it's one card per unit or Hero. Special cards do what they do.
First blood went to the Empire. The Rebel dead piled up. As with most games played with "modern" weapons, getting caught in the open is terrible.
Enter Luke Skywalker. By the end of the game he had wiped out 4 Imperial units by himself. The key was waiting til a unit had racked up sufficient shock to make them nearly combat ineffective. Before they could rally Luke waltzed in and destroyed them,
Vader did some damage too, but came under heavy fire from Rebels in cover and was put Out of Action.












Rebel survivors
 The Imps played the Joker first and earned the loyalty of the Tuskin Raiders. They came down from the hills and earned the "Kill of Day" by wiping out a fresh Rebel unit to a man.
I'm obviously biased, being the creator, but I had a great time. It was the game of Star Wars I've been wanting. Biggest compliment came from my opponent who had just been soundly defeated: "When can we play again?".
I have an idea for a scenario...