One Hour Skirmish Wargames : Kill Team

This is  a path I started down -it's fun, but I don't *love* it. Still, I figured I'd put it here for those who want to run with it.

In the files section of the One Hour Skirmish Wargames Facebook group, John Lambshead has a "patch" for 40K style power armored infantry. This patch adds an "Infantry Armor Penetration" value which I'm not really fond of - not for the reason he isn't satisfied with it, adding numerical modifiers a la the AFV rules, but because  I think in the 40K universe, as I understand it, you wouldn't have anyone on game table who *couldn't* hit a powered armored infantry person.

That's the assumption I'm starting from -which eliminates the need for numerical modifiers(except for vehicles, but I don't know anything about 40K vehicles, and since my goal is a Kill Team sized game, I'm not concerned with them). Using the dubiously legal (undoubtedly illegal) Waahpedia as well as my copy of Fire Team,  I set about porting Kill Team stats into OHSW terms - i.e. card draws.

Well there were two exceptions to that.

The first is movement. Kill Team uses some weird symbol based measurement system - I guess so GW can sell official Kill Team-approved rulers. They are easy enough to convert to inches though. Whatever the value in inches is for that model in Kill Team, that's the movement rate for the model in OHSW.

The second is action points. Kill Team and Fire Team both have these - some figures can take 3 actions, some 2, and I assume there are others with 1s or 4s but I haven't seen one. I won't go into how they work in those games, but I think saying the Kill Team action points is the number of actions that model may use in a single OHSW player phase works - subject to the usual way OHSW action points work

It means that Necrons won't ever get to move twice and attack, whereas assault intecessor marines can move twice and attack (assuming  the player draws a high enough card that phase). I think that fits with what I've gleaned from Fire Team as being true to the source.

Now some rambling I should have started with.

In Kill Team/Fire Team it's the weapon that determines how many attacks (seems reasonable, at least for guns), but also how likely the figure can hit the target (Weapon Skill or Ballistics Skill).  The latter really should apply *to the model* with the opportunity for it to vary among models of the same type. But, I guess we'll assume in the Grim Dark Future, anyone who differs from the desired standards, for good or ill, is eliminated. The Emperor protects. 

When it comes to defensive saves, the unit type matters - presumably all examples of the unit have the same armor or lack thereof.  Again, there is no room for highly dexterous or accident prone individuals despite the appearance that their could be.

OHSW has individuals and so OHSW Kill Team does too. Those abilities just add/subtract to the cards drawn - which, btw, is going to be significantly more than say, a WWII game.

Rambling over. At least that rambling.

What follows is not scientific, but in a few play tests, it worked. You will want to aim for something like 10 turns though,not 4 or 5!

OHSW KT : Grim Dark Skirmish Mod

Regular One Hour Skirmish Wargames rules apply unless otherwise indicated.

  

Table Size: 30” x 20”

Movement: Whatever the value in inches is for that model in that game owned by that company (KT), that's the distance of one move action for the model in OHSW.

Action Points: KT APL becomes the number of actions that model may take in a given OHSW player phase.

Rule Change: In close combat, attacker draws melee attack cards, and defender draws their defense cards. As a result, melee is ONE-SIDED.

Attack Dice:

Number of Attack Dice in KT	# “shots” in OHSW
6	4
5	3
4	2
3	1

Weapon or Ballistic Skill:

Skill	Cards Per Shot/Melee Attack
4+	1
3+	2
2+	3
1+	4

For Melee weapons, multiply the attack dice “Shots” by the Cards Per Melee Attack for number to number of cards for that weapon (see examples way below).

In KT, figures have both Defense (number of dice to roll) and Save (a target value for those dice).

Defense: 

Defense in KT	Extra Defense Cards OHSW
1	0
2	1
3	1
4	2
5	2
6+	3

Save:

Save in KT	Even More Extra Defense Cardsn in OHSW
6+	0
5+	1
4+	1
3+	1
2+	2
1+	3

 

Wounds:

Instead of tracking wounds, Wounds in KT give a bonus when checking for results at end of turn (Downed Check):

Wounds  <9 = 1 extra card to test if out of fight.

Wounds >=10  = 2 extra cards to test if out of fight.

Example Data Cards for OHSW KT:

Armored Space Trooper with Heavy Bolt Pistol and Chainsaw:

Move: 6”  Actions: 3  Defense: 3 cards

Downed Check: 2 extra cards

Heavy Bolt Pistol: Range: 6”, 2 shots, 2 cards per shot

Chainsaw: 6 cards (because 3 attacks, 2 cards per)

Shiny Living Metal Hibernating Robots:

Move: 4”  Actions: 2  Defense: 2 cards

Downed Check: 1 extra card

Electric Rifle: Range-infinite, 2 shots, 2 cards per shot

Short Range Double Barreled Electric Rifle: 

Range-6”, 3 shots 2 cards per shot [based on Fire Team data card]

Bayonet - 2 cards (because 1 attack, 2 cards per attack)

Hive Alien Grunt:

Move: 6”  Actions: 2   Defense: 1 card

Downed Check: 1 extra card

Fleshdigger: Range - 6”, 2 shots, 1 card per shot

Claws: 1 card (because 1 attack, 1 card per)

Disease Ridden Evil Space Troopers with  Bolt Rifle and Scary Knife

Move: 4”  Actions: 3   Defense: 3 cards

Downed Check: 2 extra cards

Bolt rifle: Range - infinite, 2 shots, 2 cards per shot

Scary knife: 2 cards (because 1 attack, 2 cards per)

Disease Ridden Evil Space Troopers with  Belcher  and Scary Knife

Move: 4”  Actions: 3   Defense: 3 cards

Downed Check: 2 extra cards

BElcher: Range - 6”, 3 shots, Blas, 3 cards per shot,

Scary knife: 2 cards (because 1 attack, 2 cards per)

Disease Ridden Evil Space Troopers with  Plasma pistol and Energy Claw

Move: 4”  Actions: 3   Defense: 3 cards

Downed Check: 2 extra cards

Plasma pistol: Range - infinite, 2 shots, 3 cards per shot

claw: 6 cards (because 3 attack, 2 cards per)

Friday Grab Bag

Yesterday, after viewing some images over on Little Wars Revisited, I was inspired to throw some 54s on the table (as is right and proper). 

Elements of an Allied Venusian Expeditionary Force patrol are in retreat from the lizard folk. The AVEF units plan to consolidate their position on the hill beyond the river. (One Hour Wargames Scenario 20)

Crossing the river.

Rifle and bow exchange fire.

The AVEF about to be overrun.

I played this scenario with One Page Rules Age of Fantasy : Regiments, but instead, treating each element as a unit of 10 figures (and tracking with d10s). Rolling 10d6 for an attack was more fun than I anticipated. But I'm not sure the special abilities/troop differences that AoF brings to the table were any better than when I play using One Hour Wargames (Ancients+Dark Ages for the lizards, Rifle & Sabre for the FFL/Highlanders, with  my fantasy rules for heroes, casters, and beasts bolted on), just different.

Speaking of OPR...

Last year, on his birthday, my son received the Space Marines paint set (6 paints, and 3 Infernus). The intent of the kit is to paint them as Ultramarines. Unlike the regular box of Space Marines, the starter kit comes with the Ultramarine and Unit symbols molded into the pauldrons so they seem pretty much destined for that chapter.

My son had assembled and primed one, but lost interest quickly thereafter.

With his permission, I asked if I could paint it up as a Blood Raven (his preferred chapter) - if I could manage to scrape the Ultramarine symbol off the figure. Thumbs up received, a fresh #11 blade was applied and, while I feared the plastic was too thick to remove easily, off it came easy peasy. 

So, he'll now have three Blood Raven Infernus (he may assemble and paint the other two himself - seeing that it could be done seems to have changed his attitude towards the figures)

"Now it's time to get funky"

"To the right now,"

"to the left ...Take it back now ya'll"

Speaking of my son, ever since I introduced him to the Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff podcast, he has wanted to try The Fall of Delta Green. However, as it's set in the 60s, I felt like it wasn't a good fit even if I made it kid friendly, since he didn't know anything about the 60s (which reminds me of one of my favorite exchanges on the Gumball cartoon. Someone says a decade like "the 60s" and Darwin asks "You mean the future?" "No, the 1960s", "There was a 19?").

He was maybe 8 or 9 at the time.

This past year, in 7th grade social studies, they covered the Vietnam War (in a superficial way, but none the less), but he is more than informed about it after watching numerous history videos on YouTube and discussing the war with me. In fact, in our Family & Friends gaming group, he probably knows more than most of the adults about it (I'll pat myself on the back for that).

He also gets a big kick out of the Fortunate Son/Huey gunship meme.

With my only interest in 5e D&D being to participate as a player, I have had nothing to bring to the group during breaks in our current Ravenloft-based campaign to give the other GM a chance to play. I don't want to run more D&D (b/x of course), as I have the campaign with my son - we did try to bring in the Friends & Family group into that, but since we play so often, it's almost impossible for them to have any sense of the various threads that have emerged.

So, all this is to say, I decided it is time:

It's a hefty tome. For me at least.

I've long since given up reading large rule books (I have the 5e Player's Handbook, but I have only read maybe 20 or so pages that I needed to create the two characters I've run -a gnome monk and a human thief) but I'll make an exception here as much of it is background and GM advice (horror seems to require a modicum of seriousness, which I tend to lack, so this may or may not work!) and intriguing.

The Fall of Delta Green uses the Gumshoe system, which is new to me, and to the entire group. 

That adds some additional lifting for me. 

As I will be running one-shots or maybe an episodic campaign for the group, a group that won't invest in player books to learn a system, I'll have to teach it. At it's base it's not difficult, it's when all the little extras creep in that I can easily lose my footing. I'm considering some of the various Cthulhu Dark variants (Cthulhu Deep Green seems a likely candidate) as they are rules-light and easy to teach. 

We'll see though.

I have a lot of experience playing RPGs solo - using a variety of methods including Mythic: Game Master Emulator, so I will go through the character generation process a few times, and run some sample mini adventures for myself to get a grasp of the mechanics to see if they are as involved as they seemed on my first pass.

Purple People Eaters

A lot of people got their wargaming start with Games Workshop games/figures/etc and then discovered there's a whole wide-world of wargaming that goes beyond what GW dictates.

I seem to have gone the opposite direction.

Now, I'm not particularly interested playing 40K - the rule book costs too much for something that  I am not convinced is anything remotely close to worth it. One Page Rules are free, or if you want to shell out $5, you can buy the advanced rules PDFs on WargameVault and they get updated for free whenever OPR updates the files. Plus,  I have met several former GW gamers who say OPR is the fun they used to have before GW sucked the joy out of the room.

However, while yes, you can get 3D printed stuff or use models from any company to play OPR, I just happen to really love a lot of GW's sculpts. While aesthetically I prefer the more comical looking models of the 80s and 90s (Orks, I'm specifically looking at you), the current models are things of beauty, and panting them can be as complicated, or in my case, uncomplicated, as desired.

All that is to say, here's an update on my Tyranid termagants:

After priming, a wash with Magos Purple. Call it what you will GW, this is clearly Grape Juice.

Pallid Wych Flesh dry brush, Leviathan Purple applied, Ulthuan Grey dry brush on the purple, Reichland Flesh Shade on the gun bodies. Why can't their paints have normal names?

Presenting the first completed members of Hive Fleet Leviathan

The other side, so you can see the eyeball on the guns. Painted with craft paint! Let the clutching of pearls begin!

There are things  I see in close-up that make me annoyed and I'll go back and fix. Maybe. This is a horde army, individual models will blend into the mass. Even in Grimdark Future: Fire Fight (GD:FF), in a 300 point game I can field nine of them (if using the Force Org rules) or all of them (if I don't use Force Org rules).

And, this arrived Saturday:

Looking ahead (are wargamers ever not planning something more?) I am considering adding a canoness and three paragon warsuits but not until these are painted up. That would get me up to a 1000 point Grim Dark Future list (about 500 points in GW terms as I understand it) to bring to the Georgia OPR group (which, amusingly,  I am an admin on the FB group despite playing one game with the group).

Speaking of OPR, I got in a (solo) game of Plague Marines vs Blood Ravens on Father's Day night using GD:FF

Terrain provided by the neglected army men bin in my son's closet, which contains some things that used to be in my collection (CTS PZ IV, 21st Century terrain bits. The PlayMobil prison is his, but I have it earmarked for my collection :D ). Board provided by the Space Marine boardgame

The forces of Chaos demolished the forces of the Imperium - the one above is the sole survivor.

I used the kitchen table/small space rules for Grim Dark Future: Firefight, which halves all the ranges. However, I may have mistakenly set up the armies on the short sides which put a lot of distance between them (I couldn't be bothered to look at the rulebook PDF which on my laptop and not on my phone where it would be convenient).

 In Kill Team, the thing GD:FF approximates, Plague Marines have a base move of 4" compared to 6" for Assault Intercessors (all of my Blood Ravens are Assault Intercessors). But GD:FF does not give the Plague Marines the Slow trait - so they move the same. But about half of the Plague Marines had rifles vs the pistols of the Assault Intercessors, giving them a decided advantage with so much ground between the two forces.

Up next, more Tyranids! And an Ultramarine Infernus converted to Blood Raven Infernus (the three figures and paint sets come with the Ultramarine symbol molded into the left pauldrons instead of decals) to give the Blood Ravens a little bit more umph if not range (same range as a pistol).

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

To my surprise, I did have a little time over the weekend to do hobby things - or rather, I made time because I was doing a lot of "productive" things and thought "I need a break."

And so I broke out my copy of last year's bomb-of-a-game-but-great-minis-value Space Marine. I'm starting in on the Tyranid termagants. I love their Alien-meets-Jurassic Park look and I'm looking forward to getting them onto the table as opponents for my Blood Ravens or, as my son tells me this fits the lore, my Plague Marines, using Grimdark Future: Firefight or possibly even One Hour Skirmish Wargames. 

They're push-fit models in this box (I think it's meant as a gateway drug to Warhammer 40K and they don't want to scare anyone off) but they do have to be clipped from the sprues and a little minor scraping of lines and such, but the hard plastic makes it a breeze (mostly).

There are two of each pose in this set, so I'm going to work in 4s rather than my usual 3s. 

Here's the first batch undercoated:

Since I have so many to paint (for me, 20+ figures is a whole army,but I realize for may people, it's not even a battalion's worth of figures) , I'll be using a "speed" method and mostly following this video from Sonic Sledgehammer Studio.

One notable exception, I'll be using Leviathan Purple contrast paint for the carapace.

And speaking of, two of the paints were an early Father's Day gift!

These are my first contrast paints and I'm super excited to give them a try. With 20+ Tyranids, I'll get plenty of practice!

Week Off Recap

I was off this past week from my day job and as a result, I was able to squeeze in some gaming related activity. 

Most of the gaming was centered around a mega-dungeon campaign I've been running for my son, off and on, since July of 2023. His party is on their way to the regional capital to deliver a letter they discovered that hints of an invasion and at his request, he wants to see the villages and towns along the way.

As I had never intended for him to leave the tiny area I had mapped out around the dungeon originally, some time was spent generating a map (I make it sound tedious but it was fun - I used an old copy of Hexographer), identifying the villages and their names (most of them are based on towns from the Let's Game It Out YouTube channel that we used to watch religiously, but the capital is Capital City per The Simpsons), and then importantly what published modules, adventures, encounters, etc. I would put in or near each stop along the route.

His first side-quest was fighting a devil his party had accidentally freed when they were but level 3 or less (they are now level 6-7 - which might sound like a lot of gain for old school play, but we have had a *lot* of sessions, since it's just him and me it's easy to get the whole group together!). He appreciated the call back - and in the very brief fight where he sent the devil back to Hell, he learned that Geryon (arch-devil) is concerned about his party rising in power. It came out in role-play and was completely unscripted, but he's super excited about it, so now I have that thread/threat I can work in now and again.

As a point of interest, I used ChatGPT to generate a 5-room "dungeon" (really wilderness encounter areas) featuring said devil, set in a swamp. With a little tweaking it ended up being a great little 2+ hour session with a satisfying story arc and interesting puzzles. I'll probably do this for some other small area encounters along the route.

The party is currently in the Tower of the Stargazer (James Raggi's module for Lamentations of the Flame Princess). He will be there a bit - although he's already found and gotten the big treasure I think (the module is not written for characters of 6th level or higher, so he had some advantages and got a boon when he passed what would be a difficult saving throw for a 1st level character, which he cashed in for the key to the puzzle protecting the treasure - I'm OK with this. At his characters' levels, the treasure amounts to a pittance towards the XP for the next level - and he still hast to get it back to the village for it to count as XP anyway and it's more than they can carry). 

He's on summer break, so we'll play on weeknights as well as weekends until school starts again.

My big miniatures accomplishment was finishing the last three Novokh Dynasty Necrons. 

The gang's all here.

This puts me at twenty-five Warhammer 40K miniatures painted this year - not earth shattering, but on pace to get everything painted before the end of the year. Up next, when I get to it, I'll probably start assembling the first Tyranids. I think they are pretty great, so I'm looking forward to it, even though I have like 23 to paint or some ridiculous number.

I got in a second game of Fire Team - Necrons lost again, and in a big way. I definitely made some tactical errors when I was controlling them. I made some notes to apply next time.

The same can be said for my Nurgle Rotters who had their second game ever, and lost, in Blitz Bowl - this time against the Reichland Reavers (humans). They are just so slow. I think I need to goal tend with most of the team, most of the time.

Other than D&D, I'm not sure when I'll get to work on anything else gaming related - I'm putting together a bunch of YouTube content for guitar (song walk throughs for Sisters of Mercy, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and similar, as well as general guitar content, etc) and I 'll need time to shoot and edit it in between day job, D&D, Lone Warrior stuff, and teaching! (Overextended? Me?)