November Review

This is kind of  a long one, so best to pour a cup of your favorite beverage, hot or cold.

November saw an explosion of gaming activity - but not a single drop of paint applied to anything.

Unfortunately, although I took photos, i didn't really document anything, so the photos below are of various games without much of a narrative. 

That said, I set out to try a variety of rules/options and I include my thoughts at the end of each section.

Fantasy

All of my fantasy games were of the same One Hour Wargames scenario, #4. 

One Hour Wargames 'Dark Ages' with 3" Squares inspired by Morschauser

I kept all of the ranges as written, despite units being half as wide as the maximum recommended width.

My rationale was that Morschauser's ranges are significantly greater and he suggests up to 3" squares.

 

Something is in focus in this picture, just not anything that makes it easy to look at.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T

This required some adjustment, as G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. assumes 10-figure infantry and cavalry units. 

 

However, it's easy enough to allow for any number of figures in a unit, provided that number corresponds to either the number of sides of a die or half the number of sides of a die (assuming you have a set of polyhedral dice available, and I have more than my fair share. So, a d6 works for 3 figure units, and a d10 works for 5 figure units).

 

The markers indicate the unit lost a figure this round. In G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., when a unit loses a figure, it must check morale the next time its card comes up.

These vintage metal Boar Boyz were an eBay score and painted by the previous owner. Most of the boars are missing their tails - someday I may get around to making them out of Green Stuff.

One Hour Wargames, 'Dark Ages' with Single Figures

This is basically the same as rules-as-written, without a base, as I did for my previous WWI post.

 

Sneaky goblins.

The hill is clearly the objective here.

I just love this scene. Pteranodons are straight up Dark Ages cavalry, whereas the Boar Boyz have +2.

One Hour Wargames, 'Dark Ages' with 6" x 3" bases

Standard OHW basing really. Actually, it's two 3"x3" bases side-by-side. Which, while I did not do it here, has the advantage of allowing a column for road travel. 

 

Orc Boar Boyz followed by their Beastfolk allies - since I don't have enough orcs to make six units.

What is not pictured above is Age of Fantasy, which I did play as well. 

I am more certain than ever that One Page Rules are fun for playing against others, but not so fun for solo games. For me, there are far too many special rules (nearly every unit has them) to remember for two sides.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. worked surprisingly well in a game that featured melee over shooting. To balance smaller units vs larger, I gave the smaller units saves for all the members of the unit rather than just main characters. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it still gave a satisfying game.

That said, One Hour Wargames for the win. 

Whether 3" squares, 6" x 3", or individual figures (but no figure removal), the games were fun, and "felt right". I am not a huge fan of the "one unit remaining" end to games, so I will start adding in my preferred modifications: dicing for # of units to be activated per turn, morale tests, and leaders with rallying ability.

For Dark Ages OHW, the lizard units, other than the archers (which I treat as Ancients archers, as the Dark Ages rules do not account for archers) and the cavalry (dinosaurs and Pteranodons), are all warband (inspired by Neil Thomas's suggestion for a Viking army). 

The orcs are somewhat up in the air but I'm intent on building them to a cavalry dominant force (a la Neil Thomas's suggestion for a Frankish force, with a +2 bonus when attacking, and swapping cavalry with shield wall when generating a force), supplemented by shield wall (Black Orcs), warband (Savage Orcs), and skirmishers (Goblins). 

Science Fiction

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

Arguably, this is what G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. is intended for, although not the grim dark future. To keep tanks from dominating the battlefield - because I gave them MMGs and artillery options, in order to shoot at infantry units, they would have to make an acquisition roll first (an idea I borrowed from Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers) - which was just a roll vs their Shoot score. It worked as hoped.

 

Sisters advance, tasked with breaking through the Plague Marine position.

Plasma weapons function as anti-tank weapons. Too bad he missed and was then gunned down by the tank's MG shortly after.

A nice top-down pic of the winter-scheme Pz IV by Solido.

The Sisters would eventually drive off the Plague Marines and break through with minimal losses.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Again

 The above game was actually the 2nd game with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. For the third game, I made some additional tweaks (explained below).

 

The Plague Marines had the Churchill tank. It was knocked out of the fight about mid-way through the game by a Sister with a Melta.

Sisters capture the objective.

If you're unfamiliar, G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. can handle what amounts to a platoon with an independent leader figure and some kind of support (vehicle/mech/etc.) and avoid dragging down the game. Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. can go larger - in large part (or entirely?)  due to rolling one morale result for an entire unit rather than for each figure in the unit - I have Battles as part of the G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Compendium, but I hate dealing with that massive PDF.

I tweaked some things each game and by game 3, I had something that I think works really well. My goal is to have 5-figure units for all foot. Neither side in this game can field more than one such unit at this time, so, 3-figure units for the Plague Marines and 4-figure units for the Sisters. Guess I better get painting!

Weapons were as much as possible mapped to existing G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. weapons.

To mimic the differences in armor - which, to me, is a big part of the grim dark setting that needs to be addressed - all figures have an Armor Save, based on their One Page Rules Defense score and any additional special abilities in OPR that impact that roll.

It's very similar to how G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.  handles vehicle armor. The difference is that I ignored the Save Roll Modifier for weapons when attacking infantry except for Plasma and Melta guns.

Speaking of, Flamers and Melta guns are brutal in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. All area-effect weapons are, but I like it so I'm keeping it.

Main Characters also have the standard G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. save if they fail their Armor Save. 

I know I've converted One Hour Skirmish Wargames to work for me for the grim dark future setting, but that tops out around 13-15 models per side. I do at some point hope to field my complete Space Marine and Tyranid forces on the table (when painted) and that will be much larger than OHSW can handle and just about perfect for G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

Purchases

With Christmas coming, and being responsible for my own gifts, I ordered a job-lot of ten mostly vintage Boar Boyz. Most are missing shields, so I ordered some shields too. The Boar Boyz have arrived but as thy are a Christmas present, I have to refrain from starting on them until then.

 

Although I am not gifting myself any wargames books per se, I ordered two old Adepta Sororitas titles, Faith & Fire and Hammer & Anvil.

 

I'm tempted to buy one of the omnibuses but we'll see.  

RPGs

The party played through "Goblin Gully", a one-page dungeon, with nary a scratch - which makes sense as its really intended to be a challenge for 1st and maybe 2nd level characters, not 2nd and 3rd level characters. However, as part of it, they found a map that ties to another adventure location and to my surprise, that's where they want to go next.

I say to my surprise, because it's a mini-campaign - if the regular episodic adventures are like TV episodes, then this is the made-for-TV movie special.

It's also going to require some prep on my part before they can dive into it. One player expressed a desire for more role-play opportunities (it's mostly a hack and slash campaign so far). So I'm adding in lots of layers upon layers, like an ogre (Shrek joke for you fans out there). 

I started in on it at the end of the month and made some decent progress on setting up some NPC personalities and relationships. (Not going overboard since you never know what players will latch onto or ignore)

December Preview 

I'm not running a Christmas game this year, although I am helping out the GM. Possibly making scenery and painting figures as needed.

 

Mostly, I intend to play more fantasy games with OHW and some more G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. in the grim dark future with different forces to make sure my adjustments work across factions. And Blitz Bowl. I haven't gotten in a single game yet.

 

Oddly, I have been feeling like painting lately, so that may be a thing. Who knows? 

 

And of course, I will be filling out the material needed for the first session of the next RPG adventure as described above. It's time for practical things like the first level of the map, stats, etc.

See you next month! (or sooner. I think I'm tired of these monthly wrap ups and may go back to posting on a whim)