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)

October Review

 

Role Playing 

For our Family Fall Festival this year, I did end up running a game after all - the player who had wanted to run a game just didn't have time to flesh out their idea. With two days to prepare, I went into research overdrive like I was writing a final paper, and like those days of yore, got it done at the last minute. 

For a visual element, with no time to make any bespoke terrain, I settled on atmosphere and re-used the LED candles and table cloth/runner, and autumnal wreath from last year, but replaced my DIY Shub-niggurath statue with a skull that was part of my son's Halloween costume last year. 

The setup: Every 66 years on the night of the Harvest Moon, a dark, crooked house appears on a hillside overlooking the small village of Hallowfeld. It disappears at sunrise. Of course, it is rumored that those who enter are never seen again.

The hook: This year is, according to a drunk merchant, the 66th year since the last appearance, and so the party decides to journey to Hallowfeld just to see it and partake in the Harvest Festival there. At the village tavern, while sitting around the fire and enjoying ghost stories, and old man comes in and tells them that he went in the house as a boy and managed to escape, but he left something behind - he doesn't know what, just that he needs it back, and he begs them for help.

It went pretty well ending with the party finding the lost thing (part of the man's soul), defeating the boss monster (a shadow, which should have been tough for a level 1 and 2 party, but between magic missile spells and the paladin's ability to have any one weapon be treated as magic once a day, it lasted one round), stealing the house's "battery", leaping from the porch as the house collapsed while throwing the unstable battery into the distance - where i took out a chunk of countryside.

We didn't have time to do administrative tasks after, but at least one PC leveled up (they had been trailing the others, having missed a few sessions). 

There are two sessions scheduled for November!

Wargaming

For reasons, I decided to break out my Southern Front WWI collection.

The scenario is, hopefully, recognizable - although I suspect the bridge would have an Italian name in this case - let us call it Esplodere Bridge.

Rules were G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (modified for 8-figure infantry/4-figure cavalry units. MGs counted as having 5 crew members) with some Contemptible Little Armies and In Good Company thrown in.

The game area is 36" x 24". Movement and shooting ranges were cut in half. Movement was variable as per CLA. Victory would go to the side that controlled the bridge after 10 turns (which would mean having units on the other side of the bridge for my purposes and enough of a force to be able to hold the bridge)

The Italians have one infantry unit, one MG, and one cavalry unit. The Austrians have two infantry units (1 figure with an LMG) and an MG. 

Italian infantry storm the bridge while an Austrian unit struggles to ford the river.

Perhaps a turn later, the Italians are nearly across (at the expense of shooting, since in GASLIGHT, it's move or shoot). Meanwhile the Austrians continue to struggle crossing the river, but their other unit and MG prepare to slaughter the Italians on the bridge.

 < REEL MISSING > 

(I was all wrapped up in playing)

The Italian force is in ruins at the end of turn 10. Really at the end of turn 9, but i thought, what the heck, let's keep playing. The Italians are on the bridge but even with their MG intact, they have little to no chance in my opinion.Victory to Austria-Hungary

Miniatures

No paint was applied to anything this month - although I did re-base my WWI Southern Front collection to individual bases (cut from mat board) again - because rebasing is my hobby and toy soldiers are just an excuse to do it! 

 

Those new bases still need paint, as visible above.

I did however, pack away about half of my figure collection to see if I even want to keep them or if they can be sent to good homes. I tend to make no decision when presented with many options - hello Kanopy watch list, I'm looking at you - and so I usually end up not playing anything, even when I have time.

I am a huge fan of books and podcasts about decluttering (i like to *think* about doing it at least), but I really glomed on to "the container concept" from "A Slob Comes Clean". Essentially, she stresses that the purpose of a container is to limit things, not to store them, but to provide boundaries to how much you keep. 

"You can keep anything you want, but you can't keep everything" (more or less a direct quote)

This idea sings to me. As well as the one about designating a day of the week as laundry day instead of waiting until you're out of socks or whatever. I digress.

Anyway, I designated a single 6-bin (they are like 14" x 14" x 3" - for scrapbookers but handy for 54mm and 28mm/32mm figures /- especially those with banners and such - too) organizer for my wargaming figures and that's it. (I have 12 bins worth, hence half my collection will be kept out).

That means, I can have 6 collections at 1 bin each, or 1 that fills all 6 or any combination that adds to 6 bins. That's it. (OK OK, i did cheat by putting a bunch on display a bit ago - playing games isn't the only way to appreciate toy soldiers after all)  

What remains? 

1. 54mm WWI Southern Front - it came down to WWI vs Colonial England/French Foreign Legion and both collections give a similar kind of game - lancers, infantry, machine guns. Only the costumes change and that's not enough reason)
2. 1/35 WWI Horror - I mean, it's 8 figures, plus monsters, most of which serve for RPGs as well.
3. 54mm-ish North Pole '42 - Weird World War II. Germans and  robotic tin soldiers commanded by a greedy industrialist are the bad guys.
4. 32mm Grim Dark Sci Fi - it's a collection that my son expresses even a little interest in,so it of course stays. Plus, I love the figures. It also scratches the same itch as 1:1 WWII skirmish games, with the advantage that I can play with others locally when the mood strikes.
5. 28/32mm Fantasy - I'm choosing to focus on two factions (inspired by Norm over at Battlefields and Warriors): lizard folk and orcs. Any other factions - and even some of the orcs - are borrowed from my RPG figure collection. I can also include Blitz Bowl here, but that's really a board game.

So, what in fact got moved to "storage":

• 54mm Colonial
• 54mm Fantasy,
• Brick WWII
• 1/72 WWII.
• 54mm AWI (well, a handful of militia from last Christmas's game) 

In some cases, storage means unceremoniously tossed into a big jumble, while in some cases, it means the current bin is just earmarked to go into a closet (which has to be cleared first).

I feel greatly relieved by this situation already and I've already played a few wargames in November!

Of course, once all this was decided upon, I realized my orcs needed cavalry - and after watching eBay for a bit, I scored a great deal on 7 painted boar boyz and they are on their way. So an October figure purchase, with a November arrival.

If I don't post again before then, see you in a month! 

Family Game Preparation

As I mentioned the other day, our annual "Family Fall Festival" is coming up rapidly (this approaching Sunday as a matter of fact).

For this year's fare, I am steering clear of a miniatures-based experience, as time has slipped away from me for preparation. Since we primarily play RPGs in our friends and family gaming group, no one will bat an eye if I roll out an RPG scenario.

Although I still have plans to run Fall of Delta Green eventually, the sample adventure is potentially far too involved for a single session.

I have found a standard Call of Cthulhu one-shot adventure to run, but I will be instead running it with The Cthulhu Hack Cthulhu Grey, a rules-light game based on the even lighter Cthulhu Dark. Call of Cthulhu, 7th ed., is pretty easy to understand for the most part but I don't want a D&D 5e situation where everyone is reading their character sheets trying to figure out what they can do (which has, coincidentally, also been my experience playing Call of Cthulhu, albeit 6th ed.). 

Rules-light hopefully means we can get into it much faster without getting bogged down in mechanics and worrying about long lists of specific skills (characters have an occupation, three skills, and two stats).

The hard part, for me, is that I like the Family Fall Festival and Christmas games to stand out from the other gaming we do during the year. It's part of the celebration and I want it to feel that way to the players - not just ordinary ho-hum.

Minis are out, so I'm turning my attention to the ambiance. 

I've purchased a table cloth(we don't use tablecloths ever so while it's not spooky, it's different) and LED candles for lighting. 

Now, as I have trouble reading even in bright light, I know the dim light may be an issue - that's why I picked up 24 votive candles and three tapers. Unfortunately, in last night's testing, I found 3 or 4 votive candles each may not be enough - at least not for me. So, I'll probably order some more to make sure we're covered.

I have a playlist of 1920s music to put on in the background while I set up, and from which I'll segue into creepier ambient music when the game starts.

Sound effects on hand will include waves, wind, rain, lighting, and strange sounds, controlled from a venerable Boss SP-303 "Dr. Sample" rather than software on my phone or laptop (to minimize light from anything but candles).  

Sometimes being a music-gear pack rat pays off.

Now that I think about it, this whole thing has a performance vibe, where the actors don't know their roles until the day of. I digress ...

The adventure, like most Call of Cthulhu adventures, comes with player handouts. I'm getting those printed, since they are in color, and possibly aging some of them with tea or coffee. 

Strange coins play a role in the investigation, so I picked up some creepy made-of-metal prop coins from Etsy. 

Picture by The Unassailable Mage on Etsy

They don't match the ones in the story, but they are odd enough, and I got enough that each player can take one home as a memento. 

I also picked up inexpensive sets of five different d6s for each player. This is entirely self-serving so I can tell at a glance when someone's Harm or Insanity is higher than their other dice. It just happens to have the benefit that they can keep them to add to their collections after the game.

At the very least, if they don't have fun, they will at least come away with some goodies! (Is this bribery? Maybe.)

Finally, I was looking for a centerpiece for the table - there are plenty of cool looking Mythos statues on Etsy, but those typically cost more than I can afford to pay for a one-time use. I recalled I had some air dry clay left over and finding it still good, I decided to try a proof of concept.

Behold, an ancient (and tiny, like 3") evil idol

Cthuloid idol.

 

My crude (aka non-existent) sculpting skills actually work to my advantage here, I think. The downside, as I've encountered before with this stuff, is that it takes forever for the clay to dry completely when it's a thick chunk.

So, for the "final product", I made a mass of aluminum foil roughly in the desired shape and then applied thin strips of air dry clay.  At least that was the plan. I kind of used some thick lumps for the "legs".

Shub-Niggurath

Despite that deviation, in the whole, this process theoretically means it will dry quicker - which is good, since I need this all finished - including painted - by October 6!  My goal is a "crude and disconcerting ancient idol of a previously unknown religion" and  once the paint is applied I think it'll sell that even more.

Why Shub-Niggurath? (asked no one)

Because she's my favorite. 

Also because the adventure is tangentially based around one of the water-affiliated entities and I want to draw the players minds away from that at first - especially the ones familiar with the Lovecraft Mythos who will immediately grasp for Cthulhu and Dagon.

There's still a lot for me to do before Sunday not least of which is finishing converting the scenario from the format of the module to my preferred format for running (this process, though tedious, means I really learn the module, so that, ironically, the final document needs only minimal reference during the game).

Tonight I pick up my PA from the rehearsal space so I can start working on setting up the sampler. (See, it really is a performance!)

Finally, on top of everything, I've been re-reading some of my favorite Lovecraft stories -mostly to mine for his vocabulary for describing cosmic horror and the creeping dread that overcomes his protagonists as they realize the full horror of what they are experiencing.

I may post again before the game but if not, I'll see you on the other side!