The Library Book Pt. 3 : A Game Using The Quests of Brin The Barbarian

When we last left Our Hero, it seemed he had met his end at the hand of a roving band of goblins. But as it turned out, his story was not over.

Though it stretches the bounds of credulity, and though he had most surely had at least one foot in the Great Void, Our Hero was happened upon by a barbarian of the great expanse called 'The Northlands', who had been wandering in search of fortune and adventure. Finding the battered magician amid the signs of a great struggle, the Northerner bound Our Heroe's wounds and applied medicinal salves which he prepared from memory, as taught to him by his mother and passed down from before the dawn of recorded time.

A most miraculous and rapid recovery then occurred - as if to break the bonds of credulity for good. But all was not rainbows and unicorns.

To Our Heroe's great misfortune the overdue book which he had endeavored to return to the Library at Stahlhelm, along with his coin purse, filled to pay the fine which awaited him had been taken by the goblins. Though he had no money on his person, he easily convinced the Northerner, by way of demonstrations of his ability to control the unseen forces of the world, that he would be good for it, should the barbarian accompany him on his quest to regain the overdue book.

And so it was that the two joined together and set forth into the Dark Woods.

 It was not long before the Northerner, trained in the ways of hunting as well as fighting, uncovered the goblin trail and  the pair followed it to a great rocky protrusion with a great maw opening into the earth itself, deep in the forest. Several goblins stood guard to challenge any who approached.

Every sinew in the barbarian's body coiled and unsprung in an instant as he launched forward towards the humanoids, emitting a thunderous war cry as he charged.

To their credit, the goblins moved to engage the wild man charging towards them. Meanwhile, from the rocky outcropping, an archer fired at the Northerner hoping to keep him distracted.  Our Hero, lest you think he had decided to leave the difficult work to the brawn of the warrior,  called upon the powers known only to those so initiated and paralyzed a nearby goblin, before bringing his own staff to bear upon it.

One goblin fell. And then another. But the archer rained down arrows with alarming accuracy. Even the mighty barbarian could not last forever against the onslaught. Our Hero attempted to call upon magic to heal the warrior but perhaps in his rush, the spell did not succeed. The Gods smiled upon the pair though, as the goblin, having seen two of his comrades ensorcelled and felled, the last goblin ran when the Northener charged his position.

With the barbarian seriously wounded, and Our Hero drained from his summoning of forces beyond the realm of most human understanding, they paused at the entrance to the cave. They would spend a few hours resting and tending to the Northerner's wounds and then begin their assault on whatever was inside.

More Soviet Cannon Fodder, I Mean Infantry

I've spent some time considering what my "ideal" WWII forces would look like (at least for the present moment) and so it has given my desire to paint another boost.

Here are four new recruits for the my Soviet army:

NKVD officer "encouraging" Soviet riflemen.

All are Marx recasts.

The biggest problem is how few of these standing rifle figures I got in the batch of thirty-six Marx Soviets I acquired a few years ago (and finally they are getting painted!). Part of me wants to order yet another batch in hopes of getting a few more, part of me says just paint what I have. The other rifle pose included is a close assault pose with the gun over the head or maybe they are wading? I don't like it as much, but I have quite a few of them.

I did pick up a box of two 1/35 Italeri maxim gun teams - my Soviets need something more than light machine guns. I really don't like building models, including figures, mostly because I am bad at fiddly things. Hopefully, I don't botch them too badly.

A Gaming Convention of My Own

While it may have paled in comparison to GenCon, this past weekend, I managed to get in a bit more gaming activity than usual and without any travel or entry fees. Hence the title of this post.

As a result of a conversation with my 7-year old about my intent to play an RPG at DragonCon (our biggest local nerd event) this year, I ended up running two short "5-Room Dungeon" sessions of Dungeons & Dragons for him, using Moldvay's Basic / Expert set from 1983 or thereabouts (and by far my favorite edition of the game).

We kept close to the rules for mechanics, but played fast and loose with setting and such. There was a  "phase sword", pseudo-science, magic, knights, and a telepathic pet rhinoceros. It was a mash up of a traditional pseudo-medieval setting / Gamma World style post-apocalypse, and Star Wars with heavy emphasis on emergent player-driven setting details, i.e. if he came up with something about the game world, I said either "Yes, and" or "Yes, but".

Both sessions were quite enjoyable - it was refreshing to hear his ideas about what will happen or what things mean, as he is not saddled with decades of the standard D&D tropes. The next session is planned for Tuesday night, which gives me a little time to come up with the next adventure hook.

On the wargaming front, in addition to rounding the corners on all of the counters for the ASL Starter Kit #1 (a tedious process that really does make the counters that much nicer), I put figures on the table on Friday night, playing the One Hour Wargames scenario "An Unfortunate Oversight".

I used the OHW force generation and setup, but played using my preferred rules for these scenarios: a slightly modified Morschauser's Moderns with roster system (which I track with a die).  I also set 50% units lost as the automatic break point for the armies. As the game played quickly, I had time to play the scenario twice.

The setup was more or less the same for both games:

Germans are within 12" of the village, Soviets are South of the river - placed by die roll.

Game one:

The Soviets crossedd the river at a ford and come under fire from German infantry on the hill and the German armor.

With the Soviet armor moving perpendicular the German Panzers it wasn't going to end well for the Soviets.

The unit of T-34s was stopped dead in its tracks. No pun intended.

But the Soviet armor outnumbered what the Germans had brought to bear.

In the end though, the Soviet infantry proved to be the deciding factor and the Germans were forced to retreat.

I had thought at this scale, with the battle more or less joined from the start, allowing the ATG to move didn't make sense, but in the end it really wasn't fair that it was stuck in one place. So, for the second game,  I opted to let the ATG move (pretending it had some kind of transport). Again, the setup was basically the same as the first game.

Game two:

The Soviets crossed the ford again, but sent a unit of T-34s around through the village to put pressure on the Germans.

Would the patriots of Mother Russia make it across the river to aid their comrades on the hill?

The combined Soviet infantry anti-tank grenades and fire from the T-34 platoon, which had moved behind the hill, made fast work of the German armor.

The Soviet ATG unit fired a continuous barrage of anti-personnel rounds.

The German ATG unit tackled the Soviet armor advancing through the village and bravely continued firing in the face of aggressive counter-fire.  Both sides proved incapable of delivering a decisive blow, and the Red armor inched closer and closer.

On the hill the burning wreckage left little room for German infantry to stake a claim, while the Soviet infantry swarmed towards the hill, encircling the Germans. Off-camera, the Soviet armor overran the German ATG position sealing the Soviet victory.

Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia

This recently arrived in my mailbox and it has been worth far more than the modest purchase price already.

Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia, Department of the Army, July 1953

Now, I'll be the first to note that you can find this publication free of charge online- legally from https://history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/22/22-2.html (thanks to Chris for the link!)- but I wanted a print copy. I tend to hate reading long form things, like books, on a screen after working on a screen all day.

The fold-out maps are great:

And there are many included in the pages of the book itself:

They're all just begging to be used for scenarios or campaigns (and the text gives all of the details you could want).

[At that point, I'll probably print them from one of the online versions. ]

The Library Book Pt. 2 : A Game Using The Quests of Brin The Barbarian

Due to an exhausting few days at work and preparations for a performance Saturday night, I've had no time for gaming or blog activity (my apologies to those who thoughtfully posted comments on previous posts, my replies are forthcoming!). However, last night, I had a little time and decided to
put something on the table.

So, let us rejoin our hero on his quest to return an overdue and ancient tome to the library...

Following the road through the dreadful dark forest, our hero was none too surprised when a yellow-skinned goblin appeared before him, demanding he turn over his valuables. Replacement fees are far worse than late fees, and so it was that the battle was joined.

Unfortunately, in his haste to cast a paralysis spell our hero fumbled one of the words and the spell fizzled.

The goblin was not at all impressed. 

A blurry close-up.

And to add to our hero's surprise at his failure, a second goblin appeared at the edge of some trees.

And then a third!

The bow armed yellow fellow was suitably nervous engaging a spell caster and let his arrows fly with apparently no particular destination in mind. The other two charged in madly and laid some wallops on our hero that he would not soon forget.

Weakened by the failed spell and the blows of his assailants, he had no option but to try to out run the humanoids. He would not willingly give the cretins a penny.

The goblins followed and the archer, having finally calmed his nerves, let loose an arrow that struck home. Our hero staggered and then all went black.

The goblins admire their handiwork.

Is this the end of our hero?

I should think not. Tune in for the next installment!


*****
A quick and fun game,that went not at all how I imagined and was just the thing after a tiring few days.

Secrets of the Quilters

I mentioned awhile back that I had acquired some fabric to make a new square grid ground cloth.

As I had made a squared cloth once before, I figured "This will be easy." Famous last words.

While using fabric paint in a similar, but not quite matching color of the cloth, to indicate vertices worked well, the size of the squares fluctuated wildly. I figured this was in large part due to working with a 12" ruler and a only slightly larger square.

A reasonable but wrong conclusion.

My roommate sews quite a bit and has a proper yard stick and a humongous square. Even with these tools my squares varied considerably. The inescapable conclusion was that this was more of a "me problem" than a problem of the tools. Rulers are apparently outside of my skill set.

I realized, after I thoroughly botched the grid on this cloth that the last time I did this I had a bird-house with a 6" square base that I used as a template. Even if I still had the bird-house, I want to move to 5" squares. Making my own template this time didn't occur to me but if it had, well, I clearly have issues measuring (never mind cutting) and I feel it likely that I would have run into a similar problem.

To soothe my battered ego, I made a grid on some kraft paper using pencil, so I could erase as needed. Twenty or thirty times erasing squares and a few hours measuring was all it took. Sigh.

An experiment. A battalion of 3 infantry companies and a heavy weapons company + regimental support from an ATG coy. and a howitzer coy. Also I have yet to redo the bases in a uniform fashion.

"Someone," I thought, "must make square templates."

Of course, they do. You can buy 6" square cork tiles or even MDF - well, not coasters, but that's what I'm calling them - coasters. But, it turns out, quilters are way ahead on this. Yes, quilters.

They use laser cut acrylic squares (ruled or not). And they come in all sorts of sizes (the squares. I mean, I guess the quilters do, too). And, hold on to your hats, but there are HEXAGONS for quilters!

Quilter's hexagon template. Picture "borrowed" from Amazon.

Now, I am fond of the humble square. Bob Cordery's original Portable Wargame is a charming sight, in large part, I think, due to the simplicity of the squares. However, there is an argument to be made for using hexagons, particularly in the 20th Century and onward, where gathering up great masses in orderly lines and ranks fell out of favor.

That being said, I have trouble enough marking up the cloth with four-sided grid spaces, never mind six-sided, so I decided to stick with squares for now.

I ordered an acrylic square ruler (like the one pictured below) to test this out but if it works, and I suspect it will, I may consider a hex next and make one cloth of each.

Square quilter's ruler. Picture "borrowed" from Amazon.

Trying Out the Sorcery Rules for 'The Quests of Brin The Barbarian'

On Monday night, my enthusiasm for The Quests of Brin The Barbarian by Maudlin Jack Tar continued and I broke out a few of my 28mm minis to test out the sorcery rules.

I set up and played the same basic scenario three times.


Our hero:

To set the tone and give our game at least the most minimal of flavor, let us say our hero was headed on the road to the Library at Stahlhelm to return a rare, and overdue, tome, when he was set upon by brigands (my favorite enemy in these scenarios I guess).

In the first attempt at the scenario, our hero barely survived:

It played quickly - he summoned 5 skeletons off the bat and though most of them ended up crumpled in a heap early on, they served their purpose well.

In the second run through, our hero met his fate by the sword of the brigand leader (in true pulp fashion, instead of killing him, the brigands brought him to the lair of the one they call Master):

I had time for one more game, so why not? Besides, I was still getting the hang of the sorcery rules, which aren't complex but require some record maintenance during and between turns,  not to mention some tactical finesse (not my strong suit) to make the best use of.

As for the third game?

The brigands appeared out of the woods with the smugness of those who think they have found an easy mark.

Our hero on the road facing a shield-ish wall.

 Our hero was in no mood for the shenanigans of marauders and summoned three animated skeletons to his aid with his dark powers.

Swords, spears and shields crashed!

The brigand leader was at once struck down by one of the undead in a single blow, but one of the skeletons fell equally quickly.

An overview of the fight so far. The dice indicate how many SP remain. I'd do this on a record sheet ordinarily but for illustrating the damage here, the dice make more sense.

Our hero moved to distance himself from the oncoming rush (do note, he could have moved one square further, I don't know what I was thinking. I rarely do.). The skeleton archer did its job to protect its master and struck down the red shirt (who was no doubt destined to die on this mission).

Our hero surveys the skelly's handiwork.

But it too was not long for its second trip through this world and with but one skeleton left, occupied in a struggle with the fellow in the snappy blue tunic, the brigands closed in on our hero.

What shall become of our hero?

As worried as we may have been, to our hero it was no great matter.

Calling upon arcane forces, he again summoned the dead to his aid, thus balancing the scales. And, quite helpfully, they appeared in key positions (all within 3 squares of the caster, of course).

A turn of fortunes as the skeletons appear among the ranks of the brigands.

What had seemed a close run thing, suddenly was not. And at least one brigand turned tail and ran before the undead claimed him for their tally.

The brigands are defeated, their bodies left to rot and provide future armies of the undead should our hero need to call upon them.

With all of the brigands dead or having fled,  our hero continued his journey. He would accrue not one more day of fines.

Our hero prepares to follow the road into the dark woods on his way to Stahlhelm.