GMs are submitting games a couple a day to the schedule for Barrage 2016 (see www.hawks-barrage.org). Today we added two games specifically targeted at younger gamers. One features the Panzer Kids rules by Peter Schweighofer. The HAWKs have a reputation for being kid friendly, so you can count on there being more games suitable (or designed for) younger gamers. Bring your kids to Barrage 2016!
The Web page for Barrage 2016 has been live since Historicon (http://www.hawks-barrage.org). Through that portal, attendees and GMs can create accounts, register for the convention, sign up to run games, and sign up to play in games. GMs have been registering games. I have laid them out in a tentative schedule for both Friday and Saturday, as shown below.
Friday
Saturday
There is a lot of room for additional GMs! In the past we have filled Friday, and I have had to turn away game masters. If you are interested in running a game, visit the portal soon and register.
The Webmaster also recently linked old pictures from previous Barrage conventions to the Barrage portal. You can see them under the “past conventions” menu item.
We look forward to seeing everyone at Barrage, a terrific regions gaming event.
This weekend I completed a unit of alien-looking fighters from War-games Supply Dump. This is part of my ongoing build up of forces for using Combat Patrol for science fiction games, both hard science fiction and pulp science fiction.
I like the way these figures came out. I primed them in white, because I had thought I might paint them in traditional white space suits, but I decided I wanted something a little more colorful to go with those nice green faces.
I completed the Sally 4th Norman church this weekend. The kit was in some ways more involved and in some ways less difficult than the corner shops I described in an earlier blog post. A challenge I have with kit building is a distinct lack of patience. The Sally 4th kits have clear, step-by-step instructions, but I still made a couple of rookie mistakes by jumping ahead and not being patient. The final result, I think, is quite nice.
From this shot you can see that the windows are translucent stained glass printed on plastic and ready to cut out and glue to the windows. These are made even more attractive by the glazing and the brick framing. Also, you can see that all the building comes with doors. In this case, I made hinges from masking tape.
I like the buttresses along the older section of wall. These buildings take less time to construct and overlay the photorealistic sheets of paper than to assemble and paint a traditional MDF building. Even this buildings that come “pre painted” don’t look nearly as good as these when completed.
You can see the main entrance to the church from the tower. With this one I had a little trouble getting to roof to fit. It was a little too snug, but I was able to address this with a little bit of sanding on one end of the roof. No difficulty!
The kit even comes with photorealistic appliqués for the entire inside of the church. I really like the look of the brick floor. I typically don’t bother to paint the interiors of my buildings, but with the photorealistic appliqués, making the inside look nice was a snap.
One of the attractive features for me is the fact that the church comes with three different tops for the tower to represent three different historical periods.
As with the other photorealistic Sally 4th buildings, there are no exposed tabs. This helps them look terrific on the table.
In summary, I think the kit is a terrific value. The final result of assembly and gluing the photorealistic appliqués was better than any other MDF building I have constructed. It looks better than pre-painted buildings, and it took less time to get ready for gaming than if I had had to paint the building myself. I enjoy painting terrain pieces, but this is a very easy way to get a terrific effect on the gaming table, and I can divert my limited painting time to figures, while still creating a nice looking table.
Last weekend several HAWKs joined me in a combined Colonial and Napoleonic play test day for Combat Patrol(TM) supplements. Dave has been working on a Boer and Zulu supplement for Combat Patrol(TM), but because of his busy schedule we had been unable to test some of his ideas. In particular, Dave has been concerned that there are no formal leaders at lower echelons during this time period. In the British Army, for instance, the lowest level corporal would be in control of 25 or 30 infantrymen. This span of control was probably sufficient when units fought in lines, but is not suited for small skirmishes. My feeling is that three or more soldiers is a formation and someone would be designated as being in charge. Anyway, Dave has developed an interesting concept for leader in the game that provided a different flavor. I think there are some ambiguities and second-order effects that have to be identified and resolved, but it worked fine.
The purpose of the day was more about the rules than the scenarios, but we were also looking to have some fun. In order to test as much as possible, we had Boers and Zulus against the British. The Boers were on the side of the creek in the foreground, and the Zulus were on the far side of the creek. The game very quickly turned into two separate games with little interaction. I commanded the British on the far side of the creek facing Chris’ and Dave’s Zulus. Duncan controlled the British on the near side of the creek, facing Mike’s Boers.
The situation for the British on both sides of the creek were in a difficult situation, with the enemy on both sides. Against the Zulus I was facing superior numbers with most of my men scattered and in the open. The scenario began with a single section of British infantry in a hasty defensive position, but the rest of my forces were strung out along the road.
Chris had a few riflemen, but he had his typical luck, and most of his rifles went out of ammunition early. In this scenario, Dave determined that an out of ammunition result would be permanent. Chris then quickly charged out of the scrub and toward my forces. I tried to seek cover behind the wall you see along the right. That helped a little, but there was nothing to stop three units of Zulus from circling around my flanks and overwhelming that section of British infantry.
I was busy on the Zulu side, so I didn’t get to see much of what was happening on the Boer side. I was very pleased with the way the rules seemed to work for the Zulus. When I had British in hasty positions, the Zulus had difficulty. Where my infantry was caught in the open, the Zulus were able to circle around my flanks and overwhelm me. This felt right.
At one point, Dave was throwing units at my British in the defensive positions. The section in the foreground is about half strength. They began in the open and had to fight their way to the defensive position. Once there, the Zulus were unable to dislodge them. Even when they had 2:1 odds in the hand to hand, the defensive position provide enough benefit that I was often able to push them back. You can see the white rubber bands on several of the Zulu figures. Each band represents a wound. When wounds are greater than or equal to the figure’s Endurance attribute (typically 3), the figure is killed. You can also see some black rubber bands. These indicate stuns. When a figure is wounded, it is also stunned. It is not allowed to take any actions until it takes an action to remove the stun marker.
Dave brought more Zulu units to bear, and threatened to destroy this section and my sergeant within the defensive position.
This shot is about mid game. You can see the British section in the foreground still trying to make it to cover. You can also see the British on the left beginning to circle around my British section at the wall while other Zulu units are advancing toward my Gatling gun at the top of the image. I never did get the Gatling gun into operation before the Zulus overran it.
It took several turns, and I was able to inflict some casualties, but this Section of infantry, caught in the open, died to the last man.
I quite enjoyed the game, and I felt the rules worked pretty well for the period with Dave’s tweaks. Some of us are still not convinced of the needed for the added complexity Dave has introduced for leaders and command, but it worked fine. It will be included in the supplement as an optional rule. This play test also gave us a chance to make sure that we were being completely consistent between Dave’s supplement and Duncan’s Napoleonic supplement. We need a couple more play tests, but in general I think the supplement is shaping up.
Last weekend a bunch of the HAWKs came to my war room to conduct another play test of the Napoleonic supplement for Combat Patrol(TM) that Duncan is writing. This play test focused on confirming the last batch of changes and looking at cavalry vs. infantry and cavalry vs. cavalry fights.
The scenario involved a British supply train being ambushed by a French force. The force sizes were about equal, but the British were in a tough situation, having enemy on both sides of them. While the skirmishing took place, the wagon train continued to work its way across the table. While the intent of this event was less about the game and more about the rules, I think the British might have eventually gotten the wagon train off the table.
Chris Palmer posted some additional pictures here.
The rules are shaping up nicely. The next play test will involve artillery. I have made some suggestions to Duncan about information that probably needs to be on the unit record to help players remember the differences in movement and terrain effects between infantry and cavalry, in open or close formation. The supplement is getting very close to being releasable.
In my continuing effort to reduce the amount of unpainted lead in the war room, I have been trying to knock out at least ten figures a week, despite work, family commitments, and gaming / play testing time. This week I finished nine “Falconeers” from the Dirk Garrison line at Wargames Supply Dump. These are obviously inspired by the Hawk Men in the Flash Gordon comics and serials.
There is nothing fancy about them, from a painting perspective. I painted them in blues, thinking that sort of looked like the bottom of a WWII airplane.
I read a post here in which Peter Schweighofer was musing about which comes first, theme or mechanics. As he said in his post, theme gets people to the table, but mechanics keep them coming back. As a good blog post should, it got me thinking. Certainly, I have signed up for games at conventions based on the event description, theme, scenario, or historical period. Many times I have been disappointed by a game with a terrific theme that uses a set of plodding and pedantic rules and walk away thinking about the four hours of my life I’ll never get back. That is an example of what Peter is describing in his blog post.
I am always in search of the next project. For me, the answer to this “chicken or the egg” question is “it depends.” I think you need to match the right mechanic to the right theme. A light-hearted theme doesn’t fit well with a set of detailed mechanics. While many are doing it, I think that some periods and scales do not fit will with mechanics that are too simplistic. (Simplistic is not the same as simple.) So I often keep a set of mechanics percolating in my head, but instead of cramming that mechanic into my historical interest of the moment, I keep them in reserve for when they will be a good fit for a new period.
I am always thinking about new mechanics. I don’t find a mechanic and then build a game around it, however. Often I think about a mechanic for a couple of years, often while running. The card-based mechanic that I use in Combat Patrol(TM), for instance, has been percolating for over 30 years. I first saw something like it in the late 1980s. I tried it again in the mid 1990s with an abortive ACW skirmish design, called Stealin’ Chickens for Gen’l Lee.
I have been thinking about a dice-progression mechanic in which modifiers change the size of the die, not the die roll. In such a scheme, my “base” might be a d8, but if I get a +2 for some reason, that means I am rolling a d12. What I like about a single opposed die roll mechanic with a dice progression is that if one player is rolling a d4 and the other a d24, there is still a chance, albeit a small one (6%), for the d4 player to succeed. Such a mechanic generally breaks as soon as you pass d12. Each next higher sized die adds 1 to the expected value of the die. I am being a little sloppy in my terminology here, but you can think of the “average” roll on a die as the sum of all the faces divided by the number of faces on the die. As an example, the expected value of a d10 is (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10)/2 = 5.5. For common dice, you can that a shortcut of adding the highest and lowest face and dividing by 2. So the expected value with a d10 is 5.5; for a d12, 6.5; for a d8, 4.5. That’s all well and good, but what happens if you are at d12 and have to apply a +1. Some people will have you roll multiple dice. The problem with that is that one die gives you a uniform distribution, but the more dice you roll the more likely you are to have a strong central tendency, as a plot of all possible die rolls starts to approximate a normal distribution. Sometimes that’s fine. In fact in Santa Anna Rules! and Wellington Rules!, I used a d20 (uniform distribution) to approximate a normal distribution on purpose. But with a dice progression scheme, I think rolling multiple dice breaks the elegance of it. Also what two dice would you roll to get an expected value of 7.5? 8.5? An option is to “cap out” out at d4 and d12, but I don’t think this gives you enough variance. Recently I found a company that makes uncommon dice, so I have d14, d16, d18, d22, and d24 to add to the normal d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20.
If you are interested, here is a table I worked up that describes the attackers chance of winning (rolling higher than the defender, ties going to the defender) based the type of dice each are rolling. (The table is not symmetrical because of the ties.) (This is the kind of analysis I think a good game designer should do. I don’t think most of the “buckets full of dice folks” look at central tendency and probabilities.)
So this is an example of a mechanic that is percolating and waiting for me to get interested in a historical period where this might be useful. I was thinking about some sort of small-scale skirmish / pseudo role-playing game, perhaps gladiators. My attack attribute says I am a d10, and your defense attribute is a d8. But you have a shield, which is a +2. I am slightly wounded, which is a -1. So now for my attack, I am rolling a d8, and you are rolling a 12. I have a 29% chance of success.
I have been thinking about players searching around the table for the right die. The search for the right die might work against the speed of play desired in a dice progression mechanic. Most of us can pick out the normal polyhedral dice from across the table through years of familiarity. The newer dice tend to look very similar and may be difficult to distinguish. I can see players not liking having to hunt around the table in the heat of battle. As I rounded up the dice for this mechanic — for the time in which the right period provides a muse, and there is a good fit between that period and this mechanic — I made sure that each die type is a standard color. D14s are all green. I would have liked the colors to follow a coherent color scale, but the non-standard dice come in limited colors. The best I could do was ensure that each die type is a different color.
I was reading one of the Wally Simon books that have been published by On Military Matters. In one of the articles he describes the difficulty of getting two units to stop shooting at each other once their lines halt. This was echoed in the Nosworthy books and showed up as an optional rule in Wellington Rules. I have been mulling over a mechanic for an 18th or 19th century battle game that uses an action, reaction, reaction, reaction mechanic, not unlike Ed’s Two Hour War-games’ chain reaction system. My worry is that several players may be sitting around watching two people “do stuff.” This brings up another point. I will often come up with an idea for a mechanic and then spend the next couple of years thinking about all its drawbacks and how to address them. This is what I did with the card activation scheme in the Look, Sarge, No Charts(TM) family of rules as well as in Combat Patrol(TM). Every mechanic has pros and cons. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Are there ways to mitigate the cons?
I have long wanted to create a jousting game that was interesting enough that you are interested in playing more than once. Most use some sort of mechanic in which I choose my attack and you choose your attack (and perhaps defense) and then we ride toward each other. Sometimes there is a mechanic that affects the outcome of the run based on impetus. These games are fun for an hour or so between other games or as a filler at the end of the night when the main even ends early. But they quickly become repetitive and boring. I’ve collected many different sets of rules, and they are more similar than they are different. I’ve been tinkering with the idea of using the diagram of a finite state machine to enable players to try to react to what they are seeing the other player doing as they run down the list. The idea is something like this: I initially had my lance high, but I see that you have your shield high. From a high position, I can adjust my lance to medium high or medium left. The finite state machine doesn’t have a transition from high to low. You know that I see that your shield is high. You have the option to keep your shield high or move it to medium. What will I do? Staying the same might mean that my defense if more effective, but it might be the wrong defense. Moving might give me a better defense, but since I moved, I would get some negative modifier, since I was not “set” the whole time. I might even combine this with a dice progression scheme as described previously. This is an example of the theme in search of just the right mechanic.
My point of this rambling is that while mechanics and theme are both very, very important, you have to match the right mechanic to the right theme. You don’t want to sit down to play a “serious” war-game and find that mechanics are like Munchkin. (I like Munchkin, but you don’t want goofy artwork and silly double entendre when you are repeating Leipzig.) Similarly, you don’t want to sit down to a Dr. Who game and find that you are tracking detailed physical damage (e.g., that bullet nicked Amy’s spleen, ricocheted off of something and exited between the third and four rib on the right side), ammunition usage (e.g, you have 9 bullets left in your 9mm automatic), fatigue, or a dozen other details.
In a couple of years, I plan to start on a project for the American Revolution. (I have a few other projects to clear from the painting table and the game design queue first.) I have been thinking about doing it in 10mm so that you can do the major battles on your kitchen table. On the other hand, the sizes of the units are so small and vary so widely, that 25mm/28mm might be better. When the time comes, I’ll start by reading several books that describe the Revolution at the tactical level. Then I’ll go to a couple of conventions and play every RevWar game I can find to first see if there is a set of rules I like. Maybe I’ll just use Brother Against Brother by Herb Gundt or an adaptation of Wellington Rules. If not, then I will begin thinking about the period. What are the salient ideas that make RevWar different from the wars that immediately preceded or followed it? What mechanics can best bring out those ideas?
So, is it theme or mechanics that are important? Both are equally important, but it is more important that the mechanics and theme fit together.
Most games put on by the HAWKs are kid friendly, but we often dedicate a table in the HAWKS room to games specifically targeted at younger gamers. This year we put on three of them.
Dave ran a game using Blood and Swash from the Big Battles for Little Hands book. A dragon has been slain on a remote island. Before the official troops arrive, the “government” has issued six exclusive contracts to bands of fearless treasure hunters to gather as much treasure as possible. The kids ran round the table fighting each other and looking for caches of goodies.
I don’t which kid won the game, but they all seemed to have a really good time.
The showcase event was our annual Armies for Kids Giveaway. The game is restricted to kids 10 and younger. This year it was a WWII game using Milk and Cookies Rules from Big Battles for Little Hands. The paper houses you see in this picture were lovingly hand crafted by Chris Johnson, as were the hills. The figures and tanks had been donated to the HAWKs. Through a number of painting seasons we painted and based the units.
Milk and Cookies Rules were written for kids as young as five years old. It has all the basic elements: movement, fire, and morale. It is written for periods ranging from ancient warfare to WWII. Units consist of four bases. The rules use six-sided dice. There are sometimes saves if the target unit is in cover. Pretty straightforward stuff. The game lasts about 90 minutes.
The young man in the black shirt spent a fair amount of time marching and countermarching with his tanks, but he seemed to have a great time.
The girl on the right was probably her side’s MVP. At one point she had troops in both of the two buildings in the middle of the table, which was the objective of the game. While she was eventually driven out of the far one, she remained focused on the objective throughout the game. She reminded me of my own daughter who when she was younger would often win at these convention games — and games not set aside for kids — by staying focused on the objective.
When the game is over, the kids take home the army they played with during the game. They also take home an opposing army, a set of hills, a set of buildings, and the rules and quick reference sheets. They also get a tote bag full of other goodies, like paints, brushes, rulers, and dice. That is what is mean by Armies for Kids. When the game is over, they have everything they need to play war-games with their buddies at home. Every once in a while we get some feedback from a parent that the armies from previous years are getting a lot of use. We would love to hear from a teenager or young adult about their experiences after Armies for Kids.
This has been a huge success. You should see the looks on their faces when we give them all the goodies at the end. Most of the parents know what’s coming, but the giveaway is a complete surprise to most of the kids.
I think this is the sixth Armies for Kids Giveaway we have done as a club in as many Historicons.
After Armies for Kids, I ran another 90 minute kids’ game, using the War Rocket rules from Hydra Miniatures. We had a lot of fun. One side had to blow up some important satellites while the other side had to defend them.
These kid-focused games take a lot of work and a certain amount of patience, but they are fun. They are our attempt to do something about the “graying of the hobby” other than grousing about it on TMP.
In addition to the Combat Patrol(TM) games already noted in a previous post, the HAWKS ran many great games at Historicon 2016.
In this scenario the British, Spanish, and Portuguese were trying to capture two key bridges from the French. I didn’t watch the scenario in detail, but I am pretty sure the the Allies beat the French.
In the Look, Sarge, No Charts family of rules large chart cards are replaced by labels on the backs of the bases and some special dice. While a number of gamers have a visceral reaction to the labels, this greatly speeds play. Those how have tried the rules seem to agree. I make my labels in a more neutral color which makes them just a bit harder to read but improves the aesthetics greatly.
In this picture you can seem some of Dave’s bases have the more neutral colored labels, and I don’t think they stand out at all on the tabletop. They are certainly less visible than a bunch of large pink rectangular chart cards on the table.
Normally Greg Priebe runs the kinds of games that seem to attract the few female gamers at the conventions. Since Greg wasn’t at Historicon 2016, one played in Duncan’s WWI game and my Warsaw Uprising game, two played in Don’s WWII Battleground game, and four played in Eric’s Hogwarts capture-the-flag game. Eric has now taken the crown from Greg for the most women in a HAWKs game. (Greg has had more in the past, but he wasn’t at Historicon to defend his crown!)
I don’t really know anything about how the game ran, except that everyone seemed to be engaged to the end and seemed to be having fun.
Don ran a historical scenario in which the Americans were forcing a river crossing against German opposition. Don had his usual Battleground WWII / Don Hogge groupies plus a few newcomers.
Duncan Adams ran two WWI games with his 1914 variant of Look, Sarge, No Charts, which takes element from both the WWII and ACW version of the rules in a very effective way. The pictures below probably mix the two games, but you will get the idea…
Duncan places dozens of small hill on his terrain to represent small folds in the earth and partially counteract gamer questions about “why can’t those guys see or shoot at those other guys.” This is Duncan’s way to compensate for the “pool table” effect, and it works very well.
Bill Acheson organized a track of games based on M.A.R. Barker’s Empires of the Petal Throne / Tekumel mythology. There were a couple of land battles and a naval battle. This one was a gladiatorial style skirmish with six-inch tall action figures as proxies for the various strange Tekumel characters. Bill is really good at repurposing toys for war-games.
Steve Gelhard ran a game using his popular WWI rules. The terrain and figures looked great. All the players seemed to really enjoy themselves.
Mike Byrne used Force on Force to run a game based on modern Iraq. Patrick Byrne also ran a modern Chechnya game on the rubbled city terrain, but sadly I didn’t get any pictures of that game.
Duncan and Dave ran a 10mm Fate of Battle game based on a portion of the Battle of Orthez in the Peninsular campaign. Duncan had spent a weekend making the specifically-shaped hill for the scenario.
The blue masking tape does not represent a river. This was used to mark the edge of the playing area.
Don ran a large Muskets and Tomahawks game. These rules are easy to teach and learn. The players seemed to really enjoy themselves. I’m sorry I didn’t get more pictures.
I didn’t get pictures of every HAWKs game. I didn’t arrive until later on Friday, and I was running four games back-to-back on Saturday. As usual, I think the HAWKs made a strong showing and ran a lot of fun games. The HAWKs room had 41 scheduled games (which is a bit light for us) run by 11 game masters. I personally ran five; although, I had only planned to run four. I don’t have the final numbers of events that were run at Historicon, but 40-50 (the HAWKs room average) usually constitutes between 5% and 10% of all the games at the show (not counting tournaments). Rumor has it there were ~550 games, so let’s say the HAWKs ran 7.5% of the games at Historicon 2016. If there were 2000 attendees, that means that 0.5% of the attendees (HAWKs) ran 7.5% of the games. I consider that a strong showing for one club. Few if any will show up in the glossy UK gaming magazines, but I think they were of at least average aesthetic quality and above average game quality.
What is the HAWKs room? For almost 20 years, we have run enough games at the big three HMGS East conventions to justify putting all our games in the same room. This does not mean that there aren’t other games run by non-HAWKs in the room; it means that if you are looking for a fun game run by a HAWKs member, you don’t have to wonder where to look. It also means that we can easily find each other if we are sharing terrain or playing aids or forget something. Over the years we have developed a loyal following, and there are folks who spend most of their time at the conventions in the HAWKs room.
If you like the HAWKs room, you will also enjoy our two-day mini convention in late September. See www.hawks-barrage.org.