As Candy and the kids are in Florida with her mom this weekend, I had a relaxing Fathers’ Day of painting. Actually, I fiddled on the computer and took naps on and off until noon. Then I got up and began to paint.
Captain Mal Reynolds, Inara Serra, and Zoe Washburn
Sergeant Major Miniatures has a set of figures called “The Crew,” which are the crew from Firefly. Since I have my figure for Historicon all painted, I decided to paint these today for fun.
River Tam and Dr. Simon Tam
In high school I used to run a Traveller game loosely based on Alien and The Awful Green Things from Outer Space. The alien creature on the ship went through several stages of metamorphsis. In each stage, the alien was more or less susceptible to different types of weapons. In The Awful Green Things, you randomly determine the kinds of damage that cans of zgwortz, ray pistols, etc. do to the aliens. This works the same way; however, the players have to figure it out again each time the alien changes.
Jayne Cobb and Hoban "Wash" Washburn
I’ll do this as a game for a HAWKs night, but if it is even half as fun as my high school game, I’ll take it to a convention. Of course, instead of using Traveller, I’ll use G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.
Minions of the Venusians "interviewing" Gianna Naninni
The second game we played at FusonCon was the fourth installment of my Duke Morrison “story arc.”
I have run episode three several times. The “consensus” outcome of these several iterations was that part of Professor Naninni’s anti-gravity ray device was stolen and his daughter Gianna Naninni captured by the Venusians and their minions. In episode four, Duke Morrison and his buddies have traced the daughter and the equipment to a small Middle Eastern town in the desert.
Overview of a small Middle Eastern town where the game took place
The laboratory was on the second story of one of the buildings where Dr. Zillion was attempting to get the device working. Gianna was being “interviewed” on the second floor of another building. Finally, the safe in which the Venusians hold the money they use to pay their gangster minions is in a third building. These locations were unknown to the good guys. The bad guys were deployed within the town. Most of the good guys came from outside the town, on the other side of the wall, across broken ground.
There was a wrinkle for the Venusians. The gangsters decided that instead of working for the money that the Venusians doled out to them in small doses, that they could just steal the safe with all the money. A secondary objective for the gangsters, therefore, was to find and steal the safe.
Initial setup (photo by Chris Palmer)
Getting wind that an attack was imminent, the Venusians deployed on the rooftops. From that vantage they could see the advancing good guys. Now in previous instances of Duke Morrison games, the Venusians, with their Shoot number of 7, have done little damage. I was therefore surprised — and worried — when the Venusians began picking off “Boats” Morgan and his sailors. Boats and his team never reached the wall.
GASLIGHT, however, has a way of evening things out over time.
Duke Morrison and his men scaling the wall into town
Meanwhile, Duke and a couple of his men raced to the wall of the town, where the found a conveniently-placed ladder. There were several entry points along the wall, but Duke determined to scale the wall to approach from an unexpected path.
The explosion created when a rocket man fell off the roof and his rocket pack exploded (photo by Chris Palmer)
At about the same time, Crash Corrigan and his rocket commandos landed on the roof of one of the buildings. After a quick melee with some female Venusians — which Crash and his folks may well have enjoyed, given the shapeliness of the average Venusian female’s figure — they rushed downstairs. During the melee, a Venusian woman threw one of the rocket men over the lip of the building. When he hit the ground, his rocket pack exploded, damaging the Model T that another group of Venusians had just gotten started.
Crash Corrigan wrestling with Dr. Zillion
Crash lost his two troopers in the roof scuffle, but he found Dr. Zillion inside the building, deeply involved in his experiments to recreate Professor Naninni’s anti-gravity ray. Crash dispatched the traitorous Dr. Zillion by throwing him into the machinery. He was incinerated, but so was Crash.
It was about this time that it seemed everyone who tried to fire jammed their weapons, including a Venusian woman who melted herself when her ray rifle exploded.
Some thugs trying to abscond with the Venusians safe (photo by Chris Palmer)
As the battle was raging at the town wall and inside Zillion’s lab, some of the thugs found and stole the safe. They didn’t want to take time to open it, so four of them carried it to a waiting Model T. The Venusians meanwhile suspected the gangsters were not being forthright and after several attempts melted the engine of the car. “Wrench” web had scaled the wall. Seeing the gangsters getting ready to drive off, he leapt on top of the car, fell through the canvass, killed the driver, threw him out the windshield, and then followed him out the broken window. The gangsters then became desperate to get the money, so they set a grenade near the safe and ran. The grenade didn’t blow up the safe, but it made a mess of the upholstery.
A solution to the Turkish problem! (photo by Chris Palmer)
Some Turkish constabulary arrived to restore order. Earlier in the game, Brooks’ minions (minions of Torpedo Brooks) had stolen the gasoline truck from the small airstrip. They had been driving around the town, enjoying the Spring weather, just looking for a target for a dastardly and nefarious act. Just as the turks had eliminated Ugati (Zillion’s sidekick) and Wrench Web was on the verge of finding Gianna Naninni, Brooks ran his truck at the Turkish squad. He ran over a Turkish soldier and left from the vehicle just before it crashed into the wall and exploded, killing two more Turks.
While all this was going on, Duke Morrison had been run over and shot by another group of Venusian, then dragged into a building. Morrison’s loyal troops attempted to rescue him. They were aided by an errant shot from a Venusian female, which missed one of Morrison’s soldiers and hit one of he Venusians guarding Morrison’s limp body.
A satisfied GM (photo by Chris Palmer)
At this point, I judged the game has hit its culminating point. Morrison had been captured. Boats was knocked out. Crash Corrigan was hiding. Most of the Venusians were dead. I called the game a minor Venusians victory. They retained Gianna Naninni as a hostage and captured Duke Morrison, but their lab and Dr. Zillion had been destroyed.
A closeup of damaged German tank platoons advancing on the town
Since my wife and kids are out of town for a few days visiting her mom, I went to War Horse Farm for “FusonCon,” a gaming day with some of the folks from the Frederick, MD, and Gettysburg area. We played Chris’ Look, Sarge, WWII game in the morning and a Pulp, GASLIGHT game in the afternoon.
Long shot of the LSNC: WWII scenario
The scenario involves two German infantry battalions crossing a river in rafts in Russia 1941, while an armored battalion and a recon battalion cross at a small bridge and a ford. The bridge so rickety that only one platoon can cross per activation. When the game starts, one company of tanks is already across. The Russians are trying to stop the Germans from seizing the town and three surrounding hills. Chris has run this game several times, but in this iteration, the Germans came closest to meeting their objectives.
Germans who have successfully crossed the river
All the players had a good time. There was a lot of maneuver. Nearly all the players were new, many recruited by Sam from his unit.
The Russian infantry battalion that started on the board pushed forward to delay the Germans while they awaited the arrival or a Russian tank battalion and an infantry battalion.
The German infantry pushed across the river with little difficulty. The Russian infantry guarding the crossing initially inflicted a number of casualties on the Germans, but eventually numbers — and artillery — prevailed. The infantry then pushed steadily forward. One battalion was heavily engaged on one of the surrounding hills with a reinforcing Russian infantry battalion, while the other German battalion mopped up the initial Russian defenders and moved toward the town.
By this time the town was fully occupied by armored cars and Russian tanks, but there was no Russian infantry in the town.
A German platoon that has taken a hit
The German armor pushed up the road toward the town. The lost several platoons from an anti-tank gun and a bunker had blunted the German advance. The Russians also had some infantry in the woods along the road. At this point the German armored battalion command left the road, pushed through a wheat field and moved to the outskirts of the town. Neither side had any infantry near the town, so the fight became a slugging match between tanks. The town only provided modest cover, since it was only made of wooden structures.
When we quit, the Germans were on the outskirts of the town — in fact they had one platoon of halftracks in the town. They were battling the Russians for control of one of the surrounding hills and were poised to assault a second one. It was time to quit and start the second game, but with another half hour of play, I think the Germans would have won.
