Buck's Blog

Our next game at JJ Con was a play test of another scenario for our upcoming 1814 scenario book.  This one was the battle of Brienne.  The game was fun.  JJ’s priest came to see what we were up to, and we got him to run a Russian division for an hour or so.  He launched his cavalry against Eric’s French columns.  He got lucky and smashed a column before it formed square, then broke through and took out a battery of artillery.  You can see the smashed French column in the picture below.

In general the guys caught onto the rules quickly, but got a little confused with the night effects.  It was a real scrum; however, there was no way the French were going to be able to accomplish their main objective.  We adjusted the victory conditions.

That battles was a real scrum.  I took over for JJ’s priest and used my dragoons to spar with and delay the French.  In the meantime, Eric’s light cavalry just about destroyed my only infantry, which withdrew to the town to await the French onslaught.  When the smoke cleared, the French had begun to push me out of the town despite the arrival of fresh reinforcements.

The game was a marginal French victory.  They did not capture the town that was their objective by the time the game ended (midnight game time, and pretty close to that real time).  They did, however, kill seven of our units, losing only one battery along the way.  Both sides had many units that were badly shot up, but only those eight units were actually destroyed.  By the scenario victory conditions, it was a marginal French victory.

I think this was another successful game, but I was getting very tired of game mastering by this point of the weekend, and I was not up to par as a GM.  As the GM, you feel responsible for everyone having a good time.  There were lots of questions about the rules and scenario, and I could feel the game going South a couple of times, but in the end, I think everyone had a good time.

Our first game Saturday morning was a WWII game with the card-based rules I’ve been developing, called GAMER. (That stands for the five attributes of a figure in the rules:  guts, accuracy, melee, endurance, and reaction.)  As a play test for a game I plan to run at Cold Wars in March.  It involved German Fallschirmjägers launching a raid to kill a bunch of allied generals who were meeting for a planning conference.  The generals were being guarded by two squads of Home Guard.

The Home guard positioned one squad near the far hedge and in the woods near the blue house.  The generals were in the second floor playing canasta — I mean planning for Normandy.  The second squad of Home Guard positioned one team in the building with the generals and another team in the plowed field in the foreground.

The Germans had three squads of Fallschirmjägers.  Two squads (Jimmy and Nick) massed on the allied left and attacked toward the Home Guardsmen in the plowed field.  The third squad (JJ) advanced through the rocks on the left of the picture above.

This was the first time I’ve run these rules outside a small inner circle.  I was gratified by how well they worked.  There remain a number of things I need to tweak.  For instance, I’m still unhappy with the way hand-to-hand combat works.  (During the 8 hour drive home today, Dave came up with an idea I plan to try soon.)

After firing more rounds than an episode of The A-Team, the Fallschirmjägers finally pinned down the British team in the field.  By this time, the Brits had just about wiped out Jimmy’s squad, but the remnants charged the Brits who were pinned won by fire from Nick’s MG-42.  In furious hand-to-hand combat, the Brits were eliminated, and the few remaining Fallschirmjägers raced towed the house and their objective.

Jim was advancing steadily against Dave on the British right, managing to incapacitate the Bren gunner on the second floor.  Nick rushed forward with half his squad to get into the house.  The Brits and Fallschirmjägers exchanged a bunch of grenades over the hedge, then Nick rushed through the gap.  He lost most of his men to withering Enfield fire from the second floor, but got three or four men to the building.  Monty lay dead.  A few more grenades cleared a path into the house, but then General Eisenhower started picking off Fallschirmjägers on the porch with his M1911.  At this point, JJ’s remaining Fallschirmjägers decided to withdraw from the field, leaving a four Brits and three generals in the building.

The game was a British victory and a very positive play test for the rules.

Our second game for the weekend was a fantasy battle using the under-development Bear Yourselves Valiantly rules.  I ran this game, because Eric expressed interest in trying out the rules.  This was a refight of a Napoleonic battle (sort of), but we used 3000 points per side instead of the actual Napoleonic order of battle.

Eric, Nick, and Jimmy had the goblins and their human allies.  JJ, Dave, and I were the elves.  The goblins were supposed to be defending, but Jimmy decided to advance, which force Nick to move forward as well.  My human force, facing Nick’s goblins never really got much going.  We mixed it up quite a bit, but I didn’t really make much progress toward my objective.

There was a fair amount of kvetching and grousing about the ratings and statistics on the troops, but the forces, by points, were pretty equal.  Eric’s goblins mixed it up with JJ’s elves, and the fighting was hot and heavy.  Eric was doing a pretty good job of holding off JJ, but then some of Dave’s elves joined the fight, and Eric was hard pressed.

The problem with fantasy is that everyone has their own idea of the capabilities of wood elves versus goblins versus undead versus humans versus…  Bear Yourselves Valiantly allows players to use a point system to build out their forces, providing a great deal of flexibility for folks to make the armies match their preconceived notions.  Unfortunately in these demonstration games, where we hand folks armies built according to OUR notions, people tend to confuse the rules with the scenario with the army statistics.

I think the guys had a good time.

This weekend was our annual gaming day in Charlotte.  JJ, a high school buddy, hosts this reunion of sorts each year.  This year we had a light turnout but quite a good time nonetheless.  The first game of the weekend was a chariot racing game using a beautiful set of rules that JJ played at Historicon 2013.  They were simple rules without nuances to make it really interesting.  From left to right the races are Jimmy, Nick, JJ, Dave, and Eric.  I took the picture.

We raced twice.  These are pictures of the second race.  From a previous post, you’ll know that I just finished these chariots last weekend.  When I got to Charlotte, I mounted the chariots on 5″ plywood squares and gave them a quick flocking.  They held up okay for the two races, but now that I’m home I’ll re-flock the bases and spray seal them.

I tried to leave the starting blocks at a gentle pace; however, my stupid horses took the bits in their teeth and bolted ahead.  This allowed all the racers to draft behind my chariot while I broke the wind for them.  I fell behind after the first turn because of some really slow speed rolls.  I tried to power the our the second turn to stay with the pack and remain competitive, but I had my typical die luck, skidding out four lanes and falling way behind.

Coming around the second turn, blue was in the lead, and I was struggling to get back into the pack.

I was still far in the rear as Eric, in the blue chariot, crossed the finish line well ahead of everyone else.  Will white or green come in second place.

Trying to race around the last turn, all out, I rolled really poorly and crashed.  Dave, in the green chariot, nosed past JJ in the white chariot, beating him for second place.  Medics hauled my limp body to the showers…

This was a terrific beginning to the weekend of gaming!

 

I’ve had this project hanging over me for quite some time.  For an upcoming game we needed this chariots painted up.  As the game’s host’s house has been under renovation for almost a year (it seems), he hasn’t had a chance to get his painted, so it was up to me.  In the vein of just-in-time logistics, I completed them this weekend for next weekend’s game.

(As an aside, the only all-nighters I pulled in college were to get battalions painted for the next day’s big Napoleonic war-game.)

The chariots are recasts of old Marx sets.  As I was finishing up this project I was reminded how much I hate plastic.  I did all the things you are supposed to do.  I washed the figures.  I used Krylon Fusion (which is supposed to bond to soft plastic).  I buried a statue of St. Anthony upside down in the garden.  Actually I didn’t do that, but I did the other stuff.  No matter what, unless you paint with the flexible artists’ acrylics that come in the toothpaste tubes (really too hard to work with if you want to paint any detail), I rarely have any luck getting the paint to stick to soft plastic.  (I haven’t had the same problems others report getting their paint to stick to the Bones plastic figures, however.)

So anyway, the six chariots are done.  Thank God!  I fear, however, that more and more paint will flake off these every time I game with them.  The required five-inch-square bases won’t be available until I get to the game on Friday, so I’m worried about their condition by the time I get down to Charlotte with them.

I think they turned out okay.  Each one is a different color to make them easier to distinguish on the track.  I didn’t put a lot of detail into them, but the sculpting and molding didn’t help me much.  They’re good enough for the game next weekend, and I hope they last for a few games before they return to the bare plastic from whence they came.  I’m anxious to get them mounted onto bases so that players can handle the bases instead of the soft figures.

P.S.  I’ve continued to slog away on my 16 battalions of 10mm Russian grenadiers.  I painted all the tiny muskets this weekend.

The development of Bear Yourselves Valiantly:  Look, Sarge, No Charts:  Fantasy, Ancient, and Mediaeval is nearly done, and I have begun the first draft of the rule book.  From previous posts you will recall that I have been tinkering with a new concept for WWII (or modern) skirmish fighting.  At the same time, I’ve been talking about a near future and science fiction version of Look, Sarge, No Charts.

That project won’t start for a year, probably, but it’s not too early to start building up some forces for those early play tests.

I found the futuristic tanks in the flea market at Fall In, last November.  They are from a line, called Gropos.  I don’t know much about the line or the company, but these two packs I found make a pretty nice tank company with three line platoons, a scout platoon, and a headquarters section.  My buddy Greg found the 10mm Daleks there as well.

They assembled and painted quite easily.  I painted them in tactical colors, in this case olive.  I have never understood red, yellow, psychedelic, paisley, or plaid camouflage patterns on futuristic vehicles.

Over the next year or so, the plan is to comb through flea markets and hobby shops for odds and ends to begin making up some forces for play tests.  It was a nice break from blanket rolls on 480 10mm Russian grenadiers!

For five years now we’ve been hosting a New Years Eve gaming event.  As we’ve moved several times, this is the third venue.  This year’s event featured two full, four-hour convention games.  People began arriving about 1430, we had a break for dinner, we toasted the new year, and finished the second game by about 0100.

We started about 1530 with distortion of the Battle of Montmirail.  Montmirail is a Napoleonic battle from the upcoming 1814 campaign book, written primarily by Dave Wood.  In this case, as I am about to wade into the writing of the book for Bear Yourselves Valiantly:  Look, Sarge, No Charts:  Fantasy, Ancient, and Mediaeval, I substituted fantasy figures for the Napoleonic figures.  It wasn’t a faithful substitution.  I have each player roughly 1000 points of figures, which was more figures than would be on the table for the historical scenario.  In addition, the 1000-point armies tend to be a mix of troop types rather than being the infantry or cavalry divisions of the historical fight.  It is supposed to be a 10 turn game.  We only completed 7 turns, but I think that in a convention, with a smaller number of troops, we could fit all 10 turns into a four-hour convention slot.  We have one of the HAWKs who seems to like the rules but who doesn’t like fantasy, so I asked Tank Nickle (one of the BYV co-authors) to bring his Romans and Carthaginians, who acted as opposing commands of humans on that wing of the table.

Victory conditions involved ownership of four towns.  The “French” (consisting of dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians) held one of the four towns but needed to capture one of the other three to win the game.  The “Allies” (humans and goblins) held the other three.  This required the French to be on the offensive.  In the end, the dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians had not captured a second town.  With another few turns two of the three might have been contested, but about 1930 we called the game an Allied victory, tore it down, and set up the next fight.

Eric Schlegel then set up and ran a fantasy game using his modifications to GASLIGHT, which he calls Mage Light.  The scenario was the British colonial battle of Rorke’s Drift, but the forces were fantasy figures instead.  (This New Years Eve was certainly the night for fantasy transmogrifications of historical battles!)  We, the “bad guys,” with a host of goblins, koblods, gnolls, ghouls, skeletons, orcs, and other assorted units were defending our homeland against the evil rampage of the “good guys.”

This too was a bloody affair.  A high point for me were when the hill giants defending the wall against the imperialist Ent, turned it into kindling.  The good guys had a cleric who kept resurrecting dead “good guys” and a wizard who kept putting up walls of fire, thorns, and other stuff to slow down our movement of troops within the walls of Orc’s Drift.

The battle was going hot and heavy at midnight, so we stopped for 45 seconds to acknowledge the drop of the big ball and toast the new year before continuing the game.  By about 0100 Eric called the game a “bad guy” victory; although, both sides were reduced to fewer than a dozen or so figures.

Fighting two, full-length battles worked well.  In past years we’ve run two somewhat shorter events and then had to start a third game around 2230 or 2300.  The HAWKs are no spring chickens, so STARTING a game that late has been somewhat difficult.  We’ve done things like Munchkin or Red Dragon Inn, but even then, it’s hard to start that third game.  I liked what we did this year better; although, it’s good to have those other games in reserve in case a game plays poorly, and we end it early.

We were missing a couple of “usual suspects.”  The Dean’s were unavailable; the Palmers were indisposed; and the Woods were unable to attend.  On top of that, the Priebe’s were busy getting married.  Still we had 12 players for the first game.  Even missing these folks, we had an excellent time.  It was a nice way to ring in the new year.

No town should be without its “crazy cat lady,” and now, thanks to Chris, my town of Granville that I use for pulp games has one.

I recently purchased a large number of painted 10mm Napoleonic figures.  I don’t typically purchase painted figures, but this was a really good deal.  Most of the figures were Old Glory, which is the manufacturer I’ve been using mostly for this project.  They were painted as well or slightly better than I do myself.  I have already based, labelled, and flocked the French forces.  I have assembled III and V Corps from 1805-7.  I now have enough additional French line infantry and artillery for almost an entire third corps.  What would be missing is some light cavalry and light infantry.  This past weekend I finally got around to pawing through the box of Polish figures and found that I could assemble a small division, consisting of two infantry brigades, a cavalry brigade, and two guns.

This weekend I also dry brushed the base green color on sixteen battalions of Russian grenadiers.  That seems like a lot of grenadiers, but it turns out that the Russian VIII corps in 1812 had an entire division of grenadiers.  I am painting the VII and VIII Russian corps.  Once I complete these infantry, I will have completed both corps.  In the painted collection there are enough line infantry to make a third corps, but again, it will be short on guns and cavalry.

In late January JJ is going to be hosting a chariot race game with 54mm Marx recasts.  I got six chariots from Ed of Two Hour Wargames.  I just started painting them this weekend.  I started with the riders, as they will take the longest to paint.  The horses and chariots will be mostly spray painting and dry brushing.  There is not a lot of detail on these figures, and the detail is not molded very deeply.  I find these figures much more difficult to paint than 28mm figures.

I received a number of hobby-related items for Christmas this year.  Above is a pulp pistol my wife found in a catalog.  It’s all plastic and has no working parts, but the look is effective.

My kids got me these really cool book ends that are reminiscent of the old green Army men.

My wife also found this really neat coffee mug.  I don’t drink coffee, but this is really cute!

My buddy, Chris, made this giant dwarf figure for me.  It is based for Bear Yourselves Valiantly.

Chris also made this assortment of magical walls for Bear Yourselves Valiantly.

I love the MDF buildings from Litko.  A year or so ago, they released six new ones.  You can find information about them at ww.litko.net/categories/Main-Street-%2828mm-Building-Kits%29/ .  The old ones are here: http://www.litko.net/categories/Terrain-%26-Buildings/28mm-Buildings/ .  I have three of the new ones.  They are a bit more expensive, but they are high quality and have clear plastic to put into the windows after finishing construction.  These will look great in my town of Granville for my Pulp games.

I put the last three on my Christmas list and hope to assemble them by Historicon, so I can run a couple of Pulp games with my expanded town.  I highly recommend these kits for their quality, ease of construction, and final appearance.