I spent a fair amount of the weekend helping my son with college applications, taking my daughter to the Demi Lovato concert in Baltimore, and some computer work for my moonlighting job. Despite an increase in my normal state of ear ringing induced by the concert, I did have some time on Sunday for some hobby work. I washed, primed, and began painting a bunch of Reaper Bones science fiction infantry in armored suits. I also glued a bunch of Iron Wind turrets to a bunch of GW Epic Warhammer 40k vehicles as a start on my 10mm near future, science fiction project. Finally, I painted the tunics on 11 battalions of Not Quite Seven Years War 10mm figures for the country of Bergdorfreuthenheim. I expect to finish all but the NQSYW figures by the end of next weekend and will post pictures then.
Ocean City for Labor Day
Despite taking the family on a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon and two weeks in Alaska, I was informed that I was a failure because we didn’t visit the beach all Summer. Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the beach, but the next thing I knew we were spending a huge wad of cash to visit Ocean City for the long weekend.
A highlight of the weekend was a spur-of-the-moment parasailing adventure.
We also bought tickets for all we could play miniature golf. Over the four and a half courses we played, we had a record 20 holes in one!
We spent both evenings walking up and down the boardwalk, had some nice meals, and generally had a good time. Considering this is the last big weekend of Summer at the beach, the crowds weren’t nearly as bad as I expected. It was a nice way to spend the weekend.
Revised Vehicle Record Sheet for G.A.M.E.R.
In the past two weeks I’ve had a chance to run two GAMER events with vehicles. As mentioned in an earlier post, the infantry rules are pretty solid. We find some interesting nuance from time to time that must be addressed, but the infantry rules are largely complete. As a result of recent play test, I have been able to streamline the vehicle hit resolution procedure, think about terrain effects on vehicle hits, and redesign the vehicle record card, getting it from two 3×5 cards down to two.
In the low-resolution version (in which each figure in a squad has all the same attributes, a double-sided 3×5 card is need for an infantry squad (shown below). A vehicle requires one of these double-sided cards for the crew and a double-sided card (shown above) for the vehicle.
Correcting the Deficiencies in Card-Based Activation
A common issue with card-based systems is that everyone sits around watching one person perform actions. For years I eschewed card-based activation in my designs. I employed card-based activation for Blood and Swash, because a figure can’t do much with a single activation, so the amount of idle time for other players is short.
The LSNC family of rules (and Battles of GASLIGHT) addresses this through the double activation TM mechanic. Typically, but now always, many people are acting at the same time. This has been demonstrated to limit idle time, even in really large games — particularly if the players are thinking about their next move before their card comes up.
With the use of the joker (or reshuffle card that ends the turn before everyone has gotten to move), however, it occasionally occurs that a unit cannot activate for several terms. While this is probably realistic, it can be frustrated from a gaming perspective. You could pull out the joker, ensuring that everyone activates during a turn, but to some extent this defeats some of the fog and friction that intended in card-based systems.
Two Saturdays ago, during a small gaming session at Buck’s War Room, we were discussing this. Below is what I’d like to try. It’s too late to test this in time for the upcoming release of Bear Yourselves Valiantly, but I’d like to try it during my next G.A.M.E.R. session. If it works, I can publish it to the yahoo groups gang as an “official” optional rule.
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Proposed optional rule:
The overall commander from each side is issued some number of “activation tokens.” When the reshuffle card is drawn, all the remaining cards (below the joker) are turned over. If a number (e.g., three) did not get any cards (e.g., neither the black, red, nor “handicapping” three was drawn before the joker), an overall commander can spend ONE activation token to pull ONE of the undrawn cards ahead of the joker. The player may choose whether to pull either the red, black, or “handicapping” card ahead of the joker.
Players declare that they want to use an activation token and give the token to the game master BEFORE either commander declares what number card will be moved ahead of the joker. Only one activation token may be spent in any given turn per side. If both sides wish to spend an activation token during a turn, they each declare which card they wish to bring forward AFTER having already paid the game master. If both commanders want the same card, it will be activated only once. In the case that both commanders want the same card, neither commander gets his activation token back. One player may choose to activate the red card while the other player chooses to activate the black card with the same number. If both sides pull a different card forward of the joker, the cards are activated in the order that they would have appeared if the reshuffle card had not been pulled.
Units from BOTH sides whose die matches the card, may activate according to all the existing rules for activation, including die swapping and “rolling off” when units from both sides have the same activation number.
The recommended number of activation tokens to give to each side is two or three. Most four-hour games only last eight to ten turns. You want enough tokens to be meaningful, but not so many that you may as well pull out the joker. The GM may allocate additional activation tokens to the attacking side to ensure that they actually get to attack instead of sitting at the edge of the table waiting to activate.
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Let me know your thoughts.
Bridge
I found this bridge yesterday at Michael’s craft store. It is reminiscent of the one that came with the old Marx Blue and Gray Playset, but I think it’s a good size for 28mm figures.
I placed the first figure I put my hands on in front of the bridge for scale. I think the bridge was about $7. If you are interested, it was where they have all the plastic dragons and other animals.
Colonial Marines!
At Cold Wars I purchased these new figures that are meant to look like the colonial marines from the Alien movies, specifically the second movie, Aliens. The paint job is okay, but didn’t photograph very well on my phone with the flash. In particular the faces look awful in these photos.
I am planning on using the GAMER rules that I’ve been developing with these figures for some sort of science fiction skirmish. I also painted the crew of Serenity, so they’ll get mashed up into the game as well.
Finished up some stuff early this morning
Last weekend I began working on some 28mm WWII figures. When I started working on GAMER, I found that I didn’t have the right figures to make correct squads. I had lots of men with submachine guns, because I got them to fight giant ants in a pulp game. So a couple of conventions ago, I purchased a bunch of figures with rifles and BARs.
This morning I put on the finishing touches and flocked them. I wanted to have these done it time for Fall In.
Some months ago, Chris and I made a bunch of fantasy buildings for our 10mm Bear Yourselves Valiantly projects (white and blue building in the foreground). Chris noticed that tops of Tropicana orange juice looked like they might be arenas or larger buildings. I’ve been tinkering with them, but finally finished them this morning.
A Little Weekend Gaming
As my wife and kids are off visiting my mother in law, I invited a few buddies over for a small gaming session. I find that early play testing rules is often better with a smaller group. I am still refining the vehicle rules for GAMER and wanted to test some ideas with just three or four guys. Only two could make it, Chris and Duncan.
I set up another tank-heavy scenario involving a scratch German force attacking an American position. I was hoping to get a couple of close assaults and some bazooka fire. I also wanted another test of the vehicle damage procedure. All seemed to work well, but I still need to think a little about how vehicles interact with cover and vehicle movement speeds.
There Germans started with four tanks, while the Americans just had a Sherman and a Stuart. The Americans also had two infantry squads, each with a bazooka. The Germans had two tank hunter teams, one with a panzer faust and the other with a panzershreck. Even though the Pz. IV fired first, the Sherman knocked out the Pz. IV. The Germans never got much momentum, and the Americans gradually attritted them. In the end, it was a convincing American victory. I just need to clarify a few points with regard to the vehicle hit procedure. Also, I think that vehicles are moving too slowly. I also need to play with indirect fire.
After the WWII game, I cooked some hamburgers on the grill and we talked about game design a bit. In particular we were trying to brainstorm ways to account for the drawbacks of card-based activation without going back to IGO-UGO.
A couple of years ago, Chris, Dave, and I were working on a set of rules for wizard battles. After the WWII game, we pulled out the wizard game again and fiddled with it some more. We came up with some good ideas. When I finish with writing Bear Yourselves Valiantly and G.A.M.E.R., I’d like to resurrect the wizard battle game.
Toy Soldiers
A couple of weeks ago Sammy ran her first convention game at Historicon. She used my Eureka toy soldiers fighting the Eureka teddy bears. That reminded me that I had 12 more toy soldiers in my ready-to-paint box. This morning I knocked them out. These are the last ones I purchased before they stopped updating the line. The others were painted to resemble Britains grenadier guard figures, but for these I decided to vary the colors a bit.
Recent Painting Projects
It’s been a while, but I finally had time to do some light painting. I took the opportunity to knock a couple of things off my painting queue. The first was a batch of knights I got in a convention flea market. I have been toying with the idea of a jousting game for some time. I’ve played in several jousting games that have been fun, but they often get boring quickly as the number of decisions is quite small. So, I have some ideas that I’ve been thinking about while pushing a bunch of flab around the streets for an hour in a vain attempt at weight control. I’ve had some ideas for an opposed die roll dice progression mechanic that will be just right for jousting, I think. The problem with dice progression systems (i.e., d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, etc.) is that they break down after d12. Each die adds .5 to the expected value. E(d4) = 2.5. E(d6) = 3.5. E(d8) = 4.5. Etc. But when you get to rolling two dice (say, d6 + d8) instead of a uniform distribution, you get a bell curve. Recently I’ve seen that d14, d16, and d18 are readily available. I think a die progression mechanic with a lot of variance (4-20 instead of 4-12) is finally feasible in a way that I can live with, mathematically.
Some weeks back I posted some pictures of some WWII Americans riding giant eagles and some Eureka Stukasauruses. I traded something to Chris for his unpainted Stukasauruses. After sitting on them for several months, I finally painted them. I have Major Objective (the guys who custom made the Americans for my eagles) working on some Brits to ride on griffins. I will pick them up at Fall In, so watch for a weird world war two game by Cold Wars.