A New City

Although I have been quite busy with work and family commitments this week, I have found odd moments to do something about improving the look of the city my giant monsters destroy. Up until now I have been using Lego, and it is very practical, but lacks a certain something in terms of looks.

The other week I found this site, and realised that the buildings would scale just about right for my figures if I printed them at half-size (I just asked Adobe to print two pages per sheet - easy).

And this is how they look.

I'm not sure I'll be using a bright red tablecloth for any games though.

Donald Featherstone (1918-2013)

One of the fathers of modern wargaming, Donald Featherstone, died yesterday after a fall at home. He was 95.

It would be hard to find a wargamer - British wargamer, certainly - of my age who was not influenced by him in some way. He wrote over forty books on wargaming and other military subjects, and the rules and idea in them inspired endless ideas. I was lucky that our local libraries were stocked with his books (as well as wargames books by other authors of the time), and as a teenager was able to read them at my leisure.

Like many others, I have some of his books on my shelf. One of them is one of the ones I used to get out of the library - retired from service and sold off for a massive twenty pence.

Donald Featherstone represented a bygone, more gentlemanly, era of wargaming. At my previous club we used to joke about the photos of wargames events from the 1960s, showing players smartly decked out in shirts and ties. Five years ago we decided to celebrate Donald Featherstone's 90th birthday at our club (not that he ever knew). Our game for the night had already been scheduled as 'Rapid Fire' - a perfect set of rules with which to do such a tribute, harking back as they did to the games of our youth. We included a paradrop, featuring squares of paper dropped onto the playing area - a Featherstone classic. And, finally, we wore shirts and ties. And those who know me will know that for me to put on a tie it must be an event of some real importance. Donald Featherstone was a man who truly merited the wearing of a tie.

(True Fact - It was me who added him to Wikipedia's 'Births On This Day' list for March 20th. Although at some stage the entry has been changed from 'British Wargamer' to 'English Author')

Update: I'm not kidding about the ties.

Reinforcements For The Military

Many years ago, when 'Monster Island' was my giant monster game of choice, I started scratch-building some generic, military units to fight the kaiju with, based on the various options in 'Escape From Monster Island'. I used a simple technique involving stacking small pieces of mounting board to make hulls, then adding wire and lentils for guns and small turrets. Infantry, and similar, were to be made from small pieces of plastic hair-roller.

Like most of my projects they got pushed onto the back-burner, then buried and forgotten.

A year or so ago I made some tanks using the same methods, for a game of 'Giant Monster Rampage' set during WWII. They looked great (to me), and included a few small refinements to the design. When, last week, I wanted to try GMR swarms to represent the military, I dug them out again, and also found the box with my original efforts from back in 2005. For the games I played last week I repaired and rebased three jet planes I'd made back then.  After rummaging through the box, I have now started rebasing and reorganising some of the other troops.

And here they are. Tanks, large and small, mobile missile-launchers and some infantry. They are roughly 1/600th scale, and based on the premise that my monsters are about 50m tall. Tucked away at the back are four helicopters, in desperate need of repair, but more desperate need of use.

The trouble is that the rest of my week is going to be quite busy, with work, my son's 18th birthday, a college visit and getting ready for my niece's wedding. How will I fit any game-playing in, let alone modelling, painting and basing?

Of course, when I next play GMR, I'll have something suitable to wear ...

The Military In 'Giant Monster Rampage'

In the most recent games of 'Giant Monster Rampage' I have played, I have been using the swarm rules to represent human military units. They seem to work OK; some things feel a little abstracted, but the way the use of Atomic Power limits how many elements of the swarm act in each phase is no different, really, to the PIP system in HOTT.

In this post I though I'd detail some basic military swarms. Each is 100pts. I tend to run my monsters at 200pts, so you get two military swarms for each opposing monster. Obviously they can be tweaked to give more specific vehicles or units. For example, a slower, tougher jet plane design could be given Barrage Blast to represent some form of bomber. Not very good for defending a city, though, unless you're not bothered how much of it remains standing afterwards.

These units work best when you use the option where a player is allowed to take their Movement, Ranged Combat and Close Combat phases in any order they like. This allows for hit and run attacks, and repositioning of assets to strike at key targets next turn.

All military units are considered to belong to the Mechanical kingdom, so they automatically get the Alternator power.

4 x Tanks
Distance 3 Dexterity 2 Toughness 4 Instinct 4
Ballistic Blast, Blast Armour, Alternator

5 x IFVs
Distance 4 Dexterity 2 Toughness 3 Instinct 4
Volley Blast, Blast Armour, Alternator

3 x Jet Planes
Distance 5 Dexterity 3 Toughness 1 Instinct 3
Mechanical Blast, Fly, Alternator

8 x Infantry
Distance 2 Dexterity 3 Toughness 2 Instinct 3
Volley Blast, Alternator

4 x Special Forces Infantry
Distance 2 Dexterity 3 Toughness 3 Instinct 4
Volley Blast, Disperse, Swim, Alternator

'Volley Blast' is a reworking of the power 'Archaic Blast', currently in the 'Toy Battle System Digest'. Whilst it can be used for a number of effects, it is designed to simulate the massed fire of small-arms and other infantry weapons against a giant monster - the chances are they will hit the target, but are unlikely to ever inflict any real damage on it.

VOLLEY BLAST

Points: 10
Range: 18”
Energy: 1-5
Damage: 1

A combatant with this power has a ranged combat attack that fires a mass of small projectiles that, whilst they are unlikely to cause much damage are very difficult to avoid. When this power is activated, the monster spends 1-5AP (player's choice). It then determines the To Hit number and rolls a D10 for each AP spent. Ignore all rolls except the highest, and compare that to the To Hit number to see if the attack hits or misses. A '0' scores a critical hit as normal. Due to the small size of the projectiles, any target hit by a volley blast must double its toughness before rolling to absorb the damage inflicted by it. When a combatant’s toughness is doubled, the maximum rating it can have is 8. If a combatant’s toughness would be greater than 8, it becomes 8.

Obviously if the military are in play you don't bother with the Military Strike Phase as well. If you're playing the tanks, you are the military strike phase.

It's An All-Out Giant Monster Rampage!

Twice today the army had fought off Godzilla, as detailed in a previous post. But all that activity had attracted the attention of Evil Aliens, intent on destroying the Earth. And where better to start the destruction than a certain Lego city - using giant monsters?

This was a two-sided game, with one side having two 200pt monsters and the other having a 200pt monster and two 100pt swarms.

The Aliens led their assault with that mainstay of any alien monster attack - the evil three-headed space-dragon Ghidorah!

And assisting him - a controlled Godzilla. Fans of the movies will recognise this version; Burning Godzilla. For this game I assumed his atomic reactions had been made artificially unstable. This Godzilla differed from the basic one I've been using in that it had no regeneration, slightly reduced stats, but made up for it with a damaging corona (which made attacking him in close combat dangerous) and self-destruct. The latter ability meant that if he was defeated, he would explode, damaging everything within a 12" radius - a potentially deadly ability.

 The city was, of course, defended by the Army - eight bases of infantry in one swarm, and three planes in another.

Assisting them, a hero! Valiant Monster Fighter - 50 metres tall, and ready to take on anything the aliens can throw at him. He had a couple of martial arts attacks, and a Parasite Blast, which drains Atomic Power from the target if it damages them. Plus he could fly.

Ghidorah approached the city from the south, and Valiant Monster Fighter flew to intercept him, hitting him even at long range with a blast as he did.

The army approached from the other side.

The planes flew in, and launched missile after missile, knocking Ghidorah out of the sky.

Ghidorah responded by destroying a building, then hurling the rubble at Valiant Monster Fighter, whilst attacking him with Laser Blasts.

The infantry set up a firing line and poured volley after volley into Ghidorah with little effect. The planes had flown off; short of AP they couldn't manage another shot at this stage.

On the other side of the table, Godzilla was busy. He demolished a building, then threw the rubble at another ...

A critical hit topped it, and flying debris destroyed two nearby infantry units.

The planes flew in to attack him, and knocked him down.

Godzilla retaliated by hurling rubble, destroying one of the aircraft.

Meanwhile Ghidorah and Valiant Monster Fighter were locked in combat. Both were down to their last couple of wounds.

 Valiant Monster Fighter slipped behind the dragon to grab some rubble to use as a weapon, but couldn't finish Ghidorah off. Ghidorah retaliated ...

... and Valiant Monster Fighter was down!

Ghidorah sealed his victory by using Laser Blast to take out another aircraft.

Then taking flight to destroy the third in close combat.

Finally ...

... he attacked the infantry, who were firing desperately trying to bring him down - he was on his last wound by this point.

Four bases of infantry were destroyed in one series of attacks ...

... but the last base did for Ghidorah.

With Valiant Monster Fighter down, and the planes lost, it was down to the infantry to defeat Godzila. Not an easy task, as he had taken little damage so far, whilst the infantry were down to three bases. Two bases, after Godzilla tail-swiped one.

He then demolished the tallest building in the city ...

... and used the rubble to destroy another infantry base.

This was now the sole defender of the city.

I ended the game at that point - with Godzilla triumphant.

This was a dramatic fight, with some tactical play and a few reversals of fortune. It would have been nice to have finished it off with Godzilla exploding, but you can't have everything.

Valiant Monster Fighter has the following abilities:

Humanoid - 200pts
Distance 4 Dexterity 5 Toughness 4 Instinct 4
Double-Strike 2/2", Duplicat Limb
Kick 1/2"
Parasite Blast, Fly, Skilled

Ghidorah was as follows:

Animal - 200pts
Distance 3 Dexterity 3 Toughness 5 Instinct 3
Bite 1/3" (x3)
Tail 1/2"
Laser Blast with Multiple Blast Points, Fly, Tenacity

Finally, Burning Godzilla:

Animal - 200pts
Distance 3 Dexterity 3 Toughness 4 Instinct 3
Bite 2/2"
Tail 1/2" 2" Knockback
Claws 0/2"
Energy Blast, Corona, Swim, Tenacity, Self-Destruct