More Middle-Earth HOTT

By popular request we got out Geoff's 15mm Middle-Earth armies again last night. This time there were four of us, so we ran a 72AP game but with two 36AP forces on each side. As you might imagine what we really got were two disconnected 36AP games. But they were still fun.

Geoff and Peter were the forces of Evil. Peter used a Mordor army whilst Geoff had Haradrim. Geoff was faced by Dave using Rohan, whilst I match Peter with the army of Gondor.

Rohan faces the Hardrim. Naturally the boys from the South have some Mumakil. Rohan were supported by Gandalf and Treebeard to make up for it.

Mumakil vs a very retro Treebeard.

It took a while for Gondor and Mordor to get stuck into each other. On the right there you can see a paladin element representing some Mearas super-horses.

They were rapidly squished by some trolls. The trolls were now rather excited to find themselves in the midst of the very vulnerable knights of Gondor.

The knights ganged up on the trolls. They got squished as flat as the horses.

Rohan and Harad were still fighting it out n the other side of the field.

I was left facing trolls with Imrahil, my knight general. He continued the 'Getting Squished' theme, and that was Gondor's army broken and running for the hills.

Of course things could still go badly for the forces of Evil, as Geoff rolled his fifth '1' in a row.

Gondor's troops were slowly departing the battlefield, but in the distance you can see Gandalf about to have a go at Sauron's stronghold. If enough of Gondor's troops could hang about until Gandalf had a chance to attack it then maybe Good would prevail.

They didn't. The feckless Gondorians ran away en masse  before Gandalf could do his stuff, and Evil prevailed.

Good game though.

Chariots At MOAB

This weekend just gone was teh annual MOAB show up in Sydney. I always make an effort to get up there for at least one day. This year I even had a shopping list!

I went up on the Saturday because Victor had invited me to have a go at a chariot-racing game he's developing. Called 'Ludi Circenses' it uses the racing pack/relative positions concept that you see in THW's Charioteer, combined with an action dice system similar to that in 'Song of Blades and Heroes'. I should say that the mechanisms are not lifted wholesale; they are very much ther own thing.

Here's the race underway. The game is for four players, each running two chariots. The teams are the classic Reds, Blues, Greens and Whites of antiquity.

The track has three active lanes; an inside lane on the left, a middle lane and an outside lane. There is also an area to the right called the outer lanes, which is where the 'pit crew' lives and where any chariots that drop off the back of the board go until they can be brought back into the main race. You can see one such chariot in this picture.

The race is run over seven laps, with each lap consisting of three straight sections, a corner, three more straights and a final corner. 

On the corners each chariot simply tests against a hazard number to see if they take stress or damage on their chariots. The level of hazard is determined by how many adjacent chariots you have, being in the dust-cloud of a chariot in front of you, whether you are on the inside track (the most dangerous) and how much stress you have put the chariot under.

In each straight section one chariot will act, based on coloured dice drawn from a bag. Each player has eleven dice in the bag, so with 42 straights in the game you can be sure of getting at least 9 actions in the game, maybe 10 and, for at least two players, 11 actions. Charioteers can use crowd support to get bonus actions if they are popular.

When a chariot acts you roll one, two or three dice with roman numerals on them. Each 'I' symbol gives you an action. Two or more 'V' symbols give you an action but also fatigue the horses. So a roll of 'III', 'IV' and 'V' will give you four actions for the I's and one further action for the V's plus a fatigue.

Actions can be used to move (which is easier the closer to the inside you are), change lanes or attack or overtake other chariots. 

I noted earlier that each team has a pit-crew. These are the mounted Hortartors, who can guide a chariot and negate the effects of dust, and the unlucky Sparsors. These latter are slaves whose job it is to throw water on the axles of the chariots or on the horses in order to cool them down. The wooden axles of chariots would get hot during a race, to the level where they would smoke. In the game a chariot accumulates heat each time it acts. A team can use actions to deploy the Sparsor to cool a chariot down. 

You can see both a Sparsor and Hortator in action here.

Using a Sparsor is an action. If the target chariot is in the outer lane then they can do their job unimpeded. But if they have to cross lanes there is chance that they will be run over. In this picture the green Sparsor has got lucky...

... but he was not so lucky a couple of turns later! Splat!

Anyway, the final straight is the key one; a chariot wins if they are in one of the front three paces of the track. That Blue chariot is mine, looking like a dead cert.

But here's a Red chariot coming up on the inside. 

An overview of the finish. We were both using crowd support at this stage. It was very exciting.

Pipped at the post! In the event of multiple chariots being at the front at the end a chariot in the middle lane has priority. However other factors can affect the finish. Red's horse team were better finisher's than mine, which gave them a bonus and made the result a tie. In that case the tie-break is unused skill counters (which are assigned at the start of teh race). I had one. Red's chariot had ... two. So Red won on the narrowest of tie-breaks; I finished well but Red's better horses and more skillful charioteer just squeaked ahead in a 1st century AD photo-finish.

I was gutted.

The also-rans. On the back wall you can see the dice that have been pulled from the bag, neatly grouped by straights and laps.

This game is tremendous fun, with lots of period chrome and things to manage. As a chariot races it slowly degrades, and the game is very much about managing heat, damage and stress, whilst ensuring that your opponents accumulate some. We didn't have any crashes, although one of the white chariots had taken a couple of corners badly and was close to falling apart. Sadly he failed to amuse us by actually doing so.

And what of the shopping? I bought a few bits for a Turnip 28 force I have on my painting table (I have one unit painted and another couple mostly assembled), as well as some more Grim Fantasy figures for use with Palaeo Diet. And I picked up two boardgames. The first is a solitaire WWII game, 'Field Commander: Rommel', which allows you to play the great man in three campaigns (France 1940, Western Desert and D-Day) against a game-controlled Allied force. I've tried the France 1940 campaign a couple of times and it's a tough nut to crack. Those Somuas just keep comin. The other game is 'Evolution: New World' which is an excellent card-based game about adapting animals to environments whilst fending off other player's predators. I got it for $15 and it seems to be a full kickstarter set with not only the basic game but two expansions as well. Quite a bargain. We've played it three or four times already this week, and we love it. It lacks the silly animal builds of Quirks, but does have a charm all of its own*.

*My wife and I both studied life-sciences at university, so as a theme it's very much our thing.

Gaslands Flag Tag

We played Gaslands at the club last night. We nearly always get a good turnout for a game; it's very popular. Fortunately we're now getting quite good at playing it, so manage to finish the games within an evening.

Last night we had five players:

June ran her three vehicle Maxxine team
Graeme ran a Miyazaki performance car and bike
Craig once again took the Scarlett mini-bus All You Need Is Love into the arena
Caesar ran his Mishkin monster truck It's A Long Way To The Top
I ran the gigantic Warden excavator Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven

The scenario was Flag Tag; each team had a flag on one of their vehicles. If  the vehicle was wrecked then the flag would then dup on the table. A team would win if they had a single vehicle carrying two flags. So basically you were looking to retain your own flag whilst freeing up and then collecting an opposing flag.

Here's the arena, with everyone ready to go.

I got my digger moving and shot up June's bike.

June's car faced off with Caesar's monster-truck

A deft bit of driving saw her bring the side-mounted rams on the car into play, inflicting some real damage on her massive opponent.

Meanwhile the digger went to work, ramming June's buggy and shooting at her bike. Doing damage is how my vehicle manages its hazards, so I was keen to beat stuff up. The digger also has a Wall Of Amplifiers, so opposing vehicles were blasted with a high volume medley of tracks by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Anyway, the attack ended with both bike and buggy wrecked. The flag was on June's car, though.

Or it was on her car until Craig brought the pirate mini-bus into play and smashed her vehicle up with devastating carronade fire.

One flag was now free to collect, but in an awkward place behind the building. Craig chased after Casar's monster-truck. Caesar evaded the fire using Mishkin technological trickery ...

... but went out of control and crashed anyway. So that was another flag up for grabs.

I went head to head with Craig. I somehow came off worse in the damage stakes ...

... although I did flip the minibus behind me.

An overview of the action so far. We had started a new turn, so both June and Caesar had respawned and collected their flags. Graeme was driving around in a  thoroughly Miyazaki way ready to swoop in on any loose flags that might appear.

June and Caesar went head to head again. It didn't end well; June's car was wrecked once more. 

Meanwhile Craig's piratical lunatics did a tight turn and rammed my digger causing it to wreck through a minefield and then explode catastrophically.

My flag was now up for grabs. Graeme's bike swooped in; if he could collect it then he could rendezvous with his car and win.

Caesar was trying to plot a course to grab June's flag, which would give him the win.

Craig went for my flag by trying to drive through a wall. We worked out afterwards that if he'd wrecked he would have collected it; the wreck would have moved him through the wall and over the flag for a win just before he was destroyed.

Graeme's bike crossed over the flag, but was wrecked in doing so (shooting from the pirates, naturally). However this allowed Graeme to reposition the flag, away from a point where it could be easily collected by Craig.

Caesar failed to collect the loose flag he was after and ended up stuck in a corner for the rest of the game.

At some point Craig's mini-bus wrecked as well, leaving two flags in the soft-sand against the wall. Graeme's car was ready to zoom in and take them. June and I both tried to stop him with audience votes ...

... but couldn't do it. Graeme grabbed a flag, adding to the one his car was carrying and giving him the win. 

So a well-deserved win for the agile Miyazaki team. Graeme had hung about on the fringes whilst the heavier vehicles had shot and rammed each other into twisted lumps of metal. Probably a sensible move when you only have light vehicles.

Anyway, a great game with some fun vehicles in play.

Fokker Patrol

A few years ago I started playing solo games of 'Spandau & Lewis' using a threat system. Here's the original post in which I tried it.

Anyway, in one post I ran a Fokker EIII and noted that I didn't have much in the way of opponents for it as up until recently Tumbling Dice hadn't made any suitable planes. I came across this observation the other day, and realised that I now had a nice range of suitable options to challenge an Eindecker. So yesterday I set up some games.

I took the opportunity to fiddle with the way the threat deck was created.

You will have a deck which is a mix of threat and dummy cards. Use standard playing cards.

Draw up a list of threats, with each one assigned to a card. I use red cards for threats. Ten is good if you have the models to cover it; mine is drawn up in such a way that I could theoretically field all ten threats.

For each plane in your patrol draw two threat cards. Draw an equal number of dummy cards (obviously I use black cards as dummies). Shuffle them, then discard half of them without looking at them. Then add two card to the deck for each plane you are using - the first should be a threat card, and the others dummies.

e.g. You are running two planes. Draw four threat cards and four dummies, shuffle them and discard four cards. Then add one threat and three dummies (four cards total). Your deck will contain eight cards and may have anywhere between one and five threats in it.

I drew up the following threat list, representing Entente aircraft in the Summer of 1915:

A - 1 x BE2 (1-3  Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
2 - 2 x BE2 (1-3 Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
3 - 1 x FB5*
4 - 2 x FB5*
5 - 1 x Bristol Scout (1-3 MG armed*, 4-6 Unarmed)
6 - 2 x Bristol Scouts (1-3 MG armed*, 4-6 Unarmed)
7 - Morane L* (Single-seater with front MG)
8 - 2 x Morane L (1-3 Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
9 - 1 x Farman MF11
10 - 2 x Farman MF11

Planes with an * will actively hunt and engage the Fokkers. Other planes are on reconnaissance missions and will attempt to escape (although will fight if forced to it).

Only one Bristol scout in the game will ever have the MG mount.

Unarmed planes are assumed to have small-arms.

Roll for crew quality as normal. You can decide on the crew quality of your own plane, allowing you to set the challenge as you see fit. In both of the games reported here I went for experienced pilots.

I drew a card at the start of each turn. If it was a threat then I positioned this direction rose over the Fokker that was closest to the enemy edge:

I rolled 2D6 and the threat appeared in that direction relative to the Fokker. It appeared 3d6" away. I turned the threat towards the nearest Fokker and then rolled on the rose again to see what direction it was actually facing (so if you rolled a 3,7 or 11 it would stay facing towards it, for example).

Threats are considered to be unaware of the Fokkers and must spot them. Until they do they behave as follows:

Reconnaissance planes would determine which board edge was the furthest from their current position. They would turn until they were facing that edge and then attempt to leave the board via it.

Other planes are on patrol. They will turn until they were facing the centre of the board, fly towards it and then circle it.

As per the rules, planes that have not spotted an enemy will move at a speed of 3 and can make a single 45 degree turn without checking for it.

That's a lot of setup information, and much of it is for a future me to read. But it may be useful to others.

In my first game I set up one Fokker. This meant a deck of four cards. 

The first card gave a pair of BE2s, unarmed except for small arms. They appeared about 10" away in direction 9 facing towards the Fokker. Both crews were experienced.

They spotted the Fokker straight away, and attempted to run for the furthest edge whilst banging away with rifles. One actually hit the Fokker but did no damage (it was a scary moment though).

They turned for the safety of a cloud. The Fokker pursued, firing as it did so. But the German's rolls were abysmal.

One BE2 ducked into the cloud whilst the other failed to make the turn and carried on. The Fokker pursued that one.

The treat deck had produced a single unarmed Morane L, but it wasn't worth going after it. It plodded across the board towards the opposite edge, aware of the fight but unwilling to take part.

The Fokker continued its pursuit and continued to miss with every shot it made.

The BE2 found a cloud to hide in. The Fokker chased it through. It would have one clear shot on the other side.

It was the best shot it had had all game. Every dice missed. The BE2 escaped. The Fokker had fired off half of its ammo for no effect. With no other threats in play it went home.

I set up a second game, this time with two Fokkers. Since they tended to hunt alone I split them up on opposite sides of the board. The one closest to the enemy edge would be the threat magnet, though.

The first threat were two oblivious Farman MF11s. These are armed but very, very slow,

One of the Fokkers worked into their rear.

The other waited to ambush them when they came out of the cloud they'd hidden in.

Another threat - a Morane L with new-fangled Garros wedges. And it was hunting the Fokkers. It also rolled an ace pilot.

One Fokker moved to engage this new threat whilst the other tried to get into the rear of the Farmans.

An unarmed Bristol Scout also appeared out of nowhere. This was just looking to head home and with plenty of targets in play the Fokker pilots were inclined to let it.

The lead Fokker swooped in on the Morane L, and inflicted hits on it.

The Farmans were now making their escape as the other Fokker somehow lost contact with them. The Scout is heading off to the right.

The Farmans escaped, undamaged but slightly rattled.

The action would now be the two Fokkers against the Morane L. This is slower than the German planes, but more maneuverable and, of course, with a much better pilot.

The second Fokker closed up on it

They exchanged shots as they passed, bot scoring damage.

But the more nimble Morane got onto the tail of the Fokker.

The Fokker went down with its engine on fire.

The other Fokker had been trying to get back into the fight but was too late to save his companion. However the Morane was fairly shot up and could maybe be finished off.

However it was obvious that the Morane was too tough an opponent for a single Fokker to risk engaging, and the Fokker fled. A straight run for home wasn't a sensible move as, although the Morane was slower, it would still get in a few tail shots before being left behind. So the Fokker attempted to lose it in a cloud.

This gave it enough of a lead that it could pile on the speed and escape.

But with one Fokker shot down for no French or British planes downed it was a bad day for the Germans.

In future games I may tweak how the cards work a little; one idea I have had is to simply add dummy cards after discarding the first half deck. But then draw a threat from those not dealt into the deck on teh first turn. It makes sense to have some enemy aircraft on the board from the start. It's possible that this could be the only threat the player faces; the deck may contain nothing but dummies. But you can never be sure. I might also deal dummy cards out so that the minimum size of a deck is six cards; this will spread out the treats a little if you are using a single plane.