52 Games - Update 4

It's time for the bi-monthly report on my 52 Games project and I have great news. I've done it! This weekend just gone I played my 52nd discrete game/set of rules when we tried out a beta-test RPG called The Score.

I went into July with five games left to play. July saw me add one more to the list when I spent a week or so playing the cycling game Flamme Rouge. But In August I knocked off another four games to nominally finish off the project.

Roughly half of the games have been miniatures rules of various kinds, which is what you'd expect give the basic theme of this blog. Most of the rest have obviously been board- or card-games of some kind, and  with there also being one RPG, one app-based game and one entry which nominally passes for a sport (Game 2 - Darts). To be fair I have made an effort to dig out various games to play in order to help the project along, and it's true that some of the games have had but a single play. But the point is that they got played, and I have dredged up a few gems from the archive, as well as tried a few games for the first time.

So that's it then isn't it? Well, no, not really. Whilst there's not quite the same drive to play new games any more, I think it's inevitable that I will play a few things by the end of teh year that I've not played up until now in 2022. So as they crop up I will add them to the list. Maybe we'll see 52 Games actually become 62 games. 

For those that are interested, this is The List.

Hopton Heath 1643

I set up another scenario from Charles Wesencraft's 'With Pike And Musket' yesterday. I'm aware that his setups are pretty simplistic (and possibly inaccurate) compared to the original battles, but to be honest if I'm just looking for a quick game to throw together they're as good as anything. They have the right vibe, and that's what matters.

I went with Hopton Heath, as this seemed to offer a nice open field to try out the new frontal zone rules with, albeit with an interesting scenario that sees a Royalist force trying to defeat a larger Parliamentarian one arriving on the battlefield piecemeal. Parliament is trying to assemble two forces to crush the Royalists.

I also drew on an adaption of the scenario at Grid-based Wargaming. For my comments on that see later.

Here's the setup. The two rows in the centre of my 8 x 8 grid were a rise from right to left. The Royalists are formed up on the left - one foot, three horse and a gun. Parliament has just brought on two horse, one on each road. The rest of their troops would follow, one unit per turn per road - in addition to the two horse they had a total of four foot and two guns.

The Royalists have to hit the Parliamentarians hard before they can assemble their forces.

The Royalists charged up the ridge.

Early on the Royalist commander was incapacitated, which slowed them down considerably until he was replaced. But he did lead his horse particularly well, seriously damaging one of the opposing foot regiments.

On their right the Royalists did press Parliament right up against their entry-point

On the other flank the horse of both sides battled back and forth.

The Royalist foot took to cover where one of the Parliamentarian units attacked it.

Slowly Parliament forced the Royalists back as their numbers began to tell. Two units of horse wiped each other out.

Parliamentarian foot advanced, driving the enemy horse before it.

Another unit of Royalist horse routed.

And gradually the Royalist foot was ground down by superior numbers. 

The Royalists reached their break-point and their army withdrew. To be honest they didn't stand much of a chance, as Parliament were able to quickly bring their numbers to bear.

I set it up again (unphotographed) using something closer to the setup on Grid-Based Wargaming (see above). With this Parliament has fewer troops - only two horse, two foot and two guns - and only gets one unit per turn, wit their point of entry being dice for. This brings them on more slowly and the Royalists don't have such a large force to take on. This second battle was a lot closer; the Royalists still lost, but took Parliament close to their limit as well, and were able to hit them hard before they could get properly organised. All in all a much more satisfying game. 

The Score

The Score, from Tin Star Games is a neat little story-based RPG described as 'the fastest, slickest, coolest RPG ever made'. It is currently in beta test so, having read about it a fair bit on social media, I thought we'd give it a go. After all, it's a game about heists, and there's nothing the Kobold family like more than a good heist movie*

The players are members of a crew looking to pull off a heist. The deck of 18 cards allows them to do this in under 20 minutes, if you're quick. Here's some sample cards:

I don't plan to go into a lot of detail about the rules, since the game hasn't been released yet, but basically the cards drive everything. You use them to set up the location and target of your heist, assign skills to your characters and then to actually run the heist itself. Essentially to run the heist you have the cards in a deck, interspersed with Act cards that set the tempo of the heist itself. In some Acts things go to plan, but in others the cards are used to show the plan going off the rails. Generally everything comes good in the last act, although it is possible for the heist to fail. The real prize is the story you generate along the way.

Having created the characters, each with their own unique set of skills, you play by turning over a card. The card is assigned to one of the players who then narrates how the particular skill on the card drives the story forward - or doesn't, depending on what phase of the heist you are in. With the last card you get to describe a glorious success or, under some conditions, a total failure. The narration only need to be quick, and with only eighteen cards in play this makes for a fast game. 

We played twice. Our second game fell apart a little; we narrated an end but we got bogged down in the middle by some setbacks and didn't entirely feel satisfied with the story (which was a promising one at the start - stealing stocks and bonds from a safe on the 39th floor of the Wakatomi Plaza Building ...). But the first game was great fun.

Our crew was 'Captain' Rivers, an ex-mercenary scout and electronic warfare expert, Twig, an art-school dropout with a range of dubious skills and some pronouns and finally Pal Sheridan, who claimed to be ex-NASA and who now did technical stuff for a film studio. We narrated how the crew got together and got on with the heist.

And the heist? Our target was, indirectly, the corrupt city mayor, Dorothy Vandermeer, who had embezelled a ton of money, some of which was earmarked to keep an orphanage open. We had to save the orphans! So to do so we planned to raid a reception at City Hall. Mayor Vandermeer would be there with her trophy husband, Greg, who would be wearing a set of ludicrously expensive diamond cufflinks (bought with the embezzled orphanage money, naturally). The plan? Steal the cufflinks and use the money from selling them to save the orphanage.

OK, it's a crap plot, but we were thinking fast.

The Captain did the surveillance on the night of the reception, ensuring everyone got into position, whilst Pal set up some technical stuff that would kick in later. Once inside, the Captain moved to distract the Mayor's head of security, who was an old mercenary buddy of his.

Things went wrong when the team's operations van was discovered nearby, cutting their communications. And there was a further complication when an old flame of the Captain's turned up; the lovely Gloria; she distracted him from his job of distracting the security chief.

However the plan continued. Twig made sure they had the fake cufflinks they'd prepared earlier, whilst the Captain plied Gloria and the security chief with drinks, before discretely nerve-pinching the chief, and leaving 'My friend who appears to not be able to hold his drink' in Gloria's capable and caring hands. A timely fake phone-call took the Mayor out of the reception, only for her to return a few minutes later - only this time it was Pal in disguise.

At this stage the plan required a distraction - a performance by the orphanage choir would draw everyone's attention. But the team's van had been identified as a suspicious vehicle and some of the local streets were closed off; the bus from the orphanage couldn't get through! The plan would just have to go ahead without them.

And it did. Despite the lack of distraction, Twig suddenly dropped down onto the stage on a line, held up the Mayor and Greg at gun-point, took the cufflinks and then whizzed back up to the lighting gantry with the Mayor as a hostage! Escaping through the back-stage area, they accidentally dropped the cufflinks, and the Mayor (Pal in disguise) broke free as well. Twig disappeared into the night as the leaderless security team failed to catch her. The Mayor felt indisposed and slipped off to a loo for a few moments. Pal left the building just as people wondering why the Mayor was so long in the loo saw her come out of her office instead (where she'd been tied up on  a long and frustratingly strange phone-call).

And the dropped cufflinks? The fakes, obviously.

So we got the cufflinks, pawned them and saved the orphanage.

Epilogue One: The orphan choir performed at a party to celebrate the orphanage being saved, with a rendition of Toto's 'Africa'.

Epilogue Two: Gloria and the chief of security got on like a house on fire. He quit his job working for the corrupt mayor, and he and Gloria got married, living happily ever after.

OK, it was a terrible story, but we were playing fast and, most importantly, having a lot of fun doing it.

This is a neat little game that boils role-playing down to it's essence - telling stories - and really captures the vibe of the heist genre. We loved it.

If you want more information about The Score and possibly have a go at beta-testing yourself then you can find the details HERE

And The Score has the honour of being the 52nd game I've played this year! I have officially completed the project.

52 Games - Game 52

*OK, there may be several things we like more, but the point is that we like a good heist.

Lostwithiel Again

I played yesterday's Lostwithiel scenario again on this morning, but made a few changes. The first was to the terrain. I tidied it up a little bit, having the road from the east run between the hills in a straight line, rather than skirting them both to the north as Wesencraft's map does. This was really for playability, but ...

... British Battles shows it that way as well, so I feel vindicated. And, at the end of the day, I'd rather have a fun, playable scenario loosely based on an historical one rather than try to slavishly replicate the original. I'm playing toy soldiers here, not doing a PhD.

I also redid the look of Restormel Castle, reducing it to one square and adding a bastion for the artillery. This played the same in game terms, but looked better.

The castle fell quickly, with the Parliamentarian foot retreating before the first attack. The guns held out though.

The Royalists got better activation rolls, and got their troops on more rapidly than in the previous game. Parliament's foot sat on the two hills, with their guns covering the road between them.

A view from behind the main Parliament position, showing the Royalists forming up. The Royalists actually took a few solid hits from Parliament's artillery at this stage.

The same shot but from behind the Royalists.

I added a small rule change that I picked up from elsewhere. A unit normally has to stop moving if it enters a square adjacent to that of an enemy unit (although it can carry on moving on the next turn). I extended this zone to cover the two diagonals in front of a unit as well. This makes it impossible to advance towards and past a unit and hit it in the flank in a single move; you must now move up to the front diagonal, stop and then maybe continue the move on the next turn. It keeps things a little more linear and prevents units from maneuvering quite so easily.

On the right of the picture you can see the Royalist horse attacking their outnumbered Parliamentarian counterparts.

You can see them again on the right of this picture. Because of the rule change the flanking unit has had to halt this turn, but will swing onto the flank next time.

The foreground of the picture shows Essex leading a counterattack that forced the Royalists back into Restormel Castle

The Royalists forced the Parliamentarian foot back off one of the hills.

And Parliament's horse was swiftly dealt with as well.

Parliament counterattacked, and the Royalists found some of their leading foot units beginning to look a little shaky.

To the west the Royalists had finally overcome the defenders of the castle, and pushed Essex and his men into Lostwithiel itself

Some of the Royalist foot pulled back from the attack on the hills, and it was left to the horse to try and force Parliament's foot back. They slowly whittled the infantry down, but not fast enough.

Lostwithiel fell to a flank attack (the Parliamentarian foot were too hard-pressed to form up as a garrison with all-round defence capability).

Parliament pulled back one of their foot units from the hills. The Royalists (thanks to a turn of rubbish activations) didn't pursue that hard.

The Royalists occupied Lostwitheil and prepared to receive Parliament's attack. 

It was a good attack and there was a bloody fight across and around the bridge with both sides taking heavy casualties. But the Royalists stood firm, and Parliament was forced back to the eastern side of the river

At the end of eight turns the Royalists held Lostwitheil, so had won the battle.

To the east they still held one of the hills before the town, but this was somewhat academic now.

Here's an aerial view of the terrain for anyone wanting to set up the scenario themselves.

The small change to the proximity rule worked OK and didn't seem to hinder the game. I did feel that it imposed a little more restraint on units as well, so I'll give it a try in some future games.

Lostwithiel 1644

It's been a long while since I had my own ECW Portable Wargame out on the table and, inspired by a few posts on Facebook, I decided to rectify that. I had a flick through Charles Wesencraft's 'With Pike and Musket' for an interesting scenario, and came up with the one for the battle at Lostwithiel in September 1644.

I this action, Parliamentarian forces under Essex found themselves outnumbered and outclassed by Royalist troops under the King himself, and almost backed up against the sea. If Essex could hold the town of Lostwithiel then there was a chance that his artillery and foot could be evacuated by sea. But Charles was closing in.

Here's a shot of the setup. Parliament had three units of foot, two of artillery and one of horse. To the north of the town of Lostwithiel was Restormel Castle, which was fortified against attacks from the north. Across the River Fowey were two hills, offering defence against attacks from the east.

The Royalists had considerably more troops. Two units of foot immediately attacked from the north. Coming from the east was the bulk of their army; four more units of foot, three of horse and one artillery

For the purposes of the game I required the Royalists to take Lostwithiel in eight turns, otherwise Essex was considered to have bought enough time for the evacuation. Aside from the attack on the castle in the north, the Royalists had to bring on all of their units via the road from the east, and for the purposes of activations would add two units per turn. The majority of their horse would arrive first, then the foot and finally the remaining horse and the guns. Obviously activation rolls would dictate how many units could actually enter each turn.

As it was the Royalists activations in the first couple of turns were truly bad. Most of their efforts were spent on attacking the castle, since a breakthrough there would put Lostwitheil in immediate danger of being capture. But eventually they got their horse into position as well.

Essex swung his foot around to threaten the road. The Royalist horse suffered from artillery fire, and some of it fell back to regroup.

The Parliamentarian horse went into the attack, just as the bulk of the Royalist foot eventually arrived.

The Royalist foot was attacked in the flank as it advanced down the road, disrupting their advance. The Royalists were obliged to adopt a bold advance because of the time constraints.

Eventually the Royalists broke into the castle, driving off the defending foot. The guns remained, secure in a bastion. But this was the breakthrough the Royalists needed. Their foot was exhausted from the attack though.

With Lostwitheil under threat, Essex withdrew his foot from the hills before the town and headed towards the bridge over the Fowey. His horse was sorely beset by that of the Royalists, but was holding them up if nothing else.

As Essex's troops fell back across the bridge, hotly pressed by Royalists from the east, the troops from the castle attempted to fall upon his rear. But Essex's men held fast, not only holding off the attackers, but breaking them, removing the immediate threat to Lostwithiel, and clearing their retreat as well.

The Royalists continued to press forward, but time was running out.

By now the Parliamentarian force was close to breaking. I classed Lostwithiel as an objective, though, so as long as they held it they would get a bonus on their army morale roll. Essex's men held another attack ...

... and then fell back across the bridge. But to their left the artillery bastion in the castle had finally fallen, and Royalist troops were attacking his flank.

This broke the Parliamentarian army, but it was too late; the Royalists had failed to capture Lostwithiel in time, so despite the Parliamentarian withdrawal being disorderly, they would be able to escape.

The Royalists were unlucky in this game, with very bad activation rolls early on that prevented them from getting enough troops into play to launch a quick attack against Essex. To be honest the scenario could very easily swing in favour of the Royalists; if they get an early success against the castle then they can pretty much take the town unopposed, but to be fair I think having played this through I'd probably deploy Parliament's troops a little better and hold a reserve against that happening.

Anyway, it was an amusing diversion for a Saturday morning, and it was fun to play the Portable Wargame again, even if I did have to look up a surprising number of rules I'd forgotten. 

52 Games - Game 51

More HOTT

I played a couple more games of HOTT yesterday.

In the first the Tuatha De Danann attacked the army of Rama. Most of the terrain ended up in one corner, so this was a fairly open battle, giving a chance for the chariots of both sides to shine.

The Army of Rama - 2 x Heroes (one the general), 2 x Knights, 4 x Warband and 2 x Beasts

The Tuatha De Danann - 2 x Heroes (again, one of which is the general), 2 x Knights, 2 x Warband, 1 x Magician and 4 x Hordes

Rama shuffled his troops around to get a batter matchup whilst the Irish advanced rapidly.

The two armies quickly contacted.

Lugh quickly cut down the monkey warriors facing him.

Meanwhile Nuada Silverhand and Rama fought hero to hero in the centre. Their first combat was drawn, but the totals were even, so they didn't mutually destroy each other.

Rama's army fought back, destroying a minor Irish hero who had pushed too far into their line.

Nuada Silverhand and Rama fought again. Again the fight was a draw. But this time the total was odd, and the two heroes destroyed each other.

Unfortunately with Rama being a general, and his losses being one element more than that of the Tuatha De Danann, this caused his army to rout. The Irish won 8g-6.

After that relatively quick game I set up another, with Rama facing the Fishmen, who used the same army from the previous post.

The Fishmen were nominally the attacker, but got a good position with regard to terrain. Since Rama's army was more mobile, they opted to stay put.

Rama's troops formed up for the attack.

Monkey warband and allied bears swept towards the woods on the Fishmen's left. The chariots and heroes advanced in the centre.

Fierce fighting in the woods. At first the Fishman line held.

But they were soon driven back.

Rama's main force slammed into the Fishman centre.

It was a disaster; both lots of chariots were destroyed by the Fishman artillery and phalanx. With hindsight this was probably the obvious outcome.

In the woods the Fishmen were slowly being hunted down and destroyed.

Rama's monkeys turned onto the flank of the Fishman line. But Fishman shooters were advancing on Rama's left flank as well.

Hanuman fell to the Fishman artillery. This artillery did great things in both games I've played with the army.

And before Rama's forces could rally, or exploit their flank advantage, the monkeys on their left flank were overwhelmed and destroyed, breaking his army.

Rama lost 14-4

Back in the day Rama's army had a reputation for consistent spectacular losses, and it's good to see that it's maintained that over the years. An army based around knights, beasts and warband is always delightfully fragile, but still potent against the right opponents.