The Autumn Games - 3

 At the start of Round 3 of the games, the Prestige stands as follows:

Catherine - 2 Prestige
Me - 7 Prestige
Tertius - 7 Prestige

Catherine also needed a new gladiator to replace the retiarius Medusa. Since she had one of each weight-class she had a relatively free choice, so went for he barbarian Andromache. barbarians are similar to the murmillo in tone, but less heavily armoured and with a trait of their own. 

The Editor made his preferences known and we ended up with the following bouts:

Victor (Me) vs Artemisia (Catherine)
Apollo (Tertius) vs Andromache (Catherine)
Rufina (Me) vs Scylax (Tertius)

Round 3 - Bout 1 - Victor (Crupellarius) vs Artemisia (Thraex)

The Editor joined us for he first bout, but quickly lost interest.

Victor got off to a strong start, deflecting Artemisia's attacks and pressing forward aggressively. 

A shield charge pushed her back.

And another knocked her down. A third came close to inflicting crushing damage, but she evaded that and even managed an attack from the ground that hurt Victor. 

Artemisia back up and fighting.

The lithe thraex soon got into her stride, and quickly finished Victor. 

This was Catherine's first win and earned her 2 Prestige. The crowd were entertained and spared Victor, so I picked up 1 Prestige. In addition, Victor has survived two bouts, so is eligible for a skill. 

Round 3 - Bout 2 - Apollo (Velite) vs Andromache (Barbarian) 

I didn't get any pictures of this bout bar the starting setup. Andromache pressed forward and, as a good velite should, Apollo fell back. Apollo is skilled, and made the most of his abilities to deflect Andromache's probing attacks. However she pressed on and evaded his javelin throws. A sudden furious attack, fuelled by the enthusiasm of the crowd, saw Apollo on the back foot and defeated!

Another win for Catherine, and this time it was an unskilled gladiator defeating a skilled one, so earned her a whopping 3 Prestige. Apollo was spared by the crowd, giving Tertius 1 Prestige.

Round 3 - Bout 3 - Scylax (Armoured Scissor) vs Rufina (Thraex)

The agile Rufina got to face an armoured behemoth with two blades. 

The fight lasted just long enough for Rufina to close ...

... and strike down Scylax with her first blow.

The crowd obviously wanted to see more of Scylax because, despite this abysmal performance, they spared him. Tertius earned 1 Prestige, whilst Rufina picked up 2 Prestige for me. 

So at the end of teh third round these are the positions:

At the end of the second round the standings are as follows:

Catherine - 7 Prestige (One win, one win against an experienced gladiator, two losses with Missio)

Amazon (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Medusa (Retiarius) - 1 Bout
Teucris (Sagittarius) - 1 Bout
Margareites (Secutor) - 1 Bout
Artemisia (Thraex) - 1 Bout
Andromache - 1 Bout

Me - 10 Prestige (Four wins, two losses with Missio)

Volubilis (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Victor (Crupellarius) - 2 Bouts
Rufina (Thraex) - 3 Bouts - +1 Speed
Sabrata (Veles) - 0 Bouts

Tertius - 9 Prestige (Three wins and three losses with Missio)

Spiculus (Dimacherius) - 1 Bout
Scylax (Scissor) - 1 Bout
Danaos (Hoplomachus) - 1 Bout
Apollo (Velite) - 3 Bouts - +1 Defence

I need to choose a skill boost for Victor. I'll probably boost his attack; boosting a speed of 1 hardly seems worth it and his defence of 6 is already maxed out.

The Autumn Games - 2

We started Round 2 of our gladiator campaign with the following scores:

Catherine - 1 Prestige
Me - 4 Prestige
Tertius - 3 Prestige

Catherine had to choose a new medium gladiator, so added the thraex Artemisia to her stable. 

For the second round I was obliged to put up a medium gladiator, which meant that Rufina the thraex would fight again. Tertius had to choose a light gladiator, which saw Apollo enter the arena again. Catherine also had to select a light gladiator, and chose the retiarius Medusa. 

We chose gladiators to face these challengers and ended up with the following pairings (in the order that the fights would take place):

Medusa (Catherine) vs Spiculus (Tertius)
Rufina (Me) vs Teucris (Catherine)
Apollo (Tertius) vs Victor (Me)

Round 1 - Bout 1 - Medusa (Retiarius) vs Spiculus (Dimacherius) 

Deft swordsmanship vs a net and a trident!

It started with high comedy as both gladiators tripped each other up. 

It then became a game of cat and mouse as Medusa evaded the blades, looking to find an opening to use her net.

She didn't get it (Catherine seems to be singularly unlucky when it comes to drawing Glory cards), but she did manage to trip Spiculus again. Medusa closed in for the kill ...

... and Spiculus cut her down from the ground. 

The crowd loved Spiculus's ballsy wining move and, sadly, that 'love' extended to them crying out for Medusa to be dispatched.

So Catherine lost another gladiator. Tertius picked up 2 prestige for the win.

Round 2 - Bout 2 - Rufina (Thraex) vs Teucris (Sagittarius)

If Rufina won this she'd gain a skill. The problem was closing with a gladiator that was constantly running away.

The fight went on for a very long time indeed. Teucris could keep evading but couldn't get an arrow on target when he got the chance to shoot one. 

Eventually Rufina managed to get in enough hits to slow him down, catch him and dispatch him. But the crowd were merciful (or had fallen asleep waiting for the bout to end). 

So I got 2 Prestige for the win and Catherine got 1 Prestige for taking part and surviving. 

Round 2 - Bout 3 - Victor (Crupellarius)  vs Apollo (Velite)

This promised to be an interesting fight. Victor managed to be aggressive and pressed the agile velite closely.

A wild swing almost connected. In game terms I made a big mistake here. The attack was a draw, but I forgot I could have boosted it with a Roar Of The Crowd, which would have won by a margin of 2. Because it was a signature Wild Swing attack it would have then got a +3 and I would have won the fight. I realised too late.

Cost me the game. As Victor advanced for another attack Catherine got all her cards together and an accurate javelin throw took down the armoured behemoth. 

Victor was spared and picked up 1 prestige. Catherine finally won a bout, even if she was actually playing for Tertius, who picked up 2 Prestige for the win.

Apollo and Rufina had now both survived two bouts, so were entitled to a skill. I chose to boost Rufina's speed, and rolled a D6 for Apollo. I determined the relative importance of each characteristic, then assigned 1-3 to the primary one, 4-5 to the secondary and 6 to the least important. Victor rolled a 6, so went for a +1 defence. Still, it means he will get good use from Guard cards now. 

At the end of the second round the standings are as follows:

Catherine - 2 Prestige (Two losses with Missio)

Amazon (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Medusa (Retiarius) - 1 Bout
Teucris (Sagittarius) - 1 Bout
Margareites (Secutor) - 1 Bout
Artemisia (Thraex) - 0 Bouts

Me - 7 Prestige (Three wins, one loss with Missio)

Volubilis (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Victor (Crupellarius) - 1 Bout
Rufina (Thraex) - 2 Bouts - +1 Speed
Sabrata (Veles) - 0 Bouts

Tertius - 7 Prestige (Three wins and one loss with Missio)

Spiculus (Dimacherius) - 1 Bout
Scylax (Scissor) - 0 Bouts
Danaos (Hoplomachus) - 1 Bout
Apollo (Velite) - 2 Bouts - +1 Defence

Catherine is yet to win a bout, and to make matters worse has had terrible luck with the crowd, losing two gladiators to their lust for blood. In the next round she will need to select a new fourth gladiator, but it can be any weight class. Tertius had a good round and he and I are neck and neck. 

But it's still all to play for in the third round. 

Saturday Night Live For Two

Last night was Gaslands week at the Gong Garage Gamers, but with one person crying off sick and others involved testing a game for a forthcoming show we ended up with just two players. 

We rolled a scenario and got Saturday Night Live which, with hindsight, is probably not the best scenario for two people as it involves some quite complex interactions to get the Audience Votes flowing for points. 

Caesar brought two Rutherford performance cars armed with mini-guns. 

I wanted to try out a team for The Order Of The Inferno, to see how it worked. It involves trying to set things on fire, including your own vehicles. I ran:

Jockey Full Of Bourbon - A truck with a flamethrower and napalm dropper
Stay On These Roads - A buggy with a napalm dropper
Picture To Burn - A bike with, you've guessed it, a napalm dropper

They were loaded with perks to repair hits and hazards on each other but to also ignite themselves when it became important to score votes. 

I set up a fairly open arena, and we started on opposite sides of it. 

Here's Jockey Full Of Bourbon (foreground) and Stay On These Roads. The bike had gone off elsewhere. 

One of Caesar's cars came straight at my vehicles, guns blazing but inflicting little damage. However with a spot-prize for initiating a ram, Caesar went for it, turning sharply back  and hitting my buggy. 

It was enough to wipe out his car. My truck shaved very close to it, unleashing flaming death from its side-mounted flamethrower as it did so, and destroying the vehicle. 

Caesar's other car was after my bike but I managed to zip past him before he could shoot at me and dropped some napalm just to be extra mean. Unfortunately Caesar managed to avoid the flames. 

Mind you, in avoiding the flames he nearly came a cropper, narrowly avoiding a collision with a shipping container.

Anyway, after a bit more driving around I got a chance to plonk some more napalm in front of Caesar's surviving vehicle. And I'd set my truck on fire so I could earn Audience Votes once Caesar burst into flames.

He drove through the napalm without taking a hit.

Unfortunately in setting up the napalm my buggy wiped out, crashed into a wall and was destroyed. 

Keen to pick up some sponsor-orientated Audience Votes by setting something on fire I went for another option. I set my bike on fire and then deliberately crashed it into Caesar's car. A collision with something in fire sets you on fire. 

Caesar tried to evade the damage from the bike, so amazingly I survived the crash and actually dealt a decent amount of damage. But I'd misjudged how many hazards Caesar's car had. The crash caused it to wipe out. Wiping out dumps all hazards. And if a vehicle has no hazards any fire it has goes out. 

So once again I'd failed to set something on fire, and now my truck was burning and I had nothing to show for it but damage. Still, the truck soon wiped out and wasn't on fire any more.

The current spot-prize involved ramming an enemy vehicle. Caesar went for it. 

My truck was wrecked. Caesar now had the only vehicle in play until I respawned.

At that point we called the game. We both had 7 or 8 victory points but needed 7 or 8 more to finish the scenario. Neither of us were in much of a position to collect them through sponsor abilities, so it would now be a long slog via spot-prizes. We decided to end the game and call it a draw.

Really we needed at least one more player. But for all that it was a fun game and I found it a useful exercise in trying to understand how best to use a sponsor I'd not tried before. 

The Autumn Games - 1

It's been a while since I ran a gladiator campaign and a longer while since I did one with another person. So last night Mrs Kobold and I started one. We used Blood, Sweat & Cheers.

We each have a school, and there's a third non-player school as well. Because of the way the bouts are structured the non-player school gets run by whichever player doesn't have a gladiator in the fight, with any out of fight decisions being made by die-rolls.

The core rules are HERE, but there's odd bits I've added over time, so I'll probably do a new post. I may even chuck in a few house-rules for Blood, Sweat & Cheers as well, so everything's in once place. 

Anyway, here are the schools.

This is Catherine's:

Amazon (Myrmillo)
Teucris (Sagittarius)
Medusa (Retiarius)
Margareites (Secutor)

My school consists of:

Volubilis (Myrmillo)
Victor (Crupellarius)
Rufina (Thraex)
Sabrata (Velite)

The school of the non-player Tertius is:

Spiculus (Dimacherius)
Scylax (Scissor)
Danaos (Hoplomachus)
Apollo (Velite)

We played one round last night. The Editor of the games asked Catherine to provide a medium gladiator, so that saw Margareites selected. I was allowed a free choice and selected the thraex Rufina. and finally Tertius also had a free choice and picked Danaos.

We then selected opponents and ended up with the following pairings:

Volubilis (Me) vs Margareites (Catherine)
Amazon (Catherine) vs Apollo (Tertius)
Rufina (Me) vs Danaos (Tertius)

I didn't keep detailed accounts of each fight.

Round 1 - Bout 1 - Volubilis (Myrmillo) vs Margareites (Secutor)

A simple sword-fight to start things off. 

Volubilis got the crows on his side very quickly and wounded Margareites. The secutor never really recovered and was soon knocked down and finished off by the myrmillo. The crown were firmly on the side of Volubilis and started the campaign with a kill. 

So I picked up 2 Prestige for the win, and Catherine got nothing. 

Round 1 - Bout 2 - Amazon (Myrmillo) vs Apollo (Veles)

A classic speed vs armour matchup. 

Catherine had some appalling combat rolls in this, and I (playing for Tertius) got a lot of useful cards that meant I could keep the myrmillo at a distance and pepper his with javelins. Amazon staved off one disaster with a Fortuna's Favourite card, but eventually Apollo, buoyed up by the cheering crowd, felled the myrmillo. Again the crowd were not feeling merciful, but some influence from the Imperial family saw Amazon spared. 

Catherine picked up 1 Prestige, whilst Tertius got 2 Prestige. 

Round 1 - Bout 3 - Rufina (Thaex) vs Danaos (Hoplomachus)

Rufina is one of my unlucky gladiators, in that she seems to lose more often than she wins. I selected two of these figures for my school on the hope I could break their curse.

She did good in this bout, getting in a couple of wounding hits on Danaos. Danaos threw his spear, but missed, but then rallied and pressed Rufina hard, knocking her down at one point. However she bounced back, and a wicked slash of her sica finished off Danaos. 

Again the crowd has no mercy, but one again that quiet Imperial influence saw Danaos spared. Someone important  doesn't want to see expensive gladiator flesh being dragged out of the arena by hooks.

So I picked up 2 Prestige for my second win of the round, and Tertius picked up 1 Prestige for Danaos.

So at the end of the first round the standings are as follows:

Catherine - 1 Prestige (One loss with Missio)

Amazon (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Medusa (Retiarius) - 0 Bouts
Teucris (Sagittarius) - 0 Bouts
Margareites (Secutor) - 1 Bout

Me - 4 Prestige (Two wins)

Volubilis (Myrmillo) - 1 Bout
Victor (Crupellarius) - 0 Bouts
Rufina (Thraex) - 1 Bout
Sabrata (Veles) - 0 Bouts

Tertius - 3 Prestige (One win and one loss with Missio)

Spiculus (Dimacherius) - 0 Bouts
Scylax (Scissor) - 0 Bouts
Danaos (Hoplomachus) - 1 Bout
Apollo (Velite) - 1 Bouts

So at the start of the next round Catherine will have to pick up a new medium gladiator. 

Action In The Gulf Of Riga

One thing I've wanted to try with Torpedoes & Tides is a fight between large vessels. Obviously within the scope of the game, large is a relative term (Indeed it's relative to motor launches and gunboats for game purposes). And their stats don't have as much granularity as the smaller vessels. If something's big it's pretty much dangerous and difficult to damage.

Still, his afternoon I gave it a try. I adapted another scenario from 'Clear The Coast, this one being set in the Gulf Of Riga in November 1944.  The Germans are evacuating troops from a peninsula to the north of the Gulf, and have sent in a patrol to sweep for Russian vessels looking to disrupt the evacuation. They come across three Russian gunboats.

Here are the forces.

The Germans have two minesweepers (I used the M1935 stats) and two Vorposteboot (I used the Medium Vorpostenboot with the 88mm gun for each). 

The Russians have three gunboats. These gunboats were converted from German dredgers and are listed as Moskva class in the rules. In the scenario in CtC they have a different class name, but are still converted dredgers, so I assumed that they were the same. One is armed with three 76mm guns, whilst the other two have two 130mm guns. For game purposes I classed them as the same. 

I changed the stats in the rules slightly to allow for the gunboats' forward armament and the fact that they seem to be very slow indeed (dredgers aren't built for speed, after all):

Q3 C4 - Slow, Large, Large Calibre, Secondary Armament C2, Unarmed (Stern)

Here they are, since the models are new. 

I used the following setup The board is 60cm x 90cm for 50/80/120mm sticks. The long edges are north and south. There is no moon and there are two patches of mist, each places 1D3 medium sticks from the centre of the board in a random direction.  

The Germans are set up in a line heading east with the minesweepers at the front and with 1 x M between each vessel. The stern of the rear vessel is against the west edge, 1 x L from the southern edge. 

The Russians are also in a line, heading west, with 1 x M between each vessel. The rear of the line is against the east edge, 1 x L from the northern edge.

Roll for initiative to see who moves first.

I didn't work out any VPs. In the original scenario it's a straight fight, but I like the idea that the Russians are looking to get past the Germans and get off the western edge to harass German evacuation efforts. However they should have to sink or batter a couple of German vessels before they can score for this. The Germans are just looking to sink the Russian gunboats or drive them off. 

Any vessel can leave the northern edge. However it leads to the Sorve Peninsula, so is risky. Any vessel leaving that edge rolls a D6, subtracting 1 if it has taken damage and subtracting a further 1 if it is battered. On a 1 the vessel runs aground and is lost. 

The Germans can leave the western or southern edge safely. Any German vessel leaving the east edge is lost. The Russians can leave via any edge, but see above for the northern edge. 

Here's the game a couple of turns in, with the Germans bottom-left and the Russians top-right. Nothing is close enough to be spotted yet.

The Volga spotted a minesweeper and opened fire, missing.

The Germans were slow to react and the Bureya now came up out of the darkness. Its fire hit the bridge of the lead minesweeper. 

All ships were now revealed. To the left the two Vorpostenboots were moving to engage the Zeya. One fired a starshell to give the other a better shot. Meanwhile the two minesweepers engaged the Bureya. 

The Germans made good use of starshells to illuminate the Russians, and managed to score hits on all three gunboats. Volga was soon battered ... 

... whilst Bureya was sunk!

The minesweepers (right) began to turn back into the action. 

Volga was heading out of the fight now, but not quickly. One of the Vorpostenboots stayed closing, looking for a chance to finish it off. But the Zeya got in some accurate fire that took out some of the German vessels gun positions, reducing its fire. 

The Volga continued its attempt to escape as the Germans closed in on it. 

A minesweeper sunk it. 

The Zeya had disappeared into the darkness so could revert to a blind. In game terms this means it can move faster, and it quickly homed in on the German's battered V-boat. 

Looming out of the darkness its first shot finished off the German vessel. The V-boats are not large, so are more vulnerable to the Large Calibre guns of the Russians, and can be affected by regular firing as well. 

Out of sight of the Germans the Zeya reverted to a blind again. But the undamaged minesweeper was coming up through the fog. 

It closed in quickly on the Russian vessel in the darkness , revealing it but receiving a damaging shot in return. 

The Russian vessel was badly damaged by this stage, but kept up a steady fire on the minesweeper, damaging it again. 

The minesweeper managed a hit in return, battering the Russian gunboat. 

But its own damaged caused it to collide with the wreckage of the sunk V-boat, putting it out of the fight.

However despite command issues caused by its damaged bridge the other minesweeper was now back in the fight, and its shooting finished off the Zeya. 

So the Russians lost all three gunboats, whilst the Germans lost a single V-boat and had a minesweeper disabled by a collision with wreckage. All in all a fairly convincing German win. 

After a slow start the Germans got in some really good shots early on, which damaged the Russians beyond the point of recovery. After that it was really about the Russians trying to stretch out the fight on the hope the damaged Germans would do something bad. Which they did. But it wasn't enough. To be fair, in their eagerness to turn back into the fight the Germans came close to a couple of friendly collisions, avoided only by a careful choice as to which vessel to move first, and through not failing activation rolls. 

Still, I don't think that the balance is too off. If I feel the Russians are hard done by I may upgrade their vessels from Slow to Short, to give them more flexible movement. I'll certainly be playing this one again. 

Update: I've played this through a couple of times now and the balance seems OK. I've worked out a couple of VP possibilities.

In both cases play until only one side has vessels left in play.

The first assumes a straight fight. In this case both sides score 2VP for each enemy vessel wrecked and 1VP for each enemy vessel battered. 

In the second option it's assumed the Russians are trying to maul he German forces and then head west to disrupt German evacuation operations.

With this option the Germans continue to score 2VP for each enemy vessel wrecked and 1VP for each one battered. However the Russians now score points for exiting the western edge. At the end of the action, each unbattered gunboat that leaves the western edge scores 1VP for each German vessel which was wrecked or which left the fight involuntarily.