Atteint Skills

Back in the day, when I put together Atteint, someone who took it upon themselves to play it suggested that the knights needed some kind of skills to add a little variety to each joust.

To be honest I agree with this; it would make things more interesting if each one had something that set them apart from their opponent. Obviously what you're looking at is giving each knight an ability that allows them to change, tweak or ignore a particular rule. And that's always a tricky thing, because you don't want to make any of them too powerful so that they dominate or break the game. Skills have to sit nicely within the granularity of the rules and act like spices; add flavour without overpowering it.

Anyway, I've given it some thought and come up with a few ideas which, I stress, I have not played or tested at all:

Gallant - The knight starts the joust with a Favour from the Ladies' Court

Chivalrous - The knight starts the joust with one Marshal point.

Master of the Lance - The knight may start a pass with his focus on Aim

Quick-Witted - Once per pass the knight may change his focus without having rolled a double, so long as one of his dice shows a '6'.

Fierce - When rolling to unhorse their opponent, the knight may reroll one of the D6

Horsemanship - Once per pass, when rolling for movement at the start of the turn, the knight may reroll the die

Unflinching - The knight's opponent may not reduce this knight's Aim score when rolling against their Balance

Milady's Favourite - When rerolling the dice after spending a Favour, if the dice score a double then you do not lose the Favour.

I'm sure there are other possibilities (and if you have any ideas I'd be glad to hear them). I have eight knight figures, so I can run one knight with each skill in some test games and see how they play out. 

Cold War Gone HOTT

I had to put the Haunted Tank back into its box with the rest of my Weird WWII Americans yesterday. What actually happened is that I got the whole of the army out, as well as the Soviets that share the box. And then I played some HOTT.

So here are the two armies, ready to go. The Soviets defended and are on the left, broken up into three groups by the terrain. The Americans massed the majority of their troops for a flanking move around the Soviet left, and put their heavy-hitters in the middle.

Early advances. With no opponents the Soviets swung their ghostly Heroes Of Old Russia around the American left. But the Americans were advancing rapidly on the Soviet centre.

A clash of the mightiest troops on both sides - Sgt Rock faced Stalin himself, whilst Captain America fought the Hero Of The Soviet Union. Meanwhile the Soviet's genetically-modified apemen faced ... Lassie.

The Soviet Hero (actually a paladin, just to confuse things), was eliminated by Captain America (also a paladin). Stalin was also pushed back. And Lassie drove back the apemen.

The ghost-knights threatened Lassie, but she stood her ground and routed the apemen.

This left the Americans with a golden opportunity - Captain America attacked Stalin, whilst Lassie distracted him from the flank. It was all to much for Uncle Joe, who fled, causing the Soviet morale to collapse. This was a 10g-0 win for the Americans

I set up a second game. This time the terrain was kinder to the Soviets, who were able to set up the hordes in a solid line to face the American attack, with their better troops behind and to the flanks. The Americans matched them. 

On the very first turn, General Winter appeared for the Soviets.

He swing into the American flank, disrupting their advance.

Then disordered their centre.

The American charge went in piecemeal - on their right the Haunted Tank was the first into combat, supported by the American general and some infantry. A to and fro battle developed with the Heroes Of Old Russia.

On the other flank Lassie faced the apemen again.

General Winter was now in the American rear, and seemed to have no plans to go elsewhere at this stage. The American general was now under threat ...

... but fought back, and forced his opponents to retreat.

Captain America was now rushing to the general's aid.

The American centre had still not managed to close with the enemy.

Calamity! Lassie fell to the apemen.

In order to take the pressure off the American general, Captain America engaged General Winter. This was a hopeless fight; although equal in combat factors, General Winter only had to win in order to destroy Captain America, whereas all Captain America could do was hold General Winter in place. But it bought time for the Soviets to roll that critical '1' that would see their god flee the table.

The American centre finally went in, and the Soviet hordes gave ground, despite their uphill advantage.

Stalin left his centre flighting - his hordes could be replaced - and turned his attention to the American general. 

Meanwhile, against the odds, Captain America held off General Winter.

Stalin lumbered through some American infantry covering their general's flank.

And the Hero Of The Soviet Union fell again, this time to Sergeant Rock.

The American general was no hard-pressed, pushed up against General Winter with nowhere to go. His loss would be fatal unless ...

... his GIs could rout the Soviet hordes at the top of this hill, which would even the losses and keep the Americans in the fight.

They failed ...

... and a charge by the Heroes Of Old Russia saw the American general defeated and with him the American army.

This was an epic fight that swung too and fro in a suitably dramatic manner. Captain America holding off General Winter was a highlight, of course. The Soviets won 8g-7. To be fair, had the scores been evened up, the Soviets could have brought back hordes on the next bound to break the tie.

What A Christmas Tanker

 For this week's club meeting, we did a multi-player game of What A Tanker in 15mm. This had big 'Girls Und Panzer' vibes, in that we cheerfully mixed tanks of different nationalities and periods. Each player was allowed three tanks - one from Level 1 or 2, one from Level 3 or 4 and one from Level 5 and 6. You didn't have to stick to the same nationality in your selection, although some people chose to. You started with your lowers Level tank on the table, at one of the short edges. The aim was to drive off the other end - a distance of 12'. If your tank got destroyed, then you respawned with your next highest level vehicle. Seems simple? It was. Except that to win, each player had to also destroy at least one enemy tank, and also visit the pie-shop in the village in the centre of the table. This meant that you couldn't just do a straight run down the middle without fighting.

Anyway, this was the table - desert terrain close to the camera, a mixed woodland/urban terrain in the middle and some frozen wastes at the far end. We had eight players in total, with Ralph (the scenario designer) keeping things running. A few players hadn't played before.

Everyone selected their three tanks, determined which end they would start from and then Ralph gave us all the briefing.

This was my selection: My lowest level tank was a Panzer II (because I wanted to try the Rapid Fire autocannon), my next level an M5 (using my Haunted Tank element from my HOTT Weird WWII American army) and finally a T34/85 as my top-level tank. The latter was purely because I happened to have a model in my collection of random bits.

My Panzer II got off to a cracking start on the desert board; I rolled a load of Drive or Wild dice, and being fast could convert another dice to a Drive dice too. So I got five movement actions on my first turn, and whizzed down the table. Given the movement-based nature of the mission, fast tanks were popular (all three of my selections rated Fast).

At the other end of the table things started more violently, as the players rolled fewer movement and more shooting actions. Theo started things off with a bang, rotating his Crusader on the baseline to fire a killing shot at a nearby Panzer III.

From that point we got heavily into the game and I stopped taking photos for a while. My Panzer II carried on its fast drive, but was pursued by Caesar's Fiat (not sure what model - it was a small Italian tank, OK?). Needless to say I got shot at, and damaged; damage to my drive gear, specifically, slowing me down. That was pretty much the only shooting at our end of the table - Stuart and Nathan (running a Crusader and a Panzer III respectively) advanced more slowly from the start and stayed hidden from each other, so didn't line up any shots.

My plan was the quickest possible visit to the pie-shop, then a run for the finish, hoping to kill a tank from the frozen end of the table on the way through, maybe via a rear-shot after I'd whizzed past.

So here I am - I've been to the pie-shop and am heading out of the village. At the top right you can see Theo's Crusader coming down the road from the other end of the table.

Things caught up with me. This was the position later in the turn with Stuart and Theo's Crusaders heading for the shop, and Caesar's Fiat still chasing me. It looks more dangerous than you might think; there was a no fire zone within a certain distance of the pie-shop, which meant that none of us could actually shoot at each other. This was to have a major effect on  how the game played out, as you will see.

The frozen end of the table, showing a Hetzer and something Italian. The Hetzer killed the Italian tank, which respawned as a Panzer IV behind the Hetzer - you could respawn within 18" of your previous tank's position, so long as you weren't any further forward.

Caesar rolled a load of Drive dice and got ahead of me whilst we were still in the ceasefire zone. He was engaged by Colin's Crusader, and badly damaged.

More to the point, his gun wasn't pointed at the Crusader; it was still trained on my Panzer II. I came out of the ceasefire zone and also started shooting at him, inflicting some minor damage as well. Caesar shot back, but my Small trait, mixed with some outrageous luck, meant that he kept missing. Caesar was shaping up to be my kill ...

At that point it became academic. Theo had made his kill on the first turn, and had visited the pie-shop as well. Then he simply drove off the table through a desert zone devoid of opposing tanks. The only other tanks he encountered were in the ceasefire zone - so no-one could shoot at him.

So Theo got a good, solid win, with a kill, an escape off the other end and doing it with his lowest level tank. My view was that the ceasefire zone was probably too large (or could have been removed) and led to a situation where, at the point where people had the best chance to start shooting and getting kills, they couldn't do it. I suppose that each group of players could have fought at their own end of the table before coming into the central zone, but that would have led to two four-player games, and less fun.

That aside it was a great scenario, and I hope we get to do it again sometimes. All credit to Ralph for putting it together, to Colin for loaning me a Panzer II and to the other players (including Nathan, who visited the club whilst passing through Wollongong on holiday) for keeping it all entertaining.

52 Games - Game 68

The Portable Ironclad Wargame

Some great news from David at A Wargaming Odyssey - his book 'The Portable Ironclad Wargame' has been published! You can read all about it HERE.

I tell you this partially because I do like a bit of ACW naval action, and mostly because I was, in a small way, involved in helping test this game and develop a couple of ideas in it. I think it's moved on a little from the version I was playing around with, but it's still nice to make a contribution. however small.

Anyway, I look forward to getting my copy.

Atteint! Updated

I spent a lot of my spare moments this weekend trying out new tweaks and ideas for Atteint!; not unsurprisingly whilst I came up with a lot of alterations I ended up simplifying or ditching most of them, and what I've ended up with isn't a lot different from the original. However I believe that it does clarify it and improves the balance a little too.

The new version is available via my Free Stuff page, or you can be lazy and just click HERE.

What I did do is make notes on one of the games, and I thought it was worth running through a single pass in detail so that you can see how the game works.

Here are the knights at the start - Purple and White. Both have one point each in Force, Aim and Balance. Purple has their focus on Balance, whilst White starts focused on Force.

Since neither knight as scored any points, they are tied in terms of who goes first - normally the knight with the lowest accumulated score goes first. I rolled and White went first.

Turn 1 - White

The knight tests against their Force and rolls a 4. Since this is not equal to or less than the Force the knight is only moved one space forward.

The 3D6 roll gives 2,3,4. Dice scoring 4 or more allow the knight to increase an attribute. So in this case the knight has one point available. The first point must be spent on the focus attribute, so White increases their Force from 1 to 2. 

Since there was no double rolled, White cannot do anything else.

White's attributes are Force = 2, Aim = 1, Balance = 1. They are focused on Force.

Turn 1 - Purple

Purple rolls 3 against their Force of 1, so moves 1 space

The 3D6 roll is 3,3,4, so they have one point to spend, and this goes to their focus attribute of Balance, increasing it from 1 to 2.

The double 3 means that Purple could shift their focus, but they want to stay concentrated on Balance at this stage, so instead Purple uses it to gain a Favour from the Ladies' Court. This allows the knight to reroll the 3D6 at some later point in the joust.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 1, Balance = 2. They are focused on Balance.

Turn 2 - White

White rolls a 5 against a Force of 2, so moves one space

The 3D6 roll gives 1,4,5. This gives two points to spend on attributes, but no chance to shift the focus. So White spends the mandatory one point on Force, increasing it from 2 to 3, but puts the other point into Aim, increasing it from 1 to 2.

White's attributes are Force = 3, Aim = 2, Balance = 1. They are focused on Force.

Turn 2 - Purple

Purple rolls a 1 and has a Force of 1, so moves two spaces.

The 3D6 roll is 3,5,6. This gives two points, but again there is no double, so Purple can't shift their focus from Balance. However the knight decides to put both points into Balance. They only had to put in one, and could have applied the other to Force of Aim is they wanted to.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 1, Balance = 4. They are still focused on Balance.

Turn 3 - White

White has a Force of 3, so has a good chance of moving two spaces, but rolls a 6 and only moves 1.

The 3D6 roll gives 1,1,4. This gives one point to spend, which must be applied to Force, but allows the knight to shift their focus. They do so, switching it to Aim.

White's attributes are Force = 4, Aim = 2, Balance = 1. They are focused on Aim.

Turn 3 - Purple

Another roll of 1 sees Purple move forward two spaces again.

The 3D6 roll is a good one: 4,4,4. This allows Purple to apply two points to Aim, increasing it from 1 to 3, add another point to Balance, increasing it to its maximum of 5, and because of the double they can shift focus. Their Aim is looking fairly good now, so they shift their focus to Force.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 3, Balance = 5. They are focused on Force.

This is how the knights are positioned. It is now White's move, so if they move forward two spaces then they will initiate a strike because they will be diagonally adjacent to Purple. If they move one space then they get another 3D6 roll, and Purple will be forced to initiate the strike on their turn.

Turn 4 - White

Despite their Force of 4 White only moves forward one space, rolling a 6.

White gets to roll 3D6. They score 2,2,4. This gives them one point to spend, which they have to put onto Aim, increasing it from 2 to 3. They also have a double. Since there will be no more rolls, there is no point in changing the focus, so White spends the double catching the eye of the Marshal of the Field. This gives him the edge if the final scores are tied at the end of three passes.

White's attributes are Force = 4, Aim = 3, Balance = 1. 

Turn 4 - Purple

Purple rolls a 1 against their Force of 1 and moves forward two spaces. This puts them directly adjacent to White, so the knights immediately resolve a strike.

The current scores are:

Purple: Force = 1, Aim = 3, Balance = 5

White: Force = 4, Aim = 3, Balance = 1

The first stage is to see if the knights get any advantage from their Balance. Because it is Purple's turn, they test first, and because they finished directly adjacent to White they can reroll a fail. Purple's Balance is 5, and they roll a 6, so fail, but the reroll is a 1, so Purple gets a pass. They use their successful Balance check to dodge, reducing White's Aim from 3 to 2.

White tests against their Balance of 1, rolls a 4 and fails.

Both knights roll to hit, needing to score equal to or less than their Aim on a D6. White scores a 6, with an Aim of 2, so misses. Purple scores a 2 against their Aim of 3, so hits! 

Any knight which hits their opponent tests to see if their lance shatters. This is a roll against Force. Purple has a Force of 1, and rolls a 5, so their lance remains intact. 

So Purple has scored a point. However the final test is to see if any knight that hit managed to unhorse their opponent. To do this they add together their Aim and Force and subtract the opponent's Balance. Purple has an Aim of 3 and a Force of 1, which gives a meager 4, but White's Balance is only 1, so the final score is 3. Purple rolls 2D6, looking to get that score or lower ... and rolls a 3! White is unhorsed; they rode fast and accurately but their lack of control was their undoing.

Unhorsing your opponent is worth 3 points, so at the end of the first pass Purple leads 3-0. Purple has a Favour, whilst White has caught the Marshal's eye.

I hope this made some sort of sense and gave an idea of how the game plays. It's a lot quicker to play than read.

In case you were wondering, I did play out the other two passes.

In the second pass Purple rolled badly for attribute increases, despite spending their Favour, and stood virtually no chance of gaining a hit against an aggressive and well-aimed White attack. White not only hit, but also shattered their lance, scoring two points. Purple's focus on Balance prevented them being unhorsed, however. So a the end of the second pass the score was 3-2 to Purple.

It went much the same way in the third pass. Purple only managed to increase their Balance once, but did catch the Marshal's eye a couple of times, negating White's edge in terms of a tie break. This meant the White had to at least shatter their lance to win; the single point for a hit would no longer be enough. White had a moderately good aim, but Purple managed to make their Balance roll, and dodged, so White missed. Purple missed too, so neither knight scored. But this left the aggregate score at 3-2 to Purple.