Void Admiral Solo Starship Game

 Unfortunately, my planned game of Void Admiral this week had to be postponed. I have only played the rules a couple of times (but really like them) so I decided that, as I had the ships out anyway, I'd play a quick solo game to help reinforce the rules.

I decided to play the 24 pt Loyalist fleet I was intending to use and pitch it against a fleet from the Noble Houses. I thought this would give myself some tactical challenges, the Loyalists have strong frontal armour and long range missiles, whereas the Noble Houses have shorted ranged weapons, but being turret mounted are more flexible in their firing arcs. The Loyalists also have much better command and control.

The two fleets close in on each other. This is a basic "smash and grab" raid. The two space stations are old Imperial assets which contain important data which the Loyalist have come to retrieve. However as the Noble houses in this sector feel that the Imperium have effectively abandoned them to fend for themselves, they believe that any such Imperial assets now belong to them.

It's a version of the Hold the Line scenario in the rulebook. Fleets score 1 victory point at the end

of each round for each station that they have at least one ship within 6” of. But they do not score points for any stations that also have an enemy ship within 6”. 

In turn 1 only the Loyalist ships are in range, but their opening salvos of missiles do little damage (so really rubbish dice rolling!).

As the Noble Houses close the distance both the sovereign and a sceptre concentrate their fire on the Loyalist flagship, strippng it's shields and inflicting some damage.

The sovereign also launches a fighter attack, but the galleon's own squadrons and flak defences neutralise the threat. Both fleets have their smaller ships within range of a station, but it's the same one!

A Loyalist destroyer fires on a sceptre, not inflicting damage but knocking it's shields down.

This leaves the sceptre vulnerable to the shooting and fighters of the second destroyer, and the Noble Houses ship takes heavy damage.

The sovereign manoeuvres around into the rear arc of the galleon, it's turrets pouring in cannon and laser fire at close range. The Loyalist flagship explodes spectacularly.

Almost simultaneously the damaged sceptre explodes!

The fleets now have ships within range of both stations, but no-one is able to download data yet.

A space-age version of Crossing the T. Both Loyalist destroyers manage to get into the rear arc of the sovereign bombarding it and launching fighter strikes, but neither can get their powerful missile batteries to bear. The Noble houses flagship is badly damaged, bur still fighting. 

The remaining sceptre is now able to start downloading data from one of the stations.

Another Loyalist ship explodes under intense cannon and laser fire.

The little Loyalist corvette tries to hide behind a station, but a large Noble houses ship bears down on it, it predictable results, turning the corvette to space dust!

Having grabed some data, the last Loyalist ship breaks off and runs, leaving the Noble houses in clear control.

Final result after 5 turns, Noble Houses 20VPs to the Loyalists 7VPs.

It was fun and certainly gave me a better grasp of the rules. I'd only used the Loyalists so far and their increased armour and powerful missiles are only good if they can keep the enemy in front of them. Their weaker side batteries were no match for the turreted weapons of the Noble Houses who could combine both front and rear weapons into a devastating broadside, once in range.

I'm looking forward to play a live opponent again soon.

Four-Player SOBAH Campaign Game 2

 We played the second game in our SOBAH campaign, using my revised VP rules.

Here is the scenario, we set a time limit of 2 hours for the game.

Lost in the Swamp

Objective: To control a shrine in the centre of a mist shrouded swamp.

Controlling the Shrine.

There are 3 standing stones, equal distance apart and approx. Long distance from the shrine Whoever commands the most stones at the end of the game controls the shrine (shared command of a stone does not count). 

To be in command of a stone, a PC must be in base-to-base contact. If a foe is also in contact with the stone at the end of the game, it counts as shared command of the stone.

Mist Special Rules

At the end of each turn roll 1d6, if the total is equal or less than the turn number, the entire table is covered in mist. LOS is now reduced to 1 x Long.

When a model activates in the mist, roll 1d6 and if they roll 1 they are lost in the mist. Immediately move the model Long in a random direction, stopping if they contact a table edge. The model can then activate as normal.

Victory Points

VP for kills: 2 VP for the first kill from each warband.

1 VP for controlling the shrine at game end 

2 VP for each stone under your control

1 VP for sharing control of a stone.

Some pictures from our game.

Mark sends a lone mounted dwarf off into the unknown.

Whilst his companions slowly advance into the swamp.

Colin's Catfolk close in on an objective stone.

Henry's undead make an early attempt to grab a stone.

The results of my first two turns! Turn 1: my Leader rolls 1 pass and 2 fails (Turnover!). Turn 2 : one gnoll advances, then the leader rolls 1 pass and 2 fails (Turnover!). I only succeeded once in the entire game, to successfully activate all of my warband in a single turn!

Finally on Turn 3 I manage to get my ogre up to support my leader.

And get the rest of my warband together.

In the meantime things are kicking off elsewhere. Henry's lich successfully cast Tranfix on a mounted dwarf, then charged a skeleton into the bemused victim, who successfully fends off his attacker.

More dwarves and skeletons are drawn into the melee. The lich then casts Tranfix on the dwarf leader, who is cut down, along with the dwarf crossbowman and a skeleton archer. As the dust settles the last dwarf rider breaks off and legs it.

It all got a bit messy at this point. My ogre charged and killed the other mounted dwarf, but was in turn killed by Mark's dwarf ogre-slayer, as was my gnoll beserker. The catfolk and undead fought over the stone on their side of the table and one by one the skeletons fell until there was just one left.

Taking advance of the confusion elsewhere my gnoll warriors took possession of the last stone.

Mark consolidated his surviving dwarves around a stone.

Leaving the catfolk in possession of the last stone.

If they game had ended here it would have been pretty much a draw (except for henry!). But with a few minutes gaming time left and no losses, Colin decided he had enough strength to hold his stone and try and poach mine. Mark decided that as Colin had committed to attacking me, he was safe to send his last mounted dwarf off to try his luck on my side as well!

The end result was I got wiped out and final possession of the third stone was decided in a cat centaur vs dwarf fight bin the last turn of the game, giving Colin a decisive win.

Oh well, I need to start again a recruit a new warband. I might keep the roster it as it is, or maybe tweak the composition a little for the next game.

Hereward Wargames Show, Peterborough

 I couldn't get to Colours this year, so Ross and I went along to the Hereward Wargames Show in Peterborough on the next day (Sunday 6th September). This is a much smaller event than Colours, typical of the medium-sized club show (now seemingly quite rare). I know Colours, Salute etc are technically run by clubs, but they are far more like professionally run events. 

This was my first visit and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a well organised show, Parking was almost a challenge, we arrived before the doors opened and still only just found a space in the free car park attached to the venue (the fact that Panto auditions were going on upstairs might have contributed to the congested car park - Oh No It Didnt!).

After a 10-minute wait we got in and decided to go straight for breakfast, in my case a very nice bacon bap. The refreshments were very basic, but of good quality, our lunchtime pizzas were also good. The bar was open, but we figured 10am was a bit early so we saved that for lunchtime. To be honest there wasn't any early morning drinking going on, punters were buying crisps, choccy bars and fizzy drinks for their kids.

There were 20 trade stands, with a couple of big names, Warlord and Sarrisa were there. Mostly they were more local one-man-band or family business, many of which I hadn't come across before. Perhaps because it was still early, but we found the traders a chatty and enthusiastic bunch and we had some interesting exchanges. It was good to see some 3D-print stands who were designing their own models, rather than just printing off other people's designs under licence. The was also a table top sale (NOT a bring and buy), where people had booked and hour or 2-hour slot to sell their unwanted stuff.  Perhaps because they were just gamers shifting unwanted stuff, or perhaps because they had to man their own table, I didn't see the exorbitant price I've previous seen on some B&Bs. In fact I managed to pick a few (unplanned) bargains myself!

Games-wise there was a good selection, again about 20 of them, with a large number of participation games for punters to join in. Unfortunately the camera on my phone was playing up and most of my pictures turned out blurry! Again everyone was friendly and happy to chat about their game, even on the demo tables. Not the row of bums in the air, ignoring passers by that you sometimes see. 

A beer and pizza for lunch. they only had lager and fizz-beer on tap, but found us some bottled ales in the chiller, so that was a result!

I did sit in on a Gaslands game in the afternoon, run by two enthusiastic and knowledgeable gents, which was fun! I hadn't played before. but Ian has asked me about playing it several times, so now I can confidently say I'm happy to play it! 

Here are the only pictures of games that turned out alright.

"Escape from Innsmouth" , a fantasy skirmish using We Want the Gold rules.

A very colourful table for "The Hare, the Wood and the Snake", a Burrows and Badgers game by the Chesterfield Open Gaming Society.

Other games I originally photographed included the rather nice 28mm Hereward the Wake Raids Peterborough Abbey, a 10mm recreation of The Battle of Nybol, May 1848 and the Battle of Holme Lion Rampant game all by the host club, Peterborough Wargames Club, as well as the Bedford Gladiators WW2 Chain of Command) game Burma or Bust.

On to my purchases for the day:

I picked up these from the table top sale for half-price, or less in the case to the two boxes of orcs!

Also on the tabletop sale a chaps was selling of a load of 3D printed terrain he'd printed up for a club campaign, but no longer needed. A quid a piece, unless you were buying a load of them, which I was. I have good uses in mind for all of these.

Especially the stacks of barrels and bookcases. I will need to touch the bookcases up a bit, but the barrels are ready to go as they are.

                                       

Only a couple of purchases from traders, a pack of bargain-priced brushes from ABC Brushes  and a set of moss paints from Pemberleys Scenics. these are textured paint designed to simulate moss on old stone walls etc. I hadn't come across Pemberleys before, he's only been in business for a year and he had some very nice looking basing material. Once I use up my existing stock of materials, I'll be back! Ross bought a couple of models for painting, rather than gaming.

All that remained was for Ross to collect his minis from the painting competition and head off home. A good day out, nice to see a different mix of traders. The last few shows I've been to felt like the same old trade stands, and often multiple traders with identical stock!

An Impulsive Purchase?

 I made the classic error of, having seen someone's painted minis online, searching for the game! Anatoli posted their superbly painted miniatures for Darkest Dungeon the Board Game on the Lead Adventure Forum. While I wasn't really taken by the hero models I did like the monsters, so I had a quick browse. At over £100 quid for the game, this wasn't something I was going to buy into, but I did see one of the expansions that really caught my imagination. The Crimson Court depicts a Versailles-style 18th century court mutated into blood-drinking insectoid monsters. Brilliant! 

I found a copy cheap online and bought it, less that £30 including postage for 41 minis, seemed like a good deal. I really like the minis, the original set looked a little bit cartoony for my taste, but these are mutated insects, so no problem there.

They are a bit big compared with my 28mm minis (so-called "Heroic" 32mm I guess), but these are mutated, so who cares!

Of course, having bought them on a bit of a whim, what to do with them now? 

I've a few ideas, a couple of warbands for A Song of Blades and Heroes, once they are all painted I can see an entire campaign for Sellswords and Spellslingers.

It will fit in a number of settings, a jungle-like overgrown pleasure garden, alternative 17th/18th century Venice or a combination of the two!

Just so long as I do get around to painting it!

Watch this space, or will it disappear into the Cupboard of Shame with other good ideas/unfinished projects??

Painting in August

I didn't think I would get much painting done in the hot weather (paint often drying before I could use it!). But in the end I did get a few minis painted, considering  the heat, which was nice!

Looking for other "different" units for our upcoming Iron Valley Midgard campaign, I can have goat riders in my Dwarf army. I don't have any minis for these, but I did have a few of the old Grenadier Fantasy warriors Dwarf bear riders. I picked up a couple of extras from Forlorn Hope (who still carry quite a lot of the range in the UK) and gave them a quick paint job with Speedpaints and acrylic paint pens. I don't suppose it really matters in the rules whether the dwarven mounts bite the orcs, or gore them, they are dead either way!

I have been asked about the size of the Dwarf rangers that I posted last month (also Grenadier sculpts). Here's a photo with some of my other dwarves.

L-R 2 x Colin Patten sculpts (Vendal or Conqueror), Grenadier, Asgard (Jez Goodwin sculpt), Grenadier, Mythic Worlds (originally Lancashire Games, them ERM) and Games Workshop Middle Earth (one of only 2 GW dwarves in my collection!).I don't have any of Colin Patten's newer Ragnarok Miniatures, but I think they would match the Vendal/Conqueror models for size.

A Reaper Bones Nagengra/snakeman champion.

Getting back to the Wildspire Realm Reforged set, another giant snake.

A couple more for my urban games, an apothecary and a female bandit.

A Deep One type-thingy to crawl out of the sewers and a hobgoblin mercenary.

Alternative Victory Conditions for 4-player SOBAH Campaign

One of the problems we found with A Song of Blades and Heroes (SOBAH) is that the Victory Points were really dependant on killing other Player Characters. In fact, one player pointed out that it was to his advantage to completely ignore the scenario conditions in preference to killing as many other PCs as possible, because he would end up with at least twice as many VPs.

So, I decided to revamp the VP system and increase the VPs that the scenario objectives rewarded players.

Firstly, VPs from Kills: a player gets 2 VP for the FIRST kill from each opposing warband, regardless of points value.

VPs for Scenario Objectives: I am going to increase the number of VPs for succeeding in achieving the objectives and, with four players, add addition possibilities for gaining VPs. We will also be using a time limit for our games, usually about 2 hours.

For example, for the Treasure Hunt scenario in the rulebook, I would place 8 treasure tokens instead of 3. Four tokens are dummies, two are worth 2VPs and two are worth 5 VPs. Carrying a token off the table gains the full VPs, if a PC is carrying a token but still on table at the end of the game, they are worth 1VP.

In some games I’m going to add in Personal Objectives to gain 3 VPs (claim immediately that the task is fulfilled).

ACE	Assassinate Player 1’s leader
TWO	Assassinate Player 2’s leader
THREE	Assassinate Player 3’s leader
FOUR	Assassinate Player 4’s leader
FIVE	Your first melee attack must be by your leader.
SIX	Your leader must single-handedly kill at least one enemy model
SEVEN	A model must touch the table edge on either side of your deployment area (may be different models)
EIGHT	One model must touch the table edge opposite your deployment zone
NINE	Do not kill any members of Player 1’s warband
TEN	Do not kill any members of Player 2’s warband
JACK	Do not kill any members of Player 3’s warband
QUEEN	Do not kill any members of Player 4’s warband
KING	Keep your leader alive on the table until the end of the game

 

Occasionally I’ll also add secondary objectives with possibility of gaining a magic item or extra XP/VP.

For example, scatter 4 bodies around the table. PCs need to spend one action searching a body and draws a card.

Number Card	Nothing
JACK	Find a superior quality weapon: + 1 XP
QUEEN	Find some loot you can sell: +1 VP
KING	Find a valuable gemstone you can sell: +2 VP
ACE	Find a Magic Item

 

As an example of the revised VP system, here is the scenario from the last game I posted on the blog a couple of days ago.

 The Obelisk of Power

 Background

Four powerful wizards are vying to harness the magical energy from an ancient obelisk, that acts a conduit to another realm. Each wants to avoid a direct confrontation, so they have hired bands of mercenaries (the players) to harness the energy on their behalf. In order to harness the power of the obelisk, a Warband must control two of the command discs at the end of the game.

 Command Discs

To control a disc a character must spend an unengaged action standing on the disc. Control remains with the player until another player’s PC spends an unengaged action standing on the disc, when control passes to that player. Each time a disc is activated, all PCs on the disc are teleported.

When a character takes control of a disc, roll 1d6.

1-4 Counting clockwise, and treating the starting disc as 1, the character teleports to the appropriate disc.

5-6 Reroll:

 1-2. The character teleports to a random spot, Long distance away from the disc.

 3-4. The character teleports to a random spot, 2 x Long distance away from the disc.

 5-6. The character teleports off-table and cannot return this game.

If there are multiple PCs standing on on an a disc when it activates, all are teleported, roll for each PC separately.

The game ends after a pre-arranged time (we normally say 2 hours).

Victory Points

VPs for kills

2 VP if your Leader has taken control of a disc at any point

2 VP for controlling one disc at the end of the game

4 VP for controlling 2 or more discs at the end of the game

+1 bonus XP for first PC to stand on a disc

+1 bonus XP if controlling more discs than any other player.

 

A Song Of Blades And Heroes Campaign

 We recently decided to scrap our SOBAH campaign and start over, with a new system for scoring victory points. The existing system in the game was fine for 2-player games, but was not really working with 4 players. So I sat down and devised new VP system and started writing scenarios for games with multiple players.

We played our first game with the new system and everyone was very happy with it. It was quite a close game, with Fortune's Wheel revolving rapidly until the final few minutes, when Mark's Dwarves raced ahead in VPs.

We are playing 4 warbands, Gnolls (me), Undead (Henry), Cat Folk (Colin) and Dwarves (Mark). The scenario revolved around harnessing a source of mystical energy, by controlling four magic circles set in the ground. Unfortunately a side effect of activating a circle was to be teleported to another circle or randomly around the table (or even off of it!).

Here are a few pictures from the game.

One of Mark's mounted Dwarves claims a circle early, whilst the Cat Folk gang up on a couple of Dwarves.

On the other side of the table the Gnolls grab two circles...

...whilst their "pet" ogre faces down the undead.

Where did all those Cat Folk go? The Dwarf leader rolled 6-1 in a combat, inflicting a gruesome kill on a kitty. Most of the rest of the Cats failed their morale test and ran back in horror towards their base edge.

The Gnolls reclaim one of the circles they had activated earlier, only for the Undead to steal control from them. For most of the game, control of the circles revolved rapidly amongst the players.

A target rich environment! The cat archer can't decide whether to shoot the Dwarf Leader or one of the Gnolls (she missed anyway!).

The ogre and a Dwarf battle over control of a circle.

The end result was an overwhelming victory for the Dwarfs, who managed to snaffle 3 of the 4 circles in the last few minutes of the game. My biggest problem was that I rolled badly on teleportation and lost half my warband off the table and out of the game!