Painting in September

 A mixed bag this month, concentrating on wading through my 28mm Fantasy pile.

First up a few more models from the Wildspire Realm Reforged set.

A large crocodile. Lots of uses there, from fantsy to VSF and Pulp gaming.

This big guy had been sitting on the painting table, just undercoated for a while, then we went to see The Odyssy at the cinema and it just had to be done.

Then rest of the pack of Deep Ones to join the lonely gribbly I painted up in August.

 Some 3d printed terrain. I bought a set online "Moonwell Shrine". Unfortunately Evri, displaying their their usual level of care, managed to break the main piece by using the box as a football. Or at least that's what the box looked like when I received it! The vendor was quick to send me a replacement item, no no loss there.

I decided to see what I could do with the damaged piece first, using tufts and vegetation to hide the damaged areas and turn it into a woodland pond or sacred well.

I also painted up the separate standing stones that came with the set.

A bunch of guards for an upcoming Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign, inspired by Guards of Traitor's Toll.

A single gnoll (Alternative Armies Dogman). This was one of a set of four, but the casting's sword broke off in transit. I painted his companions back in January, so I thought I'd better get on with him. I found a suitable plastic axe and drilled his hand out to fit, so he might get on the table sometime soon.

On a different tack, I have recently been introduced to Void Admiral, an excellent (and simple) set of star ship combat rules. Sadly I'd disposed of my GZG and Kallistra fleets some years back, but I managed to pick up some painted models on Ebay. Mostly Kallistra, with a few 3d prints and two metal ships I didn't recognise. These two were just undercoated, so I quickly did them up with some acrylic pens.

I also managed to make a start on the Darkest Dungeon: The Crimson Court boxed set I picked up on a bit of a whim. I'm still not sure what I will end up using these for (Sellswords & Spellslingers, VSF, Fantasy renaissance?) but I didn't want these to be another project lost and unpainted in the Cupboard of Shame.

Firstly 3 Sycophants, dog-sized insects with long snouts/stingers (to my mind that have a hint of the old D&D stirges about them). Presumably these are responsible for introducing and spreading the mutating disease within the Crimson Court.

A group shot of what I've painted so far. From the left  Manservant, Esquire, Gatekeeper, Courtesan and Chevalier. I'll probably do a separate post on these later on, once I get some more painted.

Sellswords of Traitor's Toll

 Over last winter we played a campaign of Guards of Traitor's Toll. I'd been really excited about this and was more than happy to give it a go, but actually found it a bit of a disappointment. 

We talked it through afterwards and came to the conclusion that we found the games a bit slow. The rules were too fiddly and we often felt nothing much happened, despite a lot of dice rolling. Most of our PCs gained various advances during the campaign, but seldom found an opportunity to use them for any benefit. We loved the concept, but the mechanisms were not for us. It probably didn't help we were playing once every 4-5 weeks, if we could have played a couple of times each week we might had more success.

So I had the idea of keeping the concept, but adapting it to Sellswords and Spellslingers, a set of we were very familiar with and enjoyed playing.

Ian and I played our first test game, searching for contraband, and were really happy with the result, it still needs some tweaking, but we are going to play a campaign and make minor adjustments as we go. Here are a few piccis from the game.

Ian's squad of the Watch, the "Blue Jackets". 3D prints I quickly painted up for this.

And mine the "Red Cloaks". They are a touch on the big side. I saw them painted on Ebay and thought they would give me a second squad without any effort, but they turned out to be printed to 32mm "Heroic" size, rather than normal 28mm. But hey, perhaps this squad also play basketball!

Not the best start for the Blue Jackets. The first guards fails all 3 actions, a nearby civilian is revealed as an assassin, this guard had insulted a local gang boss, who put out a hit on him!

Whilst the first guard is fending off the assassin, the second guard also fails all his actions and a fire breaks out in a nearby house! What to do, help his mate or put the fire our? Fortunately the assassin got stabbed in the gut in the next turn.

Much quieter for my guys, just a horse and cart wandering onto the table. Then a brawl breaks out in the yard of a nearby tavern!

A classic example of law enforcement going wrong! Or, how the cards revealed the city watch as a bunch of bumbling nitwits! The woman and child with the yellow marker and in fact pick pockets who have just robber the lady behind them. Notice that there is a Blue Jacket to her left and another in front of her. Out of shot there is a Red Cloak to her right, se we have all avenues of escape covered!

My Red Cloak activates, fails once and the pick pockets runs to the right around the Butter Market, then I move closer. Now both Blue Jackets fail twice, drawing two cards that activate criminals, so the pair run into the gap between the two Blue Jackets.

The Red Cloak activates 3 times and catches the pair, but I roll rubbish combat dice and end up flat on my back (perhaps the urchin tripped me up?).

The pickpockets now run towards the table edge with the two Blue Jackets in lumbering pursuit, but the pair escape before the guards can reach them! 

In all very cinematic!

With not much else going on nearby one of my Red Cloaks stops a passing cart.

"That will be 5sp tax on this vehicle!

Oh, you paid 5sp at the city gates, yes but that was wheel tax. This is hoof tax, 1sp per hoof!

Yes, I know the horse only has four hooves, but there is also a administration fee to pay on the transaction!"

Having broken up the brawl in the pub yard, the thatch of the stables catches fire! 

Nothing to do with that guard waving a torch around, I'm sure!

Now all the guards are in the middle of the table, another house catches fire!

The Blue Jacket Captain found a suspicious box and promptly spent 3 turns searching it! 

Having put the fire out in the burning stable, the Red Cloaks notice a similar suspicious box in the corner of the yard. They search it and discover the contraband! GAME OVER!

Apart from putting that fire out before it spreads any further!

A fun game, with a lot of laughs. Discussing it, we concluded that the end result was probably similar to the games we'd played of Guards of Traitor's Toll, except that the action had moved along at a faster pace and the whole thing had been far less frustrating for us.

We will be starting full campaign soon!

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.