Army of Darkness

I did a little painting last weekend. Not much, mind you, but enough for my purposes. I present the Army of Darkness.

This is a really Lazy Gamer type of army. The troops are all black and are intended to stand in as generic minions of evil. Thus, I did not want to paint details that might limit their use. I may also use them as native tribesmen. I was going to use brown for the natives but I am trying to stay lean and avoid collecting too many armies.

Anyway, I hope to have them in service this weekend when I give another Dragon Rampant scenario a go.

The End of an Era

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore TMP

I had been a long-time visitor to TMP, aka The Miniatures Page, a forum for miniature wargaming. I think I first logged on in 2001 or 2002 and since then I have regularly accessed its pages. Well no longer. I have managed to get myself locked out. All for the rather lame offense of ignoring its editor.

TMP has an ignore feature that allows you to hide topics created from a specific user. Recently the editor of TMP has been posting a lot, mostly stuff that I do not find interesting. When he posted a rant against a former advertiser I got fed up and hit the ignore button. I wasn't sure what would happen. There is also a stifle feature (which hides all posts from the stifled user) and stifling the editor will cause a lockout. I wasn't sure if ignore would do the same - apparently it does.

I now find myself locked out of TMP. I tried un-ignoring the editor to no avail. I guess I need to e-mail and plead my case. But I shouldn't have to. I am involved in web tool design and know a little about UX (user experience) design. I have to say that this lockout is an example of a horrible user experience. The editor is forcing me to see his posts if I want to interact with the community (and there are still many good posters on TMP). I should have the option to see and not see exactly what I want. And I should not have to go begging to get my account restored. It should be automatic. I am so annoyed that I have given up on TMP.

Fortunately, I have found a better alternative. I have been frequenting the Wargames Website and find it a much more congenial site. The users are polite and the moderation sensible. I highly recommend it.

The Plains of Doom

"Brother Anselm," the Elder spoke to the young adept. "The realm is is dire straits. An army of orcs is on the move. We don't have sufficient forces to stop them yet. We need time to gather reinforcements. Therefore, someone must delay the invasion . . . you must delay the invasion."

Anselm was stunned. He knew that he was being ordered to lead a suicide mission. Yet he could not refuse the command of the Elders. But with the determination of youth, he vowed to return from his mission.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Anselm takes up a position on the hill with Randall's rangers on his right.. He stations Gifford's rangers in the woods with Gernier's paladins guarding their flank. A horde of orcs appear.

They charge wildly ahead. Randall's bowmen inflict casualties on an orc warband while Gernier's paladins prepare themselves for an attack by giant spiders.

The spiders leap among the paladins but their fangs cannot penetrate the paladin's heavy armor. The paladins, however, have no problem slicing the spiders to bits. Meanwhile, Randall's rangers wipe out a warband.

The paladins charge an isolated warband and destroy it. However, Anselm's men get caught in a hail of arrows and take serious casualties.

Anselm retreats his men behind the hill. The orcs surge forward, causing casualties among the rangers.

Gernier's paladins find themselves under attack by three warbands! Yet they wipe out one unit. Alas, Randall's rangers are scattered from sustained orc volleys.

Gernier wipes out another warband!

But his men take serious casualties.

He retaliates and a third warband falls! Anselm pushes his lance forward, wiping out some orc scouts. The remaining orc unit takes to its heels.

Victory!

Notes
Kudos to Gernier's paladins, who managed to wipe out 4 enemy warbands. Clearly they were the heroes of this battle!

After my previous play-test, I tweaked my rules a bit and had another go (using my old 3mm orcs for the enemy). The rules changes worked much better. The paladins were clearly superior, but still got bloodied. Still needs some work but it's getting there.

One change I made was to use Squad Hammer's activation rules (use best of 2D6). It worked perfectly.

Although I am not using the Dragon Rampant rules, I decided to try out its scenarios. The first is called "Bloodbath on the Plains of Doom." I added a couple pieces of randomly determined terrain, which the paladins used to good effect.

Finally, I whipped up some new casualty markers out of some Litko wooden bases. I used a red marker to make blood splotches, with 1 spot on one side and 2 spots on the other. Units can take 2-3 hits so one marker is sufficient to track a unit's casualties.

Paladin Steamroller

A band of Blood Orcs (in red of course) emerge from the Shadow Deep to raid the peaceful lands of Telluria. Two lances of paladins and one of rangers block the way.

A charging orc band is decimated by the rangers' arrows.

The defenders charge! The paladins mix it up with some orc scouts.

The Shadow Deep (ably played by Onyx the Cat) looms larger but the defenders take the fight to the foe.

Two more orc bands are decimated.

The remaining orcs flee back into the Shadow Deep

Notes
Since my last post I have been jotting down ideas for small-scale fantasy rules. They are not quite skirmish, I am not using or tracking individuals; figures operate as units. However, each figure is essentially 1 man. As I pondered my options I thought about Dragon Rampant, which is also essentially a small-scale unit-based set of rules. My main issues with DR has been the buckets of dice / large number of hits per unit. I wondered if I could mitigate that by dividing hits and dice by 3 (giving 2 to 4 per unit). But then that messes up the way armor works . . . OH HECK WITH IT. I'll just write my own!

I gave the good guys 3 attack dice and hits per unit while the bad guys got 2. The good guys also got better armor. My goal is to have a small but superior force of good guys battling swarms of fragile bad guys. Well, the good guys were just too good - they just rolled over the bad guys without breaking a sweat. The biggest issue was activation. I basically used the Song of Blades and Heroes mechanic with the bad guys rolling 1D per unit. They just rolled horribly, resulting in a bunch of orcs just milling about waiting to get slaughtered by the paladins. I may need to rethink activation (I may use Squad Hammer's rule instead).

On another note, this marks the debut of my generic armies (at least infantry).

Paladins of the Shadow Deep

My work on the Paladins' Quest LARP rules has spurred an interest in some fantasy skirmish wargaming where the good guys take on a spreading evil. I am trying to decide exactly how I wish to go about it.

The immediately obvious approach would be to use Rangers of the Shadow Deep, a set of rules that pits a ranger and a handful of companions against the forces of darkness.

The premise is right up my alley, but I am not so sure of the rules (which I purchased and read). They seem to track more stats than I like.

The other issue is that I am not sure if I want to go full skirmish, meaning individually based figures. I have a vision of running a company of paladins, made up of 3-4 squads with each squad of 3-4 figures on a base. This seems like it would work well in 6mm. I'd rather not start a new project, however; it would be better to use the figures I currently have. Right now I have 3mm figures mounted with about a dozen foot soldiers to a base.

I'll cross the miniatures bridge when I get to it. First, I wonder if there are any rules amenable to my concept.

Adrift

Wargame Doldrums
It has nearly a month since my last post and I find myself in the same position, wargaming wise. I am in a serious slump and don't envision getting out of it soon. I have not had any motivation to paint or play. Please be patient; I find that these things work themselves out if I don't try to force it.

LARP Adventures
One of the main reasons behind my wargame slump is that I have been very active on the LARP front. My frustration with Amtgard hit a peak in late August, as evidenced by this post. After that, I decided I wanted something better so I started jotting down ideas for a LARP that would address my issues with Amtgard. I then had a sudden inspiration. For years I've been wanting to do a Christian LARP so I decided to write the rules for one. Thus was born Paladins' Quest LARP.

Since then I have been writing the rules. I had a revelation for a new class-based system. Essentially the rules Christianize the standard D&D classes (renamed Callings). For example, we have cantor instead of bard and hermit instead of druid. Each class has a small set of abilities (Gifts). This makes the Callings much easier to learn and remember than Amtgard classes.

I am still writing. Work has been very busy, causing interference. When I do have spare time I devote it to Paladins' Quest, which keeps me away from wargaming.

If you have an interest in Paladins' Quest, please join our Facebook group (see below)

Help Wanted
I need help to fully realize my vision for Paladins' Quest. My idea is to write the rules and then post them online as free-to-use, open-source rules. To that end, I want to make a website that will host the rules and supplementary information about the LARP. I really need help with web design and creating graphics for the site. If you can or know anyone who can volunteer to help, please refer them to the PQ Facebook page (below).

Paladins' Quest Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2464074170338291/