It's Been Quiet

A short status report.

Last weekend was a LARP weekend so no gaming.

Here is my current kit, sans armor. I am wearing an old pair of greaves from my ranger kit, but I am moving back to a paladin-y look. I just purchased some plastic armor in nice, shiny, paladin-y silver.

I am working on a 15mm sci fi project. You can see some minis in various painting stages. The red ones are some Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Marines, which will become Imperial Marines.

The others are from Khurasan. The photos below are from Khurasan's website (I wish I could paint that well).

Tigrids

Insectoids

Intruders

Robots (I haven't started painting these yet)

I still need some minis for my heroes.

Rangers in Action

With some free time this morning, I decided to play around with my sci-fi skirmish rules. It also gave me a chance to try out my 6mm miniatures. I mapped out a cavern complex and sent my heroes through - dungeon crawl style.

Here they run into 3 mechanoids. Ace (bottom blue figure) smashed one with his rifle butt while Spades blasted the other two.

Then they ran into a space monster. It knocked down Ace but Spades blasted it.

And that's where I stopped. For the life of me, I just could not get good photos. I'm thinking that 6mm may be too small for skirmish action.

So I pulled out some 15mm figures I have lying around ( a very early blog post covered my purchase of these minis). Once again, Ace (left) and Spades (right) take on a space monster.

Our heroes blasted it repeatedly as it closed, to no effect. The monster attacked Spades and knocked her down.

As it tried to finish her off, a surprising turn of events occurred. Spades dodged, jumped up, and blasted it at point blank range. One of the shots penetrated the monster's thick armor, killing it!

In game terms, the monster hit but Spades scored a critical success on the pluck / survival roll. In such as case, I've been giving the defender a free counter-attack. Spades then scored a critical success on her counter. This forces the target to make 2 survival rolls. The monster passed the first but then failed the second!

Anyway, you can see that the photos are much better quality. I think that 15mm is the way to go.

Rangers Run for It

Although I initially said I was going to do a 15mm sci-fi project, I ended up ordering some 6mm from Khurasan. I spent some time over the weekend painting them, but could not wait for them to dry. I decided to run a quick scenario using wooden figures. In particular, I wanted to experiment with a Pluck roll akin to In Her Majesty's Name, as discussed earlier.

Game Report
Our heroes are investigating a derelict ship when a detachment of Imperial troopers board. Ace and "Spades" need to make it back to their docking bay.

They run into some Imperials. Ace blasts one.

Then Spades takes down another. But Imperial reinforcements are on the way.

A blaze of fire. Ace is hit, but shrugs it off. (Ace failed his Pluck roll but used his hero point to ignore the wound)

Ace rushes a trooper and bludgeons him. Spades downs the other Imperial.

The way is open and they make it back to their ship.

Notes
Overall, the new rules worked out well. The proportion of hits to misses and of Pluck saves to fails seemed appropriate. The addition of a hero point for the main PCs seemed to resolve the issue of losing a hero too easily. Things look promising and will warrant more experimentation.

Escape from Antacca

In the land of Palmyra, Duke Rodrick has given orders to detain the Followers of the King. Instead of complying, the King's Men in the Ducal lands have resolved to escape from the Duke's grasp.

I recently kicked off a new Christian-themed LARP, and am using the LARP's setting for this wargame. I used my recent skirmish rules, treating each stand as a character.

As night falls, the Followers of Antacca gather together and make their way to the town gates.

First, the paladins had to cope with the greater cat beast, who decided to sit upon the gates. Fortunately, judicious use of treats resolved the situation.

The Followers form two columns (lower left and right), each with a unit of paladins (the group's warriors) in front. Following behind are the civilians.

The paladins approach the gates but the town guard will not let them pass. The paladins engage while the civilians fan out to the flanks. On the left, the guardsmen are driven back. But the Duke's horse approach.

The paladins scatter the guard on the left and thin out the ranks on the right. An angry mob of townsmen join the fray (left)

On the left, the civilians reach the gate while the paladins guard their backs. On the right, the paladins scatter the guard. More horse approach!

The civilians escape on the right. On both flanks, the paladins engage the Duke's horse.

The paladins are cut down on the left.

The remaining unit of paladins get attacked on both flanks. Suffering serious casualties, they still hold on.

And manage to hold off the horse long enough to escape through the gates.

The Followers bar both gates from the outside, allowing them to slip away into the night.

NOTES

• I generated the scenario on the fly, randomly drawing a cityscape with two gates. 
• I decided to start all of the Followers' forces (4 units) on the board while the Duke's men would only start with the gate guards.
• I randomly rolled a D3 to determine each unit's movement. I also rolled a spare die for the Duke's men; on a roll of 4-6 they would get a unit of reinforcements. The Duke's force was limited to 6 units
• I also rolled randomly to determine what kind of unit would come - infantry, mob, or cavalry - and where it would start on the board.
• As you can see, I was still using hit points (2 per unit).