Nightwatch Experiment

As I mentioned Tuesday, I have taken an interest in Nightwatch (NW for short). I decided to do a little experiment inspired by the rules.

The Scenario

I'm using the first scenario from NW. There was an attack on a caravan. The party finds the lone survivor and must escort him back to their order's headquarters.

In game terms, the party must escort a figure from one end of the board to the other.

The Combatants

I did not fully stat out the party. I assume that it has 2 blades (melee fighters) and 2 trackers (archers). All members of the party are level 1. The survivor is level 0.

The enemy consists of a number of randomly generated zombie wolves, which count as level 0.

The Rules

I kind of made them up on the spot, based on my MicroQuest rules. The number to hit depends on the relative levels.

The Fight

I only snapped a few shots so I'm not going to bother with a full recounting.

Here the party (red) and the survivor (blue) is heading up the road, coming from the bottom. Three zombie wolves converge.

A nasty scrum. The wolves wound a tracker and knock out the other.

The party manages to clear out the wolves and escape from the forest.

Alas, the KO'd tracker does not make it. He dies of his wounds. :(

Thoughts

This was a brisk, short fight. I think the concept has promise. I need to try a scenario with a mancer (magic user) and alchemist.

Nightwatch

Recently, I saw a post on Lead Adventure Forum about a game called Nightwatch, a solo or cooperative game of monster hunting. The premise intrigued me so I investigated it. 

That's when I discovered I already purchased an earlier version.

Perusing it, I realized why I initially did nothing with it. The system uses the gamut of polyhedral dice, a mechanic I intensely dislike.

This time, however, I've been reading it all the way through to see if I can glean some good ideas. I really like a few aspects of it.

• The setting is cool - your team of 2-4 hunters + retinue is part of a secret organization dedicated to hunting down monsters.
• As mentioned, it is designed for solo or coop play.
• The campaign system looks simple yet enticing. Each campaign lasts for 7 to 10 games. Throughout the campaign, you fight increasingly difficult foes until you reach the final scenario. There, you meet the big bad boss for an epic final confrontation.
• Your characters level up during the campaign. The leveling mechanism is simple - move up a level every 2 or 3 games.

Anyway, I may give the campaign system a try.

Battle of Khukhusa and Fasu

THE PALMYRAN CAMPAIGN

This is the first battle of my fantasy campaign. In my world, Palmyra is a region similar to historic Egypt. However, it is threatened by the Hyenids (essentially gnolls) who raid from the south.

Background

The Imperial garrison gets word that a large Hyenid horde is raiding southern Palmyra. The Legion rushes south to stop the horde.

Set Up

The Legion (bottom) forms two lines.

• First line (L to R) - auxiliaries, scouts, and an allied warband
• Second line (L to R) - auxiliaries, legionaries (with commander), and an allied warband

Note: I'm using my old counters for this game. Red is the Legion and white is the allied warbands.

The horde only appears as a dark mass in the distance.

Note: I'm taking an idea from Geoff aka elliesdad and am hiding the enemy troops. I'll reveal them when they reach engagement range.

Objective

The Legion needs to take the villages of Khukhusa (L) and Fasu (R) so the Hyenids cannot sack them.

Victory will go to the side that seizes and holds both villages.

The Battle

Both sides advance quickly. One of the Legion's auxiliary units reaches the village of Khukhusa. On the Imperial right, a pack of giant hyenas attack a unit of allied warriors. I'm using cavalry counters to represent the hyenas.

First blood goes badly for the Legion. They lose Khukhusa and the regulars (center) take losses.

A ray of hope. An allied warband destroys the hyenas while the other warband seizes Fasu.

Then a concerted counterattack retakes Khukhusa and advances in the center.

A Hyenid assault on Fasu fails.

With this failure, the Hyenid commander calls retreat.

Aftermath

The Legion secures the villages, and the first victory of the campaign!

Hyenid Counters

And here are counters for the Hyenids, the foe that the Legion will fight in this campaign.

Top - brutes (heavy infantry) + giant hyenas (beasts)

Middle - packs (warbands)

Bottom - hunters (bows) + more giant hyenas

Here is the Hyenid general, with standard and drummer (with a human-skin drum)

And shamans.

Imperial Counters

I already gamed a battle in my fantasy setting using my old, generic counters. However, I decided to make counters specific to my factions. I began doodling around,

Here is a set for the Aurelian Empire.

Top - auxiliaries (medium infantry) in leather armor

Middle - legionaries (heavy infantry) in steel armor + a bolt thrower (artillery)

Bottom - scouts (light infantry) + flame throwers (artillery)

The flame throwers are inspired by Greek fire.

I also created a commander counter with a flag and trumpeter. They all wear fancy gold armor.

And some more troops.

• Left - a cleric radiating holy light protected by 2 templar guards in gold armor.
• Middle and right - 2 allied warbands. Since this campaign is set in not-Egypt, I made the allies desert nomads.

This gives me all the possible troops types for an Aurelian army. Next up are the hyenids.

So far, I am very happy with the results. I know that they are crude, but they will do the job. I am pleased so far.

A New Campaign - Fantasy Imperials

Inspired by some suggestions made by Geoff (aka elliesdad) on a recent post, I decided to start a new campaign.

The Setting

As mentioned, I plan to run the campaign in my LARP's setting. It will follow an as-of-now unnamed Legion from the Aurelian Empire, which is a Roman-like state.

An AI creation from Gencraft.
I'm playing around with AI illustrations for some of my posts.

Note: I'm not doing the Chimera Legion, which is my LARP group. Their battles will strictly be LARP battles.

QUESTION: What should I name my Legion? I have an idea but am looking for others.

Legion Make-up

Horses do not exist in this setting so there is no cavalry. To make things more interesting, I added a variety of foot types. These are the unit available to the Legion.

• Regulars - standard heavy infantry. I decided not to make any distinction between spears and blades. Despite the historical performance of Roman infantry, I'm not convinced that blades are inherently better than spears. I think training and experience are far more important factors.
• Auxiliaries - medium infantry that still fight in heavy infantry formations. The most common troop type in the legion.
• Warbands - allied tribal warriors. Fierce but brittle.
• Scouts - bow-armed light infantry.
• Artillery - bolt throwers or other types of siege weapons.

For battles, I will randomly determine the Legion's make-up.

Handling Enemies

As Geoff suggested, I will hide enemy troops types until Legion troops make contact. This will introduce an additional element of fog of war.

Representing the Armies

For now, I'm going to use my current armies of counters. Eventually I want to make counters representing all the different troop types.

I plan to make enemy counters two-sided. One side will show the troops in formation and in such a way that I can distinguish the type. The other side will have a generic block of troops representing an unknown body of enemies.

The Palmyra Campaign

I toyed with running a campaign against the Dark Magi, which are my Persian stand-ins. However, our most recent LARP campaign featured a war against the Dark Magi. I did not want to repeat it. 

In the end, I decided to set my miniature campaign in Palmyra (not-Egypt). The main enemy on this front is the Hyenids, as I call them. They are essentially D&D gnolls.

The Hyenid Army

These are the troop types found in the Hyenid armies.

• Elite Warriors - essentially the equivalent of heavy infantry.
• Warbands - masses of ravenous but undisciplined warriors.
• Bows - missile armed.
• Beasts - various ferocious animals, such as giant hyenas.

Considering Counters on a Wasted Wednesday

Rather than playing a game while my wife watched her programs last night, I pondered a new project.

The Aurelian Campaigns

I thought about starting some campaigns set in my LARP's world. The first campaign would feature the Aurelian legions (inspired by Rome) against the hordes of the Dark Magi.

Seems like it would be easy to do using MicroBattle and my counters. But there is where I hit a snag. In my LARP's world, there is no cavalry. The cost and risk make horses impractical for a LARP. In game terms, we explained this lack by declaring that horses went extinct. It's a trick I picked up from Empire LARP.

This leaves me with a conundrum. My counters are very generic and only feature 2 types of infantry, 2 of cavalry, and 1 artillery (which is really for horse & musket games). It seems to me that dropping cavalry leaves the armies as sadly uniform and monotonous.

An army of my homemade counters

The solution is obvious - add more infantry types. I took a look at HoTT and it includes blades, spears, warband, shooters along with specialty types like clerics, magicians, and other fantastical creatures. Seems perfect for this world. But now I need to create more counters!

Meanwhile in Phandalin

After their defeat at Axeholm, Ser Killian has embarked on his next quest. I haven't finished it yet so I have no write-up. Unfortunately, I've been distracted and haven't returned to the game yet.

A Ghoulish Feast

Game Background

I actually had time for a game last weekend! 

I toyed with playing the final battle of my Revolution in Florida campaign but I am still in a fantasy mood. I've been planning scenarios for the next season of my LARP campaign and I thought about running one of those scenarios on the tabletop. However, I don't want to spoil anything in case my players see this post. So I decided to borrow a scenario from last season.

Set Up

The Dark Magi are on the move. The Legion has sent a scouting party out to find the enemy.

Combatants:

• Empire - Optio Infelix (gray meeple) leads 4 legionaries (red).
• Infelix wears heavy armor (save 4+) while the legionary scouts have light (save 5+).
• Infelix can take 3 hits and the legionaries can take 2.
• Dark Magi - a necromancer (black) leads 6 ghuuls (green. They are essentially zombies)
• Ghuuls save like they have heavy armor, which reflects their ability to absorb damage. However, they move slowly and are more likely not to activate in a turn (they need 3+)
• The necromancer has light armor. He can either cast a spell, which works like a ranged attack, or respawn a zombie.
• Ghuuls can only take 1 hit (they're minions after all) but the necromancer can take 3.

The mission: The scouting party must kill the necromancer.

I played the scenario using a skirmish variant of my MicroBattle rules.

The Skirmish

Infelix leads his squad onto the field of battle. They spot some ghuuls.

Legionary Escamus goes berserk, breaks discipline, and rushes a ghuul. It knocks him down then devours him..

The rest of the squad engages. Another legionary is wounded.

Note: I did not have wound markers handy so I put wounded figures on their side.

Infelix cuts down a ghuul. He then rushes the necromancer. Meanwhile, another legionary is wounded.

A ghuul intercepts Infelix while the necromancer backs off. The wounded legionaries perish while the remaining legionary takes a wound.

Seeing that the day is lost, Infelix calls for a retreat.

But the ghuuls catch up to legionary Postremus and slay him.

Infelix flees. His mission is an abject failure.

Thoughts

Not the result I wanted, but it was still a fun skirmish. It's good to be back gaming. 

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

The New Project

I just got rid of a bunch of miniatures, but now it appears that I have a new project.

Now that it's summer and too hot for LARP, my LARP buddy and I have decided to have a go at some miniature gaming. I narrowed the options down to 2 choices.

 

We settled on Song of Blades and Heroes because it will require fewer figures. We intend to use 28mm miniatures. So now it is time to build a warband.

Army Options

We decided to create warbands from our LARP fantasy world.

• I'm going to build a squad of Aurelian legionaries, using Late Roman figures.
• My friend wants a Scymatian warband. We based Scymatia on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth so his warband will have winged hussars and Tatars. In addition, there will be some Urkha (orc) levies. Hey, it's fantasy.
• I also want to do a "bad guy" army. Looking at the Dark Magi. Ghuuls led by a death knight and a necromancer.

We haven't decided on a source, although I'm leaning toward Irregular.

Kislev Triumphant

Last weekend, I managed a playtest of my latest fantasy wargame rules, featuring the counters I recently created.

My armies are pseudo-Warhammer Fantasy armies.

Set Up

I randomly determined the terrain and composition of the opposing armies.

• "Kislev" - 2 units each of knights, light horse, and heavy infantry, 1 unit of shooters, and a general
• "Empire" - 2 units each of knights and heavy infantry, 1 unit each of light horse and shooter, and a general

I did not create a fancy scenario. They're just trying to beat up the other army.

The Battle

First blood goes to the Kislev light horse (right).

Kislev's knights charge (left) and destroy some light horse. The Kislev light horse finishes off some knights.

Imperial heavy infantry catch and destroy some Kislev knights.

The Empire advances in the center.

While the general leads his heavy infantry against the rest of the Kislev knights. The knights fall.

A mad scrum breaks out in the center. It goes on for several turns. First, the Imperial shot goes down. Then the knights fall.

The Imperial army loses heart and abandons the field.

Thoughts

Just some miscellaneous thoughts about the game.

• I'm happy with the counters. I just need to finish some proper casualty markers.
• At 35 minutes, the game was a tad longer than MicroBattle. But that's not a bad thing, as I hope to play this face-to-face with someone. A bit longer will be better.
• I used an activation method based on Song of Blades and Heroes. I rolled 1 to 3 dice per sector (left, center, and right). Each pass allowed me to activate a unit in that sector. Having a general in the sector added a bonus to pass. It worked all right, but too often a side failed to activate any units. I'm on the fence with this method.
• There were times where heavy infantry attacked cavalry. It seemed weird, but I don't know how I want to address this.
• Combat generally followed the Command & Colors procedures, however I allowed an armor save.
• I added a twist to saving rolls. If a unit was faster than its opponent (light vs. heavy or cavalry vs. infantry), it could turn a casualty into a retreat with a roll of 1.

Progress!

Over the past week I finished a couple of small projects.

Four Against Darkness

To expedite my upcoming co-op Four Against Darkness campaign, I built an automated dungeon creator in Excel.

Here is a shot of the results page.

With the press of a button I get a complete room laid out.

I also created a map template using PowerPoint.

To ease mapping, I greatly simplified the number of different rooms and corridors. I've done this before and it works fine.

With the tables in Excel, it becomes quite easy to create custom dungeons. For example, I built the tables for an orc lair with the orc brute as the boss. For this new campaign, I plan to create special dungeons themed around each of the bosses in the main game.

Looking forward to trying this out next Sunday!

Fantasy Battle Game

I did a little more work on my latest fantasy wargame rules. I created some counters and markers.

Here is an army inspired by Warhammer's Kislev (which is inspired by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). I found the images on Junior General.

Here is an Imperial army.

The unit counters are designed for 1 inch squares.

I also made some half inch shields. I'll use these as casualty markers.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I've probably used this title more times than Monty Python, but it fits. I flit around from project to project and idea to idea like a crazed butterfly. Anyway, here is my latest "project."

The Inspiration

Well, it is summer in Florida. Which means it is HOT! Too hot for LARPing. So I'm looking for something to fill the void. I'm thinking I can find a game that my LARP buddy and I can play in lieu of sparring.

Idea # 1

My friend is a big fan of the Polish Winged Hussars and I'm an Austrophile. It would be cool to get Polish and Imperial armies and pit them against each other.

Even though these two powers did not fight each other when the Winged Hussars were at their peak, we could create an imagi-nation type of war.

Idea # 2

But if we're going the imagi-nation route, why not go whole hog into fantasy? Actually, something like Warhammer Fantasy could be a lot of fun. Empire vs. Kislev would seem appropriate.

The Set Up

Neither of us played Warhammer in the past, and I really have no interest in getting sucked into it. But perhaps I could find some rules that would allow us to create Warhammer-like armies.

My idea is for a game that will fit on my coffee table. A 2' x 2' board would be perfect. I plan to draw a grid on the board so we don't have to fiddle with rulers.

I don't plan to use miniatures - too much prep work. I'll probably make counters. To keep things simple, I would like to have a single counter per unit. I'll create markers to indicate casualties.

Rules?

Not Warhammer. I took a quick look at Warmaster because it uses bases, but it seems too fiddly.

What about my MicroBattle rules? Well, I designed them for fast play solo battles. For face-to-face, they may be TOO fast play. What else?

My next thought was...

HOTT has a number of traits I like:

• Each base is a unit. 
• Pretty simple and quick game. 
• Flexible in terms of developing armies.

I've dabbled with HOTT before, using a PDF version. But I finally ordered a hard copy.

I also thought about the Portable Wargame. For face-to-face, however, we may enjoy rolling more than 1 die per combat. This thought leads me to Command & Colors.

 I could pick up Battlelore.

But I owned 1st edition and found it a bit fiddly. Furthermore, the board is bigger than 2' square. 

However, I remember back in the day before Battlelore that there were some fantasy variants of Battle Cry. I even found one.

This gives me a good start on creating my own variant. I can also use ideas from the Portable Wargame. I started jotting down rules ideas.

An Experiment

I decided to experiment with some ideas. Rather than pull out a board, I decided to go electronic.

I picked up a pack of paper armies from Wargame Vault. Human vs. Undead.

Here they are in action on an Excel battlefield. Humans are on top and undead on the bottom (except the cavalry is human)

I'm using shields as casualty markers. I made some shields as markers for Battles of Medieval Britain and liked how they look. I think they make sense as casualty markers - routing troops drop their shields as they flee.

Here is the end of my mini-battle. The human cavalry cause 3 hits in one round, wiping out the undead warriors.

A promising test.

Some Design Ideas

Just a few thoughts after my experiment.

Activation

Commands & Colors uses specialized cards to determine activation of units. I don't really want to mess around with cards, however, so I'm considering different activation systems.

My first thought was to use pips, like DBA and HOTT. It's still a possibility.

For this experiment, however, I tried something based on Song of Blades and Heroes. I divided the armies into commands. I then rolled activation per command, using the SoB&H method. It seemed to work. I'll have to play around some more with it.

Combat

Combat comes straight from Command & Colors. I need to play around with the number of hits and the number of combat dice for the units.

One thing I missed, though, is saving rolls. MicroBattle uses saving rolls to negate casualties and I kind of like them. I'm thinking of adding saving rolls. If I do, I'll have to alter the to-hit targets and possibly the number of hits a unit can take.

The Future

We'll see how far I get with this project. Stay tuned!

Solitary Hero

Over at Wargames Website, Daniele V. posted a link to a game he created. Called Solitary Hero, it is pay what you want over at Wargames Vault.

The price is right and it seemed up my alley - a quick game on a small board. I picked it up and decided to give it a go.

Set Up

I rolled randomly for items of impassable terrain.

I decided to play the ambush scenario. A gang of thugs (black Meeples) surround and attack my hero, Sir Grey.

Sir Grey's objective is to defeat all the bad guys.

The Fight

The thugs activate first. One thug advances and attacks. Sir Grey takes a wound. Fortunately, he can take 6 wounds.

The thugs keep winning initiative, but their attacks fail. They are not as hardy as Sir Grey. Soon, a pile of bodies grows at Sir Grey's feet.

Then a couple more get added to the pile.

Sir Grey finally takes command of the situation. He advances and attacks one of the thugs. He loses the initial scrap, and takes a wound. But he rallies and defeats the thug.

He then wipes out the last one. Victory!

Thoughts

I enjoyed the game. It was quick and simple.

I like that the bad guys are weak (they take 1 wound) while the hero has a lot of health (6 wounds). This allows the hero to plow through a horde of enemies and still win.

I did not care for the card activation system. I must admit that I did not feel like searching for a pack of cards so I substituted a die roll. As a result, I skipped over some nuances. For example, the Ace of Hearts allows the hero to regain 1 health. 

My big issue is that the side that activates gets to do stuff while the other side just sits there. For example, for several turns, Sir Grey just stood in the middle of the field while enemies rushed him one at a time. For future games, I'll probably change the activation system.

Hurray for Meeples

One problem I have with using miniatures for fantasy skirmishes is that I have difficulties finding just the right figures. This even applies to tokens. For example, I wanted to try out today's skirmish using the counters from THW's Warrior Heroes of Talomir Quick Play. After a few minutes of digging through the pile looking for 6 orcs, I gave up. What I like about my Meeples is the black ones can stand in as any humanoid enemy.