Motorcycle Madness

With a little time available this morning, I decided to play a session of Machinas.

I made a couple of rule changes to make it easier for me to run the game solo:

• I vastly reduced the bonus dice pools. My car started with D6/2 while the non-player cars started with 0.
• I did not roll a random event for each car. Instead, I rolled one random event each turn, then rolled to see which car was affected.
• I allowed cars to shoot, even if they did not win a passing roll.

The first two changes limited the role of bonus dice, although they could be decisive if used at the right time. I did not notice any reduction in my enjoyment of the game. The last rule change provided, in my eyes, more action, as cars took numerous pot-shots at each other.

I failed to take pictures, primarily because my phone was upstairs and I was too lazy to go up and get it. The pictures would have been a disappointment anyway because I used my unit markers rather than my wife's Hot Wheels (she reclaimed them).

Here is a turn by turn recap:

1. Conway is on another Courier run. He finds himself pursued by 2 motorcycles. One passes; Conway tries to shoot him but fails. Another car joins the race.
2. Conway tries to bash the lead motorcycle but it eludes him. The second bike pulls alongside and unloads a blast at the Courier. Conway fires back. Both miss. The car is drafting in the rear.
3. Conway shoots the lead motorcycle, causing damage. The car moves up behind Conway and shoots, missing.
4. Conway bashes the lead motorcycle. It crashes! However, another motorcycle joins the chase. The car shoots at Conway. Conway swerves and bumps into the car. Both maintain control.
5. The car, equipped with a spiked ram, tries to bash the Courier. Conway manages to avoid his pursuer. One of the motorcycles tries to pass, but Conway holds him off.
6. One of the bikes collides with Conway. Both swerve, causing a chain reaction! The motorcycle collides with the car. It too swerves, loses control, and flips. The last motorcycle has to dodge the wreck! Unnerved by his nearly fatal collision, the lead motorcycle drops out of the chase.
7. The remaining motorcycle trades shots with Conway. Conway hits the bike, causing it to swerve. Nevertheless, it maintains control.
8. More shots are exchanged. The motorcycle loses heart and gives up the chase. Conway is home free!

Six by Six Challenge - 5.3 completed!

Easy Armies

Following up on my experiment with little block armies, I created a new portable wargame kit

It consists of:

• An 8" x 10" gridded battle mat (cut down from a Pathfinder battle mat)
• A pack of dry erase markers (to draw terrain on the mat)
• 2 dice
• 2 tins with the unit markers

I originally cut my own markers from craft wood, but I was unsatisfied with the uneven dimensions that I achieved. I then ordered some 3mm bases from Litko and painted them up.

 I am very pleased with the Litko bases. They are regular is dimension, in contrast to my misshapen attempts. They are 3mm thick so they have some height and are easy to pick up. Additionally, the sides are a dark brown (burnt from the laser cutter perhaps?). Initially I tried to paint the sides but they did not take paint well. I found that it was just easier to leave them unpainted. Because they are dark, they don't seem obtrusive.

Here are 2 armies - Red and Blue

Rectangles represent infantry, squares are cavalry, and the circle is the general. The square that is half-tan is artillery. My thought is that if the tan half faces the enemy then the artillery is limbered otherwise it is ready for action.

The dots are unit identifiers. Rather than numbers, I marked a dot on the left, center, or right of each base.

So far, I have painted 6 armies and plan a couple more (green and perhaps yellow).

For years, I've been wanting armies for each of the countries of my Francesia imagi-nations, but I never got around to completing the project. Now I have armies for Redgrave, Bluderia, the Empire, Grayrock, and various barbarian tribes that the Francesian powers shall discover on the continent of Rapala. I just need Greenglade and Drakendorf.

I'm still working on rules for this kit.

November Update

Six by Six Challenge
I'm back! Not sure if I'm going to complete it, but I'm giving it a try. A couple of developments got me back into the challenge:

Machinas
A confluence of factors got me interested in post-apocalyptic car battles. First, Osprey announced the publication of Gaslands. Then there was an intriguing post on the Wargames Website. Alas, none of the rules seemed like they would work for me. Then I remembered Machinas, the subject of numerous wonderful posts by Kaptain Kobold. What interested me in these rules was that cars don't move on the board; instead they move relative to each other. This is a perfect approach for small gaming spaces.

I gave them a try and like them. There is room for some tweaks, but the core mechanisms are solid.

Anyway, Machinas has me playing with minis again. As a result, I decided it would replace DC Rivals on my 6 x 6 list.

Here is what I played in November:

• Game 1
• Game 2

Slipstream

I played 4 games of my pulp sci-fi campaign, but then ground to a halt because the next scene in the Slipstream Plot Point campaign was sooo boring (it's just a straight fight). As often happens, however, game creativity in one area seems to spawn ideas in another. As I was messing around with Machinas, an idea struck me on how to make the scene interesting. I changed it into a dungeon crawl. The Slipstream campaign was back in action.

Here is my November tally:

• Game 5
• Game 6

And with that, I have finished the challenge for Slipstream!

Just a note that FU did not really work for me. They are too open-ended, which may be good for a creative group, but I prefer a bit more granularity for solo play.

Synopsis

I lose 2 games because I dropped DC Rivals but I replaced them with 2 games of Machinas and then added 2 games of Slipstream. That leaves me at 30 games played with 6 to complete in December. A tall order, but I'll be on vacation for the last week of the month. I have a shot!

Super Simple Horse and Musket

My experiments with Manoeuvre (e.g. this) have inspired me to work up some rules for some really quick and simple horse and musket battles. I have been pleased with my early trials, such as this battle.

Unexpected Values

Have you ever bought a hobby item, intending it for one purpose only to find it insufficient. But then you find a new, and even better use for that item?

That has happened for me with the Pathfiinder battle mat.

I originally purchased it for Four Against Darkness using miniatures.

I found it clunky and shelved the mat. Later, it suffered some water damage. I then cut it into 8" x 10" sheets and am now using it for various projects:

Saturday Night Race

Last night we decided to play a short game. I suggested Machinas and my wife readily agreed. I set up a 2-lap race.

I controlled the blue car, my wife took the orange, and the black car was run as a non-player. I roared off to an early lead.

The black cat had his money on the black car.

The cars traded positions throughout the race, On the final curve my wife zoomed ahead,

In the final straightaway, I passed her. The black car also passed her and then tried to get past me. I managed to hold him off for the win.

We did precious little shooting or bashing in this race. I tried to bash once but failed. My wife wanted to shoot, multiple times, but generally failed to win the passing attempt. When she did win, she felt that there was no advantage in shooting. My sentiments as well.

Regardless, she enjoyed the race. And I finished another 6 x 6 game.

SIX BY SIX - Game 5.2

Nothing Shall Stop These Couriers

In the aftermath of the Cataclysm, small pockets of civilization arose, and established tenuous connections among each other. However, the raiders of the Wastelands seek to stop these communications. The forces of civilization have created a corps of Couriers, equipped with souped-up vehicles, to race past the raiders and deliver news and packages between the scattered towns.

Conway, in his blue car, has been tasked with a delivery. As he races down the highway, 2 raiders give chase.

Instead of using the Machinas card deck, I wrote down the vehicle stats on index cards. I plan to create a stack of cards with random stats; I can just pick one and go. I chose the stats for the Courier (blue) car.

Also note that I used some brown paper to cover up my Miami Dolphins blanket from prior pictures.

The green car tries to pass, but Conway outmaneuvers him and then cuts loose with his rear-mounted guns. Bullets shred into the green car, damaging its engine (causing a loss of Speed).

The purple car passes the green car but cannot get past Conway. Again, he lets loose with his rear guns, but this time he misses.

The purple car, armed with a spiked ram, bashes Conway and gets past him. The green car starts shooting but misses.

Conway passes the purple car.

Purple tries to bash again, but Conway holds him off. A new raider enters the fray and passes by the damaged green car.

Purple has had enough and gives up the chase. Green passes the orange car and tries to take on Conway, who again fires his rear guns.

Orange accidentally bumps Green, and both spin. Orange regains control but Green flips and is out of the chase.

Orange makes a couple of unsuccessful attempts to attack Conway.

But it finally gives up. Conway now has open road and can complete his delivery!

Thoughts

• There was definitely more action than my first test game. Having more cars helped, plus I gave my car rear-mounted guns, which resulted in a lot of shooting (that's a good thing).
• I used the full complement of bonus dice this time. I'm not sure if having so many adds a lot of value, and I may try reducing the number.
• Kaptain Kobold sent me a document with his tweaks. I read through them but am not familiar enough to try them out. He has an interesting rule that if there are cars ahead of the player car during a chase then add one to rolls to determine if cars drop out. I actually mis-remembered the rule and reduced my player car's speed. Anyway, it did not really come into play because the Courier remained ahead for most of the game.

SIX BY SIX CHALLENGE - Game 5.1 (replacing DC Rivals)

Back in the Race

The 6 by 6 Challenge, specifically.

In my last monthly update I said that my 6 by 6 challenge was dead in the water and that I did not expect to finish any more games. Well that has changed. There's a little story behind it.

Monday night I mentioned to my wife that I wanted to pick up some Hot Wheels cars, including her favorite Dodge Challenger. She replied that she had Hot Wheels. I had forgotten that when she was working at Auto Zone she picked up a few toys. Perfect! I had some toys for more Machinas experiments. I grabbed them, set them up, and starting playing a race.

Curious about what I was doing with her cars, my wife came downstairs to check on me. As she watched, one of the non-player cars tried to bash, failed (badly), and got flipped.

"Cool!" said my wife.

"Want to try?" I asked. She readily accepted, and took over as the driver of the orange Dodge Challenger. We played a couple of turns before I had to go to bed. However, my wife is hooked.

Anyway, this puts me back into the 6 by 6 race. I am going to drop DC Rivals and replace it with Machinas.

Machinas Test Drive

After picking up Machinas last week, I've been itching to give it a go. I decided to take it for a test drive this morning. I don't have cars or printed counters so I quickly drew a couple and used my Pathfiinder battle mat for the board.

For both vehicles, I rolled randomly on the non-player tables. The blue car (the good guy) has slightly better stats. (3 Savvy, 5 Tech, 3 Speed vs. 3/4/3). He also had armor-piercing ammo, a roll cage, and a box of nails (which I forgot to use). The black car had spiked wheels but old tires. For the most part, these attributes did not come into play

In my first trial, the raider (black car) tried to pass the Courier (blue). The Courier bashed, and flipped the raider. Game over in turn 1.

The second run was far less interesting. The raider drafted in the first two turns then tried to pass in turn 3. When he failed, he gave up the chase)

Game 3 involved a few desultory pass attempts. After 6 turns, the raider gave up.

My Thoughts

• In general, the rules are solid. I picked them up easily and was able to speed through the games. In fact, set up was the hardest part!
• To simplify set up, I am thinking of pre-generating a bunch of vehicles and recording their stats on index cards. If I need a vehicle, I can just pull one out of the pile of cards.
• For solo play, keeping track of bonus dice seems like a chore. I already made a tweak to the rules and dispensed with initial bonus dice for the bad guys. I randomly rolled to give the good guy between 1 and 3 bonus dice to start.
• I'm concerned that there might not be enough action. For the most part the game revolved around passing (which I think should really be called maneuvering) rolls. There was one bash, initiated by the lead car. After that, it did not seem advantageous for the lead car to bash so I kept holding off the challenge and waited for the enemy to break off.
• I'm not sure if the problem was reducing bonus dice. I would think that it would offset. Perhaps I should also start the hero with 0, though that does not seem very heroic.
• I also wonder if tone is due to these primarily being racing rules with an emphasis on jockeying for position. In contrast, I am most interested in combat.
• Also, adding more raiders should make things more interesting. However, I wanted to start off simple for my initial test.
• Despite my concerns, I see a lot of good ideas in these rules. I think I may be trying a bunch of tweaks to spice it up a bit.