Saturday, March 16, 2024

Legionary and Orc

A couple photos from our small event today.

An Imperial legionary with an orc. Are they friends or foes?

I guess that answers it.

Anyway, I am really pleased with the look of my legionary kit.

More pics on Facebook.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

To The Lodge

A Ser Killian Adventure

No spoilers today

A New Threat
After their success at Axeholm, Ser Killian and his party get some much needed rest. A few days later. a messenger rushes into town. He comes from Falcon's Lodge, a hunting resort for the well-to-do.

Falcon, the owner of the lodge, sends a missive for help. Orcs have been marauding in the area recently. One band even attacked a hunting party. Falcon wants someone to clear the orcs out.

Naturally, Ser Killian agrees to take on the quest.

Which Route?
The party has two options to travel to the Lodge
  • The longer but potentially safer route (orange) is along the road to Neverwinter then by boat to the lodge.
  • The direct route (red) has them traipsing through the forest/

Concerned that time is of the essence, Killian decides to head through the forest.

The Journey
The first stage of the journey passes uneventfully.

Once in the forest, however, our heroes get ambushed by a band of orcs (black).
Yes, I'm using Meeples. It helps having some marker to track the combat. But no, I'm not going to invest in miniatures. If I can find some tokens I like, I'll use those. But I'm not painting anything!

It's a bit of a drawn-out fight. Our heroes have no trouble hitting the enemy, but the orcs' armor prevents any telling blows.
Wow. My damage rolls were pitiful.

Eventually, however, the orcs fall. Killian suffered a slight wound, which Martin the cleric heals.

Later, they get attacked by a sentient tree.

Again, their blows have trouble penetrating. Killian calls for them to retreat.

The tree lashes out and knocks Martin to the ground. Its limbs reach out to grab him. Killian and the other turn back to help Martin. Haiden pulls Martin away while Nashad acts as rear guard.

The tree turns on Nashad but he manages to hack into it with his two-handed blade. The tree recoils, allowing the party to escape. 

As they bound through the wood, they hear thump, thump, thump. The tree is running after them! However, it is slow and our heroes outrun the pursuit.

The Lodge
After a few days hard marching through the woods, the party arrives safely at Falcon's Lodge.

What happens next? Stay tuned for more!

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Prepping for RPG

In my last update, I mentioned that I wanted to complete a Napoleonic knockout round and an RPG adventure every month. Well, February is over and I already failed - no RPG session. But I made some progress!

Creature Cards
One of the deterrents to my solo RPGing is creating the encounter charts. I've been jotting down the encounter stats in a notebook and then running the game from that. But sometimes (often?) I don't feel like doing the prep work.

The answer is to have cards with the creature stats. Then I can reference them quickly.

I've dabbled with cards before.
None of those prior efforts went very far, however.

Recently, I started a new project to make cards for the creatures from the 1st edition Monster Manual. First, I need to convert their stats to my system. I created an Excel spreadsheet to do the conversions, but I am still working on it.

I had some free time this past week and decided I wanted to play. I decided to jot the stats on index cards rather than in a notebook.

I ended up with this - a stack of cards ready for play!

Using the Cards
One of the issues I had with cards is with creating weighted encounter probabilities. Let's take a simplified example. I have two possible encounters - either a bunch of orcs or a dragon. I decide that the party is more likely to encounter the orcs than the dragon. But if I have one card each, then the probabilities are the same. To increase the probability of encountering orcs, I need multiple orc cards.

The solution is ridiculously simple, but I was so caught up in using cards that it did not dawn on me until now. I can still roll on an encounter table. Then I can consult the card for the stats. This saves me the trouble of jotting down the stats every time.

The Experiment
I started the next adventure in Ser Killian's tale using the cards. More on that at a later date!

Saturday, February 10, 2024

An Update

Doldrums
I've hit a spell of gaming doldrums, primarily because I was preparing for a LARP. I usually have a pipeline of posts that I can schedule. However, the pipeline has run dry due to my LARP preparations.

Anyway, last weekend, my friend and I attended Mythic Adventures LARP in the Orlando area. Here's a picture of us. I'm on the right in the gold armor.


I enjoyed it and plan to go back.

The Naval Project
Is still stalled due to the lack of ships. I picked up a bunch of wood ovals to make some quick models, and I haven't gone any further.


The Next RPG Session
I sort of have a goal of completing one game of Napoleonic Knockout and one RPG session per month. I finished this month's Knockout. Next up is an RPG session. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Napoleonic Knockout # 2

While I try to resolve my ship shortage, I decided to continue with my Napoleonic Knockout campaign.

In seasons 1 and 2, we saw Austria and the Ottoman Empire battle to a stalemate.

Season 3 - Napoleon Marches
After consolidating his authority in France, the Emperor Napoleon launches an invasion of Prussia.

The armies array for battle. The French are on top. The gold marker indicates an elite unit - the Imperial Guard in this case.

The armies shift to bypass the woods. French artillery and light infantry hit Prussian infantry and cavalry.

The fight shifts to the Prussian left.
Note: I did not have enough Prussian infantry so I borrowed some purple Turks. However, I treated this unit as standard foot.

La garde recule!

But the French light routs the cavalry and the French center crushes the Prussians.

Prussian morale fails!

Napoleon marches into Berlin and accepts the surrender of the Prussian king. Prussia is now a French satellite.

Season 4 - The Russian Bear
The next season sees the Russians and British mobilize their forces. The Russians, however, move first.
The Russians and Brits had the highest aggression rolls but Russia wins the tiebreaker.

The Russians decide to invade Austria.

The Russian cavalry attacks, causing some casualties to the Austrian infantry in the center. But then the cavalry gets repulsed. Meanwhile, Russian artillery pounds the Austrian cavalry.

The Russian center advances, overrunning some infantry. But the Russians are soon surrounded.

And destroyed. But the Russian artillery saves the day. It blasts the Austrian cavalry.

Austrian morale collapses.

Another conquest! This time Vienna capitulates to St. Petersburg.

Status after Season 4
France and Russian have expanded their territories. As a result, the map looks like this.


Who's next to fall? Find out next time!

GAME NOTES
In both games, long range artillery destroyed a unit. I wonder if artillery is too powerful.

I have multiple campaigns of various kinds going on simultaneously. My goal is to complete one session per campaign per month. Therefore, expect to see the next Napoleonic knockout in March.

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Maritime Musings

Ever since I began my latest kick, I've been researching rules and miniatures/counters. Here is a rundown of my meandering thought process.

What Period?
This is the first question I grappled with. The Dawlish novel I'm reading is set in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This seems to be on the cusp between "ironclads" and "pre-dreadnoughts."

When I researched "ironclads," I kept finding American Civil War stuff. Not really interested in that. Being an Austrophile, I toyed with the idea of doing Lissa. I even picked up David Manley's Broadside & Ram in my researches. However, pictures of the ships (including this beautiful game) revealed too many sails and masts for my liking.

This post was turning into a wall of text so here is a picture of Lissa.
From https://picryl.com/media/constantine-volanakis-naval-battle-at-lissa-efabee

Another issue is that I want to standardize things with smattering of ship classes. Ironclads just seem to have a widely diverse array of ship types.

I also was drawn to smaller actions, like those in the book. This led me to look into World War 2 coastal actions. I gave a look at Manley's Narrow Seas. However, I don't want to fiddle around with aircraft so I quickly drifted away from WW2.

As a result of these meanderings, I found myself drawn to pre-dreadnoughts.

What Rules?
Next up is finding rules. Actually, it's more of a case of finding rules to use as a model for writing my own. Nowadays, I try to mold everything into my MicroBattle framework. Those rules just work well for me!

Poking around has led me to a few sets that seem helpful.
I even considered sci-fi rules, which often tend to be WW2 in space. I gave Castles in the Sky a look. Ironically, this led me to an old set that I created! Interestingly, I gamed this on an 8 x 6 grid. Just the perfect size! I think I need to play around with these rules a bit!

Note: I remember initially using range bands for these old rules, a la Pz8.

What Figures?
Well, the rules search is shaping up. I just need some mins to test rules ideas.

I had some miniatures from Irregular's 2mm 20th century boats, but it appears that I got rid of them in last year's purge!

How about counters? Most counter sets are for specific ships and I just want generic ones. This leads me to making my own. I just need some models for inspiration. While researching, I came across Bob Cordery's fleet. Just what I want!

Just when I thought I knew which path to take, my wife threw a curveball at me. She gave me a 3D printer for my birthday. Once I figure out how to use it, I can print my own miniatures!

Scenarios
I'm still leaning toward small-ship actions, so expect torpedo boats, destroyers, and maybe a cruiser rather than battleships!

I'm also leaning towards a fictional Austro-Italian War in the 1890s.

Anyway, that's where the project stands right now!

Saturday, January 20, 2024

To the Sea!

Just as I was getting a set of gladiator rules in order, GADD struck again and I've moved on to other interests.

This time, the culprit behind my GADD is a book. Specifically this one.


This book is chock full of action scenes that just beg to be wargames. It's given me a hankering for some naval action. I envision a campaign of small ship actions. Perhaps a couple of torpedo boats attacking enemy shipping, bombarding coastal emplacements, and tackling the opposition's counterparts.

Rules?
As I careen down this rabbit hole, the first question I have is what rules to use. More specifically, I ask what rules can I modify. Nowadays, I tend to take ideas from other rules and plug them into my MicroBattle framework. Works best for me.

My main issue is lack of space. I generally find myself with about 1 foot square of gaming space. That generally is not enough for full-scale naval maneuvers. For air combat, I solved the problem by using abstract relative movement. I'm not sure how to do that with naval.

I'm also not sure what era to use. I kind of prefer ironclads, but most rules in this era are American Civil War (no interest) or fleet battles. I'm not really finding much for smaller ships. I could use rules for coastal actions in WW2. I'm not sure it will have the ironclad feel. I suppose I should look into ACW.

Anyway, I'm still searching for rules.

Figures
The next question is what figures to use. 

I have a small selection on Irregular Miniatures 2mm modern ships. I could dig those out. I'm not sure I have all the ones I need for my desired games and I don't really want to order more.

I'm also thinking of making counters. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Finally, there is the possibility that I could convert this project to a sci fi game - essentially navies in space.