Engage!

 Over at The Stronghold Rebuilt, Kaptain Kobold discusses the issues with Void and Stars activation and movement system. Essentially, if a ship does not activate, it continues moving forward, possibly crashing into asteroids or other ships! Kaptain Kobold proposes a simple fix to avoid the issue.

This is not a problem I thought about or expected to deal with, primarily because I plan to take a different, more grand tactical if you will, approach to the game. I never planned on requiring ships to move every turn. Instead of the standard Song of Blades and Heroes movement, I planned to create a gridded board, something like the picture below (created in PowerPoint). If a ship fails to activate, I'll assume that it is slowly cruising in its current zone.

A sample gridded space battle board.
Each side features a cruiser, 2 escorts, and a squadron of fighters (represented by 1 ship)

The idea for this grid comes from the range bands featured in Minden Games' battleship game called Salvo! (note that Minden also produces Eindekker). Panzer 8 emulated the range bands for their WW2 naval rules, (You may notice that I envision starship battles as WW2 in space. It may not be accurate or plausible but I don't really care about that). I'm toying with further dividing the board into left, center, and right zones.

My plan will avoid the "running into planets" issue. It may be too abstract for some, but I prefer simpler, somewhat abstract systems. I think it will work, although I'll probably to run into other, currently unexpected issues.

Of Fleets in Space

A couple of months ago, an announcement posted to TMP caught my eye. It was a preview of a new set of rules called Galleys and Galleons. It provides for naval battles for 1-5 ships per side using the Song of Blades and Heroes system. My response was "genius!" While I'm not fond of the SBH scale (individual figures vs. units) I found the activation system intriguing (and used it in my latest medieval rules). When I read about G&G I realized that the SBH activation would be excellent for small "fleets" of ships, which then turned my thoughts to space fleets. I began to think  about taking G&G when it was released and modifying it to a spaceship game. Imagine my surprise and joy when I accidentally stumbled across a post on The Stronghold Rebuilt about a set of rules called Void and Stars, which featured space battles for small fleets using the SBH system. Alas, it appears those rules never went beyond the playtest stage. Nevertheless, I have been inspired to try my hand at writing up a basic set of SBH-inspired rules for space battles.

I do have one problem - no ships. I picked up a bunch of ships last year, but changed my mind and decided that they would not really do for fleet actions. Fortunately, The Stronghold Rebuilt has provided inspiration with scratch-built ships. I plan to make 2 small fleets out of balsa wood, although I may make some paper counters first.

A Little Gaming

I took advantage of some free time to play a little this morning.

Tales of the Templars

A new episode of my Space Templars campaign has been posted here.

Solitaire Caesar

A while ago, I mentioned that I picked up Solitaire Caesar after reading about it on the Stronghold Rebuilt. Since then, I have been playing a campaign very slowly (about 1-2 turns per week, though I missed a few weeks recently). I made it up to turn 10 today, and am doing pretty well. Here is the way my empire looks, ca. 700 AD.

I'm doing the game with a virtual board, created in PowerPoint. I am able to use Shapes to represent the units (red for Romans and blue for barbarians) and cities. I even use virtual dice using this website.

I managed to hold off the Gothic and Hunnic invasions, preserve the western part of the empire, and reach a peak of 16 cities by 500 AD. Since then, Arab invasions sacked Jerusalem and Egypt. I think I am still in a position to survive another 800 years, although I think I'll lose territory in the east as the Arabs grow in power.

Con te partirò

Or more accurately, "Time to Say Goodbye."

This is a sentiment I have been pondering for a little while. As one can easily notice, my wargaming and blogging have declined dramatically in recent months (although I have been playing a lot of board games with my wife). I've been feeling pressure to post although I really don't have much to write about. Thus, I've been toying with the idea of shutting down the entire operation.

Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed. I just need to remind myself that I have been using this blog as a wargaming diary so that in the future I can go back and see what projects I've worked on, etc. Because lulls are part of my wargaming experience the absence of posts is, in essence, documentation of my gaming goings-on (or not-goings-on). I may not post much in the coming weeks, but this blog is not going anywhere.

Now, for the first time in what seems like weeks, I have a free Saturday morning. I think I'll do a little gaming.

A Double Victory

Over the past few weeks I have literally done no wargaming. Most of my free time has been spent making things for Amtgard, a live-action role-playing game.

My wife and I have been playing a lot of board games - often on Fridays and Saturdays. Last night we pulled out two short games, and I managed to win both.

Game 1 - Takenoko

My wife raced out to a big lead while I languished in last place, but I managed to pull ahead. She completed 7 tasks first, which allowed her to tie the game. I then completed 2 tasks in the final turn to pull out the victory.

Game 2 - Cthulhu Gloom

I managed to get a number of good cards allowing me to knock off my family one by one. At one point I was able to steal an Untimely Death from my brother-in-law. Later, he tried to steal it back but I was able to block him. I managed to wrack up 235 Pathos Points - in other words, my family was miserable.

The most difficult, but most enjoyable, part of Gloom, is making up the stories about how the characters meet their unfortunate fates. For example, my brother-in-law's character died when he fell through the ice and drowned. When I stole his death card, I made up a story how my character actually saved him but fell through the ice and drowned instead. Unfortunately, the authorities erred when identifying the body; as a result they thought that my brother-in-law's character has died. While creating these stories is not a requirement to play, they sure add to the fun.

Francesian History - Return of the Katzplatters

It's been a while since I posted about Francesia so I thought I'd present some more history.

In my last historical installment, the Redgrave War ended with Duke Johann Drakendorf usurping the Imperial throne while the young Emperor Lester fled to Cragcoast. 

Shortly afterward, Lester was assassinated by unknown hands, presumably by someone in the pay of Johann the Usurper. The Katzplatter claim then fell to Lester's infant son, Leander. Johann would continue to reign, but his dictatorial nature and excessive taxation fueled discontent over the years. When he turned 18, Leander decided to make a bid for the throne. He gathered some loyalist forces and set sail for Egerford.

Leander's gambit appeared to be doomed as he approached the coast. An Imperial galley spotted Leader's ship Revenge and moved to intercept. There was an exchange of gunfire and the Revenge suffered some heavy damage. Yet its superior speed paid off and Leander was able to slip past the enemy.

Upon landing on the Egerford coast, Leander moved inland with his small force. He approached the nearest villages, intent on recruiting more supporters from among the militia organized to stop him. Meanwhile, Baron Rutger, Lord Constable of Egerford, assembled a small force of cavalry to intercept Leander. At first, the Egershire militia flocked to Leander’s banner. He was able to press his advance, securing two villages. But Rutger rallied Johann’s supporters and led a stubborn resistance. Leander’s main regiment broke and he withdrew to safety in the woods. But Leander’s remaining troops counterattacked. In the process, Rutger was killed and Johann’s supporters routed. The road to Silverfern was open.

The Battle of Egershire

Leander – 1,600 troops; 200 casualties

Egershire – 3,600 militia; 600 casualties (both sides)

Baron Rutger – 400 cavalry; 300 casualties + Rutger killed

Halloween Update

I did not have time for an update last week because I spent Saturday playing Amtgard.

Ready for battle.
Pardon the glasses ruining the look.

Last night was our Halloween game night. We played a trifecta of horror games:

1. Zombie Dice

2. Monster Fluxx

 3. Zombies!!!

Ironically, our game of Zombies!!! basically ended the same as last year. My brother-in-law grabbed the car keys, raced to the helipad while killing a couple of zombies along the way, then flew away to safety.