The Chovoli Project

I need a new project like a hole in the head. I still haven't finished my chariots or galleys.

Nevertheless . . .

Background

I am borrowing this campaign's lore from my LARP group.

The Chimera Legion is a tagma of the Byzantine Empire.

Note: We use legion in our name rather than tagma because no LARPer knows what a tagma is.

The Empire has posted the Legion to Chovoli Isle, a fictional island in Eastern Mediterranean. Pirates have been attacking Chovoli, so the Legion has been ordered to defend the island.

While on Chovoli, the Legion began receiving reports about monster attacks in the interior. The commander dispatched a detachment to investigate. They find a cave entrance that leads to a hidden valley overrun by mythical creatures.

Yes, this is essentially a fantasy campaign.

The Legion forces

My first mission is to find figures for the Legion. I know I want 10mm, but from whom?

What are my options?

• Irregular - They have become my go-to. I like that I can order small batches. But they don't have Byzantines, or Late Romans. Perhaps I could use their generic Dark Age figures?
• Pendraken - No Byzantines, but I could use Late Romans. With packs of 30, I'll have extras.
• Magister Militum - They have Byzantines. Again, packs of 30.
• Old Glory - packs of 100? No thanks.

Right now, I'm leaning towards Irregular's Dark Age line. Here is a photo from their website. I think they'll do.

As mentioned yesterday, I plan to do small "units." Now I am thinking 4 infantry and 3 cavalry figures per "unit" - essentially Portable Wargame size.

My current organization plan:

• 1 commander
• 2 units of spearmen (skutatoi)
• 1 unit of axemen (Varangians)
• 1 unit of light cavalry

The enemies

I found this great blog post that lists different 10mm fantasy lines. I am spoiled for choices.

I want to have some monsters. I'm thinking cyclops, harpies, a hydra, minotaurs, etc. So far, I have found most of these.

But what about the main bad guy army? I had a few possibilities in mind:

• Amazons
• satyrs
• skeletons

Right now, I'm leaning toward skeletons, like those that Jason fought.

And Irregular offers skeletons.

A Week of GADD

Since my last post, I have been busy. It just hasn't been entirely gaming, though.

Scroll down for my latest wargame ponderings.

LARP Projects

On the LARP front, I have made progress on a few projects.

I decorated a shield cover.

The sigil represents my new LARP unit, the Chimera Legion.

Onyx had to inspect it.

I also made a dragon sigil.

It's for a tabard.

I whipped this up due to a recent change in the Amtgard rules, which opened up eligibility for the paladin class. Paladins who have not received an Amtgard "knighthood" display a white dragon to indicate their class.

This dragon sigil came from a LARP realm called Dragon Coast, which I helped to found back in 2009.

Wargame Thoughts

Recently, I've been in a mood for a skirmish game, which got me thinking about doing a Byzantine themed project in 10mm. Two different approaches came to mind:

• a small-scale affair with 5 individually based figures, or
• a larger skirmish with about 20 or so figures, probably based in small groups

What to do? What to do?

It dawned on me that I could combine the approaches. Have leaders and specialty figures based individually with grunts combined on bases.

Here's what I'm thinking for organization:

• 1 commander
• 2 units of spearmen with 6 figures + 1 officer each
• 1 unit of archers with 6 figures + 1 officer
• 1 unit of light cavalry with 3 figures including the officer

Each unit of infantry will have 1 base each of 3 figures, 2 figures, and 1 figure. Cavalry will be individually based.

My player "warband" will be Byzantines. What about the enemy? I plan to use fantasy bad guys. I'd like my warband to run into minotaurs, chimeras, and other classical monsters. I'd also like some Greek-themed hordes, but I'm not sure what. Amazons? Satyrs? I haven't decided yet but I will say NO ORKS!

LARP Distraction

No gaming posts recently because I've been distracted by my LARP hobby.

Here's my latest project. Can I turn this cheap, plastic Viking helmet into a proper Byzantine helm with aventail?

Find out at the Paladin's Path.

The Return of Family Game Night

It has been a while since we regularly played games. Part of the reason was that our black cat, Onyx, would hop on the board and play with the pieces.

It's a pity because our eldest cat, Thomasina, loved watching games. Lately, due to age, she spends most of her time in the upstairs bedroom. Recently, we decided to bring the games to her.

Here is our latest setup. We bought a foldable game table and set it up in the bedroom. As you can see in this picture, Thom can watch the proceedings from her perch.

We've gamed the last 3 weekends. Previously, I won at Dragonwood but the following week we failed our Codenames: Duet missions.

This week was Ticket to Ride Scandinavia. My wife had a nice 20 point lead when she played her last train. However, she failed to complete 2 routes, losing 24 points. Meanwhile, I completed 9 routes for 78 bonus points to pull ahead for a decisive win.

Admittedly, I was quite lucky with my destinations. At one point, I drew 3 destination cards and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had already completed the routes!

Battle of Bischof Bridge

A New Battlefield

You may notice something different when you see the pictures of the battlefield. It is much larger. As I mentioned last month, I obtained a new table, giving me more gaming room. To take advantage, I made a a felt battle mat that is 12 by 18 inches, with a 1 inch square grid.

A Problem of Heights

I just noticed a slight issue in these photos. The hills blend in with the base battle mat. The hills are made of cork board that was painted so they contrasted with my earlier cork battle mat. But now those same hills blend in. I'll have to make them even darker so they stand out.

Battle Set-Up

I decided to do a straight-up scenario, with the battle proceeding until one side broke. I randomly determined terrain and forces.

The armies are comprised as follows:

• Redgrave (top) - 4 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 skirmishers
• Bluderia (bottom) - 3 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 artillery

Initial set-up. Note that both sides have strong forces on the west side of the river.

My initial intention was to concentrate the forces nearer the center at start, but I decided to use the whole board. As a result, the forces come on in scattered sub-groups.

After Action Report

Feeling confident after his subordinate's recent victory, General Hogwaffe orders his Bluderian army forward in a final confrontation with Redgrave.

The Bluderian army is scattered. Hogwaffe orders his subordinates to concentrate on the village of Dingelheim (top center). However, they discover Redgravian forces there. The left engages while the cavalry advances on a raid.

The left wing overruns some Redgravian infantry, but the cavalry gets wiped out.

At this point, our intrepid war correspondent lost his sketch pad. My phone battery died.

A written account will have to suffice.

Hogwaffe ordered his forces to converge on Bischof Bridge. They arrived first and seemed about to rout the Redgravians on the left. But General Spengler arrived on the scene and ordered the troops at Dingelheim to advance.

The lines formed to the east of the bridge. Bluderian attacks wore down their adversaries, but Redgrave held on.

Then the Bluderian left flank broke, followed soon after by the right. Suddenly, the center found itself under attack by four Redgravian infantry. It held on for a bit, but was then forced to retreat, which turned into a general rout.

Technically, the infantry survived, but given the odds against them, I decided to throw in the towel at this point.

Aftermath

With this defeat, Hogwaffe was forced to retreat from the Empire. Spengler advanced to the capital, which ensured that a pro-Redgravian candidate was selected to the Imperial throne. Once again, King Henrik's ambitions have been thwarted.

Embarking to 1889

Revolution on Hold

Poor Col. Endicott was not been able to bring the British to battle last weekend because of torrential rain. We will have to wait until another time before we find out what happens with his Florida expedition.

Actually, I found myself distracted last weekend and was not up for a game. We were dealing with the aftermath of a lighting strike that fried my wife's work computer, knocked out a power strip, and left our router in dire straits. It seems like we finally sorted it out.

RPG Thoughts
Anyway, there is also a gaming distraction as well. My brothers and I are considering some online gaming. I proposed running an RPG campaign, but this raises the question "what game?"

The immediate and obvious answer is old school D&D. We all played back in the day, so it should be easy to jump back in. I have the Rules Cyclopedia, so would probably use that.

But, I don't want to be constrained to the fantasy genre, and I don't think D&D/D20 works well when you throw firearms into the mix.

So I have been looking at universal systems. I am familiar with GURPS, but feel it may be too crunchy. I have contemplating a couple of games I haven't played.

On the left is Savage Worlds. I am somewhat familiar with it from Me, Myself, and Die. It bills itself as "Fast! Furious! Fun!" and reportedly is very pulpy and cinematic in feel. Just what I want so I picked up a PDF copy. As I was reading, though, I find it a trifle confusing with attributes, edges, hindrances, skills, and who knows what else. I got a little overwhelmed.

The next candidate is Cypher. This is supposedly very simple. Characters are quickly defined with a short narrative sentence - your character is an [adjective] [class] who [does something]. Sounds very simple in concept, but then I picked up the free preview. It seems that there are a lot of rules on what that adjective, class, and something they do all mean. The full rulebook is a whopping 448 pages! Very intimidating.

Considering Space 1889

As I was trying the decide what to run, my thoughts turned to Space 1889. I've long been wanted to run a game in the setting. Unfortunately, the combat rules are notoriously bad. However, I have frequently experimented with a 2D6 system, which works well enough. I was just never able to put together acceptable character creation rules. A thought struck me. I could use Space 1889 characters as is and use my 2D6 system! I decided to give it a try using the explanatory scenario from the original book.

It must be deja vu. Once again, Jamison finds himself facing 3 Venusian grave robbers.

Illustration from the original Space 1889 rulebook

• The sides each roll as D6 for initiative. Jamison wins and goes first.
• He squeezes off 3 shots from his revolver. His Closes Combat rating is 4, one better than the Venusians' 3. Because of this I give him a +1 bonus to hit (the target is 8 on 2D6). He rolls three times (one per shot) and scores 2 hits.
• He now rolls D6 for damage per hit. A 1 or less is a graze; a 6 or higher does 2 points, and anything else is just one point. He scores 2 points, which kills a Venusian, and 1 point which just wounds another.
• He then defends against the Venusians. I roll just once, with a negative modifier if facing multiple enemies. He fails and takes 1 point of damage.
• In the second turn, the robbers go first.
• Jamison succeeds in his defense roll so the Venusians miss
• Jamison fires twice, hitting once, This shot kills the wounded Venusian
• This turn, the remaining robber goes first. Now that I think of it, I should have rolled morale.
• Again, Jamison succeeds his defense roll
• But he fires his last shot and misses
• I'm assuming that Jamison has a knife. He will be drawing it this turn, so I penalize his initiative roll. The Venusian wins and goes first.
• Jamison fails his defense! The Venusian rolls a 4 so only does 1 damage
• Jamison misses
• Two more turns ensue, with neither party getting a hit. Then the robber scores another hit. Jamison has taken 2 wounds. He is down to his last one.
• Again, the robber wins initiative.
• Jamison's defense succeeds. Whew, he is close to death.
• But so is the Venusian. Jamison hits and kills it!

Certainly a far better result than I got using the original rules. I think this may work. I'll need to experiment.

Happy Independence Day!

 

In 1776, "our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Long may this blessed nation stand free.