Thursday night gunfight

I knew we were having quite few of the boys over last night, so I dug an old favorite, "Fistful of Lead". Every bit of scum in the territory showed up to steal the railroad payroll. 

Each player had their own objectives besides capturing the gold. The Leftover Gang and the Injuns started a skirmish right off, but decided after a couple of casualties, maybe a team-up might be better.

El Guappo and his banditos stated in a terrible place between to other gangs, and got chewed up pretty bad. Meanwhile, the Longriders and Stinky Dixon's gangs took advantage of cover and stayed clear of the sometimes violent citizens of Lesterville. (except when the Dixon's almost ran over local Egg Shin and got karate chop in return).

the Dixons steal a wagon

In the end, Injun Joe of the Longriders, was able (with the help of the Dixons) to steal the payroll and win.

Run El Guappo, run!

too slow

Mini-Basement-Con

The Baroness left for a gathering of the lady nobility this weekend, so I put on a mini version of Basement-Con. Thursday and Friday were mostly boardgames so I pulled out the stops for a GASLIGHT mega-battle Saturday night.

Here's the pictures:

a "Spider" walks through the trees....

Franco-British forces push towards the bridge

Clankers advance towards the farmhouse

French marines find a ford, while the Le Roue blocks the bridge

Skirmish on the flank

One of the Empress's Own Elite Lady Hussars brings the Roue to a halt.

Arena

Sorry for the delay from last Thursday's usual battle report. I've been working on a set of fantasy gladiator rules for awhile. Something easy enough for a convention, but good enough to hold up for one of or regular Thursday night games.

So, I had the rules, but no arena. Using 2 inch thick pink foam, I cut 6 x 6 inch pieces. Glued those to a same size foam core base.I scribed in one inch squares, added cracks, painted black and dry brushed grey. I repeated this 15 more times to create a 2 foot by 2 foot geomorphic arena, that can be easily reconfigured over and over. Some tiles have walls, some pits or crevasses. I still have to add some flavor: different color tiles here and there. Moss, blood and most of all sludge or water for the pits.

I used some marines I had laying around and painted them up quick for test run. This made it ore SciFi than fantasy. There were "power ups" all around. Players could land on them and had a 50/50 chance or grabbing upgrades, ammo or armor to their gladiator, from the cards I made. This served as a way to keep the players from sitting in one place blasting away. I also limited the ranges and gave them limited ammo. I added simple teleporters and viola!

It was great !

Things I'm adding:

Traps. Now when you land on an upgrade, there's a chance it's a trap.

Drones. Eliminated players can still screw with the living by piloting little bombots around.

The list goes on!

Flashing Steel!

After the brutal beating we gave Drums and Shakos last week, I decided to pull back and try a smaller game. We only had 4 players last night, so I dug out some minis I've had sitting around patiently for rules to go with. 

I recently downloaded the latest in the "Song of..." family from Ganesha Games, "Flashing Steel". Having played lots of games from the family the group was already familiar with the mechanics. But, FS seemed to have a little more depth. I gave each player only two figures each (except the Cardinal's men who got a bunch of "extras"). Each team only came out to 150 points. Normally in a two player game, you use 500 points a side.

The scenario went thusly: A messenger carrying secret letters of love to the Queen's lover has been waylayed on the road to Calias. She has sent her loyal Musketeers to find the messenger and the letters before they fall into the wrong hands. Enter the Cardinal's men. They want the letters to prove the Queen's disloyalty. Somewhere at the crossroads they meet....

Each player had to search areas on the board. Aramis found the messenger right away, but forced to burn an activation each turn to keep him close. He could take him off the board, but would lose Aramis for the rest of the game.

The Duc D'Harme and his lackey Smedley stumbled into the thugs that had attacked the messenger. While they were distracted D'Artagnon and Porthos attacked. Unfortunately for our heroes, it was a bad move. D'Artagnon was taken out by a common thug, while Porthos was done in by the Duke and his man-servant.

On the other side of the table Athos was dispatching a veritable horde of Cardinal's Guards single-handedly, while Rochford (boo-hiss) stumbled around the woods looking for letters (which he found along with a pack of wolves).

It finally came down to Aramis and Rochford. It was Aramis's "Slippery-ness" that won him out. The Queen's honor remains intact!

ITEN-Fantasy

In the Emperor's Name, a free set of Sci-Fi rules set in the not-40k universe, turned out to be great time when we tried it out several weeks ago. Though nostalgic for early GW days, that universe has never been my bag. Fantasy, particularly a large scale skirmish, which is the best for my group of 6-8 weekly, is what I wanted to try. Now, I loves me my Song of Blades and Heroes, but it's really a two player game. I figured it would be simple enough to tailor ITEN to fantasy. The ensuing brawl proved me right.

the Wastes

"The temple of Baal-El has lain buried in the Wastelands for untold centuries. But recently, during an earthquake, the temple emerged from the depths. Now, forces converge. Some to destroy the temple, some to worship it's dark god..." 

the Elves

The Adventurers

The Barbarians

the Forces of Chaos

The King's Men

The forces weren't balanced point-wise. But tactics should have panned out. They didn't. It was mostly a one sided affair in favor of Chaos. The Boy, controlling the Adventurers, got hammered by the Barbarians second turn. He never even got off a spell. (Spells are basically Psyker Abilities from ITEN). The forces of Good should have hauled ass to the temple, and then defended it's narrow passage. Chaos warriors are slow, the Barbarians have no long range, and the orcs were farthest away and blocked by terrain. Oh well. It was still fun.

St EClair (a Fast Play Grande Armee game)

The French fought the Austrians in this fictional battle for the town of St Eclair. Fast Play Grande Armee are my rules of choice for this scale and this period. I think it gives a great representation of Napoleonic battles without all the excess "stuff". You can get a huge battle fought in 3 hours easy. We had six commands, and ended with a obvious winner in 2 1/2 hours.

Throw in the gorgeous 6mm figs (yes, I said 6mm) and stands provided by Scott, and you have the ingredients for a great game.

The French

The Austrians

The Austrians took the early initiative, but chose to let the French go first. The French covered the ground quickly, except in the center, where for some reason, Napoleon's troops lagged behind. The town was seized by the French, but it would turn out to be a tough time holding it.

The French capture St Eclair

The cannonade is fierce

The entire game, the Austrians pounded the defenders in the town. Although the these guns might have been better served pounding the infantry outside the town. 

The battle ebbed and flowed, until finally the Austrian cavalry on the left broke. Seven Austrian brigades would break in a single turn after that. French victory.

Some take aways: The Austrians need more heavy cavalry. And a few extra infantry, too. The French move faster, so you need something to balance.

Keeping track of everything is easy with these nifty dry erase labels on the back.

of Bugbears and Battles

Finally. I painted up some the stunning 15mm figs from Splintered Light I bought at the Spring RECRUITS earlier this year. This is a Bugbear Chieftain and his bodyguard. Since they were mostly brown (according to the ancient Monster Manual I own), I decided to make their gear mostly black. I wanted more of a tarnished look, so for these guys, I did more of a bronze armor. The rest, of which I bought a ton, will have more traditional steel/iron armor.

I'll have more painting to post tomorrow. Hopefully.

Last Thursday we ran Flower of Chivalry game. A blast as usual. I premiered the Battlelust wheel for keeping track of orders and each commands status. Went over well.

The battle itself had the usual push and pull, then one giant collapse we all have come to love.

Some highlights:

The king's battleline (I gotta figure out this camera)

The Pretender advances

There's cover in these woods men!

Steady! Hold that camera steady....

The king wades into the fray.

This Thursday is a Fast Play Grand Armee game.

The newest member

Boudica. A 14 month old Great Dane. Long may she reign.

the Ork in the door...

...or an "In the Emperor's Name" play test. I mentioned in an earlier post how much I wanted to try these rules out, and why I was drawn to them, so I won't cover that. The only reason I haven't tried ITEN on a large scale is because I just didn't have the troops. Luckily one of the Basement Generals, Zombie J, has a had a secret stash of GW (well painted GW stuff) hidden away for some time. They finally got to see battle.

I wasn't sure what he had so we winged it with the scenario.

What do they say about "the bigger they are?"

" Krag III was an Imperial mining operation until it was cut off by a warp storm. Previous attempts to make contact have met with disaster. With a clearing in the cosmic weather, a small Space Marine detachment is sent to check things out. What they found was a colony virtually wiped out by Ork invaders, a renegade Guard unit unhappy with being left abandoned by humanity, and an Eldar civil War being fought on this desolate world."

The Death Jester waits....

Here's where we "break" most games. We generally have 6-8 people show up on a Thursday. Most games don't handle this well, and also throw in some experienced gamers who can find a crack in the mechanics very quickly. As much as I love some games we've playtested recently, they're dead to us now.

A fight over the wreckage of a Titan

ITEN held up really well. Everyone picked up the rules within minutes. If I would have known the forces we were playing with, I could have made individual quick reference sheets. You could play a large scale 40k-esque game in a decent amount of time.

But, back to the game. No sooner had I explained to a player that the reason he had so few Marines is that they were so bad-ass compared to my many poor Guardsmen, than I shot down 2 of his 6 said Marines.

That got a good laugh. He whacked 2 of my traitor Guard in return. On the far edge a group of Eldar and their troupe of Harlequins bounded forward, while the Guard unit mixed it up with some Dark Eldar and their Ork partners. The Eldar and Orks took heavy casualties. The Ork Boss decided it was a good idea to take cover in one of the buildings, sniping from the shadows despite his heavy armor. Thus the title of our post today.

We tried a long time to dig him out. Long after Eldar walker, the Terminator and the Death Jester  were gone, we were still trying to kill that pesky Ork. He finally went down under a combined 4 man melee from the Guard. Victory to the No Longer Imperial Guard. Krag III is a free colony!

These rules held up. We played a large game in 2 hours, with a lot of drinking (thus the crappy photos) and talking in between. I'm already thinking how to tweak for fantasy and take on Zombie J's large collection of Warmachine miniatures.

RECRUITS pics

I had another great time at RECRUITS this weekend. For once, instead of hosting I actually got to play in some games. At what games they were! I took a few pictures of the more interesting...

Friday night I played in a miniatures version of Commands and Colors put on by Honorary Basement General Crashdoggy, all the way in from Minnesota.

Here the the Boy moves in his heavies, only to be surrounded and crush by me. Mwahahahah!

As you can see in this picture RECRUITS is very kid friendly.

A close up of the minis.

Later, it was a Force on Force game in Rhodesia. Just look at those termite mounds.

Saturday morning I started off with an awesome game (also put on by Crashdoggy) in 54mm of the French and Indian War battle of Monogahela. The figs were gorgeous. The terrain great, and the rules (This Very Ground) terrific. 

I had a blast with this game running the Courer de Bois. We, the French, had to keep the English from getting to Fort Ducane (Pittsburg). 

For awhile, our hit and run tactics worked. But, then Braddock showed up with some reinforcements and we just couldn't hold on.

Then, I helped run a Post Apocalyptic version of my Fistful of Lead cowboy rules. It sounds weird, but it worked. Groups of scavengers were looking for loot on the ruins of an old city. You'd think we'd spend time shooting at each other, but there were enough surprises to keep us busy elsewhere.

Shoo fly, don't bother me...

There were plenty of other games I wasn't able to play in:

A stunning 20 foot long pirate game, complete with cannibals

Stalingrad

And many more. I'll be running something next Spring (there are 2 RECRUITS-cons a year). I picked up some figs I'll post here shortly.