GaMExpo pix

GaMExpo was kind of a bust as far as people who wanted to play minis games. The wargaming room was upstairs, away from the rest of the convention, so foot traffic was sparse. On the bright side, I got to see some other games that people were GMing, like this setup for Sharpe Practice.

Although the rules are more aimed at an earlier period, the person running the game was using it for a Napoleonic scenario.

And the semi-historical pirates game Blood & Plunder had a nice Spanish settlement set up.

There was also a superhero game, X-Men vs. Avengers, so everyone could play the good guys.

This had nice modern-day town terrain. I think that's Nightcrawler from the X-Men on the roof.

There was also some BattleTech--more precisely, Alpha Strike, a sped-up, stripped-down version of the game that gets rid of the rivet-counting but still feels like playing giant stompy robots.

The scenario was a king of the hill-type game, where you got points for keeping near the objective markers.

I also set up my Monopolis map, but I didn't get that much use out of it. More in a later post.

Wrecked vehicles

Some quick and easy scatter terrain for Gaslands and other post-apoc vehicle combat games, made from dollar-store die-cast toys.

These Hot Wheels knockoffs came in a package, three for a buck. Some disassembly, a little carnage with the cutters, and a light dusting of black spray paint, and there you go.

These burnt-out vehicles will make nice obstacles for various Gaslands scenarios or as wrecks for when a player's car gets destroyed. Given the carnage levels in this game, I need to make quite a few more wrecks.

Of course, given how inexpensive these were, I won't have any problem finding some more cars to mangle. It's simple and fun, and looks good on the table.

Not bad for 33 cents each!

Trying out Burrows & Badgers

Burrows & Badgers is a miniatures skirmish game of anthropomorphic animal combat. Think Frostgrave crossed with Redwall. You have teams of mice, rabbits, frogs, weasels, hounds, badgers, etc. fighting each other for treasure and scenario objectives. Most actions are determined by contested rolls, with the dice you use based on your model's stat versus another models stat. For example, one figure has a Strike of d8, and rolls that die against the opponent's block stat of d6. Add in modifiers, and the highest number wins. If it's the active model, then you do damage.

The neat twist to this game is the concept of the "perfect roll"--a result of the maximum for your die roll adds seven to the total. So if you roll a 4 on a d4, you then add 7 to your total (along with any other modifiers). This means that every now and then, even one of the weaker figures has a chance to hurt a much stronger opponent. Add in weapons, actions like hiding, and magic, and you have an interesting set of rules.

Our gaming group has started using these rules, and I was able to play last week. I took five models: A rabbit leader, his second, a toad magician, and three mice warriors. Since we didn't have figures for the leader and the second, we proxied with some human minis. My in-game rationale was that the rabbit and toad were cursed by a witch and turned into humans.

The opposed rolls with their propensity for big bonuses kept the game swinging back and forth, meaning neither side could overpower the other at first. In the end, my opponent did overwhelm me, taking my leader and then one of my rank-and-file out of action. At least in this game, most of the time your figures will come back for the next scenario. And rolling for secondary objectives as part of the scenario we played gave a nice fog of war effect, as neither of us knew what the other was up to (besides trying to kill each other). In fact, in our game, both of us were able to accomplish a secondary objective--meaning both sides got experience and treasure to apply to the next game.

And that's another great thing about the rules: the campaign system. You have a chance after the battle to roll for injuries for figures that were knocked out of action and then see what kind of side adventures each of your figures gets into before the next fight. There's a chance to buy new equipment and magic, and for characters to gain additional skills or stat increases. It was a fun time, and we're playing it again.

Monopolis in San Antonio

I'm taking my show on the road! I will be running games of Monpolis (Ogre minis on a big map with 3-D scenery) this Saturday morning and afternoon at the GaMExpo convention in San Antonio. The events schedule lists six players per game, but if more than that show up, I will try to fit in additional players. Hope to see you there!

Arena of Death

We played our second game of Gaslands last week: the Arena of Death scenario, complete with automated machine gun turrets. Since there were four of us playing, I had to come up with another team of vehicles. So I took a trio of Hot Wheels out of their packaging to make The Notorious RBG: Red Rain, Blue Monday, and Green Manalishi (with a two-prong crown), all with identical stats.

We also had Men At Work, with Overkill (dump truck) and Who Can It Be Now? (front loader).

Of course, we had The Blues Brothers, Jake (car) and Elwood (pickup), which I ended up playing. The one-vehicle Justice League consisted of the Batusi (renamed by my players from the Batmobile).

The Batusi had lots of marvelous toys, like nitro, a turreted machine gun, RC car bombs, and a smokescreen. Not enough to keep it from getting riddled with bullets by the Green Manalishi (does that make that vehicle the Riddler's car?).

The first turn was lots of maneuvering and shooting, but no kills. Shortly, though, we started damaging each other. Who Can It Be Now? unleased enough Molotov cocktails to set Elwood on fire (although the flames immediately went out, since the truck had no hazard tokens).

Overkill managed to live up to its name, taking out Jake for the first vehicle kill of the evening.

But the carnage was about to increase, as Notorious RBG had Men At Work in the sights of their front-mounted machine guns.

5150: Fleet Commander AAR

Ed the THW Guy was kind enough to send me a copy of the newest game in his sci-fi universe, 5150: Fleet Commander. This game is at a little higher level of abstraction than the rules that I co-wrote with him, 5150: Star Navy, so I decided to run a largish fleet battle. With just four stats per ship (and only one stat that changes), it was easy to get a number of ships on the board.

My Star Navy had a capital ship squadron (Dreadnought and two Carriers) and two escort squads (Light Cruiser and two Destroyers, and Destroyer and two Frigates). The Hishen had their own capital squad (Planetary Conquest Ship and a pair of Motherships) and a couple of escort groups (each with a Slaver and two Patrollers).

The two sides launched fighters and missiles, and opened fire (all taken care of with one combat roll per ship). The Star Navy damaged one of the carriers on the first volley, but lost one of its frigates as the Hishen retaliated.

Other human vessels also took damage (meaning they could not return fire during the Hishen turn or initiate fire on their next turn).

With each vessel targeting its equivalent on the other side, the big ships were not doing much damage to each other. The smaller craft, on the other hand, quickly eliminated one another. Most of the smaller ships, however, made their rolls to remain in the battle, with just one human ship, the light cruiser, fleeing the battle after taking damage. All the rest stayed until they were destroyed.

Still, even after losing ships, neither side's commander wanted to leave the battle. C-beams glittered as the two fleets continued to exchange fire, with more escorts evaporating each turn. The large vessels, however, were hard to damage--and they could all take a lot of it.

Finally, the Star Navy carrier attacks got through to their opposite numbers. First one Hishen mothership erupted, then the other one turned into a rapidly expanding debris cloud.

With most of their fleet gone, the Hishen commander still refused to flee, and the Star Navy's ships were able to concentrate most of their firepower on the alien flagship. Only a few shots got through to do damage, but they were enough to send the planetary conquest ship into damage control mode--meaning its crew was too busy to shoot at the Star Navy.

Finally, a couple of shots made it through to demolish the remainder of the defenseless flagship's hull, destroying the final Hishen starship.

The Hishen fleet was completely wiped out, while the Star Navy lost two destroyers and two frigates (although severely damaged, the light cruiser is now fully repaired and ready for its next fight). It was a fun game, and it took me around an hour-and-a-half to play. Thanks, Ed!

Monopolis article is live

I am pleased to announce that my article on Building Your Own Monopolis for Ogrezine II (the online magazine for Ogre) is now up. While the subject will be familiar to most readers of this blog, the article goes into a little more detail, and it pretty much covers everything about my tabletop city. Please go take a look!