Texas and the OSR



Yes, this is an actual Texas highway sign.

Although this has turned out to be mainly a wargaming blog, I also play roleplaying games.  The granddaddy of them all, of course, is Dungeons & Dragons.  Although now in its fourth edition with dozens of books and supplements, earlier editions of D&D still retain their popularity.  And now, thanks to the Internet and the Open Gaming License, there has been a resurgence of interest in these Older Sets of Rules.

(Sorry, I can't remember the name of this movement at present.  Maybe it will come to me in a minute or two).

Various approaches to intellectual property have allowed authors to create new games with familiar mechanics, duplicating out-of-print versions of the rules (retroclones).  This movement has lead to more gamers, including me, picking up where they left years ago and going Out Slaying Reptiles. 

(There's even some sort of acronym--three letters, I think.)

Locally, several gamers/bloggers have taken an interest in Our Stuff Revisited, and I've had opportunities to game with a couple of them:  I'm a regular in the San Antonio exploits the Hill Cantons campaign, run by the author of that eponymous blog.  I also successfully ventured into--and back out of--Skull Mountain, run by the creator of The Contemptible Cube of Quazar.  One of these days I hope to earn Gold & Glory at the table of the Troll and Flame proprietor.  There's even a Texas gaming convention dedicated to On-Site Retrogaming, North Texas RPG Con. 

(I remember now: TSR!  Wait, that was the name of the company...)

Some say this trend of playing Old Systems Re-examined is some sort of renaissance, or a revival--a return to the roots of role-playing, as opposed to all the new-school gaming out there.  Whatever it is, it seems to have picked up a lot of momentum around the 'Net.  I'm curious about local interest: Who else here in the Lone Star State is into this whole Other Sort of Recreation?  Let us know in the comments.

(Old-School Renaissance?  Nah.  Can't be.)

By the way, if you're curious about where that road sign came from, this picture will give Texans another hint:

Hordes of the Things battle report

In addition to playing Song of Blades and Heroes last Tuesday, I also got in a game of Hordes of the Things, using what has to be my favorite army, my skeletons (repurposed 20-year-old Warhammer minis).  My opponent once again was da Baron, who brought out his Scorpions of Dirz (Confrontation prepaints).  Again: no camera; used phone; crappy pictures; apologies:

I won the roll, so da Baron was the defender and got to set up the terrain.  Since his army had four warbands, four shooters, and a beasts element (in addition to a behemoth and a hero general), he decided to put lots of bad going (woods) on the table to make things hard for my spears and artillery. (Y'know, now that I think about it, and looking at these pictures, I think he actually had 26 army points worth of elements on the board instead of the standard 24 AP.):

My opponent naturally had some great PIP rolls the first few turns, and his beasts, shooters, and warbands went through the forest like it wasn't even there, eventually chewing up my right flank and destroying two elements of shooters.  My lurker, however (that's him in the top left of the photo), did manage to destroy one of the enemy's elements in my first bound--and more importantly, was able to exert a zone of control against the behemoth and later the hero general, preventing them from moving away from that element (a technique known as Barkering, after one of the rules' authors):

Since my magician general was in danger from enemies in the woods, I decided to get him out of there--and into range of the enemy hero general.  Before the spellcaster could attempt to shrivel the hero's testicles (my favorite spell in HotT), he had to fight off attacks from the front and side--which he did, destroying the warband to his front and recoiling the element on his flank:

The spell didn't work, so I decided to risk my general in close combat with the opposing leader.  This was risky--heroes and magicians get along like Republicans and Democrats: when they go toe-to-toe, only one of them will end up walking away.  However, I just couldn't play it safe, so I moved forward and risked the game on a single die roll.  The result was not what I expected:

To sum it up: a nice (and rare) win for me, and a frustrating loss for da Baron.  Still, I think he has the better win-loss record overall.  It was a good time, and a nice way to finish a rare evening of gaming.

Because I don't have enough stuff to paint

I recently acquired some more miniatures on ebay to add to my collection of Star Frontiers ships.  I lucked out and snagged a complete box of Federation ships (battleship, destroyer, frigate, freighter, and two assault scouts) and three blister packs of Fed scouts and frigates (with two of each type):

Most of these ships will join my other civilian transports.  I'm not sure what to do with the assault scouts; they're not much bigger than a Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights fighter, and they're too conventional to fly alongside my more exotic starships.  The assault scouts might fit in well with some of my Stardate: 3000 attack craft that are similar in size; I'll have to post a comparison photo soon.

Also, I found this interesting: The backs of the blister packaging are printed with "Adventure Squares," something that looks like deck plans of a starship for use with miniature figures or counters:

(Sidenote: I remember playing the Star Frontiers roleplaying game and remarking to my friends that I wished D&D had the same level of tactical combat.  My friend replied that it did--but we just ignored those rules when we played.)

New game: Song of Blades and Heroes

For the first time in a long time, I made it to the Lone Star Historical Miniatures Tuesday night gathering at Dragon's Lair-San Antonio.  It was well worth the trip--I was able to get in a game of Hordes of the Things (which I will discuss in a later post), and I also got to play a game I recently acquired and have been waiting to try out: Song of Blades and Heroes, by Ganesha Games.

SBH is a quick-play fantasy skirmish wargame.  Fast is good when you don't have as much free time as you used to, and the skirmish means you don't need that many figures, which is good when you don't have as much cash as you used to.  The rulebook is inexpensive and available online along with several official expansions.  There's also a Yahoo group  as well as plenty of fan supplements.  Best of all, like HotT, the rules work with pretty much any figure, so I was able to draft some Heroscape minis for this battle (of which I have a ton), and I didn't even have to rebase them.  My apologies for the poor quality of the pictures below; once again I forgot my camera and had to shoot photos with my phone:


My robot warband.  That's right, robots in a fantasy wargame.

My opponent, da Baron Aaron, is starting up a SBH campaign, and he offered to show me the ropes.  His warband consisted of recycled World of Warcraft miniatures, some of which he had repainted.

The leader of the warband scans for the approaching enemies.

 The scenario we played, Treasure Hunt, resulted in my warband finding the marker with the hidden treasure just inches from my own board edge.  I thought the game was pretty much over by then, since I believed I would be able to scoop up the maguffin and haul ass off my edge of the board for victory.  The dice had other plans--failed activation rolls on my part and smart playing on my opponent's part got his warband over to my edge of the playing field pretty quickly.  And since my robots apparently have the shooting skills of Imperial Stormtroopers, it wasn't long before we were in hand-to-hand combat.

The enemy, who made a lot of activation rolls, approaches.

Lucky for me, my robots proved tough when things got up close and personal.  The organics lost some close combat rolls and got knocked down (it's either this or get knocked back a base width when you lose but your opponent's roll is less than double your roll).  Once knocked prone, the life forms were easy pickings hand-to-hand or with a quick shot from afar.  I destroyed three out of his five figures this way (the three he had painted), causing one more to flee, leaving the leader by himself.

Ashes to ashes, all fall down!

It was a fun game, and the activation roll mechanics make for interesting turns--you could miss your rolls and not get to move anyone, or you could make all your rolls and let everyone do pretty much anything, or something in between.  Also, warbands take about five minutes to create with an online calculator, so I will be coming back to this game again and again.  After all, I have plenty of Heroscape figures ready for action.

OGRE/GEV minis part 3: North American Combine

After miniatures for the OGRE and for the Paneuropean Union came out, Ral Partha produced models based on the other faction in the game, the North American Combine.  The vehicles are all the equivalent of the other side's units (although the NAC doesn't have its own missile crawler).  With the exception of the superheavy, I find these designs more aesthetically pleasing than most of the PE sculpts (and I also have them detailed a little bit better).  Without further comment, some of my NAC minis:

NAC command post

NAC GEV personnel carrier

NAC Ground Effect Vehicles

NAC howitzer

NAC heavy tanks



NAC infantry in three-squad units



NAC missile tanks

NAC mobile howitzer

NAC superheavy tank

I have additional units, such as the hovertruck and the light artillery drone, that aren't pictured because I don't have them painted.  They can be found in the OGRE Miniatures rulebook, which is available in PDF format.

OGRE/GEV minis part 2: Paneuropean Union

Once you have some giant robotic tanks for your OGRE/GEV game, you need some human forces to oppose them.  The first miniatures released for the game were modeled after the designs on the cardboard counters for the paper version, which depicted the vehicles of the Paneuropean Union. 

The most important unit on the board doesn't do anything: the command post is there as a target; if the OGRE gets within firing range, the game is over.  Even if the OGRE doesn't have any weapons left, it can still run over the CP to end the game.  Here's what all the fuss is about:

Paneuropean command post, based on the original game art.

The initial game had just four types of conventional units to face the implacable OGRE: stalwart heavy tanks, far-reaching missile tanks, swift ground effect vehicles (GEVs), immobile howitzers, and the poor bloody infantry.  Now-defunct Martian Metals originally came out with the sculpts, and Ral Partha later took over the line, ultimately followed by Steve Jackson Games.


Heavy tank; lack of detailing makes this the Martian Metals version.



GEVs

Howitzer

Missle tanks--the one on the right is the older sculpt.

PE infantry, in three-squad units.

Expansions of the game, including GEV and Shockwave, gave players new units to work with.  Light tanks and light GEVs, superheavy tanks, GEV personnel carriers, and mobile howitzers all added new strategies to the game.

GEV personnel carrier

Light GEVs

Light tanks

Superheavy tank

Mobile howitzer

Shockwave also produced one of the coolest--and now, rarest miniatures of the line: the PE missile crawler.  Although all the other models are still in production, I understand the master for this design was lost, meaning you won't be seeing any new crawlers available.  Take a look:

The missile crawler comes in three parts: front, back w/missile bed, & cruise missile.

These designs are all pretty dated (or retro, if you prefer).  For a look at a more modern execution of these concepts, you'll have to read my post on the North American Combine minis ....

OGRE/GEV minis part 1: Cybertanks

After mentioning the classic Steve Jackson creation OGRE and noting coverage of OGRE/GEV around the web, it seems appropriate to elaborate on the official miniatures for that game and to show off some of my collection.

The future history of OGRE--along with the miniatures line--concerns itself mainly with two factions: the North American Combine and the Paneuropean Union.  Riffing off World War II paint schemes, I decided to paint my own figures in olive drab (NAC) and dark gray (PE).  Unfortutately, because I'm lazy, most of the paint jobs are incomplete.

The designs for the OGRE and the PE vehicles came first, based on the game art by Winchell Chung.  While the models were great for their time, the translation from the printed page to three-dimensional playing pieces shows how dated their aesthetic has become. 

First, of course there's the OGRE itself, which was used by both factions and comes in two versions main versions (yes, I know there are minis of the Mark I through the Mark IV, but I'm sticking with the models in my collection), both faithful to the game illustrations: 

OGRE mk III

OGRE mk V

There's also a miniature of the OGRE's sensor tower sticking up out of the water (in the brief story setting up the original game scenario, that's how the cybertank snuck onto the battlefied), which I've actually used in a game:



Years after the first miniatures came out, Steve Jackson Games came out with a miniatures version of a Paneuropean cybertank called the Fencer.  This design was much more modern in appearance:

The standard version of the Paneuropean Fencer.

The turret shows this to be a Fencer-B, the upgunned version of this cybertank.

As you can see, I need to finish detailing these miniatures (especially the ones in gray, which is really just what I sprayed on to double as primer).  You'll see that again once you get a look at my conventional Paneuropean vehicles ....