1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Honours of War

2) What armies were confronted? - British vs French

3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - very

4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - No

5) How many players were in the game? - 2

Follow on battle from last weeks game, with AAR to follow.

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Matrix game engine on a hand drawn map

2) What armies were confronted? - Great big hairy barbarians against allied but fractious Imperial Successor statelets versus Dwarf merchant-venturer-vikings

3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Very - concept is easy rules wise, and the background was generated from my ongoing D&D game

4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - No. I tend to use a big multiplayer matrix game to do the high scope "geopolitical" aspects of my campaign

5) How many players were in the game? - Seven incl. the "impartial" GM (me)

If you're not familiar with matrix games this may be a bit weird, but basically each player takes the role of a faction leader/nation/family/whatever, each with disparate goals that may or may not mesh with others, their own resources and skills/weaknesses, and then argues out what happens for them to achieve their goals against the other players. The actual milieu could be anything from resolving an industrial dispute ("characters" might be the shop steward, the bastard manager, the other union, the ineffectual owner etc etc) to in this case resolving the last great wave of barbarian invasion/settlement into my fantasy version of the Fall of the West/"I can't believe it's not-Arthur!" era of my long running D&D world.

Players say "I want X to happen" and support that with three arguments. So "My horde crashes down the causeway bringing the warlords forces to battle and beating them decisively because - 1/ we're huge, deadly barbarian fighters, 2/ our shamans conjured secret tracks and mist so we attack with surprise and 3/ the enemy are unprepared as their commanders are bickering amongst themselves" and as GM I rate that as a good argument (succeeds on a 3+ on a d6), acceptable and succeeds on 4+ or weak and only a 5+.

Each player runs through an argument each turn which might directly or indirectly contradict other peoples, the GM adjudicates clashes and moderates the results; if they conflict I look at the margin of success/error and strength of argument to say who "won" and how much it hurt either side etc  (A attacks B who stands and fights, both have reasonable arguments, if both fail on the dice it's a bloody but indecisive clash, two armies grinding away getting nowhere, if one wins and the other fails it's a big win going how the thrust of their arguments went, if both made the dice roll it's down to who made it by the most and they'll get better results etc).

Anyway, the actual game -

It's the "big picture" of the particular region & period of my persistent campaign world, set fairly early on in it's overall time line and is a pseudo Fall of the West/Arthurian setting with actual magic and monsters, where the players have been the warband of Uther of Gwent, Lord of the the Tanneries and have risen to be Arthur/Merlin/their particular Kings "go to blokes" for when extreme violence and magic is needed. The party proper are off in Hecates Shadowlands and the "on map" action is happening in the meantime.

They're playing a variety of the NPCs they've interacted with, and others from the background that were doing stuff that they haven't really seen; usually they were supposed to be major carriers of plot but the PCs avoid that like the plague There's two huge hairy barbarian warlords (Ael,their high chieftain, Roland whose the most noble Paladin of their Dismembered God, three successor warlords (Volus - actual warlord, his seeress co-leader Nimue, and Goethe, a mage-smith from the capitol leading the reinforcements) and a neutral faction of Duer (Dwarves, from Duerheim, led by Marduk) looking to bite off as much land, profit and trade as they can.

Everything ticked along quite slowly to start with just shows of strength and securing of borders initially (mainly around Aelsford, the Successor statelets main base and best crossing place of the Glevum - named for the barbarian leader when the PCs stopped his swift assault a few years back!), with the Duer making some shady deals back and forth and spreading across the successors river lands in search of trade and profit. The Barbarians then started a push across the north and down to the other major river, very slow going as all their supplies started to dry up - Volus had cut a deal with Marduk that his traders would fleece the barbarians and cut the economic legs from under them by selling them trinkets and booze etc at hugely inflated prices! Ael was pushing east towards the Duer trade fort, whilst Goethe went a bit off message and started building his own fiefdom nearby whilst giving Nimue (who already though he was a dodger!) assurances that he'd turn up for the big fight, for sure. AND be on their side, of course, why do you ask?

The "big clash" came suddenly - somehow so surreptitiously that even the GM didn't realise, the warlords had positioned themselves to catch Ael's barbarians in a trap - with Roland tied down opening the northwest passage, they'd carefully drawn Ael south and with a serious of lightning thrusts pinned him down, assaulted him at four to one odds and butchered him. At least, they would have, if a great flood down the rivers hadn't sent the Duergar right back like flotsam and jetsam, nearly drowned Nimue (and did drown most of her troops!), and cut Volus off from his base and supplies, allowing Ael (who had been consolidating, not retreating!) to catch Volus' force on it's own and unsupported (dodgy deals all round, and Goethe risking exposure as an agent of the evil powers to use his magics to cause the flood in an attempt to devastate as many factions as possible at the same time).

Fortunately for Volus, Goethe came to his "aid" (actually attempting to extend his malign influence to get into Aels base first and nick all his stuff!) and what looked like a rout nearly turned into a trap, but Roland used a really good set of arguments (including his staunch, unwavering opposition and great powers of fighting evil as a Paladin) to force march back cross the roads and trails he'd just finished and fall like the hammer of the sun against the smith and his followers. The smith countered with his fearsome powers to terrify Roland and his forces, which was a bad call as they simply took that as proof of Goethes obviously evil nature, got EXTRA FURIOUS at him and got stuck into some serious smiting.

This allowed Ael to rally and drive into Volus' forces before his soggy and half drowned allies could stagger up across the ford and causeway to him. To try and prevent a rout and buy time Volus stepped forward and challenged the huge warlord to single combat. Mighty was the fight between the two great warriors and many blows they struck in the bright flashing blood, but might proved right and Ael smote Volus with a cleaving leap and split him in twain across the causeway setting his army to panicked flight, pursued like the fox by the baying barbarian hounds.

And there we left it for next week - I was only going to run one week, but they all clamoured for more Which is quite good, as we should have more players next week and I can slip in some more factions in the area that aren't yet represented! So that it can go even wronger for everyone

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Sabre Squadron (well, bits of it)
2) What armies were confronted? - BAOR vs Warsaw pact
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - no, but no major issues
4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - Yes
5) How many players were in the game? - 1 - me

This was actually a 'proof of concept' game with unpainted 3mm minis & makeshift terrain, just to see if it would work with such small minis. The idea is to have a completely portable but complete wargame contained in a small enough box, including terrain (well, barring a cloth).

That much worked fine, barring being a bit fiddly (not too bad as the minis were all mounted on 1p coins), and stuff not moving much - it doesn't feel very dynamic when you scale down movement. Biggest issue was getting a decent ToE with balanced forces that worked on a small battlefield (3'x3') Sabre Squadron has Warsaw pact force lists, but no NATO yet, and don't really know what numbers are appropriate (I have the right minis, but have to figure out how to group 'em). I have to decide on movement/range scaling for the next run.

Wolf, I've let the author know...

Not being a modern war gamer that lot was just gibberish to me. And boar was spelt wrongly.

Did the fantasy committee game write up make more sense, Leman

Absolutely no chance. I'm not yet away with the faeries.

Quote from: mad lemmey on 27 October 2016, 12:28:03 PM
Wolf, I've let the author know...

Oh, they're working on the NATO lists, apparently. The forum has people discussing the British lists, but I can't see the actual lists anywhere...

Quote from: Wulf on 27 October 2016, 03:29:39 PM
Oh, they're working on the NATO lists, apparently. The forum has people discussing the British lists, but I can't see the actual lists anywhere...

That's a pretty sad state of affairs in that BAOR was the forefront of the forces in the 'cold war' as its so cutely phrased.

Quote from: Wulf on 27 October 2016, 10:57:18 AM
1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Sabre Squadron (well, bits of it)
2) What armies were confronted? - BAOR vs Warsaw pact
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - no, but no major issues
4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - Yes
5) How many players were in the game? - 1 - me

This was actually a 'proof of concept' game with unpainted 3mm minis & makeshift terrain, just to see if it would work with such small minis. The idea is to have a completely portable but complete wargame contained in a small enough box, including terrain (well, barring a cloth).

That much worked fine, barring being a bit fiddly (not too bad as the minis were all mounted on 1p coins), and stuff not moving much - it doesn't feel very dynamic when you scale down movement. Biggest issue was getting a decent ToE with balanced forces that worked on a small battlefield (3'x3') Sabre Squadron has Warsaw pact force lists, but no NATO yet, and don't really know what numbers are appropriate (I have the right minis, but have to figure out how to group 'em). I have to decide on movement/range scaling for the next run.

I'm glad it worked on the smaller table. Did you half everything? The NATO supplement is close to completion - currently in proof-reading and correcting with an aim to open it for advance order next week (hopefully).

N

Boar is still spelt wrongly, and you'll find the lists just outside the city wall, where the knights are practising for the joust.

Quote from: Gennorm on 27 October 2016, 04:21:05 PM
I'm glad it worked on the smaller table. Did you half everything? The NATO supplement is close to completion - currently in proof-reading and correcting with an aim to open it for advance order next week (hopefully).

I did half all distances but... meh... it felt very static. My point was not to produce a small footprint game, but a highly portable one, so I may just go with 1"=2cm as I have with Chain of Command in 10mm.

Nice to hear NATO is closing in.

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Star Wars:Armada
2) What armies were confronted? - Imperial vs Rebels
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - yes
4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - third for me, first for my opponent.
5) How many players were in the game? - 2

Too many eggs in one basket for the Imperials. Lost all three ships to close range Rebel scrapping. Tools down one corvette and all the rebel fighters. Note to self, Imperials are not built to mix it at point blank range!

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? Star Wars: Edge of Empire + Age of Rebellion

2) What armies were confronted? Imperial Droids vs Rebels (and the party fighting for survival and a quick profit)

3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? Yes, we're getting better (and quicker) at reading the dice auguries and moving the narrative on accordingly

4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? No, although it's been a year or two

5) How many players were in the game? 5 (not necessarily the same 5 as previously though)


Episode 5:

Scene 5.01
As the smoke dissipates the crew wearily sag onto the bunk beds and Joval begins administering first aid, using several of the emergency medical kits. The marines pull themselves together – there are about 40 of them, two officers Lieutenant Juan and Lieutenant Tu step forward and thank Joval for the rescue and ask what the plan is.

It is quickly agreed that the marines should split into two groups, Lieutenant Juan to storm the Analysis Deck (securing the datahub and freeing the intelligence Staff) whilst Lieutenant Tu takes Secondary Communications. At which point they will combine and retake the Bridge.

In the meantime our heroes will race to the far end of the ship and secure the Aft Hangar Bay and Engineering.

As this discussion ends, the ship-wide PA system crackles into life with the deadpan tones of a droid "Primary objective complete, time to event horizon 30 minutes. Prepare departure shuttle."

The marines race for their objectives, the crew stuff a couple of duffel bags with spare blasters and decide that the quickest route to the Aft Hangar bay is to take a shuttle from the Forward Hangar Bay – there is no time to fight down the long, long connecting corridor on foot.

They head to the lifts

Scene 5.02
As Matwe leads the crew into the Forward hangar Bay, Chief Moheed steps forward "Whaddya you want now?", clearly unhappy to find Matwe in his hangar but Joval calms him down and presents him with a duffel bag of blasters to "help secure the area", this does the trick and once the Chief realises they want to take a shuttle to the aft bay he quickly gets his crew to prep a shuttle, even offering an X-Wing escort.

It takes a frustrating 5 minutes to prep the shuttle (outside the force field the black hole looms closer, and closer), it will take longer for the X-wing. Matwe decides they can't wait and they leave immediately – the X-wing can catch up.

Matwe takes the pilot's seat, CH-01 takes gunnery, Joval takes the engineer console while Tray'essek stands at the doorway, ready for a quick exit. As they leave, the Chief can be heard shouting "Remember there's no hyperdrive . . ."


Scene 5.03
The shuttle hurtles along the underside of the nebula B's boom, twisting and dodging as Blaster Cannons try and target it. Matwe screams round the sensor ring straight in to the Aft Hangar Bay at not inconsiderable speed just about pulling the shuttle up inside the force field.

 
Scene 5.04
The Hangar bay is neat and orderly, ranged alongside each side are about 8 small shuttle craft, in the centre are two rows of kappa Shuttles  - six in all. Off to the far left is a Control room, Matwe's tug sits near it. To the far right is a temporary walled compound occupied by what are clearly prisoners, in front of that are the 3 remaining droid pods. Between these areas is the principle entrance ramp to the bay.

One of the Kappa's is being prepped (second on the left) by several droids, elsewhere there is another group of protocol droids, a couple of astro-droids and loader droids. Walking down the ramp heading for the Kappa is a large droid of unusual configuration, accompanied by two organics (whether captured crew or conspirators, is unclear).

As Matwe's shuttle shudders to a halt, time seems to stop – or maybe that's the effect of the black hole. CH-01 barks, target lock and hits the fire button – the Kappa being prepped erupts into a huge cloud of debris as smoke fills the hangar bay, Tray'essek hurls himself from the door, despite the shuttle still being several metres above ground. Matwe slips out of the pilot's seat – "Joval take over, just keep the guns lined up" and follows Tray'essek, Joval slides into the pilot's seat just as the nose begins to drop and tilt to the right.

Tray'essek dashes into the cover of the first Kappa to the left, followed by Matwe. Joval side slips the shuttle to the right and peers into the debris cloud – it looks like most of the protocol droids and the two astro-droids are out of action. Ch-01 spots another group of protocols moving towards the prisoner compound and hits them with a blast of ship gunnery, more explosions and debris. As the smoke clears it is apparent that the compound fence is demolished, the protocols eliminated and even the pods have taken damage and powered down – there is a small amount of screaming coming from the rebel prisoners, regrettable collateral damage.

Tray'essek advances to his left, spotting two loader droids in the wreckage of the kappa and 3 bodies on the floor, he identifies them as the 'super droid', Tay Coomsay and Captain Hylo Sortuli.

Matwe advances to his right and takes cover behind the right hand kappa.

CH-01 targets the 2 loaders and destroys another Kappa in the process.

Tray'essek advances into the debris field and checks the captain who appears to still be alive, she manages to whisper "save the ship" as Tray'essek plunges a stimpack into her leg. Tay Coomsay is not so fortunate, he is in several pieces and clearly quite dead. Matwe joins Tray'essek and puts another 4 blaster rounds into the 'super-droid's head, before dragging the body to the force field and ejecting it into space – the black hole is even closer now.

10 minutes on the clock.

The crew dash through the doors, stopping just long enough to dump the second bag of blasters with the surviving prisoners (14 survive of 20) and instructing them to "secure the area". They look nonplussed, "are any of you engineers?" asks Joval, a handful step forward. "Great, grab a blaster and follow us, now!"

Scene 5.05
The entrance to engineering – peering through the vision panel Ch-01 and Tray'essek can see two huge, vast, massive engines to the right and left nearly filling the entire space and extending deep into the far recess. There are doors to the right and left and a control station with terminals front and centre. The whole place is cramped and crammed with gantry walkways and ladders up, around and over the engines.

In addition there are 5 protocol and 2 astro-droids.

The crew is like a well-oiled machine now, Joval pushes the door open from the side. CH-01 shoots as the door opens (exit three protocols), Matwe curves around CH-01 and shoots another protocol.

The 5 crew engineers skulk in the corridor, looking nervous.

The surviving protocol droid returns fire, wounding CH-01, whilst one of the astro-droids moves to the control console. Tray'essek, bounds in and puts his slaver knife through the astro-droid's carapace – it shudders with a burst of static.

CH-01 shoots again and disables the second astro-droid, Tray'essek despatches the other. Matwe shoots and eliminates the final protocol. The disabled astro-droid attacks Tray'essek with an arc-welder to no effect. Joval steps forward and shoots it in the 'head'.

One of the doors contains the engineering crew and between them Joval and Chief Dwago fix the computer controls and get the engines running.

Joval punches the ship-wide PA, "Whoever's on the Bridge, we have manoeuvre thrust, get us out of here, now!"

There's a moment's silence – have the marines taken the bridge or not? The event horizon is only minutes away, no-one is really sure how many but less than five is the consensus.

Eventually the PA crackles and the voice of Lieutenant Hastings announces "We have control, the ship is ours, however a Star Destroyer has just dropped out of hyperspace, please prepare yourselves for evasive manoeuvring."

Everyone waits, the metaphorical clock ticking – then with a lurch the familiar feeling of hyperspace entry washes over them and the Shadow Raptor is away.

In engineering, Joval is fiddling with the astro-droid that Tray'essek sliced open. "Hey, guys look at this, there's some kind of strange chip in this droid – says TTC on it . . ."

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Chain of Command Campaign Game 2 & 3

2) What armies were confronted? - US and German

3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes

4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? - No, but plays very differently when you have named officers and NCO's.......

5) How many players were in the game? - solo

Game 2 saw the Krauts counter-attacking only to have their bravado shot away in rags suffering major casualties which resulted in a withdrawal back to the first defensive line. In campaign turns the Krauts retreated two successive steps on the campaign ladder which whilst seeing men injured and dispersed returning to action also handed the initaitive back to the Fighting Falcons who took advantage of the lull to be at more or less full strength for game 3

In game 3 the US were attacking an objective. They used a pre-game barrage tom severely disrupt the arrival of the enemy and a poor support option choice by the Krauts (should have taken the 82mm Mortar and spotter) handed the game to the US who executed a near perect assault on a narrow frontage with a supporting flanking attack which rolled up the enemy.

The Krauts managed to retreat in good order, but numbers are severely depleted with no signs of reinforcement.

Game 4 will see Krauts attempting a delaying action against numerically superior odds with morale beginning to crumble.