Cardstock Campaign I

Cardstock Campaign I

When I was 10, Phantom Menace was released. And with it came the d20 Star Wars starter set. Despite being confused and upset that I’d spent £20 on an advert (and £20 didn’t come easy in those days!), I really really loved playing with the counters, maps, and scenery that were included. I probably still have the map somewhere because I used it with the LOTR SBG for years!

All this to say that getting the Pathfinder Beginner’s Box made me want to recapture some of that joy. At least, the Pathfinder Pawns did. The game is too crunchy for my little old brain. Instead, I straight up sat on the floor and drew maps in sharpie on A3 paper to use with the Holmes blue book. They would be populated as I went using the wandering monster tables in said book, and each room contained d10*100 gold coins because I wanted to use my new L5R Phoenix dice!

Over two hours, I took a party of 3 through two dungeons and so this post was born as a tribute to their adventures – which will hopefully continue in my little exercise book if nowhere else!

Karrdestock

Karrdestock is a small and begrudging mining town on the road between Allesheim and Talorn. Its main claim to fame is its proximity to several semi-submerged ruins of the lost dwarven empire. Among its current denizens are three “mighty” adventurers:

Balesk (Fighting Man)

HP: 4 STR13 INT9 WIS10 CON11 DEX12 CHA10 XP: 0

Equipment: Plate, Helm, Two-handed Sword, Dagger, iron rations, steel mirror, Wine x3, sack, 26gp

Eddorn (Magic-User)

HP: 3 STR5 INT12 WIS7 CON11 DEX12 CHA12 XP: 0

Equipment: Leather armour, “spear” (staff), 6 torches, silver mirror, backpack, lantern, 10 oil flasks

Spells: Charm Person

Yadoth (Thief)

HP: 3 STR8 INT9 WIS13 CON14 DEX11 CHA12 XP: 0

Equipment: quiver of 20 arrows, longbow, dagger, 50’ rope, 12 iron spikes, large sack

 

Party entered bottom middle, ended on the stairs top middle.

Clifftop Keep

Not so much a keep as a tumble-down watchtower with pretensions of largeur, Clifftop Keep was the trio’s first mission. In the entryway, they found an ochre jelly. Luckily Eddorn had heard of such beasts and knew to kill it with fire; it was weak from hunger so he and Balesk dealt with it promptly.

Then they found a locked door that neither Balesk nor Yadoth could barge open. From behind it came a perfectly civil voice; an elf by the name of Kelial who offered them all the fine goods in his chamber if they would only let him out. With a bit of lateral thinking, the party used Balesk’s steel mirror to pour the sizzling remains of the ochre jelly onto the wood around the lock to effect Kelial’s escape.

Impressed, the elf offered to join the party a while if they would only give him a fair share of what they found. When they agreed, Kelial took them through a secret passageway to the rear of his room down a dark and dusty corridor to a second door in the deep. Behind it were three skeletons guarding a small mound of treasure. While Yadoth swiftly shot one down, Kelial and Balesk engaged the other two but were hard pressed by their unliving skill. Yadoth eventually managed to shoot a second and Balesk slew the third, but not before taking 2 damage, half killing him. When the party divided up the loot, Kelial took his 25% of the spoils in the form of one particular gem.

Balesk eventually managed to pass a Reaction roll to convince the others to take him back to town. Kelial left them on the road, uninterested in the stink of a human settlement.

When the group returned to Clifftop Keep a few days later, they discovered that five bandits had made their home in the next chamber of the ruin. Luckily, Yadoth managed to keep the group from alerting the robbers and so when they fell upon them that night, the first three were slain instantly. Failed DEX rolls woke the other two however, who were agreeably intimidated by the Reaction roll and gratefully agreed to flee with their lives. Yadoth went up the winding stair from their lair and discovered the upper chamber to be inhabited by displacer beasts, which none of the party wanted to tangle with. They retreated to Karrdestock only slightly richer for their trouble.

Party loot: 850gp

Party entered centre-left, were-rats far/top right.

Fellhanger Abbey

This despoiled ruin to the cthonic fertility goddess Ivreya was the site of the party’s next quest. Turning right at random they found a safe room, what were once traveller’s quarters. Going down the other set of stairs next, they encountered a single skeleton (swiftly dispatched by Yadoth). They had now found more gold than they had in all of Clifftop Keep.

In the main hall of the abbey the oracle determined there were 3.5 hobgoblins (2d8/2 to mimic 2d4). The three whole hobgoblins were standing over the remains of a fourth, arguing about whether he really deserved to die. When one went out on patrol, Yadoth and Balesk backstabbed him easily. When a second went looking they killed him too, but Balesk failed his DEX roll, alerting the third. Yadoth’s arrow went wide, but Balesk charged in and slew the hob after a couple of tense combat rounds.

In the next room, the party found 4 bugbears. Or rather, they heard 4 bugbears through the door as they relaxed, laughing over their minion’s death. While Yadoth & Balesk debated what to do, Eddorn simply lit an oil flask and hurled it into the small room, following it with a second when the screams didn’t die down fast enough for him.

Now stinking of smoke and burnt grease, the party moved on to the next room, which contained two bandits. The Reaction roll determined these were not the same bandits who had gratefully left the Keep – though hopefully they were part of the same band, or Karrdestock’s ore shipments are in serious trouble. Given the smells and screams, they refused to believe the party weren’t working with the monsters who’d eaten the other prisoners. While Balesk and Eddorn argued about what to do with them, Yadoth executed them both with his longbow.

Coldly checking the next door, Yadoth determined there were 10 kobolds behind it – enough to mob the party if they noticed them. Oil flasks once again made short work of the foe. But when they moved on to the next door, they realised that three were-rats – presumably the chiefs of this whole affair – were lurking beyond it, and decided to cut their losses.

Party loot: 3350gp

Karrdestock

Back in town, again without a scratch on them, the party assessed their gains. Yadoth (fittingly, given he’d done the lion’s share of the killing) levelled up and gained 2HP, making him officially tougher than Balesk the fighting man! Since it was a relatively poor town, I decided that nothing dearer than 15gp was available for purchase.

Looking at their loot and knowing that they couldn’t possibly take on the monsters they had ignored, the party congratulated themselves on a successful week and decided to quit town and head west towards the holy city of Allesheim. After all, where better to acquire the sort of magic items they would need to make their mark on history? They had no trouble securing a carriage in the next ore shipment out of town, but it wasn’t for another five days… enough time to venture into the forest and see what the Forest Fort had in store for them!

After spending some of their loot, the party now have...

Balesk (Fighting Man)

HP: 4 STR13 INT9 WIS10 CON11 DEX12 CHA10 XP: 1470

Equipment: Plate, helm, two-handed sword, sword, shield, dagger, iron rations, steel mirror, wine x3, leather backpack, lantern, 10 oil flasks, 1272gp

Eddorn (Magic-User)

HP: 3 STR5 INT12 WIS7 CON11 DEX12 CHA12 XP: 1400

Equipment: Leather armour, “spear” (staff), dagger 10 torches, silver mirror, leather backpack, lantern, 20 oil flasks, iron rations, flask 1276gp

Spells: Charm Person

Yadoth (Thief)

HP: 5 STR8 INT9 WIS13 CON14 DEX11 CHA12 XP: 1400

Equipment: Leather armour, quiver of 60 arrows, longbow, dagger, 50’ rope, 12 iron spikes, leather backpack, iron rations, flask 1255gp

 

Apart from the names of the characters and the town, all of this came up organically to answer questions posed by the shape of the maps and the results of the Wandering Monster table. I'm excited to discover what the trio learn about next!

World-building Notes

• There's a goddess called Ivreya. I figure there's tension between sky gods and earth gods, and depending on where you're from, each one's positive or negative side features more heavily.
  
• Allesheim exists. Is it dedicated to all species, all gods, or all something else?
• There's a place called Talorn. Sounds stabby, probably a keep of some kind?
• For a mining town to be near so many dungeons, the Predecessors must've liked mining and being underground... so the Dwarven Empire is the one that fell. Presumably they delved too greedily and too deep?
• The elf known as Kelial was once locked away, and is now free and in possession of a gem he values very highly (and a sword the party didn't realise was magic). What's he up to, and why?
• Two bandits fled with descriptions of the party's faces, and probably names. Will they seek revenge?
• There is still a family of were rats in Fellhanger Abbey. Yes they've lost most of their minions, but what are they up to?
• Who put displacer beasts upstairs in Clifftop Keep, and what were they guarding?
• I decided that the shield, leather armour, and sword that the party bought came as a set from Jowachí the tavern keeper, who was once a soldier. Whose sigil does Belask now carry? Who will it please and/or offend?
• The party's names aren't very Germanic. But Karrdestock is pretty Baltic; so what two cultures meet here, and will that affect the trio's reception in Allesheim?
  

The Drake of Bonemire Howe

So, I fell in love (or in froth) with 13^th Age. I was hacking the Black Hack for a more “heroic” feel, and I realised while working on it that 13^th Age was doing basically everything I was trying to do. So I bought the books and got cracking. Try 13^thAge!

The campaign is a weird one. Set up to be a low-maths catharsis for a friend in front-line healthcare, I’m using the clickbait system for setting up the world. Basically, you do as little prep as possible and discover the world alongside your players. Establish what you need to prep a session and leave the rest hanging. I amended the Icons to fit the world as we went along. By the time character generation was finished, there were nine new Icons and four waiting to be adapted. Not that the Prince of Shadows ever doesn’t apply.

Lantmor is said to be Father Dragon's slowly sinking corpse.

Welcome to Waageburg

It’s smoky, it’s grimy, it’s coastal, it’s gross. It’s a 1600s Baltic-style trading town on the edge of the Black Colonies, which are maintained by the Amarantine Empire for their valuable oil deposits. It’s ruled… it was ruled by Duke von Waage, the greatest general in the western empire. His power was such that he personally controlled nine drakes, a feat unmatched in the lands of men (1).

But the Duke is dead. His drakes fled before they could be sedated and reassigned to new masters, and so the Seneschal of Waageburg has hired bands of adventurers to hunt them down. They cannot be allowed to prey on the Black Colonies (2). They must be brought down. The imperial court in Jamaranz is too far away to promote a new Duke quickly, and in the meantime, order must be maintained.

The party unite in search of the missing drakes and immediately start looking for clues. With some great rolls to investigate, they discover that: drakes are born in the mountains; their scales are made of stone; the Duke might have been poisoned; the Duke definitely was poisoned; he was poisoned with a rage potion that gave him a lethal fit of apoplexy, rage and adrenaline; the Duke’s death infected the drakes; most of the drakes are injured from fighting in their roost atop Waageburg Keep.

Vik, our gnoll druid from the far lands to the east, got a crucial clue from a maid who was worried the drakes had been sent out against the Shorn Men: the drakes went north (3). Wojtek the Fightbear, an armoured bear, discovered that the Shorn Men were a radical separatist movement who cut their hair short in defiance of Imperial fashion and plot to take over the Black Colonies to form a separate nation.

The Voyage to Bonemire

They headed out into the wilderness, unerringly led by Akhyar Nassar, a former member of the Imperial Corps of Scouts. Seriously, he rolled so well they were in sight of the main part of the session within half an hour. Sorry random encounters!

Skollston the tiefling barbarian (a former Alferez in the Imperial army) suggested they rest for the night in the village of Muddlewood, where they discovered several members of the village had recently cut their hair and disappeared into the forest. And another party of adventurers (or Imperial Scouts) had ridden through grim-faced that day.

During the night, their rest was disturbed by a wilderfolk raid (4). Goatfaced beastmen burst into the village, slaughtering sleeping villagers and focussing on the inn where Vik and Wojtek slept by the fire. (4) Waking, the heroes fought hard against two groups of mooks, a great-axe wielding champion and a shaman. Bloodied – especially by the shaman’s battle curse – they eventually triumphed. Vik slew the champion and Akhyar blew the shaman’s head off with his arquebus (5). It was 2am by then, so bed it was. As they headed back to sleep, Vik’s second Icon die revealed itself as a distant cousin offered him a healing potion and rune for his spear.

They woke at dawn, learning that the wilderfolk had last been seen by colonists in their great-grandparents’ day. Heading out again, they rolled well again to make their way through the dark woods of the Muzzle. In fact, they found some semi-hidden paths through the woods and took them. Finally, a random encounter!

An armoured bear, sobbing and stinking in the woods, deprived of his armour. His name was Smirdant, and he was very upset that humans had stolen his armour because they said he’d broken his oaths. The party quickly agreed to help him and successfully intimidated the six men who had taken it. It turned out Smirdant had broken his agreement to be a guard when he realised they were travellers and not stationary miners.

Interrogation of the six quickly revealed they were Shorn Men, and that they had set up an HQ in Bonemire Howe. There were several hundred barrels of gunpowder there, scores of arquebuses, and a garrison of thirty men, their leader Custas, and their druid Yohn Bone-eye. It turned out one of the drakes they were chasing had landed on the Howe, and Yohn had commanded the earth to move to give the drake sanctuary. The Shorn Men were trying to make it serve them!

Smirdant proved himself to genuinely be a terrible person when Wojtek failed his Charisma check to convince the bear to join them in their fight. Despite owing the party big time for getting his armour back, he just sidled off saying he was going back to Karalistland and never coming back to human lands.

Bonemire Howe

The party took one of their Shorn Men prisoners as a guide and tied the rest up in the woods (6). He guided them not to the top of the Howe, but the main gate, which Yohn had opened to let the dragon in. Skollston lit a torch to light the way and its smoke triggered a trap! A hail of stakes came flying out of the ceiling and only Skollston failed his PD save. Of the party, at least. Their guide also lost half his HP to a stake, and Skollston took the chance to use his injury as a motivational tool… the party soon knew everything about the Howe’s layout.

It was decided that Yohn Bone-eye was the key, because only he could move the earth to let the dragon out. So he had to be eliminated. They “snuck” down towards his room in the belly of the Howe. “Snuck”. Skollston and Wojtek attracted the drake’s attention as they passed it on the stairs and took fire damage.

Then the labyrinth. This was a group skill check with two halves; finding their way through, and surviving the mind-rending geometry of this ancient place. They broadly succeeded. They found their way through and only took 1 psychic damage each.

The battle against Yohn was brutal (7). The party almost slew him in turn one, aided by Akhyar’s incredible stacking critical hit ability, but he survived long enough to call a clayguard forth from the ground. Yohn called the very clay in their bones to rebel, and everyone took serious damage. The clayguard was almost impervious to damage, and took a long time to slay, even after Yohn was slain. Vik cut his head off and put it on his spear to intimidate any survivors.

Wearily, they re-ascended. I gave them an offer: sacrifice a recovery and beat the remainder of the Shorn Men. They agreed, and didn’t have to try and stop Custas Yolvus escaping. Lucky them.

Vik wanted to talk to the drake instead of killing it. He rolled 29 in the end, and learned that while drakes have a heartfelt genetic need to be psychically bonded to a partner, it did not want to go back to being mentally dominated as it was under the Duke’s command. A slight swamp of moral quandary briefly enveloped the party before Akhyar once again led them past my random encounters and back to Waageburg.

Session Conclusion

There the seneschal refused to pay them properly for the dragon, since while it was contained, it wasn’t exactly returned dead or alive to Waageburg. However, the party were rewarded for their slaughter of various Shorn Men and the noted renegade Yohn Bone-Eye. The party wanted to keep Bonemire Howe for themselves, but the Seneschal derisively denied them a huge prehistoric fort and a drake because they were four randoms who had just come together that morning.

Real life intervened and the session ended right on schedule, 3.5 hours after it started. The campaign to discover where the Duke’s drakes went shall continue. Especially since the players want to try and bond with drakes themselves. DC35… Pre-requisites not yet established!

Campaign Notes

• The wilderfolk have returned to attack human lands after three generations of peace.
• Drakes are born of the mountains and return there half on auto.
• The Shorn Men are a real and growing force in the Black Colonies, and they are well-armed.
• Custas Yolvus escaped from Bonemire and may now have a grudge against the characters. (I mean, he definitely does – they killed his druid!)
• Drakes want to be bonded, but they don’t want to be dominated.
• Four of the nine drakes are now accounted for; one is trapped in Bonemire Howe, and three others were slain by other parties of adventurers (d3 roll).

Addenda

(1) The Cid caste of the Amarantine Empire are founded on the notion that they are dragonblooded, and thus the only people in the world who can bind drakes to their will. The great warriors of the empire control one or more drakes each. Mechanically, they can dominate 1 drake per level.

(2) A drake is like a warplane; expensive, ultimately expendable, and not to be left in the wrong hands.

(3) This was the info his Icon die (Ashen Empress) won him.

(4) I used goblin and orc stats to represent different sizes of beastfolk in classic GW style.

(5) Arquebus: A home-brewed weapon. D10 damage, reload requires a move and a quick action consecutively.

(6) When they got back to Waageburg they realised they had forgotten the other nationalists that they’d tied up in the woods. No-one seemed too bothered.

(7) Yohn was a Derro Sage, and the clayguard was a Derro Maniac. I reskinned all abilities to be earth-based. This was two level 4 monsters vs one party of four level one characters… they survived – without the Escalation Die! That’s on me.

Battle of Benjamin Bridge

With its release just a cover design away, I decided to play a game of Tree of Liberty with a friend after our Sunday lunch last week. The game is specifically designed for the mid-range battles of the American War of Independence, so we quickly threw some terrain on a 4'x4' table and dug out some units

British Order of Battle

General Brassick: Status 2

Brigader Suttle: Status 3

Muttoncuffs, 5 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 4

Fusiliers, 6 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 5

Canadian Highland Volunteers, 9 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 3

Queen's Rangers, 6 bases: Regulars, muskets, Cohesion 3

Hessian Jagers, 4 bases: Regulars, muskets, light infantry, Cohesion 4

Dragoons, 6 bases: Regulars, cavalry, colonel, Cohesion 3

Command Initiative: 4 dice, 9 orders

Breakpoint: 17 bases

American Order of Battle

Brigadier-General Horeson: Status 3

Brigadier Grimley: Status 3

3^rd Maryland, 10 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 3

1^st New Yorkers, 10 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 3

9^th Connecticut, 10 bases: Regulars, muskets, colonel, Cohesion 4

Riflemen, 12 bases: Irregulars, rifles, Cohesion 3

Benjamin's Hollow Militia, 3 bases: Militia, muskets, Cohesion 2

Command Initiative: 4 dice, 9 orders

Breakpoint: 15 bases

The Game

Both armies were divided by the Sackahominy River, only crossable at the rickety Benjamin's Bridge. Defending both sides of the road, the Patriots lined the fences and waited for the British to advance; which they did in short order.

The Canadians were slow enough to ruin any chance of success on their flank. Their reluctance to get to handstrokes meant that despite their stellar success breaking three units of Americans with fire and bayonet, the Muttoncuffs were abandoned in a cauldron of musketry and eventually annihilated in a counter-charge. The Canucks eventually made it almost the whole way to the bridge before being similarly surrounded and shot to pieces. Brigadier Suttle was the only British piece remaining on the left bank of the Sackahominy by the time the game ended.

In part, that was due to General Brassick destroying his army's command and control by sacrificing himself in a successful charge alongside the Fusiliers on the other side of the river. After a few sharp exchanges of fire with the Patriots in the hills and woods opposite, they routed New Yorkers off the road fences, but like the Muttoncuffs were caught without support and squashed flat.

On the British right flank, the skirmishing Rangers and Jagers were quickly bogged down in ineffectual firefights against Connecticut line infantry and swarms of riflemen. By the time the Dragoons moved up in support, any attempt to charge the American lines would have been a waste.

The battered British right withdrew having watched everyone to their left flee the field in poor condition. No Loyalists would be passing by Benjamin's Bridge any time soon...

The Fusiliers exchange fire with continental infantry.

The Muttonchops crest the hill and take a volley.

The lane fills with powdersmoke and bullets.

The rest of the Patriot flank opens fire, ineffectively.

With zeal and bayonets, the Muttoncuffs charge home!

The die roll that sealed the Fusiliers' fate!

The Canadian Highlanders stand firm until the last.

Butcher's Bill

British: Almost 900 casualties; Americans about 600

Man of the Match

The Fusiliers provided two perfect lessons in how to conduct a bayonet charge, both giving and receiving perfect set-piece shock attacks preceded by heavy musketry. For their foreshadowing of Pickett's charge, I name them the Men of the Match.

After-Thoughts

The British were attacking against greater numbers, and trusted too much to their superior quality – which wasn't actually much greater overall, despite the presence of the Fusiliers and Muttoncuffs. Their arrogance met with an almost Hollywood end – riflemen in the woods and Continentals at the fences shooting down men who stayed shoulder-to-shoulder far too much. It is telling, I think, that all the bases lost to shooting were lost from units in Ordered Line, and none from those who took just as much fire but were in Open Order. Good units caught alone were crumpled and I often regretted a lack of second and third lines – it all felt very historically accurate!

Ben enjoyed the game, which since it was his first for years and years was very gratifying. It is interesting that while another playtester called it really fun “micro-management”, Ben said it was “kind of abstract and simplified” but really fun – it just goes to show how different two people can find the same game while still enjoying it! Tree of Liberty should hopefully be available for purchase from the Wargame Vault in the next few weeks as the next installment in the Tactical Two Pager series.

2015 Round-Up

Well that was a long and occasionally difficult year. Returning to full-time, non-hobby work; moving in with my lovely girlfriend; a bout of injury and another of illness. Exhaustion about covers it, frankly.

Because of that, I have written very little this year, whether on this blog, for magazines or completed games. I have gamed at least semi-regularly though, and can only thank the players who have put up with my snoozy attempts at tactics. Over these twelve months however, it turns out I have done a lot more work on models and terrain than I realised. Hurrah for Netflix and its continuous play function!

Using my usual 15mm equivalents, I ended up finishing 1480 infantry, 88 cavalry, 2 guns, 67 vehicles, 16 jump-off points, and 217 terrain pieces. Most productive year on record! Of course with them being a series of small projects that could be completed before my patience and energy collapsed, they haven't added up to as many game-able additions to my collection as you might have expected. A little Post-Apocalypse or sci-fi Foreign Legion here, some more Dark Ages there, an extra bit of ACW, AWI or Bush Wars there - even some modern civilians and soldiers for Fighting Season, which I hope to playtest properly in the New Year.

Genuine and total thanks to everyone who I know through the hobby who has kept playing with, chatting to, following and inspiring me. I have been silently appreciative this whole time, and it does mean a lot. Season's greetings to you all, and the best of wishes for 2016.

Coming up Next: Hopefully a lot more games on the blog as I try to carve more playtesting time for a few upcoming titles, both Tactical Two Pagers and more traditionally sized rules. In the painting queue are Communists for modern Africa, a Battle of the Marne project, a whole extra bag of post-apocalyptic miniatures, a Clone army for Star Wars, and air support for my Rebel, Imperial, Clone and not-Tau armies. Terrain-wise, I hope to add to my space terrain, and the ruined city I am slowly putting together for sci-fi/Frostgrave/Post-Apocalypse/maybe-WW2.

A Snowy Scramble

Scenario

Both the cultic Czernovoyksa and the idealistic Rangers have come to an abandoned intersection in search of loot – bullets, tinned goods, fuel, batteries, anything that will soften the hardship of life after the Fall. Without satellite support, they do not know that the woods are crawling with rad-spiders, or that some aggressive locals have expanded their network of fortified farms toward the roadways.

The table before the models showed up.

Forces

Rangers: Kane, Pointman, Thumper – Quality 4 Lone Wolves; 3x3 Rangers – Quality 4 Squads

Czernovoyka: Strelok, Blazheny, Posvyashchat – Quality 4 Lone Wolves; 3x3 Upyr – Quality 4 Squads

Kane technically had the Inspiration Leader trait, but I forgot to use it. Thumper had Lethal, but missed every shot. Strelok and Pointman both had Shadow, making them effectively invulnerable to long range fire.

The Game

Both sides entered the board from near the road. Pointman and the Rangers with assault rifles quickly seized a hill to use as a base of fire. The Voyska spread out to search the nearest woods and building, while Blazheny led a fireteam to the crumpled cars at the intersection. They struck gold immediately, but came under punishing fire from the hill. All three Upyr perished before Blazheny could duck back out of sight with the case and then unceremoniously flee for his life (1 VP).

The Upyr in the woods disturbed the rad spiders almost immediately, and it took several turns of desperate AK74 and RPG fire to silence the chittering monstrosities. At that point Posvyashchat (the first to fall) and one other were dead. The survivors made their way to a wrecked car and did find a Loot marker, before Kane and his colleagues took them out.

Slowed by the ubiquitous wire fences, the lead Ranger team took a while to reach the woods, but once there managed to silence the Upyr opposite before waking the spiders. While in desperate hand-to-hand, the Upyr in the abandoned building savaged them with RPGs and rifle-fire, adding to their woes. Eventually one man was dead and two more injured. When they finally escaped, they at least had the satisfaction of knowing that their struggle had not been in vain (2VP).

The men – if they were still men – in that abandoned house had struggled to get in past the boards and corrugated iron in the windows, but once upstairs quickly found a Loot marker. Their RPG gunner was hit by a lucky round, and their retreat with the goods was slow (1VP). Strelok, also wounded in the final seconds of the battle, stumbled across more goods by sheer chance in the dark downstairs (4VP). It really was luck – I forgot I'd even placed the marker there, and wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't lifted the first floor to allow for his injured slowness.

First across the motorway, the rangers who reached the farm found a Loot marker easily enough, but were chased away by locals when their gunfire (vs the Upyr) awakened them. Hopping back over the fence, their skill (Q4 to Q1) was enough to save them from serious harm and spell the doom of the four foolish farmers who had fired on them. It was one of these men who shot the RPG gunner before heading away down the road (4VP).

A discreditable mention goes to Thumper, the Ranger sniper who was very calm and professional in his sneaky approach to the Voyska stronghold, up until it counted. He missed a shot – with scoped rifle! – at close range and was unceremoniously finished off by Blazheny's SMG.

The Rangers advance and spread out.

The Czernovoyska stick a little closer together.

Rad-spiders surround their prey!

Ranger firepower forces them to hunker down in the road.

Final Tally

Czernovoyska: 6 Victory points from 3 Loot markers, -8 from casualties (7 dead, 2 wounded). Total -2VP

Rangers: 6 Victory points from 2 Loot markers, -5 from casualties (3 dead, 4 wounded). Total +1VP

NARROW RANGER VICTORY

Man of the Match: Strelok, the Czerno' sniper, who pinned down the Ranger base of fire very effectively and caused most of the Ranger's casualties and Fear markers. His Shadow ability means that any successful hit from within cover at Long range adds 2 Fear instead of 1, so he is ideally suited to trapping the enemy in place.

Ranger fire support group takes its position.

Captain Kane and his team advance. Loot found in background.

Metkiy'Strelok takes aim at distant foes...

...while a much closer one sneaks up on him.

Thoughts

Once again, THREAT ran smoothly, even with a three-sided game (Czernovoyska, Rangers, Nuisances). The number of times where spraying ammo wildly led to an awkward need to reload seemed about right, as did the times when men froze up in Fear. The Rangers, bless them, actually had three turns where their entire force was Frozen due to poor rolls at the start of the turn. That said, I forgot to use "blips" and Kane's special rule, so maybe it ran quickly because I wasn't paying attention! It was still fun enough to play merry havoc with my picture-taking, so there's that. Adding Wits checks to navigate obstacles added a pleasant uncertainty to difficult terrain.

Hopefully I will get the mental space to touch up the rules soon, but I accidentally wrote the bones of a new set of space opera skirmish rules during my lunch break on Thursday, so I may end up getting distracted again...

A Desert T.H.R.E.A.T.

A band of fearless law officers have pursued a gang of merciless thieves to this desolate outpost in the Bone Counties (called the Home Counties before the Fall). Little do they know that these vicious “scavengers” have managed to reactivate a Fallen artifact – a battle tank!

Whitecliff City Law Officers

Captain Ana Kane, Quality 4 Lone Wolf

Two Light Support Vehicles with machine guns, Quality 4 Vehicles

2x 3 Officers, Quality 3 Squads

Bone County Burglars

5 Lone Wolves: Colonel Slaughter, Lucy Thorn, Wolf Arson, Jackson Claw and Madjack “Crazy” Loon, Q3.

13 goons in three Gangs (4, 4, 5), Quality 2.

Fallen battle tank, Q2

Victory Conditions

1pt per dead Law Officer

3pts per Law vehicle destroyed

1pt per scavenger gang dispersed or Lone Wolf killed

2pts per scavenger Lone Wolf seized in CQB

10pts if Fallen tank seized in CQB

Recon Phase & Deployment

The scouting duel ended up giving both sides a sort of “chevron” for their deployment zones. Captain Kane stayed with one of her patrols, and the scavenger heroes also bolstered their gangs – except the Colonel and Madjack. With blips and vehicles deployed, it was time to play!

Infantry are just blips on the radar until they're spotted.

The Game

Yells sounded across the rockfield as the first law officers were spotted. The LSVs roared to life and chugged forward as scavengers – or civilians – ran here and there. The first exchange of fire saw two scavvies go down,

As the two sides began to advance in earnest, the LSVs showed their worth, scything through scavvies with their heavy machine guns – but they couldn't kill Lucy Thorn! With blood on her teeth she laughed as her men died around her, and limped away into the desert. Return fire from heavy rifles in the fort immobilised one of them too. And at the far end of the field, an ominous rumble spurted into life...

An LSV assaults on the Law's left flank.

Lucy Thorn's lucky escape.

The tank appears at the end of the highway.

Accurate rifle fire forced the crew of the immobilised LSV to bail out, halving the patrol's heavy firepower in one fell swoop. Lucky for them – the awakened battle tank's main gun blew it up not ten seconds later. Captain Kane and the other LSV caught Wolf Arson and his men in a deadly crossfire and sent them all to Kingdom Gone.

The first LSV takes a main gun shell straight on.

Jackson Claw and his men fled their little fort, leaving Colonel Slaughter to rage impotently behind them. The surviving LSV dashed into cover, while Captain Kane plotted her next move. The gang they had been sent to catch were dispersed – but now there was a tank to deal with – a tank which had just blown up her second LSV! Things were desperate now. Her patrol was stranded in the Bone Counties with no transport home, and a clearly lethal Fallen artifact in the hands of villains. It was time for an all-or-nothing attempt to seize the tank!

Her decision to be heroic was interrupted by the frothing appearance of Madjack “Crazy” Loon, swinging a serrated knife in her face! Forgotten in the horror of the tank's appearance, this melty-faced madman had been psyching himself up watching his friends die, and was determined to wreak revenge! Although the Captain injured him with her nightstick, he still gutted two officers in the time it takes to draw breath!

Although outnumbered, Madjack is VERY dangerous!

Noticing that Jackson and his men were loitering behind him at the foot of the wall, Colonel Slaughter ran down with his trusty dog to scare them into shape. The tank trundled towards Captain Kane as she and Madjack continued their deadly dance of death. Neither of them could get the upper hand until Kane's surviving bodyguard came up behind him and broke his neck. No arrest was worth the lives of two officers, not out here.

Kane and her bloody-visored officer looked at each other, at the bodies of their comrades, at each other once again, and charged the tank.

We are the Law!

 

The captain leapt up the titan's armour, ignoring the scream behind her. She unlocked the turret hatch and threw her whole grenade pouch inside. A shot from her peacefinder pistol, a jump to cover, and a super-heated whoosh! blew up through the air behind her. The tank was neutralised.

Things went back to SOP after that. The delta team came in from the right and supported Kane's peacefinder volleys against Colonel Slaughter's counter-attack. Jackson Claw and several known associates perished in a hail of bolts, and Colonel Slaughter fled into the wastes to avoid lawful custody. All that remained was to wait in the hot sun for a helicopter to come and collect the four surviving law officers, and hope that this wouldn't look too bad in her report...

Final Tally

Law Officers: 15 Victory Points. Casualties: six law officers, two Light Support Vehicles.

Scavengers: 9 Victory Points. Casualties: 13 scum, Jackson Claw, Wolf Arson and Madjack “Crazy” Loon (or is he really dead..?). Escapees: Colonel Slaughter and Lucy Thorn.

Man of the Match: Fallen Artifact Battle Tank. It killed two LSVs and a law officer with three shots, and scared the hell out of the Law until Captain Kane took it out with a heroic assault on the hatch.

After-Thoughts

Once again, T.H.R.E.A.T. played very smoothly. It was the first playtest of the recon phase, which went very well (I think!) and gave a slightly less than conventional deployment zone, which is what it was designed for. The Law's softskins went up in flames before the Fallen tank's B.F.G., which was also appropriate (if gutting). Madjack's monstrously high Vitality, which turned far too many kills into injury over the course of the game, made him quite the serial-killer scaremonger. The great white hunter Colonel Slaughter rolled nothing but 1s all game, so clearly he has an ironic title!