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...

Helo Chase - Weird Modern Dust Up

In a first proper playtest of my new T.H.R.E.A.T.* rules for post-apocalypse and weird modern gaming, the disciples of the dark gods known as the Cziernovoyska came up against the professional scavengers the world calls the Yellowcakers. The Cziernovoyska are better trained and more numerous – but the Yellowcakers came with Jack and Jean, their machine-gun toting MRAPs. In the fight to secure the mysterious contents of a crashed helicopter, who will win out? Sorry about the pictures, I got a bit too caught up in the game to keep taking them methodically.

* If anyone has a good backronym, please post it in the comments! 

Cziernovoyska/Dark Force

3x 3 Upyr (Squads) with assault rifles or special weapons

Metkiy'Strelok, Lone Wolf sniper

Blazheny, Lone Wolf commander

Posvyashchat, Lone Wolf second in command

Yellowcakers

Captain Reathe, Sergeant Smojke, Ukufa, Qishi & Burne – Lone Wolf characters

Jack and Jean – vehicles

The Dark Force left, with Strelok the sniper in the road.

The right - Blazheny & his team, and the SMAW on the wing.

Main Yellowcaker advance, hooded Qishi in foreground.

Jack the MRAP "sneaking" up the flank...

The game started with cautious advances by both sides. The cream-coloured Jean went on Overwatch, aiming down the road with the GPMG installed up top. The first shot was taken by the Dark Force fireteam with a shoulder-mounted AT, firing at Jack, who was trundling through the woods. The missile sailed past, but unnerved the gunner enough for all his shots to go wide.

The SMAW misses, but barely.

As the sound of gunfire tore through the woods, both sides began advancing in earnest. Qishi, the Yellowcakers' resident mystic, began marshalling his powers for the fight ahead. The SMAW fired again, barely missing Jack and sending the driver into conniptions. Jean opened fire on the sniper who had aimed at Ukufa with her GPMG, and severely injured him, riddling him and the rusty wreck he was using as cover with holes. Jack opened up with his .50 cal, injuring one Upyr and blasting the head clean off another.

Posvyashchat leads his men forward as Strelok bleeds.

A new turn started with Strelok the sniper Frozen in pain. As the firing sounded out once more through the forest, Posvyashchat's team missed Jean with their RPG and took two casualties for their pains. The SMAW gunner finally got his round on target, blowing off Jack's front right wheel and shredding the rear tyre. It was not enough to save them from the Browning's revenge.

Blazheny's bodyguards moved up through the woods to cover his advance on the helicopter. Seeing them, Captain Reathe moved back – so they opened fire on Ukufa instead, emptying their clips at him with fierce abandon. The brave South African slumped dead in the treeline, the Yellowcakers' first casualty of the battle. From his position at the crossroads, Sergeant Smojke opened up at the RPG team with his sub-machine-gun, injuring the gunner with a full clip. This was apparently not a battle for fire control. When Posvyashchat fired back and hit him in the chest, the Dutchman just bared his bloody teeth in a barbaric snarl.

The table, mid game. Lots of wound and ammo markers.

As his men reloaded, Blazheny approached the helicopter's wreckage. Qishi finally got his Oriental sorcery under control, and flooded the minds of Posvyashchat and his injured gunner with primal terror. They would no longer be a threat to his comrades. Even as he did so, Burne – trusting more to steel than sorcery – crept around the rusted out truck to open up on them with his trusty Sterling. Still holding the crossroads, Smojke laughed manically as Strelok sent a bullet crashing through his ribs. By pure chance his return fire caught the Russian killer just above his eye socket, killing him too. Jean's gunner cursed the fact that his guntruck was boxed in by walls and wrecks.

At the end of the fourth turn, Blazheny was in a difficult position. Six of his men were dead and two had fled, leaving just him and his four bodyguards to claim the helicopter's riches for Cthulhu. The Yellowcakers had lost Ukufa and Jack's mobility, but the survivors were closing in (except Smojke, who was too injured to move). Luckily for him, the fifth turn started with Smojke and Jack Frozen and unable to act, cutting down the odds considerably. For his first activation, he used There's No Time!, rushing his investigation to (hopefully) get away faster. The dark gods were smiling on him as his gambit paid off – he found the suitcase that so many of his men had died to protect.

Hearing his savage shout of triumph, the surviving Yellowcakers surged forward, desperate for Ukufa's sacrifice to not be in vain. He emptied his clip at Burne, winging the young Irishman, only for the favour to be returned in brutal style. The suitcase dropped from his limp fingers as a hail of bullets severed his spinal cord. Reathe fired his hand cannon from the woods, felling one of his bodyguards. In the luckiest event in a day of lucky happenings, the return fire from the Cziernovoyska's machine gun got wedged in his armour, his cigarette case, his beret, even his Bible – but nowhere in his flesh.

At the start of the next turn, Qishi proved his worth in grand style. The bodyguards were retreating with the suitcase when he unleashed a psychic assault of terrible power, stopping both their hearts dead in their chests. They fell down, and the suitcase was Reathe's...

Butcher's Bill

Cziernovoyska: Everyone except Posvyashchat and his RPG gunner. Looks like he'll be the new Blazheny if he survives his superiors' displeasure...

Yellocakers: Ukufa dead, Sergeant Smojke severely injured (one point away from death), Jack badly damaged.

Man of the Match

Despite his lame showing in the first few turns, Qishi and his psychic powers were a real game winner. Honorable runner-ups are Blazheny and Smojke for their fearless attempts to further their missions.

Overview

The game ran smoothly and quickly, which is the main thing I wanted. I may have to tweak the initiative system however – granted, I rolled high all through the game, but the accumulation of Fear markers slowed very few people down at all, except in the literal sense of their movement. Since the game is based on survival horror video games as much as post-apocalyptic or weird horror movies, I wanted to give Fear a central role in the mechanics, along with rules for ammo shortages &c. It's a pulpy game, but lethal – no human tanks here, just good old-fashioned gritting of teeth and bullet fragments.

As a first outing for the post-apocalyptic scenery and miniatures I've been working on recently, it was good fun. I look forward to honing the rules over the next few months, as well as finishing other gangs of scavengers, veterans, police and mad cultists. Since I'm starting a new job soon, who knows – I may even add in a Reaper Bones Cthulhu at some point...

Quite proud of these, despite the poor calligraphy.

FUBAR the First

It's been a month and more of painting and terrain-making, so sorry for the lack of posts. But rivers and palm trees and Space Marines and Saxons and Ruritanians and Vietcong and marshes and ANZACs and fake Imperial Guard and Jacobites and more Boer War stuff have all been joining my little tin family, so I hope you can forgive me.

In today's first ever FUBAR game, Bishop (Second Class) Octavian and his clerics face off against the murderous Vryheid Totenkorps – villains so deadly that they don't even let their painters finish them before they hit the table!

Clerics

Bishop Octavian – Elite, 5+ Armour, Assault Rifle

Fire Team One – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Two – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Three – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Four – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 2xAssault Rifles, LMG

Vryheid Totenkorps

Fire Team Alpha – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 4x Assault Rifles

Fire Team Beta – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, RPG

Fire Team Gamma – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, RPG

Fire Team Delta – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, LMG

Fire Team Epsilon – Veteran, 5+ Armour, 3x Assault Rifles, LMG

Here at the hamlet of Mortimer's Croft, the two sides come into contact. The Totenkorps are looking for death and mayhem, the Clerics to defend the civilians (who have already fled).

Totenkorps behind the fields, Clerics in the jungle.

Seizing the initiative, the clerics began their move forwards.

Clerics take their first building.

Nonplussed by their fellows' swift advance, several Cleric teams refused to budge, staying on guard for any Totenkorps trickery. Unsupported, the Clerics in the village take fire. Outraged, Octavian urged his men forward, laying effective fire down on the Vryheid left flank.

Octavian in the house!

The battle began to slow down into a firefight, both sides inching forward under suppressive fire. Finally, the fire team on the Cleric left flank moved from the jungle, and in a daring assault wiped out half the Totenkorp team that had been edging round to outflank the hamlet. They followed this up with a howling charge that sent the rest of them screaming down to hell's gates!

Forwards!

Secure the area!

At the same time on the other flank, the Totenkorps made it into the unoccupied building, threatening Octavian's hold on Mortimer's Croft.

The Totenkorps advance.

The bishop's leadership was exemplary; under his stalwart command the clerics kept up such a terrible rain of fire on the Totenkorps that their attack was driven to ground, and then driven out entirely, only to be replaced by Vryheid reinforcements. These men proved much more canny and determined, holding on to their toehold with grim fanaticism from behind their blood red masks. In the end, Octavian decided that a great gamble was all that could be done, and charged them. It was a bloody and gruelling combat, but in the end the Clerics were victorious through sheer weight of numbers.

The Totenkorps had lost four times as many men as the Clerics at this point, but their dead-eyed pride would not let them quit the field. So it was that they stood among the blood-stained corn, chanting their morbid songs amid the religious percussion of fire, falling one then another in the grim satisfaction that their scarlet-toothed god was pleased with their deaths.

The end of play.

Overview

With 20 kills to 3, this was a definite and total Cleric victory over the Vryheid Totenkorps.

FUBAR certainly lives up to its quick, fun and easy reputation. It would have been more interesting had the activation rolls not been so uniformly dire, but them's the breaks. It was good that even in such a simple system, within half a game I was cursing myself for not having exploited tactical nuances properly.

The lack of morale other than suppression was a little disconcerting, but I'm not sure why since Crossfire is one of my favourite games. I certainly enjoyed the suppression system, which forces a pick between using more effective squads and getting battered ones back on their feet. It just felt like there should be some retreating somewhere!

Man of the Match: Fire team Four, who started slowly on the Cleric left, but eventually dealt the coup-de-grace to three enemy fire teams – wiping out one entirely on their tod.

I'll definitely play FUBAR again, but maybe with a little more preparation next time. For instance, the cluster of buildings, so useful in Force on Force, really dragged the game down with their +2 armour bonuses against fire.

Void and Stars Playtest

I ran a game of Void and Stars down at my Friendly Local Gaming Store, and it was a blast! We had 3 players and me, and a host of engaged on-lookers. One player even decided then and there to apply as a playtester.

We played Imperials vs Colonials at about 1200pts using MSPaint counters, and it was a relatively even game until an excellent bit of manoeuvring by some Imperial escorts resulted in multiple up-the-kilt shots.

Man of the Match: The Imperial MkII Cruiser Onslaught, which killed two ships by herself and commanded the attention of half the Colonial fleet for most of the game. Despite racking up an impressive number of hits, she survived the game a battered, smoking wreck.

Afterthoughts
-  The Imperials never used their Shield Generators. We would have taken much less damage if we had.
- The rules worked very smoothly, and as soon as we managed to remember whether Odd or Even results affected Weapons or Systems, we barely checked the book at all.
- Carriers really need to hang back. They might be one of the few vessels worth bringing to a Dead Stop.

A Song of Void and Stars

I'm currently playtesting A Song of Void and Stars, the upcoming space combat game being produced for Ganesha Games.

I've always been in a love-hate relationship with space combat games. I love space. Star Wars was the first film I saw in the cinema that broke through my childhood deafness. The terror of being in that loud, dark room as John William's score began, the joy and awe and the film that followed, are all indelibly printed on my mind. It started a love affair with sci-fi that has lasted over fifteen years so far - currently my favourite series of books is David Weber's Honor Harrington series. I love reading the stories, watching the stories, and I love the idea of refighting them.

But I generally dislike space combat games. The closest I've come is with Full Thrust and Warcosm, both of which are fine systems, but still involve more book-keeping than I'm really comfortable with in a game.

A Song of Void and Stars on the other hand, is perfect for me. I was already a big fan of the Song of Blades and Heroes system (I own it and several of its supplements), and the record keeping is minimal. The damage system has two tracks: Weapons (as a whole) and Systems (non-combat systems, including crew casualties and morale) which cascade: get a certain number of one type of damage, and it bumps up to type 2 damage etc.

It's clean, quick and simple - but don't think that means easy! There are still tactical issues to consider, especially with the special rules that both ships and the exceptional personalities of your fleet bring to the match. While effective, these are not the Special Rules of your various international army book dealers - it's very easy to keep track of things in-game.

Here's an AAR from a battle between the Solar Imperium and the Colonies of Man, which are in no way at all based on the Empire and the Colonials of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Both fleets are just slightly over the usual game size of 750pts, and are roughly equivalent to a modern carrier group - one capital ship plus escorts.

The Solar Imperium has long cast a covetous eye over the Free Colonies. Living under its long shadow, the Colonies themselves have been arming slowly, developing their fleets in order to provide a stay of execution to their homes and families.
When the blow came, it fell not against the Twelve Worlds, but against the mining outpost of Casus B. Luckily for the miners, the Perilous and her escorts were on a training mission in the area...

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Solar Imperium

MkII Cruiser - Supremacy

2 x MkII Carracks – Warden, Valour

Assault Frigate – Fellowship

Lancer Frigate – Guidance

Colonies

Hermes Battlesun – Perilous

4 Berserker Escorts – Illyria, Thesean, Tyndarus, Medusa

Battlefield

4x4 battlefield. Two minefields in the centre, 7 inches from opposite board edges, 1 nebula in galactic northeast. Imperials started galactic north, Colonials south.

Turn One – Colonial

Having noticed the Imperial presence early, the Colonial commander decided to hang back and spam the inner system with missiles. His ships launched preliminary missiles waves, moving slowly towards Galactic east. Unfortunately though the Illyria's inexperienced captain broke formation, ploughing straight in-system - alerting the Imperial forces.

Turn One – Imperial

Effectively directed by the Fleet Command Centre aboard the Supremacy, the two Carracks moved forward on the Imperial right flank, launching missiles of their own. Worried by the number of Colonial birds launched, the Supremacy spawned two Combat Space Patrols, ordering its fighters to protect the flagship as it moved forward, hoping to bring the Perilous under her guns. The Fellowship tried to follow suit on her activation, but a computer glitch caused a catastrophic failure in her launch bays! As her flight crew choked among the acrid smoke of the fighter that crashed taking off, the turnover came, and the missiles moved again.

Turn Two – Colonial

The Illyria swerved back into formation as the task group as a whole moved east. Her fellow escorts fired another five waves of missiles. With a surge of power, the Perilous moved safely behind her screen and launched a CSP of her own, noting with a nervous glance the Carracks' birds.

Turn Two – Imperial

The Escorts around the Supremacy went mad trying to kill some of the incoming birds. And all failed - there were just too many. The Supremacy launched an extra CSP and braced itself for the incoming attack. One Carrack launched more birds, and the Warden's captain lost his head.

Missile time.

After all the other missile movement, four waves of missiles hit the Supremacy simultaneously, completely swamping her point defence capability. Luckily, her three CSPs were on hand to reduce the effectiveness of those attacks, but the damage was still awful to behold. Even with her shields up and ready, the maelstrom of blistering nuclear explosions tore the skin of her armour and ripped apart her weapons blisters, leaving her offensive capability critically low.
 

Turn Three – Colonial

The fire of three escorts removed only a third of the missiles threatening the Perilous, so she launched more fighters in an attempt to shield herself. Though her armour bucked and melted under the strain, she survived the firestorm wholly intact thanks to the efforts of her brave pilots, swooping in and out the incoming birds to destroy as many as they could.

Turn Three – Imperial

A potentially lethal short turn for the Imperials. With five waves of missiles threatening the flag, the Guidance moved close to offer point defence support. Unfortunately, before any more preparations could be made, the Fellowship's captain, no doubt worried by the accident in his launch bay, became hysterical. He broke formation and potentially doomed the flag by forcing a turnover.

Missile time.

Despite Guidance's valiant attempts at point defence for her flagship, there were too many missiles for Supremacy's design to handle, and again her anti-missile defences were rendered useful. Having lost most of her pilots fighting off the last assault (and without the time to launch more thanks to Fellowship's shenanigans), she had very little with which to thin the tide approaching. The shields stopped a few missiles from doing their nightmarish work (quadrupling the Imperial score!), but they could not stop the inevitable, and the Supremacy silently popped out of existence in a maelstrom of fire and flying metal.

Turn Four – Colonial

Continuing east, the Berserker spammed seven waves of missiles toward the approaching Carracks, and the Perilous launched another CSP.

Turn Four – Imperial

This was a short turn. The Valour's captain shouted at his crew until they ignored the loss of their flagship, the Warden fired unsuccessfully at the approaching missiles, and the Fellowship ruined things for everyone again by forcing a turnover. When the missiles struck, the Warden took terrible damage, losing nearly all systems AND weapons functionality.

Turn Five – Colonial

Continuing their tactics, the Colonials fired another nine missile waves as they moved east. As the first ones struck the Valour, the ship writhed and bucked, weapons blisters sloughing off under the rain of explosive.

Turn Five – Imperial

As the Warden drifted into empty space, the Valour got the first distance kill on a missile all game! Stuck on the wrong end of the Colonial firing line, the Guidance turned to rejoin the scattered Imperials in the west, and the Fellowship's captain opened his liquor cabinet. What difference did it make?

Once the Fellowship forced the turnover, the missiles struck again. The valiant Guidance was utterly annihilated by the Perilous' powerful payload, shattering into infinite pieces in the black. The Valour shortly followed her, having barely survived four missile attacks and being annihilated by the last.

With that, the crippled Warden and wholly incompetent Fellowship jumped to lightspeed, hoping to purge their logs and present their superiors with a more palatable version of what happened at Casus IV.

Overview

Missile spamming works. There's no other way to say it, and as an Honor Harrington fan, that makes me rather happy. Every Colonial kill was down to 4+ missile markers striking on the same same turn. Activating escorts on 2 dice and using the full 3 for the flag once everyone else has moved is also a winner, at least by this game (each activation is an action the ship can perform, but two failures on the same roll forces a turnover).

There was no Man of the Match this time – the Beserkers co-operated fully in swamping the enemy point defence. But the wooden spoon definitely goes to the Fellowship, which achieved precisely nothing except for forcing THREE of the FIVE Imperial turnovers. Ludicrous.

Point defence is potentially understrength in this. The Escort Support rule was used ten times and provided one kill on missiles, which is probably contrary to designer expectation. I would submit that it should be d6+CV vs the missile's CV only. This would allow escorts to effectively shield their flag.

The basic mechanics are fun though, very engaging (as all Song of Blades and Heroes games are), and I think have inspired me to run a campaign based on the war between the Imperials and the Free Colonies. Homemade Counters ho!