Gaming Zen

 Well, who would have thought it? I became a counter clipper. There was a time when I would have sworn that I would never bother clipping counters, but it is really quite calming for when I just cannot be bothered painting figures. In addition, the clipped counters are rather aesthetically pleasing, and it keeps my focus on games I own instead of on the new shiny. This last is a Good Thing.

Of course, RSI is a potential problem from too much counter clipping, but it's meant to be relaxing, so just clip a few counters, drink tea, watch TV, and take it easy. Those counters will be clipped before you realise it. Now if only I could manage to read the rules for these games with the clipped counters...

Apologies to those that thought this post might be about a Zen-based game. Sorry about that.

An Elf Army for Oathmark

  It is time for the elves to take to the field in Oathmark now, so I am currently working on painting up all the elf figures I have. I decided to hold a parade to see where I have got to with the past few weeks' painting in the hope that it encourages me to keep on keeping on. It's slow going (for reasons), but I have completed a few units and am working on more. I'll post again once all the elves are painted

In my background/head canon, the elves themselves embody a strange duality with their use of technomantic constructs alongside nature magic. The final army will include both constructs and walking trees, when I eventually paint them. This is mainly an excuse to use figures I already have, but need to get around to painting.

The whole army

The whole army currently amounts to around 5000 points, so I can easily field a standard 2500 point Oathmark army with a range of options. Elves are expensive, so you do not get many of them for your gold pieces.

Unless otherwise noted, all the figures in this army are 15mm figures from the Demonworld range sold by Ral Partha Europe, although some of these actual figures were bought before RPE acquired the range.

Looking at these pictures, I am reminded that I really do need to get a better set-up for taking photos, and take more time over them!

Elven leaders and champions

These are the elite Sidhe. Many have lived hundreds of years and carry the weight of that experience into battle with them.

Tally: 6

Elven spellcasters

Battlefield support is provided by an eclectic bunch of sorcerous types.

Tally: 5

Elven soldiers and spears

The rank and file of the Elven army is a person with a shield and a spear or other hand weapon. Even though they are the lowest ranking troops, they are still more highly trained and better motivated than their human or Orc equivalents. I am using Elves with spears to represent both types of troops for the time being, but I do have plans for more standard foot-soldiers.

Tally: 20

Elven archers

Elven archers are the best standard missile troops of all the races, which also makes them very expensive.

Tally: 20

Elven linebreakers

Elves with polearms and big swords are useful for disrupting enemy formations. They like to get stuck in and cleave their way through the enemy's ranks.

Tally: 10

Elven hunt master

Elves are great fans of the hunt and maintain kennels of dogs trained for this purpose, but they do not distinguish the social hunt from the hunt on the battlefield. It is all just a hunt to them.

The hounds do not fit comfortably nose to tail, so I am using spacer bases and counting those as part of the unit to make it a larger unit.

Tally: 20

Rangers

Elven rangers are masters of stealth, camouflage and laying traps. They are also deadly archers. As such, they are consummate light troops who excel in their roles of scouting and harassing the enemy. 

Tally: 10

Elven mounted rangers

These fine unicorn riders are crackshots and highly mobile, ready to plague the flanks of any enemies by raining sharp pointy death from afar.

Tally: 12

Ballistae

Elven artillery support is provided by ballista constructs. These products of ancient Elven technomancy carry huge bows that are devastating to enemy massed troops. They are supported by a small contingent of Elven skirmishers, whose main role is to restock the arrows and provide light support, but the constructs are vulnerable to close assault just the same.

Tally: 4

Modrons from Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures as the ballistae, supported by RPE Elven skirmishers

Wulvers

These giant, animal-like people are fearsome forest dwellers. They are rarely seen by others, except when they join the army to fight, which they do exceptionally well. In part this is because their wounds knit closed even as the weapon is withdrawn from it, and in part because they are simply exceptionally violent and love fighting.

Tally: 6

Battle cats

Elven Battle Cats are eldritch giant cats that side with both the Seelie and Unseelie for mysterious reasons of their own. They are fast, light troops who can harass the flanks of the enemy effectively, while that enemy is distracted by the heavy troops to their front. I am using the wolf stats from the Goblin list for these.

Tally: 12

Nekomata from Alternative Armies

Animated trees

Some elven sorcerers specialise in nature magic over technomancy. They are able to animate the great trees of the forest and bring them to the battlefield.

I am defining these animated trees as Living Statues from the Bane of Kings supplement, although it is tempting to field them as Animated Idols instead, as a nod to the nature gods of the elves.

Tally: 3

Everdell: Capsule review

 I seem to have lost steam on a lot of gaming fronts lately, but one area that keeps going is my after work boardgaming session each week. My friend and I have been trying to score 400 points in Dorfromantik for an absolute age now (we're nearing our 100th game soon) and we are failing miserably, so we have started playing one game of Dorfromantik and one of another game when we meet. The newest hotness is Everdell, which I have to say is a really fun game, even though I keep losing, and it has a cosy theme that just makes it a delight to look at. Better yet, it has solo options, and a supplement with an alternative solo/co-op mode, which is perfect for me.

Image from BGG

The idea is that you lead a group of critters out to settle a new territory and you have one year to develop the best settlement before winter comes. You do this by placing workers to gain resources and using those resources to play cards into your city. The cards will score you points at the end of the game and some have effects that are triggered during play, such as production cards that give you more resources when you play critters or constructions into your city. However, you also have to manage what you play properly, because you only have fifteen spaces in your city and it is not easy to remove critters or constructions once played. Sending them to the dungeon or to the cemetery are a couple of options there, but that means you need to draw those cards.

Image from BGG

Personally, I keep forgetting the special effects and keep getting lost in the theme of my city, hence why I lose a lot. Still, my cities are always more aesthetically pleasing than my opponents' cities, so I win in my head! The game also makes my head hurt. With loads of options and limited capacity to do them all, there is a lot to think about here, and it makes my head hurt at times.

It may be a negative point for some, but there is little player interaction in the game. There is a card you can play into your opponent's city and some cards that instruct you to give resources or cards to your opponent, but beyond that the biggest point of interaction is whining at your opponent when they take a card you wanted from the common pool of face-up cards. But then the whining is part of game playing. If it's not them stealing the cards you wanted, it's complaining about your dice rolls in other games.

Overall, for me this game is a winner. The aesthetics of the whole thing are great, the theme is cosy, you have meaningful choices to make at every stage, and it makes for a good social and sociable game with my friends that can be played in about 90 minutes (time spent whining and sledging included). If you like worker placement and tableau building with a cute animal theme, then I recommend this to you.

Oh, and it has expansion sets. You can never have too many expansion sets for a game! Or accessories. Accessories are good too.

One Step Beyond (Battletech)

 When Jennie walked into the Lemmings' control room, she found Anna dancing beside her console, headphones on and oblivious to the world.

"Hey, Anna, whatcha doing?"

Jennie had to repeat herself several times before Anna realised she was there.

"It's the new album from Sadness."

"What?"

"You know, Sadness."

IYKYK

"No, I don't know. You know I don't listen to music."

"It's those guys from the Dorkonis Combine. They've got a new album out."

"Wait! What? Dorkonis Combine?" Jennie laughed.

"Yeah, one of the techs called them that and now it has stuck in my brain. So, they have a new album out and it's brilliant. Say what you like about their military chops, they really know how to put together a catchy House-K-pop tune. Here, listen."

Anna switched the feed to the speakers in the control room, and soon both of them were caught up in the music.

I painted up some more mechs for House Kurita, and when I lined them up on the painting table it reminded me of that album cover. Sorry. I do like how the decals from Defiance Industries Wargaming finish the mechs off nicely, but the varnish has given the mechs a slightly satin finish, despite being ostensibly matt, so I shall have to go over that again.

Also, apologies for the very hasty work to remove background shadow.

Catalyst Game Labs plastic mechs from various lance packs and boxed sets

The Battle of Antares (Space Empires 4X)

 Communication to the loyal Bwendi Federation from President-for-Life Colonel Throckmorton P. Gladiolus XCVI:

People of the Bwendi Federation, today we gather to mourn the loss of the citizens of Vortigern and Sheldon. As you know, over a decade ago great alien doomsday machines first appeared from deep space and sought to destroy all life in our sector of the galaxy. The first encounter with one of these machines, which we called Weasels for their remorseless bloodthirstiness, was fought near the planet Essen. Brave battleship crews stood their ground and defended Essen even as we built up our naval capacity to counter this new attack.

We believed that this was a one-off occurrence until a second machine appeared several years later and also sought to destroy Essen. Our capabilities had been built up by then, but the machine had evolved too. We believe that the first machine communicated our capabilities even as our heroic naval crews gave their lives in aid of its destruction. This battle cost us dearly and we mourn every single crewperson lost in both of those battles.

Plenty of unexplored regions in deep space. Who knows what is out there?

We all hoped that this was it, but, as we know, all bad things come in threes, and the following year another Weasel appeared but from a different direction this time. Our scientists are convinced that it had decided to try a new approach because the previous two were destroyed at Essen. Alas for the people of Vortigern, our navy was not in position to stop it. The Weasel destroyed the whole planet and only a few refugees escaped. We mourn the people of Vortigern. Not content with that, the Weasel flew to Sheldon and destroyed that planet too. More escaped because they now had warning, but too many still died. We mourn the people of Sheldon. May the people of Vortigern and Sheldon forever live in our memories.

However, by this time our scouts had ascertained the Weasel's route. It was clear that it was heading for our capital Altair. We do not know why. We do know that we had just enough time to fortify Antares and to build up our fleet reserve there. It cost us half of our fleet, but our heroes fought well and valiantly on that day when they faced the Weasel, and they destroyed it.

The Doomsday Machine (bottom right of pic) has destroyed half the fleet but it has been destroyed

Praise to the heroes of Essen and Antares. To them, both living and dead, we award the Frog Star of Bwendi, the highest military award we have. On this tenth anniversary of the Battle of Antares, we honour those that saved us. We praise and mourn these heroes, and we declare that the Weasel menace is over. Our scouts have searched deep space and report no further signs of Weasels. Our scientists have modelled the behaviour of those that assaulted us and declared that there are unlikely to be more. We shall remain vigilant and maintain our defences, but we declare too that this day shall be a public holiday henceforth to honour our heroes. May the Great Frog bless them all.

The Game

I played the Doomsday Machines solo scenario from Space Empires 4X from GMT on Normal mode. You can make it more difficult by choosing a different level that will see the Doomsday Machines arriving earlier and being stronger. You can also play on Easy mode which does the reverse, giving you more time to prepare.

You start with a few scouts, a shipyard, some colony ships and a mining ship at your homeworld. You know the Doomsday Machines are coming and you have to prepare to defeat them. It's a race to maximise your resources available, build the right stuff to stop the Doomsday Machines and save the people of your galactic federation. Undefended planets in the machine's path will be destroyed.

I was quite lucky that the first two machines both came from the unpopulated side of my federation. It made it easier to meet them, and the proximity of Essen to my homeworld made it easier to reinforce the planet.

My maintenance costs were also conveniently reduced by my scoutships being lost to black holes and other navigation hazards in deep space. They did enough, but I needed those extra points to build cruisers, then battleships, then dreadnoughts.

The third Doomsday Machine came from the top left of the map where there was a straight line of four colonies between it and my homeworld. Rather than assault it with my cruiser flotilla that was in that area, I looked at how quickly the Doomsday Machine would move through and how quickly the rest of my fleet could gather there and chose to make my stand at Antares. That meant that I would lose two of my colonies, but that I would have time to assemble a force that stood a chance against the infernal machine. There was no point sending in my forces piecemeal, because the machine would heal damage with every planet it ate, so I would lose ships while gaining nothing.

The final battle was tough but I got lucky with the dice about halfway through. The Doomsday Machine missed five 50/50 shots in a row. Hurrah! My own troops were barely any better, but they scored the necessary hits and the machine was destroyed.

This was a tense game that I doubt I would have won on a more difficult level without a lot more practice. It was fun though. I probably got rules wrong, despite them being very short and straightforward. Next time I plan to get them all correct. We shall see.

Elves for Fantastic Battles

 Between work and everything else, I have run out of steam and not done much hobby stuff recently, so I have not managed to carry on Broneslav's adventures and may have to consider not trying to map everything myself. Still, a little progress om game-related things has happened and I hope to have more time in the near future. Mind you, that's adult life, isn't it? "I'll have time for the thing I want to do next week, once I just get these fifty urgent tasks out of the way." Repeat ad nauseam.

I've been wanting to do something with the 6mm figures from our Talomir Tales campaign for a while now, but have not really been sure what. You can see the National Elf Service as it was on the Talomir Tales blog. Originally I planned to rebase them all to 60mm frontage bases from 40mm and make up fantasy equivalents of historical armies for Impetus. In tandem with this, I have carried on collecting rules sets, because, you know, you can never have too many fantasy wargame rules sets. One of those sets is Fantastic Battles, which I have not tried yet, but which reads well and offers a lot of flexibility, so I have high hopes.

Enough Elves to give an Orc a bad day

So with all these thoughts in my brain, I decided to rebase the Elves first onto 30mm x 30mm bases. Fantastic Battles states 40mm x 40 mm bases, but all my 6mm ancient and medieval armies are on 60mm x 30mm bases, so this would mean I could shove two bases together to make an opponent for a historical army using other rules. With a bit of fudging, I could also use the historical armies with Fantastic Battles, although I'll be restricted to companies with an even number of bases, unless I paint up some smaller bases to use to make change, which need not be too onerous a task.

The Elven infantry with archers in front and spears behind. The general is mounted in the centre and flanked by a druid and the famed bard Elvish, with two heroes on the outer flanks.

I could have left the Elves as they were on their 40mm frontage bases, but rebasing builds in compatibility with other parts of my collection, and I do find the 30mm/60mm base more aesthetically pleasing for no rational reason that I can think of. Also, if I ever play someone else, whose army follows the official basing, I can always use a sabot base for my own troops, so no worries there either. One thing I did consider was rebasing to 1" square bases, because Fantastic Battles uses base widths as the main measurement. As such, it would have been more convenient for game play and require a much smaller table, but it could lead to issues with larger fantastic monsters and war machines not fitting on the standard base.

A full company of Elven knights

In addition to rebasing the existing figures, I painted up the Elven knights who had languished in the Pile of Possibility (aka the Pile of Shame) for far too long. I also found some more spearelves in that pile and quickly slapped paint on them too. I like how the whole army looks. Once I have rebased the goblins, I can set up a game and test the rules properly.

In the spirit of using what I already have, the Elves are supported by a detachment of Centaur light cavalry

It's a simple army with just the core elements and can easily be expanded in the future. When I am back in the UK at Christmas, I shall dig out the Goblins and see if I can get them rebased. Who knows? I might even manage to set up and play a game.

Through the Badlands (Sellswords and Spellslingers)

Returning to Sellswords and Spellslingers, I decided to play the same scenario again, but this time with more focus on what the actual goal of the scenario was. The PCs start on one table edge and must escape off the other. Between them and safety lie four Orc Brutes and a Troll.

The baddies are all set up randomly, which resulted, once more, in the PCs being surrounded at set-up. Three Orc Brutes were within or close to charge range even before the heroes had tried to move. The other Orc Brute and the Troll were across the far side of the table, probably hoping to pick off exhausted PCs and eat them.

As our heroes moved out, Wizard tried to cast a fireball but failed, while Scout moved out yelling, "I'll find a path for you all!"

As Fighter tried to work out which way she was meant to be going, another Orc Brute appeared beside her. Cleric was so stunned she failed to move, but all of the monsters decided that this would be the best time to charge. Unfortunately, the plucky Elven Scout quickly found himself being assaulted by an Orc Brute, but he managed to wound it.  Fighter had the better of the Orc attacking her, while Cleric hammered the one facing her. Then some Orc minions wandered up, wondering what all the brouhaha was about.

The heroes fought bravely as an Orc minion leapt out of the bushes near Cleric, only to be cut down without Cleric even pausing for a breath. However, she was wounded now. Scout discovered the better part of valour, but took a wound to his back as he raced off. Wizard hid in some bushes.

Seeing her chance, Wizard launched a fireball at the group of Orc minions, burning three of them to a crisp. Distracted by the cries of their feeble companions, the Orc Brutes let down their guard. Two were slain and one was wounded again. The odds were looking better for our heroes. Swiftly dealing with her opponent, Fighter turned to aid Cleric, only to see her fall to an Orc blade. Ahead of her, Fighter could see Scout and Wizard racing across the badlands and within sight of their goal. Meanwhile, the Troll was wandering around aimlessly.

Fighter sprinted off as more Orc Brutes arrived on the battlefield. An Orc minion leapt out of a bush and thrust a spear through Scout, just as he was within an ace of his goal. The poor Elf collapsed to the ground as Wizard raced past him to safety. Fighter followed as fast as she could. It was just fast enough for her to outdistance and dodge the Orcs, and she was soon in the pub with Wizard toasting their fallen comrades.

Conclusions

This game went better than the last, mainly because I focused on the objective and not on slaughtering Orcs. However, my heroes still faced a massive number of wandering monsters. The first five times I drew an event card, it was a wandering monster! And then there were others later. In total, the five starting monsters were reinforced by 5 more Orc Brutes and 10 more Orc Warriors/Minions!

"Inconceivable!" I hear you cry, although I think that word does not mean what you think it means.

It was certainly wildly improbable, as was having the heroes surrounded at the start again. To add to the improbability, the main reason Wizard escaped so easily was rolling two 20s for activation in successive turns, so she got a massive number of actions for running. Unfortunately for Fighter and the others, they got more than their fare share of failed activations with Cleric and Fighter both suffering a couple of turns where they did not pass any activations at all.

In some ways, the whole game was gloriously random, and it was good fun, but, as I noted in the previous post on this game, I got the same feeling from it that I did from A Song of Blades and Heroes (unsurprisingly, I suppose). I am not convinced that I would want to play it as a campaign because of the randomness. It seems hard to check the fallen and rescue them with the way the activation die rolls go, and that could lead to too high a death toll of PCs. I want deaths in the party to mean something, not just be minor speed bumps along the way. I could house-rule it to create greater continuity, but I have other games that don't require that. On the other hand, I could completely see picking up Sellswords and Spellslingers for an occasional single game or maybe for a mini-campaign of a few scenarios, and I shall keep a record of Fighter and Wizard so that they can return if the mood does.