We're not in Bwendi any more (Forgotten Ruin)

 The mission brief was simple. Tiger Troop was to advance to Trout Waters and find out why the locals were fleeing the area. Their rescue of the farmer in Goose Valley had made them local heroes already and word had spread that they might be able to help where no one else could, assuming you could find their camp.

Pan was leading the mission briefing, "Tiger Troop, we need to get in and out fast and bring the target back with us. The L.T. has authorised additional ammo for this mission in case things get hairy, so go and draw the extra supplies now. We meet back here in 15 minutes and will head out immediately, so now's the time to use the latrines, if you need them, because we are not stopping on the way!"

The slog into Trout Waters was grim. Selcuk complained that he was going to get trench foot from the thick mire that they were wading through, while Tarquin was wondering how they were ever going to get all the mud off and get their clothes dry in this rain-soaked hellhole. The others were just miserable. The sleet of Goose Valley had been replaced by icy rain that seemed to come at them from every direction. Even within their environment suits, Tiger Troop could feel the cold, dampness. Worse yet, the miasmas arising from the swampy ground seemed to penetrate their air filters as if they were not there.

Thus it was, that a grim group of soldiers deployed with A Team on the right flank, following one side of a broad stream, while B Team deployed on the left of it, with Pan in the centre. The march into the ops area had killed any of the usual banter.

"Contact!" Pan's message to the rest of the troop was not really necessary, as the howls and war cries of the approaching hostiles had also given them away.

"Blow me," muttered Mary, "Those people look like lizards!"

Pan scanned the approaching lizardfolk. A group of bulkier warriors on Tiger Troop's right flank looked promising.

"Target marked on your HUDs," she announced, "Deescalate the rest and we'll see if we can get the intel we came for."

B Team opened fire, while A Team moved up on the flank. Selcuk dropped a grenade into the middle of the bigger lizardfolk and the target fell immediately, but the shrapnel from the grenade seemed mostly to have been absorbed in the swampy ground.

"Holy smoking frog in the sky," cursed Sofi, "The hides on those things must be an inch thick. My bullets are just bouncing off them."

The lizardfolk charged towards Tiger Troop, who responded by laying down as much fire as they could. The crump of grenades and the chatter of small arms was deafening, as they used up their extra allocation of ammunition. Lizardfolk fell, but each fallen lizardperson was closer to the soldiers than the last.

As the two main groups of lizard folk were deescalated to a passive state, A Team and Pan moved forward quickly to secure the intel.

Meanwhile, B Team were facing the last of the lizard folk, firing and reloading as fast as they could. Selcuk's grenades took their toll, but the small arms fire just seemed to bounce off the hostile warriors. Still, it was only a single lizardperson that managed to reach them, slicing viciously at Selcuk. Luckily his armour held, and he managed to boot the lizardperson back. Bonolo and Sofi both took the chance to sight carefully at the hostile as it staggered, and it disintegrated in a spray of bullets.

"We have the intel," Pan informed the troop, "Time for a tactical retrograde manoeuvre towards the camp."

Tiger Troop moved out once more, their spirits lifted a little by the fact that none of them had been injured and because they knew they would get a hot meal when they returned to camp.

Back at camp, Pan reported what had happened and handed over the intel. The lieutenant handed one of the bits of paper back.

"This isn't part of the package we were after. You can take it back and see if it is useful."

Pan took the paper and perused it around the fire, while the others did their best to warm up and dry off.

"Uh, Sarge?" Leaf Moondream sounded really uncertain, "Why is that paper glowing and why are you sparkling?"

Pan looked at Leaf as if the Private was a million miles away. As she did so, she felt a strange sense of new knowledge.

A voice in her head, or perhaps just surrounding her, spoke, "Welcome, Warrior, I have chosen you. I am Tyr and you will be my champion against the Jotnar, the forces of Chaos. Serve me well, and you will be well rewarded."

Suddenly the world around her came back into focus as the paper she had been reading evaporated in a golden light and the voice retreated. She knew that there was no way to refuse that voice, and the sense of energy that suffused her body made her not want to.

"I can do magic now!" She told the others.

They did not laugh as she had expected.

"Yeah, s'pose you can, Sarge," said Wigbert quietly as the others nodded, "Did you know that your eyes are glowing?"

This game was mainly characterised by the uncanny accuracy of the grenade launchers, the total inability of the troop support weapons to hit anything, and the ability of lizardfolk to absorb bullets without being hurt. I spent a support point and got extra ammunition that came in really handy, because it gave me several rounds of rapid fire that came in handy. I am a little concerned about the next mission, because it introduces the aggression rules, which add rolls for reinforcements and other nasty surprises for Tiger Troop. The Troop is going to need some time on the firing range before that to get more accurate!

With all that in mind, the story really is telling itself. Trout Waters is swampy and the dice roll was lizardfolk. The exposure gained during this mission saw Pan transformed into a Paladin and she also managed to learn two spells. Maybe I should sculpt some kind of banner onto her back now to mark this change. With all the troops getting melee weapons, I feel like I should be sourcing some 15mm weapons to add to the other figures as well. Forgotten Ruin offers some interesting opportunities for conversions, but I cannot decide if the fixed length campaign (12 missions plus a final showdown) makes that worth it.

Welcome to The Dire Frost (Forgotten Ruin)

Prologue

In the blink of an eye, Tiger Troop had gone from the underground bunker to a grim, grey-green landscape with wind howling between the mountains, driving a blinding sleet before it. They moved out from the arrival zone in anticipation of the rest of the battalion coming through The Curtain.

Platoon Commander 2nd-Lieutenant Thruppence Cholmondley-Warner deployed the three troops of her platoon in a defensive perimeter as she and Sergeant-Major Harding reviewed where they had arrived. It was a valley with high mountains on either side, heavily forested even on the slopes. Higher up, snow lay thick on the peaks. A river ran down the centre of the valley and a muddy track ran parallel to the river. That meant people. Scanning further down the valley, Harding pointed out smoke rising from a chimney. Thruppence's binoculars brought the building with the chimney into focus, despite the sleet that sought to obscure everything. The house was wooden, built from whole tree trunks by the looks of things. Other outbuildings of similar construction lay around it. She assumed this was a farm, but the state of it made her wonder how much civilisation had fallen. Noticing the first farm made her aware of others clinging precariously to the hillsides. The valley was populated. Not heavily, but if there were people here, then the platoon should make contact if possible. Friendly locals could be the difference between survival and annihilation, and hostile ones should be dealt with sooner rather than later.

As she considered their situation, she commented to her platoon sergeant, "You know what is missing here, Sergeant Major? The rest of our battalion. I think the boffins have buggered things up again. Well, no plan survives contact with reality, so let's get on and sort ourselves out. We need scouts out, shelter and to orient ourselves. Get the troops setting up a camp first then send Tiger Troop out on a recce."

"Yessir!" Sergeant Major Harding started giving orders while Thruppence continued to assess their location and circumstances.

Into Goose Valley

Thruppence pointed up the valley towards the nearest farmhouse.

"Tiger Troop, you will recce that farmhouse. Make contact with the locals if you can and report back. Take Private Jarlsoy with you. I need Private Moondream to assist the Weapons Team in setting up."

"Yessir!" Pan responded, and started giving orders to her troop. In short order, the troop was equipped, divested of extraneous gear and moving out up the valley. With the rain and the mud, it was exhausting pulling their feet free from the mud of the road, but they soon made it into the treeline which offered shelter and a less muddy route, as well as cover.

It was clear that this area was little cultivated. The undergrowth was thick and there were many large rocks everywhere. As Pan formed up her troop near the farmhouse, she observed that there was a ruined stone building near the objective. The fields near the building were also stone-walled, perhaps built from the rocks they would have had to clear to make the field cultivable. However, the farmhouse itself was wooden. She wondered what kind of ruin had befallen the area that the stone buildings were abandoned and wooden ones been built in their place. Had they lost the ability to build stone structures?

There was a sudden rustling in the undergrowth near her feet.

"Oy! Watch it! You nearly stepped on me!"

A small lizard, about the size of a six-year old child, stepped out from a bush near where Pan was advancing. Pan's jaw hit the floor. What was this?

"Can't a person get any peace and quiet round here?" the lizard continued.

"What?" replied Pan wittily, at a loss for words for once. Not even her usual expletives had prepared her for a short, winged lizard that spoke the Bwendi tongue.

"Oh, wait, you don't look like the locals. Have you fallen through the space-time continuum too?"

"The what?"

"Sarge, the beastie is asking if we have travelled in time and space to get here," Private Smith broke in, "I'm guessing we have given how quickly The Curtain took us from home to here, wherever here is."

Pan sighed. Mary Smith had always been a bit of a know-all. Worse yet, she was often right.

"Yes, that is what I was talking about," the lizard creature replied, "I assume that you were not told where you were going. Perhaps I can help as I have taken time to orient myself already. You are in Goose Valley in the south of the Dire Frost. I cannot tell you when though, relative to your own time coordinates systems. Now, if you will excuse me, I must fly. I am looking for a way home, but perhaps we shall meet again before I do so. Good luck."

The lizard being rose into the air on its stubby wings and then suddenly dissolved into a glittering shower of sparks that raced off at a high rate of knots to the west.

"Smith, stop gawping and focus on the patrol!"

The odd creature had gone and they had a farmhouse to scout now. Unfortunately, it looked like there would be opposition to that. Several groups of lizard-like people were moving through the rough ground around the farmhouse and they did not look like they were inviting Tiger Troop round for tea and cake.

"Adeyemi, take A Team and occupy the high ground. Lay down fire and keep the hostiles away. Bonolo, you and B Team will take the farmhouse area and flank the hostiles. I'm going to take the long run round. There's a few things need investigating here."

The teams did as ordered and were soon moving into position, just in time for them to get a bead on the hostile lizardfolk. The second they were at the edge of the brush, A Team opened fire. The chatter of M23 Assault Rifles mixed with the heavier roar of the M33A TSW and the occasional crump of a 40mm grenade launched from the TAC17 slung under Bjornson's M23. Immaculada and Sofi from B Team had taken up a flanking position and joined in as the rest of B Team moved towards the farmhouse.

"What the heck?" yelled Sofi as a blast of eldritch green light smashed the ground near her, blackening the vegetation in the process. She sighted on the sparkling lizardperson that had hurled the light at her and fired a long burst of 5.56mm death that cut the creature in two.

"Did you see that?" She turned to Immaculada beside her.

"Yup. Weird! Not seen anything like this since we played that online game of Mazes and Minotaurs. Do you think we're in an M&M world now? Who knows what kind of place The Curtain was hiding?"

Distracted by Sofi, Immaculada's TAC 17 grenade flew wide of her target, but coincidentally landed among a different group of them, blowing several to pieces.

Lizardfolk were falling everywhere under a hail of copper-jacketed lead, but still they raced forward at full speed. Despite everything, half a dozen bloodthirsty monsters were nearly at the hill that A Team occupied.

A Team fired for all they were worth as the lizardfolk charged but it was not enough.

"Give it your all!" yelled Adeyemi to her team as the last of the lizardfolk closed. To show that she meant it, she clubbed the first to reach her over the head and the kerb stomped it. It fell and twitched but did not move again. As she did this, Smith kicked a lizardperson back and it tumbled down the hill, only to be cut down by a heavy burst from her M33A even as it tried to stand and charge again. The last of the lizardfolk to reach the hill was also clubbed down by Adeyemi, and suddenly the battlefield was quiet, although the ringing in Tiger Troop's ears would last a while longer.

"Fan out and search the area," Pan called over comms. Tiger Troop did as ordered. With the area cleared of hostiles and scouted, they approached the farmhouse. A (human) farmer and his wife could be seen peering through the windows as they neared the place.

It took a while but Pan was eventually able to convince them to took to her. It was tough, because their Bwendi was very strangely accented. Bjornson helped here. His Scandinavian forebears had left him with an interesting idiolect of Bwendi too, and these people seemed to have a similar background. From the farmers, they learned that the hostiles were kobolds and that the one shooting light bolts at them was a known sorcerer. From the sorcerer's defeat, the farmer presumed that Pan and her people were great heroes too. He was grateful that his farm had been saved by the Bwendi troop, and gifted them with a pile of swords and axes. One of these made a particularly satisfying 'schwing' noise when drawn.

Tiger Troop returned to camp carrying the spoils of war and their report. The lieutenant thought they were making fun of her at first, but was soon forced to believe it.

Hostiles eliminated, locals met, magic sword (+2 to hit / +1 DAM, +3 versus monsters and champions) and a Potion of Ghost Form acquired, and Pan has a surprise to come in the next battle thanks to generating a tonne of Exposure Points this turn. All in all, I feel that this was a successful mission. It certainly went much more smoothly than the training missions in many ways, although I realised that I did Dash moves wrong during this game. Lesson learned and hopefully the mistake will not be repeated, although I imagine different ones will be made.

Private Sofi got lucky that the kobold sorcerer missed her and that she hit with every single shot when firing back. The sorcerer's spell could have really hurt the Troop if allowed to fire every single turn. It also gave the Troop something to report about, so between that and the small, talking lizard, they have learnt that they are not in Bwendi any more and perhaps not even in the same world as the one they started out from. At least the farmer they made contact with told them the name of the place they have landed in: Goose Valley. And they have a rudimentary understanding of the local geography now, including names of major places around them.

Goose Valley now counts as cleared. From there, Tiger Troop can investigate Trout Waters or Sundale, so one of these two will be the mission location next turn.

The Battle of The Plain of Towers (Oathmark)

 The hawks are in ascendence in both Elkall-Anuz and Storace, and both are seeking to expand. The orc leader, Overlord Padraig of the Valley, has ordered his armies to seize nearby territories and to add them to his kingdom. Meanwhile King Steven von Kurzhosen has declared that these territories must be his. Thus, the stage is set for a clash.

This is a mini-campaign to test how to make a pbem game work using the principles set out in a previous post. The players have control of their kingdoms, will muster their own armies and will write battle plans, but I shall play out the battles solo. The two players are my long-suffering opponent, Steve, and my long-suffering brother, Patrick.

The campaign takes place in a period of expansionism on both realms' part. They begin with 3 territories and the winner of each battle has first choice of their next territory from a list based on the figures I own. The goal is to play 7 battles that will help the players organically develop their kingdoms for a future campaign.

In this first battle, both players have 750 points. Each battle after that will add 250 points to the army size, so the final battle will be 2250 points. If this pbem works, I hope to run the mini-campaigns from the expansions using the full kingdoms as the basis for them. Running a full Oathmark campaign might also be on the cards, but first I need to finish this campaign.

The campaign map below shows the state of play at the start. Both kingdoms have a capital city and two territories. I have chosen to make a hex map of the kingdoms, because it is easier in Campaign Cartographer 3+ than the standard kingdom sheet. I do not anticipate any significant issues with it, but this mini-campaign is all about finding out whether there will be any or not. The main difference between this and the standard kingdom map is that each hex in each row borders on the same number of territories as all other hexes (mostly), while some territories in the same ring on the kingdom sheet border more than others.

The Armies

The Kingdom of Elkall-Anuz (Patrick)

1 Captain with 13 Orc Warriors

1 unit of 10 Orc SpearOrcs

2 units each of 10 Orc Archers

The Kingdom of Storace (Steve)

1 Human Champion with 11 Human Warriors

1 Human Champion with 4 Human Cavalry

1 unit of 10 Human Soldiers

1 unit of 10 Human Archers

1 Human Spellcaster (Level 1 with Fireball)

The Battlefield

The two armies have met on the Plain of Towers. This largely open area of moorland lies in the no-man's land between the two kingdoms. It is an area of low rises and sparse vegetation with the eponymous towers lying ruined across the whole plain. As the armies deploy to use the tiny amount of available terrain, they yell insults across the dividing plain.

The view from the human lines (l to r: cavalry, spellcaster, archers, warriors, soldiers)

The view from the Orc lines (l to r: archers, soldiers, warriors, archers)

As I set the armies up, I realised that I could easily have set the battlefield up as a 4' x 4' equivalent space and not really lost anything. The armies look tiny in the 6' x 4' equivalent space. That is because they are!

Steve's plan is to move his cavalry to the right flank while advancing on the ruin directly in front of his infantry and driving the orcs before him. He sent me a few more details, but that is the gist of it. Patrick's plan is to advance to missile range, then let the humans come towards his orcs and shoot them.

The Battle

With the insults called out and the boasts made, both armies advanced. The human spellcaster moved up and lobbed a fireball at the orc archers on the left flank, but it guttered out short of the unit, inflicting no damage. Seeing the danger, the archers headed for the ruins of Orcumont Tower to their left. The rest of the human infantry advanced, although the archers were less enthusiastic than the others. Meanwhile, the spearorcs and orc warriors moved up into the lee of the hill in front of them, hoping that it would shield them from the wrath of the spellcaster. The orc archers stayed where they were on the hill, ready to rain arrows on the cavalry. However, the cavalry had other orders and wheeled neatly in an obvious move towards their own right flank.

End of turn 1

Seeing an opportunity, the orc archers moved off the hill and fired a volley at extreme range. A cavalryman died. First blood to the orcs, but the archers soon regretted it. Seeing the archers, the spellcaster lobbed a fireball into their midst and three archers fell dead, charred to a crisp. Meanwhile, the human infantry continued to advance, the orc archers took up position in Orcumont tower, and the orc soldiers and warriors moved onto the hill, as the human cavalry continued their manoeuvres, successfully blocking line of sight for the spellcaster.

End of turn 2

The two armies closed the distance between them rapidly. Arrows flew, though none were killed by them, the spellcaster moved into the cover of nearby Grouchy Tower but did not find the opportunity to launch another fireball. The human warriors, led by their champion, charged the orc archers in Orcumont Tower. Despite casualties, the orcs' morale held and it was the warriors who were repelled. Seeing that their manoeuvres would lead to nothing, the human cavalry did an about face and raced towards the orc archers on their left flank.

End of turn 3

The occupants of Orcumont Tower were sore beset by human soldiers, who charged them in the flank, leaving them disordered. The soldiers drew back to catch their breath before renewing their assault, and the human warriors charged in. This was too much for the few surviving orc archers, who fled the field. The spearorcs had, by now, engaged the human archers and many archers fell in the melee. The cavalry charged the orcs on the hill, seeing that they could not reach a softer target, and all but their champion fell, as the orc captain kept his line strong. The battle was furious and bloody now.

End of turn 4

The orcs seized the initiative in the next phase of the battle and charged the lone champion, who fell under their massive orcish feet, but not before he had slain several warriors and left the orc captain's unit disordered. The spellcaster seemed to have lost her lighter and failed to cast a fireball again. The human warriors managed to turn about towards the orc spears, but the assault on Orcumont Tower had left them in ragged order and that was all they could do. The soldiers wheeled in good order, having caught their breath, and began their march towards the remaining orcs, as the orc spears and the human archers both successfully dressed their ranks and prepared for more carnage.

End of turn 5

Seeing the champion fall, the spellcaster managed to find the right spell and got revenge against the warriors as her fireball fried three more, but the captain held his unit together and advanced off the hill, ready for the fray once more. The orc archers took revenge for the spellcaster's deeds, and pinned her to the ground with several arrows. The human archers slew another spearorc, but the spearorcs were made of tough stuff and merely charged the human warriors, slaying many and forcing them back, as the soldiers desperately sought to manoeuvre round them.

End of turn 6

The spearorcs charged the flank of the human warriors again, but were driven back for the loss of nearly half their remaining number. Hails of arrows fell on them next, but they held their ground, though disordered. The human archers themselves suffered badly under orcish arrows as the other remaining units manoeuvred to return to the fray.

End of turn 7

As dusk fell, the human soldiers fell on the last of the spearorcs and cut them down. Arrows flew from both sides, and the orc warriors fell on the human soldiers in turn, driving them back and disrupting the manoeuvres of the human warriors. Panting with exhaustion, the armies surveyed the slaughter fields in the encroaching darkness and as one agreed silently that this was enough. Just a handful of humans and orcs remained. The Army of Storace conceded defeat and trudged back to their camp. The Army of Elkall-Anuz had won this time, but the remaining human champion swore that things would be different when next they met.

End of game

The Result

The final casualty tally was:

• Humans 503
• Orcs 412

This gave victory to the orcs, who get first choice of a new territory for their army. The actual figures left on the table were 16 humans and 15 orcs, so it was a close-run thing in that measure. For me, I think the key moment was the humans' decision to march their cavalry over to the other flank, leading to the cavalry being out of the fight for too long. It also helped that the orcs won the initiative for the last few turns, so they were able to pick their fights.

The solo system worked quite well, and the activation rolls ensured a modicum of chaos as crucial units failed to activate and exploit their advantages.

Basic Training 102 with Tiger Troop (Forgotten Ruin)

 "Good show on the last exercise, Tiger Troop. Now we are going to dial things up a notch. You've seen what to expect from the basic opfor. We're adding some new stuff to this one."

The Colonel's cheery compliment was not actually that cheering. Tiger Troop was still perplexed by this focus on suicidal enemies. And why the rubber suits and funny weapons?

Sgt Panorama MacCaffery (left) and the A Team: Cpl. Justice Adeyemi, Pvt. Mary Smith, Pvt. Wigbert Osmaer, and Pvt. Tarquin Bjornson.

Panorama led her team out into the training field. Some new obstacles had been added to it. These included areas of brush.

"Great, we'll use that. When we get given the go order, move out and occupy the edge of the brush. It will give us cover. We've seen how the opfor operates. We can defend the line and cut them down as they come."

The soldiers all rushed forward as ordered and took up position.

Opfor to the top of the picture. Tiger Troop in the brush at the bottom of the picture.

As Pan and her people rushed into position, a group of yellow lizardmen streamed through a gap between a rocky formation and a stand of brush. They also became aware of a group of the green guys occupying a position behind a barricade on the right flank.

"No worries, team," Pan announced, "They'll charge us soon enough."

Her confidence was unfounded. Even as Tarquin opened up with the grenade launcher, cutting down two lizardpeople, and a burst of fire from Mary's SAW took out another two, suddenly the orcs behind the barricade let loose a volley of arrows.

Justice sniggered when she saw them drawing the antiquated bows to shoot, but her laughter was cut short as both she and Wigbert were KOd without even firing a shot. As she lay there, she cringed at the thought of the ribbing and banter in the mess that night. However, the fire at the lizardpeople was enough to cause one of them to run. A single lizardperson charged towards Mary.

Seconds later, Mary was out of the fight too. Pan cursed. Meanwhile Tarquin dropped a grenade at the end of the barricade and took out three of the orc archers. The remaining archers fired at Pan but missed. The lizard person charged in and did not miss. Pan fought with the fury of a thousand devils, but the lizardperson still clubbed her to the ground.

Standing amid the still bodies of his comrades, Tarquin calmly reloaded his grenade launcher and dropped a grenade at the other end of the barricade. The orc archers all dropped to the ground, out of the fight. With only Tarquin still standing, the lizardperson howled a victory cry and charged at Tarquin, who coolly turned and clubbed it on the head. It fell and lay still. He smirked a bit, knowing that he would not be buying the drinks tonight, but he knew better than to let Pan see his smile.

Well, that went completely differently to the last game. Every opfor shot that hit took a soldier out, and the opfor was rolling well for hits. I really thought it was all over for the A Team, but Tarquin held the line and did what needed to be done. It highlighted that quantity has a quality all of its own, as someone once said. If you are rolling six times to hit and need a six to hit, chances are that you will get at least one six (unless it is me rolling for my side!). Also, hand-to-hand combat is balanced in favour of the bad guys until the soldiers can get some proper melee weapons. It's useful to see all this before starting a campaign.

Basic Training 103 with Tiger Troop (Forgotten Ruin)

 The Colonel looked at Tiger Troop seriously.

"This next exercise is a patrol. The whole troop will take part. Enemy forces will be like you have encountered before. Advance to the objective and then retreat in good order. That is all. I hope it will not be a fiasco like the last exercise, because after this, you will be going through The Curtain and then everything will be real."

Pan cursed inwardly at the reference to how badly the last exercise had gone. She had got overconfident and had almost all her troops KOd. She would make sure it was different this time around. With that thought in mind, she deployed A Team on the right flank and B Team on the left. She took up her position in between then and then gave the order to advance, wondering with one part of her mind what kind of objective the large wooden objective was. She could see what appeared to be wigs and metal rings attached to it, like an ancient totem or something. Both teams moved out.

"Contact on my 1 o'clock," Lance-Corporal Bonolo called, "Sofi, engage the enemy and cover us."

Vesela Sofi acknowledged the order and dropped prone, flicking the bipod of her Gladcorp T33 TSW into place as she did so. A hail of copper-jacketed lead streaked towards the orc archers behind their barricade. The tracer rounds in her magazine showed that it was striking the cover rather than the orcs though. She settled in and took aim again.

As Private Sofi prepared to fire again, the rest of B Team advanced towards the objective, heading for the cover of a large rocky mound ahead of them. Meanwhile Pan and A team were moving through the thick undergrowth to close with the enemy archers. The archers themselves had realised that they were outranged so they moved out from cover and sought to close on B Team, unaware of A Team moving towards them.

"Ha!" thought Sofi, "I got you now."

She sprayed the archers with fire and grunted in satisfaction as one fell.

By now, Pan and A Team were in position at the edge of the undergrowth with a clear line of sight to the archers. However, they suddenly realised that there was another problem.

"Enemy incoming on my 10 o'clock," Pan called to both teams. To make her point, she opened fire with her Gladcorp M23 Assault Rifle. An enemy warrior fell.

The archers fired. Pan cursed as Bonolo fell, hit twice. Fortunately, the other arrows missed.

Sofi's TSW was chattering out a rain of death and orc archers fell. A Team joined in, their Gladcorp M23s pushing out a stream of 5.56mm hurt that saw all the archers KOd in the space of just a few seconds.

With the archers out of the fight, Tiger Troop turned their attention to the remaining warriors, who were getting uncomfortably close. Seeing the approaching lizardfolk, Private Selcuk Immaculada chambered a round in her TAC17 Grenade Launcher. The 40mm round landed exactly where she had aimed and two warriors were immediately taken out of the fight. Not to be outdone, Private Smith opened up with her TSW and showered the remaining warriors with lead, and the rest of A Team also opened fire with their M23s. There was so much lead in the air that it was impossible to determine who had taken out which enemy, but it only took a few seconds before Tiger Troop held the field.

They advanced to the objective and then withdrew in good order. The mission debrief was much less traumatic than the previous one. The Colonel was waiting for them as they filed in for the debrief. It was a short one.

"You have seen some of what you will face when you go through The Curtain. We cannot even begin to prepare you for certain aspects of what you might face. Needless to say, the future of humanity lies in your hands. The 53rd Bwendi Rangers will go through The Curtain in two days. Make the most of tonight. It may be your last night out here in Ztum City for a long time."

That night, Tiger Troop gathered in Munden's Bar, their favourite watering hole and discussed what might be ahead of them. Needless to say, all of their speculations were aeons from the truth of their future.

Final Briefing

The 53rd Bwendi Rangers were gathered in a huge underground bunker. The Colonel was on a large podium addressing the entire unit.

"I hope you have said your goodbyes to your families. We have no idea how long you will be in the field for this mission."

Worry showed on a few otherwise stoic faces.

"There is a nano-plague threatening humanity and it is spreading fast. We have kept this under wraps as much as possible, but it is serious. Your mission is to travel through The Curtain and to establish a safe haven for humanity. We have developed The Curtain, a short-range time-travel device that will land you some years in the future, when our probes suggest that the plague will have subsided. The Rangers will secure key areas and objectives where civilisation can be rebuilt. We shall monitor with our probes and send through engineering battalions, whose role will be to construct safe havens for humanity, once those areas have been pacified. I regret that there is no return from this mission, but we shall prioritise mission team family members, among others, for transport to the newly established settlements once it is safe to send them. I can only wish you good luck and advise you to remember your training. You are the best of the best and I am certain that you will do humanity proud."

Almost no one present managed to keep the shock from their faces at this news. They still responded with the required "SIR!" though.

An hour later, it was Tiger Troop's turn to march through The Curtain. Loaded down with kit and dragging barrows piled high with even more supplies, they formed up in single file and followed their platoon leader and the rest of Felid Company through the shimmering light-field that was The Curtain.

The training mission went better than I feared this time, although there is nothing you can do about the enemy rolling lots of 6s in a row while shooting at your troops. Fortunately, there are Story Points to deal with that sort of thing. I had better make sure that I earn lots of those during the actual campaign. It is going to be interesting seeing how the Rangers stack up against hordes of melee troops, and how quickly they can arm themselves in a way that lets them fight on an equal footing against those troops.

PBEM framework for an Oathmark campaign

 I'm thinking of running a PBEM for two friends, specifically with Oathmark, but I feel that this process could work for a lot of miniatures games. One of the things that triggered this was watching Ash and Stone's video about playing Oathmark solo, a technique that could work well for me as GM fighting battles on behalf of two players. Watch the video here and check the info on it for a download of his solo rules:

That pretty much covers the tabletop side of things. For the campaign, the kingdoms that each player has would be publicly available, so players will know what types of troops they might face, and the available figures for each terrain type are listed on the Oathmark page on this blog. That gives the players some degree of foreknowledge, but they will not know what the enemy army will actually look like until they face it in the field.

 The key question for me is how to streamline the campaign, so that it involves the fewest possible exchanges of emails. If I strictly follow the sequence of play in the Oathmark rule book, I get something like the following:

1. Players muster their armies and send the lists to the GM
2. The GM checks the lists and tells the players what the scenario and battlefield layout are
3. Players send the GM a deployment map each.
4. The GM tells the players how the enemy is deployed.
5. Players then send the GM a battle plan each.
6. The GM fights the battle, reports the results and adjudicates how this affects the campaign.
7. If the campaign will continue, start at point 1 again.

This framework involves three emails from the players to the GM and three from the GM to the players. I wonder if it would make a huge difference to the progress of the individual battles if the sequence started with the GM sending the players the battlefield map and the scenario, and they then reply with their army for that battle and their list, deployment and proposed tactics. That would result in the following sequence:

1. The GM informs the players about the scenario and the battlefield layout.
2. Players muster their armies and send the GM army lists and a deployment map each.
3. The GM tells the players how the enemy is deployed.
4. Players then send the GM a battle plan each.
5. The GM fights the battle, reports the results and adjudicates how this affects the campaign.
6. If the campaign will continue, start at point 1 again.

That is still three emails from the GM but reduces the input required from the players. It would be possible to reduce it still further by combining points 2 and 4, resulting in this sequence:

1. The GM informs the players about the scenario and the battlefield layout.
2. Players muster their armies and send the GM their army lists, a deployment map each and their battle plan.
3. The GM fights the battle, reports the results and adjudicates how this affects the campaign.
4. If the campaign will continue, start at point 1 again.

This reduces the campaign turn to two emails from the GM and one from the players, but also reduces the level of control the players have, because they must plan their tactics in more general terms without knowing how the enemy army is deployed. Some players would react against this, while others would be happy sending more general orders to try to cover various eventualities. I guess it would come down to the players' preferences and desire to be actively involved, plus their willingness and ability to respond quickly to game emails. With a planned turnaround of one month per battle, it should not be impossible to follow the first framework, but I shall have to ask my players what they think.

Basic Training 101 with Tiger Troop (Forgotten Ruin)

 I picked up Forgotten Ruin back end of last year. The premise of modern soldiers being dumped into a fantasy environment appeals, and takes me back to my school days, when we tried out the scenario from Dragon magazine where a WW2 German platoon winds up facing off against a Dungeons and Dragons wizard and his henchfolks. It has taken me a while to get around to playing though, because I have been in a bit of a solo-gaming slump for a while. Anyway, I finally got set up and played the first, very simple, training scenario. I'll try to keep the momentum going and head into a campaign, but we'll just have to see how it goes. Still, even getting one game in so 'soon' after buying the rules is winning. I have plenty of rules that I have had for years and have never yet used.

Tiger Troop

Tiger Troop (Felid Company, Predator Battalion, 53rd Bwendi Rangers) were sceptical. They had been training with the rest of the battalion for a secret mission, but the training made no sense. It was all about being rushed by soldiers with hand weapons and primitive bows but no guns. The only part of it that they truly understood was the survival training. They were the poor sods who got sent into every inhospitable, if not downright deadly, environment and had to get by with whatever they could take with them and find along the way. They were used to that. Even their troop leader, Panorama MacCaffery, was a veteran of that type of operation, so they had confidence in her, despite the fact she had only recently got her stripes.

• Sergeant Panorama MacCaffery (troop leader, personality) is Aggressive but Helpful. A veteran of many covert ops, she accepts only the best from her troop. Anyone not pulling their weight will soon regret it.
• Corporal Justice Adeyemi (A Team leader, personality) is Friendly and Supportive. He frequently soothes ruffled feathers when Panorama has been less than tactful, as happens often.
• Private Mary Smith (A Team, personality) is Accepting but also Determined (knack). Panorama's outbursts are water off her back. Even when she has received a tongue-lashing, Mary just gets on with the job and finds a way to make things work.
• Private Tarquin Bjornson (A Team, grunt)
• Private Wigbert Osmaer (A Team, grunt)
• Lance-Corporal Chidubem Bonolo (B Team leader, grunt)
• Private Vesela Sofi (B Team, grunt)
• Private Leaf Moondream (B Team, grunt)
• Private Selcuk Immaculada (B Team, grunt)

Basic Training 1

" B Team, Tiger Troop, you will face a wave of hostiles. Your mission in this exercise is to put the hostiles down. Simples!"

Panorama did not get what this training would achieve, or why they were doing it, but she would be damned if she would let her troop show her up in front of the brass.

The B Team (left to right): L-Cpl. Bonolo, Pvt. Sofi, Pvt. Moondream and Pvt. Immaculada (GZG New Israeli infantry figures)

"Lance-Corporal Bonolo, your team better damned well be ready. You've been briefed. Get out there and destroy that opfor."

Lance-Corporal Chidubem Bonolo was just as much in the dark as his troop leader. he led the others out onto the training ground. The briefing had been minimal. Deploying his troops in a skirmish line he advanced the team into the exercise area. As he did so, two hordes of opfor soldiers out of the dead ground behind some rocky formations. One of them charged at full speed across the open. They were wearing ridiculous masks or rubber suits and appeared to be armed with antiquated swords and clubs!

The training ground. B Team is at the bottom. Two hordes of enemies are at the top.

"Wot da funk?" muttered Bonolo. Despite the incongruity, he did not hesitate. "B Team, move to cover on our right, pick your targets! Aim! Fire!"

A crashing burst of fire rang out from his soldiers, who reacted slowly, shocked by the nature of the opfor. This was not normal!

Two of the orc horde fell in that first volley as the team moved towards the cover of the nearest rocky formation, although Pvt. Sofi clearly forgot to switch the Squad Assault Weapon to full auto, and Pvt. Moondream dropped her first grenade over the top of the orcs.

Yes, I forgot about the SAW in the first round and should have rolled a lot more dice! Lesson learned.

Undeterred the orcs and lizardmen continued to charge. Bonolo opened fire at point blank range at the two orcs charging him and missed by a good country mile. The others opened up on the lizardmen, dropping two and causing one to run away.

As the opfor charge continued, Bonolo emptied a magazine into one of the orcs, but was soon faced with the remaining large orc with a two-handed sword intent on cleaving him in two. By sheer grit and determination, he managed to fend it off and push it back, although his environment suit took a nasty gash from the enemy's sword.

The remaining lizardman put on a spurt and closed rapidly with Immaculada, who dropped it with a single shot. B Team had achieved their objective.

As they returned to barracks, B Team voiced their confusion, but were merely told that all would become clear soon enough. For now, they had earned their pay for the day and could chow down with a good conscience.

That went smoothly enough, apart from forgetting the SAW. There are a couple of wrinkles that are new to Forgotten Ruin, but I have two more training scenarios before getting into any kind of campaign.