Blue Wizard is about to DIE!!!!! (short AAR and thoughts on the game)

We were both a bit frazzled last night, so Steve and I opted for a light game. This was just the opportunity I needed to drag out Blue Wizard is About to DIE!!!! This is a game based around the old Atari favourite Gauntlet, so I was quite keen to try it out, because I had fond memories of spending all night playing Gauntlet with my mates. I bought it from Wargame Vault as a pdf and printed all the components a couple of weeks ago. Now I had the opportunity to see how it actually played.

Description
The game can be played with 1-5 players. Players take the role of Amazon, Barbarian, Elf and Wizard. Each character has three lives, so when you die you are not out of the game immediately. If you use up your three lives, you must buy a new one by putting 50 gold in the slot or you are out of the game. In some variants, one player can take the role of Sorcerer and takes responsibility for moving all the monsters and generally being mean to the characters.

Amazon, Barbarian, Elf and Wizard stand ready to enter the dungeon

Characters are rated for the number of attacks they may make each turn and the amount of damage they can do. Amazon has a low power short range attack and a medium power melee attack. Barbarian is a total melee monster but has no ranged attack. Elf and Wizard both have low power melee attacks and good long-range attacks. Each character also has a special attack, which costs gold and health points to use but can prove quite devastating. Note to self: do not fire a lightning bolt at an adjacent monster. It hurts!

All characters move the same distance, but their speed is represented by the directions they may move in. Amazon may move in any direction. Wizard may make one diagonal move and may pass through one wall per turn. Barbarian and Elf may not move diagonally at all.

They must make their way through three dungeon levels filled with Grunks, Slimes and Spooks to find and defeat Sorcerer on the fourth level. On the way, they can search treasure chests for power-ups and healing, while trying to avoid the dreaded Freeze Trap.

The game is played semi-cooperatively. All players are on the same side but only one can actually win, while it is possible for all of them to lose. The winner is the character with the most gold at the end.

Level 1: Amazon and Wizard work together to clear their side of the dungeon. Barbarian is happy on his own, while Elf is trying to steal all the treasure and avoid the Grunks.

Monsters move towards the nearest players and attack them with little strategy and lots of brute force. They spawn each turn in the corners of the dungeon level and move towards the nearest character. If they end their move in range, they automatically do damage.

Level 3: Spooks, Slimes and Grunts everywhere! Tough level.

The Game
We had a thoroughly enjoyable game. Levels 1 and 2 went well for us. The monsters spawned and were killed at about the same rate. We found some treasure and moved on. Then we hit Level 3 and suddenly the flood-gates opened. We were swarmed by all types of monsters and all the characters lost lives trying to get through from the entrance to the exit portal. We should have had a couple of characters stand on portals to slow the rate of advance but we were not cooperating well, as we tried to get each other killed and take the magic items that the other dropped. Eventually we did it, and fought Sorcerer on the fourth level. After the difficulties of Level 3, Level 4 was almost an anti-climax. Sorcerer did little damage and we wore him down quickly. Victory was ours and Wizard won by having the most gold, despite having blown himself up with a lighting bolt at one point.

The Verdict
It was good fun. The game took longer than expected, but it worked well. The rules required some interpretation in places. They are short and to the point, but could have done with a bit more explanation in places. Aesthetically, the printed components are nice, but I was glad that I had dug out some figures to use instead of the character counters. Next time I shall dig out figures for the monsters too. Using figures lifted the game visually. It also leaves me tempted to produce the dungeon levels using my Hirst Arts moulds. That said, I think this is an occasional game, and not a regular game, so the effort is probably not justified. It is still a very good value-for-money game. At £3 (plus ink and card), I feel like I got a pretty decent product. I shall dig it out again next time we are too frazzled to play something more serious.

Squadron Commander: Reheat - First Impressions

Rules: Squadron Commander: Reheat
Producer: Brigade Models
Type: 1/300 starfighter combat

Squadron Commander: Reheat is a reworking of Squadron Commander 3600. The rules are available as a free download from Brigade Models so the first thing to say is that the price is right. Apparently there will be a printed edition that includes points, campaign stuff and other bits not included in the pdf. The pdf edition of the rules contains the basic rules for play and the stats for the existing range of supporting miniatures so you can get started immediately.

The Rules - Table of Contents
Introduction
Game Set-up
Sequence of Play
Movement
Sensors
Cannons
Missiles
Resolving Damage
Damage Control
Leaving the Battle
Starfighters and Missiles
Squadron Generation
Designers' Notes

So, how does this game play?
The game shows its hex-based origins very clearly and is written as if the default position is to play on a hex grid. They also include a section on playing without a hex grid (read 1 hex as 1 inch and measure appropriately). We played without a hex grid and it works absolutely fine. The only thing we thought would come in handy was a turning key to help fighters turn, because turns are measured in increments of 60 degrees exactly if playing on hexes or up to 60 degrees if not. I shall get around to making one of those at some point soon.

Each fighter has its own data card with all the information on it and space for writing in its missile payload, damage received and current speed. The data card contains most of the information you need to play the game and is probably the main reason why you would not field a vast number of space fighters in this game. We're not sure on practical maxima at the moment, but the starter sets are a good clue to a base game size (two flights of four fighters on each side).

Normal movement is in straight lines or turns of up to 60 degrees. You set your speed at the start of the turn and then move when your turn comes. You have to move a set distance in a straight line, based on your speed and manoeuvrability, before you can turn. There are also options for side-slips, hard turns and barrel rolls if you want to get fancy. Fighters also have acceleration and deceleration limits so you do not have a totally free choice of speed.

Sensors are used to identify enemy fighters and can also be used to scan the enemy for damage or other information. Normally you cannot view enemy data cards and this is how you would find out just what damage has been done. Of course, fighters also carry jammers so your scanner has to beat the enemy jammer before you can get a lock and find stuff out. This same process is used for getting a lock on the enemy to fire missiles at them.

Fighters all carry cannon. This is a generic term for blasters, lasers, etc. Cannon are fairly short range and cause less damage than missiles but there are fewer ways to avoid cannon shots, so it probably balances out in the long run. Fighters can also carry missiles. The basic fighters may carry one missile per hardpoint with fighters having either two or four hardpoints. To fire a missile you need to get a lock on the enemy fighter. Once the missile is launched, the enemy fighter gets to drop decoys if it has any and use ECM to divert the missile before it hits, so there are plenty of opportunities to stop missiles, which might make them seem not much use. On the other hand, they have longer range than cannons and do a heck of a lot more damage when they do hit.

Some fighters have shields. These prevent a lot of damage completely and can recharge between turns. Other fighters have more armour, which reduces the amount of damage taken but does not completely stop it, unlike shields. It's a trade-off in design that played a large part in our game. A lot of games just give the figures damage points that are reduced when they are hit. SC:R uses a system of critical hits instead. This results in components of the fighter getting damaged or damage being taken to the structure of the fighter. If the structure is reduced to 0 then the fighter is destroyed. You can also cause a nice fireball by hitting critical components. This makes the game very interesting, because reduction in capability is not incremental. You either have a system or you do not. The number of critical hits inflicted is equal to the damage done divided by the armour rating of the fighter. So, as you can see a heavily armoured fighter will take fewer hits, while one with shields will take more hits once its shields are gone but no hits up to that point.

One final point to include is that you also roll for pilot skill and abilities before the game. Pilots can start with weakness such as being poor with scanners or strengths like being a Marksman. Presumably in the campaign game pilots can improve in skill and skills. That would be really cool.

The question is, how does this all work in practice?

Our Game
We decided to just play with two fighters on each side. I chose my Hornisse Interceptors while Steve chose a pair of Folgore multi-role fighters. My ships carried lots of armour but no shields while his had shields but little armour. I think it would be fair to characterise my fighters as great lumbering brutes, whiles Steve's were lighter, faster, stealthier and better in almost every respect except armour and ability to absorb damage.

We rolled for set-up and it turned out that my lumbering brutes had got the drop on the Eurofeds (Steve rolled a 1 and I rolled a 12). We deployed behind him, trying to get in close enough to tail him, but his fighters, being more agile and faster quickly turned around and were speeding towards us. Each of us tried to get position on the other but it was not going to work so we wound up in a head-to-head pass. As the fighters flew into range, my two ganged up on one of Steve's. There was a brief exchange of fire that stripped Steve's fighter of its shields and then I launched a couple of missiles right at him. He wanted to do the same but unfortunately I had shot his missile racks off that turn with my other fighter. His ECM failed to stop the missiles, but his decoys did take one of them out. Still, that was enough. Twelve critical hits later his pilot had ejected and the fighter was a brief fireball in the firmament. Steve's remaining fighter then came in to try its luck. One shot caused my rookie pilot to lose control of his craft as Steve did some damage to the main structure but the veteran pilot on the rookie's wing then fired a blaze of blasters at the Eurofed machine and blew it to pieces with a reactor hit. Job done, my boys went home to a well-earned cup of tea.

Impressions
We enjoyed the game. It was nicely crunchy, allowing for a small game that is still engaging. The critical hit system and the design of the two fighters is sufficiently different to require different tactics, which is great. The game play went smoothly enough. There were questions about the rules but we were able to resolve them based on my incessant interrogation of the chaps at Brigade over the past week on their forum.

If starfighters is your thing then I would recommend downloading the rules and giving them a shot. I really like the fighters from Brigade too, so buy them while you are at it! :-) I am now looking forward to more fighters for my faction, although I am tempted to buy a flight of the AmRep ones for an elite squadron. I am also hoping that the published rules are not too far off because they should include a points system, a design system and a campaign system. Then it will be time to add SC:R to our Bwendi versus Albion campaign properly.

Runebound - A mini review

We played Runebound from Fantasy Flight Games recently. I had played it before and was not sure about the game. I really wanted to like it but the game play did not strike me as being that great. Then I was on the FFG website a couple of weeks back and found out that I had been getting a key rule wrong! Apparently, when it tells you to roll the dice to attack, it does actually mean both of them and not one die. Had the rulebook said 'roll 2d10', it would have been clearer. As it is, it could mean one die or two dice, because dice is used as both singular and plural by many people these days. Anyway, rambling aside, with this simple change the entire texture of the game improved massively and we had a great time.

So, what is it about?
Runebound is a fantasy quest game. You move around the map to adventure locations, draw an adventure card and try to defeat it. Defeating adventures nets you gold and experience, and sometimes a special reward. You can go to towns to buy equipment or recruit sidekicks with the gold and you can buy stat upgrades with experience counters. As you gain in experience you can take on more difficult encounters until eventually you take on the most difficult encounters and defeat the big bad guy. Meanwhile the other players are busily doing the same, so it is in essence a race game.

The basic quest in this game is "The Rise of the Dragon Lords". The evil necromancer Vorakesh is trying to find the ancient dragon runes and wishes to use them to resurrect the high lord of the evil dragons, Margath. As a heroic adventurer it is your duty to stop him.

What do you get for your money?
12 Hero cards and the corresponding plastic miniatures
84 Adventure cards
84 Market cards
60 Wound counters
54 Exhaustion counters
58 Adventure counters
60 Experience counters
6 Undefeated challenge counters
50 Gold counters
8 Doom counters

Game Play
The game board is a hex map with town locations, different terrain and a series of adventure locations marked on it. It is set up by placing adventure counters of the right colour on each adventure location. Adventures are rated as green, yellow, blue and red in increasing order of difficulty and the locations on the map are marked in these colours to show which counter you should put on each.

At the start of the game each player draws a hero card. That is their character for the game. Each hero is slightly different and has a special ability that relates to their character class. Some are stronger in melee combat, others in missile combat and others in magical combat. All characters start in the same town and set off from there to explore the map

With everything set up, the first player rolls the movement dice and moves as far as they wish, or can. The movement dice have terrain types on each side, so you need to roll the right sort of terrain to move into it. If you have no dice showing rivers, then you cannot move into a river hex. If they finish their turn on an adventure location with an adventure token on it then they draw an adventure card and resolve it. If they finish their turn in a town, they draw a market card, which may be an item or an ally, and place it in the market space for that town. There may already be market cards in that market space. If they have the gold, they may buy any item or recruit any ally that is in that market space. At the end of their turn, they may spend any experience counters they have to buy experience tokens that increase their stats. Once they have done all this, then their turn is over and play passes to the next player.

Adventure cards
Adventure cards may be challenges, encounters or events. Challenges always involve combat and every adventure must include dealing with one of these. Encounters usually involve skill tests instead of actual combat. If you draw an encounter you often get to keep the card and use it at a later date for some special effect. Events introduce global effects to the game. There can only ever be one event in effect at any given time, so newly drawn event cards tend to replace old ones, although in some circumstances they do not. If you draw an encounter or an event, you must draw another adventure card after resolving the immediate effects of the encoutner or event. This means that every adventure must finish with a challenge card.

If you fail to defeat the challenge card, then it remains at that location and someone else can come along and try to defeat it. Losing means you lose all your gold and one ally or item that you own, and then you are returned to the nearest town.

How does it play?
As I noted earlier, it feels more like a race game than anything else. There is little interaction between players, although it is possible to attack or trade with each other if you finish your turn in the same space as someone else but that is where it rests. Leaving aside this last, your actions only affect you. This means that there is potentially a lot of downtime between turns in a larger game. We got around the downtime by getting into the role-play and reading out the adventure cards in portentous tones. The social aspect of gaming comes in at that point too.

We only have a two or three hours to play games on our regular gaming evening and even with only two of us, we did not actually finish the game in that time. To some extent that was probably because neither of us felt up to dealing with the most difficult encounters at any point, but I get the feeling that a larger game could take much longer again. There is a mechanism for forcing a conclusion to the game using doom tokens. This system puts a limit on the length of the game based on the number of players. Once the limit is reached, each player must take it in turns to try their hand at the endgame confrontation, which consists of just drawing red challenge cards and trying to deal with them until you have achieved the game's victory conditions or you are defeated. This feels a bit contrived to me, but it might be worth using to ensure that the game actually does get completed within a reasonable time frame.

Overall, and with the addition of playing the rules correctly, I enjoyed our game much more than I did the times I played it in the past. I shall certainly play Runebound again. I am also keen to try the various character decks that are meant to increase interaction between players. It will be interesting to see how they affect the game play and the experience of the game for the players.

Chaos in Cairo versus .45 Adventures - Pulp Deathmatch

Chaos in Cairo (CiC) and .45 Adventures (45A) are both pulp skirmish rules aimed at similar periods.

Chaos in Cairo
CiC is focused on battles in the streets of Cairo between four different types of warbands. It features archaeologists and mummies, both of which are pretty much self-explanatory. Then there are the Servants of Set, evil humans that are often twisted caricatures of humanity as they have meddled with That Which Man Was Not Meant To Know. Finally there are the Swords of Ra, a group of Bedouin-like warriors, who seek to prevent the secret knowledge of ancient Egypt from being taken by anyone (think the black-clad types that fight the Set warriors in The Mummy Returns). Each warband consists of characters (the heroes) and henchmen (groups of lesser humans). You can also recruit special characters, some of which are unique. Typically a warband consist of around 5 - 10 characters and henchmen.

The system uses goal rolls to determine success or failure. Each character has stats and skills that tell you how many dice to roll when testing. Each roll of 4+ is a success (a goal). You are either rolling to beat a task number, or another character's goals. In the former case, you succeed by scoring as many goals as the task number or more. In the latter case, the player with the most goals wins. The system is simple and elegant, using around 3 to 7 d6s for each roll. This system is used for everything from combat to jumping ravines.

Speaking of combat, characters in CiC do not get killed directly in combat. They can be knocked out once they run out of hits, in which case a doctor or character with medical skills can revive them. Once knocked out, you can administer the coup de grace to them, which renders them permanently out of the fight. Character death is dealt with in the post-battle phase. You roll to see what effect being knocked out has on a character. There are penalties on this roll if they have suffered a coup de grace, so it is more likely that they will die permanently in this case. This is only really relevant to the campaign game.

The game is geared towards campaign play and warbands are designed with that in mind. You can easily play one-off games if you want by agreeing how much to spend on each warband and rolling for or deciding on a scenario, but some of the skills that characters have are more suited to campaign play. Six scenarios are provided in the rules and each has three sub-plots that can be used with it. In campaign play you roll for scenario and sub-plot, play the game, roll to see the effect of being knocked out after the battle and pay for the upkeep of your warband. Characters can gain experience and become better or they can die and be lost permanently. You can earn more money and recruit new characters or henchmen during this phase.

Chaos in Cairo provides all the rules you need to get started with a campaign. The scenarios are given a little flavour by the sub-plots but are fairly generic. On the other hand, preparation is kept to a minimum, which gives you more time for playing.

.45 Adventures
45A is a rules set of another colour. Characters in 45A are graded according to their skill level. There are 3 grades of character, with Grade 1 characters being the spear-carriers. Grade 2 characters are the sidekicks, while Grade 3 characters are the heroes. Each character has skills, as with CiC and a set of stats but there the resemblance ends. Characters in 45A have hit locations, unlike CiC, and each hit on a location degrades the stats associated with that location. Thus, head hits reduce your Brains score. This means that characters slowly become less able as they take damage, until they are knocked out, while in CiC, characters are at full ability until they are knocked out. Typically, you will field 3-6 characters in 45A.

Instead of a handful of d6s, 45A uses 1d10 to resolve tasks. You are either trying to beat a standard target number of 10 or your opponent's die roll. You add your stat and skills to the 1d10 roll to see if you succeed.

45A generally uses more detailed scenarios than CiC. Instead of generic scenarios, the rules include a number of more detailed and specific scenarios. This really points up the major difference between the two rules sets. CiC encourages a more generic style of play, while 45A encourages you to write and develop scenarios that are suited to the characters you have created. The basic 45A rules do not include campaign rules, but these do appear in the later supplements, providing a framework for stringing your scenarios together and a system for improving your characters.

Conclusions
In my opinion, both games are great and each plays sufficiently different that I am happy to play either. So, that leaves me wondering which I should recommend. Well, that depends upon what style of play you want. Both systems work well but in different ways and both really have a different ethos behind them.

CiC offers a single package that gives you four warbands, six generic scenarios and a campaign system. It is focused on 1920s Cairo so you need to be interested in that if you want to play the game as written. If you want to play using this system but with different character types or warbands, then you will have to put a bit of work into your games.

45A offers a broader framework with more character types and greater freedom for creating your group. It does offer most of the pulp archetypes so you could play gangsters or archaeologists, but there are no supernatural elements in the core rulebook. 45A also focuses more on tailor-made scenarios and it encourages this style of creative approach. I have always felt that 45A wants you to put time and effort into making your terrain before the game and rewards a more creative approach.

When coming down to choosing between the two, I am hard-pressed to specify a preference. Both rules sets offer fun games with a different flavour. Each is simple to get into because of the low number of figures required. Really it will come down to what sort of game you want to play. CiC is slightly more generic in approach, like a more typical skirmish wargame, while 45A feels more like a light RPG in scope. Personally, I shall continue to play both for the different experience that each provides. If you prefer a single rules set with a generic approach then I think CiC will suit you better. If you want ot put a little more effort into your games and adopt the light RPG approach then 45A should suit you better. Or maybe, like me, you should just get and play both. After all, you can use the same figures with each.

Tusk - A Review

Tusk: Mammoth hunting from 12,000BC to 1914 is a set of rules by Matthew Hartley and published by Irregular Miniatures. The rules cost £3.00 for a 16 page A5 card-covered booklet. The art-work is amusing, though amateurish compared to more modern, glossy rules sets. On the other hand, it is also amusing and there are a couple of really bad jokes in the pictures that I appreciated (I have a terrible sense of humour!).

The basic rules deal with how to hunt with cavemen. There is a points system that allows you to buy your hunters. These can consist of hunters with hand weapons, hunters with missile weapons, fire-makers (they can set fire to things!), Og the Hero (a character) and dog packs. Once you have bought your hunters it is time to set out and catch some dinner.


Irregular Miniatures 6mm Caveman pack (click the pictures for a larger image)

The system uses Action Points , much like DBA PIPs, and you roll 1d6 each turn to see how many you have. You then use these points to move your hunters and set fire to things. You can move hunters more than once per turn by spending multiple Action Points on them.

Fires, once lit, have their own place in the turn sequence and can spread across the table if you are not careful. They are useful for herding mammoths over cliffs, but you could also wind up getting burnt yourself.

Combat occurs when hunters with missiles are in range or hunters are within 2cm of their target. 2d6 are rolled and if the roll is high enough the target is dead.

The basic beast in the rules is a mammoth and the first two scenarios deal with hunting mammoths. Beasts do not have their own turn per se. Instead, their reactions are controlled by a reaction table. Each turn, each beast tests its reaction according to the most serious circumstance that pertains to its situation. Circumstances include: being near to a fire; being attacked in close combat; being near dogs; being attacked by missile fire; and a couple of circumstances determined by how close they are to humans. The reaction table will tell you what to do with the beasts, which could include running away, attacking or just simply grazing, among other possibilities.


A herd of Irregular Miniatures 6mm Mammoths

So, that is the basic system. It is simple and elegant and finishes with two scenarios. The first scenario is a solo mammoth hunting one. It is really a training scenario. You place a mammoth in the centre of the table and try to kill it. I played this through a few times and it was amusing, but began to pall after a while because there is a technique to mammoth hunting and once you sort that out, then you can win most of the time, subject to the luck of the dice.

The second scenario is a competitive game. The king is dead and the players are vying to become the new king. To prove their worth, the players must hunt mammoths successfully. The player that kills the most mammoths wins. The number of mammoths in the herd is determined by the number of players, so there should always be plenty of mammoths for you to hunt. I have not played this scenario yet, but my experience of one of the later ones suggests that it could easily descend into the most enjoyable chaos as players try to kill mammoths, drive mammoths over their rivals and generally disport themselves disgracefully.

The appendix then deals with Victorian hunters and also adds dinosaurs to the mix, specifically Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex. Instead of hunters, the Victorian party will consist of Adventurers, Stalwarts (regular soldiers, etc) and Rabble (porters and similar ilk). You also have the option of recruiting Sir Harry (hero) and Artillery! Now, it may seem unsporting to use artillery against dinosaurs, but sometimes needs must.


Irregular Miniatures 6mm Sir Harry Pack

The appendix finishes with two scenarios using the new troops types. The first is a solo game where you try to capture specimen dinosaurs, much like the mammoth hunting scenario, by driving them into pits you have dug. I have not tried this one yet, but suspect that it could get nasty if you try capturing Tyrannosaurs. Mr Hartley recommends starting gently with Brontosaurs.

The second scenario is one that I remember fondly from many years ago. We had a most enjoyable evening's gaming as we tried to escape from Island X before the volcano on it erupted. Unfortunately, between us and our boat was a herd of Tyrannosaurs. Eek! The players must try to get from one side of the table to the other, past the Tyrannosaurs, and the winner is the one who gets the most of his group off onto the ship before the dice roll indicates that the volcano explodes and wipes the island out. This is a scenario where you try to position your troops so that they drive the Tyrannosaurs into your opponents and then gloat as your opponent gets eaten, and I highly recommend it.

Figure Packs
As you will have seen above, Irregular Miniatures also supports these rules with a number of packs of figures, both in 15mm and 6mm. I can only comment on the 6mm offerings because that is all I have bought. I received four dinosaurs in each of my packs and bought my mammoths separately.

The packs give you around 25 points or so of troops, which is enough for the scenarios in the rule book. You also get two pits (actually shell crater models) for capturing beasts. The figures are typical Irregular Miniatures fare. Some are a bit rough in the lead but they all paint up well. Personally I think that the weakest sculpts are the Stegosaurus, but even they are not too bad once painted and on the table, despite my paint job. The main problem I see with the packs is that both come with dinosaurs. It would have been more useful to get mammoths with my cavemen and Tyrannosaurs and Brontosaurs with the Sir Harry pack, because the Tusk rulebook does not specifically include Triceratops and Stegosaurus. Still, you can treat these latter as Brontosaurs for the purposes of your games and all will be fine.

Conclusion
I like these rules. I am not sure how much longevity they really have because they are a beer and pretzels rules set but they are fun to haul out every so often. They take no time at all to learn, so everyone can play and enjoy themselves from the off, even if they have not played before. I would recommend Tusk to anyone wanting a game that they can haul from the shelf whenever they do not feel like playing a "serious" game.

I like the figure packs that Irregular produces for Tusk too, despite my reservations above. The figures were easy to paint up and you get enough for one player in each pack. For the price, it is definitely worth investing in the 6mm sets. I am currently working on the Piedmontese International Scientific Survey and will add them to my set. After all, the game is fun and is worth playing every so often.

On a final note, there are two supplements for Tusk: Tusk II The Wrath of Kong and Steel Tusk III: Apocalypse Soon. I plan to review Tusk II once I have tried the rules in that supplement, but do not have Tusk III yet. As a taster, I can tell you that Tusk II includes rules for Raptors, Giant Wolves and Triceratops. It also adds rules for attacking other players, trained beasts and various new figure types and weapons. I am looking forward to trying this one out too.

Larger than Life - Pulp rules

Larger than Life is a set of rules for pulp gaming from TwoHourWargames. The rules cover all kinds of pulp action, allowing for gritty tales of gumshoes, invading aliens and lost worlds.

Content
There are effectively three parts to the rules.

The first part of the rules deals with character creation. All characters are defined by their Reputation (Rep), which may range from 1 to 7. For a look at Rep and how it works, check out Chain Reaction 3.0 from TwoHourWargames, which you can freely download from their website. In addition to this, Larger than Life adds three skill areas; Brains, Brawn and Bravado. One of these will be your primary attribute and any skills you have will be at full Rep, while skills in other areas will be tested at half Rep. This takes your characters further into role-playing territory than most other TwoHourWargames rules go.

Your group will be led by a Star, representing you. The Star has a number of advantages that other characters do not have. These include:

• Free Will - the Star may choose how he reacts under certain circumstances (other figures must roll);
• Star Power - the Star uses this to try to reduce any damage received, making Stars much tougher than others;
• Cheating Death - the Star may cheat death, although this does reduce his Rep for future games; and
• Larger than Life - the Star may not be killed by figures of lower Rep than them.

The Star also gets Advantages that can give them positive attributes and disadvantages that can negatively affect the character in some areas. These rules enhance the survivability of your Star. Alongside your Star, you may have a Co-Star, a Love Interest and a number of Extras. Each of these will have their own skills too. All of this builds towards creating a group that has a lot of character and feels like it might have lived in the pulps.

The villains get their own versions of this and rules are included for creating the chief villain, his femme fatale and henchmen as needed.

The second part of the rules covers campaign play. The Star starts at home and is given a task, which might involve rescuing someone or recovering an object or just plain thwarting the villain. Like a film, the action moves from scene to scene with the Star and his loyal cohorts trying to extract the information they need to find the villain and beard him in his lair. You roll to see where you need to go and how you get there. Then you find out if an encounter occurs en route and resolve it of there is one. Then you try to find the clue and extract the information. This last process involves rolling against a randomly determined difficulty factor. It is possible that the villain can turn up and corner you while you are looking for clues, or that you can have other encounters with the locals along the way. There are army lists in the rules that cover a variety of different types of encounters and others are downloadable from the TwoHourWargames Yahoo group. Successfully completing each scene leads to you eventually finding the villain and going to the final showdown. The final showdown is the only time that you are guaranteed a figure game.

The final part of the rules covers setting up figure games and playing them out. It includes rules for generating the basic terrain of the area, the number of opponents that your group faces based on the total Rep of your group and the combat rules. These systems are fairly standard for TwoHourWargames and you can get an idea of how they play out by looking at Chain Reaction 3.0 or Chain Reaction: Swordplay. The basic mechanic involves rolling a number of dice equal to your combat skill, modified by circumstances, and trying to score more successes than your opponent. As I wrote earlier, check out the free rules from TwoHourWargames to see how these systems work.

That covers what the rules contain to some extent. So, the question is: how do they play?

Our Game
We started a story tonight. I umpired the game and made all the non-player character rolls, while my friend, Steve, took the part of the good guys. His star was a PI employed by a wealthy benefactor, who was sent in search of an object. The rules did not specify what this object was, but we worked out that the villain was a Native, so it was probably a tribal artefact. Presumably the PI's wealthy benefactor is a collector of such things. The PI set out in search of information. He was chasing a variety of people that might be able to tell him where to find what he was looking for and his Interrogate skill came into its own throughout this. We went through twelve such encounters with varying success. By the end of the evening, the PI had found 4 clues, not nearly enough to find the villain. His final encounter was a failed attempt to find someone that could tell him where to look. He ran into a young lady with three soldiers in tow, who shot him and his friends up before capturing them all. The rules include a section that abstracts the escape process. We rolled this and all of the good guys escaped to continue their search. We finished the session at that point.

Our Thoughts
Characters in this game are interesting. I like the need to choose primary and secondary skill areas. It gives figures different areas that they excel in, so even your Star can be outshone by his Co-Star at times. The character creation process is fairly simple, although I had to search a bit in the rulebook to follow the process through. Still, it worked and with the characters created the game play can get moving.

The campaign system is quite heavily abstracted and requires a fair bit of imagination and input to flesh out the encounters. By making them into rolls against a difficulty factor, the basic elements of the campaign have a fairly plain flavour. This process can also drag on a lot if you follow the system slavishly as written. This does not necessarily make for a good face-to-face system. On the other hand, if you have the time to invest in it, and want to write up the story as it progresses, this system will work very well for solo play. I certainly intend to try solo games to see if the campaign system has more interest. It will probably work quite well for me in that regard because I enjoy creating the story. However, we did not find it that engrossing for our face-to-face game.

The miniatures system is typical of TwoHourWargames and I like it. I like their rules and the way they work anyway, and this system does not disappoint. I particularly like the idea and implementation of Star Power. It gives a cinematic quality to the action that makes me want to quote Monty Python's Black Knight. You can try the system for yourself with the free rules I have mentioned before, so I shall not comment too much on this aspect of the rules. I like it and it works for me.

Conclusions
The rules are put together and written quite well. We had to flick through the rules quite a bit to check some things, but overall they work well. A few points were not particularly clear (e.g. how you resolve finding a clue with people; the table is under the objects section) but overall it was clear enough. Having a fair bit of familiarity with the TwoHourWargames paradigm probably helped too.

The system has a lot of potential. I think that the campaign system in the rulebook is likely to work best for solo play. I also think that the numbers needed to reach the final showdown are too high based on how our game worked. As it stood, we needed ten successful clues to stand a chance of reaching the villain with the Rep4 PI. Given that we had played through twelve attempts to find clues and only obtained four of them in the space of two hours, the game would have dragged on a bit too long. Reducing the numbers by about 5 would probably be a suitable solution for us. That would mean a minimum of five clues and an average of eight to reach the final showdown.

Another, probably better, approach for face-to-face play would be for one player to script the story, including encounters and deciding the results of success and failure. This might work well using a system where the player has to win a set number of games to reach the showdown. While this is more like a traditional wargame, I think that Larger than Life could benefit from such an approach under some circumstances. I think you could use the system in the book to help generate these games but I am not yet convinced that it will work for competitive play.

Leaving aside my concerns about the campaign system, once you get to a figure game, the system works really well. Battles are fast and furious and great fun. You can get quite a few played in a typical session and characters do not always react the way you would want them to. This makes them act more like real people, which I really like.

Overall, I don't think this is the best system from TwoHourWargames. The battles are great fun but the campaign system lets it down a bit for competitive play, although it is good for solo play. If you are going to play solo, I would recommend these rules to you. If you want to play games against your mates, then the campaign system can be used to generate games, but I would not use it exactly as written. As such, I would recommend the rules, but with reservations.

I shall certainly be playing Larger than Life again and experimenting with what works best for me. The beauty of them is that the system is simple enough that you can tinker with it without breaking it. There is also fantastic support from Ed at TwoHourWargames on the Yahoo group, which is a major advantage. Ed responds to all rules queries quite quickly, which is brilliant and really helps.

You can buy Larger than Life from TwoHourWargames and it is the Featured Game for May 2009, so you can get it a bit cheaper right now. It is certainly worth a try, despite my reservations. I shall certainly do so, and I shall write up my experiences on this blog when I do so to see if my opinions have changed.

Thrilling Expeditions Quarterly 1 - A Review

Rich at Rattrap Productions recently sent me the pdf for the first Thrilling Expeditions Quarterly (TEQ) for "services rendered". TEQ is due to be released shortly. Although called a quarterly, I am given to understand that it will be more like a supplement and so will always be available, rather than disappearing when the next one comes out, as a magazine would.

I am a fan of his games and have played in several play-by-forum games, so I was well chuffed to get this magazine early. If you are not sure what a play-by-forum game is, then check out the Rattrap Speakeasy and have a read through the games that have been played there (there are sections of the forum for PBEM games where these take place). Anyway, back to TEQ 1. I only have the pdf so cannot comment on print quality, but will focus on content because that is what is really important.

What do you get for your money?
The pdf is a 56 page document, with a colour cover. In total there are 52 pages of content with black-and-white illustrations or photographs throughout.

Contents?
The contents are as follows:
What is the New Commerce-verse? (Article) by Richard A. Johnson
The Gargoyle and the Adventure of the Monk's Eye (.45 Adventure Fiction) by Pete Murray
Sgt. Grant vs. The Oni (.45 Adventure Scenario) by Pete Murray
A Murder of Ghouls (.45 Adventure Article) by Joey McGuire
Feasting Ground (.45 Adventure Scenario) by Joey McGuire
The Curse of the Red Shirt (Article) by Marc Anderson
Building Jungle Terrain with Grimm (Article) by Markus Kaufmann
The Chronicles of Star Command “ Crash of the Red Eagle" (Fantastic Worlds Solo Scenario) by Marc Anderson
The Beast of Gevaudan: A History (Article) by Pete Murray
The Beast of Gevaudan (Gloire Scenario) by Mark Costello
The Art of Improvisation by Richard A. Johnson
Market Day (Broadsword Adventures Fiction) by Ryan Flessing
The Flaming Cliffs of al-Mahal (Broadsword Adventures Scenario) by Richard A. Johnson

So, you get some fiction to help get you in the mood for the games and to get the juices flowing. The fiction is fine for what it is. The quality of writing is generally acceptable to good and I enjoyed reading all of the stories, although I would not really have missed them, were they not there. That said, they do help to build atmosphere and there are scenarios in them, should you be inspired enough to write them.

The articles are an interesting mix. Grimm's article on building jungle terrain is appropriate because one of the scenarios (Sgt. Grant versus the Oni) takes place in the jungle and most have rural settings with lots of trees. The trees that the article describes look fantastic, although I suspect that I would not really have the patience to build an entire table worth of them. The other articles discuss the Rattrap approach to designing and linking their games; approaches to giving even the spear-carriers, the "red-shirts", some character; and archetypes for ghouls (flesh-eating, degenerate humans) in .45 Adventures. The Art of Improvisation article is particularly good. It provides sound advice for those putting on games about how to be flexible with your scenario and emphasises that the point of the game is to have fun.

Then we come to the meat of the product: the scenarios. I shall not give too much detail about the scenarios; you will need to buy TEQ to get the full skinny on them, but I hope I provide enough information for you to judge their interest for yourself. I shall also give my impression of the scenarios based on reading them through. I have not played any of them yet but will add additional comments and battle reports as soon as I do.

Sgt. Grant versus the Oni
This is a Weird War Two scenario for .45 Adventures pitting two characters against each other. It comprises three separate episodes. In the first two episodes, Sgt. Grant tries to find and recover details of the Japanese Oni super-soldier project and the means to defeat it before the final climactic showdown in the third episode. The final part of the story sees Sgt. Grant trying to escape the area before the artillery strike that will sterilise the island. He is hindered in his progress by the Oni, who is trying to kill him. The situations look interesting and I would be fascinated to try this game out. I have also been considering other theatres of war where it could fit in. Sgt. Grant could be replaced with a British Commando Super Soldier, for example, and his enemy could be a Nazi Super Soldier. As such, it should take very little work to make the scenario fit the figures you already have. I am looking forward to trying this one out.

Feasting Ground
This is another .45 Adventures scenario. It is set in the prohibition era and features a gang of bootleggers taking on a gang of ghouls for control of the cemetery. This looks like a bit of a slug-fest with ghouls popping up all over. While simple, it should be a fun scenario to play through too.

The Chronicles of Star Command "Crash of the Red Eagle"
This features Betty Steele, one of Star Command's finest. Her ship has crash-landed on an alien planet and she must survive and find a way to escape. This is another one that comprises three separate episodes. It features security men galore, all dying in different ways, a bug-eyed monster (well, it will be when I play the scenario) and, of course, Betty Steele. I love the look of this scenario, but I felt that it was let down by the descriptions of victory conditions, which were a little confusing on reading through them. That said, I suspect that setting up and playing the scenario will clarify this for me. I should also point out that the scenario allows for the main character to be one of your own creation rather than Ms Steele herself, so you are not restricted in terms of figures.

The Beast of Gevaudan
This scenario is apparently based on real happenings in mid-18th century France. The article that accompanies the scenario explains this background; beast(s) that preyed on and preferred human flesh stalked the countryside for several years until one was finally slain by a silver bullet. Shades of chupacabras and black beasts of Bodmin if you ask me. The scenario is for Gloire, Rattrap's swashbuckling adventure rules and is designed to be played with the Among the War Parties expansion for those rules. I have a copy of Gloire but have not actually played it so I am more likely to adapt the scenario to suit Broadsword Adventures instead, especially since I have not bought Among the War Parties yet. That said, this could be just the excuse I need to buy Among the War Parties and paint my Seven Years War figures to use with the scenarios.

The goal of the players is to lure the beast into their traps and eventually kill it over the course of three episodes. The first scenario involves questioning a local peasant woman, while fighting off hordes of gypsy thugs that are trying to kill her and driving off the beast itself. Success in this scenario will aid the players in the next. I particularly liked the use of an event deck for the scenario. Each turn a card is drawn that helps to drive the story and determines when the thugs and the beast turn up. many of these are dramatic weather cards, such as a bolt of lightning out of the blue that signals the possible entrance of the Beast. I think these cards will really help the atmosphere of the game.

The second chapter of this story sees the players using the victory points earned in the first scenario to buy traps, with which to wound or even kill the Beast. The players spend their points, lay their traps in a dark defile between two large hills and then try to lure the Beast into their traps, thus making it easier to kill in the final chapter, where they stalk it to its lair and the final showdown occurs.

I would say that this is probably the best-written scenario in the book. I love the atmospheric nature of the encounter cards in the scenarios and the nature of the scenario is enticing.

The Flaming Cliffs of al-Mahal
This is the final offering in TEQ 1. It is a Broadsword Adventures scenario in one episode. A unit of Ibyssian Lion Guard have been sent to the cliffs of al-Mahal to hunt a vicious creature that lives there. The scenario is set up for solo play but there are notes on how to adapt it to multiple players. It reads like a fairly simple dungeon-crawl scenario and looks like fun to set up and play. I shall probably try this one out first because the set-up is simple (a cave complex) and I like the fact that the creature you are hunting is randomly selected so replayability ought to be good. Of course, my Ibyssian Lion Guard are more likely to look like Vikings, because that is what I have!

Comments
Overall, I think this is a very good package. The scenarios all have a fair bit of mileage in them and I would be very happy to play all of them. The most interesting of them is probably The Beast of Gevaudan but the others are still good scenarios. I like the inclusion of solo scenarios too. This helps players without opponents get started playing these games and provides for those times when you just feel like setting something up quickly and having a go.

Although there are nominally five scenarios in TEQ, in fact three of those scenarios are multi-episode mini-campaigns, so effectively you get eleven scenarios. Using my standard conversion rate (the beer value) that amounts to around 15 to 20 hours of game play for $6 (pdf cost) or about £3.50, so for less than the price of three bottles of real ale (an hour or two at most to drink) you get a lot more entertainment. Add in time spent reading TEQ and planning the games, and the entertainment value increases massively again. Therefore, on a value for money basis, I would highly recommend this collection to anyone that already plays Rattrap Production's games. If you don't play any of them, why not? More seriously, if you do not play them, but are interested in pulp skirmish then this could provide good fodder for your imagination and the opportunity to adapt the scenarios to your own needs. If you are only interested in one of the Rattrap titles and really have no interest in the others, then I could see the appeal being more limited, but there may still be ways to make the scenarios fit your needs, or they could spark your imagination in other ways

The only really negative point for me was the number of typos in the text. There were not a vast number, but I noticed more than I think should be present in a publication. In a couple of cases the wrong word had been used (eminent instead of imminent, for example). None of these typos really matter, because they do not create difficulties in understanding the scenarios but I am picky and noticed them.

And Finally
Overall, I liked this product. I am a fan of the Rattrap Games anyway, so that may colour my judgement, but I think that there is a lot in here to fire up your imagination, even if you do not play any of them. I can't wait to get started actually playing the scenarios and shall report back once I have done so.

Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures

We finally played Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures (WHAA) last night. February has been a poor month for gaming due to work, so it was good to roll some dice and talk some shite.

We have been planning to play WHAA for a while now. I have played it solo before and have described the events of my solo campaign on my wiki, but I was keen to see how it played head-to-head. I am pleased to report that it went well. The rules are by TwoHourWargames (THW) and use their reaction system to dictate how troops respond to the action in the battle. If you want to know more about this system, a number of free downloads are available from THW on their web-page, including the newly released Chain Reaction 3.0. Download it and try a game. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

Returning to WHAA, the rules are a fantasy set for skirmish gaming. Rules are included for larger battles, which resemble grand skirmish rules (units and characters) more than big battle rules; think Warhammer Ancient Battles rather than Field of Glory. At least, that is how they feel to me. The key to the system is the distinction between Stars and Grunts. The Star is your personal figure and has much more freedom to choose its actions, while the Grunts will react according to dice rolls on the reaction tables. This could mean that they refuse to charge home when you order them to, or they might charge when you want them to hold the line. This lack of control is not excessive but certainly enhances the game and creates an air of immediacy that many wargames lack.

In addition to the skirmish and big battle rules, the rulebook includes a campaign and scenario generation system that permits your characters to improve and recruit more members to your force. The scenario generation system bases the forces that oppose you on how large and powerful your own force is. There is no guarantee that a battle will be even, and you will have to learn when to call it a day to preserve your own troops.

As part of the campaign system, the rules include 31 army lists, and encounter tables for the various nations described. These are mainly lists with historical analogues or are fairly standard fantasy races such as dwarves and elves but they make a good starting point for playing a game. You can either play these lists straight or construct your own based on what you have, using these lists as a guide.

Overall, this is a really good package. The rules themselves feel a little untidy in terms of structure, but they are still easy enough to use. There is no requirement to use specific figures and there is plenty of room for working up your own lists if what you want is not present. For example, there is no Viking analogue in these rules, so I worked my own up, which can be found on my wiki.

One thing I have not tried yet is the magic rules. I shall comment on them once I have done so. That covers the rules and so, without further ado, I present the battle report (words by Steve, pictures by me).

The Scenario

The local baker's daughter, Griselda, has been kidnapped by a goblin warband that raided the village of Harbottle on the borders of the Border Kingdoms. Arngrim the Baker is unable to keep up with his workload without his only daughter's help. Brother Cedric is concerned that attendance at the preceptory's afternoon teas will fall off without doughnuts from the bakery to supplement the beverages, but no doughnuts have been baked in days. Therefore, Brother Cedric embarks on a quest to find and rescue Griselda. He is sure that she will not be dead yet, because her doughnut baking skills will make her more valuable alive than dead to the sweet-toothed goblins.

This scenario uses the quest rules from WHAA. Brother Cedric must travel into Goblin territory and search for Griselda. Each campaign turn he dices to see if he has found the object of his quest. If this fails then he must dice to see if he has an ordinary encounter. As it turned out, he did not find her on the first campaign turn, but he did find a goblin village, which he raided. On the second turn, he found her. The dice result called for a pitched battle to fend off the goblins, followed by a raid to recover Griselda. We did not have time to fight out the raid, but we shall do so as soon as possible.

The Search for the Baker’s Daughter
Chapter 1
Brother Cedric reined in his horse, Brothers Konrad and Sigismund drew up either side of him. Ahead over a small bridge lay the Goblin village. He signalled to Hans and Herman his spearmen and Urk and Ogg the archers, to head towards the woods to the right of the village. In the centre of the village four goblins had come out to watch them.

“Maybe we can find information, about the kidnapped Baker’s daughter here,” thought Cedric. It had been a cold trail before they had been informed of the crime.

With a glance to either side Brother Cedric touched the side of his horse with his spurs and charged towards the village with a hymn in his heart. At the sight of the Brethren in full charge heading their way the goblins screamed and ran off into the distance. Meanwhile Urk and Ogg spotted another goblin amongst a patch of trees, both drew arrows and within a moment the goblin slumped to the ground.

The Brother Knights dismounted and headed into the huts to check for more goblins. Nothing was found, but a small box of silver coins. The other four were now heading towards the village, Herman ran ahead to inform Brother Cedric of the other goblin.

He had just reached Cedric when out of the fields a goblin appeared mounted on a ripper beast. Herman froze to the spot, but Sigismund charged to meet the goblin, only to be struck by an arrow and fall to the ground. The goblin continued on to Herman, who put up a brave fight, but he too fell wounded. Another goblin rider appeared and then another. Ogg shot at one, but took and arrow through the heart for his trouble. Brothers Cedric and Konrad with Hans and Ogg eventually killed the remaining goblin riders, but it had been a costly engagement. Brother Sigismund had merely been knocked unconscious; Herman was injured and would have to return to the border fort; Ogg however was dead. They helped Urk bury him and Brother Cedric read a fine sermon over the grave.

Chapter 2
For a month the five travelled into the Goblin Kingdom. They found snippets of information to the Baker's daughter’s location along the way. All seemed to point in direction they now travelled, into the heartland of the Goblin Kingdom. Travelling was becoming more dangerous and several times they had been forced to hide from large Goblin warbands. Up until now they had been lucky to have spotted them in time to hide. Unfortunately for them their luck had just run out and they had been spotted by a Goblin raiding party.

Two Goblin riders headed to meet them and they rode to them. Brother Konrad’s horse shied and the goblin knocked him from his steed and he lay motionless on the ground. Another Goblin rider fired an arrow, which caught Hans and spun him around before he fell to the ground. The Goblin chariot charged in to attack Cedric with another Goblin rider. Urk too fell to an arrow from one of the goblins.

The battle was going badly for the Brethren and there seemed nothing that either Cedric or Sigismund could do. They looked at each other and with grim smiles and a battle hymn on their lips turned to take on the numerous foes. This seemed to unnerve the goblins as within a few moments the tide had turned. Brother Sigismund had slain both his opponents and this had caused the archers creeping up the nearby hill to flee the scene. Brother Cedric despatched the rider he fought against and the two turned on the chariot. Soon the chariot lay destroyed and the goblins were running for cover.

As Cedric and Sigismund returned to the others, Konrad rose gingerly to his feet and rubbed his head. After burying Hans and Urk, the three Brother Knights again mounted their horses and rode off deeper into the Goblin Lands in search of Griselda.

Conclusions

We played two games in under two hours, which fits well with the THW paradigm. Both games were close with the advantage switching between sides as the game progressed. In both cases the Brethren won in the end, but it was by no means an easy feat, especially in the second game where they were outnumbered at the start. This kept our interest going in the games, and neither of us was stuck waiting for the other to finish a large move with nothing to do. This constant engagement in the game is a positive thing and we are both looking forward to finishing this quest.

Overall, I would highly recommend these rules to anyone looking for a fast play fantasy skirmish rules set. The rules themselves work well, and support on the THW Yahoo Group is absolutely first class, should you have any problems.

The only question that remains is, can Brother Cedric rescue Griselda in time? I, for one, can't wait to find out.

Polemos:GNW - Second Impressions

Following our first game of Polemos (see post dated 25 January 2009), I asked a couple of questions about the rules on the Polemos Yahoo Group. These were answered very quickly by Nick Dorrell, the rules' author, so full marks for support of the rules and a big thank you to Nick. I have now re-read the rules and they make much more sense with a game under my belt; it is much easier to see how the rules fit together and how the various parts interact. So, with all this behind us, Steve and I set to and played another game. This time we played an attack/defence game. Steve took the Saxons again, defending the small town of Nieder Kurzhosen, which is rumoured to be situated near Cleethorpes. I took the Swedes in a bid to drive the Saxons from the field.

The Scenario
The Saxon garrison of Nieder Kurzhosen has sallied forth from the town in an attempt to drive off the Swedish advance guard. They are afraid that the Swedes will be able to cut communications to the Saxon main army if left unchallenged, so sitting out a siege in the town with its poorly maintained defences is not an option. The Swedes wish to drive the Saxons from the field and sack the town because they are badly in need of the local schnapps, which drink is famous throughout the country.
The Game
In a bid to speed up the game, and taking our cue from the rules, the Saxons set up in their half of the board, while the Swedes were allowed to set up within 1' of their base edge. This meant that the two armies would start about 5 Base Widths (BW) apart. The Base Width is the basic unit of measurement in Polemos: GNW. My Baccus 6mm GNW figures are based on 60mm x 30mm bases so 1BW is 60mm. The table was 4' x 3'. The figures were deployed as shown in the picture below: The progress of the game was simple. We had two hours in which to play the game and managed seven turns. The Saxon infantry occupied earthworks in front of the town and stayed there for most of the game. Only one infantry battalion ventured forth to fire on the Swedish cavalry and that was both late in the game and ineffective. The Swedish infantry were assailed by the Saxon cavalry over on the Swedish left flank in a ding dong battle that saw first one Saxon cavalry unit routing and then a breakthrough by the Saxon second line that routed a Swedish infantry unit. Overall this fighting was inconclusive and honours were about even. On the Swedish right flank all of the Swedish cavalry assailed the Saxon dragoons and drove them from the field in the end. Typically, I had managed to give my worst commander command of my best cavalry, so their progress towards the fight was slower than might have been desirable. The following pictures were each taken at the end of a turn and hopefully should give you a taste of the flow of the battle (More pictures from this game may be found in my Photobucket account).

Conclusions
This game flowed much better than the last one. We achieved roughly the same result in half the time. Issues that were not covered in the rules still cropped up but we were able to work out our own solutions to them until I could ask about them on the Polemos yahoo group. All of my questions so far have been answered very quickly and I would commend Nick on his customer service in that regard. We still think that the game needs a better QRS, but other than that, it plays well and is worth checking out if you enjoy this fascinating period of history when Sweden was a great power.

The game itself felt about right for the period, although I would quite like to see the infantry getting stuck in more. Cavalry seem to dominate because of their extra movement. Command and control is key to winning the game and it is very easy for your commands to become disrupted. It then takes a while to reform them, or, if you have more pressing things to do with your tempo points, your errant troops will just sit there until charged or night falls. This emphasis on command and control really makes the game for us.

So, what does this mean for the game. Well, we enjoyed the game more now that we had clarified a couple of issues. The learning curve is steep but has been worth the climb for us. The down side is that our usual gaming slot is about 2-3 hours so even a small battle of Polemos is unlikely to be completed during one of our usual gaming sessions. We shall certainly play Polemos again because the look and feel of the game work for us but we shall need to allow more time, especially if we try a larger game.

Afterword
Both armies used in this game are Baccus 6mm starter armies. Baccus are linked from the sidebar if you want to investigate further. They also produce and sell the Polemos rules, which were used in this game.

If you are interested in the Great Northern War, I would recommend reading Voltaire's Life of Charles XII (the Everyman edition is good and usually fairly cheap secondhand) and Robert Frost's Northern Wars. The former should give you a good feel for the war from the Swedish perspective, while the latter is a drier but more informative history book. If you opt to buy either of these books, please use the links above because clicking through the Amazon link at the top of the page will help support my thrifty gaming project. Thank you.

Other sites you may find useful are:
Dan Schorr's Northern Wars site. This site keeps running out of bandwidth so get in early in the month. It has many useful pdf files about the period and is probably the most useful site for the period that you will find online.
Nick Dorrell's Great Northern War site has other information and links to other sites too. This is also an excellent site that neatly complements Dan's site.

Polemos: Great Northern War Review

We played Polemos:GNW for the first time yesterday. I have had the rules for a long time but have never yet managed to play them. One of the things that has put me off is difficulty in reading and understanding the rules. Normally I am very good at learning rules from the rules and do not need someone to demonstrate them first. However, I have really struggled with Polemos:GNW. There seems to be a lot of assumed knowledge on the part of the rules' author, which makes understanding the rules difficult. For this reason I have not previously got around to playing them. So, we steeled ourselves, girded our loins and set to.

The Rules

The rules themselves are fairly standard in many respects, with attack and defence values for each unit and opposed die rolls to see if you succeed. You then consult a table to see what result your attacks have had. The effects of combat see your units gaining levels of "shaken", possibly recoiling back from their enemy, or even being driven back. Casualties per se are not removed. Instead, when a unit reaches three or more levels of "shaken" it will rout. Under some circumstances it can be rallied, but otherwise it is removed from the game. This is how units are destroyed.

The really new idea that they present is in tempo bidding. Tempo is initiative. Each side gets a fixed number of tempo points each turn and add the score of a six-sided die roll to that. Then both players decide how many points they can afford to bid to win the initiative and still do what they need to do in that turn. The bids are compared and the higher bidder wins the initiative. Both players deduct their bids from their total tempo points and that is how many points you have left to do things. These points are used a bit like PIPs in the DBx series of games, but the person that lost the initiative has to spend more points to act with their units, which means that they could wind up unable to do as much as the player with the initiative can. One problem with the tempo bidding was allocating points to commands. This can take a little time as you try to work out what you need to do where.

The Game

So, how did they play? We set up a small battle on a 4'x3' table with two Baccus starter armies. I took the Swedes and Steve took the Saxons. The figures were set up 2' apart for an encounter battle as recommended in the rules.

The first thing we found was that we had plenty of tempo points each as we manoeuvred towards each other. During this phase of the game I made the mistake of positioning my field gun in the wrong place, so I was unable to bombard the Saxons while they bombarded my right wing (to little effect). Once we had closed to contact, however, tempo points and winning the initiative became more critical and we quickly found that we did not have enough points to do everything that we wanted to do. This was especially the case on my left wing, where some squadrons of my cavalry burst through the enemy lines and pursued the routing Saxon cavalry almost to the edge of the board before regaining control and halting. They spent the rest of the game waiting there because they were too far from their commander for me to be able to afford to spend points on them. Elsewhere on the battlefield the infantry had finally closed and were firing at each other, while the cavalry on the right wing were manoeuvring around the wood on the hill, trying to get at each other in an inconclusive cavalry melee that saw both of us with troops routing.

Our game took four hours, before Steve had to leave, and the game had not reached a conclusion, although it seemed to be favouring me, because Steve's right wing had all routed from the table. This left my left wing able to regroup and then they could have fallen on the enemy flank. However, this would have taken time that my centre and right wing might not have had. At this point we decided to call it a draw.

Conclusions

The game was fun to play despite our difficulties with actually reading the rules. More than any other rule set I have played these rules required game play to show how they worked. I would say that they are not for beginners purely because of the way they are written.

The tempo bidding was good fun and a great way of determining who would be able to act first and how much they would be able to do. Both Steve and I like this type of mechanism where you are trying to second-guess your opponent all the time.

Combat was simple enough with the opposed rolls, although the long list of modifiers might put some off. There were a number of situations that cropped up in our game, which did not appear to be covered in the rules but we were able to come up with solutions easily enough and I have now asked about them on the Polemos Yahoo Group, so I hope to have answers soon.

One thing that the rules really need is a coherent quick reference sheet. The QRS that comes with the rules seems to have bits put in wherever they fit rather than putting all the firing tables together, the close combat tables together, etc. This did cause us a few delays in game play as we tried to work out where the relevant tables were.

Overall, we enjoyed the game a lot and will be trying the rules again. We hope to significantly reduce the amount of time that the game took to play as we become more familiar with the game and its mechanisms. Producing a better QRS could help with this. We shall see how it works out.

If you have the time and patience to work through the rules then the game play is ultimately rewarding and I would recommend these rules to you. If you need everything served up in bite-sized chunks then these rules are not for you, unless you can find someone to teach you.