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.

Aieee Shub-Niggurath

Sorry, not a Cthulhu project, but May is the month of the goat.


We have agreed to spend May painting Wargods of Aegyptus figures. This does not really fit with our stated aim of painting armies and then playing games that we have not previously played, because we have played rather a lot of Wargods before. I am, after all, the current pan-European champion! Still, that does mean that we have loads of unpainted figures for Wargods, which we can use them for other projects too.


I am planning to start with a couple of units of Khemru (goat-headed critters) and some characters to go with them. These will double as beastmen for Warrior Heroes Armies and Adventures, and I suspect that I can use them as monsters in Broadsword Adventures too. I probably have other games that will suit them too and just need to think about it a bit. For variety, I have added a couple of undead Khemru to the mix. One is the limited edition Undead Beastmaster found in the Eater of the Dead starter set. The other is a Khemru Crypt Lord.


So, on with the challenge. In May I shall not be aiming to award myself 2VPs for completing the challenge. Instead I shall award myself 1VP for each unit of 10 figures or equivalent that I complete. Hopefully I shall manage at least 2VPs worth of figures, but I hope that I can manage more than that. After all, I have the Khemru warband to paint as well as half a Totanem warband, an Eater of the Dead force, a Tethru starter set, some Heru, a dozen or so Basti camp-followers, a unit of Sebeki and the rest of my Olympus warband. So, with all that ahead of me, I had better get myself ready for the challenge!

Busy Weekend

I have had a very busy geekly weekend. M'buddy, Derek, came to stay on Friday for a spot of intense Advanced Squad Leader activity. Most excellent. We agreed to play scenario RB1 One Down, Two to Go from the Red Barricades historical module. This module is set in Stalingrad in October and November 1942 and represents the German attempts to capture the Barrikady factories. The scenario sees the Germans renewing their assault immediately after the capture of the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory. Part of the board is in flames (determined randomly) and the Russian forward positions have suffered early bombardment, represented by the front rows having to take a morale test before the game begins.

I was the Russians, while Derek was the Germans. The scenario began well for me. My off-board artillery pasted his left flank and my minefields slowed down his assault sufficiently for me to blast his troops. The crowning moment for me was when my battalion mortars stonked his 10-2 leader (second best quality leader possible in the game) and associated kill stack by dropping a building on them. As you can see in the picture below, the fires around that area were quite severe too. The grave of the 10-2 leader is the rubble counter near the centre.



Unfortunately, my luck did not continue. On my left flank, Derek was able to mass his reinforcements and drive a wedge down my left flank while my reinforcements were still advancing northwards to try to block them. Unfortunately, by this time I had broken most of my machine-guns and my reinforcements were mainly conscripts. Eek!



And then the final end came when a Stuka (did I mention the level of air support available to the Germans?) scored a critical hit on my second last heavy machine-gun. Boom! It rubbled the building, set it alight and killed everything in there. It was about this time that my personal morale broke.



The end game was then characterised by me trying to get my reinforcements into place and Derek shooting them to pieces as I did so. We played it through to the final turn, but that only emphasised the kicking that I received. It was a great scenario and I did scare Derek by having read and learnt the tunnel rules and cellar rules. That caught him out at the start!

On Saturday afternoon, Steve dropped by and we were able to play Midgard, Eketorp and Chez Geek. Derek won both games of Midgard, which is a game of Viking expansion and death, by a significant margin in both games. He clearly understood the metagame better than Steve or me. Nevertheless, the game was brilliant fun and has a lot to recommend it. The card draft forces you to make difficult decisions, knowing what you are handing on to your opponents to choose from. The game also does not reward a lot of tit-for-tat playing. The moment you start having a go at someone, the pair of you fall behind in the points, or at least make no progress. I look forward to playing this with more people.

After that we played two games of Eketorp, which is a game of Viking fort building. This game has some of the feel of Settlers or any other resource management game. You have to fight for and gather materials with which to build your fort. The game ends after ten turns or when the first fort is completed, at which point you add up the points you have gained. Steve won one game of this and Derek won the other, but these games were much closer than the games of Midgard. This is another excellent game that I shall seek to play again.

Finally, we played Chez Geek. This is a classic card game from Steve Jackson Games with excellent artwork by John Kovalic. The goal is to accumulate Slack, while preventing your opponents from doing the same. You gain Slack by buying things, doing activities and having the right people show up in your room. The card play is fun and I really enjoy the game. Steve won this game.

So, I managed to play six games over the weekend and lost them all. It has certainly been a thrifty weekend because I have not spent any money on games and have played four games that I already own. I have also had a lot of fun. Sounds like a good result to me!

The Army of Bwendi (April Objective Completed)

Bwendi is a small agricultural planet within the Ztumsia system on the extreme margins of the Imperium. It is not a rich planet, yet it dominates the system by virtue of controlling the main food supplies and also as a result of the determination of its people not to lose. The main threats to Bwendi's peace and prosperity are rival Lord Knights with an expansionist agenda and incursions by the Red Redemptionist Rebels. Fortunately this does not happen too often.

Technology on Bwendi is limited. The Imperium strictly controls what technology is made available away from the core in a bid to weaken possible dissident elements. As a result, Bwendi is limited to 21st and 22nd century Earth Reckoning technologies. It has little by way of high technology industrial base, so grav technology is rare, high-powered energy weapons systems are not often seen and power is mostly based on natural resources, such as hydro-electric or wind turbines.

Bwendi is ruled by Imperial Lord Knight Throckmorton P. Gladiolus LXVI. Lord Gladiolus is a benign dictator and expects to rule for the rest of his life, as have his ancestors back to the colonisation and unification of the planet. The Gladiolus family has a long heritage of such activity. Lord Gladiolus is descended from Earth stock and can trace his ancestry all the way back to the cradle of humanity. Back in the 20th century of old Earth Reckoning, the Gladiolus family ruled the small central African republic of Ztumsia for many years, fighting off insurrection and rebellion at every step. However, history records that the Gladioli were able to bring peace and prosperity to this small nation in the same way as they have succeeded in doing so within the system named for Ztumsia.

The Knights of Bwendi


Here we see the Knights of Bwendi admiring Lord Gladiolus' newly acquired Scythe Class Jetcopter as Lord Gladiolus himself poses for photographs in front of it.* The Knights are Lord Gladiolus' personal bodyguard. They are the elite troops of the Bwendi army and will ride to battle with him in the Jetcopter. They wear ex-Imperial Light Armour systems with autorangers and carry bolt rifles, which fire explosive bullets. One trooper in the squad is armed with a heavy bolt rifle as a squad assault weapon. All troops also carry a range of grenades.

*These pictures will appear in Howyadoin magazine and it is the duty of every right-thinking Bwendi citizen to buy a copy and support the government. You can also read all the gossip about the Ztumsian tri-d vid stars too.

Men at Arms


The Men-at-Arms are the small professional cadre of soldiers on Bwendi. Here we see a platoon of Men-at-Arms parading in front of their Glaive class Infantry Fighting Vehicles. The platoon is led by a Lieutenant (pronounced leff-tenant on Bwendi) armed with a force sword and bolt pistol. Each platoon is organised into four rifle sections and one heavy weapons section. The bulk of the men are armed with bolt rifles, while one man in every section carries a heavy bolt rifle. All troops are kitted out with ex-Imperial light armour and carry a range of grenades. While the platoon pictured here has two IFVs, many do not have any, and some platoons, like this one, do not actually have enough IFVs to transport all the troops.



The heavy weapons squad is smaller than the standard Men-at-Arms section. It is led by a Lieutenant armed in the same way as his counterpart in the infantry section and has two soldiers armed with Support Bolters, a tripod-mounted rapid fire bolt weapon, and two soldiers with Conversion Beam Projectors, a matter conversion beam for ripping things apart at close quarters.

The Levy


The bulk of the Bwendi army consists of local levies. Here we see a Levy platoon on parade. The men are expected to be supplied with fatigues, a flak jacket and a sub-machine gun or assault rifle. Officers are expected to carry a pistol and sword. Some men supplement their equipment out of their own pockets.

The levy system is the main way for Bwendi to raise large armies quickly. All men of fighting age are expected to attend two weeks' training every year and to be ready to be called up when needed. The planet is divided into levy zones and each zone is expected to supply a platoon of troops for general service each year. The size of the zones is calculated based on this requirement; while platoons do have a nominal standard size, variations do creep in. The levy zone is also expected to pay for the equipping of these troops. This can lead to variations in the quality and quantity of equipment given to the Levies.

All figures are 15mm Laserburn figures, currently available from 15mm.co.uk. We are planning to use these figures for Stargrunt II, Laserburn, Imperial Commander and Beamstrike games.

Stargrunt II is freely downloadable from Ground Zero Games. It is a platoon-based game and will probably comfortably use 30-60 figures or so plus a little vehicular support.

Laserburn and Imperial Commander can be bought from 15mm.co.uk. Laserburn is a small skirmish level game and uses up to 20 figures per side maximum. It is probably too detailed to comfortably play larger games than that. The force pictured in this post is about 1500 points for Imperial Commander, which is the "grand skirmish" rules set that goes with Laserburn. A scenario of 1500 points per side in IC will take about 3-4 hours unless you get lucky with the dice.

Beamstrike is a freely downloadable Imperial Commander clone that resulted from an inability to obtain the rights to revise and republish Laserburn and Imperial Commander. It is designed for similarly sized games as Imperial Commander but has more rules for the inclusion of AFVs.

If you are interested in discussing Laserburn, pop on over to the Laserburn Yahoo Group and say hello. The group really needs a bit of a shove to get talking again!

April Objectives

April looks like being a trying time for me, what with my mother going into hospital, the search for a new job and university deadlines looming. Nevertheless, I shall still try to stick to my objectives.

In April I shall try to paint a 15mm sci-fi force. I have a ton or two of Laserburn figures in the attic, providing effective radiation shielding. Some of them were painted by me in the eighties back when gloss varnish was in vogue and no one had heard of layering. I have designed a 1500 point Imperial Commander force to paint for an Imperial Lord Knight on a Feudal Outworld.

This force uses figures I already have and consists of:

1 Imperial Lord Knight

1 squad of Knights

1 platoon of Men at Arms

1 Men at Arms heavy weapons squad

1 platoon of Local Levy

2 Glaive class APCs

1 Scythe class squad jetcopter

For the sake of symmetry I could do with a couple more APCs, but I cannot afford them at the moment. Some of these figures will only require a little fettling to get them ready to be fielded, while others require painting from scratch. Of course, the next question is what colour to paint them. Should I go for a standard green camouflage, or should I paint them in the Lord Knight's livery colours instead?

I like the idea of the livery colours but camouflage just seems more sensible to me. If I opt for the livery colours, then I also need to decide what those colours should be. It is almost tempting to paint them in a futuristic version of an 18th century uniform. Oh well, I shall dither over that for the next few days.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Campaign Start

Last night we played another game of WHAA and another game of SoBH. Both games cover the same subject matter but they are also sufficiently different to make playing them both games interesting.

My force consisted of:
Ragnar Flameheart Q3 C4 Leader Hero
Ketil One-Eye Q3 C4 Fearless Savage
Bjorn Q3 C3
Thorir Q3 C3
Ulf Q3 C3 Shooter (Long)
Egil Q3 C3 Shooter (Long)

Steve fielded:
Klaus – Human Leader
Matthais – Human Cleric
Rudolf – Human Warrior
James – Human Warrior
Pawel – Human Warrior
Michael – Human Archer
Uli – Human Archer

Steve and I decided that we should start an intermittent Song of Blades and Heroes campaign to see how it worked out. Well, my dice have now been thrown into the Humber, which flows past near my house, and I shall be breaking out some new dice for the next game.

Here we see both forces set up. Ragnar Flameheart and his heroic band (my force) are deployed on the left of the picture, while a bunch of Teutonic peasants (Steve's force) are deployed on the right. The scenario was the Difficult Ground one, which left both of us avoiding all terrain, because there is a chance that your figures get swallowed by terrain or fall into quicksand or something!
(Don't forget to click the pictures for larger versions)


With the forces deployed, we quickly rushed towards each other. Both of us know only one command in battle: "Charge!" As we charged forwards, my archer shot and killed Steve's cleric. The battle lines then clashed. I had the advantage of numbers and so I charged in. Bjorn was knocked out in the first melee, Ketil One-Eye was pushed back and Thorir pushed back one of the enemy.



Seeing that we had the local advantage, despite two of my figures losing their melees and one being killed, we chose to all charge in. Ragnar bellowed and attacked. Ulf and Egil, the archers also charged in. How could we lose? We totally outnumbered the two peasants that were in the enemy battleline by at least 2:1 in each case. As each attack was made, we confidently expected to slaughter the enemy and hear the laments of their women.



And so, with Ragnar and Ulf being knocked off their feet by the spearman on our right, and with Thorir and Egil being knocked over on our left by the other lone spearman, we chose the valorous path and surrendered. Despite outnumbering the enemy and making lots of Quality rolls, we still failed to win any melees at all after that first one where the enemy spearman was pushed back. Aaaarrrggh!

And so, I headed down to the river and made sacrifice to the dice gods ...

This was a great fun game but it seemed to highlight the high element of luck that seems to be needed in SoBH, more so than WHAA, which seems to even out more with lots of dice rolling. I can't wait to try some different tactics in the next game of SoBH!

Terrain mostly by WorldWorksGames, supplemented with a few Woodlands Scenics trees and some aquarium plants.

The Russians are coming!

My newly enforced increased-leisure lifestyle has resulted in a number of changes around here. Thrift is no longer just a good idea; it is now the law. Therefore, my expenditure on anything has gone right down, but my productivity has increased commensurately. My latest oeuvre is a 15mm Russian force for the PBI rules from Peter Pig. I really like the Peter Pig figures because they paint up well and easily. I doubt that my efforts really do justice to Mr Goddard's figures, but here are some photos anyway. As usual, click on the pictures for larger versions.

The whole force

Company command

The PBI, backbone of the force

HMG team

Tanks ... you're welcome

76mm anti-tank guns with crew and tow


Extras - the army pack came with quite a few extra figures, partly because it is provided with whole packs of figures, rather than just those needed for the basic force, but also probably because I have not followed the layout as they thought I should. I shall never know because it does not tell you how to field the force, just what force they expect the pack to be able to field. These extras will permit some variation in force design anyway, which is good.