Games Plus Miniatures Auction Coming Up Oct. 6

This weekend many of us here in Chicago will be making the pilgrimage to Games Plus, an excellent suburban game shop that's hosted many of our game nights. Oct. 6 Is their twice-annual miniatures game auction, and it's a fantastic opportunity to gamers to get their hands on miniatures, terrain, hobby supplies, rulebooks and more for very attractive prices.

I'd hazard a guess that most of the projects and games we've run over the years -- from our Song of Blades & Heroes campaigns to our 28mm Mech Attack convention games -- have been catalyzed by cheap pick-ups from the game auction. It's worth the drive if you're anywhere near northern Illinois on Sunday!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Dark Days of Qaarra, Session 6: The Dead Rise

We met up last week at Games Plus for the sixth session of our Song of Blades & Heroes fantasy campaign. It was an abbreviated session, as we spent the first portion of the evening wheeling and dealing at our annual swap meet. This is a casual event where everyone brings unwanted and surplus miniatures, bits, kits and junk, then swaps it for more of the same! It was a fun, social prelude to the game night.

For the actual game, Josh and I had come up with a cool multiplayer scenario where the warbands -- quite advanced now that the campaign is nearing its endgame -- met up to explore an ancient battlefield within a grim, silent forest. Here is the fluff I wrote to situate the game in our campaign world:

Drawn by rumors, led by portents, driven by greed, bands of adventurers have journeyed through the doom-wracked lands of Qaarra to arrive at Findrel's Retreat, a silent wooded glade that hides a dark secret. In centuries past, the forest was the site of an ancient battle, when Lord Kalessin's undead legions rallied to crush the remnants of an elven expeditionary force. Relics of that age-old clash remain buried in the soft loam of the forest. But Lord Kalessin himself seeks something else in Findrel's Retreat -- he seeks those same undead warriors who served him years ago, who even now rest uneasily beneath the forest floor. Will they answer his call to serve once more ... ?

So the stage was set -- powerful relics were hidden in the benighted forest, but danger lurked inside every copse of trees. With this in mind, the warbands mobilized and began investigating the gloomy reaches of Findrel's Retreat. Here Karl's chaos raiders roll up on a huge mound of skulls -- wonder what's in there?

Josh and I had a random exploration table that we used to determine 1) what, if any, loot the players found in each terrain piece and 2) how many undead warriors would rise from the loamy earth to confront the interlopers. What follows is a narrative photo dump showing the warbands fighting their way through the waves of undead that poured out of the forest. We gave the undead the "Rabble" special rule, which made them much less deadly (but still threatening in big groups). As a result (and by design) the players were able to just mow through the undead. Which is good, because they were appearing in clumps of 5 and 6 figures at a time!

 

Ah, the dreaded Honest Tea statue. Avoid it at all costs!

At the end of turn 3, Josh and I sprang our trap -- the dim smog that enveloped the battlefield blew away, revealing a full moon! And a host of werewolves arrived, sent by Lord Kalessin to 'recruit' some more warriors for his undead legions. They arrived in several small groups in different areas of the board, and began rampaging toward the warbands that were literally knee-deep in the dead at that very moment.

Ultimately the four players prevailed, metaphorically standing astride a huge heap of dismembered bones and dead werewolves by the end of the game. The scenario gave each player a bonus in the post-game exploration roll based on how many baddies he had killed in the scenario. Using this very generous bonus, all players managed to score some sweet loot, either in the game by poking around in the forest, or in the post-game exploration phase.

At this point we're looking at one, maybe two sessions remaining in this campaign, including (hopefully) some sort of assault on Lord Kalessin's desert stronghold. Stay tuned for more!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Wreck-Age Scenario Testing at the Gaming Goat

I got together last weekend with Matt from Hyacinth Games at The Gaming Goat in Oak Park to work on our starter box scenarios for Wreck-Age. Our goal is to write scenarios that can be played using just the minis from the starter boxes. For this scenario, our focus was on the Stitchers vs. the Stakers.

A cabal of Stitchmen has been watching the efforts of a newly founded Staker community very closely these last few weeks, not that any of them would be aware of it. The hunters have taken note of all their defenses, the schedule that most of the town adheres to, and whether or not they seem healthy enough to be viable for harvesting. Especially noteworthy to the Stitchers is the network of tunnels below the community, which is built on the rubble of what was once a small city before the collapse. It took some time to map the tunnels, but any advantage is worth it in the end, for how can immortality be attained if you don't take the necessary precautions?

There were a few special rules in effect:

• Stitchers always go first, since they are the aggressors.
• Stakers get a +1 bonus to all nerves tests due to their resolve to defend their homes.
• Manhole tokens must be placed on the board. These should be 12 inches apart, and placed at regular intervals. The quantity will depend on your board and terrain. Make it cool!
  
• Stitchers start off the board. They can start on any road edge, or come up out of a tunnel entrance (designated by manholes). They can move back into the tunnels as a free action, then pop out of any other manhole as a free action on their next turn, after passing a power test to lift the manhole lid.
• Stitchers must use non-lethal methods to take out the Stakers. Once the Staker is down, they can use 2AP to harvest organs. Once they have harvested, they must return to any manhole to drop off the goods to orderlies waiting in the tunnels.
• In addition to the Stakers box set, place 2 tokens or minis to represent additional harvestable villagers. They are not as healthy as the standard Stakers; their stats are all 1.

Starting locations:

• Stitchers can start at any road end, or come up from any manhole (provided they pass the required power test)
• Stakers may start anywhere on the board. At least 2 figures must be within 12 inches of a manhole.
  

Win Conditions:

• Stakers must survive 4 turns to win. Daybreak brings in a Staker caravan with guns blazing and the Stitchers will retreat.
• Stitchers must collect 100 resources to win.

Tim played the evil Stitchmen, while I controlled the poor Stakers. On the first turn, Tim's Stitcher administrator (who he named LobsterClaw) popped out of a manhole in the center of town. He tried to shoot an innocent villager, but his tranq pistol malfunctioned. He charged at a nearby Staker, and they both missed their attacks.

Skin-coat, the veteran Stitcher administrator, popped out of the same manhole, charged a villager, knocked him out, and harvested his organs. Since he was still in contact with the manhole, he was able to deposit his prize immediately.

Next, a Stitcher hunter appeared. He shot at the Staker's jammer, but his tranq gun misfired. The jammer fired back, and wounded the hunter.

A Staker guard charged into combat with another hunter, but no wounds were caused.

A pair of Staker riflemen shot at Skin-coat, but he shrugged off the shots.

The Stakers went first on turn 2. Shots were fired, but the Stitchmen avoided injuries. LobsterClaw killed and harvested the Staker he was fighting, and moved back to the manhole to drop off his goods. He was attacked by a Staker, and wounded him. A hunter joined that fight and wounded the Staker. The riflemen fired at the veteran administrator and knocked him out of action, but he used his chem injector item to heal himself and remove all wounds.

Turn 3 went poorly for the Stakers. Another Staker was knocked unconcious and harvested. The hunter carrying the goods managed to get within 3 inches of the manhole, but he would have to wait until the next turn to drop the organs off. The Stakers didn't really manage to cause any damage this turn.

At the start of turn 4, I conceded the game to Tim and the Stitchers. They had set themselves up in such a way that I would not have been able to stop the hunter from dropping the goods and winning the game. He was withing shooting range, but my own figures were blocking line of sight!

Post-mortem
This was a fun scenario. I think we've got it almost balanced, but one more playthrough is a good idea. The Stakers rolled very well on their hit and defense rolls, but terribly on their damage rolls. They also started clustered around a manhole, and that decision was a deadly mistake. Tim played his Stitchers very well. We toyed with other concepts for the scenario, like adding nighttime rules, or some sort of sentry or alarm, but decided to keep this streamlined and simple.

The Gaming Goat was very accommodating, but we picked a busy day to come out and play, since they had a card game tournament going on as well. Big thanks to them for welcoming us into the store! I'm sure we'll be back soon enough.

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Dark Days of Qaarra, Session 5: Catastrophe at the Scrying Stones

This week we met for the fifth session of our Song of Blades & Heroes fantasy campaign, which is shaping up into quite a slugfest. Click here for an overview of the campaign and to see a map of the continent of Qaarra. In both games, we used a special campaign rule to represent the cloud of ash and dust that is slowly creeping across the continent, blanketing Qaarra in a grim smog. The rule makes ranged attacks more difficult and allows melee attackers to gain an ambush bonus in certain situations.

In the first game, I set up a narrative scenario to help push my dwarven warband toward the conclusion of its storyline. Faced with the doom that is sweeping across Qaarra, my dwarves are seeking Hearthspire, a fabled locale imbued with powerful magic that the dwarves seek to harness. In this game, their journeyman wizard set up a ritual high atop the Scrying Stones, a territory on our map, to divine the route to Hearthspire.

Here he is, preparing to conduct the ritual. The chest is filled with traditional the dwarven sacrifice -- not humans or animals, but gold, silver and precious gems!

Of course, Tim's kobolds were determined to stop me, and they swarmed across the table to engage the defenders scattered around the base of one tall stone pillar.

The battle was joined at the base of the pillar upon which stood my stout dwarven wizard, his brow furrowed in concentration as magical energy coursed and rippled around his perch.

Tragedy struck early on, as a botched dice roll from me meant Tim scored a "gruesome kill" on one of my dwarven fighters. Though none of my stunty fellows fled, several non-dwarf figures retreated, including a human knight and Rolf, the wise bear who had fought alongside the dwarves for the entire campaign.

Tim continued his onslaught and brought down several more dwarven defenders.

High atop the standing stone, my dwarven wizard struggled to control the powers he had tapped into. A lone kobold warrior scaled the stone bluff and prepared to confront him -- just as the wizard finally lost control of the mystical energy swirling around him! A huge, gnarled hand burst from the raw stone, crushing the wizard and casting his broken body down to the ground.

Quaking in fear, the lone kobold crept forward and seized the chest of gems -- but then the dark magic atop the stone pillar intensified, becoming a roiling maelstrom. The kobold's body was wracked by magic, its flesh peeling away as ... something ... emerged from within. It was a fearsome demon from another plane, and it stood alone atop the high bluff as the maelstrom raged around it!

In game terms, we were playing a scenario that featured a chaos portal that would open as my wizard conducted his ritual, with various unpredictable results. The huge hand and the demonic incursion were both results of a random table, and they injected a lot of unpredictable fun into the game! (Though my dead wizard might argue the point.)

Down on the ground, Tim's kobold necromancer proved his worth by reanimating a dead dwarf into a zombie -- albeit a slightly taller zombie, since I don't have any dwarven zombie models.

At this point, I knew defeat was at hand. I was technically unable to win the scenario, and I didn't want to risk any additional casualties in my warband. I quit the field and Tim claimed victory! Story-wise, my dwarves were unable to complete their ritual, thus imperiling their quest to find the fabled Hearthspire.

Across the room, Karl and Josh were having another go at Karl's caravan raid scenario. He created this repeatable scenario to offer a quick and easy game that we could put together on the fly. One warband gets a chance to raid the caravan crossing the Agamin Desert, possibly making off with some sweet loot, while the other player takes the role of the caravan defenders and tries to escort his team across the board to Dustcrag Oasis, the castle that guards the entrance to the desert.

Josh played the caravan defenders, and Karl fielded his chaos warband as the (very flavorful) raiders. As Karl's warband is fairly advanced at this point, he had been able to buy mounts for many of his warriors, which dramatically increased the speed and combat prowess of his warband.

Consequently, he ripped through Josh's caravan like wet tissue paper, making off with the loot and scoring a resounding victory. Here he is destroying the caravan guards while the mounted escorts flee into the wastes...

 It was a one-sided victory for Karl that showed how potent a warband can become after many sessions of earning experience points and warband advances.

Afterward, Karl and Josh played another game, just a skirmish this time, representing Karl's chaos warband trying to escape through the dangerous Hollowbone Mountains (another territory on our campaign map) with his newly liberated caravan loot. Because the doom-cloud rule made Josh's shooting fairly ineffective, he wisely decided to play it safe and wait for Karl to come to him.

 Karl obliged him in true chaos fashion, though his warriors were cut to pieces in the ensuing melee.

All in all it was another great game night. Our next club event will be a swap meet at Games Plus on Sept. 12 -- feel free to join the club mailing list for more details on this fun annual event.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Dark Days of Qaarra, Session 4: Raiding the Camp

Last week saw an abbreviated campaign session, since a couple players were engaged in a Kings of War battle. Mike and I set up a small campaign skirmish between Prince Roland's Company (my warband) and a band of animal adventurers.

When the game opened, Prince Roland's Company was making their way through Brionbock Dale (a lush pastoral territory in the northeastern regions of Qaarra, our campaign setting) on the way to the Village of Plumshire. They saw the remains of a mercenary camp, likely abandoned in a hurry due to the marauding monsters that have plagued Qaarra in recent months. Sealed supply crates and chests were strewn about the area.

Prince Roland ordered his team to search for valuables and supplies. Unfortunately, a band of animal adventurers had the same idea, and both warbands pounced on the campsite at the same time!

The two warbands raced around the field recovering treasure and supplies. Each side found an equal amount of loot -- but the animal adventurers, led by their plucky echidnox leader, accepted no quarter. A fierce battle took place on the ancient, weatherbeaten stone altar at the center of the area.

Edlenor, the renowned elven archer, found himself surrounded by enemies. His friend and dwarf ally Odwin Fistsmasher rushed in to save him, but fell to the giant's brutal combat prowess. Only the timely arrival of Gandarf the wizard, who transfixed the giant with a ray of magic, allowed Lord Stryker to slay the giant.

After the game, we rolled on the exploration table, and my warband ended up recruiting a holy paladin to fight for us! Talk about good timing -- and it fit with the campaign narrative we had going, too. Upon their arrival in Plumshire, the villagers rejoiced! The animal warband had been terrorizing the village for months. Roland and his friends were heroes! The town's protector, Narcissus, a blessed paladin in shining gold armor, pledged his loyalty to Roland and his quest.

After the game, I wandered over to the Reaper Bones display at Games Plus and picked out a suitably arrogant paladin miniature to add to my growing warband. Look for him to make an appearance in the next battle!

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Kings of War Battle Report and Game Review

It was inevitable -- after Karl and I split a huge box of random miniatures that we purchased at Little Wars earlier this year, we found ourselves awash in really cool fantasy miniatures. As we pawed through piles of old-school chaos warriors, Bob Olley dwarves and Ral Partha skeletons, we began sketching out ideas for playing some large-scale fantasy games. After considering a number of rulesets, we settled on Kings of War, which seemed to offer a fast-playing game that still allowed for pretty big, epic battles. The rulebook and army lists are available as free PDFs, but both Karl and I splurged for the nice hardcover rulebook.

We played our first game last week at Games Plus, our occasional game venue in suburban Chicago. The game might have taken place sooner, but Karl and I found that we needed a few extra weeks to paint and base our armies. As it was, we were able to muster armies of about 1,300 points -- basically medium-sized forces that were still below the 2,000-point threshold that Kings of War suggests for typical games.

We laid out a desert tabletop with a couple hills, a couple areas of scrub-brush and a small clump of barrels and crates near the center of the table. Kings of War is a mass battle game in 28mm, so it needs a big battlefield with less terrain that we typically use.

Karl arrayed his chaos forces along one table edge. A few of his guys are still shiny from the dip -- they were dry, but he hadn't sprayed them with matte sealer to take the shine off. Those are Confrontation werewolves in the foreground, from the prepainted plastic miniatures line by Rackham. They proved to be 1) very affordable and easy to get on the battlefield and 2) dead hard in the actual game! I fielded a block of 'em in my army, too.

I deployed my undead legions opposite him, trying to go for a tactical arrangement despite not really knowing how things would play out. I'm using custom movement trays from Litko, sized for the 25mm round circles that almost all of my undead guys use. In the background you can see my skeletal dragon. The rat swarm in front of the skeleton regiment is an actual unit upgrade in Kings of War!

We rolled for a scenario and got "Kill and Pillage," which is one of three very generic scenarios provided in the Kings of War rulebook. Basically we are both tasked with securing supplies (represented on the battlefield by oak barrels) and killing each other, with a six-turn time limit.

And then we were off! Karl's forces were much faster than my undead guys, so he surged forward and managed to get into combat in the second turn, when I was barely out of my deployment zone! Here his werewolves (the all-star unit for both of us in this game, as it turned out) and chaos lord crashed into my cavalry, which was attempting a sneaky flank move.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the cavalry took a big hit and then failed their Rout test and were removed from the table. Kings of War doesn't use individual figure removal to indicate damage to a unit -- rather, you just use a dice to track overall damage, and if the unit ever fails its Rout test, you just remove the entire block of troops from the table. This took some getting used too, since it was rather heartbreaking to remove 20 beautiful, handpainted skeletons from the table after a particularly brutal charge. But the game played fast, due in no small part to these rules!

After my cavalry evaporated into a fine red spray at the hands of Karl's werewolves, I knew I needed to get serious. I sent a block of skeleton archers charging into the flank of Karl's dragon, which suffered a bit of damage and then turned to face these bony aggressors.

Then I mobilized my own werewolves and charged them into Karl's main line of troops, eviscerating a block of chaos foot soldiers and threatening the chaos leader and standard bearer. My dragon brought up the rear in this assault.

Now, most of my photos show only the best, most decisive clashes in the game. But I left out the parts that showed how my flanks just collapsed under the combined weight of the werewolves, dragon and chaos cavalry that hit me from both sides. In both cases (again, not pictured due mostly to embarrassment) I had a 20-strong block of skeleton warriors that just fell to pieces after one or two rounds of combat. Oh look, turns out I did have a pic showing my skeletons getting turned into oversized toothpicks.

Yep, they're getting it from both ends in that photo. Victory was clearly Karl's in this game. However, it would have been interesting to play out a few more turns. I strongly suspect that our game would have devolved into "werewolves vs. werewolves," with both units (mostly unhurt) meeting in the middle of the battlefield to pound the crap out of each other. The werewolves were so potent on the battlefield (for both of us!) that before the game was even over we were already contemplating house rules or house limits on their use.

OK, now it's time for some closing thoughts from Karl and me.

Karl's Conclusion
So Kings Of War is exactly what I'd hoped it would be. The game was fast and didn't take much longer than a Song of Blades and Heroes game. The rules are really straightforward and there was comparatively little rulebook checking for a first-try of a new game.

Pat and I agreed that the game will probably balance and play much better at 2000 points. At our 1300-point limit, we didn't field quite enough units to really bring out the strategy of denying your opponent certain movements and supporting your own units through maneuvering.

My closing thoughts wouldn't be complete, however, without mentioning the mayhem that regiments of werewolves (equivalent in power to a "Horde" of most other units) can have in a game where almost all the other units are "Troop" level. My recommendation for games under 1500 points would be to limit the size of units to 20 for infantry, 3 for large infantry and 5 for cavalry. That would probably keep big units from smashing little ones too quickly as well as give each player enough units to really utilize strategy. All in all, a game I hope to play many more times. I'm painting more units for it now!

Pat's Conclusion
I had expected maneuvering to play a bigger role in Kings of War, since the unit footprints are really quite big and it's unrealistic to expect such big groups of figures to turn on a dime to face a flank threat. However, since each unit can rotate 90 degrees as part of its movement, and many units were able to rotate as many times as needed due to special rules, it never really felt like maneuvering was quite as important as it should have been.

Also, it was a big shock to play a game with such long move distances. Karl's cavalry and werewolves were charging from 18 inches away, which allowed him to reliably get into close combat on turn 2. That's a big increase from Song of Blades & Heroes, our go-to skirmish game, in which only a handful of figures can cover that much distance in a single turn.

I've concluded that I need more core foot troops like skeletons or zombies. Simply taking up space on the battlefield does not equate to combat prowess! My 20-man blocks of skeletons were dealt with easily by Karl's forces. Now, if I had another 20 or 40 skeletons waiting around to counter-charge....

Anyway, the games were fun and I think they'll be even more enjoyable once we can muster 2,000 points per player. Tim is already interested in basing up some of his miniatures for Kings of War, so look for more battle reports in the future.

 -- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member