Open Combat: Battle for the Old City

Earlier this month a few of us met up for our second go at Open Combat, the fast-play skirmish ruleset from Second Thunder. The game is currently in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a printed edition, so we were eager to try out the rules a second time. Our first session of Open Combat featured three small side-by-side games, six players in total, which gave an excellent overview of the simple-yet-tactical mechanics and gameplay.

Last week's session was our first attempt at a multiplayer game. Karl, Tim and Mattias showed up with appropriately evil warbands (I was fielding my newly painted chaos ratmen), so we crafted a scenario whereupon the four warbands converged onto an eerie deserted city, its populace fled in terror.

The four warbands were jockeying for control over four key locations: the Guild Hall, the Blacksmith's Forge, the Forest and the Old Town. These locales were more or less distributed evenly across the battlefield. We used the "Confrontation" deployment rules, where each player took turns placing individual figures anywhere on the map, no closer than 8 inches to another opposing figure. Using this method, we were able to seize strategic locations and put ourselves in position to fight it out rather quickly, which is always nice.

Karl's red-armored chaos knights deployed near the forest. Tim's orcs (led by a fearsome armored man known only as the Death Dealer) took up positions near the two elevated walkways. My chaos ratmen seized the Old Town (the raised section of buildings) and the Guild Hall (large multi-story building in the center rear). Mattias's Wyrdwold riders occupied the long street between the Guild Hall and the Old Town.

Here's how the battlefield looked at the start of the game. (Note the snazzy custom-embroidered CSW dice bag in the background of the first pic! Tim made that!)

We used a simple card activation system to inject a little uncertainty into each turn. As the game began, each sector of the battlefield saw its own conflicts develop. Tim began moving his troops along the walkway to engage the chaos ratmen in the Old Town section.

The movement rules in Open Combat don't allow friendly figures to move "through" each other, so my armored rat was able to bottleneck Tim's advance along the ledge quite nicely...for a little while, at least.

Elsewhere, Mattias's grim horsemen thundered through the streets and clashed with the ratmen occupying the Guild Hall.

The battle for the Guild Hall (which lasted for most of the game, with plenty of negotiation and backstabbery along the way) showed one of the minor weak points of Open Combat -- the lack of any established army lists or premade units.

Since we were building our armies in a vacuum using a point system that didn't really have baseline stats for a typical human soldier, I ended up building my ratmen to be slightly beefier than Mattias's cavalry. We agreed that this felt weird since the stats we came up with didn't match up with the way the miniatures looked, at least in comparison. Our lists were perfectly balanced at 200 points each, but in single combat, my ratmen were more deadly than his chaos warriors -- many were slewn over the course of the game, and Mattias gleefully announced each fallen warrior by name.

Over by the Blacksmith's Forge, Karl's chaos raiders met the rest of Mattias's Wyrdwold raiders in a desperate scrum.

As you can see, things got ugly pretty fast. But the bulk of Karl's force was committed to the forest, and they formed up to present a red-armored wall against the probing attacks of Tim's orcs.

Here's another panoramic shot, showing Karl's chaos raiders closing in on Tim's orcs in the foreground.

And here's what happened moments later, as the fight developed under the walkway.

As we approached the endgame, Mattias realized he should have deployed his horsemen closer together, as they were individually annihilated in the deserted streets of the city. With the streets around the Guild Hall cleared of foes, my ratmen celebrated on the steps.

Elsewhere, Tim pressed his attack in the elevated Old Town section, slaying the armored rat and leaving just a couple of rat spellcasters as defenders. Open Combat lacks an official section for magic, but the game designer intended for players to use a variety of psychological skills to represent magic spells and other effects. We've found that this works well, as there are "skills" that represent plenty of things that might otherwise be covered by magic. In this little clash, my rat wizards tried to destroy the orcs' Mind statistic, but Tim happened to have an orc shaman who buffed his buddies by boosting their Mind stat whenever I attacked it.

Here's the final scene at the Old Town, where my sneaky rat managed to race across the battlefield and climb halfway up the ladder to relieve his beleaguered fellows ... alas, the game ended at that point.

We took stock of the victory conditions and found that Karl had won a clear victory by controlling the Blacksmith's Forge and the Forest. I came in second place by controlling the Guild Hall.

Afterward we reflected on Open Combat. As with our previous  musings, we were pretty much in agreement that the core game is solid and quite playable, but it lacks many of the peripheral elements that go into a full-fledged fantasy wargame. Of course, this is by design -- the game is intentionally designed to be 100% generic and useable for a variety of historic and fantasy genres.

But we at Chicago Skirmish Wargames are definitely among those players who would gladly pay for a dedicated fantasy supplement with rules for magic, armor, monstrous abilities, racial characteristics, dungeoncrawling, etc. Here's hoping that Second Thunder has something like that on the release schedule this year!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

The Warband Project, Part One

 
Since becoming involved in Chicago Skirmish Wargames, I’ve made it my mission to collect a diverse array of fantasy miniatures from a variety of manufacturers and game lines. Because the games we play don’t require any particular set of figures, I've been able to pick up pretty much any old miniature, kit or blister pack that caught my interest over the years – safe in the knowledge that eventually it would hit the table in some sort of skirmish battle.

Now I’ve come to a sort of retrospective point. The last five years of collecting, painting and gaming has left me with a huge collection of battlefield-ready fantasy figures. Some are veterans of many campaigns, with unique characters and legendary battlefield exploits. Others haven’t yet tasted the fury of battle and await their first chance at glory.

Here, then is the Warband Project – Part One: my attempt at categorizing and showcasing the many warbands I’ve put onto the battlefield over the last five years of gaming with Chicago Skirmish Wargames.

This list is by no means exhaustive. Many figures remain carefully packed away in figure cases, awaiting their moment on the battlefield. This particular post also doesn’t include my dwarves and undead collections – both of which have grown to the point where they are armies in their own right, suitable for skirmish gaming or Kings of War-scale mass battles.

Defenders of the Battle-Forge

This warband was inspired by the adventuring crew featured in an old-school AD&D/OSRIC campaign I played years ago. My character, Kjeld the Battle-Priest, explored the wilderlands with a motley band of fighters, treasure-seekers and ne’er-do-wells. Eventually Kjeld attracted a small group of followers, based around his Battle-Forge in a frontier village. He is the bearded guy with the big hammer in this photo, and he’s surrounded by his porters, hirelings and stalwart allies.

Vaxion’s Black-Hearted Brigands

Where there are heroes, there must also be villains. Vaxion is a highwayman by trade and has attracted the dregs of society to his grim cause. These guys are ideal for any scenario where you need some basic bad guys to harass and interdict another player.

Raiders of the Edelmark Sewers

There are … things … lurking in the tunnels and drainpipes beneath the city of Edelmark. This warband is just a snapshot of one such group that took part in an incursion onto the streets of the unsuspecting city. A foul troll leads the way, followed by stinking, chittering ratmen, along with a putrid swamp monster. Who knows what else lurks in the ichor-spattered corridors of the Edelmark catacombs?

Duke Baldric’s Overland Escort

When Duke Baldric makes his months-long circuit to inspect his frontier holdings, he is accompanied by a trusted escort of hard-bitten warriors. Led by Duke Baldric (ahorse, with the winged helm), Sir Hershel and Terfidor the Azure Mage, this warband was originally created for a scenario where they had to escort Duke Baldric across the battlefield. Since then their numbers have grown (or shrank) based on the number of fighters that Duke Baldric was able to muster over the years.

The Cursed Horsemen of Frostvale 

In the wind-scoured wastelands of the far north, where snow-frosted trees cling to craggy mountains and men wrap themselves in furs the year round, a band of horsemen sallies forth to raid the barely civilized lands to the south. In their wake, men whisper of a terrible curse that lies heavy upon the warband -- and of unspeakable barbarity that grips the fighters in the heat of battle. Woe to those who spy the Cursed Horsemen of Frostvale at the gates of their village of an autumn evening!

These are horsemen of chaos, definitely evil, probably cannibals, who occasionally ally with the Scourge of Longrieve (see below).

Findrel the Navigator and the Moonbeam Company 

Findrel (the armored elf in the center with the upraised hand) has been part of my collection for years, but I never had a decent group of elven warriors to send into battle alongside him – until now. The cavalry and infantry figures were commissions from a speedy contract painter and arrived just a few weeks ago. As such, the Moonbeam Company has not taken part in significant battles to date.

The story behind the warband is that they are the crew of a majestic elven sailing ship called the Moonbeam that was abandoned off the coast of Qaarra after a storm many years ago. Since then, they have been investigating reports of a spectral ghost ship glowing in the moonlight, which appears on an ill wind all along the troubled shores of the continent. Will they ever find their way back to their vessel?

Grubb’s Bonecrushers

Sometimes you just need some orcs or goblins to stand between the adventurers and their goal. Grubb's Bonecrushers fulfills this role admirably. In my mind, they're hobgoblins, sort of halfway between orcs and goblins. These are some of the oldest minis in my current collection, having been painted back in 2009 or so. (Hardly ancient, I know, but still....)

The Scourge of Longrieve

After the doom-cloud had swept across Qaarra and the fearful population had been left to quake and mourn, the mysterious Leathern Gate in the northern mountains opened once again, briefly creating a portal between Qaarra and the Wyrdwold. From the grimacing doorway came the Scourge of Longrieve, a band of raiders, cutthroats and foul creatures bent on looting the jewels of Qaarra. They broke like a wave upon the idyllic village of Longrieve, earning their name through senseless butchery and slaughter.

In game terms, this was my attempt to make a true chaos warband for last summer’s SBH campaign. I tossed together a whole bunch of disparate models: a mindflayer, a sorceror, two gnolls, an orc, an anti-paladin, maybe a few others. It was a lot of fun to get them all on the battlefield together.

The Hour of the Rat

When the Clock of Omens strikes thirteen, families know to bar the door and place their heaviest cook-pots atop open drains and sewer pipes. For it is the Hour of the Rat, when the chittering hordes surge from the under-depths, led by fearsome chaos ratmen armored in scavenged mail and plate, and wielding blades of corrupted steel. They visit the surface world to raid for treasure and slaves -- but the day may yet come when these ratmen do not slink back into the catacombs at dawn, but instead stay to rule the realm that they have conquered.

This is an old-school Skaven warband composed of some vintage Citadel miniatures. They can easily ally with the Raiders of the Edelmark Sewers or the Scourge of Longrieve for larger scenarios featuring chaos foes.

That's all for now! I'll be back soon with the next installment, featuring an assortment of warbands drawn from my undead and dwarf armies, plus some leftover figures that don't currently have a home.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Battle Report: Open Combat by Second Thunder

Last week the club came together to try out Open Combat, the new medieval/fantasy ruleset by Second Thunder. The game was written by Carl Brown, a former Games Workshop creative type, with additional development from Gav Thorpe, a current Games Workshop creative type.

Open Combat is designed to give a simple, concise skirmish game with just a handful of figures. That's right up our alley here at CSW, so we were pretty excited to try out this game when Mattias proposed it a couple months back.

We had six players at last week's game in my small basement game room. The ideal battlefield size for Open Combat is just 24 inches square -- another bonus for us, since space is often at a premium on our game nights.

The first game was a dungeon delve featuring my grim dwarves versus Tim's slippery fishmen and goblins. I set up a medium-sized dungeon using my Dwarven Forge game tiles (from last year's Kickstarter) and we used the "Confrontation" deployment rules, which meant that we took turns deploying our figures one at a time, with each figure at least 8 inches away from the enemies. That resulted in a lot of little groups lurking in hallways and antechambers, ready to pounce.

Here are some pics from our initial deployment. In this pic, Tim's fishman is joined by two goblins near a treasure hoard.

And here, a mouthy beast lurks at the end of a zigzag hallway, waiting for dinner.

My dwarves were split into two groups due to deployment restrictions. One group, headed by Dwylla the dwarven sorceress (front and center) mustered near a heap of loot.

In Open Combat, there aren't any stock character profiles -- you create each warrior using a points system at the start of each game. And despite not having a magic system per se, Open Combat had enough special rules and "abilities" that I was able to create a fairly potent mage for our intro game. Dwylla proved to be a lynchpin for my entire warband.

As the game got underway, Ketni the bear-rider smashed open a mouldering door and pounded through the deserted hallways, seeking his allies in the mazelike dungeon.

The two factions quickly came to blows in the twisting passageways of the dungeon. Here two dwarves found themselves in a desperate battle with a slimy fishman.

All figures have facing in Open Combat, which presents lots of tactical options when closing in for melee. Do you attack the toughest enemy figure and leave your flank open to counterattack? Do you engage two figures at once to prevent one from sneaking around for a rear attack?

The game also makes use of a fun little recoil system. Typically a hit in close combat will inflict 1 point of damage and will sometimes cause a 1 or 2 inch recoil. But if you recoil into a solid piece of terrain (say, a dungeon wall!) you take an additional point of damage. With our best figures having just 5 or 6 hit points, you can see how this fight got bloody very quickly!

Back in the main dungeon chamber, Dwylla sent her dwarven bodyguard into combat with the surging goblins and fishmen. Senseless butchery ensued, with Dwylla using her magical "abilities" to drain the stats of the fishmen and goblins.

In Open Combat, most attacks reduce the enemy's Fortitude statistic (think of this like hit points). If your Fortitude reaches zero, you die. A few specialized attacks reduce the enemy's Mind stat, which causes various debilitating penalties if it ever reaches zero. But luckily, any figure can forfeit his or her activation to regain 1 point of lost Fortitude or Mind.

Back in the game, the fishmen struck back, slapping the dwarves with their flippers and attempting to drag them back into the fetid stinking pools from whence they came.

After some more mindless slaughter, Tim and I had the bright idea of checking the victory conditions for our scenario. Turns out I had just pushed his warband past its break point, so his fishmen fled the field and slithered back down the dim hallways toward their spawning pools. Here's our battlefield at the end of the game. The gibbering mouth demon was still on the loose!

While Tim and I were slugging it out in the hallways of the deep dark dungeon, two other games were taking place. Josh snapped some photos of those battles.

In this game, Karl's knights and retainers squared off against Jon's simian archers in the fungal forests.

I don't know what role, if any, these pigs played in their game.

This melee taught both Karl and Jon the importance of outnumbering in Open Combat!

Elsewhere Josh's fearsome werewolves battled Mattias's tainted riders from the Wyrdwold.

The rules for mounted and monstrous figures were identical, and in practice it meant that both of these factions had trouble activating due to either 1) a skittish mount or 2) a raging monster.

Conclusion
After our games wrapped up, the six of us spent a bit of time discussing the pros and cons of Open Combat, and comparing it to our go-to fantasy ruleset, Song of Blades & Heroes.

Open Combat definitely has more granularity and tactical depth. Unit placement matters, and terrain seems to matter more. The game has a weapon list, although it's pretty short at this point. We didn't have a whole lot of shooting in our games, but Open Combat handles this in an innovative way: shooters have infinite range and are hindered only by terrain features. This rule makes a single shooter way more useful on the Open Combat battlefield, compared to the SBH battlefield.

Another observation is that leaders feel like leaders in Open Combat. You can dump lots of points into their stats and not have to worry about them dying and triggering the collapse of your entire warband -- something that happens regularly in SBH. (Note that this is a feature of SBH, not necessarily a drawback, since it often pushes games toward completion. Still, it has always felt odd that leaders must lead from the back in SBH.)

The game requires a pen and paper to track stat changes, which occur regularly due to casualties or effects. Some stats wear off after one turn; others are permanent. It's possible to have several overlapping temporary stat modifiers on a single figure during his activation. Playing at a higher level (say, 12 to 20 figures) might prove problematic because of all the record keeping required.

We agreed, however, that the rules seemed somewhat incomplete. Every other section seemed to be waiting for some new element or detail to be bolted on to complete the author's idea. Most rules seem to work with figures that are roughly human-sized ... two arms, two legs, carrying weapons, etc ... but it was more difficult to work in the bizarre monsters and beasts that typically populate our fantasy games. The current game is certainly playable, but there is ample opportunity for the publisher to expand upon the current offering in a subsequent edition. We look forward to seeing what Carl comes up with!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member