Saturday, November 30, 2013

Expedition to Moria Rules


Here are the rules for the Expedition to Moria dungeon crawl.  They should be fairly self-explanatory.

Expedition to Moria

Each player starts with four figures.
Determine first player randomly then proceed clockwise around the table.
Each player may make two actions:
  • Move (6”)
  • Fight
  • Charge (move then fight)
  • Search (not if you’re fighting)
  • Heal (not if you’re fighting)

Sequence of play
1st Action
Check for wandering monsters if rounding corner or entering room
2nd Action
Check for wandering monsters who charge if unengaged

Fighting
Roll 1d6 for each side. Add number of figures (Dwarves or men) Add half number of figures (Orcs)
Score < opponents Lose one figure
Score < 1/2 opponents Lose two figures (Dwarves/Men), Rout (Orcs)

Searching
Roll 1d6:
1 Secret door
2 Nothing (Secret door if you have the Helm of Clear Sight)
3 Nothing
4 Nothing
5 Treasure
6 Treasure

Healing
Roll 1d6:
5 or 6 heals a casualty

Traps
Costs one action to escape. Roll 1d6:
Anything but a 1 allows you to escape.  

Wandering Monsters
Present on 3-6, roll again for type:
1-4 2d3 Orcs
5 Trap
6 Cave Troll (counts as four Dwarves)

Expedition to Moria

Jamie and I ran another game for the kids at Millie's school last night.  The idea was to do a fast-paced game of slaughtering orcs and amassing treasure.

We based the scenario on the period after The Return of the King when, with Aragorn settled on the throne of Minas Tirith, the good folk of Middle Earth settle down to slaughter those who followed Sauron.

Parties, each of four Dwarves, are making their way into Moria.  The winning player will be the one who gets out with most treasure!

They have a Cave Troll!  Things look bad for George A's Dwarves.
The figures are all from Jamie's collection.  The tunnels of Moria are built from foamcore.

An excited player looks on as Jamie prepares to deploy yet more Orcs.

Our winner receives the Golden Warrior award
The event was a great success.  We had nine different players over the two hours and several of them came back two or three times to play again.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

T-72s

I've now finished resurrecting a pair of rather tatty resin and white metal T-72s with ERA that  picked up at a bring-and-buy years ago.  Here they are in front of the third and latest of Museum Miniatures resin ruins.  Commander and AAMGs added from the spares box. Click to embiggen.





On the Workbench - Downtown Tcherbevan


Here we see a number of the buildings that will form the area of Tcherbevan in and around the Turkish Quarter.  Apart from the Museum Miniatures partial ruin on the right (the last of four I've had unfinished for several years) this shows my foamcore buildings in various stages of completion.

Lurking at the back, next to the bottle of PVA, is a tower; a simple box made from four pieces of foamcore.  Next to it are a pair of buildings with windows and doors attached and partly painted in  lurid brick-red exterior masonry paint.  Centre foreground are two small buildings that have had their render overpainted.  The most-foreground of them has also been dry-brushed.  They just need the doors and windows painting to be complete.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

More Late Roman Basic Impetus

November's Saturday Afternoon Wargame(TM) saw us having another go at Basic Impetus with my (slowly) growing collection of 6mm Late Romans.

Rob and Jamie took on the roles of opposing Roman officials (the Comes Saxoni Litoris and the Governor of Britannia Secundus respectively).  I supported Rob with a bunch of Saxon foederati whilst Andy ran a bunch of Welsh and Irish mercenaries in Jamie's service.

The battlefield was fairly unexciting - mostly open but with a few scattered woods.


Saxons (left foreground) and Rob's Romans (right foreground) face
off against Jamie's Cumbrogi (left background) and Andy's Romans. 
Early on I had a unit of Saxon skirmishers run down by a Cumbrogi warband.  Then, frustratingly, one of my expensive Goth mercenary cavalry units was routed by some Roman light horse.

The hole in front of the Equites Dalmatae with the blue shields
is where another Gothic medium cavalry unit used to be!
The centre of the field degenerated into a massive scrum.

A massive scrum yesterday.
Saxons in the foreground.

Jamie and Rob take stock...
... whilst Andy holds forth on the unreliability of Gildas as a source.
Alas, a large Cumbrogi warband gets the worse of a fight with the
Saxons and is routed.
The Crisis - Rob's red Legionary units (among the last not taken to
mainland Europe by Constantine) fight Jamie's Equites Alares.

The final position - the Equites Alares have been routed.
In the end Rob was the clear winner with all three of the other forces having been routed.

I like Basic Impetus and intend to keep producing more Late Romans.  Probably Legionarii next to replace the Irregular Republicans I'm using as stand-ins.


Friday, November 15, 2013

Angelus, Spike and Drusilla

Moving on the the second Pulp Alley league I've put together from Ground Zero Games not-Buffy figures, here are the Bad Guys.


As usual, all pictures are clickable to expand.

Angelus


Health d10, Brawl 3d10, Shoot 2d10, Dodge 3d10, Might 3d10, Finesse 2d8, Cunning 3d8
Untouchable - Always counts as in cover vs Shooting attacks
Rugged - May reroll one health check die per fight when brawling
Intimidating - Lower level must pass Cunning test (1 success) or may only Dodge.

Spike


Health d8, Brawl 4d8, Shoot 2d6, Dodge 3d8, Might 3d8, Finesse 2d6, Cunning 2d6
Muscles of Steel - Brawl and Might not lowered due to injury.
Fierce - Brawl increased by +1 die (included above)

Drusilla


Health d8, Brawl 2d6, Shoot 2d6, Dodge 2d8, Might 3d6, Finesse 3d8, Cunning 3d6
Dark Designs - At the start of any turn, instead of drawing as normal, may discard any number of fortune cards and draw the same number.

League Perks:
League of (anti-)Heroes - may include a second side-kick.
Dark Pact - gives access to Dark Gifts (see Perilous Island book).

I think these stats capture the trio quite well.  The Perilous Island book is quite handy for Buffy-themed leagues as if contains a number of more magical effects that suit the style of the series.


Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Buffy Summers - Pulp Hero

I recently finished the last of the Ground Zero Games not-really-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer-honest figures I bought at Triples about five years ago!  To celebrate I thought I'd have a go at producing a couple of Pulp Alley leagues using them.  First up is the Scoobie Gang.


Buffy Summers


Health d10, Brawl 2d10, Shoot 3d8, Dodge 3d10, Might 3d10, Finesse 2d10, Cunning 2d8
Muscles of Steel - Brawl and Might not lowered due to injuries.
Rugged - May reroll one Health Check die per fight when brawling.
Extraordinary - Increase one of her d8 skills to d10 (included above).

Willow Rosenberg


Health d8, Brawl 2d8, Shoot 3d8, Dodge 2d6, Might 2d6, Finesse 3d8, Cunning 3d8.
Deductive - As an action may draw one Fortune card.
Shrewd - Dodge or Cunning not lowered due to injuries.

Rupert Giles


Health d6, Brawl 1d6, Shoot 1d6, Dodge 1d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 2d6, Cunning 2d6
Specialist - Once per turn may increase die type for Cunning of Might.

Xander Harris


Health d6, Brawl 1d6, Shoot 2d6, Dodge 1d6, Might 2d6, Finesse 1d6, Cunning 1d6
Athletic - Once per turn, shift this character's die type up when rolling for Might or Finesse.

Tara McClay


Health d6*, Brawl 1d6, Shoot 1d6, Dodge 1d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 1d6, Cunning 2d6
Clever - Cunning increase by +1 die (included above).

League Perk:  Greater Purpose - don't lose the initiative when an ally/follower is wounded.

Those of you who know the series will notice that the Xander figure isn't.  He's an old Call of Cthulhu type who had suitably floppy hair.  He'll do until I find something better.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Millie's Pulp Alley League

Millie and I got together at the weekend with my collection of pulp figures and Millie planned out her own Pulp Alley league.  It's called the League of Super Evil:



Jessicca von Troken


Health d10, Brawl 3d8, Shoot 2d10, Dodge 3d8, Might 2d10, Finesse 3d10, Cunning 3d10
Lucky Devil - when this leader activates, the opponent cannot play any fortune cards.
Iron Will - As an action this leader may roll and immediate recovery check.
Hard Boiled - Enemy characters suffer a 1d penalty when dodging this leader's attacks.

Jimbo

Health d8, Brawl 3d8, Dodge 3d8, Might 2d8, Finesse 3d6, Cunning 2d6
Animal - may not shoot.  Adds +1 die to two other skills (included above).
Speedy - may run up to 16" instead of 12"

Dr Ludwig van Beefoven

Health d6, Brawl 1d6, Shoot 3d6, Dodge 1d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 1d6, Cunning 1d6
Marksman - Shoot is increased by 1 die (included above)

Do Susan (pronounced Doe Shoo Shan)

Health d6, Brawl 2d6, Shoot 1d6, Dodge 3d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 1d6, Cunning 1d6
Agile - Dodge increased by 1d (included above)

Angus McNee

Health d6*, Brawl 1d6, Shoot 1d6, Dodge 2d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 2d6, Cunning 1d6
Savvy - Finesse increased by 1d (included above)

Samuel Darby

Health d6*, Brawl 2d6, Shoot 1d6, Dodge 1d6, Might 1d6, Finesse 1d6, Cunning 1d6
Fierce - Brawl increased by 1d (included above)




Saturday, November 2, 2013

Latest from the Workbench


My Andreivian paratroops are done.  A small platoon, they have an HQ section with Lieutenant, radio operator, and AT team.  Then there are three five-man squads each led by a corporal, and a three-man mortar team.

The Lieutenant is converted from the legs of one of the firing-up-into-the-air figures and the top half of the inexplicably-doing-calisthenics-whilst-holding-a-piece-of-paper figure.

I reckon this is about all the Airfix paras are good for.

Today I dragged out a couple of old resin models of T-72s with reactive armour that I bought cheaply on a bring and buy many years back.  They are badly put together and have missing parts and lots of air bubbles.  Here we see them in the process of having their air bubbles filled with Green Stuff.


I've added an AA machine gun to the first tank and a commander figure to the second.  The latter vehicle is missing its commander's hatch and the hatch ring and AAMG mount are damaged.  Having the commander firmly attached via a plug of green stuff will make it easier to repair the area.

A couple of hours later...


Tank 1 is pretty much done.  Number 2 has its AAMG mounted and the worst of the bubbles filled.  I'm not spending too much time on these as there's only so far you can go with sow's ear to silk purse conversions.

Finally, for now, I'm making a second magnetic flight stand.  This one is going to be more rural in style (the other has the aircraft above a house).


The base is an old CD with a two pence piece glued over the centre hole.  The stand itself is one of those extensible magnetic picker-uppers.  It had a pocket clip held on with a bold at the end.  I've removed the clip and replaced it with a wide washer held on by the original bolt.  This gives me a broad, secure surface to attach to the 2p piece with green stuff.   My gloop No.1 (tilegrout with brown poster paint added) is starting to strengthen the join.