Running to Hammerhead

Running from Bull Run will be making an appearance at Hammerhead on Saturday 28th February. 

Hammerhead (held at the Newark Showground) is a show that specialises in hosting participation games. This will be the first time I've put on a game there since, I think, 2011 when the SOTCW team put on Crossing the Lippe. 

It'll also be the first time I've put on this particular game or anything like it at an event where players need to be recruited from the passing punters. I spoke to John Savage at Vapnartak, who does that sort of thing all the time. John says that the morning session can be quiet, while people are circulating and doing their shopping, but that after that demand picks up. John's participation games are renowned so if he finds recruitment slow...

I'm confident that once players are recruited the game will work well but I'm tempted to make one minor tweak. The legendary "Black Horse Cavalry" already make an appearance in the game with historically "mixed" results...

However, this time they may not be the only Confederate horsemen to show up. I'm tempted to replace one of the infantry units leading the Confederate pursuit with a single Group of cavalry. This should make for some interesting tactical choices in the endgame period. I'll report back on the results.

Having only previously run the game at Lardy Days where players are allocated in advance, I'll need to give some thought to display materials to have around the table. I might try a Keynote presentation on my iPad as well as some printed handouts.

On the workbench...

So current production here at Stately Counterpane Manor is very much in a "random bits" phase.

First up is a pair of 3D printed bison I picked up at the otherwise disappointing Wirral Warboot sale back in September. 

I got them with Glorantha in mind and they'll still do for that setting but they're without the riders I originally thought of adding. Left riderless they'll also potentially do for What A Cowboy.

Next we have some Perry Russian infantry. The front group of eight and accompanying NCO are grenadiers. Behind them are two groups of musketeers with their own NCO.

The plan is still for Richard P and I to play a Livonia 1812 Sharp Practice campaign but his grandfatherly duties are making scheduling games difficult so I thought I'd get myself some opponents for my Prussians. Another group of musketeers and an officer need to be built and painted and when they're done I'll do a photoshoot of the whole force.

Moving down a couple of scales, I continue background planning for July's Joy of Six game where I'll be presenting Calais: Encounter on the St Omer Road on behalf of the Cold War Commanders. This was originally going to be the group's only game any the event but I think it will now be one of two, the other our more conventional Cold War fare.

A couple of evenings ago I updated 3RTR in line with my current understanding of early WWII British camouflage and with some sketched-in markings.

The formation is organised into four squadrons, two with Light Tank Mk VI and two with Cruiser Tank A13. Later the same evening I did a little more reading and came to the conclusion that the two types of tank were in fact mixed within squadrons. The question now is whether I redo the almost invisible squadron markings I painted on the turrets!

Also featuring in the Calais scenario are two German armoured car companies. These contain a mixture of SdKfz 221 and SdKfz 223 (indistinguishable in terms of unit stats and in terms of models as I'm not adding 1/300th scale frame aerials to the latter) as well as SdKfz 231 and 222.  

The 221s and 223s are armed only with rifle-calibre machine-guns whereas the 231s and 222s carry 20mm cannons that have some limited anti-armour capability.

I want to attract people who are interested in giving TacWWII a try so I need to give them some way to tell which units are which. As a couple of my SdKfz 222s already had air recognition flags, I decided to add them to all of the cannon-armed armoured cars.

A scrap of paper pencil-ruled with 2mmx3mm rectangles provided the basis. The red fields and white central circles were painted in with acrylics. The internationally problematic political symbols would then be sketched in with a fine drawing pen.

That's in for now. There are some Calais-related terrain pieces currently in production but I'll post about those in a few days when I talk about some of the design choices I've made in updating the scenario.

Over at Andreivian Tales...

You can now read the account of the British attack on a ruined fort held by the renegade Turkish officer Iskender Bey at Andreivian Tales.

Return to Andreivia and Arc of Fire

I've managed to persuade a few of my regular drinking buddies to try wargaming for the first time. The plan at present is to have a go at a simple game in a couple of weekends' time. I don't expect to convert any of them to the hobby but it would be nice if they had a frame of reference for our "What are you doing this weekend?" conversations.

I gave them a choice of four games including 4th century Romans vs Picts, 15th century Burgundians and Swiss, and a rerun of my Port Gibson ACW game. In the end, though, they chose an early twentieth century adventure; in fact a return to Andreivia with a scenario I wrote to run about 12 months ago but that fell though the cracks for some reason.

The game will involve a rogue Turkish officer who has gained control of some experimental poison gas shells. Certainly British and possibly Andreivian forces will be attempting to take the gas shells off his hands. Arc of Fire will be the rules in use.

I don't need to build any additional units or terrain for the game but I have today improved the paint-job on this Raventhorpe white metal Laffly armoured car...

Don't go blowing the image up to look at the detail. It's not a great job but pin-washing and dry brushing have lifted it a little.

One reason for including Arc of Fire among the options was that it's a set of rules I can run with my eyes closed. I could consider dropping unit modes and random events from the rules for this game for simplicity. However, to me they are such important factors in making the game a fun narrative experience. 

In fact I'm adding another complication for this one. Certain units, such as the British Mark V tank, have special rules. For the Mark V the rule is:

Poorly Designed:

If subject to red-then-black, make a Tac roll. If failed, the crew immediately abandon the vehicle leaving the hatches open to ventilate out hot air and fumes. Note that they may leave the tank moving and walk alongside it. They may not return to the vehicle for the remainder of this game turn.

The reference to "red-then-black" reflects a new approach I'm trying here. The Mark V tank will normally activate like any other unit. However, if its card comes up immediately after the Red Joker is drawn and the Black Joker has previously been drawn this turn (i.e. the combination of cards that does not trigger a Random Event) the Poorly Designed special rule takes effect.

The idea is to have a trigger that doesn't come up often and that can be used to demonstrate the peculiarities of this particular unit. The Mark V's engine-cooling radiator was inside the fighting compartment and this was a known problem!

That's the rules position, then. I'll post something about the game itself on the Andreivian Tales blog shortly.

Huns versus Late Romans

I recently picked up a copy of Basic Impetus 2.0 and thought I'd give it a try with some of my 6mm scale ancient miniatures.

A few years ago I tried version 1 of these rules (they're from Italian publisher Dadi e Piombo) and really enjoyed them. Only the arrival of To The Strongest prevented me using them more often.

This time I set up a straightforward Romans vs Huns action.

The Roman army, furthest from the camera above, was centred on two units of legionaries backed up by attached archers. These were flanked to their right by a unit of auxilia palatina (light infantry with "point blank weapons"; presumably darts), comitatenses (more light infantry), and some lanciarii skirmishers. On the other flank was the Roman cavalry equites, equites Illyricani, and Alan mercenary horse archers. It was only later that I realised I'd missed out a unit of sling-armed skirmishers who should have been there.

The Huns had one unit of mounted nobles, seven of bow-armed light cavalry and one of bow-armed skirmishers on foot. As you can see they deployed with a small centre and widely-spread wings.

The advantage of playing this solo was that I could take a couple of days with breaks to check on rules I wasn't sure about and even to query things on the Facebook Group for the rules. This taught me a few things:

• Javelin-armed light infantry have a 45 degree shooting arc,
• Troops that try to evade but fail to do so aren't disordered, and
• Troops that do evade don't end their evade move facing away from the enemy.

I'd guessed the first of these but the other two surprised me.

Early Hun shooting against the legionaries 
was surprisingly effective

By the end of turn 2 both legionary units had taken permanent losses

But one Hun unit would be lost as it failed to evade
a legionary charge

On the Huns' right there was an exchange of shooting with the Roman cavalry. The Romans got the better of this and another Hun cavalry unit was lost.

Eventually the Hunnic cavalry managed to wear down the Roman General's unit to the point where it was worth sending in the nobles to try and finish them off. This didn't go well and the nobles were forced to pull out with a single remaining hit and I threw in another unit of horse archers to protect them.

The battle was in the balance when these fresh Huns finished off the Roman General's unit.

The end came, however, when the other legionary unit charged the weakened Huns in front of them. The latter evaded successfully but I'd failed to spot that this opened the way for the legionaries to hit the corner of the Hunnic nobles, triggering a melée that routed them and gave the Romans victory.

I'm reminded of why I enjoyed Basic Impetus back in the day. It's less anodyne than DBA and more capable of supporting interesting scenarios than To The Strongest. This second edition will certainly have a place among my ancient wargaming options.

Xmas Games 2025 part two

Having completed Saturday's Gangs of Rome game I had to try and get my brain around a second set of rules in four days! Fortunately What A Cowboy is a game I've run several times previously so I had a head start in understanding author John Savage's modern adaptation, What A Cartel.

The new version (published in the 2026 Lard Magazine) adds altered rules for ammunition tracking and automatic weapons and covers vehicles and anti-tank weaponry. As such it was a fairly easy job to convert to a sci-fi adaptation that I'm calling What A Traveller.

I designed the scenario based on the old Traveller RPG taking elements from:

• Mongoose Traveller (second edition),
• Reft Sector, and  
• Double Adventure 5: The Chamax Plague / Horde.

I really enjoyed writing the background to the scenario as if I were designing a Traveller adventure. I've no plans to go back to running RPGs but this has, for a while at least, scratched any itch that was there.

The scenario took place in the planet-side starport on Zuflücht, a somewhat isolated world on the edge of the Islands Clusters.

Andy S ran the crew of the Serendip Belt-registered free trader Vital Spark who were infiltrating the starport's bonded storage facility to try and steal some valuable crates of Darrian brandy. They deployed from their recently-landed ship's boat, the Parra Handy.

Matt C and Gus W represented the Imperial Navy who had put together a small tactical team to retrieve vital intelligence data from a cargo module also in the bonded storage facility. They entered the table from behind the radar tower.

Arthur W was responsible for the small staff of the starport and the local civilians who turned up to help them. Starport administrator Mitla Farina and security guard Stanlie Molotoff deployed around the security building.

I umpired the game and at a suitable point unleashed the acid-secreting Chamax aliens onto the scene!

The scenario began at night (requiring an additional Spotting Dice beyond 12" for characters without image intensifying goggles) but I gave Arthur the option of turning on floodlights when the alarm was raised if he had a character in the security building. This he immediately did.

Matt really enjoyed the Advanced Combat Rifle's underslung grenade launcher...

An ACR grenade explodes against the
liquid helium condenser

Stanlie Molotoff patrols the bonded storage area

The Navy are here (in plain clothes as they don't
want their mission to be associated with the Imperium)

Aulogia Illahunty and Bay Falango of the Vital Spark

 

Retired Marine special forces operative
Skor Sethkowsky was the highest-level
character in the game

Laguar von Tenno of the Navy
confronts Stanlie Molotoff

Matt has now discovered the joys of the smoke grenade!

Free trader crew scatter as Irgi, the Navy's political analyst,
drives through the smoke! 

When I deemed the time was right I started deploying the Chamax, acid-secreting aliens that had hitched a ride in cargo module 2 and that now emerged to eat whatever flesh they could find. 

One of the Chamax - actually a "Phug" from Peter Pig

As more and more Chamax emerged, grudging co-operation between the players became the order of the night. Whilst fighting to survive, the Free Trader crew managed to explore one of the cargo modules (but unfortunately not the one they wanted) while the Imperial Navy helped to evacuate the wounded.

At the end of the day neither of the infiltrating groups had managed to achieve their objective but we had a good time playing the game. What A Cartel looks worth further exploration. I just have a few questions:

• Do grenades really have a six inch blast diameter?
• How long does smoke last?
• When a character gets into or out of a vehicle, how do you transition between using the character's Action Dice pool and the vehicle's?

More reading and perhaps a message to Mr Savage will follow.

Xmas games 2025 - part one

The Saturday after Christmas saw a gathering at Stately Counterpane Manor to launch this year's planned Gangs of Rome campaign.

The plan is to have a setting in which we can play a series of games that gradually tell a story without needing to have the right players present for every future game. Any given player will always represent the same gang and players can slot in whenever they are available.
 

We started the session with a bit of a lesson on how the rules work and then created a few characters to illustrate how that works.  Some dice rolling told us a bit about the backgrounds of the two gangs' patrons.  We didn't create names for these bigwigs at the time but Gangs of Rome has some fancy tables to do this for us.

We'll begin with The Green Gang, whose patron is Spurius Verdius, a lanista (the manager of a stable of gladiators). Spurius is known for is love of horses. He maintains a stable of racehorses on an estate outside the city, bringing the fastest of them into Rome whenever the games include a particularly prestigious race.

The Green Gang players so far are Tom Z (whose player character is Aerugo), Jamie C (Pavimentarius, although this would be a short-lived association as we shall see later), Ron P (Junius), and Matt C (Scaevola). In addition, the Greens had non-player character gang-members in the form of Lucretius (who deserted from the legion for love) and Domitianus (a versatile chap who is said to paint his body with the blood of his fallen foes).

Some Roman streets before trouble starts

Moving on to the Blues, we find that they are under the direction of Tarquinius Caerulius whose business is importing beasts for the arena but who is not averse to importing slaves as well. Given that Tarquinius will doubtless employ venatores (hunters; specialist gladiators trained to fight wild beasts) there is clearly scope for the two patrons' business dealings to overlap and we can assume that their rivalry stems at least in part from this. Maybe we will find out more as the campaign progresses.

The current crop of Blue Gang players are Matt Z (Parum Icarus), Andy S (Rufinius), and Leo F ("Julius Caesar" - not his real name but he thinks so highly of himself that the nickname has stuck). They were backed up by NPCs Januarius the bowman, Molendinarius (an experienced brawler), and vengeful Musca. 

As with September's test game, the scenario for our first encounter was The Brawl. This is a stand up fight between the gangs with points awarded for knocking out enemy gang-members and double points for doing so in a suitably dramatic fashion.

Parum Icarus is attacked by an angry mob
(photo by Tom Zunder)

Street fighting outside the temple

Molendinarius launches an attack on seemingly
unarmed Domitianus...

...and puts him out of action

More fighting

The Greens contemplate impending defeat

As the umpire looks on in period-inappropriate T-shirt,
some of the Blues try to avoid smugness

When we decided enough was enough, the Green Gang had lost four members whilst failing to inflict any damage on their opponents. Most important of the losses was their leader Pavimentarius who was taken out in a particularly cinematic fashion.

Post-game dice rolling revealed the fates of the beaten characters. Junius the thief was dragged from the streets with severe lacerations. For the next five games he will be limited to 3 actions in any action stack.

Lucretius recovered with no more than a bruised ego, while Domitianus had only a sprained ankle - he won't be able to carry two pieces of equipment in either of the next two games. Pavimentarius, however, is dead having been, at various times, shot, stabbed and thrown off a roof. He was known to be bitter and twisted and out for revenge so maybe his shade will haunt the streets on dark nights?

I had deployed The Seer as an incola in the game. She didn't play a huge role (which is probably as it should be). I played the effect of her buttonholing characters as costing them one successful activation roll. I think next time I might increase that to two and see how that goes.

I've started a spreadsheet to track the characters through the forthcoming campaign. Look out for more reports as the year progresses.