Over at Andreivian Tales...

 I've posted some details of the forthcoming Arc of Fire 1918 game over on 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.