Game Plan 2014 – Fall/Winter

It’s feeling like summer is drawing to an end already. Says are getting shorter… evenings cooler… and so my thoughts turn to what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the year. There has been a lot of other planning at my place lately – mostly classes and activities for the kids, and Amanda, and even me! Honestly I don’t know how were going to fit everything in.

Looking back at the last Game Plan 2014 Update I was mostly considering what I was going to be painting over the next 6-8 months. Not a lot has changed, I’m mostly planning on working on much the same stuff. I may not reach my objective of painting more than I’ve purchased… but I’ll be close… and I’ll do WAY better next year! (This year’s acquisitions were skewed a bit by the 400+ super cheap plastic Hät figures – at $7 per box the whole shebang was about $100 and worked out to 25¢ - or less - per figure… who could pass up THAT action!?)

Anyway, the plan…

Song of Blades and Heroes Campaign

From September to November I’m going to run a A Song of Blades and Heroes/Song of Deeds and Glory campaign on Saturday evenings – when I’m not playing in the GURPS Modern Horror Campaign (see below). Why Song of Blades and Heroes and not Song of Shadows and Dust right away? Well I HAVE enough figures I could supply warbands for SoBH for any number of players right now – and some other players could currently supply their own warbands (and I’ll be encouraging some of the others to work on their OWN!). This will also give us time to all build more factions and terrain to run a proper SSD campaign in the new year.

GURPS Modern Horror Campaign

What the WHAT!? My friend John is threatening to run a GURPS Modern Horror Role-Playing campaign starting in October – once a month for 10 months. I’m actually pretty excited about the idea of PLAYING in a role-playing game… even if it is GURPS…

Other Role-Playing Games

I’d like to run a role-playing game for the kids (and possibly some friends) in the fall, but I haven’t quite figured out when or what… I’m thinking I will probably use  A Tale of Blades and Heroes and run a campaign set in Greek Mythology or the Roman Empire in the first century AD (perhaps using some stuff from Cthulhu Invictus…?). maybe I’ll run both over the winter… I’m really torn – both seem really appealing to me right now.

Song of Shadows and Dust Campaign

As mentioned above I’m planning on running a Song of Shadows and Dust campaign in the new year. Over the next few months I'll be working on some new figures to build new factions or add options to factions I'm currently working on. I hope some others around here might build some of their own factions!! I also plan on building a whole lot more buildings so that I'll be able to run a few games concurrently. 

Board Games

I’ve been playing a lot more board games with the kids lately. They’re both getting old enough to play some more sophisticated games and we’ve been trying out ones I’ve been sitting on for a couple years – mostly ones thematically related to stuff we’ve been reading about in the history we’ve been studying. This week we’ve been kind of crazy about Smash Up (which is not-so-thematically related…), but some of the other thematically related games I have lined up to try out include Ra, Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean,  Quo Vadis?, Ostia, The Hanging Gardens ,  Palatinus, Ostrakon and Conquest of the Empire… and I wouldn’t mind getting in a few more games of Ur or Ark… or some other not-so-thematically-related favourites such as Small World, or any of the Munchkin we have.

DBA/HOTT

While I’m not really planning on doing a DBA or HOTT campaign for the 11^th Annual Tim’s Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend as I had been thinking of at the time of the last Game Plan 2014 Update , I would still like to at least finish up the New Kingdom Egyptians and Nubians, and at least TWO (of five) Greek Hoplite armies, and something to fight my Early Imperial Romans. I would definitely still like to run a Greek City State campaign at some point – as well as a Roman Civil War and a Campaigns of Alexander and/or Wars of the Successors campaign(s) – as I HAVE figures for all those… just got to get them painted… For now though… just enough to play a few more games “thematically related” to our studies.

Painting, Modelling, and Terrain-Building

In the immediate future I’ll likely be working on ancient and fantasy subjects for the remainder of the year – mostly individual figures and terrain for A Song of Blades and Heroes or Song of Shadows and Dust, but, as mentioned above, I would also like to get a few DBA/HOTT  armies finished up as well.

Probably in November/December our Reaper Miniatures Bones II: The Return Of Mr Bones! Kickstarter figures will be arriving…. Theoretically those are “for the kids”… so hopefully it shouldn’t affect my plans.

ToonCon?

Earlier in the year I had been thinking I’d run stuff a ToonCon again this year. I had fun running Force on Force, Ambush Z  and Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878… and I thought I might run some “Song of…” games this year… but then I just got feeling overwhelmed by all the other stuff going on this summer and fall and decided to give this year a miss… It seems I get to them every other year… so… maybe next year.

Great War?

The great War projects have fallen by the wayside somewhat this year… Maybe next year… I would still like to do the Canadian Corps attack of Vimy Ridge in 2017… (See Vimy Project Planning)

and finally, thinking ahead into 2015... 

11^th Annual Tim’s Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend

Well, considering the success This Year’s skirmish campaign I have decided to put off the DBA or HOTT Greek campaign for another time and instead run a Song of Shadows and Dust campaign – perhaps incorporating some of the more detailed campaign/faction building rules from Song of Deeds and Glory for the “main event” on Friday/Saturday. Then, following the Same Format on the Sunday we will play a thematically related boardgame: Conquest of the Empire… and any other (shorter) board/card games we happen to be able to cram into the remains of the day… but more on that in a couple months… 

More Ancients

A few more items for some ancient skirmishing or role-playing – most likely to be seen in the mean streets of Song of Shadows and Dust.

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An assortment of stuff, mostly from Black Tree Design.

More archers from Black Tree Design. There was a fourth one in the pack, but his bow broke and is in need of mending/re-fabricating... and I just haven't gotten to that yet. 

Some more citizens to populate the streets – the two flanking figures are from Black Tree Design, but the one in the middle is from Warlord Games.

Prisoners from Black Tree Design - these were all from “Druids and Captives” sets – presumably captives that were going to be sacrificed (or perhaps sold as slaves to Rome…). I intended to use them as slaves or as a marker for the Rescue or Capture objectives in Song of Shadows and Dust.

Finally some Casualty markers (also from Black Tree Design)… I think they’re supposed to be Celts, but I hoped I’d be able to pass them off as assorted armed civilian/faction members.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Still have that game report to finish up…

I’ll probably get a fair bit of painting done over the next week. Amanda is away in Prague for a couple of weeks – well one week in Prague at a conference and another week hanging out in Eastern Europe… 

Scorpion Men and Cretan Archers

Near the end of July Black Tree Design had a 50% off everything Summer Blowout Sale and I picked up… a few things… mostly items that would be useful for Song of Shadows and Dust, but also a few other odd and sundry iteams.

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Cretan Archers – which could be used as “Cretan Bodyuguards” in SSD.

I just happen to be reading Cthulhu Invictus and planning to use it as a setting for a A Tale of Blades and Heroes campaign… and in one of the adventures there happen to be scorpion men… and Black Tree Design just happen to have the scorpion men… so… here they are…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

We played a game of Song of Shadows and Dust last night and hopefully later today I’ll get around to posting a game report of that.

After that…? more ancients of one sort or another. I had hoped to get Egyptian and Nubian DBA armies doen for the first of second week of September… but that seems to have been derailed in favour of finishing up more stuff for skirmish games and role-playing… 

The Egyptians of Iskedumdrum

I got in a quick game of Song of Shadows and Dust with the family Sunday evening…

Iskedumdrum, 69 BCE

SITUATION

Iskendumdrum has a sizeable Egyptian population – traders mostly, but also artisans and others. There is a growing interest in all things Egyptian amongst a certain segment of the Roman population – including their religion… A certain up and coming Roman politician – Trimus Canis Nocturnus – a staunch conservative sees this as an affront to the Roman state religion and a threat traditional Roman family values and the morality of Roman youths… He had campaigned against the setting up of Egyptian temples and allowing Egyptians to practice their religion in Iskedumdrum. He has been especially irked that Roman citizens have been offering up Roman coin as offerings at the Egyptians temples… As his pleas have fallen on the Deaf ears of the Roman governor (himself a Egyptophile), Trimus Canis Nocturnus had decided it is time for action! A group of his cronies staged a daring daylight raid of the temple – making off with a rather large strongbox full of Roman gold – they were unable to get far with it and so hid it in an alley in the Egyptian quarter before fleeing for their lives. By night Trimus Canis Nocturnus returns to the Egyptian quarter to recover the stolen gold, but the treets are not empty – and by no means safe!!

SCENARIO

The Romans under Trimus Canis Nocturnus were attacking, the Egyptians were defending.

The Egyptians objective was “Looking for Trouble”. They simple got victory points for taking out their enemies – 1 VP for every 25 points of Roamans killed or fled from the table.

The Romans Objective was “Theft”. The Romans had to locate the stolen goods (three possible location markers were placed within one ling of the Egyptian base line after terrain placement and determining side, but before setting up figures). If they located the goods and carried them off their table edge they would get 5VP. They also got 1 VP for every 50 points of Egyptians killed or fled from the table.

The scenario took place at night – there were only 4 civilians on the table.

FORCES

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The Egyptians – played by The Boy and The Girl

 

Bes – Guild Master

Q 3+, C2, 50 points

Leader

Sethirkopshef – Zealous Egyptian Priest

Q 4+, C3, 50 Points

Savage, Threatening

2x Priest Body Guards (as per Cretan Bodyguards)

Q 3+, C 3, 60 points each

Agile, Bow, Armed, Protect Priest

2x Armed Henchmen

Q 4+, C3, 36 points each

Armed, Bellicose

The Romans – played by Amanda

 

Trimus Canis Nocturnus – Young Politician

Q 2+, C2, 92 points

Demagogue, Tribune

Hottopix – Foreign Bodyguard

Q 4+, C 4, 42 points

Armed, Barbarous, Heavy Drinker, Protect Leader

6x henchmen (with improvised weapons)

Q 4+, C 3, 27 points each

Grey

THE GAME

Rolling for Hottopix “Heavy Drinker” outcome – he was feeling a little “Clumsy” this evening…

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Night falls over the Egyptian Quarter of Iskedumdrum.

All set up and ready to go! Trimus Canis Nocturnus and his up-standing Roman citizen followers are at the top center of the picture. The three objective markers can just barely be made out across from them along the bottom half of the picture.

Trimus Canis Nocturnus and his gang storm into the Egyptian Quarter by moonlight…

The Egyptians were a little uncertain which way to go and took a bit of a “wait and see” approach…

Being a bit drunk, Hottopix – thea heavy Drinking Foreign Bodyguard of Trimus Canis Nocturnus Barged ahead – not realizing his leader had gotten into an argument with one of the others and ended up being left far behind… (Hottopix had gotten three actions and charged ahead, the second guy got two, the third rolled a turn-over…)

One the Romans second turn a few more henchmen moved ahead – one catching up to Hottopix, who was standing in the street wondering where his master was at. Trimus Canis Nocturnus, however, continued to argue with one of the other henchmen…

“I think I head someone coming, boss”

Finally moving forward… one of the Roman Henchmen located the stash!

…only to have himself be discovered by the prowling Egyptians… The first of the Priest’s bodyguards through the courtyard knocked him down. This violent action scared away the Nubian slave that was out sweeping the streets at night…?

The second of the Priest’s bodyguards out a second arrow in him taking him out! At this point the Nubian slave joined with the Romans – such violence in the streets at night! The Romans were right, these Egyptians ARE a menace!

The Armed Egyptian Henchmen were the next out of the courtyard and charged into contact with the next Roman henchman… but didn’t have enough actions to attack.

Amanda’s first activation attempt on her next turn…

This is going downhill fast…

The first Egyptian henchman actually tied the Roman henchman – despite the Roman being up ounumberd by armed opponents attacking with a powerful blow! The second Egyptian henchman forced him to recoil from the melee… where he was taken out with an arrow from one of the Egyptian Priest’s Bodyguards… The Nubian Slave was frightened off by the chanting of Sethirkopshef – the Zealous Egyptian Priest.

The Romans finally made it to the scene… mostly… and Hottopix rushed forward to grab the stash!

But Hottopix simply ended up being the next victim of the merciless Egyptian archer/bodyguards.

A bunch of the Roman henchmen tried to jump one of the armed Egyptian Henchmen – but none were feeling quite so vigorous to get too close to his massive khopesh! Trimus Canis Nocturnus, not beign one to learn from the follies of others, charged forward to grab the stash himself!

The Romans leader was cut down by the cruel arrows of the Egyptian bodyguards – his cries and the dark blood on his white toga in the moonlight made for a gruesome scene – the remaining Roman henchmen fled the table – well…. TRIED to flee the table – one was cut down with a free hack as he tried to break contact with the Khopesh-wielding Egyptian.

Another fun, quick, and utterly decisive game!

Playing at night is a whole different kettle of fish.

Bows are BRUTAL at night – without the line of sight issues caused by civilians, not to mention the strong possibility that a civilian will join the side of anyone struck by a bow. I am considering adding a few house rules to counter this… limit visibility at night…? negative modifiers to all shooting – or at least remove the +1 to hit for bows…? I’m not sure just yet, but I’m thinking about it…  Or perhaps I just need MORE buildings and line of sight blocking terrain…? I don’t’ want to make it totally impossible to move, though.

Also the Demagogue/Tribune abilities were basically useless at night… but them’s the breaks…

As I’ve mentioned one of the things I really like about Song of Shadows and Dust is the objectives – giving the player options about how to play the game and how to try and win. We had a little trouble with plans in this game as the game is supposed to end when either a scenario objective has been met that triggers the end of the game, all of the opponents have either died or left the table – as was the case in this game – or seven people have died. At the beginning of the game Amanda thought perhaps she could try and just grab the stash – if she could find it quickly enough – and scarper off the table without even contacting the Egyptians – if possible. This is the sort of thing I really like… but looking at the “Theft” objective, it didn’t specifically say that removing the item triggered the end of the scenario…? It simply said that removing it from the players own table edge gave them five bonus victory points. Of course anyone that purposely leaves the table gives the enemy one victory point. So, technically, if Amanda had wanted to play this way (and been able to pull it off) she would have gotten five VP for carrying off the stash, but given up 8 VP for all her faction leaving the table!? So I decided that leaving her own table edge with the stash could trigger the end of the  scenario those carrying the object would not give up VP to the enemy.

I also like the idea that the game would end when a certain number of people had died – representing “the critical point on eht table where the violence has attracted too much public attention forcing all faction members to quit the table in fear or arrest or loss of local support.” I REALLY like this rule – one more thing to keep factions from being utterly massacred – something very handy in a campaign! The one thing is the number seven seems rather arbitrary. So I’ve been considering making it slightly random… somehow… perhaps once four have died start rolling d6 after every death if the total of D6+3 is equal to or less than the current Body Count the game ends. On average I think it will still end at about 7, but could conceivable end at 4 or carry on until 9 die. Perhaps we’ll try it in a few of our next games.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

My painting table is getting very crowded – it’s hard to tell what may roll off of there next, but it’d very likely to be SOMETHING ANCIENT – Egyptians, Greeks, Romans or Nubians… and there’s always the possibility of more game reports – have to make the most of these last two weeks of summer vacation before all our regular activities start up again! 

On the Way to the Forum

Rick stopped by Thursday evening to pick up his Mummy and play a quick game of Song of Shadows and Dust. Seriously, it took us longer to set the game up, sort out the scenarios and objectives, and go over the differences between Song of Shadows and Dust and Song of Blades and Heroes (which we’d played last week) than it did to play the darned game… not that it wasn’t FUN! Actually it was a bit of a riot.

Iskedumdrum, 69BCE

SITUATION

Decimus Biggus Dickus was spending a quiet evening making his rounds of the neighborhood – making sure everyone was paid up or feeling a little… uncomfortable… when a mob led by Titus Ricius Lowellus marched into the neighborhood determined to put and end to Biggus Dickus’ usury and strong-armed collection tactics… 

SCENARIO

As I had already set up the table we called me the defender and Rick decided his table edge after we’d figured out our objectives and I’d finished setting up the irritable mule and such.

I rolled “It All Happened on the Way to the Forum” for an “objective”. It sucked. Basically Rick’s faction had caught me unawares and HE got to set up all my guys – but my leader – pretty much anywhere he wanted, not within one long of his table edge and at least 25 points worth of guys had to be in each quarter… He did a really good job of spreading them all out… fiend… I could conceivably gotten more victory points per enemy taken out (1VP per 20 points of enemy taken out, ass opposed to the standard 1 per 25…)

Rick rolled “Looking for Trouble”… pretty much the standard “there they are, go get ‘em” deal (1VP per 25 points of enemy taken out)

It was evening so there were 18 civilians spread about the table – including Mad Abdul at Mad Abdul’s Magic Carpet Stall.

FORCES

Decimus Biggus Dickus – Money Lender/Faction Leader

Q 3+, C 3, 60 points

Leader

5x Henchmen

Q 4+, C 3, 27 points each

Grey

2x Henchmen (with swords)

Q 4+, C 3, 36 points

Armed, Bellicose

1x Henchmen (with staff)

Q 4+, C 3, 32 points

Bludgeon

Titus Rickius Lowellius – Demagogue

Q 4, C 2, 74 points

Demagogue, Plebian, Dogged

Cretan Bodyguard

Q 3, C 3, 60 points

Agile, Armed, Bow, Protect Leader

6x Henchmen

Q 4+, C 3, 27 points each

Grey

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The View from my end of the neighborhood. Yup, good and spread out. With the exception of two guys – everyone in my faction was at least one long away from anyone else in the faction…

I didn’t even get to have a turn to try and regroup before Rick’s guys were on top of me as he got the first go…

One of my lads was quickly surrounded on the first turn.

On the first activation of the second turn he was down…

…and the next activation he was brutally murdered.

The brutality of the murder sent one of my guys scampering away – which, in all likelihood, saved his life…

Titus Ricius Lowellus started speechifying at the local well gathering a small crowd around him. On the next turn he had three of them joined his cause.

But in the meantime his Cretan Bodyguard loosed an arrow down the road, missing the henchmen he was shooting at, but got two civilians so angry they joined MY faction – bloody foreigners, shooting arrows down the street at honest ordinary Roman citizens and all that…

And further away Decimus Biggus Dickus was gathering his men about him, getting ready to put an end to Titus Ricius Lowellus’ antics.

My two henchmen gathered the civilians that joined them close by to tell them more horror stories about those cretin Cretans… (can you say “meat shield” – oh how Dave will love this game…).

That Cretan archer actually shot that poor civilian in the purple toga! 

Decimus Biggus Dickus stormed past Mad Abdul’s Magic Carpet Stall and into the square about the well…

Biggus Dickus stormed into the square and shouted: “There he is lads! Get ‘im!!”

(I activated the leader and moved him and used his remaining activation to issue a group move order…)

The group activation roll…

Not so good.

His men hesitated.

“I don’t know boss… he’s got a pretty big crowd this time… and they look angry”

"uh... guys...?"

Biggus Dickus was quickly surrounded by the angry mob… lots of single activations – enough to get guys in contact… none of them could attack… not that he needed to there was always next turn.

So I decided to activate Biggus Dickus first, hoping to get his lads a bi ol’ group move to come and rescue him…

yeah... 

…and that was the end of my turn…

... the end of Decimus Biggus Dickus...

...and pretty much the game for me!

Rick’s first activation on his turn was to attack Decimus Biggus Dickus…  He was outnumbered by lots… it was totally a Gruesome Kill… they beat poor Biggus Dickus right there in the square with stones and whatever else they had handy… Gruesome Kill… Leader Kill… the rest of my force vanished from the table… I can’t really blame them – the guy that was paying them was very, very dead and not going to be paying them no more… and there was a very large angry mob looking at them so as to say – you’re next!

Rick - 11 Victory Points (only because my force was slightly less than 300)

Me - 0 Victory Points (zero, zip, nadda...)

I had hoped if maybe I could kill the leader and hopefully end the game by killing of his enough civilians to bring the total to seven deaths (which automatically ends the game)… I might squeak by with a minor VP win… but wow… was that ever decisive…

Well played, Rick… Well played…

Now that I’ve got all the stuff out, hopefully I’ll get in a game or two with the kids over the next few days. The big order from Wargames Factory I placed a few weeks back has arrived and the kids are busily assembling and painting their OWN Song of Shadows and Dust factions! I also picked up some more MDF so we can all make some new buildings too!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

MORE Song of Shadows and Dust game reports and some more figures for my various different factions I am building… 

The Mummy

For my brief foray into 200mm gaming…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Sticking with the theme of “ancient Egypt” at least… sort of…

Okay not really for wargaming… but making use of those same mad-hobby-modeling-skillz…

This is actually an old Aurora Monster Model of “The Mummy” I assembled and painted for a friend. I’ve had it – working on it a little bit every-so-often – for an embarrassingly long time (I should just never promise I’ll paint things for friends…). But now, finally, it is finished. Huzzah!

(Now I just have three more to finish up!)

(Hopefully they won’t take nearly so long!!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Back to gen-u-ine gaming stuff

Dire Boar, Henchmen, and Egyptians

A few items rolling off the workbench.

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Two henchmen for Song of Shadows and Dust I converted from a couple of Dark Age Old Glory miniatures.

The Dire Boar… which I think was from Wizards of the Coast’s Chainmail line…?

He’s a big beastie:

Here he is with the hanchmen – just for a little perspective.

I’ve had the mini for a few years but quickly painted him up last night as I suddenly  have an immediate use for him in a RPG/tabletop adventure I have planned for the kids…



A Carpet Dealer from a Mega Miniatures pack (Sultans' Harem...?) that will go nicely with the Carpet Seller's stall I painted a few weeks back. 

Egyptians Spearmen from Wargames Foundry  for a  Hordes of the Things/DBA (New Kingdom-ish) Egyptian army.

The rest of the army so far…

A pair of Black Tree Design Dark Age figures. These have been sitting on my workbench, finished, for some time now waiting for me to finish a couple more Dark Ages guys for me to take pictures of them with... but that's not likely to happen any time soon, so I thought I'd just add them to this post and tuck them away in the appropriate storage box.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More games... More painting...? I've been slowing on the 23 figures per week schedule... and while I had been planning to finish the Egyptian and Nubian DBA armies over the next few weeks, I have a feeling Greek and Roman subjects are likely going to take over for a bit...