2013 HAWKs New Years Eve Gaming Party

Early stages of "Montmirail"
Early stages of "Montmirail"

For five years now we’ve been hosting a New Years Eve gaming event.  As we’ve moved several times, this is the third venue.  This year’s event featured two full, four-hour convention games.  People began arriving about 1430, we had a break for dinner, we toasted the new year, and finished the second game by about 0100.

The battle commences
The battle commences
"Montmirail" continues
"Montmirail" continues

We started about 1530 with distortion of the Battle of Montmirail.  Montmirail is a Napoleonic battle from the upcoming 1814 campaign book, written primarily by Dave Wood.  In this case, as I am about to wade into the writing of the book for Bear Yourselves Valiantly:  Look, Sarge, No Charts:  Fantasy, Ancient, and Mediaeval, I substituted fantasy figures for the Napoleonic figures.  It wasn’t a faithful substitution.  I have each player roughly 1000 points of figures, which was more figures than would be on the table for the historical scenario.  In addition, the 1000-point armies tend to be a mix of troop types rather than being the infantry or cavalry divisions of the historical fight.  It is supposed to be a 10 turn game.  We only completed 7 turns, but I think that in a convention, with a smaller number of troops, we could fit all 10 turns into a four-hour convention slot.  We have one of the HAWKs who seems to like the rules but who doesn’t like fantasy, so I asked Tank Nickle (one of the BYV co-authors) to bring his Romans and Carthaginians, who acted as opposing commands of humans on that wing of the table.

"Montmirail" was a bloody affair
"Montmirail" was a bloody affair

Victory conditions involved ownership of four towns.  The “French” (consisting of dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians) held one of the four towns but needed to capture one of the other three to win the game.  The “Allies” (humans and goblins) held the other three.  This required the French to be on the offensive.  In the end, the dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians had not captured a second town.  With another few turns two of the three might have been contested, but about 1930 we called the game an Allied victory, tore it down, and set up the next fight.

Orc's Drift
Orc's Drift

Eric Schlegel then set up and ran a fantasy game using his modifications to GASLIGHT, which he calls Mage Light.  The scenario was the British colonial battle of Rorke’s Drift, but the forces were fantasy figures instead.  (This New Years Eve was certainly the night for fantasy transmogrifications of historical battles!)  We, the “bad guys,” with a host of goblins, koblods, gnolls, ghouls, skeletons, orcs, and other assorted units were defending our homeland against the evil rampage of the “good guys.”

Orc's drift as the battle unfolds
Orc's Drift as the battle unfolds

This too was a bloody affair.  A high point for me were when the hill giants defending the wall against the imperialist Ent, turned it into kindling.  The good guys had a cleric who kept resurrecting dead “good guys” and a wizard who kept putting up walls of fire, thorns, and other stuff to slow down our movement of troops within the walls of Orc’s Drift.

Ent and hill giants battle
An ent and some hill giants battle

The battle was going hot and heavy at midnight, so we stopped for 45 seconds to acknowledge the drop of the big ball and toast the new year before continuing the game.  By about 0100 Eric called the game a “bad guy” victory; although, both sides were reduced to fewer than a dozen or so figures.

Bill Sleeping
... It was a long day and night of gaming.

Fighting two, full-length battles worked well.  In past years we’ve run two somewhat shorter events and then had to start a third game around 2230 or 2300.  The HAWKs are no spring chickens, so STARTING a game that late has been somewhat difficult.  We’ve done things like Munchkin or Red Dragon Inn, but even then, it’s hard to start that third game.  I liked what we did this year better; although, it’s good to have those other games in reserve in case a game plays poorly, and we end it early.

We were missing a couple of “usual suspects.”  The Dean’s were unavailable; the Palmers were indisposed; and the Woods were unable to attend.  On top of that, the Priebe’s were busy getting married.  Still we had 12 players for the first game.  Even missing these folks, we had an excellent time.  It was a nice way to ring in the new year.

Some Views of Fall In 2013

Having started a new job, I don’t have a lot of vacation saved up yet, so I worked most of Friday and didn’t get to Fall In until dinnertime, so I missed a whole day of gaming.  When I got there, Kurt was running his battle of Chickamauga game, using A Union So Tested.  After saying hello to everyone, I went to the hotel room to do some work for my consulting job.  I tried to hit the sack early to get ready of a day of gaming on Saturday.

Steve's Marengo game using Shako II
Steve's Marengo game using Shako II

Steve also ran the battle of Marengo, using Shako II.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time in this game, and the table looked quite good.

A portion of Noah's and Greg's Dr. Who game
A portion of Noah's and Greg's Dr. Who game

While I was doing some shopping for toys in the vendor area, Noah and Greg ran another of their Dr. Who extravaganzas for 20 or so players on two tables.  The game went long, because everyone was having fun and didn’t want to quit.

Eric setting up his Saipan game
Eric setting up his Saipan game, "Look, Sarge, the Japs have tanks!" using Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII

Eric ran his Saipan counterattack game.  We played this last week at HAWKs night, and I was the Japanese tanks.  It’s a fun scenario.

Sam Fuson in Eric's WWII game
Sam Fuson in Eric's WWII game

Saturday afternoon I ran what was supposed to be a six-player Napoleonic game: the Battle of La Rothiere, 1814.  Nine people showed up for the game, and by subdividing a couple of commands, I was able to accommodate all of them!  This is from the scenario book that Dave Wood and I have been writing.  The French are trying to hold three towns until nightfall, when they will execute an orderly withdraw in the face of superior allied forces.  The allies (Russians and Austrians) are trying to take all three towns to disrupt the French withdrawal.

Looking down the French line past La Rothiere
Looking down the French line past La Rothiere
A close up of my battle of Rothiere using Fate of Battle rules
A close up of my battle of Rothiere using Fate of Battle rules

The battle was a narrow allied victory.  Neither side had uncontested possession of all three towns, so the allies won more victory points based on destroyed French battalions.

Another view of La Rothiere
Another view of La Rothiere

We had several folks in the game who had never played the rules before, yet they picked them up quickly and seemed to have a good time.

Duncan's Chrysler's Farm War of 1812 game using Wellington Rules
Duncan's Chrysler's Farm War of 1812 game using Wellington Rules

Duncan ran a very nice War of 1812 game.  One of the folks who showed up at the table was the author of an book on this battle.

Saturday night I sat in the hotel bar with Mark Ryan and a couple of other folks in the business.  Howard Whitehouse gave us demonstration of his Battle Troll rules, for Norse saga type games, which I enjoyed a great deal.  Plus we spanked Mark and Howard!  By the time I got to bed, it was after 0100, and I was beat.  Sunday morning, I wasn’t in the mood for deep thought, so I wandered around the vendor room and the flea market in a daze.

Duncan's "Charted Seas" WWII naval game
Duncan's "Charted Seas" WWII naval game

I did play in Duncan’s Charted Seas WWII naval game against Dave Sunday morning.  Charted Seas is Duncan’s mashup of Uncharted Seas, Axis and Allies miniatures, and X Wing Fighter.  It really works well.  The X Wing (and other airplane game) activation mechanism addresses the biggest drawback of Uncharted Seas.  This was quite fun.  I sunk half of Dave’s convoy, which made the game a draw.

The initial setup for Eric's Wizards Tower game using Blood and Swash
The initial setup for Eric's Wizard's Tower game using Blood and Swash

While I was playing Charted Seas, Eric has run his traditional Sunday morning Blood and Swash fantasy game.  Eric takes all comers and runs a battle that spans the table you see above and also an underground labyrinth with bits from Dwarven Forge.  Eric’s layout gets better looking each year.

Mushrooms that Sammy painted for Eric's game
Mushrooms that Sammy painted for Eric's game

It was a thin convention for HAWKs.  Fall In is usually lighter for us, but this year it seemed like life really got in the way of the hobby.  A lot of folks who would stay all weekend just came up for Saturday and the HAWKs room was half empty.

I found many of the things I wanted at the convention vendor hall and had time to try a set of rules that I’ve been wanting to try.  For me it was a good, although fast, convention.  I’m looking forward to Cold Wars.

 

HAWKS Gaming Night and Additional Thoughts on WWII Skirmish Rules

I don’t have any pictures, but last night we played two different WWII scenarios for the upcoming Fall In gaming convention.  One involved Japanese and Marines slugging it out on Saipan, and the other involved Germans and Russians on the Eastern Front.  I played in the Saipan game and had a very good time with the very light Japanese tanks trying to get to the beaches to destroy the Marines’ equipment and supplies.  My daughter said that the Russian Front game went really well on the other table.  Both game used Look, Sarge, No Charts:  World War II.

After the game, I had a chance to sit and chat with Don and Dave about my WWII skirmish rules I’ve been developing.  (See several earlier posts.)  Don, who plays a lot of Battleground had some good ideas for the vehicle rules.  Then we talked about morale.  As I’ve mentioned earlier, while I’m pretty happy with the direct fire and need more testing on the HE weapons, I’ve not been satisfied with morale.

I had gone away from one morale check per morale pip as in the Look, Sarge series and went to a single morale check that used the number of accrued morale pips as a modifier.  It worked okay, but the result didn’t seem dramatic or fun.  Last night I hit on a different idea in which you draw one card per morale pip and apply the results.  The table below provides my current thinking on the text of the cards and the number of each.

Card Type Flavor Text Game Effect Num Cards
1 “This place ain’t healthy, Sarge” Figure with lowest Guts runs 10″ toward cover or away from enemy, becomes stunned 3
2 “I’m getting’ outta here!” Figure with lowest Guts runs off the table, removed from the game 1
3 “Take cover!” Number of figures equal to remaining number of morale pips run 10″ toward cover or away from enemy, become stunned 1
4 “… Fight again another day.” Number of figures equal to remaining number of morale pips run off the table, removed from the game 1
5 “@$#%! That was close!” Figure with lowest Guts is stunned 3
6 “@$#%! That was close!” Random figure is stunned 2
7 “This place ain’t healthy, Sarge” Random figure runs 10″ toward cover or away from enemy, becomes stunned 2
8 “I’m getting’ outta here!” Random figure runs off the table, removed from the game 2
9 “Lemme at ’em!” Figure with highest Guts runs toward enemy 1
10 “Take this, you dirty rats!” Figure with highest Guts fires at nearest enemy 2
11 “Snap out of it!” Figure with highest Guts unstuns nearest figure 2
12 “Follow me, men!” Squad leader rallies troops; all stun markers removed 2
13 “Worse than we thought…” Random wounded soldier dies of wounds 2
14 Go to ground; all figures in unit are stunned 3
15 Bad luck! Squad leader is hit by a stray round while trying to rally troops; flip a card for hit location 1
16 “Let’s go!” Unit charges toward enemy 1
17 “Let’s go!” Unit charges toward enemy, but figure with lowest Guts lags behind, stunned 1
18 “Take cover, men.” Unit is pinned 4
19 “Those guys are bums!” No effect; elite unit passes remaining morale checks 10
20 “Those guys are bums!” No effect; regular unit passes remaining morale checks 5
21 “Those guys are bums!” No effect; green unit passes remaining morale checks 1
22 2

How does the Guts level (i.e., morale grade) of the unit benefit you?  Note that on the no effect cards, some are tagged with something like, “elite unit passes remaining morale checks.”  When this card is drawn for an elite unit making a morale check, all the remaining morale pips would be removed, and play continues.  There are 10 of these for Elite units, five for Regular units, and just one for Green units.  I’m worried that this will now bog down the game by taking too long to resolve, but I’ll have to see how it works in practice.

I’ve also been working on a little tool that will help generate semi-random squads for the game.  Below is an excerpt from the Excel workbook I’ve been using.

The notion is that you can set the overall, or average, Guts, Accuracy, Melee, Endurance, and Reaction ratings for the half squad.  Then the tool, using some random numbers and some formulas I built, varies the attributes of the individual figures so that they have some personalization.  The “Need Adjustment” box tracks how the player needs to continue to adjust the numbers so that the half squad still has an average rating equal to what was specified at the beginning.  For instance in the Guts box, note that Figure 3’s Guts is one better than the rest of his unit.  To ensure that the unit retains the correct average Guts rating, the player must subtract one from one of the other soldiers.  As a rule of thumb, you cannot adjust a figure who is different than the base unless you have no option (i.e., all the soldiers were modified).

I’m looking forward to another play test in two weeks.

In the meantime, Noah built a simple app for his Android phone that draws the cards for you.  One of the challenges we had in the last play test was the single deck of cards.  I’ve been hesitant to make multiple decks, since I keep changing them.  I’m working on a similar app for the iPhone.  At some point, the players can have the latest version of the cards to use on the table without having to pass a single deck around.

Play Test of WWII Skirmish Rules

Last night at the HAWKs meeting there were two games.  One was a Union So Tested American Civil War fight.  From what I could tell it was quite a good scenario.  The second game was another (only the second) play test of the WWII skirmish rules I’ve been developing.  Noah, Duncan, Chris, and Don were my guinea pigs.

The scenario was a simple meeting engagement in which both sides were fighting for control of the road intersection in the center of the table.  It perhaps wasn’t an interesting, but I wanted to get the players engaging each other quickly.

The game confirmed that the firing mechanics worked well.  (See previous posts about the card-based combat resolution mechanisms I’ve been developing.)  I may double the weapons ranges.  Right now an M-1 rifle shoots about 36 inches.  In Beer and Pretzels Skirmish I used shooting ranges that were closer to figure scale, but players didn’t seem to like the idea they could shoot across the whole board. Food for thought.

I knew something wasn’t working for activation.  I’ve been using a mechanic similar to the Look, Sarge series, except with many more cards, because I wanted elite and regular units to, in general, activate more frequently than green units.  The down sides were that turns are significantly longer, players don’t get the sense of passage of time, it’s almost impossible to recover from being pinned, and other drawbacks.  For the next test, I’m going to go closer to Look, Sarge, with cards numbered 1 to 6 in red and also in black.  I’ll add an “elite” card.  When that card is drawn, elite units with the same number as the last number called will activate.  So SOME elite units will get two activations in a row.  This is both simpler and addresses some of the issues noted.

Movement worked fine.

I had recently revamped the morale rules, but it didn’t seem that players every failed morale.  In fact most players didn’t even fear the morale checks.  I think what I forgot to take into account is number of figures lost more heavily.  When a figure is wounded or killed, the unit picks up a morale pip.  To pass you subtract the number of morale pips from your “Guts number.”  This difference has to be greater than the target number on the card.  I think I want to make the following change.  In stead of accruing one morale pip for each wound or incapacitate result, you will accrue one per wound and three for each incapacitate.  This should result in more morale failures, which will enable me to test the morale failure mechanics better.

Finally, I’m not sure that I’m happy with the unit record sheets.  On them you track wounds on your figures, but it’s hard to remember to look at the card when shooting, because wounded figures have a negative columns shift.  I won’t make any changes to that just yet, but it’s on my list to revisit later.

Don tried to test rifle grenades, but he “rolled” poorly each time and scattered in a bad direction, so we never got to see how the new mechanics worked.

In general, I’m happy with the way the rules are shaping up.

WWII Skirmish Idea, part 6 (I think)

I’ve continued to think about the WWII skirmish ideas while running.  Today I had both a six-mile run and a two-hour plane trip to think about this.  I have been wanting to simplify the cards a bit while also wanting to address indirect fire in a more streamlined fashion.

In the top third of the card, I thought all the modifiers and things looked too cramped and busy.  It occurred to me that the players could start in the right “column” and then apply fewer column shifts.  So in the example above, all the cards have the “EVT” labels under the first three “columns,” standing for expert, veteran, and trained, the three ratings for accuracy and melee.

I had envisioned a multi-step process using the existing mechanisms for resolving HE and other forms of indirect fire:  flip a card to see if you hit the right area [if no, then scatter], then flip a card to see if where you wanted to hit is blocked (e.g., by a window) [if so, then scatter], then figure out which figures are in the short, medium, and long radii from the point of the blast, then flip a card to determine if each figure was hit, then for each figure hit, flip a card to determine wound location.  Argh!  One can imagine the game coming to a screeching halt and folks heading out for a meal every time someone throws a grenade!

It occurred to me that I could make three octagons that are just “rings.”  These would be different sizes, representing different blast radii for indirect fire.  While a bit of an oversimplification, the smallest one would be for grenades, the second would be for small mortars (say 81mm and below), and the larger one would be for large mortars and artillery.

The process for throwing a grenade, for instance, becomes flip a card and look at the small numbers above the row of checks and x’s.  As with direct fire, the starting “column” used would based on the accuracy rating of the thrower.  The top row of numbers indicates the number of radii of scatter and the little knife indicates the direction.

Scatter distance examples
Scatter distance examples

In these examples, a veteran unit with no other modifiers would scatter two radii, zero radii, and one radius, respectively.  One can imagine that the scatter distance might be doubled for off-board artillery.  Or, you might imagine that HE fired in direct fire would use the radii as indicated on the cards, on-board indirect fire would double the scatter distance, and off-board artillery might triple the distance.  The beauty of this approach is that a weapon with a small burst radius thrown from a short distance, like a grenade, would scatter a smaller amount than a light mortar fired from some distance.  This was a problem I’ve tackled in different ways in other rules, such as BAPS.

Now, here is another nuance.  See the three blast symbols on the top figure?  They represent small, medium, and large burst radius weapons.  When all three are shown as indicated above, if the soldier is within the octagonal ring of either a small, medium, or large weapon, he has been hit, and you flip the next card for damage, just as with normal fire.  You would flip a card for for each figure in the burst radius.  Some convention might be used, like go from inside out or left to right.  The manner doesn’t really matter as long as one card is flipped for each figure.

There are 50 cards in the deck (plus two extras).  Twenty will be misses, meaning that the figure for which you are flipping takes no damage.  Ten will have all three symbols, ten will have just large and medium, and ten will have just large.  (I need to think about this math a little more, to make sure I’m including the right number of each type of effect.)  One can imagine ways to reduce this to one symbol showing the smallest radius weapon that scores a hit, so instead of having to use all three symbols, the “small” symbol would be read as “small or larger.”

What does this mean mathematically?

If there are four figures in the large burst radius, the expected number of casualties is 0.6 x 4 = 2.4.

If there are four figures in the medium burst radius, the expected number of casualties is 0.4 x 4 = 1.6.

If there are four figures in the small burst radius (a difficult task), the expected number of casualties is 0.2 x 4 = 0.8.

It might seem odd that everyone within the radius has the same probability of damage, but on average, I think it will work out fine.

See how this gets away from complicated templates, having to break out the calipers to determine who is in the short radius and who is within the medium radius, etc.

The HE procedure now is significantly streamlined from what was discussed above.  Now you flip one card to determine whether the round landed where you want it and determine the scatter direction and distance all on one card.  Then for each figure in the burst radius you flip one card for damage effect, ignoring the counting (which figure is hit) diagram.  Indirect fire, instead of being onerous, has just one more card flip (on average) than direct fire.  Pretty cool.

I’m going to bed now.

WarCON at Fuson Farm

Early in the battle of La Rothier
Early in the battle of La Rothier

Last weekend, Dave, Chris, and I travelled to War Horse Farm in Gettysburg to run some games for Sam Fuson and folks from his work.  There were 16 gamers, plus the three GMs, including several kids.  We ran two morning games and two afternoon games.

In the morning, Chris ran his Saving Queen Victoria GASLIGHT game involving British trying rescue the Queen from the Prussians, who are hiding in a ghost town in the Wild West.

In the afternoon, Chris ran his Nijmegen WWII Look, Sarge, No Charts game that he will be running at Fall In.

In the morning, Dave helped me run a Fate of Battle game from our upcoming 1814 Campaign book.  This was also a play test for Fall In.  The scenario was really quite good, and the players had an excellent time.

In the afternoon I ran a multi-sided GASLIGHT undersea game.

Various international factions were competing to get secrets off of the Nautilus, which had recently been discovered.  The native denizens, the local fauna, and Nemo’s crew had other plans.

The game was a good time and a nice, light change of pace after the more serious, four hour Napoleonic game.

It was also the first time I had had a chance to get these underwater figures on the table.

In the end, I think only Dave and the weird fish were able to accomplish their mission — killing and eating one soldier from each of the five attacking factions.

It was another successful outing at War Horse Farm.  Sam says that the folks he works with are getting ready to start buying and painting their own figures.

Working on New WWII Skirmish Ideas, pt. 4

During yesterday’s run, I came up with what I thought was a solution to my morale dilemma.  After a few minutes with Excel, I think it will work.

What I envision is that the card will have a target number, between -3 and 4.  When making a morale check, the player will subtract the number of morale pips from the Guts # of the unit.  If this difference is greater than the target number, the unit passes.  Otherwise the result of the morale break will be found on the card.

This will allow a single card draw for the morale check, rather than one card draw per morale pip as currently envisioned.  It gives about the right percentage of pass and fail results.  I think I’m ready to give this a try.

Working on New WWII Skirmish Ideas, pt. 3

My thinking on these rules continues to evolve.  It gives me something to do while running in the mornings.  🙂

In the play test we had a couple of weeks ago, I was generally pleased with the way it worked, but still thought it could be faster without any loss of accuracy.  There were two areas I thought were an opportunity for improvement.  The first was determining whether a body part was protected by cover, and the second was morale testing.

Recall from my previous post that when you draw a card to determine hit location, that body part may be protected by cover.  I had originally envisioned that the cover would be on the back of the single chart card (4×6) that you would need for the game and that eventually player wouldn’t need to refer to it any more.  I found that even toward the end of the play test, there were still questions about whether a piece of cover protected a body part.  I decided that I could add that right on the chart card.

This accomplished two things.  First, it put the information right on the card that you were already looking at, and second, it allowed me to have greater variance.  I wanted a wall, for instance, to usually block a torso hit, but not always.  You can see in the figure above that now I’ve added small icons that indicate when a piece of cover protects the body part.  You still have to compare weapon penetration against cover protection as described earlier.

This figure shows all ten hit location and cover possibilities.  These are repeated five times on a total of 50 cards.  For cards 51 and 52, I think I am going to make body hits, but instead of the five circles used to determine which figure was hit, they will indicate the soldier with a crew-served weapon was hit.  I figure folks will try to knock out the machine-gun, so this will provide a slightly higher chance of hitting it than a rifleman.

The original morale resolution process was copied from LSNC, replacing special dice with special cards.  This requires you to draw a card for each morale pip accrues since you last activation.  Interestingly, this process seems slower with cards than with dice, even though the information was almost identical.  So, I thought about a system that requires only one card draw but takes into account the number of morale pips accrued.  As it looks like math, I’m sure anyone who plays the game will complain.

An example is:

Difference = (2x # morale pips) – Guts#

If Difference > 0, then…

Let’s say a half squad had accrued three morale pips.  In the formula above, Difference would be 6 – Guts#.  The Guts# is 3 for green, 5 for regular, and 7 for elite — the same as the minimum movement distances for those Guts ratings.  In this case, a green unit would fail, but a regular or elite unit would pass.  I haven’t thought through all the implications of this change yet, and in the back of my head I think it may make shot-up units more difficult to break than fresh ones, but I’m still working on it.  There are also some cases, under this new scheme in which units are guaranteed to break.  That’s not what I’m looking for.  Somehow, I need to compare number of pips with morale level and also take into account cover.  It’s a vexing issue.

Working on New WWII Skirmish Ideas, pt. 2

Example cards with brief explanations
Example cards with brief explanations

In my first post, I described movement and briefly addressed activation.  The activation system is very similar to the Look, Sarge, No Charts family of rules; however, there are more cards in the activation deck.

Units activate and fire by half squad.  After all shots are declared, the firing player begins flipping cards.  The series of symbols at the top of the card are used to determine whether the shot hits.  Start in “column” zero and shift right as indicated in the green, rounded rectangle.  If the result is a green check, flip the next card to determine which figure was hit and where the figure was hit.  Once the hit is resolved, flip the next card for the next shot.  Keep going until all shots are resolved.

When a hit is scored and you flip the next card to determine where the figure was hit, the figure may be protected by cover.  The type of cover determines which body parts are protected as indicated below.

If the body part is protected, compare the penetration of the firing weapon with the protection level of the cover.  For instance, most rifles and light machine guns have a penetration of two.  Trees, for instance, have a protection of one.  If the protection is greater than penetration, the shot is blocked, and the target soldier gets a “duck back” or “stun” result instead.  If the penetration is greater than the protection, the wound type goes down a level:  incapacitate is reduced to wound, and wound is reduced to wound(-).  Wound(-) means that if the wound hits an area previously wounded, the wound has no effect.

A wound reduces a figures endurance by one.  Incapacitate reduces endurance by three.  When endurance is reduced to zero, the figure is out of the game.

Note that some weapons get to fire more than once per activation, as indicated in the “dice” column.