Battles of the Week, 4 July 2016

Happy 4th of July to everyone.  No gaming on my part this week, just posts of other folks' fun and games.

Hook Island wins the internet this week with some To The Strongest posted,with a Byzantine-Bulgarian game up that's part of a campaign and follows the historical outcome... but just barely.  Very detailed battle report that lets you follow the action quite well.  Strong stuff.

Kaptain Kobold continues a string of Napoleonic games - one of Waterloo, with the French getting edged out at the end (perhaps destined to be a "close run thing"?) and a Black Powder game with ACW add-ons to play out the battle of Antietam.

Campaigns in Miniature has another WW II desert affair posted, one which goes poorly for the Brits who are attempting to break the Italian control of Northern Africa.

Stalker7 puts up a beautiful Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes report, as usual.  The website looks good too, almost enough to make me want to switch from Blogger to Wordpress.  Almost... that would actually be quite a bit of work that's put to better use on gaming and painting.

Double Six posts an Alien Versus Predator game that looks pretty cool in a Space Hulk sort of way.

NCC1717 (ha!) has an old-ish Starship Troopers AAR up that makes great use of some 40k miniatures to augment the visual palette that Starship Troopers usually evokes.  And, hey, let's face it, there's no reason to feel beholden to the movie-inspired minis.  If it held true to the book, you'd play the board game that requires a lot of book keeping so that the bug player can keep track of where he's hidden his hives and where he's set ambushes for the humans... sort of like Battleship... with bugs and nukes.  If someone has cracked the code on playing this at 6mm scale on a big board, with troopers able to jump-jet a quarter of a mile at a time, launching tactical nukes out of the shoulder racks on their armor, and some appropriately cool bug minis, let me know.  I'd probably buy that.

Baron Von J has a campaign for the kingdom that almost ends an ongoing campaign... but doesn't.

And we close with Frostgrave again.  Here's two perspectives of the same game - the RPG-ish version from One More Gaming Project and the more concise one from Archmage.  Pretty epic one, involving dragons.  Who clearly think that adventurers are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Battles of the Week, 17 April 2016

Here's the batreps that I enjoyed the most this week:

Song of Blades and Heroes at Stalker 7 - Best looking game of the week.  Absolutely beautiful, great gameplay and pictures.

Epic Napoleonic game at Big Lee's - I've seen these games played, never participated.  Hope to do that someday.

Necromunda League at Fawcett Avenue Conscripts - Good looking game.  It's a shame that Games Workshop lost interest in supporting this game.

Fistful of Lead variants at Baron Von J's Blog - Cool scenery, and I believe that the downed "spaceship" is an old G.I. Joe toy.  Got one in the garage.

Battlesworn at The Stronghold Rebuilt - Great game that comes right down to the wire, as the scenario intended.  Definitely worth a look.

Naval Thunder at Campaigns in Miniature - Never played this game, but it looks good.

Fighting Sail at Bob's place - Another maritime game, this time pointing out a potential flaw in an Osprey set of rules.

Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames battle for McPherson's Ridge at Sound Officer's Call - Beautiful, detailed, and historically accurate game.

Xin's Lair - Two games of note that I've read at this blog:  (1) a huge convention Frostgrave game with an epic, multi-scale battleground that was put together, at least partially, at the last minute - very impressive; (2) an old-school Warhammer Fantasy Battle game.  Adding this blog to my reading list.

Finally, not a battle report, but cool nonetheless - the GURPS stats calculated for the M41 Pulse Rifle of Aliens fame, and a video of a working mock-up that someone made.  Pretty cool.

Beastmen vs. Wood Elves, Savage Worlds Showdown

We're back, and with a whole new take on fantasy skirmish.  After my somewhat less-than-satisfying experience with my Beastmen vs. Wood Elves in the Song of Blades and Heroes rules, I set out to try the matter again with the Savage Worlds ruleset ... more specifically, with their Showdown rules that take away RPG-useful stats and boil everything down more simply to a tabletop wargame.

Same as last time, I set out three treasure locations, with Elven and Beastmen forces squaring off opposite each other with the prospective treasure locations in between, and each location had a 1/3 chance of being the treasure's hiding spot.  

Layout from the Elves' perspective.  Three prospective treasure sites at the mid-point of the board.

The forces were balanced much differently.  Last time, the Elves were overpriced to the point of being more expensive than the Beastmen.  Not so this time.  A Beastman force of one chieftain and four followers priced out to 105 points.  For 118 points, the Elves had a chieftain and Swordsman (both Wild Cards) and eight archers.

The Beastman force.

The Elven force.  A whole lot more guys than were had under the SoBH system.

So, here goes:

Turn 1:

Beastmen won initiative overall.  I was using Minotaur stats for the Beastmen (which may seem like a bit much, but deal with it), which gave them a Pace (movement) of 8" each, plus a 1d10" if they run.

The Beastmen move distance put two of three of their groups already in contact with the three possible treasure locations.  The Elves opened fire with their bows at this point, all at -2 for their running, and needing a 6+ to hit.

Shooting on the Elven left put four arrows into one of the opposing Beastmen, but none proved effective against the beasts.  Arrow fire on the Elven right proved likewise ineffective.

Both sides advance to the three possible treasure sites.  The Beastmens' superior movement rates takes them up to the treasure sites in two of three cases.

Turn 2:

The Elven right took initiative, putting one successful arrow into a Beastman.  With an astounding series of damage rolls, the beast fell to the ground, out of the fight.  His compatriot (a unit of only two Beastmen) failed his Spirit check and proved Shaken.   The Elven Swordmaster moved forward to take advantage of this and lay the beast low, but was unable to.

The Elven left proved likewise ineffective - the arrows of all Elves (including Eofar, the chieftain, who stayed stationary to gain a +2 aiming advantage but rolled a 1) failed to connect to vulnerable Beastman flesh.

The Beastman chieftain advanced to the center position, while the Beastmen opposite the Elven left were comfortable enough under the hail of ineffective arrow fire to check their possible treasure position and determine that their objective did not contain the treasure trove.

Turn 3:

The Elven left took initiative and a hail of arrows brought one of the opposite Beastmen down.  The sole Beastman remaining opposite the Elven left passed a Spirit check and stayed on the field.

Elven arrows fell one of the two Beastmen on the Elven left.

On the Elven right, the Elven Swordmaster moved into combat with the Beastman at Treasure Site 3.  Using his Improved Flurry trait (two attacks, no penalty) he scored a well-placed blow and laid low his opponent.

The Elven swordmaster bests a beastman.  The battle clearly swings to the Elves.

Strategic view of the battle from the Elves' viewpoint.  Arrows on the Elven left reduce Beastmen while the Elven swordmaster charges forward on the Elven right and slays his remaining opponent.

Things were looking grim for the Beastmen.  Reduced now to 2 out of their original 5, they took a force-wide (if you can call it that) morale check.  I don't see that in the Showdown rules, but it seems a sensible house rule.  The Beastman chieftain passed his check, but the last of his  followers failed his.

At this point, the Beastmen routed and headed for the hills.  The lackey who failed his Spirit roll for a morale check recovered from being Shaken (I may have done this wrong - it may be that he was supposed to stay Shaken the rest of this turn) and rolled a 10 for his run roll, taking him all the way to the edge of the board.  The Beastman chieftain, however, only rolled a 3 and fell victim to a hail of Elven arrows as he fled.  Two connected, one wounded.

Turn 4:

The Beastman chieftain failed to get out of a Shaken state and shambled to the edge of the map while his compatriot successfully fled.  The Elves gave chase and fired arrows as they did so, and with an astounding chain of rolls managed to throw four more wounds into the fleeing Beastman leader.  Wild Cards (Player Characters or champions in Savage Worlds Showdown) only have four wounds, so he was down and out of the fight.  A sweeping victory for the Elves!

Strategic view of the Elven chase of the Beastmen from the field.  A hail of arrows pincushions the Beastman chieftain.

Reverse view of the field from the Beastman chieftain's (corpse's) view.

A few thoughts:

1.  The system is far more nuanced than Song of Blades and Heroes, particularly with regard to missile attacks.  The possibility of exploding dice means that, even with unlikely shots getting through the superior Toughness of the Beastmen, it did happen.  This is realistic and I like it.  

2.  I did the Beastmen a disservice by not placing patches of woods that blocked arrows entirely.  This worked greatly to the Elves' favor.  Will have to keep that in mind in the future, especially when one side is composed almost wholly of archers/missile troops.

3.  The Beastmen stats seem off.  By the math of the game, as I understand it, they should have a Toughness of 8, but the basic book lists them as having a Toughness of 11.  I don't know how it would get there, but it would make sense, as I'm using Minotaur stats.  I'm thinking of changing it back to the suggested numbers, even if they don't add up as I understand them.

4.  To run Savage Worlds Showdown "right" - by which I mean with balanced factions - there's a bit more effort than there is in A Song of Blades and Heroes.  This is partly due to the complexity of the two systems - SoBH is stupid simple, while SW Showdown is near-RPG complex by design.  And it's more complicated by virtue of the fact that the spreadsheet available at Savage Worlds websites is okay for calculating, in broad terms, the value of a full faction.  It isn't great for tableside gameplay.  This (using the provided formulas, with cells switched around) is much more useful:

So, that's where my fantasy skirmish is.  Hope you enjoyed.  I did.

Edited to add;  I didn't use any Bennies (re-rolls, each side gets 3 per 100 points and two per Wild Card).  Had I done so, the Beastmen surely would've used them to Soak wounds and charge into contact with the Elves, and this might have been a different battle entirely.

Cheap 28mm Miniatures

Been spending a bit of time on ebay lately, assembling some minis for future gaming endeavors.  I'm surprised to see the low prices on some Games Workshop figurines - you could pay less than original retail for assembled and competently painted minis if you are patient.

One thing that I ran across was sets of miniatures for a Russian game, Castlecraft.  They come in sets with buildings or in blister packs of eight, with four minis from each of two sides (the factions vary from knights to barbarians to others such as orcs, etc.).  Including the cost of shipping from Russia, the price comes out to about $1.00 a mini!  I took a chance on a couple of packs, and was able to amass the loot pictured below.

The original packaging.  A knights versus barbarians pack.

Four knights, good for Song of Blades and Heroes or other fantasy skirmish games.

Four Roman legionnaires.  I hadn't planned on going historical, but it would be a chance to teach the boys about history and have fun while doing so.

Two sets of slightly different barbarians (similar enough to be part of the same warband, though) from two different blister packs.  I've wanted to build a barbarian warband, and now I've done it for eight bucks!

The minis have some flash on them that I'll have to trim off, but a size comparison shows them to be on par in height (though a bit stouter) than LoTR minis, and a bit smaller than the 'heroic' scale Reaper Bones minis.  They'll fit in just fine and come with beveled bases to boot - no additional basing necessary.  I may give some of these guys to the boys to paint.  For a dollar a piece, you just can't go wrong.

Beastmen vs Wood Elves, Song of Blades and Heroes

I put the first game of the year in the books with a quick bit of Song of Blades and Heroes between me and my better half.  The scenario, Treasure Hunt, comes from the main rule book, with the opposing parties racing to check three possible locations where treasure might be located.  If (based on a roll) the first two come up dry, then the treasure will be found at the third.

I took a faction of five Beastmen, who all activated on a roll of 3+ on a d6, and have a Combat value of 4 (added to their roll in a contested d6 vs. d6 encounter).  No special abilities, save my leader, who had the (obviously) Leader trait.

The boys/beasts, in all their glory.

My special lady friend took a group of four Wood Elves, who activate on 3+, have a Combat value of 3, were armed with bows, and could move through the woods without penalty (Forester trait).

The fey lads.

The stock Beastman clocks in at 40 points, the Wood Elf with bow at 50.  As the encounter played out, you'll see that this was a mismatch.  The Elves needed more numbers, not less, to offset the Beastman toughness, and this game gives particularly short shrift to missile troops.

The Field:

I started from the near side.  Click to embiggen and enjoy my labels.  Do the same with the rest of the pics below.

Turns 1-2:
The Beastmen won initiative and race toward the three potential treasure spots.  They made better progress than the Wood Elves, in spite of the heavily wooded areas, on account of some good luck with the dice on activation.

The Beastmen take an early lead in getting to potential treasure spots 2 and 3.

Turn 3:
Two of the Beastmen and the Wood Elf leader arrived at Treasure 2, in the middle of the field, at nearly the same time.

The Beastman who made it to Treasure 2 first discovered that the treasure wasn't there, but he and his buddy stuck around to face off with the Wood Elf leader.

The lead Beastman moved into contact with the Wood Elf leader, so that at the least the Elf wouldn't be able to move out of combat to another possible treasure location without offering the Beastman a "free hack."

The Wood Elf leader prevails in the early combat, but only to the extent of knocking down the lead Beastman.

Meanwhile, over at possible treasure location 3, a Beastman has discovered that the treasure wasn't here, either, but moved forward to likewise engage a nearby Elf in combat and tie down the enemy.

Turn 3:
As both sides now know that the treasure is at treasure spot 1, they all shift forces toward that location.

The Beastman leader leads the charge, racing toward treasure site 1.

As the Beastman leader completes his move to treasure site 1, the Beastman previously knocked down has gotten back to his feet, and another Beastman rushes to his side to gain a group combat advantage over the Elf leader. The Elf leader succumbs to a bad roll and enemy numbers.

Though the Wood Elf leader fell in combat, his followers all retreated just one movement, just enough to avoid leaving the field of combat.  They resumed the push for the treasure in his name.

Turn 4:
As the Beastman leader gathered up the treasure, the Wood Elves proved unable to slow their enemies' momentum in the contest.

As the Beastman leader successfully spends two actions picking up the treasure, a Wood Elf moves into the copse of trees and fires an arrow at the Beastman leader.  It failed to connect, and the Beastmen moved closer to victory.  Out of the picture, other Beastmen continued to move toward treasure location 1 to screen their leader's exit from the field.

 Turn 5:

As the Beastman leader made a successful move out of the copse of trees that had hidden the treasure, two Beastmen moved in to engage the archer that had dared challenge their warlord.

The advantages of numbers and a higher Combat value again overwhelm a Wood Elf.

Turn 6:
As soon as the turn started, the Beastmen leader activated well enough to leave my starting edge, gaining victory.

Victory!

AAR:
1.  You'll notice a lack of Wood Elf activity in my report.  The Fey Folk failed to force a fearsome fight from their frail followers.  Seriously, the Elf rolls for activation and combat were awful throughout.
2.  Two key factors in the math supporting Song of Blades and Heroes really undermined the Elves here.
-  First, the expense of statting up the Wood Elves as archers meant that troops inferior in combat (Combat value 3) were more expensive than the Beastmen (Combat value 4).  This is one way in which missile troops are disadvantaged in SoBH.
-  Beyond close ranges, missile troops are not very effective.  They suffer beyond 1 x Shooter Distance (Short, Medium, Long).  Even though these were Long Range Shooters, look at how the numbers play out.  With a distance beyond 1 Long Range measure (7" - 14" or so) the shooter suffers -2 to his Combat value.  So a C3 becomes C1.  And this is fired against a C4 target.  So if the Beastman target rolls a 1 and adds 4 to get 5, the best the archer can do is roll a 6, add 1 to get a 7.  This fails to get a double on the defender, and fails to get a kill.  Even if you take the trait Unerring Aim (the Elves were already too expensive relative to the Beastmen, so I didn't), which reduces the distance penalty to -1 instead of -2, the best you can do is 8 versus 5, which still fails to double and produce a kill (and noting that rolling a 6 vs 1 is a 1-in-36 chance in happening).  So it's impossible to kill beyond close range with an archer, even one with a relatively high Combat value, against a C4-level target.
3.  So, as much as I enjoy Song of Blades and Heroes, particularly for its "play what you brought" ethos, there is still a certain amount of Army List gamesmanship that can be had.  I'll never again field a force made up of archers because of the structural disadvantages outlined above.

I remain undeterred in wanting to play Song of Blades and Heroes, but will definitely be mindful of the necessity of fielding a more balanced force for both sides in the future.  More to follow.

Wargaming Goals for 2016

As you may have noticed, I've been busy and the blog went dark for the last half or so of 2015.  And I'm off to a late start this year, as evidenced by my New Year's resolution post going up on the 18th of January.  Regardless, here's what I'm hoping to accomplish in my wargaming hobby in 2016:

1.  Play and write up two games a month.
2.  Finish creating factions for Song of Blades and Heroes:
- Orcs
- Dwarves
- Human soldiers/knights
- Undead
- Barbarians
- A mixed race adventuring party
3.  Finish a d10-based skirmish system that works well (in my eyes, at least) for modern combat.  If it accommodates fantasy/medieval combat as well, that would be icing on the cake.
4.  Finish painting my 20mm modern minis.
5.  Run a Power Legion campaign using the Avengers.
5.  Build, patiently and on the cheap, some Warhammer 40k factions.  Whether I will eventually use the 40k rules or go with Tomorrow's War is up for debate.

We will see how work, kids, and real life intrude on my hobby this year.