April 02, 2007
Perry Sudan range Fuzzy Wuzzy with Standard
Here's some opponent for the KRRC. This is the first time I used the "dip" method where I submerged the entire figure into a can of Minwax stain (dark walnut). The one mistake I made is that I did not "shake" off the excess, so there's a lot of pooling in the recessed areas. I picked a dark skinned figure on purpose since "too dark" from the walnut stain will be less noticeable. This picture is taken before the dullcoat went on so it's kinda shiny.
I also sprayed the figures with light brown after my white sprayed primer (trying to find ways to save time). I think that worked out ok.
Posted by msoong at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Perry Sudan range British Rifle
As promised, I'll be posting all the painted figs from the last 3 months. This is the first of the lot. it's the first batch of 25mm figures that I decided not to paint the eyes (similar posting from the tinmen) I've decided in favor of speed vs detail. Plus given the kinda games I play (many units on a large board), nobody will notice anyway...
Posted by msoong at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2006
Isandlwana TSATF game AAR
Those of you familiar with my miniature gaming background knows that the Colonial period hold a special place in the Soong house (having been the editor for both the Heliograph and Savage and Soldier, plus countless figures painted for various theaters of operations: Zulus, NW Frontier, Sudan, Boxer Reb, French Foreign Legion, Maori War, etc.) I may wonder off into other periods on occasion, but a well run colonial game is always a satisfying experience....
...and here's the rub, since a "well run colonial game" is much harder to achieve than some other type of gaming. For starters, the industry standard "build an army with 1000 points, and then line them up and have at it" simply does not work for asymmetrical warfare like Colonial. If one were to just line up and have at it the European regulars will probably win most of the time.
More than any other theater, the colonial period games requires well constructed scenarios that sets up a situation where the native player can rely on their superior mobility and local knowledge to balance the traning and firepower of the Imperials. I content that a good colonial game is one that comes with a well thought out scenario.
Such scenario was not in large abundance in the past, but now thanks to Mark Fastoso's new Colonial Campaigns: Zulu War 1879. There's now some well thought out scenario for this archetypical colonial conflict.
The scenario for Isandlwana (probably the most famous of all colonial disaster scenario of all times) is what we picked for our first airing from this scenario book (and my first colonial game in almost a year!) Normally deemed a battle where the British player cannot win, the sceanrio setup a clever situation where the British player gets points for staying near the origianl camp (so they can't just bail out at the first sign of trouble, which is a problem with gaming this battle given the hindsight enjoyed by the players), and points for saving the colours. Given these simple constraints the game actually develops close to history, where the Brits stayed around near the camp almost too long, then it's a mad dash to the Buffolo River.
The scenario gives it another twist where each player (it's designed for 3 zulu players and 2 British) gets points on their own, so everyone has to maximize their own "glory" at the expense at his teammate. Frankly everyone at our game was not really playing cutthroat, and was playing "for the good of the team". But with a different player mix it could easily get into something even more tense.
The scenario book is written for a specific "reduced figure count" variant of The Sword and the Flame (foot unit goes from 20 figures to 8, and cav from 12 to 8). At least here in the US TSATF is probably the standard set of colonial rules.
I really think the scenario worked. It's got real decision for the players (for Brits where and how to defend, and when to cut bait and run is result in some tense dialog. The Zulu players have less choices, major decision being where to pile on.) The game literally went down to the last few turn (when I had to call it quits due to prior commitment).
The turn length is what really showed up my complaints re the TSATF rules. I haven't really played TSATF in a long time (maybe close to 3~5 years?) all of the complaints I had regarding the ruleset are all time based, as most design decisions serves to drag out the game. To start with all action (whether movement or fire) are single unit based. You flip a card from a deck, then you move one unit. Ditto with fire. This works fine in a 2-player game, but with five players on the table (and we all move pretty fast so it's not like anyone went into paralysis mode), this simply drag the game out to unacceptable length.
Other than card based turn structure lengthing the game, one of the most cherished aspect of the rules also adds to the time: The Melee Phase. TSATF melee works in a multi-round "keep-fighting-until-one-sde-lost" model. To top it off it's done on a 1 on 1 basis! (it's bad enough in our 8 men unit variant, it's takes even longer in the full 20 men unit mode). Instead of the whole unit rolls a bunch of dice a la Warhammer, in TSATF one guy line up with another from the other side, you dice off, loser either dies or runs away, then repeat until one side is completely defeated. This can easily result in 5~6 round of melee around the block. Many people like this because it is dramatic and full of theater (many a game where the lone surviving officer dispatches the last 5 enemy figures to claim victory and the undying game of a Victoria Cross), and I agree that it's a cool mechanism for small skirmish games, but it's way too time consuming for full size battle like Isandlwana.
None of these complaint about TSATF is new (heck we were trying to fix it 20 years ago..) One good thing is that there's now an official "large battle" variant for TSATF called 800 Fighting Englishmen. It addresses almost all of my complaints re standard TSATF (there are fewer cards, and multiple units move at one card turn. Melee is also faster. For our next outing from the Zulu scenario book we'll be using the large battle variant.
Posted by msoong at 02:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2005
Martian Empire AAR (Historical Scenario)
I really enjoyed Warmaster's simple yet evocative command and control mechanism. Being a rules tinkerer I came up with my own Colonial Warmaster rules and played it with the local colonial groups. The reception is generally good, but I am not 100% satisfied since there are some rough edges.
Since my Colonial Warmasters rules variant, there's been many variant for all periods of history (some memorable ones are Blitzkrieg Commanders for WW2, and Huzzah! for the Napoleonics).
Soon after, the Huzzah people started a new project featuring the Victorian Sci-fi/John Carter of Mars version of the rules called Martian Empire. if you strip off the sci-fi stuff then it's pretty much a set of colonial rules, so I decided to give it a try...
I recently got back some painted Russian Colonial figures from the painting service. For a change these figures actually got based and flocked and ready for action, so whatever scenario I pick must feature these guys (BTW, the figures are 25mm figures from Eureka, and they are a result of a Eureka 100 subscription from my buddy Nick. Nick and I split the inital purchase).
Since I do not have any distinctive Central Asian natives for the Russians to fight, I decided on a alt-hist Russian Invasion of Afghanistan scenario. The backdrop is that the Russians hooked up with the Shah of Afghanistan, so a combined Russo-Afghan regular army was marching toward the British Raj. Some local tribes who are friendly to the Brits decided to make a stand to hold off the invaders while the British reinforcement is force marching toward the frontier in order to halt the bad guys.
The game is basically played as a meeting engagement. The Russians & Afghans composed two wing of a general advance (each army have independent command), and on the British side we have the Indian Army (with maybe 2 British units) is flanked by friendly tribesmen on both flanks (positioned on rough terrain).
(I should have pictures, but the digital camera was dropped in Paris, and we haven't gotten a replacement yet...)
The rules are very Huzzah!-like. Basically a commander can attempt to give an order to a unit, either one time (with a certain chance of command failure based on rolling 2D6), and if successful can attempt to "press" the unit by keep rolling it (with the chance of success going down each time). The clincher is that if you fail a command roll, the unit is done moving for the turn, and that commander is also done (so that the rest of your army might not be able to move and you might be out of position).
So far that's just straight Warmaster, but Huzzah! introduces the "order" concept: basically before you roll the die you have to specify what the unit will do if the command is successful. An order might be 1) Move (to move straight forward), 2) Deploy (change formation), 3) Manuever (to turn up to 45 degrees), or 4) Retire (move straight back). I remember that Ian got the idea for these rules from playing Piquet.
All rolls (either command or combat) are made with 2D6, with low roll being good (a roll of snake eyes is a "huzzah", and something really good happens). For combat a unit have to roll under its combat factor to inflict any damage. So if a unit has a combat factor of 8, then he rolls a 4, then he inflicts 4 hits on the enemy, simple as that. Firing and Melee works the same way.
All of us enjoyed the command aspect of the game. Some specific critiques:
1) Freddy thought that there aren't enough "chaos" in the sense that units do not go off and do something unexpected (i.e. if a unit fails the command roll, it just sit there. Whereas in the colonial period we want the chance that if a unit fails the command roll it'll charge out of concealment into a British square). I am sure we can come up with some "involuntary charge" for fanatics rules next time.
2) The rules as written have no firing for defender, so when regulars are being charged by natives to the front of the square, there's no fire! That's definitely missing rule for the colonial period, and thankfully a query to the Yahoo group came up with a defensive fire optional rule which we'll try out next time we play.
3) I thought there are too little penalty for failed manuever orders. In the colonial period examples abound where a regular unit tries to manuever in the face of enemy, got disordered, got charged by the fuzzies and got into trouble. I would like to have it so that if a unit fails its manuever roll there's a chance it gets disordered, and thus become tempting target for the enemy.
4) Some thought that with the way the combat value is set up, combat is either ineffective (if you roll above your combat factor), or too effective (rolling a snake eye say). I am ok with this since I like bipolar results in combat (especially in the colonial period, where casualties is either trivial, or catastrophic). I need to do some match to see if the combat method is valid.
All in all a very exciting set of rules, and I'll definitely try it again. If you are interested the rules are available from the Martian Empire Yahoo group here.
Posted by msoong at 03:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 20, 2004
Victoria Cross
For those of you that knows my gaming past, you know that the colonial period is my main thing (at least for the last 17 years or so). I do play less in that period now (burnout perhaps?) but it still has a special place in my (gaming) heart.
So it was a pleasant surprise when I heard from CSW that a small company is doing a block game (a la Columbia Games) version of the battle of Rorke's Drift. Prelim review indicates that it's a tense and short game that can be finished in one sitting. So after learning that Chris got himself a copy at Origins, we decided to give it a whirl tonight (it's supposed to be a group Arts and Craft night, but everyone else bailed because they are travelling to Historicon).
The Zulus needs to get enough victory points in 16 turns in order to win the game, and vp can be earned by burining down the hospital, capturing the water cart in the middle of the field, killing wounded Brits from the hospital (clearly a design for effect decision to force the Brits to protect their wounded), or to capture the reboubt in the middle of the compound. There are only 3 types of Zulu units: Small (steps 1~4), Large (steps 1~10), and leaders. Leaders are useful because they can herd a group of up to 10 factors two areas instead of the default 1). The British units have smaller combat factors.
The Turn sequence is Both players move, both players shoot (Zulu snipers on the escarpment), and then both melee. British fire power is what's gonna save them, as they can shoot up to 3 areas. They also get the "Volley fire" attack if units are stacked with Stanley Baker or Michael Caine, and they get to fire with TRIPLE the dice (!) They normally shoot on 3-6, and the to hit number decreases as the range goes up. The Zulus has to survive all that shooting in order to close and melee. The saving grace for the Zulus are that they get to replace all their losses EVERY TURN. (there's a -1 VP penalty if they lose too many factors in a single turn).
I made the fatal mistake on turn one by stacking the leaders with too few soak-off units (and made the mistake of actually moving the leaders into effective fire range) because the leaders are not replacable. So in effect I lost most of my rapid deployment capability on the first turn (thankfully my opponent didn't know that). In hind sight I should've held them back and not close with them until I can concentrate on a single area, ready for some serious melee.
I liked every facet of the game except the 1) book keeping part, and 2) The map. There are some amount of book keeping since the Zulus needs to keep track of how many "Factors" (not steps) that he lost, and a step is not always equal to a set number of factors (since a large Zulu Impi is a 1-3-5-10. In fact toward the end of the game I discovered that I was short about 35 factors on board for god knows how many turns (yeah I know, an engineer should be able to do math, but still...) Next time I will have to remember to recount the total factor count after every turn or so since it could clearly make a difference. The mapboard is a problem since the publisher decided to use a 3D perspective to depict the Rorke's Drift station, and some of the edge of the building are ambiguous as to what area is adjacent to what.
The game comes down to an exciting last turn assault on the redoubt, winner takes all. I wonder if the game is scripted in a way that it'll always come down to a last turn all or nothing attack.
All in all, I would like to try it again (now that I know what not to do...) and that's better than a lot of wargames that saw play here. It might even be something that sees play every once in a while like Columbia's Napoleon, but I doubt that it's got the depth or staying power of a Rommel in the Desert. Still, a solid B+ game IMO.
Posted by msoong at 09:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack