AAR - Stargrave Saturday (Game 1)

 We started our Stargrave campaign Saturday afternoon with an outdoor get-together on my patio. The weather was cool but otherwise quite pleasant. Wayne, Ziggy and Mike were able to join, Mark and David having other commitments. Because it was essentially everyone's first game of SG, we played "no specific scenario" so we could learn rules and figure out what we're doing.

The table. It's 48 inch square area. There's a raised area 18 inches deep into the table. Loot counters are scattered hither and yon.

My crew and starting corner. That's Bruce Dickinson and the Local 151. Captain Bruce is a Tekker and his 2IC is a Rogue. Turns out The Tekker / Rogue combination was terribly popular; Ziggy's and Wayne's crews were both Rogue/Tekker. Mike's is a Veteran/Tekker. Everyone loves movement Powers and Drones!

Today's motley crew.

My Runner, Scoop, was able to get to a Physical Loot counter (the bolt & nut) and begins extraction. Katie Kaboom makes her way towards a Data Loot that's not in frame. She's a Codebreaker, ideal for going after Data Loot.

She makes it to the Data Loot but of course flubs the unlock roll! Mike's crew of militant goons is bearing down on me. 

Up top, Ziggy's got a guy making it towards a Data Loot. I guess I won't be getting that one.

Wayne's crew pushes across. His captain in front of the pond is working on a Data Loot while his Drone drops a claw down to grab a Physical Loot near the yellow drums in the center. The 2IC is trying to figure out how they're going to get the PL from atop that blue box.

Katie Kaboom is feeling rather lonely over there! She'd be knocked out a moment later.

Meanwhile, it's a robot shoot-out in gumball alley. Mine get's the better of the Sniperbot, hitting it twice, then scuttling away. These two droids now officially have history.

My 2IC and his cohort continue to maneuver around up top while Mike's crew nab the DL below. You can see (only just) that I've sent my Captain down to deal with the problem. Bruce is the one with the green batman-wings. He's accompanied by recruit Jesus Rodriguez (the octopoid alien)

Ziggy's captain heaves a grenade at my 2IC group, wounding Roy and the Medic, Beverly. Casecracker Sweet Mama String Bean was OK. You can see below that Jesus had taken a beating, poor fella.

Beverly Kills uses her action to un-stun Roy who darts over to Zig's Captain and opens up a can of whoop-ass.

Mike pointing out where he's aiming a grenade. Bruce had given chase to pretty much all of Mike's crew and he was doing everything he could to slow me down.

It's nearly over... We agree that the game will and after turn 7. 

At the end of the day, we all had a great time. My casualties included Recruit Jesus and Codebreaker Katie, both of whom made full recoveries. Roy Christmas, my 2IC was taken out in the last turn, Robocop-style by Wayne's crew. He was badly injured but he'll be back. I only secured a single Physical Loot which turned out to be a Hardsuit worth 200Cr. I'll probably hawk it since I have no treasury. I did have a successful run though, with SIX knock-outs and four successful Power activations. That's good for 200XP, enough for two level increases. I'll figure those out later.

We're all looking forward to the next for sure! If I don't post again before next weekend, Merry Christmas everyone!

AAR: Holiday Season on the Tabletop

 It's not what you're thinking, this is a real battle of holidays! Christmas versus Halloween!

Wifey and I played a long-delayed game of Dragon Rampant on Saturday evening. The featured armies were of course her undead horde repping her favorite time of year, Halloween. I was commanding the forces of the North Pole, Santa's own, the Christmas Army. I actually painted up the Christmas crew a few months ago and just never posted their pictures on the blog so this was their big unveiling.

Most of the models are Alternative Armies (snowmen and trees) while the reindeer and workshop elves are Splintered Light Minis.

We played on a bifurcated 4 x 4 table, decorated to match our forces' themes.

The chose scenario was the Crystal Gale. Ten crystals were scattered across the battlefield. Each was worth a victory point in addition to whatever we might score slapping around each other's armies. We typically do no fiddle around with quests.

Both armies had very successful activations in the early going. The Halloween army's speed was on full display as the griffons, spirits and nightmares swept out capturing crystals swiftly. On my side of the table, well, things were moving as slow as Christmas!

This isn't good. The blasted spirits capture a crystal on my side of the table.

My wild-charging reindeer weren't too put off though as they charged up the hill smashing into the host.

Action in the middle really starts to get going.

The spirits' own wild charge leads them to a dark place - my elves (bellicose foot) are assaulted and moments later return the favor, wiping out the ethereal host.

More underhandedness as the nightmares snatch up another crystal on my side of the table! Fortunately for me, they halted just in front of a mob of snowmen who pelted them mightily with snowballs!

Seeing the fun that their brothers were having, the snowmen on the other side of the frozen pond also heaved rock-laden snowballs at the vile riders!

Back on the right side, the reindeer make a feast of the griffons!

In the center, those psycho elves crash into skeletal heavy infantry. The skeleton host was up to the challenge.

The reindeer make it into the Halloween backfield and crash into the archers.

But alas, the archers were up to the challenge and ran off the mighty elk, pin-cushioning them as they fled.

In the center, the skeletal infantry made mincemeat of the workshop elves and the remaining nightmare rushed over and finished them off. Skeletal beastmen cause major problems for my snowmen off to the left. This isn't going well for me all of a sudden.

The nightmares are wiped out, my snowmen, trees and the Wizard of Winter figure out how to deal with the skeletal infantry.

Well that sucks. They had roughly a snowball's chance in hell of success. Both snowman units are in retreat now!

The right-hand unit flees off the table, while the other unit rallies, then takes out the remaining beast skeletons with a fusillade of snowballs! The celebration didn't last as they were quickly run off by the other skeletons.

The Wizard of Winter steps in and needing 5's and 6's to hit, produces the abomination you see here. Wiz was run off.

The trees show up and finish the job.

It's down to the skeletal archers on Halloween's side. They have little trouble running off the Wizard of Winter. Gah!

The trees gradually make their way to the killing machine that is the skeletal archers, nickle-and-dimed the whole time, losing strength points as they lumbered they way over.

Those archers were fill of piss and vinegar and fought like sugar-buzzed seven-year-olds. The trees..

Were no more.

A solid win for the forces of Halloween. This was a quite enjoyable game with two evenly-matched armies. I had nothing for the undead's early speed and being a net -4 of crystals early in the game was brutal. I was pleased to get some great results out of the snowmen's "short-ranged projectiles." They were a thematic addition, representing snowballs but I ended up with many opportunities to use them. My wizard this game was the discount "Wizardling" with which you only get to select three spells instead of having the full slate available. I think I preferred that in all honesty; in my experience spell casters don't spend a ton of time successfully casting  spells in Dragon Rampant and saving the two points worked out nicely.FWIW, I selected "Almighty Prod," "Stronger Shields," and "Heal Thee."

Next Saturday is Stargrave. Looking forward to that for sure!

Xenos Rampant - The Review

 There's been some curiosity about Osprey's new Xenos Rampant sci-fi rules. They're the latest in the Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant family and the pedigree is obvious. I've played DR many times and it's a fine beer and pretzels light tabletop game that doesn't pretend to be anything more grand than just that. The frustrations are obvious to anyone who has played them though, most notably the notorious "Failed Action" roll.

  For those of you not familiar with the rules, on your turn you select a unit, choose an action (Move, Fight (assault move + close combat) or Shoot (ranged attack)). Depending on the type of unit, those actions have different adds of success.

Here's an example - Light Riders. Light cavalry, better at shooting than swordsmanship. You want these guys to move. Roll 2d6 and try to equal or exceed the Move rating of 5+. If you fail that roll, your turn immediately ends and it's on to your opponent. Anyone who has played has a story about repeatedly failing action rolls and getting trampled to death due to their inability to act. It happens. It's also, I feel, the single biggest failing in the rules. It sucks BAD to get on a bad run of the dice.

Xenos Rampant addresses this with giving most troops types at least one Action that incurs no risk of failure - a FREE action.

Here's the example, Heavy Infantry. They're very good for defending a thing and staying put because if you choose to activate them and order them to shoot, you can dispense with the activation roll and simply proceed to shooting their guns!

There are special unit upgrades that give troops even more reliability, such as Mechanoid, which is something you'd apply to robotic troops. Amongst other things it does this:

So as long as this unit is in decent shape, it's very reliable. Once the damage starts to accumulate, things will go sour but that's just part of the game.

In summary, the failed activation problem has been addressed. Maybe not cured, but certainly not ignored by the designers.

Another aspect of the Rampant series that some players may not care for is "lots of dice." I for one love "buckets 'o dice" but that's not for everyone. Whereas previous games required 12 dice to be rolled at a time, Xenos Rampant maxes out at 10. An improvement if that's important to you. Dice guy still gets to roll dice.

The last gigantic improvement that popped out at me was Morale / Courage. With previous games in the series, the total number of casualties the unit had taken throughout the game served as a negative modifier to a unit's Courage tests, meaning a heavily-depleted unit needed an Act of Congress/God to hold its nerve or quit running away. 

Xenos Rampant changes this to where only casualties sustained during the Courage test inducing event are counted as negative modifiers; the total number of modifier sustained during the game is more or less irrelevant.

This changes significantly after the unit is at or below half strength. At that point the unit only rolls ONE D6 instead of two. Most units have a courage of 4+, so the test is still passable, but certainly less so. A beat up unit that's running away or cowering can certainly get its act together and turn around at 50/50 odds. That's not bad at all and a welcome change.

Vehicles are an integrated part of the Xenos Rampant rules. They do not use different rules and armor/damage/etc is handled exactly as it is for any other unit. If you play by the book rules, you won't be able to have more than one in a 24-point army. They're easy to use and feel well-balanced. Tough tanks are going to be hard to kill, but that's to be expected. Vehicles that move may opt to fire as well, albeit with a to-hit penalty. A simple enough solution for sure. The other caveat is that the vehicle cannot use a "Free" Move action and shoot its guns; the player must roll an activation test to get the double-action.

 If you're looking for generic set of sci-fi rules that works well with 28mm and 15mm miniatures, Xenos Rampant is a fine set. If you've played Lion or Dragon and despise the activation roll mechanism, you want to skip this. I am very happy with the $25 I spent for the PDF and am looking forward to more games with it.

More Canucks

 I've been hard at work on the next batch of Frenchies and English for my New England/Canada battles. My most recent order included more militia for both as well as command figures. I finished up the French yesterday - it went much more quickly than I anticipated but waking up at a stupidly early hour will help! The English are still "in progress" seeing as though their uniforms need to actually be uniform.

Ta da! Nothing that fancy, but a useful addition to the collection for sure.

Xenos Rampant AAR: First Outing

 After a long long wait, Xenos Rampant was released earlier in the week, the latest in the series from Osprey Games. XR is the sci-fi variant of Lion Rampant. I've been pretty excited about it for months now. I wasted no time putting together a couple of 28mm armies together from my collection. Ziggy came by Saturday evening for a first game.

Our 4' x 4' battlefield.

My forces were composed of cultist infantry, demonic necrobeasts (one might calls them ghouls) and a big demon (the purple flying beast off to the left there)

They were opposed by a very steampunk force of automata and elite infantry as well as an armored transport vehicle.

Oh, I also had a Support Infantry unit in the guise of a small tracked vehicle.

The necrobeasts were on top of their enemies in no time. Being able to to move once before the game starts and a healthy 12" move allowance will do that!

A second large group of automata disembarks from the tank. My big demon takes a prominent position and prepares to pounce!

The vehicle continues forward to engage my demonic horde.

The necrobeasts on the left / center are pounded on by mechanical men and a small group of elite infantry.

The big girl finally gets her act together and assaults the vehicle! Both took a bit of a beating to our mutual frustration.

My primary brain functions start kicking in and I start taking advantage of some neat ticks. The cultist infantry on the left acts as spotters for the support bot further back. This gives the support unit a "to hit" bonus which pays off, resulting in a dead elite trooper, even with their heavy cover!

A shot of the battlefield. The tank had fled from big purple, but big purple was three hits down and at reduced effectiveness, hovering in front of a mighty gunline!

On the fun side, the necrobeast's frenzy and hatred of the mechanical monster led to the tank's demise in short order. Good job fellas!

That was of course followed up by big purple's defeat at the mechanical hands of the automata. Feh.

Things pretty well devolved into a general retreat and more mayhem than can be allowed in a demonic cult army for me.

Witness the numerous Supressions and fleeing units!

My last necrobeast at least gave a good accounting of itself  smashing one last mechanical man before falling.

Alrighty then... that was an entertaining first outing for sure. There were a couple of mistakes for sure, mainly mine but I don't know how much effect they'd have had on the outcome. I think the worst was that my Support Bot had the Mechanoid trait meaning I could have moved it forward in the early going and fired its weapons  without having the rolls to activate it. It's nothing that playing the game more often and using the same troops wouldn't sort right out.

As far as Xenos Rampant goes, it's a winner. Enough tweaks have been made to keep things moving  and happening, which is very important in a sci-fi skirmish game. Units typically have at least one "Free" action they can perform which succeeds without the normal activation roll. This means that melee troops can reliably move towards the enemy and gun-heavy troops can always be relied upon to shoot those guns. Vehicles are allowed to take a shoot action (with a penalty) after moving, because DUH. XR's a welcome addition to the collection for sure!