Quick update on October Activities

 As we head into November I realised that there were a number of wargaming activities we managed to achieve in October and yet did not post about them so rather than several short posts I thought a longer summary might be appropriate. 

Of course the big event during October was the completion of our Wars of the Roses campaign to fight all the battles in this historic period. This is now complete and a complete history of all these games now has its own dedicated page on the blog HERE. This has been a successful series , so much so I have been asked to put together a couple of articles for Wargames Illustrated. Watch this space...

So what else has happened...

Quite a lot of figure painting including over 150 Zulus to bring my total to the magic 1000. More details can be found HERE

On top of all those Zulus I have rebased all me English Civil War and added around 200 figures to the ranks. Previously I had six pike blocks I now have 13. The blocks themselves are based on 10x10cm mdf coasters sourced off ebay.

Six of the finished units shown below including home made flags. The bases make our games of Pike and Shotte go so much quicker.

Close up of the push of pike...

I also based all the infantry onto 5 x 5cm mdf bases (warbases) - with four figures a base.

It only seemed right to then host a game in the shed - sadly no report but a few pictures of the action.

Fought across a rather densely packed terrain filled table this three aside game was fought out on a cold monday night

A furious affair with a finish that ended in a win for Mark F, Tony and Alastair.

In addition to our Bosworth and this Pike and Shotte game I introduced a few new players to my predator game...

This is a homebrew set of rules that sees several humans attempt to traverse a jungle and

avoid being killed by traps, beasties and of course...

The Predator - in our game we had five players taking on two predators.

The humans won the game with just one man making the edge of the board. 

Finally I have been building some hills to go with my caulk battlemats constructed earlier in the year. These have yet to see any action but I am pleased with the result...

They start off with hot foam cut polystyrene stuck onto a hardboard base

This is then covered in filler and left to dry.

I then liberally coat the hill in pva and cover in sand and brown emulsion paint.

Once dry the hill is then covered in static grass using the same blend as the grass used on my mats. They are not perfect but At least I now have some hills to use on my table

These are not so high as to be impractical - they stand around 5cm tall

That's it for now folks.

Take care

Bug Hunt - The Desert Catacombs

Monday night saw the return of the Bug Hunt to the Shed - this particular game hadn't been played for over four years (before the blog was born) and with a new group now playing regularly in the shed I thought that this might prove a bit of fun.

When the players arrived they were each handed a character record sheet for their soldiers. Each player would command one hero and four grunts. These were the elite special forces of some unknown agency in the near future. (Backstory was quite light as I had too much work going on over the weekend), and given they were special each trooper was able top choose his own weapons from an array of assault rifles, lmgs, flamers, grenades shotguns etc.

The game rules are very similar to my predator set - each turn a figure can perform two actions (eg move twice, fire twice or any other combination of other actions) - this does mean that rapid firing can quickly exhaust ammo.

Unlike my Predator game each team dices for initiative. The highest player including the Umpire goes first. The players automatically get +2 to their die roll but they lose -1 for each figure killed. Clearly as the game progresses the initiative potentially passes to the Umpire.

The umpire commands all the hostiles...more on this in a second.

So as the players arrived they were confronted with my Egyptian temple set against the sandy cliffs of the Valley of the Kings. All they know is that a party of scientists have gone missing and that their mission is one of rescue.



Very Stargate...now where's Kurt Russel



The temple

The Temple Build can be viewed here...http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/egyptian-adventures-temple-build-part-1.html

Behind the temple and the tomb entrance lie a series of tunnels and catacombs. Initially these are all covered and only revealed as the players pass through each zone.

Behind the cliffs lie the catacombs

Each of the cave boards is 30cm x 30cm square with entrances, tunnels and mini caves carved out of foam. I have around 60 of these built allowing for any number of permutations. They are very basic but provide a great setting for cave exploration. As I said these were made sometime ago and could probably do with a major refurb.

The table had been laid out earlier and covered. Unbeknownst to the players the tomb entrance would lead to a dead end and the temple entrance would lead into the hive proper.

no peeking

However all the zones could hold creepies or by empty. I have created a deck of cards indicating what's in each zone. Over a third of the cards are empty caverns/tunnels whereas the rest contain anything from spawn (face huggers) to giant spiders, hive warriors (think aliens) through to some bigger beasties.

The Cards - numbers denote how many

Each of these has different attributes and reacts in different ways

• Spiders drop on characters sucking up their innards in seconds - but are extremely vulnerable to fire
• Hive Warriors are fast, very vicious and splash acid when blown up
• Bigger Hive Guards are heavily armoured, still fast, acidic and very violent.

Put it bluntly if you don't kill these beasties before they get to you are pretty much toast.

The rules are still very much work in progress but they do deliver a quick thoughtful and tactical game in an atmosphere that has a great deal of suspense.



As the games master I get to randomly play 1 or two cards per zone next to the areas the players move through. I may then look at these and can either elect to move them (even if they are blank) or leave them there - best for ambushes. If the characters fail their recon roll they don't know what's there. If they are successful and depending on the rolls success they can either learn the nature of the terrain ahead, are there any lifeforms and potentially the number.

It does pay to recon in my games as all sorts of horrors can happen to the unwary or just plain right foolhardy.


To give the players something to think about before the entered the caverns they discovered a rather large beast rampaging through the scientists camp. This took two squads combined firepower to bring the beast down and in the process got a number of men badly injured from acid splash.




Whats that Sarge...over there in the ttents...

Don't know Son but lets fill it with lead....lots and lots and lots of lead

From this point all the players knew they were in for a tough fight.

fortunately more ammo was found in the tractor unit

The rest of the evening was an enjoyable romp for me as the umpire - for the players it was somewhat different. However they soon quickly learned that grenades were particularly effective in the confines of the caves and that going on overwatch as mysterious blank cards started to approach them was worthy .



Tasty....

Sentry Guns provided some rapid fire support

f**k the flamers run dry

oh dear....

Slurrrpppp

its a dead end...in more ways than one

Sadly we ran out of time to complete the game and the players didn't meet the Hive Queen who was using the scientists bodies as incubators ...but that is another story.

The Queen

If you are interested in reading one of the players accounts head here...

http://legatuswargamesarmies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/bug-hunt-at-shed-and-osprey-black-ops.html

The Hunted

This coming weekend I'll be attending BLAM, three days of gaming with like minded enthusiasts, in the heart of Surrey. Woking to be precise.

Over the three days there will a range of games on display and in time I'll post up reports of the event. However I have volunteered to run a game and I thought it be interesting to post up my plans.

The game in question is called the Hunted and is loosely based on the Predators movie - the one where a group of modern day soldiers are transported to the training fields of the Predator home world.

Starting with the board I purchased three sheets of hardboard (each approx. 2fty by 4ft) and after painting a suitable base colour I marked them up with a series of 10cm grids. The squares are grid referenced in letters and numbers thereby allowing the Hunters (the Predators) to indicate their movement secretly.

Each of these grid boxes will initially hold either ruins, jungle or impassable rocky terrain.

 

 

As the hunted soldiers progress their way through the board (they have to traverse the jungle) they recon each zone turning over a series of cards to denote what might lie in the zones ahead.

A total of over 150 cards have been made to facilitate this - a selection

Ruins

Weapons Cannister

 

Jungle

A nasty beast

 

Impassable Terrain

 

By drawing cards I can insure that each game is different. The Soldiers themselves each have a series of attributes ranging from Recon and Medic skills through to Combat skills. Stamina determines how much they can sustain from wounds.

Prior to embarking on their survival trip they are issued with equipment cards, these can either be shared freely and fairly or kept by the player who finds them. These range from guns, armour, melee weapons and other equipment. Further equipment can be found when the players encounter weapon cannisters. - a selection

To keep things on edge there is only a limited amount of ammo issued at the beginning of the game so players will need to find the cannisters if the have itchy fingers. To keep things simple there are three types of ammo - heavy, light and shotgun shells.

A Character can action two things in a round - eg move twice, recon and fire, move and give aid etc.
Of course they are going to have to watch out for these boys...

Of course what makes these guys particularly deadly is their speed (they get three actions), their chameleon powers, and their hi tech weaponry. They also get to use hidden movement until they get spotted !

Depending on the number of players (soldiers) their will be a finite number of predators.

Combat is very straightforward, if you can see your target, (not easy in the jungle) you can let rip with your automatic weapons (mindful of ammo counts) - hits deliver stamina damage unless armour is protecting the location. All of this is recorded on the characters reference sheet...

Can the players survive...

The first playtest is tonight so we will see how we get on...

Finally - the cribsheet of rules...

Cheers