So that was BOYL '15!

Good to see people already planning for next year, I can't wait to see what springs from the hive mind as the focus event for that. Oldhammer Ahoy pipped the Deathrace to the highlight title for this year, at least for me, and the photos over on Shadowking's blog showcasing the quality and quantity nicely illustrate why, although they looked even better "in the flesh".

Captain Crooks travelling from the other side of the world to put on a game rather puts everyone else to shame though!

I was glad to get my caravaners onto the beautifully prepared table for the Fallout game -

The Nuka-Cola bottle caps are re-roll tokens, which we each had 3 of, and hint at the shear level of effort that LegioCustodes had put into preparing for the game. 

The game was a great showcase of how GM'd scenarios outshine straight forward two-player games. There were six of us playing, with only the supermutants and the Children of the Cathedral having the luxury of knowing who was "against" them (everybody) or who they were "against" (everybody).

I spent the game feeling decidedly out-gunned, but my objectives didn't actually set me against anyone and I was extremely fortunate that all the potential obstacles in my path were either dealt with by other players or decided they had other groups they'd rather fight elsewhere.

I managed to achieve my objectives without firing a shot, and with only one or two unsuccessful shots aimed at me. I had the occasional feeling that it'd be fun to take a more active role than was strictly necessary but was conscious that to do so would probably go badly for me, never mind the fact that ammo you use is ammo you can't sell later!

Fantasy remains where my heart is, but on this showing I would happily paint more stuff with guns.

A post apocalyptic diversion

When LegioCustodes of Oldhammer 40k suggested a game of Rogue Trader set in the Fallout universe for this year's BOYL I thought that'd be a great opportunity to wallow in two different forms of nostalgia, plus I'd only have to paint a handful of figures so that'd be no problem...!

I must learn that I'm (a) slightly obsessive, and (b) a very slow painter. But with lots of forbearance from the family, plus abandoning the plan to include cargo with my brahmin conversion, I'm finally done, and with nearly a week to spare.

As an added bonus I've finally painted a couple of Imperial Guard figures I bought when they were new (one of them even has base colours from then), and got some practice with painting flesh tones other than green. Still a lot of work to do on that (especially my attempt at "weather-beaten Caucasian"), but while there's bits I'm not happy with they're a lot better than they would have been if I'd painted them 20-some years ago.

So I played Age of Sigmar, and...

... in the words of Warlord Paul's social experiment I'm mostly A (a good time was had), with a pinch of B (not quite my cup of tea).

Anatol Rathbauer's comments on WP's blog bring home some key points. There are a couple of things I'd add -

1. I really like the size of the game - I'd turned up with a shade under 40 orcs, which felt about right. This is a major advantage in terms of making the game accessible (and, probably not coincidentally, is about the size of a SAGA or Dux Britanniarum starter force, or so I understand it). In 3rd edition terms I still feel I'm 20-odd orcs, plus a boatload of goblins or some sort of allies, short of having a reasonably sized but still small-ish army. Realistically that's a year's worth of painting, without me being distracted onto countless other projects.
2. Wizards are good to have, but more of a supporting element than a game winner.
3. I don't like having to translate out of GW-speak.

To go into some detail on that last point, I spent a good part of the game trying to get my head around what the attacks of my orcs counted as. The orc warscrolls (available from the GW site) describe them as being "armed either with Choppas or Pigstikka Spears...  Some units of Orcs are instead armed with a pair of Choppas.", and then there's a profile for the Choppa attack, and a special rule for it also (there are lots of special rules, which add a fair bit of flavour and interest, but also mean a lot of flicking through print-outs). You're constantly tempted to apply the Choppas rule, but then on reading it's clear it only applies to the dual-wielding option. This would easily be fixed by re-labelling the rule as "Pair of Choppas", and eventually you'd naturally get the hang of it, but in a first game even with only 5 units it broke the flow of things somewhat.

In the same vein, but more significantly, is the issue of fielding something for which there's no warscroll. One of our club members had brought along his SAGA force, which in the good old days would easily have stood in for a Norse army. But currently there's none such, and while creating new warscrolls on the surface of things doesn't seem to difficult on looking further it's not trivial either. For a start there are an awful lot of the "special" units and relatively few standard units to use as a baseline, and even then the patterns don't seem to emerge. For example -

Orcs (warriors and archers): Save on 5+
Peasant bowmen: 6+
Men at arms: 6+
Crossbowmen: 6+
Greatswords: 4+
Knights: 4+

Nowadays shields seem to give a re-roll rather than a bonus, so presumably 6+ is your unarmoured baseline (otherwise a re-roll's not much use!), however I've seen at least one warscroll with no armour save...

Equally mounted troops seem to get an extra wound rather than higher save, which is kind of refreshing - no more bashing away until they finally roll a 1.

But it seems odd that orc archers seem armoured by default, whereas crossbowmen aren't, and greatswords are as heavily armoured as knights. By this measure I'm guessing that my Norse example would be 5+ as well, probably with a shield (and a Choppa with a more dignified name), but who knows? Anyway, it's not unsurmountable, but a lot more opaque than I'd like.

Finally it's worth a mention of the miniatures - the proper Age of Sigmar ones really aren't my cup of tea at all, and the infantry seem about 9' tall (in scale). But it did occur to me how much my much younger self would really love the properly big demons and dragons that kids these days seem to get.

Some pictures

My lads line up against some halberdiers, a steam tank(!), and some chaps in gold

I do like the way that the turn structure / initiative work, both on the wider scale and for combat, and the dicing for charges. It brings in a nice element of the uncertainty that I enjoyed in my Dux Britanniarum experience.

Angelic space marine types - you really didn't want to stop just there...!

My high tide point for the game - boar riders are having fun, and the infantry are still hopeful

Beating on the steam tank didn't go as hoped. The boar boys are doing OK, but it's not looking like a win...

Middle Earth gaming and power levels

An amusing and informative post ranking the most metal deaths in Middle Earth has been doing the rounds on G+. It's given me somewhat more sympathy for the writers of MERP, to add to my appreciation for the critical hits tables - although they still have a fair way to go to make up for the mundanity of the magic system.

It is a good reminder though that Middle Earth as a setting seems almost impossible to systemise. Even setting aside the (perhaps legendary?) exploits of various Noldor in the First Age, it's clear that the Dúnedain, not to mention various elves of different heritages still around in the Third Age, are capable of extraordinary feats.

Personally I'm comfortable with playing in Middle Earth as a fairly low-powered game, but in doing so I'm quietly ignoring arguably a major aspect of the setting. So am I being fair on game designers where that option may not be available, else they would risk short-changing some portion of their audience?

Stormbringer and the world of Elric

Nearly 30 years after buying the game I've finally read the main books in the saga of Elric of Melniboné. Somewhat backwards you could argue, but such was the power that Games Workshop's marketing department held over me back in the day...

Inspired by the How Do I Run a Tolkienesque Game? column over on RPG.Net I thought I'd try and draw out the main themes that a successful Stormbringer game should incorporate, at least in my mind.

Everyone's someone

Elric is obviously exceptional himself (Emperor of Melniboné, etc., etc.), so this maybe a poor inference to draw, but equally just as the whole tone of Lord of the Rings is that it's told primarily from the point of view of the hobbits, it seems important to me that in the saga everyone is someone. The warriors, like Brut of Lashmar or Rackhir the Red Archer are, in Joe Abercrombie terms, all Named Men. Other supporting characters are merchant princes, or kings and queens.

So this doesn't seem to me to be a game where a freshly generated character should be setting out for the first time to make a name for themselves. They're not rich or famous yet, but they've at least seen a bit of the world and made something of a name for themselves. They should also have some contacts, and maybe foes, out there.

No one is safe

Not quite on a Game of Thrones scale, but these named warriors, kings and merchant princes often don't last very long, often discarded in a bare sentance once their part is done. And of course (spoiler alert!) everyone dies by the end. It's a dangerous place.

A menagerie of monsters

The rulebook seemed odd to me when I first owned it, in terms of the shear variety and diversity of the creatures it presents. No longer - it's simply a listing of what Elric encounters in the saga! In terms of a novel it's a bit jarring - some new creation appears without rhyme or reason, sort of like when I sat down to populate my first dungeon many years ago. Except that comparison does Moorcock a great disservice of course; not only does he have to first imagine his creatures, but also he's trying to convey the multitude of planes that are out there, and the breadth of the sorcerors' arts. It only works at all because Elric, as the primary focus of the books and the most powerful sorceror of the age, can recognise these creatures on behalf of the reader, and can and remember their particular weaknesses or the rite to summon their sworn foes.

For it to work in a game I think two things are necessary - firstly to tone things down a little, after all hopefully the characters won't have made quite as many powerful enemies as Elric has. And again, have the characters be reasonably well travelled, or to have studied the arcane, so that they have at least some rumours of the creatures they're facing. But a diverse range of dangerous things seems to me another core theme to bring out.

Globetrotting (and plane-trotting)

Elric and his associates really do get around a bit, not just in the Young Kingdoms but on various planes too. The Young Kingdoms are well connected and varied, so it seems to me a campaign should make the most of this - chasing a quarry, searching for an artefact, or otherwise touching on a wide swathe of the world. My WFRP background makes me think of plots involving local interactions with interweaving factions but that wouldn't really fit the spirit of the saga, which is far more broad-brush.

A bit of planar travel is important as well. With the wide variety of creatures and environments available just in the Young Kingdoms this risks becoming a bit too much to get across without all becoming a bit blurred.

Alternatively there's the option of just starting off in the Young Kingdoms and then moving to a truly planar campaign - maybe not a bad idea given what the planet has in store. But that's another genre entirely - it's noticable that Elric always manages to find his way 'home'.

The eternal battle is central

The Lords of Chaos are ever-present in the saga, and although again Elric is a bit special any long adventure should see the impact of this struggle. It's difficult though to know where to strike the balance if characters are active agents of Law or Chaos - on the one hand the Lords do actively intervene (when it suits them), on the other Elric acts directly against his patron demon on a number of occasions without apparent repercussions. They are distant and mysterious, so maybe the patron's true goals and wishes are unknown, but there's more to it than that.

It's a long way from your typical D&D or WFRP experience where a cleric receives their powers directly from their god and suffers real consequences if they sway too far from the tenets of their cult. An agent of Law or Chaos may have a patron, but also deals with other more minor demons so in a strange way although direct manifestations of the Lords are apparently more common than in other settings, the relationship is also more distant.

Plenty of pulp

Elric may have been conceived as the antithesis of Conan, but the saga is pulp high fantasy all the way. Even setting aside the creatures you have boiling seas and perpetual mists, not to mention a literal edge of the world. Quests end in fantastic castles containing puzzle traps, or tunnels and caves with overt supernatural features. Despite his demeanor Elric himself is a swashbuckler in deed even when not powered by a glut of souls from Stormbringer - in pitched battle he becomes superhuman.

Conclusion

I had and have reservations over the Young Kingdoms as a setting - it has much to recommend it but overall I'm not quite sold. It doesn't call to me as somewhere I want to play, unlike Middle Earth or Warhammer's Old World. I think though I'd like to give it a go some day - but if I do there's one question which I would need to answer, which is where or when to set the campaign.

A big concern with the setting in game terms is the heavy hand of Fate - Elric is firmly on a railroad, the end of which is very much The End. Presumably the entire world is on the railroad with him, which doesn't immediately appeal. It seems there are 7 or so years between the sack of Imrryr and the end of the world so if you do want to adventure in the timeline of the saga then there's scope for that, but not a great deal!

To my mind there are 3 other possibilities -

1. Set the campaign in the past, with Melniboné still a recognisable Empire. However you can't go too far back without redrawing the map, as the Young Kingdoms are called that for a reason. Perhaps in the youth of Sadric, Elric's father. It gives you longer, but...
2. Take the multiverse concept to its first stage. The campaign is set in the Young Kingdoms, but with slight, perhaps barely discernible differences. You probably should let on that this isn't the Elric's world, but maybe not...
3. Go for the full treatment, and slightly rename all the places and people. This though seems the weakest option - why is this a Stormbringer campaign at that point?

Chaos warbands and the pathetic aesthetic

A few weeks back I took some time to get to grips properly with the warbands rules in Slaves to Darkness, in preparation for our mini campaign. In the process one thing that stood out to me was the disconnect between the Realm of Chaos material and Warhammer Armies in terms of tone.

From second edition onwards the rules and army lists have seemed (to me at least) to emphasise the power of chaos warbands and armies, and de-emphasise the consequences. Yes, the warriors have made some perhaps unwise pacts with the chaos powers, but Look At Those Stats. Ravening Hordes and onwards toned this down somewhat with the introduction of chaos thugs and marauders but the theme remained - small, elite, hard-hitting forces.

In Slaves to Darkness the tone is, dare I say it, grimmer and darker, but done well, and before the slide into cliché. The artwork is a big part of this, but also the rules themselves. The champion has a chance of ascending to deamonhood - but will probably end up dead, incapacitated, or a chaos spawn. The warband will primarily be made up of beastmen and standard humans, with a chaos thug - never mind a marauder or warrior - being the rare elite.

With this in mind my slow progress towards a force of chaos raiders has taken a turn towards the pathetic. Or, to put it another way, I want my chaotics to encompass the mad, the bad and the sad.

The bad are clearly the proper chaos thugs - on the path to worldly power and damn the consequences. But before they get there they'll start out like the chap in the middle there - angry, violent, but not especially accomplished fighters.

The sad would rather not be in the ranks of chaos at all. But the taint of chaos has given them the choice: exile or death. Perhaps they took the job of guarding that wierd-looking crate - probably not strictly legit, but they had a family to feed! Or maybe they just woke up one morning with an extra ear. Either way, the path has been chosen for them.

And the mad - probably started off as the bad, or the sad. But now the attention of the chaos powers has overwhelmed them, and in a fight they're lucky if they remember which end of the club to hold.

In model terms, I was always thinking of mixing in various proxies along with my recognisable thugs. But I think I should also field some human "levy" types - probably eager to fight, unlike their counterparts in other armies, but inadequately armed and carelessly led. And chaos spawn, which I never really saw the attraction of before - I'm definitely going to need some of them, and some spawn handlers.

Realm of Chaos campaign reflection, suggestions and MacGuffins

I spent last Saturday enjoying a Realm of Chaos campaign put together by Gaj, along with Jeff McC and Paul D. For all of us I think it was our first "proper" taste of RoC, although Jeff and I had also played in the big warbands game at BOYL '13, and I think it's fair to say we're all keen to play again another day. There are a few things we'll probably do differently next time, mainly down to what seem to be shortcomings with the campaign system itself, although probably a degree of user error was involved as well.

There are photos too, but if that's all you want to see then probably best to scroll down...

Observations

• We played in pairs across two halves of a 6' x 4' table - small was definitely better
• Warbands games are small (and fast - we managed to fit 4 (and even 5) in the day), but because of that also spikier than a typical game of Fantasy Battle. Although WFB can also be prone to bouts of streaky dice it's exacerbated with a warband where for example a lucky round of combat can lead to enough casualties (maybe only 1 or 2) for rout tests to be required
• In a bid to even up the starting strengths of the warbands we'd settled on each having a level 10 hero plus two rolls on the followers table. This seems in hindsight to have given (slightly) overpowered champions.
• In every game the losing warband also had its champion killed / incapacitated - typically there was a fight between the champions which tended to also settle the scenario outcome. In one case at least though a champion was killed by missile fire alone
• Overall though the RoC campaign system seems to have a significant flaw - once a warband starts to fall behind in strength it doesn't seem possible to catch up.

Suggestions

• Personally I feel the "Dying in battle - No rewards" rule is wrong - instead I feel that as long as your actions were aligned with your chosen power's wishes then a degree of failure can be overlooked (bearing in mind that half the time "dying" only means knocked out). So I'd suggest the major actions (e.g. killing a sorcerer if a Khorne follower) should be rewarded, but halved. The minor (i.e. half point) rewards wouldn't be earned. Hence if you're zealous enough you have a chance of some reward from any battle.
• We were awarding a reward for achieving the scenario objectives (which I believe is a stated rule in Lost and the Damned, but I could be wrong). Hence we nearly always had a situation where one of the warbands got 2 rewards, and one none (as their champion was dead / knocked out), leading quickly to disparity between the warbands. I think we shouldn't do this in future, especially as achieving the objective tended to set the winner of the battle, hence invoking the "survive on the winning side" reward. More importantly from a flavour point of view though, presumably the scenario objectives is the champion's worldly concern - it may or may not please your chosen power.
• The survival rules are quite generous in often making models "killed" in combat actually just incapacitated / knocked out / etc. and hence available for the next battle. However they also (not unreasonably) state that the loser's survivors "become prisoners of the victor, who may dispose of them as he wishes". Consequently I'd suggest that, where appropriate, the scenario conditions encourage the winning side to vacate the field as part of the scenario, hence increasing survivability for the loser.
• I think our starting champions were too strong. You could of course just play as written and roll randomly, but if, as we did, you don't want to start with wildly inbalanced champions then perhaps go for level 5 heroes rather 10. Or, when starting out, roll on the tables but cap the rolls at level 15 (for warriors) or 10 (for wizards), but if one player is re-rolling part way through a campaign after being wiped out then they use the full table (and hence have a slim chance of starting with a powerful warrior or wizard).

Note: the median roll on the standard champion tables is a level 5 dwarf or elf, and with my suggested initial caps a level 5 human. However the modal value is a bog-standard human so I think (my stats knowledge is a bit shakey) you're better off settling for a level 5 than rolling. But then if playing it safe is your thing then the path of the chaos champion probably isn't for you...

MacGuffins

Many little lead (and plastic) people were locked in combat for a day in pursuit of a MacGuffin known simply as "the MacGuffin", which seems a little undignified. So, in Realm of Chaos-style, a MacGuffin generator seems useful -

d10	First part	d10	Second part
1	Eye of	1	Chaos power (d6: 1: Khorne; 2: Slaanesh; 3: Nurgle; 4: Tzeentch; 5: Malal; 6: Hashut)
2	Tears of	2	Old World god (d6: 1: Morr; 2: Taal; 3: Ulric; 4: Khaine; 5: Grungni; 6: Liadriel)
3	Claw of	3	the Oathbreaker
4	Essence of	4	Eternity
5	Orb of	5	Hunger
6	Blade of	6	Eldritch Sight
7	Gourd of	7	Dispair
8	Casket of	8	the Archmage
9	Crown of	9	Avarice
10	Tome of	10	the Earth

 

The games

Finally, on to the pictures...

Scenario 1 - below ground. A band of adventurers find the MacGuffin, and now must escape past a warband who are also after it. They routed a pack of wolves, after which it was a simple chase to the exit, which we decided was a bit dull. So mysteriously the exit became barred by a door - surely the adventurers could break it down before being caught by the warband's main strength...?

 

Moral of the story - adventuring party modelled on a low-ish level WFRP party can't go toe-to-toe with a warband. If we use this idea again it needs a bit of a re-think (and a buff). Or less doors.

Scenario 1 - above ground. Meanwhile two further warbands are fighting for control of the area, to give them a chance to find another entrance to the dungeon.

 

Scenario 2 - below ground. The adventurers must escape the tunnels (still), but this time through a different warband. Somehow they manage it this time.
 

Scenario 2 - above ground. Now in possession of the MacGuffin, the winning warband from below ground must escape past another, whose champion has now ascended to pseudo-daemonhood. Or, rather than escaping, kill the champion and all his followers...

Scenario 3 - in town. The warband with the MacGuffin have infiltrated a town for nefarious purposes, and are now resting up in a barn before making good their escape at night. But the adventurers have tracked them down.

Meanwhile various townspeople and guard patrols do their best to overlook groups of armed somethings in the dark, but the guards can't quite ignore obvious sounds of battle.

Scenario 3 - the bridge. A couple of chaos champions have worked out that if they can take possession of - or better yet destroy - this bridge, they can prevent the escape of the warband with the MacGuffin. If only they can get out of the surrounding mud for long enough to make a contest of it...

Finale. The warband with the MacGuffin is getting relatively powerful at this point. But the other two warbands, and the adventurers, get one last chance to acquire it.