Bringing RPGs Full Circle

It's great having a gamer brother, because it means Christmas and Birthday presents are exactly the right thing for a current or planned army. For example, this year I received a Terminator Assault Squad. Two or three Terminators were next on the list for my Red Hammers chapter at 28mm. While I mostly wanted to stick with basic storm bolter/power-fist, at least one had to have a thunder-hammer - how could I not when the chapter name is the Red Hammers :)

 The plan was to repaint them in my chapter colours, but these already came in a cool and very striking black with flame edges scheme. The compromise was to strip and repaint one thunder-hammer and leave the rest as is.

While the Terminator spends a couple of days soaking in simple-green I have another project to work on. A while back I painted a Dark Eldar Sslyth. At the time it was just a one-off (not part of an army) but it came out extremely well. I regard it as the best painted model I have ever done.

Making a whole force of (hopefully) equally well painted models would be too much work for a full size 40K army. But for the squad/platoon level games I've been playing lately it's a realistic goal, so I have acquired some Dark Eldar Warriors to accompany the Sslyth.

Sybarite squad leader

Special weapon warrior with Blaster

Dark Eldar warriors

On the subject of skirmish level games, I've been considering another candidate rules system;

 

The combat rules used in pen-and-paper RPGs are effectively small wargames, usually resolving fights between an elite group of 3-6 combatants on one side (AKA, an adventuring party) and whatever the GM throws at them on the other. Since Dungeons & Dragons originally evolved out of medieval wargames using one of its descendants as a wargame would be coming full circle.

The specific rules I'm considering is d20, the system used for Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition as well as a host of other games. It has a number of pros and cons to being applied as a wargame.

Pros:

• Open-source
• Extremely thoroughly playtested
• Has rules to cover pretty much any situation
• Can resolve squad/fireteam size battles in under a couple of hours
• Can be played on a relatively small area. Four foot square would be heaps, and even two foot square would probably work.
• High level of detail, making it possible for each model to be unique and interesting
• While it doesn't have army-lists, it does have Challenge Rating (CR) and Encounter Level (EL) systems to help create roughly balanced fights. These could provide a starting point to more carefully balanced army-lists.

Cons:

• Natively uses a 5 ft = 1" square grid. Adapting to play on an open tabletop shouldn't be too hard, but will require establishing some conventions (e.g. around flanking)
• May be too detailed. When playing an RPG one person keeps track of each character, while here each player would have to keep track of half a dozen. However I expect this should be managable provided the abilities and resources of each character are kept simple (no huge lists of spells/feats) - GMs frequently have to handle half a dozen or more monsters at a time.
• Would require more book-keeping than most wargames. Each individual model would have a quarter to half page character sheet, with HP, expendible resources, and status conditions to keep track of.
• The CR and EL balancing mechanics don't really cover equipment the character has. Some way of including this in a models effective CR would be needed.

In order to minimise several of the con's my thought is that (for unnamed, run of the mill troops) green combatants be 1st level Warriors, regular combatants 2nd level Warriors, veteran and/or elite combatants 3rd level Warriors, and special forces (including Space Marines and the like) 4th level Warriors.  Templates can be applied increasing the combatant's effective level (a Fiendish Dire Half-Dragon Space Marine might be equivalent to, say, 8th level) and named individuals can be higher level.

Conveniently I have already done a lot of work converting elements of 40K to d20, intended for an Inquisitoral RPG campaign which so far hasn't happened. So the key things to do are establish the conventions for open-table play, and decide how to use the CL/EL mechanics to balance forces.

Progress on BA40K

With my renewed interest in 40K (setting, not system) I have been going through old boxes of spare models, and there have been a surprisingly large number of useful finds. For the Red Hammer marines I found a complete squad of 9 Blood Claws (Space Wolf assault troops), a marine bike, and a Cyclone Terminator. My brother also donated a squad of 4 scouts and a plasma gunner.

Two Blood Claw assault teams of 4

Attack bike, plasma cannon, captain (seen below painted), and cyclone terminator

Scout team

Captain Ulrik the Northman

It takes four thralls to get him battle ready. Three organise his weapons and armour, the fourth does his hair.

I now have far more marines than I would field in my preferred 600-800 point games, so any further additions will be just for unit variety.

I’ve also been thinking about how to organize force selection. Original WH40K has it’s system of HQ/Troop/Heavy Support etc. unit types. But that’s a bit more complicated than I would prefer, plus at the 600-800 point level it wouldn’t be much of a restriction. I’m also not a fan of Bolt Action’s system of allowing a force to have one each of AT gun, artillery, armoured car, tank, etc. In my opinion this manages to be simultaneously too restrictive and too permissive – having two AT guns is unrealistic, but having an AT gun, a tank, and a howitzer is fine?

My present thought is to tag certain unit choices as HQ, Troop, and Rare. When organizing a game players agree both number of points and number of Rares allowed (with 1 Rare per full 400 points being suggested). A force must have one HQ, two Troops, and cannot have more than the agree number of Rares. The units I currently have written for the Space Marine list are;

• Sergeant (HQ)
• Veteran Sergeant (HQ)
• Captain (HQ, Rare)
• Tactical Fireteam (Troop)
• Terminator Fireteam (Rare)
• Assault Fireteam
• Devastator Fireteam
• Rhino
• Land Speeder (Rare)

This is only about half the units in the WH40K marine codex (and likewise the Tyranid list so far only covers about half of their WH40K units) but I’d rather work on getting a modest selection of units done well than do a rush job covering everything. Next army list up is the Tau, thanks both to my finding a box of Fire Warriors in my spare models and a potential opponent mentioning an interest.

Aerospace Operations

A few month back a rumour circulated that GW was shutting down the Specialist Games online store. Allegedly they were going to sell the models they had, but once existing stock was gone that was it. As I write this the Specialist Games store is still online, so I presume this rumour  was (to use the technical term) a load of bollocks. But at the time it seemed plausible.

My reaction was mostly to not care. I have almost everything I want for my Epic marines, and my other Epic/BFG forces all consist of non-GW models. But one of the few GW models I had been thinking about buying was the Thunderhawk Gunship. I didn’t get  one initially because my Red Hammer marines are a “no-shenanigans” marine force, and air assaults definitely qualify as shenanigans. But it is an extremely cool model and has always been on the wish-list. With the (seemingly) impending closure of Specialist Games my hand was forced, and I grabbed a couple. 

Since I’ve found myself on a bit of a BFG fix lately (been looking at my fleets to see what needs to be repaired or finished) the Thunderhawks have got me thinking about  planetary assaults and ways to combine BFG and Epic in a campaign. Might have to do a bit of research, see what other people have tried.

I See Red People

Like many wargamers I was introduced to the hobby through Warhammer 40,000. Also like many wargamers I eventually gave up on 40K’s crappy rules in disgust, and went on to play other games with better rules. But despite this I was always a fan of the WH40K setting, and although they virtually never see the table I kept my old Imperial Guard army boxed away in the back of the wardrobe. For a long time I have been looking for a good 28mm sci-fi skirmish system to use my 40K figures with, and now I think I may have found it.

The system in question is Bolt Action, and it ticked almost all the boxes – it’s 28mm (although I’m told it works at other scales too), the rules encourage sensible tactics, it’s fast and playable, and it has points buy army lists that give a decent first-approximation of balance. But it fails at the last requirement – it’s not sci-fi. Using Bolt Action to play 40K would require me to write new army lists, plus a few new rules to cover sci-fi stuff.

Challenge accepted!

A few weeks ago my brother and I played a couple of “proof of concept” games using my Imperial Guard versus his Tyranids. We simply used the existing BA army lists, and declared what things “counts as”. So for example my lascannon team counted as a PaK38, Vaughan’s Hive Tyrant counted as a captain and two bodyguards with SMGs, and so forth. It worked surprisingly well, but obviously some of the “counts-as” approximations didn’t quite fit, particularly for the Tyranids.

Over the next couple of weeks I sat down and wrote dedicated army lists for both the Tyranids and Space Marines. I used the existing BA lists as a guide (particularly for point costs), but unlike the “counts-as” experiment I was willing to change things and/or add new special rules. I also painted up a small Space Marine force;

The whole 650 point force

My Land-Speeder Muninn

A Tactical Fireteam

My Veteran Sergeant and his bodyguard

Missile launcher team with bodyguard

The colours are the same as my Epic marine army and one of my BFG fleets, so I can now field my Red Hammers chapter in skirmish-level, operational-level, and space combat games.

This afternoon Vaughan and I playtested the army lists I had written. We used 650 point lists, and rolled a Point Defense mission with the Tyranids attacking. Vaughan had a Hive Tyrant, a Carnifex, and brood of 2 Tyranid Warriors, 3 broods of 5 Termagaunts, and 2 broods of 5 Hormagaunts. Against this I had a veteran sergeant with bodyguard, a missile launcher marine with bodyguard, 3 tactical fireteams of 3 marines, and a Land Speeder.

Defense of the right-hand objective

Defense of the left-hand objective

Tyranid first wave

Vaughan chose to put his Carnifex and both Hormagaunt broods on flank marches. His preparatory bombardment meant almost all my units started the game with one or two pin markers. Annoyingly this meant that (despite being Veterans) all of my long range fire units failed their order tests, so Vaughan’s units simply ran up unharmed. As the Tyranids closed to within 24” during turns 2 and 3 my firing started to improve, and I eliminated about half of what Vaughan had on the table without losing a marine. Unfortunately, at the end of turn 3 his Carnifex turned up.

Carnifex blasting my Tac team with bio-plasma

Having eliminated the Tac team, it moved on towards my gunship

This 10 wound monstrosity proved a game-changer. By mid turn 5 it had eliminated one of my Tactical fireteams, and had charged into assault my Land Speeder. On top of this Vaughan’s other flank marches had showed up. One Hormagaunt brood was quickly destroyed by the missile launcher (although this took valuable firepower away from the Carnifex), while the other assaulted and destroyed the Tactical fireteam holding the left-hand objective. Thankfully the Carnifex lost the assault against the Land Speeder, failing a morale test against a 10. The game ended on turn 6 with each of us holding one of the objectives.

I am extremely pleased how this turned out. Things were as effective (and in the right ways) to match their 40K fluff. It was a very close, hard fought game and no units stood out as being too good/bad, so I’m going to leave the points as they are for now. The only two things that need tweaking are (A) the Land Speeder (I need to add Fast Vehicle and Skimmer rules), and (B) adjust how Tyranids interact with vehicles in close combat.

Paint Club - Sslyth

The first rule of Paint Club is... well, OK, we don't really have any rules.

Paint club is an informal little competition we've been having between myself, my brother Vaughan, and his flatmate Cory. We all buy a copy of a miniature, paint it, and post it on CoolMiniOrNot for the internet to vote on. Person who gets the highest score picks the next model, and the cycle repeats.

This round Cory picked a Dark Eldar Sslyth as the miniature. And it is an excellent model! I'll complain about GW with the best of them, but there is no question they do produce awesome figures.

My entry. I went with a rattlesnake skin pattern, with contrasting blue armour.

Vaughan's entry.

...and Cory's entry .

So please, view the pictures, cast your votes, and may the best painter win! Vaughan and I posted our models a while ago, so when Cory's model gets 40 votes we will declare the winner.

Shoot the Big Ones!

This afternoon my brother and I tried out Tomorrow's War, a 28mm sci-fi skirmish wargame. We were using our Warhammer 40K models, so the first thing we had to do was to translate the units into TW profiles. As this was our first game (more to learn the rules than anything) we kept things simple and had only two unit types each. My force consisted of four Imperial Guard fireteams (each four Guardsmen with lasguns) and two lascannon teams, while Vaughan had 3 Termagant broods (each of 6 Gaunts) and 3 Tyranid Warriors. We stated these out as follows;

Termagants
Troop Quality: d8 Irregulars
Morale: d8 Normal Confidence
Equipment: Light body armour, SMGs
Special Rules: Caveman CASEVAC

Tyranid Warrior
Troop Quality: d10 Regular
Morale: d12 High Confidence
Equipment: Medium body armour, light support weapons
Special Rules: Hive node, Hard to Kill (d6), Caveman CASEVAC

Imperial Guardsman
Troop Quality: d8 Regular
Morale: d8 Normal Confidence
Equipment: Light body armour
Special Rules: -

Lascannon
TL2 Medium Laser, AP2/AT2

We agreed on a simple set of victory conditions. Vaughan had "get a unit across the halfway mark" and "kill lascannon teams" as Major objectives (5 VP each), and "kill fireteams" as Minor objectives (2 VP each). I had "kill Tyranid Warriors" as Major, and "kill Termagant broods" as Minor. Since it seemed more logical for a Tyranid horde to be rushing towards Guard defenders than vice-versa we agreed Vaughan would have the initiative first turn, after which it would be rolled.

Bugs versus Troopers

Rather than a simple IGO-UGO turn (like 40K, FoW), or even alternating activations (Epic, DW), Tomorrow's War uses a neat Action-Reaction system. Whichever side has the initiative picks a unit and takes an Action with it - this can be a Move then Fire, Fire then Move, go on Overwatch, etc. Once this is declared (but before it is resolved) the other side gets to declare Reactions from as many of their units as they like. So for example, Vaughan declared his first Action to be rapid moving a brood of Gaunts foward, then firing at one of my fireteams. I then had two of my fireteams take Reactions, firing at the Gaunts. We then rolled to see what order these actions would be resolved, resolved them, and Vaughan declared his next Action. 

Mid turn 2, Gaunts charging at the Guard line

It turned out I got to fire first... and it was about now we discovered a significant negative (IMO) of the system. It needs a lot of d8's and d10's. And you can't just reroll a couple of dice either, you need to have enough. How it works is, the shooting unit rolls a number of dice (start with 1 dice per firing model, modify for circumstance), and the defender rolls a number of dice (again start with 1 dice per defending model, modify). Any rolls less than 4 are discarded, and then the defender gets to match their rolls against the attackers. Any defense roll that exceeds an attack roll can negate that dice. Any attacker rolls that are left at the end of this are hits.

We typically found we were rolling between 3 and 7 dice in both attack and defense. As an old school D&D player I had (or thought I had) plenty of polyhedral dice, but I only had five d8's, and we needed at least 10 or more. We scrapped them up (borrowing from his fellow D&D-playing flatmates, and using d10's rerolling 9+) but I do regard this as a big weakness of the TW system.

Another weakness came when we were trying to decide on LoS. The rules say (and unfortunately I'm not kidding) to measure between a point roughly in the middle of the firing unit to a point roughly in the middle of the target unit. I'm sorry, but to me that is an absolutely useless and handwavy non-rule, a recipe for disagreement. My brother and I agreed to a house rule where we designated one model in the unit as the measurement point, and I'll probably stick to this in future.

Overall, I have to say Tomorrow's War is an even mixture of parts I absolutely love and parts I absolutely hate. The system has some great ideas, it's versatile enough to cover almost any sci-fi army, and it plays fast and smoothly on the table. It will need quite a few houserules to patch some of the worse aspects of the system, but the core rules seem good enough to make this worth the effort.

Paint Club - Mandrake

For around the last year or so my brother Vaughan, his flatemate Cory, and I have been having a casual little competition we call Paint Club.

The rules are simple. We pick a model, each of us buys a copy of that model (we haven't been picky about things like exact poses and equipment) and paint it up. The finished results are posted on CoolMiniOrNot to be voted on. Whoever gets the highest score gets to pick the next model we paint... and repeat.

The current model is a Dark Eldar Mandrake. The three contenders can be found here;

My Entry

Vaughan's Entry

Cory's Entry

So please, vote early and vote often!

An Unexpected Christmas...

Last night I dragged down a few boxes from the top of my wardrobe. They look like they were packed when I moved flat around two years ago, and may or may not have been opened since. Amoung all the trash and treasure the was a bunch of wargaming models I'd completely forgotten I had.


The most immediately useful for my current top project (Mid-War Hungarians) is a Stuka and a trio of Botond trucks, all BF resin models and undercoated black. I've always been short on trucks for the weapons platoons of my motor infantry company. But since I never used to take HMGs and the mortars very seldom wanted to move, it wasn't an issue. But with the improved utility of transports and the fact that I will now want to field my HMG platoon, I think I'll finish painting them up. Likewise the Stuka. I have sometimes taken air support before (in fact I already have a Stuka in Hungarian colours...somewhere) but with it's increased effectiveness in V3 I suspect I'll be taking it more often.

I also found my Hungarian cavalry unit. These aren't an option in Eastern Front unfortunately, but I'll keep them with the rest of the army in case Battlefront releases a MW version of the Huszár Harckocsizó list.

The next surprise find was a regiment of Witch-Elves, with 8 out of 19 painted. Now I'll rant against GW with the best of them, but I have always felt that WHFB (at least 7E, I haven't played 8th yet) was a decent ruleset. It gets let down by very poorly balanced army lists and GW's general business practises, but the core system was pretty good. I have promised my friend Haig (who is a big WHFB fan) to give 8th Edition at least a couple of games try.  And since Witch-Elves are one of the units that made me decide on Dark Elves as my army in the first place, it's going on the list of projects to be finished. Not as top priority, but it's definitely on the list.

And the last find... 25 IG Stormtroopers, five each painted in red and purple, the rest undercoated. Red squad also has an officer and a transport vehicle to accompany them, while purple squad has a dozen cultists and a chaos sorcerer.

Now I think WH40K is a terrible system with almost nothing to recommend it, but I've always been more of a sci-fi than a historical/fantasy fan, and I've just had 3 squads worth of quality future infantry effectively fall in my lap. So I'm now itching to find a good 28mm sci-fi skirmish game. Does anybody have any recommendations? I'll rule out Stargrunt - to avoid a rant I'll just say it's not what I'm looking for.