Warhammer: the Old World is pretty fun

 Got halfway through a game of Warhammer Old World yesterday, it really does feel like a solid balance of the various WHFB editions I grew up with. This is my third game this year, after more than a decade of zero Warhammer gaming (unless you count using Mordheim rules with historical minis).

Between combat and panic, I'm now down to a third of my army (possibly closer to half if I clutch out some rally attempts at the beginning of my next turn), but while my opponent hasn't taken too many hits yet, there are three fanatics right in the center of his army.

Hoping to wrap this up Thursday, it'll be an uphill struggle for my greenskins, but stranger things have happened!

Primavera Occulta battle report - rounds 3 through 5

 Marenghi turn 3

Astolfo rolls (vs his Phys stat, since it is a buried treasure) to claim objective, and succeeds! Meanwhile, Adelaide charges the henchman who recently attempted to charge her, and her attack is more successful than his defense so she deals a point of damage. 

Arturo himself decides to attack his own halberd-wielding foe, but since this is the point at which I remembered that spells must be cast with specific card suits, he must resort to physical attacking, which is not his forte. He deals one point of damage. His spirit also attacks, but draws too high a card and misses (spirits never roll).

Von Hahn turn 3

Dieter reloads his crossbow. The halberdier attacks Adelaide but misses. Kaspar rolls to claim the bookshelf objective, but fails (rolling vs Ment because he has to locate the correct text). Father Schmidt attempts to charge the opposing spirit, but fails and only stumbles forward his normal 4”. His spirit also attempts that charge, making good time but barely falling short. The hireling swings at Arturo but misses

 Marenghi turn 4

Astolfo charges the henchman halberdier, and deals enough damage to remove him from the game! Hirelings have a special rule that they flee/surrender/play dead after any reasonably strong hit, but Astolfo deals enough damage to kill him outright.

Adelaide charges Kaspar von Hahn, causing one damage total after his armor takes effect. Arturo lashes out at the wounded halberdier, but misses. The hound spirit also targets the halberdier, dealing enough damage to drive the hireling from the battle.

Von Hahn turn 4

Von Hahn swings at Adelaide, and she is taken out (all her Phys points in one hit, ouch!). Father Schmidt casts Speculative Masonry against Arturo with a 6 (best Diamond card he had) but Arturo counters with the Queen of Hearts from his hand (this is a critical success for his character type, a harsh price to pay to counter a moderately powerful casting, but Arturo wants to make good his escape). Dieter shoots once more at Astolfo, dealing one point of damage (and that only because I on-the-spot houseruled that cover works differently than originally written). The Greek Spirit attacks the hound spirit and misses.

Marnghi turn 5

Arturo is unable to run with objective, so he makes a regular move toward the board edge, only just manainge to cross the wall. The hound spirit attacks the other spirit but misses. Astolfo charges Kaspar to avenge Adelaide; he successfully closes the distance and makes the hit, but Kaspar's armor lets him play a Diamond card to cancel it.

Von Hahn turn 5

Desperate to stop Arturo's flight, and lacking the card to try Speculative Masonry again, Father Schmidt charges!

He makes contact and penetrates Arturo's defense, dealing 2 damage. Kaspar attacks Astolfo, but misses. This, however, is where I remember that melee combat is “two-sided”, so Astolfo also rolls and deals 6 damage, reduced to 3 by Hahn's armor (but still a mighty blow, Hahn is down to half his starting Phys points). Dieter runs towards the bookshelf, hoping to claim the only unclaimed objective while the two armored veterans trade blows, but he bogs down in the pond. The spirits fight to a draw.

Things are really heating up! Two hirelings and one Initiate down, nearly everyone else injured, two of three objectives in hand. A couple more turns should do it! I just need to be better about remembering my own rules...

Primavera Occulta battle report - rounds 1 and 2

I probably should have posted the deployment in the previous post, but since I forgot I'll put it here. Arturo Marenghi unsurprisingly decided to deploy in the center, leaving von Hahn and his men to deploy along any three board edges. They deployed along the North, West, and South edges since the house (played as impassable terrain owing to the unfinished inside) would make fleeing East more challenging for the defenders.

Also, I neglected to mention that any summoned spirit needs a designated master. For both warbands, I chose the Scholar character (Arturo and Father Schmidt).

(Unfortunately, due to poor phone battery charge planning, there are no more pics until the end of round 2.)

The first turn mostly involved movement and ranged attacks, as is to be expected in nearly every miniature wargame. Arturo began his side's turn by claiming the objective he deployed adjacent to (with no roll needed thanks to his spirit), while Astolfo and Adelaide struggled to make progress towards the objective up on the crag. The hound spirit did attempt to impede Father Schmidt with a magic spell, but Schmidt was able to use a card to defend.

Von Hahn's warband also moved into position, except that Schmidt and the Greek spirit decided to stay put and cast spells (there are no range limitations in the game, since the board overall is not large.) They were able to inflict one point of damage on the hound spirit. One of the halberdiers did make unexpectedly fast progress toward his foes, ending his move right next to Arturo even despite the intervening wall. However, he was unable to attack, as he had not thought to declare a charge.

The second roundopens with Arturo Marenghi feeling quite distressed at the proximity of the enemy halberdier, so he casts Blasting Force, propelling the hireling a full eight inches away. While no spell inherently deals Physical damage, the hireling takes a point of damage for being pushed over the wall. If the wall had been high enough to block movement, he would have taken five points!

Astolfo succeeds this time in climbing up to the objective, and will be able to test to claim it next turn. Adelaide attempts to follow, to provide healing support to the beefy halberdier, but is unable to negotiate the rough terrain. She's not really dressed for bouldering, I guess. 

The hound spirit attempt to use magic to pin the recently-launched halberdier in place, seemingly a safe bet since the hireling can only draw a card for defense instead of playing from his team's hand... but he draws an ace and is unaffected.

Kaspar von Hahn's turn begins with the priest and the spirit both using the Prepare action to draw additional cards from their hand. One of their cards appears to be a double-back misprint, surely an omen! for the sake of the playtest, however, the misprinted card is set aside and a new one drawn. The 6 and 7 thus received are not ideal for a game where low is better, but they'll just have to make do.

The crossbow-wielding squire takes a potshot at the remarkably prominent Astolfo, but misses outright, although he might have had trouble penetrating the armor even if he had hit.

The halberdier accompanying Dieter goes after seemingly easier prey, but his poor rolling and Adelaide's better luck result in him overshooting his charge as she sidesteps.

The other halberdier likewise charges, but Arturo's defense means that no hit is actually scored.

And so ends the first couple turns of this playtest. Most characters have suffered no damage, and none has taken serious damage. The defenders have claimed one objective, and each remaining objective will, barring bad luck, be claimed by opposing initiates in the next round.

Primavera Occulta battle report - initial set-up

 After tweaking the rules somewhat, I've decided to play another solo Primavera Occulta game, and document it a little more thoroughly on the blog. This time I'm going to go real slow, only playing one or two turns a night so I have plenty of time to take notes and consider the rules as I go. To refresh you memory, Primavera Occulta is a game I am writing for small-scale skirmishes in the Italian Wars, with a period-specific supernatural element.

So, this post covers the set-up, or perhaps the pregame phase.

I started with the two opposing sets of Initiates. These are the core of the warband, the nobles and veteran warriors united in their search for esoteric knowledge. Each warband has three initiates, one of each Archetype: The Warrior, the Scholar, and the Apprentice. These correspond to the King, Queen, and Jack card respectively. Each player distributes 8 special rules across the three Initiates, no more than 4 per character

One the left is Kaspar von Hahn, accompanied by Father Schmidt and his squire Dieter. Kaspar has the Leader, Armor, and Heavy Armor rules. Schmidt has rule Orator, and the spells Stupefaction and Speculative Masonry. Dieter has the Ranged Weapon and Armor rules.

One the right, Astolfo has the Armor, Heavy Armor, Big Blade and Bad War rules. Arturo Marenghi has the Leader rule, and the spells Blasting Force and Enticing Visions. His wife Adelaide is a Healer.

Next, the players are each dealt 10 playing cards. They bid up to two cards each on the Recruiting subphase (the winner get more hirelings or more powerful spirits), and the Scouting subphase (winner has more control over terrain placement and deployment. Higher cards are more valuable here, as opposed to lower cards in the actual battle. Certain suits are better in one or the other.

Having won the Recruitment subphase, von Hahn obtains the services of two halberdiers (hirelings with the Big Blade rule), and summons a minor spirit in the form of a young piper from Ancient Greece. Arturo Marenghi summons a spirit as well, his taking the form of a great hound. The former spirit is an aid to magic, and the latter helps claim treasures, but they are otherwise identical ruleswise.

While Marenghi was less successful in recruiting, he was able to scout more effectively, and set up the terrain to his advantage. He has placed a strong defensive position in the center of the board, which he will occupy in the next post.

To be continued...

Gosiewski Rides Out (Pikeman's Lament AAR)

It took a while, but I finally bought a battlemat (from deepcut), set up some tables (uline), and put together a solo Pikeman's Lament game to refamiliarize myself with the system. I even tried to write a narrative battle report, but it was really hard to account for the high number of botched orders.

The terrain is pretty minimal, PL says at least one piece per quarter so I went with that. The forces are PL approximations of a couple of skirmish lists from By Fire and Sword, a game that I doubt I'll ever play but regard highly as a resource.

In particular, the BF&S ruleset has made Wincenty Korwin Gosiewski a minor celebrity among Eastern European Renaissance wargamers, on account of his 1649 raiding party being the only way to field winged hussars in the skirmish level of that game. His Cossack foes for this battle are based on the generic Cossack skirmish force from the same game. For the scenario I went with the basic Ga Pa line-up-and-fight deal, with the Cossacks defending and the Lithuanians attacking.

Cossacks:
2x12 veteran shot (Registered Cossacks)
2x12 shot (moloitsy)
2x12 clubman (peasant rabble)
1x6 commanded shot (plastuny scouts)

Lithuanians:
1x6 veteran gallopers (hussars)
2x6 trotters (rajtars)
2x6 raw gallopers ("cossack-style" light cavalry)
1x6 dragoons

To keep things simple, I made the hussars Veteran Gallopers but not aggressive, both because I didn't want to have to remember the mechanic, and also because I felt that the Gosiewski Party background justified less reckless hussar behavior. I also made no attempt to represent the spearmen mixed in with the Cossack moloitsy, I have a few ideas on how to do so, but didn't want to bother with house rules for this game.

Turn 1: the rajtars and hussars advanced, but the "cossack-style" light cavalry and the dragoons stayed put, a reasonable enough set of results. The actual Cossacks all advanced, save the moloitsy on the side of the village (who were not asked to), and one of the peasant rabbles (fair). The plastuny scouts moved with special elan, accruing a bonus point of honor for their officer on account of their remarkable sneakiness perhaps. First blood to the Cossacks!! Not in-game, but rather, when I was moving one unit of moloitsy, a Cossack in the stationary moloitsy unit stabbed me in the finger with his wire spear, hard enough to draw literal blood. Good for him!

Turn 2 began well enough with the rightmost rajtars advancing, but ended prematurely and absurdly as the hussars decided to flee a half move, apropos of absolutely nothing. The now-exposed rajtar unit prepared for the worst, and while the first salvo from one registered Cossack unit did indeed halve their numbers, the rest of the Cossack army was apparently as confused by the hussars' retreat as the other Lithuanians were....

For Turn 3, obviously the priority was to get the elite hussars going back in the right direction (i.e. towards the enemy), but they were unable to move as their commander had to pause to receive a dispatch from high command; unfortunately, his dragoons were being reassigned, effective immediately. Gosiewski's only solace was that his foes remained baffled by his force's shambles, and themselves took no action.

Turn 4 saw the bulk of the Lithuanian force (both light cavalry units and the intact rajtars) finally advance, but a botch on the hussar order saw them become wavering! Perhaps their lances and wings had gotten tangled as they attempted to turn back to face the Cossacks? For their part, registered Cossacks shot down two more rajtars (although the final member of that unit refused to budge), and the other registered unit moved up to the fence, but when the moloitsy outside the fence were ordered to shoot, they decided to advance instead. While it is usually a poor plan for infantry to charge gallopers in this game (or ever), given how poorly the Lithuanians were performing I can't blame the moloitsy for feeling pretty confident.

Turn 5 began with the hussars successfully shaking off their wavering status. This auspicious occurrence was followed by a "successful" caracole from the intact rajtars, that is to say, they received and executed the order, but failed to do any damage to the registered Cossacks opposite them. The remaining cavalry all moved as directed, marking the first turn in the game where an entire force carried out all orders. By way of contrast, the Cossacks failed the first order given.

At the beginning of Turn 6, the hussars advanced for the first time since turn one, though sadly they were unable to charge due to their previous dawdling. Both units of light cavalry, however, were in range to charge, and did! They attacked the out-of-position moloitsy, the first unit dealing some damage before being scattered by the moloitsy's first salvo, the second dealing additional damage and only losing two men in return. Tied for damage, the second light cavalry unit was forced to withdraw (as the attacker), but both units remained in good order. Meanwhile, the intact rajtars performed another ineffectual caracole, while the lone rajtar was unable or unwilling to perform the maneuver.

Turn 6 continued with the registered Cossack units opening fire on the rajtar squadrons nearest them - the lone rajtar was finally gunned down, while the larger unit lost two cavalrymen. Reduction of the Lithuanian force to half strength meant morale testing for every unit, but only the remaining rajtar unit began to waver. The pastuny, who had scaled the hill in such a praiseworthy fashion earlier in the encounter, seemed content to continue posing, choosing to disregard the order to shoot at the nearby light cavalry.

At this point I called it for the Cossacks. While the veteran gallopers are a tough enough bunch that they might well have been able to turn the tide singlehandedly had the game continued, quite frankly I did not want to give them the opportunity after their absurd incompetence throughout the previous turns.

I'm already planning a sort of rematch, with 36ish points per side to more accurately reflect the skirmish lists, more liberal use of special/house rules, and perhaps even a custom scenario to reflect Gosiewski's historical mission.

First game of Pikeman's Lament

Unfortunately, I was too busy making sure we got the rules more-or-less right to take pictures or put together a proper report. But my opponent managed to get a nice picture at the end of the first turn.

I played the Cossack/Tatar side, and lost pretty handily. Commanded Shot aren't much good out in the open...

Mohawk in action

Hey all, I was gonna post something about my Adepticon battle, but the organizer posted a better report than I ever could. Go check it out!

Halloweekend 2016 pics

The weekend before Halloween I had some friends over for a bit of historical/horror Mordheim. Warbands from all over Europe had been pursuing witches and vampires, and all the monsters had converged on a remote Carpathian town for unknown, but presumably dire, purpose. The hunters formed a makeshift alliance, and assaulted the village from all directions to cleanse the evil gathered within.

Playtesting my rules

Hey, remember that Pike & Shotte supplement I wrote, with lists for Cossacks, Tatars and Muscovites? The fine folks over at Wargame Amateur decided to give them a test run. And even though they only played a couple games so far, they answered one of the biggest questions I had: I was worried that the Gun Shy rule might be too debilitating for Tatars, but apparently that is not the case.

Thanks guys!

Be vewwy vewwy quiet, I'm hunting witches...

Pan Blaszkowicz and his men didn't dare repeat the story of their vampire encounter at the derelict village, or at least, not while sober. But the strange smoky-green gem pieces, some bearing fragments of Latin text, demanded an explanation, and a fair market valuation if at all possible. The hussar made inquiries among noblemen, jewellers, and scholars of his acquaintance, and was eventually advised, in hushed tones with the curtains drawn, to see a certain Jan in the city of Kraków. Blaszkowicz and his men set out on their journey, unaware that their drunken tale-telling and furtive research had attracted the attention of another monster, albeit a much more human one...

Spending the night on a small farm on the way to Kraków, the Polish adventurers were ambushed by the belligerent witch-hunter Laird Tregowdy and his grim Calvinist henchmen. Surrounded by musketeers and archers, the Poles prepared to fight their way out, or face execution for their ill-defined but presumably quite grievous sins...

Poles at the farmstead

Laird Tregowdy leads from behind

face-off

Mordheim Monster Mash

Well, my costume was pretty much finished Friday night, so I needed to find another spooky diversion to last until Halloween. Fortunately, Mordheim is the spookiest, so I wrote up some warbands and brought up a small table and set it up for a quick solo game. Although, to be frank, I don't have enough terrain to really get the proper effect.

These warbands are completely book legal, although some of the other ones that might show up later have been slightly house-ruled to fit my collection.

Pan Blaszkowicz and his men were exploring an abandoned village. Leaving his musketeers and their sergeant in the village, to provide covering fire if needed, he went to investigate the church ruins with his loyal pancerni comrades. But once they left the relative safety of the village walls, the forces of evil attacked.