Just in time StuGs

Finished just before leaving for a holliday trip, these Flames of War StuGs are my first air brushed models. I camouflaged the more or less acceptable camouflage with mud and some snow, in line with my Waffen SS panzergrenadiers..

Feedback is welcome, holliday even more :-)

BTB: Avalanche

BTB: Avalanche

In previous posts on Mordheim I mentioned the fact that we started a new Border Town Burning campaign. In the posts it is not recognizable as such so we added the BTB prefix here. I believe the tagging is still correct. Next to posting on BTB campaign games the score board on this blog is restored and no w reflects the current status of all participating warbands for the new campaign.

This weekend we played with 5 participants and of course this situation was not accounted for. We already played 5 player multi battle for the campaign, but always multiplayer battles is not really in keeping with the BTB campaign set. We have to address the available scenario here and there. In order to this we split up in a 2- and a 3-player battle. I ended up with the 2-player battle and our scenario was rolled: Avalanche. The other 3 rolled the Manhunt(?) scenario that by chance can be played multiplayer quit easily.  We installed on 1 big table and split up the scenery and started playing.

With the table split in 2, this left us with a smaller playing area than usual. Not too bad and with a small adaption to the advancement of the avalanche (1D6 inch iso 2D6 inch) this was a really cool and enjoyable scenario. We built up scenery with a lot of snowcovered pine trees and some ruins to the side reflecting the mountainous area of the northern wastes. After a lot of city battles this was a nice change for once.

As said I played against only the 1 opponent and this was our much respected Carnival of Chaos player with “Papa Noigal's fingers”.  Both warbands are at the opposite ends of the spectrum for experience. Pappa Noigal and its followers only just started and my Marienburg Mercenaries were battle hardened for a long time. This resulted in a big underdog position for Carnivale. It’s good to see that system working for once. In the end it gained Pappa Noigal a lot of experience and a big step to catch up with some of the longer playing warbands in this campaign.

The scenery set up gave a good feeling of winter and the avalanche started to advance and the game commenced! My strategy was to delay some of the Carnivale members with a sacrificial ninja gnoblar to get them all covered under the avalanche. However the game thought otherwise . The avalanche only progressed relatively slowly and I got a lot more warband members cought up in hand2hand combat. The marksman in my band was trying to get a good position in the woods to start sniping of rival warband members, taking care not to come too close to an edge. With his blackpowder weapon he might trigger an extra avalanche or two and these are unpredictable! In the end the marksmen didn’t fire a shot the entire game: aarrgh! He moved and moved and moved out of the way of the moving avalanche and then saw all his targets move behind some snowcovered trees or buildings walls. His game was only to keep the Carnivale moving I suppose.

The dwarfs in my warband were moving slowly out of the range of the moving avalanche only just outrunning the thing. They didn’t get much fighting either.

The Ogre bodyguard however was getting caught up in huge fight and was only relieved from the pressure when the mercenary captain joined the fray with his brace of duelling pistols. Luckily no extra avalanche was triggered by shooting his guns and the Ogre finished the resulting fighters. OK, he had a little help from my witch that after some tries cast “The dust of the blind” on one of the Strongmans that are part of the Carnivale.

The ogre remained caught in battle with a small Nurgling that for 3 turns kept the Ogre busy. The rest of the Carnivale warband was now thinned down a bit an route tests started. Pappa Noigal was cold as ice and didn’t budge but in the saw a wall of snow and ice coming his way and thought better of the situation, fleeing the field, leaving the victory to the Marienburgers.

In the end I think both sides gained a lot from this battle result. The Carnivale gaining 4 extra experience points per surviving warband member (in the end all but one survived!) and progressed nicely with new skills and characteristics increases. My Marienburgers gained an extra campaign point, they tried poisoning some of Pappa Noigal’s fingers but these nurgle powers prevented poisoning just as easy. There was a chance of getting more CP’s but this is nice for now, increased some characteristics here and there as well so all in all the Marienburgers did good.

Actually the best of this Avalanche scenario was the scenario. We really had the feel of the setting in the snow with an avalanche approaching, getting out of the way of all the snow and ice and trying to trap the opponent in the mounds of snow with the occasional fight. The fact my marksman didn’t get a shot fired was due to the fact he had to move to keep in front of the snow and everyone else moving as well. He needed to be able to predict moves and find a good sniper spot but didn’t get a chance in all the fray. We really got a feel for the border town burning setting. Exploring in the end left us with all kinds of borderland equipment found.

Let me finish by saying it was a great game.

6 player Mordheim

Our gaming Group consists of about 8 people playing several different gaming systems. We started with the border town burning campaign and most gaming nights a max. Of 4 people can attend the gaming session. No problem since the campaign system provides the right mechanism to cope with this. However the other night a total of 6 players applied and actually turned up for gaming night! Now what! Multiplayer scenario’s are cool but 6-player is taking long turns and how do they all interact? Headaches all over the places.

Fortunately mister Akrimpen and I were running our weekly km’s and during these runs we come up with the best game systems you can dream of. Usually we forget them when finished running (probably only during the runners high you can conceive these brilliant ideas) but now we noted them down and confused our fellow gamers with this system.

The system
The 6-way Mordheim system is loosely based on the Triumph&Treachery ruleset for WHFB. We came up with a turn system based on playing cards. Each turn the cards define an alliance and a turn sequence. A set of 6 cards is needed with the suits defining the alliance (2 of each) and the numbers define the turn sequence. Each suite has a high and a low number (for example: 6 Clubs and Ace Clubs, 5 harts and 2 harts, etc.). Highest number goes first and then along the numbers.
First turn:  the cards are dealt randomly. After the first turn the player who went last (the Ace) gets the 6 cards and may choose the first card, then the player before him, etc. Now you can choose/guess your alliance but also determine the order of play (when you want your warband to have its turn). At the start of the turn all cards are revealed and the alliances are shown. If for some reason you are in H2H combat with your alliance partner at the start of the H2H combat phase the members are set 1 inch apart.

Scenario

Our scenario was fairly simple: 1 artefact in the middle and all warbands equal distances from the centre in 12 inch bubbles at the edge of the field. A more or less city playing field with a big plaza in the centre (lots of room for the big battle. Preferable a plaza with 4 entry gates and further fenced off.
Goal of the scenario is to get the artefact off the table. Only a hero can pick up the artefact standing next to it for 1 turn. If multiple heroes stand next to the artefact for 1 turn and you want to make a move first do a strength check to see if you can take the artefact and run. If not, you remain standing.
The rest of the battlefield has 6 weirdstone shards to pick. Just moving aside a shard, you can pick it up and continue your move.

Win conditions the usual (winning leader +1XP, surviving hero + 1XP, +1 CP playing the scenario, etc.) but we added the following conditions:

+1 CP winning warband alliance (both allied warbands get this even if 1 warband member got the artefact, this makes working together more interesting)

+1XP for the hero who got the artefact of the table

Battlereport

So far the scenario! Now for the batllereport, did it all go as planned and how good was this system!??

The 6 warbands were: Marienburg mercenaries, Beastmen, Carnival of chaos, Marauder horsemen, Ogres and Witchhunters.

The game started of with the beastmen running towards the artefact and the beastman shaman actually flying its first turn and landing on the artefact. A quick start here! The other warbands moved tactically towards the middle. Immediately it was clear the Ogres were more going for the weirdstone and the Marauders leaving their spawn alone to hunt Mercenaries.
The next turn the beastmen were shot at heavily, taking some losses and the shaman was taken out, no direct retreat move with the artefact here. The mercenaries positioned themselves with shooters in a tower and they let a hired Ogre bodyguard make a run for the artefact. Meanwhile the beastmen were picked of by the carnival of chaos, while withchunters were stalking some Ogres.
Next turns made it clear that the Ogres were only leaving with weirdstone if they were lucky and in their haste of retreating one Ogre fell of a ledge tripping his foot and crashing down heavily taking it out of action. Marauder horsemen were not faring too greatly being heavily outnumbered here. Only 3 on horse entered the fray letting the Spawn take on a Dwarf warrior.
At this point route tests were taking its toll and the playing field rapidly became more empty. The Ogre stood its ground and was apparently scary enough to start walking with the artefact. By now turn 6 arrived and the scenario ended, letting the Marienburgers have the victory and the artefact.

Awesome game in retrospect. The game system with the cards worked like a charm and all players were busy scheming to go first or last and plotting alliances they (might) get each turn. This time we played without weather rules and random events (BTB ruleset) since with 6 players the turns were already long enough. We had good fun and a lot of game in games were played (some going for weirdstone, some fighting out personal vendettas and some going for the artefact). Good clean fun I’d say.