Our War Against the Plague Episode 2

Our war against the Plague – Episode 2

March 18, 1152 AD
We spent a month recovering physically and mentally from our ghastly adventure into Einstadt. Our first encounter with the Necromancers and their Legions of Walking Dead had taught us much about the Plague which has befallen our land.
Taking the passing of two comets across the night sky as an omen of pending doom, we felt it necessary to venture out and once more seek to bring an end to the Plague.
Silas the 2nd insisted on joining with the now veteran party of Clovis, Nelly, Ann, Baldric, and Samson. We only hope that his skill with a bow is as great, and fate not as cruel, as was the first Silas.

The adventurers, having received rumors of a mysterious Black Book, quietly snuck into the narrow streets of Schwarzesbuch.

At first the lanes and alleys appeared quiet as the group sought entry into the Wachtturm where rumors reported the Tome was guarded. But they struggled to find access points to the tower.
Almost too late did they realize that the narrow streets had funneled the wandering hordes of walking dead towards them.

As before, when the scary large Sergeants of the Necromancers' armies appeared, only Samson could bar their passage. Half the group sought to fend off the lesser horrors and to protect Samson's back.
Others fought their way into neighboring shacks hoping to find passage and weapons which would help in this fight. Individuals became separated and isolated by hordes of walking dead.

The battled ebbed and flowed, as waves of undead crashed against the party and were smashed. Heavy blows and flights of bolts temporarily stemmed the tide. Many fell bite was turned by leather and metal coats of armor. And Great swords slew countless minions.
Finally, Silas made a rush for the main entrance hall. And it almost proved fatal. Young Silas, standing at the door, discovered he had more enthusiasm than brain, lacking any tool capable of opening the large wooden door. Ann and Nelly covered his hasty retreat to safety.

Nelly was next to rush the door, slaying a pair of sprinting zombies, and gaining entry. Ann and Silas worked to keep the crossroad clear, as Samson was able to join Nelly in clearing the final passage into the Wachtturm.

It was then that Ann, wielding a great sword was betrayed by her coat of armor and a spell of invisibility. Overwhelmed by an uncountable swarm of walking dead, she fell giving young Silas a chance at living to see another day.

Nelly and Samson, having heard Ann's final cries of defiance, made short work of the creatures guarding the Black Book. They quickly rejoined the remaining adventures and ran from Schwarzesbuch.

Another blow against the Plague had been struck. But again the price of victory bore a cost of adventurer blood. Ann would be missed. The next Necromancer will surely meet a swift and vengeful.

L'Art De La Guerre Rome vs Gaul

Over the last 25 years we have played the all WRG, DBM, Armati, Warrior, Might of Arms, FOG, and many more. Since most FOG players have switched to L'Art De La Guerre (ADLG), we decided that our group should give it a shot. How better to try out ancients rules than with a classic Rome versus Gauls match up. Many systems such as FOG failed at this great match up. We decided to use 200 point armies as that seems pretty standard from USA tournaments and events. We did not setup a pretty board for our Playtest but at the last second I decided to take a few pictures and capture our thoughts.


The Roman general in the center surveys the Gauls in front of his veteran legions.

The lines clash. We enjoyed the speed of movement as it gave a very dynamic exciting flow.

Medium cavalry lock horns on the right flank.

Roman heavy cavalry and lights desperately try to hold the left while the legions do the butchers work in the center.

The Gauls are breaking through!

Just as both Roman wings fail the Gauls lose their leader and several units in the center and the Gauls have had enough.

The final score was Rome losing 7/20 and the Gauls 30/26. The game was much closer and could easily have gone either way. Both of us agreed ALDG passed the test and will be played again. The way combat, command, movement, and morale were handled had the best of many of the other systems. We will definitely be playing again and we might work up a post comparing the systems.

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Our War Against the Plague

Zombicide Black Plague

Our war against the Plague

January 23, 1152 AD

We weren't sure what was amiss when the Baron of Einstadtmarched off with his army to battle some distant foe beyond the Mosel. But when no word came of a glorious victory, and none of the army returned after many weeks, we began to wonder what was afoot.

Then, on February 21st, our fears became real. Rumors of a  horrible host wiping entire villages off the map had been heard. But today, a bloodied blacksmith from Einstadt staggered into our village. He spoke of legions of walking corpses led by ghastly cloaked priests ravaging Einstadt. Ripping the living to pieces, sparing none. 

We quickly realized that swift action was needed if our village was to be saved. Six of our most hardy folk volunteered to hasten to Einstadt. Clovis, Silas, Nelly, Ann, Baldric, and Samson geared up and immediately set off.

February 22, 1152 AD

Our Champions reached Einstadt. In order to cover as much ground as possible, they split into two groups.

Two things became immediately apparent. Gaining entry to buildings were survivors or better weapons might be, would be very difficult as the oak doors seemed ever more stout than our tools. And secondly, corpses were indeed roaming the streets unchallenged.

Upon gaining entry to the nearest guard shack, Clovis was confronted by a fatty oaf of a walking dead sergeant of the guard. Clovis' short sword was no match for this demon. 

But fortunately Samson was able to fell the creature with a mighty blow from his hammer.

The plan to split up and search the town unraveled quickly. The swarms of walking dead made passage down the streets dangerous. And many of the dead were massive, and could only be smashed by the might of Samson and his hammer. Many of the group were taking minor wounds as they fought to gain ground.

Silas, while a skilled bowman and slayer of many walking dead, was taken by surprise as he searched a strange alchemist's room.A foul priest struck him down from behind.

Things looked very bleak at that time. A tremendous Abomination had been roaming the street, driving us like cattle towards our doom. We knew that even Samson, slayer of fatties, could not withstand that terror. Better weapons would be needed. Our frantic searches of the armories must grant us a prize soon, our the party was doomed.

Secret vaults were found and searched. They yielded great weapons, but not mighty enough to fell the Abomination. 

Then, finally luck came to Clovis and Nelly as they searched the last gate room. A vial of dragon bile was discovered. All that remained was to lure that abomination into a trap. 

As the swarms grew in number, the lumbering abomination finally stepped into the trap. With a touch of flame, the dragon bile erupted in flame and devoured the creature.

We were saved. We fought our way out of the village and headed home with hard earned knowledge about the foe we faced. We knew we had not ended the plague, having only bought time for us to prepare for the next encounter. In addition to that horrible Abomination and many a Fatty, several of the foul priests had also fallen to our swords. The Plague masters would require time to regain their strength. As would we.

Flames of War in Dallas/Ft. Worth

Flames of War gamers in the DFW area are very fortunate indeed. The area currently has a LW league with 26 players, an EW league with 14 players, and 8 more are committed to the Firestorm Caen campaign starting in November. We also have monthly Vietnam and Fate of a Nation multiplayer games.

I'm enjoying my Finnish forces in the EW league. I'll post an AAR of next game but until then here are some beauties I bought from CGR and Russ Levy. Their stuff is always top notch.

I am very excited about my new 101st Airborne and LW British Paras as well. My next post will focus on my Firestorm Caen list and games.

Enjoy the hobby and hopefully your dice are hot.

Ronin - Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai

Overview
Ronin is a set of skirmish rules for miniature battles in 16th century feudal Japan. Models represent individuals that move and fight independently; there is no unit/squad structure as in some 'skirmish' games like Saga. Each player controls a force, or Buntai, of between 4 and 20 figures. Ronin is historically accurate, with a few cinematic elements from classics like the Seven Samurai. It stops short of the over-the-top action from movies like 13 Assassins, but it would be easy enough to add some of those elements to the game with house rules.

The starter sets from North Star are 200 points and consist of  8-10 figures. A small 100 pt battle can be fought to completion in 30 minutes on a 2' x 2'. The recommended size for a standard 200pt game is 3' x 3' and should not take more than an hour. 

Format

The rules are available in both pdf and softback. Production values are great for the price - the softback is $13 on Amazon. I am not a big fan of the cover, but there is a decent selection of Osprey art on the interior. My one real complaint is with the layout. New army lists start an inch from the bottom of pages, and new rule sections begin without any real breaks or delineation. With the wide selection of art available to Osprey, it seems like they could have structured things a little better.

Force Lists

Army lists are provided for a wide variety of forces. Bushi, Bandits, Warrior-Monks, Martial-Arts schools, and even Peasants. Each of these can add extra figures from the Swords-for-Hire section like Ronin or Ninjas. The types of models available to each list are drastically different. A Bushi list can choose to have nothing but Samurai, each of whom are at least as skilled as the commander of a Bandit list! The lists detail the troop types available as well as options for their equipments and abilities. The forces have unique special rules, morale levels, and methods of earning/losing victory points.  

The composition rules could be a little clearer. For some lists, they felt like logic problems: the number of rank 1 and rank 2 figures must be greater than the number of rank 3 or higher figures, if any rank 1 or 2 figures are included. (I'm pretty sure that is a quote from one of the six bullet points on Bushi forces.)

The inclusion of lists for other time periods was a nice touch. If you want to fight battles with Mongols, Koreans, or later Westernized Japanese forces you have everything you need. Rules are given for special training and equipment available in those periods.

Gameplay

The sequence of play is divided into five phases: Priority, Movement, Combat, Action, and End. 

Priority Phase - Initiative is determined, and morale checks are taken when necessary. 
Movement Phase - Players alternate moving or shooting with each of their models. 
Combat Phase - Each melee is resolved. Players alternate choosing which battles to fight.
Action Phase - Models are allowed to shoot again and take other miscellaneous actions like reloading, looting, and resting.
End Phase - Models check to see if they recover from being stunned.

• Movement, morale, and shooting are similar to most games. 
• Alternating one figure at a time instead of one player doing all of their moves and attacks before the other makes for good interaction. 
• Non-killing wounds are possible on the lowliest peasant, but even the mightiest samurai can be struck down by one lucky strike. 
• Melee is a back and forth strike, parry, counterstrike between the engaged models. (see below)

The most unique aspect of Ronin is the use of attack and defense chits to resolve melee. Models get between one and seven combat chits based on their skill level and special abilities. These can be used to increase the chance to strike first, make attacks, or parry. Deciding which chits to use is a neat twist. When the combatants are both very low level it often boils down to each making a single attack like in other games, but skilled fighters can decide between playing it safe or attempting to make multiple attacks.   

Other Stuff

In addition to the rules and army lists, the book contains a selection of scenarios, basic campaign mechanics, and recommendations for tournament games. The scenarios are pretty basic, but have good flavor. My favorite pits one force against a band of Ninja assasins whose sole aim is to kill their commander. The campaign section isn't very robust, but is a decent starting place. I expect to see homebrew ideas springing up online.

Recap

This is not a set of rules that would be worth picking up for background material or historical information. The book is very bare bones. If you are interested in that aspect, pick up one of Osprey's tradional books on the period.

Overall, the rules are concise and well written. You can be ready to play in just a few minutes, and it is very easy to teach to new players. I don't think Ronin is a game that will inspire many people to buy and paint minis, but if you have some old lead laying around I'd highly recommend grabbing a copy. The small cost in money and time is well worth it to have an excuse to blow the dust off your samurai and get them on the table a few times.