Workshop's Back Open

I finally made my Saving Throw against X-COM.   I'm still not finished with it, but have broken it's evil soul-consuming spell, and can actually get myself on the hobby trail again.

Next week I'm going to get started with miniatures and maybe models again.  Since I've been thinking about Traveller, I decided to get a few miniatures in the Traveller realm,   One set I've ordered are some armed guys in Space Suits from Victory Forge,  they have a lot of other space crew (not at all Star Trek rip-offs) that look fun, but I decided to order only 1 blister so I can see if their size plays well with the size of the sci-fi miniatures I've already got.

Another interesting thing is that I've always avoided certain published adventures and connected themes, because I don't have any miniatures that are appropriate for the Traveller alien race called the Droyne.

The Droyne are a winged, reptilian race who although they don't posses a star-spanning empire are nonetheless an important part of the Trav universe.

Here's an image:

I asked around the old geezers in Traveller fandom and they pointed me to these figures, re-casts by RAFM of old Citadel 15mm  Droyne

They are now called "Dracos" for license reasons.   Their wings are very stubby, but I sort of consider that a bonus, since miniatures with wings are usually a pain in the schwartz.   They're also 15mm, when most of my miniatures are 25mm, but that isn't too much of an issue in this case, since Droyne are supposed to be really small, hobbit or gnome size I guess.   Well, I bough 20 of them (15mm are much more reasonably priced as well).

Neither order has arrived yet, but I have various monkey men and flying monkeys, and model buildings and vehicles to work on in the mean time.  \\

Since I'm taking the family up to State College on Saturday, and we have our ACKS game on Sunday, I won't get around to actual fiddling until Monday, but I'm getting geared up.

I have been poking around with Traveller materials, re-reading adventures (published and home-made) looking at the last campaign materials.  Man, I still have a really good, complete set of NPC cards for employees, separated by function (mercenaries, ship crew etc).   I made up 2 more ==Pedro Gonzales and Henry Spacely to get my beak wet again.  

I think the rules set we were using (Classic Traveller with the Striker game personal combat and Mayday game ship combat woven in) should work just fine.  I'm thinking of adding a few minor rules changes but nothing big.

Work Bad, XCOM good

I did get the XCOM Board Game in the mail yesterday.  I haven't really looked at it yet.  But, I had to have it, because XCOM!


I'm spending entirely too much time playing XCOM: Long War.


I'm on game #4.   Game #1 was more or less a test game, trying things out.   Games #2 and #3 I ending up quitting at about the same spot.   The game begins in March and those games I ended up quitting at the end of September when I just got overwhelmed.


It's now the end of July in Game #4.   This time I've kept my barracks staffed to a higher level, so hopefully I won't get into a position where all my guys are fatigued or in the hospital and I can't win any missions anymore.   My air-war interceptions still suck, and my research is about the same.


However, this game I am finally working on MEC cybernetic troopers, so hopefully that will help stiffen my squads by the time the bad guys toughen up even more in September.




Video Let's Play:   I've been watching 2 different Let's Play series for XCOM long war.  The first is a Canadian guy called Northern Lion.  He's more entertaining, but his skill level is actually a little worse than mine.  He quit both his campaigns earlier than I did.   The second is an Australian called Beagle Rush.   He is super-duper good at this game.   This is probably because he dithers constantly.  His episodes take forever and sometimes I want to scream---I would have taken the shot, lost the mission and been on to the next one hours ago, just SHOOT.

A competitive campaign

 Although I don't see the current ACKS game ending in the near future, I am thinking about what is next.   I thought it might be fun to divide the players into 2 opposing teams and have them work at cross purposes.


The wrangling and resource management would be handled like a board game between sessions with the referee choosing the best confrontation to work up as the game for the session.


It could be another medieval sort of game, or a sci-fi or even a gangster or pulp-era game.


Whatever we do, I think I'd like to have less huge magic effects and a flatter power curve over all in the next game.   Maybe even a little less than Savage Worlds.

I am a success at life

Back on November 7th, I put forth my plan concerning the Crusades "Battle of Dorylaeum" project:


"My plan is to start working up the rules now, while the figures slowly start to trickle in.  And then start painting and basing figures from now through New Years.   Hopefully, I can get the project more or less finished by January sometime.   I'd like to run the battle a few times at home for play test purposes, and then finally haul it into school and run it as an afterschool event after mid-term exams are done.   If it goes well, I might even do it twice."


As of last night, I have accomplished all my goals.   I finished the armies by about New Year's.  I ran a game at home to test the rules.   And last night I played it at school with some school kids.   And I had one more unexpected victory, the whole thing fits into the box I bought for it.   I made up a fast-play version of the rules for school, and it did speed things up a bit, we got 4 whole turns in in 2 hours, instead of 2, and we got a pretty good game out of it.   It did turn out to be a tie, with each team scoring 5 points (2 for each kill, 1 for each stand fleeing off the board).  A good time was had by all.


It's nice to plan something and completely execute it, on time and to a satisfactory conclusion.   I may run the game again at home sometime, and maybe again at school, but that is all just gravy at this point.


Winning.

No Work, XCOM

Since I finished my Crusaders project, I haven't post much on Doctor Skull's Workshop, since I haven't been doing much "work."   I haven't done any painting since then or building.   I do have some things on the horizon.   I still haven't played the Crusades game with the school kids, but I'm thinking of giving it a go next week.  


I have a lot of models to build.   There's a medieval fortress, a frontier church, and a barn all of which might go well with fantasy campaigns or with some sort of modernish game.


I also have an assortment of WW2 light vehicles.   I'm thinking of doing some sort of modern or sci-fi or pulp-type project and have a bunch of modern plastics that would go with those vehicles.


Most of my time lately, however is back to playing XCOM.  Two winters ago I played a lot of XCOM Enemy Unknown.  Last winter it was the expansion XCOM Enemy Within.  But, then my X-box broke.   After failing to fix it, Katie and I went 50/50 on an X-box One, but then found out it doesn't play X-box 360 games, and XCOM isn't available for X-box One (I know too many Xes).


Then I remembered that our family laptop is pretty new and thought it could handle the PC version of XCOM, and sure enough it did.   I played a campaign of Enemy Unknown, and found out that there was a super-awesome Mod for Enemy Within called "Long War."   So I got that all downloaded and fired-up.   I must say that Long War is really fantastic.   It fixes many of the limitations of Enemy Within, more classes, better choices of equipment, more soldiers on the field at a time, more interesting interceptor combat.  It also makes the campaign less predictable and linear, and more sand-boxy, much like the original X-COM UFO Defense from the 90's.   Good stuff.

The Prophet is Outraged (Dorylaum Battle Report)

On Thursday night,  my brother Alan, as the Turks, and Charles "Brother Punchy" Fleurie squared off in my miniatures battle test of the Battle of Dorylaeum (First Crusades 1096 AD).   As my super-awesome cartoon illustrates, the Turks were soundly beaten in the turns we managed to get finished.

Here's a picture of the set-up:

The crusaders are in the center and the Turks to top, and the small group to the lower left.   The retinues of Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders surged forward and wiped out Ghazi ibn Dansihmend's shadowing force on the bottle left.   Tancred's cavalry surged forward and engaged Sultan Arslan's guards on the left-top.   Tancred was almost eliminated but managed to hang on by a thread.   On the top right, an archery duel broke out that saw some of the turks flee, and one unit of Peter the Hermit's pilgrims eliminated.  Duke Godfrey's reinforcements appeared on the right, and the Turkish infantry was sent marching off to meet them.

     The count was 2 Turkish stands fled off the board, and 4 Turkish stands destroyed (10 points), vs. 1 Crusader stand eliminated (2 points).   Things would probably evened up a bit if we had had more time to play.   My camera failed after the above shot, and Chuck didn't send me the pictures he tried to take.




Lessons Learned:  I needed some clearer rules about how much space was required for troop stands to move through, and how to handle an ongoing melee involving a large number of stands from different retinues.   Other than that, I really liked how the combat unfolded.  Alan said that he'd prefer a hex grid to measuring tape, but non disputandum de gustibus.  However, it seems like to do the battle properly, it would require something more like our usual 4-6 hour session rather than the 2 hours we had.   This also leads me to think that I'll probably have to come up with some simplified quick-play rules for when I take it to school.  I think I'll try to have a full version of the battle at home in February sometime too.

Crusades Project Complete

It's all done.   First I painted the tents.

After that I decided to make the canvas battle mat in more of a map-style, rather that a scenery style:

It all fits in the box and everything.