The Struggle With Deckplans

For combats on starships, having a printed, large-scale deckplan of the ship is very handy and generally useful.   

The printer/copier I have in the basement had a button on it that you could set for "poster" and during the last campaign, I printed out a usable large-scale deckplan for a 100-ton scout and a 400-ton merchant vessel.   I haven't been able to find those plans yet, and the printer I believe has given up the ghost at last.

I tried using 2 on-line programs that allow you to make Tile Posters.   However, they came out too blurry.  However, it may be because I used an image of a deckplan from Google images and the image might have been poor quality to begin with.

I was more successful by photocopying a deckplan of a System Defence Boat, cutting it into sections 2 inch by 2.5 inches and then photocopying each section at 4 times magnification, making each section 8x10, perfect for a standard sheet of paper with a border.   I then trimmed it and taped it together.  It is eminently useful.   The only downside is that I would have to do it at work, since the working copier/printer I have at home doesn't seem to have a magnify/zoom feature. 

If anyone has a simpler and equally cost efficient way of making tile posters or blowing up copies from a PDF, I'd like to hear it.

Traveller Aliens

I've put up some information about the Simioids in a previous post and on the LOH Traveller wiki.    That's really not a huge issue for integration in the Official Trav universe, since various uplifted species are present in small numbers (there may even be official uplifted apes somewhere).

I also added our old friends the Span-Kee and Mavorians to the mix over at the wiki.  It's not too much of a stretch to figure that the Zhodani might have a few allied minor races, especially psionic ones.

I guess I should explain Minor/Major Races in Traveller.    A species that invented Jump Drive all on its own is called a Major Race.  The Major Races include 3 sub-species of humans:  The Vilani, The Zhodani and the Solomanni (i.e Earthmen);  also the Vargr (dog-men), Aslan (lion-men), K'kree (a centaur-like race), Hivers (weird octopus-like aliens) and the Droyne (small flying winged lizard-like guys).   All the major races have their own space empires except the Droyne who exist only on scattered planets across the galaxy.  The Imperium the players live in is most a mixture of Vilani and Solomani humans, with a huge number of minor races here and there.    In the corner of the galaxy we are playing, we will likely encounter Zhodani, Vargr and Droyne, but it is vary unlikely that we'll see K'kree or Hivers, who are on the other side of the empire.

I left the Aslan off the list.  They have colonies nearby, but they are the ones I'd like to change.   Instead of a race of Klingon-like Lion men,  I think I'd prefer to change them into a coalition of various reptilian and amphibian type aliens.  For one thing, I have lizardmen aplenty in miniature, but only like 3 lion men.  For another thing, what's more fun than blasting space lizards?  I know it sounds pretty weak sauce, but I guess the Aslan always seemed super-lame to me.

Card Stock Models for Traveller Campaign

The following site has some neat-looking card-stock models (it looks like they're free) of vehicles from movies and TV shows that might be totally excellent for Traveller


Dave's Designs

Here are a few pictures:

#1  an ATV from "Captain Scarlet"

#2 An ATV from "UFO"

A hover cop car from "Fifth Element"
There are many, many more, including just about any Batmobile you might imagine.

Haven't tried them yet, but they look pretty cool

Assembling the Sky Mall

I'm assembling/editing the SKY MALL (i.e., Gear Book) for the Traveller campaign.   It's basically a re-edit of the Rhylanor Express book, but I've re-done the armor names and progression a little bit, and changed some of the weapon data in a minor fashion.

I'm having a few bouts of indecision here and there on a few issues.  

Melee Weapons:  Traveller has always had and used melee weapons, in fact the Marine career gets "Cutlass" skill as a free skill at enlistment, rather than any sort of gun skill.   There aren't any super advanced "vibro-blades" or "energy knives" or anything else, just plane old knives and swords.  I don't know whether to add a few of high tech sci-fi type blades in.    Regular weapons are plenty dangerous most of the time, unless the targets are in Combat Armor or Battle-Dress, which should not be a common event outside of a high-powered mercenary game.  On the other hand, COOL TOYS!.

Weird Weapons:   I'm also wavering about adding some additional experimental, weird or rare weapons.    On the one hand, I'm thinking that shoving all the weapons I possibly can into the Sky Mall--things like the Insidious Face Melter-- might be Hella-cool, on the other hand, there's much to be said for the Sky Mall book is just for the commonly found items, and the weird stuff should pop up as surprises during play.

Metagame Mechanisms for Traveller

The Traveller combat rules we're going to use are based on the Traveller Boardgame called "Mayday" for ship combat using Classic Traveller ships, and on the Traveller miniatures game called "Striker" for ground combat.   But since we're porting them into the role-playing realm, I think it would be good to add a few meta-game (i.e., non-simulationist) features to up the heroics and lessen the lethality a bit.  

Now, I don't want the lethality totally nerfed.   I find that when there's no real risk the fun drops out of the game entirely.   In fact, I'd prefer a lot more "dead" to a lot more "critically injured and out of action" on the whole.

Anyway here are some ideas:

XP for Damage Saving Throws:
I touched on this in a previous post, but after some thought, I think this is the scheme I like:
        To reduce the Wound Effect (Dead/Destroyed to Serious Wound, or Serious Wound to Light Wound for example)  1 XP for 25% chance, 2XP for 50%, 3XP for 75% for the reduction to take place.

XP for Re-roll
Spend 1 XP to re-roll 1 skill roll or ability check that you yourself need to roll.

END SCENE NOW
On majority vote of the players, once per game session, the players can cash in the "END SCENE NOW" card to end an encounter--this of course won't allow them to get something they don't have in their hands, but might allow them to escape while running away with a stolen item  etc.

AWESOME STUNT WAGER
Once per session, each player can call for an awesome stunt wager.  He describes an awesome stunt and what he intends to accomplish by the stunt.  The GM then proposes an evenly disadvantageous result for a failure of that stunt.   If the player accepts the wager, both the player and GM rolls 1d6.  If the player rolls higher, he wins and the stunt is successful and he gains the benefit.  If the GM rolls higher, the stunt fails and the player suffers the consequence.   If the rolls are a tie, the GM must raise the stakes by about twice and they re-roll.

XP System for Traveller idea

EXPERIENCE POINT SYSTEM

One notable feature of Classic Traveller was the absence of any experience point or other sort of adventure-based skill advancement. The only way to improve your character was by training, which was long, slow, uncertain and didn't reward adventuring. Most of the many, many, many subsequent versions of Traveller had some sort of adventure based experience point system included. I used a version of one of them in the Rhylanor Express campaign, but was a bit dissatisfied with it and would like to try another.

Here's the basic scheme: each adventure, each PC gets a number of XP based on a schedule something like this:

Showing up and playing: 1 XP

Achieving the main goal of the session: +1 XP

No serious wounds or deaths on your side: +1 XP

Making a profit for the session: +1 XP

Voted MVP +1 XP

Voted “Hard Luck Charlie”: +1 XP

These XP can be spent as follows:

Converting a level 0 skill to level 1 2XP

Converting a level 1 skill to level 2 4XP

Converting a level 2 skill to level 3 9XP

Converting a level 3 skill to level 4 16 XP

Converting a level 4 skill to level 5 25XP

Converting a level 5 skill to level 6 36 XP

Increasing an ability score by 1 point 12XP

Re-roll a die in an adventure session 1 XP

The last is sort of a base place-holder, I'm thinking of letting people use XP in some fashion like Bennies are used in Savage Worlds.

I'm looking for some feed-back, suggestions etc on this whole process.

Traveller NPC cards

I decided to make a deck of NPC's for Traveller awhile.   I already have plenty of employee/henchmen cards, but thought that Andrew's scheme of having the pictures of NPC's would be particularly useful for Traveller.   In fact, since a Traveller character stat block is very simple, just a list of ability scores, in a quick format, and a list of skills, I could get the entire stat block onto the picture card.   I started by making 1 for each of the 36 types of "patrons" listed on the patron encounter chart.

Actually, I think that the picture cards will be even more useful for Traveller than they are for ACKS, since at high level, most NPC's are largely irrelevant to the players, while in Traveller they are constantly important.   One of the things I like about Traveller is the fact that the PC's are really any different than the NPC's around them, and there isn't a huge difference between a character's innate power in the first session and the last.

Here are two examples:

#1 Gleep-Glorp the Spanky, doing research for groin called shots:

Here's #2:  Rutherford St. Cool, galactic playboy

Backlog Continued

A squad of Saxon slingers

An owlbear

Some familiars

Operation Backlog

Most of my new sci-fi miniatures have arrived, but I wanted to try to clear my backlog of old lead before charging into the new stuff (or else old lead never gets painted).  So, I've gotten through enough of them so that I can proceed with my newer stuff without feeling like a hoarder.  The only things in my back up box are those plastic Viking spearmen (who I may try to get rid of, as I really don't need them), and some snake-men, which I think Jason gave me (no guilt involved if I didn;t buy them).

I had one disaster in the process.   When I was bringing in the primed and assembled historicals from the car-hole, I dropped them on the floor, shattering much of the assembly work (I never did find one of the lances and some of the bases are still cracked).

Anyway, here are the results:

3 mounted knights from the 1400's

4 mounted knights from the 1200's

A byzantine emperor and his retinue

Long Delayed floor plan project

Many, many years ago Andrew gave me a bunch of floor-plan blue-print type thingies (not actually blue) which I believe were made by his students when he taught some CAD type course at YTI (again, many, many years ago, so details are a bit foggy).   I was going through my basement throwing away all the extraneous card board boxes when I found this lump of paper.

At first I was just going to chuck them (chuck fever was raging) but instead I went through them, found 5 or 6 that would actually be pretty useful, right scale, top-down view, not scribbled up with comments.   So I cut out the actual floor plans from them and pasted them on hunks of card-board.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Project Screaming Monkey Complete

I've gotten my backlog of apes and monkeys complete, and since Andrew was calling me a dirty liar, here's the proof:

One giant carnivorous ape

3 fez-wearing archer monkeys with natty vests

The gangster apemen gifted me by you guys

And, finally, the Space apes in shiny armor

Update, I enlarged the pictures a bit

TRAVELLER LIBRARY DATA: SIMIOIDS

LIBRARY DATA:

SIMIOIDS

a.k.a. Gorilloids, Squatches, Ape-men

Terran experimentation with uplifting animals to sentience is well known, and when the Spinward Marches was first being colonized many of the Solomani human settlers were accompanied by sentient animal colonists. The famous, and terribly annoying talking dolphins of Loneseda are among the most widely known group of such uplifted animals in the Marches, but not the most widespread. The most commonly encountered uplifts are actually the Simioids, a race created by Old Earth scientists by modifying the DNA of the Great Apes of Earth. While Simioids have been created from Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Orangutan DNA sources, they generally favor the gorilla in general appearance; there is only one species of Simioid in the Marches, 

The Simioids average 10% taller than human average and 30% greater in mass, and are often amazingly strong. However, they are noticeably dim and have trouble in social situations, especially when dealing with groups more than a dozen or two. They look like slim gorillas with a man-like bipedal posture. Most are covered with black or black and grey hair, although some have been known to have reddish hair (indicating some Orangutan ancestry). 

There is no planet in the Marches where the Simioids are the majority species. They tend to live in villages in the mountains or forests of various planets with breathable atmospheres. Simioids often live at a tech level below that of the rest of the world. Simioids can also be found in some major cities of low and middle tech worlds, where their great strength is in high demand for physical labor. While Simioids occasionally can be found in any of the career common to galatic travelers, they are only very infrequently seen on Naval vessels or in the various government bureaus or diplomatic offices.

The rumor surfaces now and again that the Simioids were created by direct or assisted crossbreeding between humans and gorillas, often citing documented projects by the old Earth dictator Josef Stalin to attempt such a cross breed. However, DNA analysis shows that the gene sculpting of great ape DNA is the more likely route.

(Game Stats: simioids gain +4 Strength, +2 Endurance, -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Social and ignore the effects of a “Graze” result in combat)

Return to Painting

For the first time since my Crusades plastics project, I got some painting done today.   I had 6 Sci-Fi  Ape Troopers already primed (I don't even remember when I got them) and painted them up with snazzy metallic armor.   I also based and primed 3 flying monkeys (I decided to skip the wings), my new Owlbear, a Carnivorous Ape, and 6 familiars.    I also have 6 Saxon slingers primed and ready and a half dozen ape gangsters.

The rest of my to be painted file includes 6 mounted knights, a Byzantine emperor and his retinue and a box of 30 28mm hard plastic Viking spearmen.  Gads, viking spearmen, last on my list of things to paint.

My Droyne and Space-suit guys have not shown up yet in the mail.

I must say painting the space apes put a few ideas in my head and I think I've decided how to proceed with the Traveller set up (not that I'm 100% set on Traveller for the next game, if anyone has other thoughts,..speak up)

We demand Spanky!!

I always do this.  When I plan a campaign, I'm always super serious.  I fiddle with Theology, Cosmology and so forth in D&D,  I study the Traveller universe intently, and so forth.   Yet, when we actually play, it's always much more goofy.  It's like I plan Jonny Quest and we play Venture Brothers.   I plan Star Trek and we play Futurama.

So, while I was thinking about a straight Traveller universe campaign, theoretically,  now we have people clammering for Spanky.  

There are two paths to procede:

Create a new setting for Traveller:   pros: we can dump in all the Spankies and Crab People and Ack-Ack Martians we want just the way we want. Cons:  making the Traveller "geography" is very, very intricate and time consuming.

Or,  take the Zhodani empire, next to the PC's home 3rd Imperium and turn it from the empire of a race of psionic humans in turbans into an empire of Spankies and Martians and Crab people.   Pros: no geography work.   Cons: a strange feeling of wrongness.

Traveller Rules adjustments #2: Personal Armor

Armor Nomenclature:

The armor  names in Classic Traveller are a bit misleading.   What we would call Kevlar or Modern Body Armor is called CLOTH in Traveller.   It's short for Ballistic Cloth Body Armor, but it always seems to give the impression it's normal clothes.    Furthermore, it refers to a complete body armor set, not just a vest, which is called Flak Jacket (which should more properly refer to an older, heavier sort of armor used in WWII made of nylon or canvas holding steel plates).  Powered Armor, furthermore is called BATTLE DRESS, which in actual English means the uniform soldiers use to fight in, not a metal can with motors.

For clarity's sake it might be better to rename the armors as follows:

Traveller Name             New Name Description
Jack                               Jack            Leather or synthetic jacket (fine)

Mesh                          Mesh           chain-mail type modern armor (fine)

Flak Jacket              Tactical Vest       kevlar vest

Cloth                      Tactical Armor   reinforced kevlar body suit

Combat Armor  Combat Armor  enclosed advanced armor suit, unpowered

Battle Dress     Power Armor   powered armor suit

It's a minor change, but I think that it would be make visualization easier.

However, it's also not a serious problem and maybe the rename would be more trouble that it's worth.

CALLED SHOTS
I think having a rule for using some sort of Called Shot to help defeat high armor protection might be useful.  In the rules as written, high tech armor can be pretty much invulnerable to most hand weapons.   If you look at the orginal combat system, this wasn't true, many guns could do damage to combat armor or battle dress.  However, the combat system we are using comes from a Traveller Board Game (Azhanti High Lightning) and the Traveller Miniatures game (Striker), both of which were essentially the same, and meant as a replacement for the original system.

Long Story Short:  I propose that:
If you make an aimed shot (don't move), and use a single shot (no autofire or multiple hits) you can take some sort of penalty to avoid some of the armor protection of your target.  

I'm thinking that the goal might be to cut armor protection in half.  Maybe the penalty might be -4

Example:   Frank has a rifle (PEN 3) and shoots at an enemy in Cloth Armor (AR 5), he wants to avoid the armor, so aims for the face.   At effective range he needs 8+, but has an electronic scope (+2) and Rifle Skill 3 (+3).  Normally he'd therefore need a 3+, an almost guaranteed hit with a net -2 on his damage roll.  With a -4 penalty that would be 7+, and a +1 on the damage roll

Traveller Rules Issue #1 Dog Fiighring

While I'm really happy with the Traveller house rules we used in the last campaign  (The Rhylanor Express:  see here traveller documents   )   and they worked much to my satisfaction in the actual campaign,  there are a few issues I'd like to deal with for a possible next Traveller game.

Issue One:  my dogfighting rule:

In the vehicle combat rules, I had this paragraph:

Dog Fighting

: if 2 flying vehicles of similar speeds engage in combat, they need to

dogfight for position (so biplane vs. bi-plane or helicopter is okay, but air/raft vs, grav interceptor is not). During the attacker’s direct fire phase, he rolls 1d6 and adds his vehicle skill, and subtracts the vehicle skill of his target if he rolls 8+, then he has matched vectors in a position where he can get a clear shot, making a regular attack,

ignoring the Vehicle movement penalty. If he fails, he gets no shot  and the enemy may get a similar shot at him during the Return Fire Phase 

Now,  since this is for aircraft or flying grav vehicles within an atmosphere, it's not exactly the most common  of game situations.  I don't think it actually came up in the last campaign.  That being said, I'm a bit fuzzy on the math and what exactly I meant when I wrote it.

Say, for example, that Captain Flash has an aircraft skill of 3, and is fighting Major Payne who has an aircraft skill of 2 (both are flying Jet interceptors).  Tbe rule as written means that Flash cannot have a successful dog fight roll against Payne  (6+3-2=7) and that if he tries he just gives Payne a free excellent shot at him during the return fire phase.

I'm thinking that I must have meant 2d6.  That way it's a risk, but a very skillful pilot is really going to start splashing the noobs.

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.