Tehnolog Bronekorpus Main Battle Tank

So a long time ago, before the war in Ukraine, I bought a Tehnolog heavy tank model when I bought their smaller-scaled ZOD tank company to check out the size. It was a pretty crude model, and it didn't really fit with the aesthetics of any of the forces I had, and I kept the model in my bits box.

Since then, Rick joined our group, and we started looking at Grimdark Future, and I decided to finally get the model built and painted for his traitor Imperial Guard force.

To maximise the use of the model I magnetised two of the main gun options from the kit, and added a twin-link lascannon Nowfel printed for me. To give the model a more GW look, I used an Imperial vehicle cupola I had in my bits box.

I sprayed everything with my usual grey primer.

For the paint scheme I decided to go for a two-tone urban camouflage based on the Japanese Self-Defence Force pattern. I applied masking tape to the model to give vertical and horizontal lines, and then sprayed the model with a lighter grey paint.

Once the paint has dried I removed the tape and applied some decals. The turret numbers came from some WW2 tank decals I had, and the Imperial Aquila and the Chaos symbol were GW 40K decals. In my mind the Chaos cultists painted Chaos symbols over the Imperial Aquila when they turned traitor.

I painted the tracks a dark grey, and then started the weathering process by creating a muddied look for the dozer blade. I did this by dabbing red-brown craft paint to the bottom of the blade, then a lighter brown paint at the middle part of the blade, and then mixing the two paints to form a in-between colour to blend the two parts together. This gives the appearance of the mud drying around the edges of the business end of the dozer blade.

I then did weathering to the rest of the tank by chipping, washing, and dabbing brown paint over the tracks, wheels, and the lower parts of the vehicle. The vision ports were painted in blue.

I tried my hand at painting the heated metal effect on the melta gun.

And also the plasma glow effect on the plasma cannon, which didn't really work.

All in all it was a simple project. I hope to see this guy in action soon.

Sci-fi Sentry Guns

So after our game of Zombicide: Invaders last month our group decided that we will try to progress beyond the first scenario of the campaign.

My part of the endeavour is to make and paint up a sentry gun model.

As Nowfel had printed me a few twin-link lascannons for the dropship project, I decided I would use the remaining guns I had as a basis for the models.

I rummaged through my bits box and found a pair of legs from a Tehnolog walker I bought a long time ago. It was a simple job attaching the lascannons to the legs, and then gluing the legs onto some 40mm round bases I had.

Unfortunately, I laid on the spray primer too thick, which gave the surface an uneven appearance. Instead of stripping and painting the models again, I decided to make them look weathered instead. I also used some weathering powder for the base to hopefully help them blend into the game tiles.

They look rather basic and boring now, but hopefully once I get my hands on some decals I can liven them up a bit.

Mork Borg One-shot

 

We couldn't get the whole gang together for a session last month, so Dave agreed to run a one-shot for Sheng and I instead.

The game he chose was Mork Borg.

I have never actually looked into Mork Borg despite all the hype I saw about it, so I was happy to have a chance to play it.

Getting into the game was actually very easy, since the (almost) art-free version of the rules is available for free from their site, AND you don't actually need to read all the rules, since there is an online character generator available.

Your character has four ability scores, hit points, re-rolls... and that's it! The gameplay is player-facing, which means the players roll to attack and defend against monsters, but since you only need to (and can only) know your ability score modifiers, you don't really need to know much beyond rolling.

Dave ran a quick dungeon for us, which was old-school on the 80s way - in one instance we fight off undead, and entered the next room to find some human guards sitting around a table playing cards as if they didn't just hear a combat happening behind their door.

We got into it, had fun, and managed to complete our mission and flee with our lives from our double-crossing quest-giver, meaning there is a chance for a sequel.

Over all I found the rules too simplistic for me. It has strong Dungeon Crawl Classics and Knave vibes, but has a lot less crunch.

I believe that much of the excitement around Mork Borg was due to the aesthetics, which has spawned or revived a whole movement, and that to really get into the spirit of the setting you will need the full rulebook experience and invest time into learning the lore.

Sci-fi Dropship

For our Grimdark Future game in June, I needed a dropship model as the centrepiece/objective marker for the table. Since none of us had one at hand, I decided to search my neighbourhood stores for a toy that could be easily converted to look "sci-fi". What I found was this attack helicopter that cost US$9.

The toy came with electronics, motors, and lights inside, but as it was screwed together, it was a simple job to take the model apart and gut it. The rotors also came off easily, and there wasn't really anything extra that needed to be done to make the model look the part.

I decided to go for a neutral colour and painted it grey, with the ventral surface painted white.

When I put the model back together again for a dry fit, I realised it looked like a shark. I did some weathering and washing, including some streaking using the black wash, which is not a technique I have used before for land vehicles. I think the result was satisfactory.

The thing that made the model convincing for me were the while decals FG passed me. I am going to replace the guns on the wings with 3D-printed lascannons to make it look more 40K, but this was how the model looked for our game.

I had fun painting the model, so much so that I have now ordered a Hasegawa Egg Plane model to be converted into an Ork Dakkajet.

Grimdark Future and Zombicide: Invasion

I had to take a break from gaming in the month of May due to family and personal health issues, but the worst is - fingers crossed - over, and we managed to get together for a session for June.

Genestealers rush the unsuspecting Ratling snipers, at what would afterwards be called 'Hamburger Rock'.

As usual we played two games. The first one was a 4-player, free-for-all game of Grimdark Future.

The Grimdark Future rules were suggested by Rick, who unfortunately was unable to attend the session. I had a look at the rules, and thought they were easy to learn and remember: the kind of rules that a group that doesn't play regularly needs.

On the other side of the table, Eldar tangle with Terminators.

I wanted to do a fun scenario instead of a straight two-sided battle and dug up an old copy of Wargames Illustrated from my collection, which had a Dropwing scenario featuring different factions all trying to seize transports so they can bug out of an area. I decided to lean heavily into this and asked everyone to bring a small force of their 40K figures.

Our game ended up with four factions: Eldar, Imperial Guards, Space Marines Terminators, and Genestealers. I made lists of around 500 points for each faction, and gave each faction a choice of two unique objectives; players would choose one as their victory condition, hidden from the other players.

The Eldar turn their attention to the other flank of the table, as the Imperial Guards make their last stand.

I needed a dropship for the scenario, and as none of us had one at hand, I decided to find a cheap plastic toy and paint it up for the scenario - the process and result will be the topic of the next post.

The game ended in four turns, with Adrian's Eldar attaining their objective of killing at least one figure from all the other factions on the table, and Nowfel (playing my genestealers) killing the last of the Imperial Guards faction.

We then enjoyed the tea that Wahj made us while Adrian set up for the next game: Zombicide: Invasion.

We played the first scenario of the game, but realised we got the rules wrong. Fortunately, there was time to reset and play it again.

It was a closer game the second time round, but as the scenario was pretty linear and we planned our moves together, we managed to win the game with no casualties.

Just in time for dinner and beer.

It felt good to get together and share laughs and food with my friends again after a tough month of May.

For our game in July, I am probably going to run a Spanish Civil War game using the Hell and Uncivil Disorder rules. Stay tuned.

Thalassa and Dystopian Fleets

For our session in April we did a naval double-bill, starting with Thalassa, a free set of wargame rules that came with Wargames Illustrated #421.

When I first learned about the rules I was interested because of the positive experience I had with Never Mind the Billhooks, another set of free wargame rules from WI that blew up, but the cost and effort required in painting up ships made me hesitate. At Adrian's suggestion, I looked around for cardboard models, and found some nice ones at Tiny Tin Troops. The game is designed for 1/300 scale models while the card models are at 1/600 scale, but as the templates were available in pdf form, it was a simple matter of printing them out at 50% scale. I also approximated the move distance of 3" to half the width of the ramming template, which eliminated the need for tape measures on the table. The game features custom dice, but it was easy to use normal d6s and "convert" the results.

For our first game we pit six triremes against seven, with two players on each side. I had expected the game to be over quickly, with most ships being rammed and sunk after two turns, but my players seemed more interested in boarding and capturing enemy ships. The battle lasted a while, with melees involving three ships grappled together.

We had a lot more fun with the game than I anticipated, and the lack of custom game dice was not a hindrance at all. If there is one improvement I will need to make it is to reproduce the ramming template in clear plastic, which I will do before our next game.

For our second game we played a homebrew set of rules using Dystopian Wars models. We have had models for the game for literally more than a decade, but as we could not agree on a set of rules to play with, the project had languished... until the recent purchase of the East India Company squadron re-ignited my interest in the period.

I tidied up the rules I have been working on - a blend of Majestic Twelve Games' Grand Fleets and the movement templates and rules from X-Wing - and sent the rules to the gang, set a date for the session, and in a few months models that were left unpainted for a decade finally got finished, and were bloodied.

As the rules were not designed with a points system, I will need to do some work in balancing the factions and arms, but the basic concepts seem to work.

John Wick #1

When Bruce entered the shrine at the Japanese Garden in Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, he saw the body of a man on the tatami floor, a bullet hole through his forehead. Standing over the body was a tall man. Bruce drew his weapon, as did the man, and the two got into a tussle. Bruce was able to take the man down and choke him out and disarm him, but while he went to search the body of the dead man, he heard footsteps approaching from outside.

Several armed men were advancing towards the shrine, and when they noticed Bruce they began to fire indiscriminately into the building. By now the tall man had regained consciousness, and together the two men broken through the rear wall of the shrine and fled out of the garden and across the avenue.

The two men found shelter inside a bar, where the tall man introduced himself as Joseph. He explained that he was at the shrine to repay a Blood Oath to Roger Delany, but arrived to find him dead. Bruce on the other hand had turned up at the shrine to help exfiltrate the same man, who was undercover in the Calabrian mafia under the assumed name of Giovanni Marrone.

Just then Bruce's face flashed across the TV screen as the news announced that he was being wanted for the killing of undercover police officer Delany, while Joseph received a message on his phone that he had been declared "excommunicado" for killing Marrone on consecrated ground, and that a price of $500,000 had been placed on his head.

Bruce called his captain on the payphone in the bar to protest his innocence, but was told to turn himself in.

It was not long before four men entered the bar looking for them. Bruce and Joseph made their way through the service door into the kitchen, and then to the back door, where they laid an ambush for their pursuers - when the men came through the door they were taken down, and Joseph put a bullet in each one of them.

The two men realised that to save their own lives they had to find the real killer and prove their innocence. With no place to turn to, they decided to follow the only clue they had: a library card found inside Delany's wallet.

They made their way to the public library and accessed Delany's borrowing records and found that there was a single book on the record: The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. Tracking the book down, they found a piece of paper sandwiched inside its pages, and on it was an address.

They followed the address to third storey unit in an apartment, and attempted to enter it from the roof, but was discovered and held at gun-point by a woman. Bruce surrendered himself, as did Joseph soon afterwards, and the two explained how they arrived at her apartment.

The woman, named Alice (see PC profiles here), revealed that she was working undercover at the FBI in the Calabrian mafia too, and had known about Delany, although the two had little contact. Worried that her own identify might have been compromised, Alice decided to leave her apartment.

At the entrance to the apartment, the trio were attacked by gunmen who arrived in three black SUVs. A quick exchange of gunfire saw eight of the gunmen lying dead on the road, and the three SUVs fleeing the scene; through the tinted window of the lead car, Alice saw the face of Saiko Biichi, a assassin.

The trio sought refuge in Chinatown where, through one of Bruce's contact, they were given a hiding place in a laundromat. There, they decided that their next move should be to try to find more information at Dänk Püssy, a lesbian club ran by the Upsallamaffian. Before they could actualise their plan, however, the laundromat came under a Molotov attack, and the trio had to escape from the burning building and into a gunfight with more gunmen led by Saiko Biichi. Things were looking grim, but the arrival of armed triad gangsters caused the gunmen to flee, allowing our fugitives to disappear into the darkness too...

Prepping and Running the Game

When I started planning for this campaign, I was hoping to find a ready-made campaign that suit the the John Wick vibe, but an extensive search on Drivethru did not find any suitable product. Most of the modules had the premise that the PCs were all members of a law-enforcement or some security agency, or belonged to the same criminal organisation, and my players' choices of character backgrounds made it difficult to fit them into any of those.

I did find a one-shot module which had the PCs find a dead double-agent as the opening scene, and I decided to try to use that as a start for our campaign.

I re-watched the movies to try to get some inspiration, and realised that for the most part the plot involved John Wick moving from location to location, fighting different groups of opponents. I decided to lean into that and found a list of 1000 modern urban locations and 100 modern urban encounters off the internet, and when we started the session I had each player roll once on each table, and noted the results.

One of the locations rolled was a library, and one of the encounters had a few teenagers breaking into a library - I rolled the two together and decided to plant a clue in the library, and had an encounter with the youths help break up the monotony of the session.

Two other rolls gave rise to an abandoned coal-processing plant overlooking a waterfront, which led to the location of a Swedish-themed lesbian club, which was something that came to me watching John Wick 4.

I am still not 100% sure about the whole story behind Delany's killing, but I have another week to come up with something.

John Wick #0

We needed a 'filler' campaign between our Dwarrowdeep campaign and our next fantasy campaign, and with John Wick Chapter 4 being released last month, I decided to run a short campaign based in the John Wick universe.

The rules I chose was Covert Ops, which is based on the same engine as the Art of Wuxia rules, which we used for our wuxia campaign last year. Covert Ops has the same kind of rules for different martial arts moves, and even rules for gun-fu, which I thought would be great for recreating the movies' feel.

We held a session zero, and the characters my players created were:

Bruce - An NYPD detective and martial artist.

Alice - An FBI agent working undercover in the Calabrian mafia in New York.

Yusof (Joseph) Farhad - A Persian-American veteran who works as a freelance hitman.

Jason - A wheelman and 'transporter'.

Mori - A Shinto priest and caretaker of the Japanese Garden in Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, a High Table sanctioned site.

Dwarrowdeep #17

In the month of Bloomingtide Lord Khundrar returned from his embassy to Orzammar. Prince Bhelen's effort to try to convince the Assembly to recognise Khundara Thaig was defeated by Lord Harrowmount, who argued that the proposal was moot as the Deep Roads between Khundara Thaig and Orzammar remained close. As a result, Lord Khundrar ordered the district of East Gate be explored and the lost route to the Deep Roads be found.

When the company of scouts sent on the mission failed to return after the appointed time, our heroes (see PC profiles here) were sent to find and recover them.

The party tracked the dwarven scouts to a royal tomb in the East Gate district, where they were besieged by darkspawn. Our heroes slew the darkspawn and freed the scouts, and learned that they were attacked by darkspawn not long after arriving, and several of their members had been captured, including Ethel, whom the party had rescued several months earlier.

Although they were weak from hunger, the scouts insisted on joining the party in finding and rescuing their compatriots. But before they could leave the tomb, a large party of darkspawn, led by an ogre, attacked them. While our heroes held the ogre off at the entrance to the tomb, several shrieks entered the tomb via a tunnel at the back of the tomb, but were held off by the dwarves.

After a hard fight, our heroes were able to slay all the darkspawn. Examining the remains, our heroes noticed that the darkspawn appeared to be smaller than the ones they had faced previously.

Led by the scouts, our heroes returned to where they were first attacked by the darkspawn, and followed tracks from there to a tunnel that led out of the halls and into natural caves.

Still following the tracks, they soon came upon darkspawn sentries guarding a small cave, where they witnessed one of the scout being dragged from within and into another tunnel. Our heroes attacked the sentries and slew them. Inside the small cave, they found some of the captured scouts, who told them that the darkspawn had held them there since their capture, but had taken them away one by one, starting with Ethel.

Sending some of the scouts to take the rescued prisoners back to the halls, our heroes ventured down the tunnel with the rest to find where the prisoners had been taken.

At last they arrived at a large cavern. At the far end of the cavern they saw a grotesque giant humanoid, which gave out a piercing shriek, and then attacked them with long tentacles that emerged from its sessile body. The creature's shriek drew darkspawn, who flooded into the cavern from other tunnels.

While the scouts held off the darkspawn, our heroes battled and eventually struck down the creature, whereupon the darkspawn fled.

Searching the floor of the cavern, our heroes found the bones of the captured scouts, their flesh gnawed off their bones.

In a small cave to the side of the cavern, they found Ethel, her face pallid and her body and limbs bloated.

She revealed that she had been force-fed darkspawn flesh, which caused her body to be corrupted and her mind to be linked to those of the darkspawn. She realised that her body was slowly being transformed into that of the creature in the cavern, which ate flesh and gave birth to darkspawn, and she begged the scouts to kill her.

The scouts were unable to bring themselves to do so, and so Boggart dealt the merciful blow.

In another cave, the scouts found juvenile darkspawn, which they put to the sword. And then they set all the darkspawn corpses on fire, and left.

Prepping and Running the Game

At 17 sessions over 7 months, this campaign was one of our longer ones. We didn't do as much domain play as I had hoped to, but I think for a megadungeon campaign it had enough elements of that to give some context for events that took place.

The session itself was straightforward, with a couple of big fights. The chief purpose of the session was to reveal the secret of how the darkspawn, well, spawned, and to give a conclusion to the whole thaig-building enterprise: with the broodmother slain, the darkspawn threat would recede for a time, perhaps enough for the dwarves to reopen the Deep Roads to Orzammar.

This was the second Greg Gillespie megadungeon I have runned. Of the two, I think Barrowmaze was the better one in terms of the premise and playability - the sheer size of Dwarrowdeep and the number of enemies made it hard for me to believe that there is any chance for the PCs to "clear" the dungeon.

Our next fantasy campaign will likely by Blood Sword, which I plan to run using the new edition of Fantasy AGE. But I do think we will return to Dragon Age in the future, perhaps after the release of the computer game later this year.

Kings of War and Battletech Alpha Strike

The dwarven convoy crosses the bridge as the goblin forces close in

We managed to get five players around the table on Sunday, with an old friend whom I haven't met or gamed with in the last 20 years joining the group. Once again it would be a double-bill afternoon.

We played a game of Kings of War using a scenario from Battlegames' Tabletop Teaser. The scenario involved the dwarves having to get a couple of cannons off the table, while three separate goblin forces came at them.

Another goblin force approaches from the other side of the river

The dwarves had the option of keeping their cannons limbered, which would allow them to move faster, or unlimbering the guns, which would give them much-needed firepower, but means much slower progress.

In our game the dwarven players decided to move most of their force to counter the larger goblin force to their left. This allowed me, commanding a goblin force to the right, to ford the river uncontested and threaten the guns.

The dwarves hold off the goblins approaching from the far bank...

The dwarves deployed their miner unit to try to fend off my goblins, but the poor dice-rolls meant the goblins were able to fight them off and continue to move towards the cannons.

(For the record the dwarven side had spectacularly poor combat dice-rolls, while the goblins had excellent morale dice-rolls.)

The dwarves were finally forced to unlimber their guns to unleash grapeshot at the approaching goblin unit, which gave them ten dice, hitting on 6s - they scored 1 hit.

but the goblins from the near bank forded the river and cut the guns off!

I feel the game gave interesting tactical choices to the dwarven players, and to a lesser extent the goblin players too. It's certainly something I will want to run again in the future.

For the second game Adrian took us through Battletech Alpha, the third version of Battletech we have tried since we started our monthly sessions.

The game was fast enough, but lacks a lot of the granularity of the "original" Battletech. Thinking of it now I feel the game was designed the way it was not because it was a good way to design a mecha game, but because it was a cut-down version of the "full-size" game, and if one didn't imagine oneself as playing a mass-combat version of Battletech, the game would be less attractive.

Me running a Mad Cat again

After playing three versions of the game, my current favourite is Destiny. But given how many models the gang have bought and will (hopefully) paint, I guess we will need to come back to Alpha Strike to make sure everyone's models have a chance to get bloodied.

Dwarrowdeep #16

The day after Captain Gauldrin was escorted back to High Gate, Bertil and Zunn received a message from Boggart asking them to return there too (see PC profiles here). Upon arrival at High Gate, they learned that Lord Durrow had died from poisoning while in custody. Together with Lorca, who had now recovered, they trio went to join Boggart, who had gone to seen Shaper Dromin to learn the cause of Lord Durrow's death... only to find him and Shaper Dromin also poisoned in the latter's office!

Bertil was able to stabilise Boggart, but unable to revive Dromin. It seemed, however, in his dying breath, Dromin had scribbled the words: "my sarcophagus" on his tabletop.

Our heroes searched Dromin's office, and found inside a secret compartment in his drawer ancient Shaperate records which documented the discovery of the red lyrium they had seen in the mines. It was recorded that the dwarves at Khundara Thaig had tried to refine the red lyrium, but exposure to the substance had caused madness in those who worked with it, and the king had given orders for the section of the mines to be sealed off and the records of the work done of red lyrium to be sealed too.

Our heroes then sought out Dromin's sarcophagus, and within it they found a letter apparently from Lord Harrowmount of Orzammar, instructing Lord Durrow to put into action the plans they had hatched together to destabilise Khundara Thaig before it can gain the recognition of the Assembly.

The party mulled over the information they had gathered, and the next day they decided to confront Captain Gauldrin with the letter they have found in the barracks which implicated his involvement in the attack by the shadow demons. Gauldrin admitted that the handwriting in the letter resembled his, but that it was a forgery made to frame him, as he would not had given any such order in writing, or that his co-conspirators would have destroyed the letter before carrying out the attack even if he had done so.

Convinced by Gauldrin, our heroes decided to follow-up on Dromin's involvement with red lyrium. They made their way to the old tomb complex, accompanied by Balkis the Junior Shaper, where they hoped to investigate the embalming rooms, to see if they could find traces of red lyrium there.

Soon after they entered the old tomb complex they were attacked by a shadow demon, whose deathly touch produced symptoms of the mysterious poison Bertil had not been able to identify. Venturing deeper into the tomb complex, they at last arrived at Dromin's resting place... to find that he had turned into an undead. Lorca was able to draw Dromin into a conversation and made the undead Shaper reveal his involvement in the chain of events: it seemed that the Shaper had come across records of red lyrium and was able to obtain some of the substance from the mines. The red lyrium allowed Dromin to communicate with demonic spirits, and he soon struck a bargain with a demon - for hidden knowledge, he would do the bidding of the demon. Sensing that Dromin was working for Lord Durrow to destabilise the thaig, the demon induced Dromin to put into action the plans to release shadow demons in the thaig, and to frame Captain Gauldrin for the attacks, and eventually arrange his own death so he can become an "immortal" undead.

After they made certain that Balkis had heard the undead's confession, our heroes leapt into attack, but as Dromin appeared to fall to their blows, his body began to shift and blur... until he assumed the form of a huge winged demon. A desperate battle ensued, and our heroes were eventually victorious. They then returned to High Gate, where Balkis reported the tale to Captain Gauldrin.

Captain Gauldrin gave orders for associates of Dromin to be hunted down and arrested, and for the curfew to be lifted. Things, it seemed, would finally return to normal in Khundara Thaig...

Prepping and Running the Game

Once again, one player (Boggart's this week) was unable to make the session, and I had to invent a reason for the character to be out of action.

The players were obviously running into a lot of dead-ends, and I was unsure how to provide them with a clue that didn't seem like a gift... and then they rolled really well on searching Dromin's office, which made me pause for a few minutes. I decided that they would find some evidence of Dromin's involvement with red lyrium. That was eventually enough for them to investigate his resting place once more, and reach the concluding scene.

I think I did not execute the module well enough to make it a satisfactory investigating experience for the players, but the tension in dwarven society brought about by the events did allow them to act heroic, which for me was worth the time we spent.

Next session should see the finale of the campaign.

Dwarrowdeep #15

It was two days after the attack of darkness on the thaig, and the curfew was still in force, which made our heroes worry when Lorca had not returned from his meeting with his Surface Dwarf merchant contact. Their fears came true when they received word that he and his contact had apparently been poisoned at a tavern, but a search of the premises revealed no trace of the poison or the perpetrator. Bertil was able to surmise that they might have been drugged by the same poison that killed the two dwarven guards; he was able to stabilise Lorca, but his contact succumbed to the poison.

That night, while Lorca laid in a coma, our heroes received a messenger from Lord Durrow, who braved the curfew to bid them and The Foxes to come to the King's Hall fully armed as soon as curfew broke. A suspicious Boggart followed the messenger back, and confirmed that he had indeed come from the King's Hall (see PC profiles here).

The next morning our heroes and The Foxes arrived at the King's Hall as requested, and learned from Lord Durrow that Captain Gauldrin had demanded he give the order for movement between the quarters of the thaig to be restricted so that an effective search for the "demon stones" could be conducted. Lord Durrow had asked to have the night to ponder the issue, and asked Captain Gauldrin to prepare the order for him to sign the next day, but he feared that the latter will force the issue with arms, and had therefore asked the party and The Foxes to help him arrest Captain Gauldrin instead.

Before the adventurers have had a chance to discuss the issue, Captain Gauldrin arrived with six armed gaurds and the order to be signed. The gathering of so many armed men in the King's Hall made the tension rise. The Foxes decided to literally sit the conflict out and sat by the side of the hall with their hands away from their weapons. Lord Durrow ordered our heroes to arrest Captain Gauldrin for treason for attempting to seize power, while Captain Gauldrin asked his men to arrest Lord Durrow for impeding investgation of the attack. Bertil and Boggart stood down, while Zunn fled with Lord Durrow deeper into the hall, and barricaded themselves inside Lord Durrow's chambers.

Boggart asked Gauldrin his plans, and the latter declared that he would close the passages between the quarters of the thaig, and have his men conduct a search of all dwellings for the demon stones or evidence of collusion with demonic forces. Boggart then offered the adventurers as independent observers to legitimise the searches, which Gauldrin accepted. Meanwhile, Lord Durrow was able to negotiate amnesty for Zunn by surrendering himself, and he was taken into custody.

The search began at the High Gate quarter, and our heroes were given permission to search the barracks. There in the chest belonging to one of the slain guards they found a letter written in Gauldrin's hand, which read:

"Execute the plan at noon on the first day of Cloudreach. Show this letter in my hand as proof of my order."

Our heroes kept the letter, but decided against revealing it to all.

The next day the search began at the Quarters quarter, where most of the populace dwelled. When some of the common folk protested against the searches, Gauldrin ordered them to be tied up and left outside their homes as an example to others who would resist.

This did not sit well with Boggart, a Ferelden Freeman, and he cut one of the dwarves free in front of Gauldrin and the guards. Seeing him do this, Zunn and Bertil followed suit. The dwarven guards looked silently at their captain as this happened, until Gauldrin announced that as the adventurers were independent observers of the search, their suggestion to free the inhabitants after their dwellings had been searched would be taken. There was a collective sigh of relief, but all the tension were too much for The Foxes, who told our heroes that they would secretly leave the thaig that day.

That night, Gauldrin asked the party to eat with him as the guards made camp at the plaza. The strain of the events of the past few days told on the captain, and he expressed his frustration at the lack of result from his search... before he fell over - their dinner had been poisoned. Our heroes too began to feel their strength ebb from their limbs...

Channeling a healing spirit, Bertil was able to purge the effect of the poison, but it was clear that the place was too dangerous. Leaving Sergeant Fimar in charge, Captain Gauldrin made his way back to High Gate, accompanied by a few guards and Boggart.

Prepping and Running the Game

The game was a natural extension from the events of the last session.

As I did not know which faction the players will side with during the first scene of the session, I could not plan the session in detail. Rather, I decided to just react to what the PCs did. This worked out well as the players rose to the occasion and did unexpected things like trying to flee with Lord Durrow and "embedding" themselves into the search process. Then as I described the scenes they asked me questions which helped me add details and vignettes, which resulted in the high point of the session (and perhaps the whole campaign) when Boggart defied Gauldrin in the presence of his men.

There was not a single combat during the session, but I think the players enjoyed the role-playing and the mystery.

Sepoys and Xenos

We had another double bill session on Sunday, with the first game being The Relief of Luckpore. I was too busy running the game and having too much fun to take photos, but fortunately my friends did.

We played a standard scenario, with the mutineers blocking the Grand Trunk Road by occupying a  village on one side of the road, while I commanded a bunch of badmash hidden behind a hill on the other side.

The British players approached the problem methodically, by first driving off the badmash, and then moving their artillery to occupy the hill, and then proceeding to bombard the village. The mutineers outnumbered the British, but with only one commander, they could not shift their forces to face the threat in time, and were soon routed.

Throughout the game we felt hampered by the command limitations imposed by the rules, which is probably realistic, and tells me that to be successful one probably has to be proactive in moving troops and applying constant pressure on the enemy. I hope to return to the rules again soon.

For the second game we played an 'Aliens'-themed scenario using the Xenos Rampant rules. The Colonial Marines had to evacuate all civilians from a settlement that has been invaded by xenos, and had 12 activations to do so before it would be nuked from orbit. I placed nine buildings on the table, and randomly decided what was found inside each building by using cards to represent civilians, aliens, and "empty"; in addition, one card represented the alien queen.

The Marines players (who played the British in our first game) once again approached the problem methodically, moving their heavy weapon to cover the main avenue of approach, and then moving their squads in mutually supporting positions.

Nevertheless, the aliens were too powerful in melee, with the Queen being almost invulnerable. The Marines lost more than half their strength, and the Queen was killed only when she charged the heavy weapon. The Marines retreated with two units of civilians and three activations to spare, but left three buildings unexplored - one of which turned out to contain civilians - and gaining a narrow victory.

Although I was a playtester for a few of the Rampant series of rules, this was the first time I played a full game against other players. The game was quick because we had only two troop types on each side, and the aliens had no ranged attack capability. The card placement mechanic gave the game an unpredictability that made it exciting for both sides.

The next wargaming session is scheduled for March, when we plan to play a Kings of War game. We are also planning to play Space Hulk, and a home-mod version of Gaslands featuring Orks and kitbashed Ork Trukks in the future. Stay tuned.

Dwarrowdeep #14

As the wealth of the thaig grows, so did its fame, and Lord Khundra was invited back to Orzammar as a guest of Prince Bhelen to once more plead his case for recognition by the kingdom. In anticipation of arrival of more settlers, Lord Khundra had ordered that the offices of the thaig be moved into the High Gate district, the work of which was left to Herald Lord Durrow, who was made regent in his absence.

It was a week after his departure that our heroes (see PC profiles here) witness a strange darkness envelop the main square at High Gate, which the torches could not penertrate. Lighting his Veilfire lantern, Bertil could see a shadowy form looming over a fallen child. The party sprang into action and attacked the shadow, who was soon joined by two more of its ilk. But our heroes prevailed, and when the last shadow fell, light returned, and they saw two more children on the ground, pale and near death. Bertil healed the children, and afterwards the party was summoned to meet Lord Durrow, when they learned that two other similar attacks occurred in the other districts at the same time: one was fended off by The Foxes, the Orlesian mercenaries, and the other by Zunn and the dwarven guards. Two dead dwarven guards were found at the attack where Zunn was at, and Zunn himself barely survived, and was much weakened by the draining touch of the shadows.

At all three scenes, broken red gems were found on the ground - gems which Zunn recognised to be the same as the cursed rubies which he pried out of the eyes of a demonic statue in the lyrium mines.

In the wake of the attack, Guard Captain Galdrin proposed that a lock-down be imposed, and that the power to search all dwellings be granted to the guards, but Lord Durrow agreed only to a curfew.

With Lord Durrow's assent, Bertil, Boggart, and Lorca decided to travel bck to the lyrium mines to find more clues. At the docks, they learned that the guards had lost a boat a week prior. Just before they set off, they were joined by Balkis, an apprentice Shaper, who was assigned to record their deeds as his prentice-piece.

The four then rowed the boat across the underground lake, piloted by Boggart, who skillfully steer the boat out of a whirlpool, and gained himself the epithet of 'the Mariner'.

Arriving at the dock at the lyrium mine, they found the missing guard boat, with guard provisions inside, but no oars. Retracing their steps, they found evidence that someone had spent considerable labour in establishing access to the mines, clearing cave-ins and repairing bridges. Following their trail, they entered the tunnels of the lyrium mines, where they were attacked by darkspawn, which they routed after a hard fight.

Here, in the mine chamber they found the dead bodies of two dwarven guards. There were mining tools next to the bodies, and in their packs our heroes found a few of the cursed gems. There were no wounds on the bodies of the guards, and Bertil did not sense the touch of the shadows on them, leading him to suspect poisoning as the cause of their deaths.

Venturing a little deeper into the mine, they came across veins of lyrium, as well as what appeared to be a red form of lyrium. Our heroes dragged the bodies of the dwarven guards back to the docks, and then returned to High Gate, where they reported their findings to Lord Durrow.

Afterwards, our heroes visited Guard Sergeant Fimar, where they learned that the two dead guards found at the mine had gone missing a week ago, with no apparent reason.

Our heroes then went to the thaig's tomb, where with Shaper Dromin's permission, they examined the bodies of the two guards found dead at the attack, and Bertil determined that they too did not bear the touch of the shadows and could have died from poisoning instead...

Prepping and Running the Game

The idea for this arc of the campaign came from a trio of scenarios by AAW Games, the first of which is Dark Days in Stoneholme. I had to of course change several details about the plot, but by coincidence the "dark-heart rubies" in the module matched the "cursed rubies" which I rolled up as loot in an earlier session, and which I have had difficulty finding a call-back to. This set up the lyrium mines as a location that we had to revisit, and of course the discovery of red lyrium, which will tie in with the final arc of the campaign.

My players are generally not good at mystery scenarios, and I suppose this one isn't too easy for them either. They have given me no indication of whom they suspect to the mastermind behind all the attacks and deaths, which means the next session is wide open and will be difficult for me to prep for.

Chariots and Cars

Adrian, FG and I met up for the first of what we hope to be a monthly wargaming session today. My plan for these monthly sessions is to run two multi-player games each time.

The first game we played was the new edition of Tribal. I set up two sides, each with one Warlord and three units, and it was a straight-up fight.

FG's warlord made an impetuous charge into the enemy line, and while he scattered the enemy marksmen unit, he was in turn charged by Adrian's warlord and was killed.

For the second game we played a three-player game of Gaslands. My buggy took some damage early in the game, but soon took the lead while Adrian and FG's cars got into a ramming contest.

I maintained the lead until I made a mistake and approached the third gate on the wrong side and had to slow down, allowing FG's car to close the gap.

In the final turns of the game Adrian gave up trying to win the race and instead came after my car.

Literally just one move away from the finishing line my buggy was rammed and flipped into the gantry, wrecking the vehicle while FG's car limped to a win.

As with the previous sessions it was a blast, and we are planning to play again in the future, hopefully with more players and vehicles.

The next session is scheduled in three weeks, when we hope to try out Xenos Rampant (which I was a playtester for) and The Relief of Luckpore.

Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group

A few weeks ago my friend Dave was at a flea market and he saw a box of the old Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group going for S$5. I was not even aware that this faction existed, but it was too good a bargain to pass up, and I asked him to help me grab it. It turned out the previous owner had already primed and magnetised most of the models, so it was a quick job to get the lot (minus the airship, which I still haven't decided if I will paint) painted.

The models have the aesthetics of the old edition of Dystopian Wars, which I much prefer to the more modern look of the current edition. I decided to lean into the "just put buildings on a hull" aesthetics by painting the ships in the "black and white houses" theme.

Example of a Black and White House in Singapore

The black and white houses are a relic of the colonial era - although there are modern houses built in the style too - and I thought it would be a nice in-joke for our group. They also bear some resemblance to the "dazzle camouflage" used during WW1.

Ottoman and East India Company ships clash in the Arabian Sea

The acquisition of the box set also prompted me to finish painting the tiny flyer tokens for my Ottoman fleet, make a few more islands, and to finally buy a sea mat - in this case a piece of quilt fabric from a craft store, which wasn't exactly cheap, but affordable compared to the price of a dedicated wargaming mat. The mat and islands will also prove useful for Thalassa, a set of rules for trireme warfare that comes with the January 2023 issue of Wargames Illustrated, which I have ordered.

The arrival of the East India Company ships has also prompted FG to restart his work on the French, and Adrian on his Prussians. This also shift our theatre of conflict from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea.

I have also revised the set of rules I have been tinkering with for this period, and if things go according to plan we will be having a naval bash n April.

Dwarrowdeep #13

Our heroes were having their midday meal at the Quarters District one Drakonis day when they were summoned to Gund Felek, which in those days was not yet occupied. The Foxes - an adventuring band from Orlais - had apparently triggered some sort of arcane ward while exploring the district, and become frozen.

Our heroes (see PC profiles here) were unable to to disable the ward and free The Foxes, but with the light from their veilfire lantern they were able to see a the magical glyph that surrounded the Orlesians, and a warning written in Elvish: Here are our leaders Falos and Harel entombed. Begone lest you disturb their rest.

Zunn surmised that the ward was left behind by the Dalish elves perhaps five centuries ago, and that for it to be still active it must be connected to an artefact of great power. Sure enough, the light of the lantern revealed an arcane thread on the floor leading from the glyph to deeper into Gund Felek.

Following the arcane thread, our heroes found it led to a set of stone doors with the relief of a dwarven warrior upon it. Written under the image were the words, in dwarven runes: Emulate the Paragon. Taking the words literally, Lorca imitated the pose of the dwarven warrior, and the doors opened.

The doors opened into a large hall of many pillars. The arcane thread on the floor led to another door on the far wall. When our heroes crossed the threshold, the door closed behind them, and once more they saw the warning in Elvish written on the floor. Our heroes ignored the warning and stepped forward, whereupon the ethereal forms of two elven warriors sprung forth from the arcane line; simultaneously, two of the pillars began to shift and take on the form of giant dwarven warriors, and the four began to attack them.

For a while it seemed our heroes would fall to the combined attacks, until Zunn came upon a pedestal in a corner of the hall where a glowing blue orb was ensconced. Zunn lifted the orb, and the dwarven warriors froze, and the others were soon able to despatch the elven warriors.

Proceeding beyond the door in the far wall, our heroes entered into a tomb where they found sarcophagus of the paragon and his wife. The arcane thread on the ground led to a large standing mirror at the end of the room. Shining the light of their lantern onto the mirror, our heroes saw several glowing spots on the top of the mirror's frame that Bertil recognised as a constellation which the Avvar used for navigation by night. Judging that the hour when the constellation would rise in the horizon was near, our heroes waited. When the hour arrived, the mirror's surface began to shimmer, and it soon became a portal that led into a cave.

Passing through the mirror, Boggart entered into the cave. Here, upon stone plinth, he found the remains of two elves, which the inscriptions upon the plinth told were Falos and Harel. One of the elves was still clad in a mail shirt made of Red Steel, which indicated that he was an Arcane Warrior. Zunn claimed the mail shirt as his heritage.

When Boggart attempted to explore beyond the cave, he drew the attention of a blighted bear, and was forced to retreat back through the mirror. The bear followed the party back to the mirror, but was unable to pass through. Our heroes allowed the bear to destroy the mirror, whereupon the portal was closed, and the arcane thread leading from it vanished.

Returning to where they left The Foxes, the found the Orlesians sitting down to a dinner of roasted chicken, which they offered to share with their saviours.

Prepping and Running the Game

This scenario was cobbled together using a few puzzles and encounters from various GM guides I have accumulated over the years. The chief goal was to allow Zunn to get the Red Steel armour, which will allow him to take advantage of his Arcane Warrior specialisation.

I felt that this and the previous few sessions have been a little disjointed, and I asked my players at the end of the session what they would like the direction of the campaign to be, and one of them suggested some political intrigue.

We have a break of three weeks between sessions, which will give me some time to prepare for the next arc of the campaign.

Dwarrowdeep #12

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was mostly role-playing, with just one single combat, so I have decided to skip right to the commentary.

I based the session off the adventure Under Dovla Mountain, found in The Malady Chronicles compilation.

With the coming of spring, more immigrants - both the casteless Dusters and dwarves from the craftsmen caste - from Orzammar have arrived.

Our session began with the PCs being asked to investigate the death of a dwarf from the miner caste in the Ore District. The Ore District had been retaken from the Darkspawn recently, but due (ostensibly) to a lack of skilled miners, mining had not begun at a large scale; at the current moment only a single mixed crew, comprising of members of the miner-caste House Oskar and members of the Duster clan Fingal were working there, with the former providing the expertise, and the latter supplementing the manpower.

When they arrived at the site, our PCs (Bertil, Lorca, Varosh (formerly Dave the Dwarf) and Zunn) found that the dwarves had not been mining, but were in fact excavating a large relief that was believed to be a portal to the buried treasures of an ancient dwarf king. A week ago, Rhinn Oskar, son of the head of House Oskar, had fallen off a scaffolding to his death. Bollol Fingal, a young dwarf from the Duster clan, was the belayer for Rhinn, and although the incident was accepted by all as an accident, there was an underlying resentment among the Oskars, particularly in Rhinn's two sisters.

I had meant this to be a chiefly role-playing session, aimed at exploring the dwarven caste system, and their relationship with outsiders; Vorash was a Duster, while Lorca was raised by dwarves, and was together with Bertil and Zunn greatly respected by the dwarves of the thaig. I had hoped that they will use their standing to reconcile the two families.

However, my players thought this was a murder mystery session, proceeded to grill the dwarves from Clan Fingal, alienating them and eventually causing a public falling out. Soon afterwards a blighted giant worm attack caused a cave-in and cut the community off from the rest of the thaig, and an infectious disease struck the community, quickly incapacitating most of the members and making self-rescue impossible.

When it seemed liked the two families would both die out without reconciling, the head of the House Oskar asked the PCs if they would help. It was Varosh who proposed they did so over ale, and so Oskar broke out the good ale that he had reserved for celebrating the completion of their work, and invited the Fingal Clan to join them.

The community was eventually rescued by the next supply convoy coming from the main thaig.

This was not a "successful" adventure or session, but I think I could have steered the players better, but I have since come to accept the outcome as being thematic to the Dragon Age setting. Heroes sometimes make the wrong choice and others suffer the consequences. Perhaps it showed the players that although their characters were respected in the thaig, as humans and elves they will still be viewed as outsiders.

Battletech: Clan Invasion Expansion Box Set

First painted figures for the year.

A few weeks ago FG passed me the models from the Battletech Clan Invasion box set because I wanted to paint up a Madcat. Over the long weekend I decided I would try to paint up the remainder of the box since I have chosen a relatively easy paint scheme. This is the result.

I don't know what the names of the mechs are, or how many points they represent in the game - we are looking at at least three versions of the Battletech game now - but hopefully they will see some action soon regardless.

2022 in Review and Looking Ahead

We've had a pretty good year in terms of gaming this year, with 28 sessions of RPG (across four campaigns and four one-shots), and four session of wargames.

The biggest change in my gaming calendar is my decision to schedule one week per month to a wargaming session on Sunday in lieu of an RPG session on the Monday after; prepping and hosting for both types of games takes a lot of time, so it is not viable for me to do both back-to-back. 

The decision to schedule regular wargames is prompted partly by the acquisition of a few sets of new rules which I have made over the past few months, some of which are shown above. Like many wargamers (including all the other guys in my group) I own several sets of painted armies, most of them for both sides, but the lack of time has prevented me from playing with all of them. In the recent years I have moved away from more complex rules to simpler ones, with easy-to-remember mechanics, and also towards rules with a grid-based mechanic, which simplifies scenario design, terrain-placement, as well as actual play. Playing games with shorter play-time also allows us to play two different games during a single afternoon and allow the other guys to run the games they like to play.

Of course, RPGs will continue to constitute the majority of my gaming.

I expect to run the Dwarrowdeep campaign into March, ending with the PCs at level 8 (and the Master level of their respective specialisations). In April and May I hope to run a short Covert Ops campaign in the wake of the John Wick movie. After that I am looking at a few options, the choice of which will depend on whether the Blood Sword kickstarter delivers as planned, or whether Green Ronin will release any module for their The Expanse line - if neither of those things happen we will probably play another season of our Savage Gamma World campaign.

Of course, there is always the possibility of a new set of rules or figures coming into the picture unexpectedly as with the previous years. And one thing that FG and I have an eye on in the horizon is the release of Quar by Wargames Atlantic.

I wish you and your family the best in the coming year.