Legion Mk VI Tactical Squad

I have done pretty well this year (so far) in terms of not buying more new figures; I did buy and convert and paint a couple of sci-fi models, but since these were meant for the collection of my friends, it doesn't really count. But I had to make an exception for the new Warhammer The Horus Heresy Mk VI Space Marines figures.

My first Warhammer 40K figures were the plastic "beakie" space marines box set, which I split with wahj; we painted them for use with the Battlesuit board game; mine were painted in white, while his were painted in black. Good times.

Years later, when the multi-part plastic Mk VII space marines became available, I decided to start expanding my army, but not wanting to paint a whole new army in white again, I decided to go for an easier paint scheme of Dark Angels green. The old beakies went to Adrian, but I've always had a soft spot for them.

So when the new "true scale" Mk VI marines were released, I decided to get them, and once again I split the box, this time with FG. In my fluff they represent the Veteran Squad in my chapter, and have the same colour scheme as the rest of the chapter. I did however give them the classic 80s stripe down the middle of the helmet.

These models are not exactly easy to build. The pauldrons with the studs actually come in two pieces and have to be glued together - you can see the seam in the photo if you look closely. The arms and weapons come in three pieces: left arm, right arm, and both hands holding the bolter; it took a bit of fiddling to make everything line up. The models are "true scale", and therefore stand taller than the Mk VII models, especially the earlier Mk VII models. The box comes with 32mm round bases, but I based them on some thinner 25mm round bases I had from another purchase, which compensated a little. They are built pretty much as is, "out of the box", but I replaced the sergeant's plasma pistol arm with a "modern" one to make him look more in line with the rest of the force.

I am very pleased with how they turned out, and hope to filed them in a game of Grimdark Future or Xenos Rampant soon.

John Wick #3 and #4

Having escaped from The Provincial with Yulian, our party decided to take him to New Windsor in Jersey, where he claimed he had a safe house. They drove north, switch cars (stole a car) to mask their trail, but were still pursued by the Russian mob. After a gunfight in the suburbs, they barely made it to the safe house, where the gangsters ceased their pursuit.

Here they were taken in by Dmitri Pavlov, Yulian's uncle, who was formerly in the Tarasov crime family. Although retired, he still commanded a measure of respect from the Tarasov family, but he knew it would only gain his nephew a respite and not escape from Viggo's wrath. They informed Bruce of their location, and the fugitive policeman joined them (see PC profiles here). Soon afterwards, John Wick arrived at the door to politely inform Dmitri that Viggo had given Dmitri 24 hours to surrender his nephew.

Yulian made a desperate attempt to save himself and called Viggo to beg for mercy, but it was useless. Viggo then spoke to the party, offering to help Joseph and Mori pardoned by the High Table, and to use his political influence to exonerate Bruce, and to give Jason a job in the Tarasov family if they could find the person buying information from Yulian, and to eliminate him in a way that would leave a clear message that Viggo was the one who gave the order.

Realising there was no escape, Yulian beseeched our party to help get his girlfriend Charlie to safety, promising that they will find clues to who was really responsible for the murder of Roger Zelany through her. He explained that someone had approached his girlfriend at the exotic dance club where she worked to offer to buy information regarding the activities of the Tarasov family at a generous price. The money and information would be transferred through Charlie, so Yulian did not know whom he was selling the information to, except that they were from the Calabrian mafia. Charlie would hand part of the money to Yulian, while she deposited the rest in a number of bank accounts. When Roger Zelany, an associate with the Calabrian mafia was murdered, Yulian feared the worst, and decided to seek the protection of the FBI. He now feared that Charlie would be implicated, and asked the party to get her to safety, beyond the reach of both the Tarasov family and the Calabrian mafia. He handed the party a pendant he wore as a proof they were from him, together with a safety deposit key, and left a message on Charlie's phone, and awaited his fate

The party armed themselves from Dmitri's weapon cache, and took his car to the dance club. At the carpark they noticed that someone else was watching the club. They entered the club and waited for Charlie to come on stage. Soon afterwards two suspicious men also entered the club. When Charlie finally came on, Bruce moved to the stage and flashed Yulian's pendant at her, and the party left, hoping to enter through the back door and link up with Charlie. However, they found two men waiting in ambush at the alley behind the club. A firefight broke out, followed by sounds of gunshots from the front of the club. The party broke in through the back door to find dancers fleeing. They rushed to the floor of the club to find Charlie being held by two armed men.

Joseph quickly took down one of the gunmen, as well as two more who came through the front door, while Bruce knocked the other one out with a flying kick. They then grabbed Charlie and left, just when the sounds of police sirens were heard.

They explained the situation with Yulian to Charlie, and then drove her to a bus station, where she could take a bus out of town. Charlie told them that she too did not know who in the Calabrian mafia was buying the information from Yulian, but that the two people who contacted her each time were Ricardo, who Joseph shot, and Gabriel, who was knocked out by Bruce.

The party now realised that they had to get to Gabriel to learn who their boss was. Fortunately, Bruce had knew which hospital the police would bring Gabriel to for treatment of his wounds. Driving to the hospital, they stole a couple of orderly uniforms, put Bruce on a gurney, and wheeled him right up to the cop guarding Gabriel at the emergency room, where Bruce knocked him out. They then uncuffed Gabriel from his bed and placed him on the gurney, while Bruce put on the cop's uniform and placed him on Gabriel's bed, and fled the place.

Once they were in the car, the party gave Gabriel the choice of either telling them what he knew for some money and a ride to the train station, or be turned over to either the cops or his boss, who would no doubt punish him for his failed mission. Gabriel considered his options, and decided to spill the beans.

Francesco Cortone, a rogue capo of the Calabrian mafia, had taken advantage of their weak head of the family to plan a hostile takeover of the Tarasov family's territories. He did so in collaboration with certain corrupt persons in law enforcement, aiming to use police powers to help him take down the Russians. To this end he bought information about the Tarasov family's businesses, so he could send his men to attack them. These were small skirmishes that did not really affect the Tarasov family's bottomline, but calculated to give the sense that the Russian mob presence in the city was a problem, which would make it harder for the High Table to shield them when the police decided to move against them. Gabriel informed the party that Francesco would be meeting the contact person from law enforcement at a chemical warehouse in Jersey before dawn that day.

Our party planned their attack. After stopping and breaking into a sports goods store for rope, Joseph and Bruce rappelled down the roof of the warehouse and crashed through the second floor windows to reach the catwalk, yelling: Viggo says hello! as they landed. They surprised the thugs guarding the place, who were quickly felled by Bruce's shotgun and Joseph's assault rifle. Through the ground floor windows Jason could see more gunmen rushing to the stairs to get to the catwalk, so he drove the car through the shutter door of the warehouse and joined the fight.

Joseph took down the thugs who swarmed out of the corner office to repel them in a fashion that would make John Wick proud, but the party were stopped in their tracks by a gunman shooting from inside the office, whom Bruce recognised to be Frank Krothers, the District Attorney's bodyguard.

From inside the office, Francesco called out to the party, offering to match and exceed whatever deal Viggo was offering them, but the party was not in a mood to deal. Jason dashed back into the car, and drove it into the steel columns holding up the mezzaine office, causing the office to tilt and Franceso to tumble through the window. Frank Krothers managed to grab him and begin to haul him back, but the brief exposure was enough for Joseph to shoot and kill Francesco. With Francesco dead, Frank saw no reason to stay, and made his escape.

Their job completed, the party called Viggo, and were picked up. Viggo then informed them that he would soon give them an "impossible task" to perform as he completes his revenge against the Calabrian mafia...

Prepping and Running the Game

I compiled the last two sessions in this post as I am way behind my blogging schedule.

The third session of the campaign was based on the modules Badabing Badaboom! and Fuhgeddabouti!. Both provide a central plot, but are valuable for the vignettes, which I picked for my purpose. 

The final session was based on the module Burning Crosses, which is a short investigative scenario that provided me with some idea to link Yulian back to the Calabrian mafia without making it too direct.

The scene at the hospital however was improvised. When the players realise they should have taken Gabriel away for questioning instead of letting the police take him, the needed to get to him. I initially said that Bruce knew which station he would be brought to, but immediately realised that it would be more appropriate for him to be brought to a hospital for treatment first; the players agreed, and we moved the action to the hospital. Once the action moved there it was easy to set the scene and orientate ourselves, since the hospital Emergency Room is so widely depicted in media we all had a common understanding of how things look like without me spending too much time describing things.

This was also the case for Dmitri's home, where we all knew what everything looked like, down to how the front door looked. This is one advantage of playing in a modern campaign, which I hadn't really appreciated until now.

The rules were quite apt for our purpose, allowing the characters to do some really cinematic stuff like doing double double-taps in a single round, or running and gunning down four thugs in one round. If we ever do another modern campaign again, I may use the same rules.

For the next campaign we will be returning to Savage Gamma World, when I plan to have one or two guest players join us for each session. More on that in a future post.

Hell & Uncivil Disorder and Small World

We continued our monthly session with a Spanish Civil War game using the Hell & Uncivil Disorder rules. The rules are rather loosely written and ambiguous in places, and we had to make decisions when situations came up during the game which were not specifically dealt with in the game.

The scenario we used was from Atacar es Vencer!, which contains 12 scenarios for platoon-plus size forces, with one or two tanks or armoured cars in some of the scenarios. Though not written for the Hell & Uncivil Disorder rules, it worked pretty well, and provided a tense scenario for both sides. The Republicans managed to fight the Nationalists to a draw, despite having lower quality troops and lacking a tank or any anti-tank guns.

My interest in the Spanish Civil War was sparked many years ago, when I watched this episode of Alas! Smith & Jones:

It took me decades to finally find a set of rules that comes close to what I want a game of SCW combat to feel like, and it's doubly satisfying that this is a group project with figures and vehicles painted by four of us.

For our second game we played a game of Small World, one of my all-time favourite boardgame. I came last in a three-player game, despite chalking up a decent 99 points by the end of 10 turns. I have asked for a rematch, and maybe we will play this again during our August session.

Hasegawa Egg MiG-15 Ork Dakkajet Conversion

It all started when Adrian posted about the McDonnell Goblin fighter on the group chat. I was reminded of the Hasegawa Egg Planes series, and had the idea that I could convert one into an Ork Dakkajet. I looked at some photos of the Dakkajet, and realised that it was probably based on the MiG-15, which was one of the planes in the Egg series.

To give the plane an orky look I dug up the bits from an Ork Killa Kan I bought a long time ago but never ended up using - I was planning to make a model using a film cannister. I add some orky weapons, I ordered a pack of Orc HMG Tips and a pack of Orc Biker Heads from Puppets War.

For the construction I decided to clip off the wheels so I could fit these horns to the front of the plane and weapons under the wings.

A Gork head adorns the nose of the plane.

I glued the orc biker head to the torso of a Mad Puppet infantry trooper, and used some 2-part epoxy to sculpt a fur-lined collar and upper arms to the jacket.

After I was satisfied with the set-up, I sprayed the main parts of the model red, and then glued the weapons and orky embellishment to the fuselage and wings.

The plane was pretty plain, so I added checks to the rim of the intake and the tail, and some wedge-shaped decals from the Space Wolves sheet the the wings. I then weathered the model.

This was a fun little project, and I am tempted to do another conversion with an Egg plane soon.

Grimdark Future Game - Infected Colonies vs Orc Marauders

The battlefield. Spot the Tehnolog tank!

Rick and I happened to have the Sunday open up last-minute, so I traveled down to his place to pass him the dropship and tank I painted for his Traitor Guard army, and to give his terrain set their first bloodying.

I made up two lists of about 1500 pts in Grimdark Future, and Rick played the orcs while I played the Traitor Guards using the Infected Colonies list. For the scenario I had the Guards defend a city-block, while the orcs would come in from any table edge.

Rick opened the battle by charging his Trukk right at the tank and disgorging a unit of Boyz, which proceeded to close-assault the tank.

While this occupied the attention of the tank and half my forces, his Bikes and two units of Boyz attacked from the other end of the battlefield.

I ordered the Guards defending that flank to give ground and fall back...

The dropship - now featuring twin-linked lascannons!

Then sent in the dropship/gunship to strafe the Bikes.

Some of the Boyz did make it into close-combat and eventually gain a foothold in one of the buildings, but the Orcs have taken a beating from the gunship and could not hope to take the whole block.

It was a short game, but we both had fun shoving figures across the nice terrain, rolling lots of dice, and making pew pew noises. Grimdark Future is a fun set of rules for this kind of thing, but the lack of suppression and morale rules does make it a bit simplistic. Perhaps we will give Xenos Rampant another spin in the near future; after all, Rick's collection of second-hand 40K figures is huge, and hopefully I will be able to feature more of them on this blog soon.

John Wick #2

image from: http://wikimapia.org/1539581/IRT-Powerhouse

After escaping from the laundromat, our party decided to split up, with Alice going to meet her contacts, while Bruce and Joseph would proceed to visit a dance club runned by the Uppsala mafia housed in the IRT Powerhouse to gather more information from Alice's contact there. Along the way Bruce and Joseph were accosted by Mori, the erstwhile caretaker of the Japanese Garden where Delany was found murdered (see PC profiles here). Bruce and Joseph were able to convince Mori that they were framed, and Mori decided to follow the two on their mission to find the truth so he could be reinstated.

The trio arrived at the club and met its owner Gunther Eriksson, who revealed that the "person of interest" they need to find was one Yulian Pavlov, a member of the Tarasov family who was currently under the protection of the FBI in The Provincial Hotel in West New York. Gunther also informed the trio that he had tipped the High Table off on their arrival so as to not incur their wrath for assisting the trio, but would not hinder their escape, and would in fact lend them the help of a driver named Jason. Just then High Table enforcers entered the building, but our trio were able to elude them by smashing a window and misleading them into thinking they had fled through it, while they sneaked off and met up with Jason.

The party then proceeded towards West New York, but while in the Lincoln Tunnel they realised they were being pursued by the enforcers. Jason was able to put some distance between their car and that of the pursuers, and Joseph shot out a tyre of a car between them, which blocked the tunnel and allowed them to escape.

After they crossed the Hudson River, the party stopped by a motel and at Jason's suggestion they abandoned their car, and Bruce jacked a Volvo as their means of transport, and they drove to The Provincial Hotel.

Bruce knew from his work that the FBI used The Provincial Hotel as a place to house their witnesses, and that they rented the 7th and 8th floors of the 8-storey hotel for that purpose. The party managed to get a suite on the 5th floor, and proceeded to plan how to snatch Julian from the FBI.

Bruce put on an overall he found in the trunk of the car they jacked, and walked up to the 7th floor, where he was intercepted by an FBI agent. Bruce knocked out the FBI agent and took his key card and communications devices, but the commotion brought more FBI agents from the 8th floor. Joseph joined Bruce and kept the agrents at bay with warning shots, and in the confusion the rest of the party was able to reach the 8th floor via the lift.

The remaining agents on the 8th floor retreated into the suite and called for a SWAT team to be sent. Our party breached the room, and in an impressive display of shooting Joseph took out four agents in successive double-taps. Bruce and Joseph searched the room for Yulian, and when they went out onto the balcony they were shot by a sniper from the building across the street. Jason and Mori retrieved the two from the balcony, and Mori performed first-aid on them. Bruce had suffered a minor injury, but Joseph was severely wounded and would need medical aid soon or die.

The party was finally able to find Yulian hiding in the closet in an adjoining room. when he realised that the party were not there to kill him, Yulian agreed to go with them. The five then departed the suite, with Mori carrying Joseph on his shoulders. Just as they exited the door of the adjoining room, they caught a glimpse of a man entering the other door into the main suite itself. They made their way to the lift landing, with Jason covering the rear - just as they turned the corner, Jason caught a glimpse of the gunman exiting the door: it was a man of uncertain ethnicity, wearing a dark suit, and sporting shoulder-length black hair in a centre-parting, and a beard...

The party continued towards the lift landing, and passed the dead bodies of more FBI agents. Knowing that they would not be able to flee the gunman with one of them wounded, and that the SWAT team would arrive soon, they entered the utility room and barricaded themselves inside. Fortunately, there was a laundry chute in the utility room. One by one the party entered the chute even as the gunman tried to breach the room. Jason was the last one to leave, and caught a bullet through the door as he entered the chute. Before the gunman could follow them, however, the SWAT team arrived on the scene, and our gunman had to turn his attention to them...

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the module Schroedinger's Box, which featured the task of getting to someone under the FBI's protection in a hotel.

Again, the session was mostly about the PCs moving from one locale to another, while being pursued by persons with hostile intent. Players being players, they did not respond to every threat with maximum force, but preferred to find a less risky way out each time. Until they didn't.

The high point of the session was when Joseph's player managed to make four successful shooting rolls - in Covert Ops you could perform multiple actions each round, but suffered a 20% penalty on each successive roll, so four successful rolls in one turn was rare indeed.

Despite that, the session ended with the party in dire straits, with one member near death, and them being pursued by John Wick himself. I was doubtful that they could survive being caught between John Wick on the one hand and a SWAT team on the other, but one player asked about a laundry chute, and I thought that was a reasonable thing to find in a hotel.

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.