Dragons, Demons... and Ducks

 I've posted before about how my route into wargaming started with role-playing games.  My 1st game was the 'Holmes Edition' D&D set back in about 78-79, quickly followed by AD&D and assorted other games (Gamma World, Call of Cthulhu, Space Opera, Traveller and more).

After I moved down south, role-playing went on the back burner apart from a brief spell when I lived out in the wilds of Surrey and we dabbled with the less well known Fantasy Hero.

During Covid a friend from my uni days decided to run an online campaign for a little while, to keep us all occupied during lockdown.  6 years later we're still playing.  We started with his own game, a variation (kind of) of Chivalry & Sorcery which he was keen to test-play. My Halfling thief/bard spent most weeks being lowered down assorted wells on the end of a rope... it seemed to be the default solution to most things!  We've also run a mini-campaign of the 1980s Steve Jackson Games The Fantasy Trip and eventually dragged ourselves out of the 1980s and played Dragonbane.  I'll come back to this in a minute.  

Also this year my regular gaming group at Eric the Shed's launched ourselves on a nostalgia-heavy 1st edition AD&D campaign.  This has been masterminded by Eric and has been great fun with a hugely detailed backstory.  From 40 years on, it's easy to see some of the flaws in AD&D but it's been enormous fun and my Paladin is having a great time trying to save the world while also keeping an eye on the definitely dodgy halfling thief that is one of his colleagues.  This halfling has also been regularly dangled on a rope! Oh, and we have a magical pig....

So, back to Dragonbane...this game started back in the 1980s in Sweden as Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons), using some mechanics from Chaosium games. Apparently it was huge in Sweden in the 80s and 90s! It's been through assorted variations, but was re-launched in 2023 by Free League Publishing

Its a fairly simple system with the usual character classes, races and stats.  Generally you need to roll under your skill or characteristic to succeed... rolling a 1 (a Dragon) is a good thing, rolling a 20 (a Demon) is bad, although either result does give you an opportunity to try to improve your skill... I guess doing something well or badly is always a learning opportunity!  Despite being simple, it's great fun and very flexible.

The game describes itself as Mirth and Mayhem and I think that sums up our experiences with the recent campaign we played through.  None of us take it too seriously and the emphasis is always on having a fun evening.  Our group includes folk from Scotland, England and Costa Rica so managing to get the gang all together online isn't always easy but we've been pretty good at managing a game every other week.

As the last campaign drew to a close and neither of our 2 regular GMs fancied running the next campaign (both for very good reasons), I somehow found myself volunteering to give it a go!  I haven't run anything like this for about 40 years so it was a bit daunting.  Luckily there was a new supplement hot off the presses for Dragonbane... Arkand, City of Waves and Flames.  It's a great resource with huge amounts of detail and ideas for campaigns and scenarios set in a city with Dragons and Demons definitely part of the back story.  It's also just a lovely book... lots of great reading and lovely illustrations.

It's been tricky navigating my way through the book... it is very non-linear and GMs are encouraged to use it as a resource rather a straight series of scripted scenarios.  Apart from a suggested opening encounter, everything else is a series of descriptions and 'adventure seeds' which require quite a bit of fleshing out.  This part has been fun but I have to confess I've stooped to AI to help structure things and to design the maps.  We use Roll20 as a platform to share maps, character sheets etc and that's been another steep learning-curve!  It's one thing using it as a player but once you peek behind the curtain as a GM there's a whole load of new things to learn!

So far we've had one evening's play.  The party have captured a Manticore and delivered it to the city's mysterious menagerie (and named it 'Buttercup'... I suspect we haven't heard the last of Buttercup...), fought some rabid (possibly poisoned?) dogs and safely arrived at an ominously named inn: Death in the Deep.  I have the next couple of sessions sketched out and maps prepped for next weeks game.  I must admit I'd forgotten how much fun GM'ing can be

Oh, and yes... ducks are available as characters (nicked from Runequest I guess!)

Wofun fun

 This week we played out a 16th century Scots and English battle using Anthony's really lovely Wofun miniatures flats.  I've always been a fan of Peter Dennis' artwork and his paper soldiers (lots of posts elsewhere on the blog about this and my Jacobite and Ancient armies) but these take that concept and elevate it using some neat plexiglass templates.  The figures look great and the colours really 'pop'.  No painting required, or cutting out if you've gone down the paper soldier route (although I did find that quite therapeutic).  I must admit I spent rather too long going through the Wofun website after I got home from our game!

Our game pitched 3 Scots pike blocks against English blocks of combine Bows and Bills/Men at Arms.  The English also had a couple of light guns and some Border Horse.  The Scots artillery was some very impressive heavy guns but these were fixed in place so their targets were a bit limited and their fire rate was slower than the lighter English guns.  We used Andy Callan's Flodden rules which are available for free on the Wofun website.  I'm not sure when these were developed but I'm pretty sure they pre-date Never Mind the Billhooks, but you can see lots of Billhooks elements in them.  The rules were good and very appropriate to the setting but I think Billhooks has removed some of the 'fiddliness' from them. 

Not surprisingly I took the Scots side and decided not to hang about, but to press on across the table and hopefully survive the arrowstorm from the waiting archers on the English left.  Movement isn't guaranteed each turn, and both of us had units refuse to budge at critical moments.

Somehow the arrows proved surprisingly ineffective but the artillery on both sides did a lot of damage... even more surprisingly none of the guns exploded!  2 of my blocks were equipped with Pavises which helped, and we were able to ditch them before hand to hand started  (when they would have been a bit of a hindrance for the Scots).  2 of my Pike blocks crashed into the English: the waiting archers slipped to the back of the blocks after loosing a final volley, and the pikemen and billmen fought it out.  The fighting on this flank went of for several turns with the English eventually losing 1 of their combined blocks.  

On the other flank things weren't going so well for the Scots.  My Highland Pikemen were trying to close with another English Archer/Billmen block but a combination of archery and especially artillery fire meant they fell below half-strength, meaning they could no longer attack.  My guns had inflicted the same result on one of the English blocks meaning both sides milled about ineffectively, and were both a prime target for artillery and archers.  I almost broke the weakened English block with artillery fire (aren't so many games full of 'almost' moments!) before my guns were overrun by the Border Horse, but the Archers and Billmen managed to hang on, and his remaining effective unit of archers finished off the Highlanders, leaving a pile of tartan pincushions on the field and handing a close victory to the English (boooo!)

A close run thing but very enjoyable.  I was very lucky not to have taken a lot more damage from the archers.  We did discuss maybe trying the game again at some point with Billhooks to see if the more recent rules make a difference.

And, finally, here is Clan Chieftan McLeonard in full regalia who failed to turn up for the fight (probably quite sensibly given how most Scots/English battles went in this period).  He's definitely Scottish... he couldn't be more Ginger!

A bloody day at Mars -La-Tour

 There haven't been many posts over the last month or so, although there's been plenty of gaming and painting.

On the paint table, I've been working on the next batch of Airfix Britons... really enjoying painting these and I've been impressed by how good they are given the age of the figure design and the bendy soft plastic.  I've also been painting up some more of the Lucid Eye Red Book of the Elf King figures.  Again, very nice to paint.  I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to do with these once I have enough for a game, but I'm happy to go with the flow and enjoy the process!

Game-wise, there's been an excellent huge Ancients game at Eric the Shed's where the Persians gave the Greeks a bloody nose, and some excellent Roleplaying games at Eric's and online (more on RPGs in a separate post coming soon)

Last night saw me actually dig some figures out of the loft for a game... it's the 1st time I've ventured up there for months, partly due to the heat as it's like a sauna up there.  I bashed my head off the hatch on the way up but managed to stay on the ladder somehow... the lump's just about going down now, several days on!  I really do need to do some sorting out up there though as it's even more chaotic than normal.

So, it was off to the fields  of NW France and the Franco-Prussian war with my friend Andrew, and a refight of Mars-La-Tour using the excellent 19th Century rules by Neil Thomas.  Mars-la-Tour should be a good chance for the French to give the Prussians a rare kicking... Marshal Bazaine had 130 000 men available versus an initial Prussian force of 30 000 (eventually rising to 65000 later in the day).  Of course French generalship was very poor and meant that they failed to make much impact on the Prussians who had formed a defensive position.  The scenario puts a lot of restrictions on French command and control so only between 1-3 French units can be fully mobilised each turn.  All the others move and fire at half effect. 

 

[Does this sound like I'm getting my excuses in early... because that's exactly what I'm doing!!]

Both sides have reinforcements arriving half way through the game and the French actually have a great opportunity to flank the Prussian line.  The temptation was to sit back and wait for these, and use the advantage of the longer rifle range that the French enjoy, but I was conscious that the victory conditions meant the French have to force the Prussians away from the central road which leads to Metz.  I was lucky with my command roles which let me order the max of 3 units per turn for the 1st few rounds.  Looking at the map, I did make a slight error when I set out the starting positions which should have had a couple more of the French units begin within range of the Prussians, especially in the SE corner of the map

[yep... more excuses]

I tried using my artillery to soften up the Prussians and pushing a couple of infantry units forward: one of the features of the rules is that you can generally either move or fire, not both.  And moving means you are in column, which made my units a tempting target for the superior Prussian artillery which caused pretty devastating casualties.  

The rules certainly give a good reflection of 19thC warfare.  Regiments marching across the open are likely to devastated by artillery and breechloading rifles.  In desperation I tried an assault on Vionville before spotting the rule which says Infantry will only charge other infantry when they outnumber them... frustrating but fairly accurate.  It definitely emphasises the need to soften up your opponent with longer range fire first!

The doomed assault on Vionville

After a few turns of this we realised that there was no way the French were going to get anywhere near the Prussian lines and abandoned the game in favour of a general catch up and chat

With hindsight I should either have made a general advance to within Chassepot range: I'd have come under heavy artillery fire but it would have been spread across the line, rather than giving Andrew the chance to concentrate on 1 or 2 units.  Or waited till the reinforcements arrived.  However I like to think I played the French in the spirit of Marshal Bazaine!!

I haven't played these rules for several years but I can highly recommend them.  They're pretty simple and easy to pick up and I really like the explanations Neil Thomas gives about how they are structured which make a lot of sense.  They're actually a really nice set of rules to read.  His explanations about the development of wars in 19thC Europe and his musings on the features of the rules are very readable and add a lot of information and nuance

Airfix Britons on the paint table

 I've been on a bit of a roll with painting recently with some ECW Epic Highlanders and Lucid Eye Elves on the paint table, and in a rush of blood to the head I've had a go at the 1st box (of 3) of the reissued Airfix Ancient Britons.

It's been quite a while since I've painted soft plastic figures and there were a few rookie mistakes with these.  I did remember to give them a good wash before I started but then forgot to give them a PVA undercoat which meant some of the paint struggled to adhere to the plastic.  Sorted in the end but annoying.

I also tried using Speed/Contrast paints which are pretty much my go-to paints these days.  For some of the figures this worked well... the Chieftain and the archers had enough detail for the paint to show up nicely... but some of the figures are quite 'flat' and I needed to go over these with 'ordinary' acrylics and then give them an ink wash rather than rely on the speed paints to do the work for me.

Obviously these are quite old school figures so don't have all the detail that we've come to expect in harder plastic ones so expectations need to be altered, but I was quite pleased with these.  3 boxes will give 70+ figures which should be enough for a large skirmishy style game.

1st game of Cry Havoc

 I posted a little while ago about the reissued version of the classic 80s boardgame Cry Havoc.  I have fond memories of playing this at uni and loving the narrative feel of the scenarios.... rather than a rather boring description of eg 2 forces encounter each other in a village, you have a story about insults between named characters which lead to a brawl.  This is a summary of scenario #1 and feels much more evocative.  So how did the game go, and do the mechanics hold up after 40+ years.  Hmmm......

On the plus side....

• The maps are nice and make for an interesting battlefield... in the 1st scenario the fighting takes place around a few buildings with a central street and there are lots of tactical choices about where to try and funnel the fight and make best use of doorways, widows etc
• The characters are distinct and named which adds to the feel of the story
• The rules are relatively simple and are quick to pick up

Sadly there are quite a few more negatives... 

(...and I'll caveat this by adding that I lost the game so maybe some of this is sour grapes, but I don't think so...)

The game was relaunched with a real emphasis on it being very faithful to the original and sadly that includes lots of gaps in rules which require house rules or modding, and some real imbalances.  I get the nostalgia appeal but there was a real missed opportunity to tidy up the many gaps in the rules (eg line of sight) or rebalance some of the issues.  Similarly the counters could have been made a bit more substantial.

Archers.  I don't remember them being hugely overpowered but reading old reviews this seems to have always been an issue and should definitely have been addressed.  Bow armed characters get to fire, then move, then fire again and then fight.  At close range they can't miss and are guaranteed to kill or wound an opponent (and 2 wounds are a kill).  I guess they were armed with some kind of laser-guided armour piercing bow! They are also able to fire over multiple intervening figures... this makes some sense in a battle with massed archery fire, but in a skirmish doesn't feel right at all.  I have a feeling some of this may have been picked up in the follow up games to Cry Havoc back in the 80s (Viking Raiders, Outremer etc) but I'm not sure.  It would be easy to add some simple house rules to make things more realistic, eg archers can only fire once if they've moved, change the overhead fire etc.  Maybe reduce their melee effectiveness if they've fired earlier in the turn or not allow it as they're still carrying a bow.  Of course these all make a simple game more complex.

The counters.  Each character has 2 double sided counters with a fully healthy character, a stunned version, a wounded one and, finally, a corpse.  This quickly became a little fiddly swapping out counters and making sure we had the right side showing.  In our game we only has 6 characters but I can imagine with a large force this would become a bit of a headache.  I had thought you could replace the counters with 15mm or 20mm figures but this would need assorted counters to mark their status.

If I'm honest I came away a bit frustrated from the game.  Not because I lost (probably)... my opponent Anthony had learned a lot from a previous run out of this scenario and played a smart game, using his archer to kill several people before hemming my remaining peasants inside a house and ganging up on them.  Everyone's favourite cat, Leonard, arrived to help but sadly turned up too late... I could have done with him batting a few of Anthony's counters off the table!!

Reinforcements arrive too late!

The village

Starting positions

The bodies begin to pile up

Sir Leonard de Woking

So the verdict so far isn't great... I'd be tempted to give a larger game a go to see how that works but realistically I think Cry Havoc may be destined for the loft or for eBay.  I did find some Advanced Cry Havoc rules online which might address some of the flaws but, at first reading, they seem to add lots of complexity but I'm not sure they'll make for a smooth game.  They have shades of the piling on of layers that you get in games like ASL, but I haven't read them properly yet so they might clear up a lot of the issues.  I guess I'm looking for something simpler and more 'fun' and there are a host of more modern rules around like The Barons War, Ecorcheurs, 1 Hour Skirmish Wargames, Lion Rampant, or (my 'go to' skirmish rules) Fistful of Lead

Sometimes things weren't better in the good old days...

Bucklers Hard

 We had a short trip away to the New Forest this week... just one night but a lovely break, staying in Lymington.  We stopped off at Bucklers Hard for lunch and a wander and stumbled across an archaeological dig in progress.  It's running till August 7th and is exploring one of the 18thC slipway.

Bucklers Hard sits in the Beaulieu River and was originally modestly named Montagu Town by the Duke of Montagu.  It's famous for shipbuilding from the mid 18thC through to a decline in the post-Napoleonic period.  43 Royal Navy ships were built here including 3 that fought at Trafalgar.

The dig looked like hot, muddy work but luckily there was a cooler tent showing off some of the finds.  It did give off a certain 'Detectorists' vibe with shades of the DMDC finds table.

Sheer nostalgia

 The very first 'proper' toy soldiers I remember were from a toy wild west fort that I got for Xmas... apparently my dad had wanted 1 when he was wee so I guess he finally got to play cowboys and Indians.  I also inherited some Airfix 1:32 WW2 soldiers from my big cousin, along with (weirdly) some Airfix footballers.

But... the first figures I remember choosing and painting were Romans and Ancient Britons from Airfix in 1/76 scale.  When I say 'painting' I think I had some enamel paints and daubed it badly over the figures (not sure my painting technique has improved that much!).  I have a very vivid memory of painting these at my Granny's house during school holidays in, I guess the early 70s.

So, in a fit of unabashed nostalgia, I immediately pre-ordered when Airfix announced they were re-issuing them.  The boxes arrived today.  Well, actually yesterday and today since for some reason they were sent separately and in huge boxes for a small package.  3 boxes of Britons and 2 of Romans, although I can see me adding to them.  Now they can join the painting queue while I think of suitable rules.