StarGate1900 skirmish

For a change of pace we went back to an earlier theme of StarGate 1900.

The year is somewhere in the early 20th century (before WWII). A Stargate has been found that allows travel to distant planets, and the great powers are busy sending back parties to loot and suppress (I mean trade with and enlighten) the locals.

In this game a mercenary group composed mostly of ex-Legionnaires found themselves on a jungle planet where they were tasked with retrieving the McGuffin from the pagan idol at the end of the overgrown ancient city. Giant exotic foliage encroached on the area and large areas of marsh impeded movement (just realised: I must like those terrain pieces. I’ve put them in every game recently. Note to self – think harder!). Opposing them were the noble alien savages who had dress-sense just like Samurai. (Figures were varied: Renegade WWI Germans, Artisan Foreign Legion, Old Glory Samurai.)

We played through two games in this same scenario using different rule sets. the first was one of Greg’s work-in-progress systems. It had some fun and innovative parts but the game set disjointed. The second was Savage Worlds and this gave a greater sense of flow and cohesion, but this time round the escalating roll, counter roll, test roll felt intrusive. We haven’t played it for a while, though, and so had forgotten much of it. With familiarity all rules fade into the background.

Kind of a return to StarGate

These magnificent sculpts were once part of the Eureka line until someone decided to rock the boat and claim, without credentials, that they were breaching copyright. Luckily Alan had a few that he claimed he would never paint and passed them on to me.

Here they are, showing the stages in a block paint, Army Painter (Wattyl Stain & Varnish) process. The final shot shows them with some highlighting on the white skirts and a metal dry brush. All that remains on the models is the base work, and this is a pretty standard job for me.

Enjoy

Savage Worlds – Palace raid

In a pick up and play session, we pitted a squad of square jawed colonial British against the palace guards, and a couple of special off-worlder body guards. The rules were basic Showdown, with the humans using standard bolt action rifles and the men from Mongo using standard stats but interpreted as ‘rayguns’ and ‘flame lances’.

The British and Frigians (Inuit) were Eureka. The guardsmen were converted Crusader 100YW with rayguns added. For terrain we used some of the D&D tiles, made into a palace. Around and in it we used blocks from the game, Cathedral to represent various bits of furniture and random items of machinery or sculpture outside.

To design the troops we used the random character generator for Deadlands, drawing cards and then assigning the result to each stat in sequece. This made for some interesting combinations as we had Mong guards with very high Tough (must be that armour they wear), and heroes with low Shoot. But making the heroes Wild Cards gave us another lever to pull and so balance, more or less, was preserved.

Despite the determined efforts of the British, most notably Private Higgs who fought off no less than 5 guards single handed before being brought down, the mission to penetrate the building failed. My hand picked body-guards, dressed in their traditional winter gear as they hailed from planet Frigia, were my Wild Card characters. They lasted to the end, fighting off determined attacks, and finally nailing the last determined Brits.

A good game; a simple game. Yet again we came to the conclusion that it is the scenario that makes a skirmish game. If you have a story then the rules flow and support it. With no story every game is pretty much the same.

New toys for wargaming

Once a movie property has run its initial course, the toys end up in bargain basement stores. What can be $50 when it first comes out can be $10 or less six months later. The following come from Monsters versus Aliens, and also Astroboy (the floating eyes). Both had cute eyes, so I immediately saw the potential for a consistent theme army. I see these matching well with classic ‘Grey’ aliens – bug-eyed little devils that want our women. The big robot was around $5, I think. The little guys were $2.

All have been repainted. I am particularly proud of the eyes.

The mole comes from GI Joe. It’s just great for VSF, or any classic pulp themed game. I forget his price but it was less than $10.

This has been repainted as well, as the original had a clear canopy so you could see the (90mm) figure – no use to me. But at 28mm it looks like an impressive mole. It would fit Thunderbirds as well.

Less exciting, from a discovery point of view, is the Star Wars escape pod from DeAgostini. It is what it is. There was nothing else that I needed to do. But it is a perfectly scaled model of an escape pod, as the AT-43 guys show.

In the background are two aquarium decorations that I picked up as well. These were $20 each, which is still pretty cheap for war-game terrain. And they look just fine. As Second Son declared, ‘you could hide behind the columns, you could shoot between them. You could use your rocket pack and get on top. These are SO cool.’

Deep raid – SG1900, Anubis Gates scenario

Greg and I played a session last night using Flying Lead. Instead of our normal three game mini campaign, we only played a single leisurely session.

StarGate 1900 seems to be melding into the general heading of Anubis Gates: a setting that could be anywhere along a timeline from 1795 through to far future. SG1900 focuses in on the inter-war pulp period. This has been given somewhat of a boost following the success of the Little Wars 2010 meeting where Jurassic Reich was revealed. The range of figures, including an Anubis Gate due to go into production soon, attracted some good interest. It’s childish and silly, and refreshing to be involved with.

Our game last night involved a French team attacking a German outpost on an alien planet. The flora was hostile, giving off toxic spores – much to Greg’s displeasure later in the game. The Germans were guarding an alien artefact in a fortified compound. After a random selection, I played German and Greg the French who burst through the gate in two light trucks.

The initiative stayed strongly with the French as they roared into the base. The second truck was damaged by a grenade but managed to restart and as the French team dismantled and collected the vital parts (a Difficult Q check – using Flashing Steel rules), it appeared that the game was all but over.

But after a long string of disappointing rolls, the German defenders calmed down and made a series of brilliant long range aimed shots, shooting the driver of one truck, and then the next as his body was kicked out of the way. One French survivor fled through the gate, and the two trucks, surrounded by French bodies, revved futilely. – A piece of purple description, I know, but I beat Greg so seldom that I am chuffed.

As a post-script, Greg has just telephoned to tell me that we did not use the correct ranged results table. Implication: I did not win at all…

Anubis Gates – a campaign setting comes together

I have been playing the StarGate1900 setting for a while now, developing that inter-war pulp thought. Greg, meanwhile, has had in his mind the Anubis Gates: a setting that uses gates to travel primarily in time. The recent LittleWars 2010 games Jurassic Reich specifically introduced the Anubis Gates as the reason for the Nazi’s possession of extinct creatures.

As usual, Greg and I have been thinking about the same thing and not realising it. The time/space thing is an idea that is easy to shape, and so it seems obvious to me that the two ideas will come together.

The following is the start of a set of instructions for a multi-player conference game that Eureka Miniatures may or may not actually run. There are a few other options for this event (coming… when? Sometime this year), and I’ll be happy to help in their design as well. But my initial heart is in this Anubis Gates set up.

Here are the initial notes; note that I have removed the gate codes, just in case any actual players for the event check this site to improve their knowledge.

Anubis Gates Conference Game outline

Introduction

This is a conference game designed for a number of players operating in teams. For the purpose of this description the assumption made is that there are a minimum of 8 players on two sides (16 players in total). Once specific numbers are known appropriate adjustments can be made.

The setting for this game can be anything, with the science fantasy addition of the idea of Anubis Gates. These are objects that allow instantaneous travel between locations separated in time and space. Teams take the roles of rival powers utilising the gates in order to seize resources from their opponent, reduce their opponent’s store of resources, and to discover the ‘address’ of the opponent’s home planet in order to attack it directly.

This is a resource management game as well as a tabletop wargame. Each team has a defined store of McGuffin which is used to recruit more troops: the more you have of it, the more you can recruit. As it is lost, so your capacity to field troops reduces.

This is an investigation and a strategic game as the players have the option to search for clues that, when pieced together, will allow them to mount assaults directly against their enemy’s mustering table.

Room arrangement

The gate ‘addresses’ are printed (sticky label?) on the bottom of every Anubis gate model. Players may only observe these labels if they spend an Action to do this investigation, with the exception of the Home gate, which they can see for free at any time.

Table description

Each Location table is a wargame set up, decorated in whatever pleasing way the umpires have chosen.

Importantly, on every table is an Anubis gate. This is the only way into and out of the table. It is placed within the first third of the attacking side.

Secondly, 20 brightly coloured marker cubes (McGuffins) are placed in a stockpile within the defending third of the table. At the start of the game they are in one spot, but the defender is free to distribute them during play.

Thirdly, on each of the 8 tables there will be hidden clues (a symbol on a sticky label on the bottom of a terrain item, for example) – one per table. Four of these clues make up a pattern that, when verified by an umpire, will allow a team to attack their opponent’s Home territory [malicious thought: my team finds a symbol under a ziggurat. What is to stop me dynamiting the ziggurat to prevent the opposition finding the clue? Answer: nothing.]

The Home territories are each team’s deployment zones. All potential figures that may be in play start here. An Anubis gate also appears on these tables. At the least they are the way we are suggesting the troops go to the location tables. Ultimately they are the way the Home territories may be attacked directly.

Economy

Each McGuffin cube is worth 10 points. At the start of the campaign, therefore, each side has 800 points (20 cubes on 4 tables).

Points are used to buy figures to attack or defend locations.

The simplest model soldier has a point value of 10. Therefore, at the beginning of the game a team could claim 80 standard soldiers, and these would be placed on the Home territory, ready for deployment. However, there will be a pick list of soldier types ranging from a standard grunt with a bolt action rifle, through SAW, sergeants and other leaders, and heroic characters.

In order to maintain some kind of force parity (but not enforce ‘fairness’) each squad can be no more than 150 points strong.

As squads of soldiers are sent to locations they may capture McGuffin cubes and transport them home. This increases the attacker’s stockpile, and appropriately reduces the defender’s. They may destroy the McGuffins, reducing their opponent’s without increasing their own.

At the end of the entire session, the side with the most McGuffin cubes wins. Alternately, the team that successfully invades the enemy Home territory wins.

Outline of play

Play is divided into two distinct sessions. Both are strictly timed.

Preparation time (20 minutes) is when the teams:

• Add up how many McGuffins they own – this is their running score
• Spend the McGuffins to recruit soldiers (or confirm that the soldiers they own are still capable of being paid for in the case of a loss of McGuffins)
• Decide the Locations to be visited by squads in the coming Combat turn
• Create squads of models by combining them and placing them into deployment zones in their Home territory
• When time is up, squads in the deployment zones are ready to go to the tables. Any figures not correctly accounted for and in deployment zones (including the deployment zone to stay and defend the Home territory) are removed from the Home territory

Combat time (45 minutes) is when:

• Squads are moved to the Location tables
• Combat is carried out between opposing players using an appropriate version of Flying Lead. Should there be no opponent, no combat occurs and the player with the squad is given free reign in the Location
• McGuffin cubes are collected, destroyed or moved
• Clues are searched for that, when pieced together, will give the ‘address’ of the enemy Home territory. Once the address is believed to be known, the team approaches an umpire, who confirms or denies the code. Once confirmed, at any Combat time thereafter, the team can send forces directly into the enemy Home territory
• When time is up, an assessment is made by an umpire. A clearly losing side is automatically evacuated out of the gate to their Home territory. A balanced situation allows both sides to remain on the table, unless one or both sides wish to evacuate, in which case they automatically do.

Necessary components

Aside from the obvious such as players, figures and terrain, there are a number of items that will be either essential or will greatly simplify management. These include:

• A large number of printed cards with the basic statistics of all soldiers, in quantities such that the players can use them directly to make force selection choices – that is: reduce pen and paper work by giving them cards to count.
• Sufficient umpires to move around the tables (there could be 10 in play).
• Efficient, transparent and obvious timekeeping. By keeping the screws on time you add tension. Tension translates to frustration and excitement. Further, since most people will be new to the game system, the first games will go slow: by keeping the game turn over rate quick, you allow them to learn from their mistakes quickly, rather than agonise over losing situations for long periods of time. The objective is to get through as many Combat sessions as possible, not to have one long combat session.
• Observation of the Anubis gate address labels on the bottom of the models must be strictly adjudicated. Players should be actively prevented from wandering around and picking up the models, willy-nilly, to see the labels. Finding out what is printed on the gates is the key single element of exploration of the game.