The Year in Review

I'm a little early this year, but I decided to publish my year-end review on the last Saturday of the month.

What was I up to this year?

Bye Bye!

Let's start with the obvious one.

I abandoned my old blog and started this one. I did this to emphasize cutting ties with miniatures. I've given up on minis - it's all counters all the time!

Bye bye, miniatures

All Over the Place

As usual, GADD struck and I ended up fiddling around with a slew of games and campaigns. Some were one offs and I haven't yet finished many of the campaigns

On my old blog:

• A Napoleonic Knockout campaign - completed with a Turkish victory
• Five Klicks from the Zone - I played a couple games
• Night Watch - test game
• Lion Rampant - played the first scenario  of A Viking in the Sun mini-campaign
• American Revolution in Florida campaign - I actually finished this campaign that I began years ago!
• Some aerial dogfights
• An ancient naval battle

And on this blog:

• Pyrrhus campaign - actually completed a short campaign! Ready for his next adventure.
• Fiddled with skirmish games and started the Snorin the dwarf campaign
• Ganesha Games' Demonslayer
• Micro Dungeon - a new RPG-light approach, which I'm using to finish the Icespire Peak module

Whew, I was busy!

Prognostications

I started the year with a prediction on where my gaming would go. Let's see how I did.

• The Slows - I expected a slow year. Wrong! As you can see above, I dabbled with a lot of different games and had many more blog posts compared to 2023.
• Summer Song - I thought my LARP group might play Song of Blades & Heroes over the summer. Wrong! We never got around to it, although we played a lot of board games.
• Printer - I wanted to get my own printer. Right!
• LARP - I expected to be busy with LARP. Interestingly, I mentioned two LARP organizations but have done little with those. However, my local group has gotten a few solid new members so it's going better than expected. So I'll call this Right!

A 50% success rate. Not bad for me!

Merry Christmas!

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."

(Luke 2: 8-11 NIV)

Botticelli's Nativity

May the joy of the season be on you on this holy day and in the year to come.

Asculum-ish

After a bit of a lull, we return to the exploits of King Pyrrhus.

The Campaign So Far

Forced to retreat to his base at Tarentum, Pyrrhus turns and confronts the Roman host. In the ensuing battle, the king and his cavalry go on a rampage, routing the Romans single-handedly.

Now Pyrrhus pursues the Romans deep into Italy. A Roman force makes a stand near Asculum.

The Set Up

The Roman general Decius sets up his force blocking the road to Capua (top).

Wow, you can't see the hill in the pictures. I think I need a darker hue.

His forces consist of 2 units of Roman infantry and 2 units each of light infantry and cavalry.

Pyrrhus enters the battlefield from the south with 2 units of cavalry, 1 unit of elephants, 2 phalanxes, and a unit of allied infantry (green marker).

Pyrrhus's objective is to break through the Roman line and continue on the road to Capua.

Game Note: I randomly rolled breakthrough as the objective. Pyrrhus needs to get 2 units off the Roman side of the battlefield.

The Battle

Pyrrhus aggressively attacks. He leads the cavalry on the left while the elephants attack the center and the phalanxes vainly try to drive light infantry from the woods.

Pyrrhus orders his phalanx to ignore the lights and advance in the center. Meanwhile, his cavalry and elephant attacks get repulsed. But the allied infantry drive the lights out of the woods.

A near disaster! Pyrrhus's cavalry gets repulsed and the king falls! But wait, that was his bodyguard wearing Pyrrhus's armor. The king finds shelter with his second cavalry unit. Meanwhile, a phalanx breaks through in the center.

And it helps the allies drive the lights further back. Unfortunately, the Romans destroy Pyrrhus's elephants.

Pyrrhus retaliates by routing some Roman cavalry.

The phalanx breaks through and exits the battlefield.

Then the allied infantry break wipe out the lights. 

I just noticed that the woods moved. Shades of Tolkien and Lewis!

At this point, the Roman army falters and retires from the field.

Aftermath

Pyrrhus brings his forces to the gates of Roman Capua. But he is reluctant to engage in a protracted siege. When the Romans offer a truce, he accepts. This will give him time to consolidate southern Italy as part of his personal kingdom.

My plan was to run a short 3-game campaign. Well, Pyrrhus wins 2-1. However, I just can't imagine the Romans surrendering so we'll call it a truce. I may return to Italy in the future.

But next up will be Sicily. Pyrrhus will fight the Carthaginians.

MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES

• Initially, I wanted to test my new consolidated counters but I haven't printed any up yet.
• This was my first test of my consolidated boxes. There were pros and cons.
• The boxes took up more space on the table while I was setting up.
• But I like the bigger (6x8 vs 5x7) battle map better.
• I can live with the con because it does use less space in storage.

The Dragon Barrow

 A Ser Killian Micro Dungeon Adventure

Spoiler Alert - This is another adventure loosely based on D&D's Dragon of Icespire Peak. Even so, it may have some spoilers. You may not want to read this if you plan to play that adventure.

Game Notes

I've made more progress on the rules for Micro Dungeon. Because my previous Ser Killian experiment worked well, I decided to continue on. This time, I formally statted out the party using the latest version of the character creation rules.

The Party

Here are the stats for Killian's party.

• Ser Killian, level 5 paladin in heavy armor with shield - AV 5, DV 8, HP 9
• Squire Haiden, level 5 fighter in light armor with shield - AV 5, DV 7, HP 10
• Brother Martin, level 4 cleric in light armor - AV 3, DV 5, HP 8, Spell Points 8
• Nashad, level 4 fighter in light armor with a two-handed weapon - AV 5, DV 5, HP 8

The Story So Far

After defeating the orcs and the corrupted tree at the Woodland Manse, Ser Killian and his party return to Phandalin. 

They learn that the white dragon had attacked another convoy on the road. Ser Killian pledges to end the dragon's reign of terror. To do this, he must retrieve the sword of dragon slaying, said to lie in a barrow north of the town. Here, a party of heroes defeated a marauding dragon but died from their wounds.

Approaching the Barrow

Travel to the barrow is uneventful.

Game Note: I wanted to get on with the dungeon so I did not bother with travel and wandering monsters. Instead, poof, they made it safely.

As they near the barrow, a centaur appears from nearby woods. He warns the party to be off - do not disturb the peace of the heroes buried there.

Ser Killian informs the centaur that he must retrieve the sword. The centaur fires an arrow at him. The party charges and drives the centaur off.

Another Game Note:

Here is the setup for this dungeon.

• I created cards for the encounters. I just quickly ginned them up from index cards. The centaur is flipped over but the rest are face down.
• I also created some quickie markers for the tracking board - one for each character, one for monsters, one for Martin's spell points, and one for healing kits (designated by a picture of a bandage).
• The character stats are on one index card below the tracker.

Into the Barrow

Our heroes enter the barrow. The first room is filled with webs. Suddenly, a giant spider shoots a web, catching Haiden in its sticky strands. The rest attack the spider. It bites Nashad and Martin, but they are not poisoned. Finally, Nashad wounds it and it retreats into a hole.

Next they enter a cavern with dancing lights. Haiden and Nashad become mesmerized and walk unsuspectingly toward an open pit. Martin casts a spell that breaks Haiden's charm. The three of them attack the wisps. The wisps cause some wounds but eventually retreat from the fray. Killian then rescues Nashad.

Winding through the corridors of the barrow, they enter a room with statues of the heroes of old. The statues come to life and try to bar the party from passing. When Killian tries to get by, the statues attack. The blades of our heroes seem to have little impact on the statues. Martin then blasts them with a spell and the rest gang up and finish the statues off.

Finally, they enter a treasure room. The sword is on display, stuck into the skull of a large dragon. Killian seizes the sword. Suddenly, an invisible attacker strikes him! The guardian hacks and slashes our heroes while they flail in vain. Martin tries to cast as spell that will cover the guardian in sticky tar. This would allow the party to see their adversary. Alas, the spell fails.

Then Killian has them retreat into a corridor, forcing the guardian to attack in a narrow space. Although swinging blindly, the party manages to get in some hits. Due to wounds, Martin has to retreat. Finally, Killian and Nashad finish off the guardian.

They now have the sword!

WHAT NEXT? STAY TUNED FOR MORE ADVENTURES!

NOTES

• The rules are shaping up nicely. I'm working on writing things down.
• I do take some artistic license with my accounts. For example, I did not really plot out the movements of the combatants during the battle with the invisible guardian. I just rolled dice. But in my head, I envisioned the tactic that I described.
• I have a small list of spells but I found myself improvising along the way - the uncharm and the tar spells in particular. I like the idea of allowing improvised spell casting.

Counter Argument

Yesterday I mentioned a possible solution to my counter quandary - have one set of counters that works for squad skirmishes and big battles. 

I have come up with another option - double sided counters.

Here is an example.

Front (left) and back (right)

Two forces in the same space as one!

There are a few of things I need to consider.

• These would preclude having a damaged side on the back, like I do with my planes and ships. Right now, I'm using tokens to mark damage so it should not be an issue.

• What size base? The example above shows the equivalent of a 1 inch wide base. It seems a bit big for the squad. I'm tempted to try 3/4 inch but that would necessitate redoing all my big battle bases. Do I want to redo all that work?

I'm going to do some test counters to see how I like them.

Consolidating Counters

Recently, I spent some time consolidating my MicroBattle gaming materials into 2 boxes - one with terrain and markers and the other with counters.

I noticed that my counter box is rather full.

And I still need to mount some counters. Plus I've been toying a project for squad-based pre-modern skirmishes. Which means more counters!

A Consolidation Concept

I began to ponder ways I can reduce the amount of counters I have. I came up with a couple of ideas.

Idea # 1 - One Set to Rule Them All

The idea here is to use the same counters for squad-based actions and big battles. 

I'm not keen on my current counters for squads; there are nearly 100 individuals on a heavy-infantry counter. Instead, I could do use squad-based counters, like these.

Obviously, these work great for squads, but will they work for big battles? I suppose so. I see gamers frequently use a small number of minis to represent large formations. I could do the same, and call each counter a squad, brigade, division, or whatever.

Idea # 2 - Fewer Colors

Right now, I have about 9 sets of pre-modern armies, including 3 shades of blue and 1 purple. Maybe I can pair this down a bit.

I'm thinking red, white, blue, green, and black. I'm debating brown, which I use for native forces. I suppose I could use white or black for natives.

Inspiration

 I found some interesting rules so I'm starting a list. I'll keep adding to it when I make new discoveries.

• Matchbox ironclads (Grid Based Wargaming)
• Ancient naval (Grid Based Wargaming)

Woodland Manse

A Ser Killian Micro Dungeon Adventure

Spoiler Alert - this adventure is loosely based on the D&D adventure Dragon's of Icespire Keep. You may not want to read it if you plan to play that adventure.

Ser Killian's Tale

This missive continues the tale of Ser Killian, originally told in this chronicle.

Ser Killian is a level 4 paladin. He is joined by his squire Haiden (L4 fighter), his confessor Martin (L3 cleric), and man-at-arms Nashad (L3 fighter).

In his last adventure, Killian and his party battled through various enemies to reach Falcon's Hunting Lodge. The owner then asked for help clearing out some marauding orcs.

Quick Aside for a Game Note

I was originally playing Ser Killian's adventures using my MicroQuest rules. But I ran into difficulties when the adventurers got their butts kicked by some orcs in a long, drawn-out battle. Seems that my damage / armor rules weren't working very well. So I shelved MQ until I could sort out the problem.

Anyway, as I've been experimenting with Micro Dungeon, it dawned on me that I could use MD to complete Killian's tale.

To the Manse

Falcon informs the party that there is an abandoned manse to the east in the woods. Once the home of a wizard, it now seems to be the stronghold of the orc marauders.

Along the way, the party runs into an orc warband. After a brief but intense fight, the orcs break and flee. Our heroes have taken some wounds.

Next, they get ambushed by blights, humanoid-looking plants that thrive on human blood. Once again, there is a brisk fight that our heroes win.

Finally, from the brush a pack of boars rush the party. Our heroes quickly kill the attackers.

The Manse

At the entrance of the manse awaits an orc shaman. As the party approaches, he warns them to leave.

Killian responds "We come to destroy the corruption that has blighted these woods. If you are not involved, then move aside and let us do our work."

The orc sneers, "I am the corruption." With that, he chants an incantation and an earthquake knocks the party off their feet. In an instant, he is among our heroes, smashing them with his staff.

The shaman dodges our heroes, striking again and again. Martin is bleeding profusely and must retreat from the combat. Killian covers him, only to suffer the wrath of the shaman. Before the orc can strike a killing blow, Nashad comes up from behind and strikes him down.

The Corruption

Inside the manse, they find a courtyard with a blackened tree in the middle.

Martin shivers and says, "This is the source. I can feel the evil."

Suddenly, the tree lashes out with vines, striking our heroes. This begins a terrible fight. Again and again, the vines lash out. Again and again, our heroes rush in and strike the tree's trunk. Little chips of wood fly, but the tree seems unaffected.

Blood runs freely from our heroes. The vines grasp Killian and squeeze him. Winded and bloodied, his strength is nearly sapped. Yet he breaks free, and rushes forth. In a little chink in the bark, Killian drives his sword. It penetrates into the blackened heart of the tree. It thrashes wildly, vines trying to withdraw the sword piercing. Its efforts are in vain. Within minutes, it sags and moves no more.

After this, Martin and Killian cleanse the manse of evil. With this, the orcs should depart.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE ADVENTURES OF SER KILLIAN!

NOTES

About the Ser Killian campaign:

• That worked surprisingly well. I think I will convert my Ser Killian campaign to these new rules.
• Just checked - I have 3 adventures left in the campaign. Using Micro Dungeon should allow me to knock them out in no time!
• Checking the Icespire Peak campaign book, I realize that Ser Killian and his compatriots should have leveled up last time. I will correct this going forward.

About the Micro Dungeon rules:

• I did not use counters, or even the dungeon board. Instead, I had index cards with the monster starts on them. I laid them out face down then flipped them as I went. This worked well and leads me to a new option - monster cards. It's something I experimented with before but never completed. But I think it solves the problem I mentioned previously. I may design cards without images; that should speed up the creation process. They won't be index card sized. That's just too big. I'll probably make them half an index card.
• I did use the tracking board. It just makes the game so much easier. I realize I can also use it to track spell points and potions.

A Practice Dungeon Run

I took my micro dungeon out for a test spin. I'm using a generic warrior and mystic as (unnamed) characters.

Here is the board at the end of the game.

We were fighting the boss and the warrior was down to 1 hp when the mystic finished it off. Whew! Although the heroes got a bit unlucky; they had to go through all 6 encounter areas.

Thoughts

Just some random musings about how it worked.

• The entire dungeon probably took 15 minutes or so. Perfect.
• The wounds tracker works well. I don't have to worry about penciling stuff down. If I want to record results, I can snap of picture of the tracker after each battle.
• I gave the heroes a chance to heal after each encounter. Without it, they would have failed. I like the mechanic better than giving them a ton of hit points. I just need to formalize rules, and perhaps impose some limits.
• Successful hits did 1 point of damage each. I am toying with a variable damage mechanic. Stay tuned.
• I forgot to account for armor. I assume the warrior would start with light armor. That would likely have reduced damage taken.
• I still haven't devised a magic system.

The Big Problem

I mentioned a potential problem with the counters, and I think it is an issue I need to address.

It took a long time to create the monster counters. Now that the dungeon is done, I need new counters. It just seems like too much work.

So here is my new plan.

• Make generic monster counters labeled 1 to 6 plus a generic boss counter.
• Randomly place these on the board, facing down, at the start.
• Create a dungeon key on an index card. The key lists the monsters and their stats.

So this will be my next experiment.

Consolidation

I started consolidating my wargame storage.

Why?

It started the other day when I was doing some cleaning and organizing around the house. I had a bunch of little boxes with my MicroBattle wargames strewn about - one each for air, naval, land, and skirmish.

It dawned on me that I could consolidate all these smaller boxes into a larger box and save some storage. I ended up dumping everything into a large box, and then walking away.

I had a day off recently and thought about playing a game. I wanted a break from MicroDungeon so I was looking for something else. Then Little Wars TV sent an email about an upcoming Talavera game. Napoleonics it is!

But then I came upon the jumble of stuff.

What?

Here is that jumble of stuff. Most of my "armies" are in a separate small box. Pictured is the larger, 9 x 12 inch box where I dumped everything else. You can see some of it strewn about outside the box.

The first thing I did was take all the armies and put them in a separate 9 x 12 inch box. 

Each army is in a separate 2 inch square container. There are also some unmounted units and some miscellaneous bases and markers in baggies. I have since removed the bases and markers.

The next step was to sort through all the terrain. I actually have way more than I need because I had a set of terrain for each small box. Extras ended up in the trash. I did the same with extra battle boards.

Here is the final product.

On the bottom, I have markers, terrain, and dice. Battle boards (right) go on top. I also have a printed copy (left) of an old version of MicroBattle.

Bigger Box =

Now that I have a bigger box, I can expand my battle board. I could go to 8 x 11 squares. I find this a bit too big. I will likely go with 6 x 8.

Micro Dungeon Takes Shape

On Thanksgiving morning, I was toying with the idea of playing a game, perhaps another Snorin scenario. My eyes noticed a bag of 1 inch wooden squares and suddenly inspiration struck. Instead of cards for my pocket dungeon game I could make counters using those wood squares.

I began feverishly working and came up with a prototype.

By the way, I'm now calling it Micro Dungeon because there is a published game called Pocket Dungeon.

The Game Boards

I used two pieces of cardboard for the game boards.

Left

This is a wound tracker. I have 3 markers - one each for a warrior, a mystic (wizard or cleric), and a monster.

Right

This is the dungeon. It consists of 6 encounter areas displayed in a pyramid fashion. The boss will be the rightmost area.

The first area on the left is the entry area. There will be no encounter there.

The Counters

I made several counters based on The Goblin Horde Micro Chapbook. I added an extra counter (just off the board) - a trap. I can use this in lieu of a monster if I wish.

The counters include the basic monster stats - Combat Value (CV) and hit points (hp). For the most part, the images come from sets created by Okum Arts. I rather like the cartoon style.

Potential Problem?

It took me a while to create, print, and mount the counters. This may be a problem if I want to make new dungeons with different monsters.

I see 2 solutions to the problem.

1. Find a more efficient way to create the counters.
2. Use generic counters with a cross reference to a monster key. I would probably put the key on an index card.

Let me run a game before I make any decisions.

Pocket Dungeon

I did a quick experiment of a quick play portable dungeon crawl game. I haven't come up with all the rules yet. I just wanted to test the general concept.

The Heroes

I decided to run the game with 2 heroes. One can be too tough a challenge and 4 is more work to track. Two seems like a good compromise. I've had success using 2 heroes in the past.

Heroes have stats for level (starting at 1), attack bonus, defense bonus, and hit points. The attack value = level + attack bonus. The defense value = level + defense bonus.

For this test, I have two warriors named Hans and Franz. They are level 1, have a defense bonus of 1 for light armor, and have 8 and 10 hp respectively.

The Setup

I decided to set up the dungeon in a general flowchart manner. There are 6 encounter areas arranged in pyramid form.

I then choose 6 possible encounters, including a boss. The boss will go into the final area (right) while the others get assigned randomly and secretly to the other areas.

I assign a combat value and hit points to the monsters.

For this test, I used the Skeleton Cavern adventure from Micro Chapbook.

Exploring the Dungeon

Here is the process I used for exploring the dungeon.

• Select a room from the left column to enter.
• Reveal the encounter. Resolve any combat.
• After combat, I allowed the characters to attempt to heal a wound.
• Choose the next area to enter. You can only move to the next column if you roll a 4-6. This will possibly cause a little meandering.
• Continue moving through rooms until you come to the boss.

Resolving Combat

To resolve combat, follow these steps.

• Determine initiative
• When the heroes attack
• Compare their attack value to the enemy's combat value
• To hit on 4+. Add or subtract 1-2 if the enemy value is higher or lower. This is like MicroBattle.
• A hit causes damage of 2.
• When the heroes defend
• Compare their defense value to the enemy's combat value.
• Defend on 4+, modified for differences in values.
• A hit causes set damage depending on the monster.

I still have not worked out the effects of magic.

The Adventure

Hans and Franz enter the dungeon and run into a pack of rats. They kill the rats but take some damage. They fail to heal wounds. 

They find the entrance to the second level where they fight skeleton archers. Again, our heroes succeed but take wounds. Franz manages to heal some damage. 

They continue on the second level, fighting a floating skull. Another victory but more damage.

On to the third level where they encounter the boss, a necromancer. They whittle the necromancer down to half his hp, but then Hans falls. The necromancer fights on and soon Franz is clinging to life. He decides to flee!

The adventure was a failure but the concept worked well enough!