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)