"Ya cannee change the laws of the campaign, Captain!"

Actually, I can.

In our Attack Wing campaign, we've been finding the rules a bit too fiddly for a four player campaign. Keeping up with which ships, captains and crew were used in each individual game has become too much of a chore to keep up with. Therefore, I'm simplifying things in the following ways:

1) Instead of tracking fleets, players can use any of their available ships and crew.
2) Unique ships, captains and crew used in one game, are not available in the next game, as even at warp speed, they can't make it to the next battle in time.
3) Injured ships, captains and crew are not available for the next two games as they heal up or get refitted.
4) Destroyed ships, captains and crew are not available for the rest of the campaign.

With this in mind, this is the current state of play in terms of availability:

CAPTAINS
Unavailable for 1 game: Worf (K), Gowron (K), Kyle (F)
Unavailable for 2 games: Sar (D)
Unavailable for remainder of campaign: Gul Danar (D), Martok (K)

CREW
Unavailable for 1 game: Kerla (K), Alexander (K)

SHIPS
Unavailable for remainder of campaign: G'Roth (K)

And here's the current map:

As you can see, the Romulans and Klingons have been making hay with the Dominion and Federation still struggling to cope with their cloaking. Matt's Federation have managed two wins, but not succeeded in capturing a sector, whilst my lowly Dominion have still to win a campaign game. Both fleets have been reinforced, and hopefully the change in rules will make us feel more able to use our big hitters to even the gap a little.

If things are going to improve, it has to happen quickly as Pete's Romulans are within striking distance of their objective - to control more space than any two factions put together.

Legacy of the Gods - Episode 1 (7th Voyage AAR)

With no warning at all I've found myself buying 7th Voyage from Crooked Dice and beginning a solo campaign charting the heroic journey of the young Altheus (nerd points available for getting the reference) as he grapples with his heroic legacy and battles nefarious villains and stop motion monsters along the way.

The idea came from a combination of some excellent advice I read online about solo wargaming, a hankering to try out Crooked Dice's rules, a Greek army sitting unused since the demise of WAB and childhood memories of Ray Harryhausen's fantastic creations.

So here goes...

Legacy of the Gods - Episode 1: His Father's Son

The episode opens with a young warrior (Altheus) knelt before a statue of Ares, the God of War, in a ruined temple. After a moment, Altheus stands and moves what remains of the doorway. He pauses, and turns to look at the statue again before he speaks.

"Still you give me no word, no sign grandfather."

He turns to go, but the camera lingers on the impassive face of the statue.

Cut away to a hill overlooking the ruined temple. A motley assortment of Thracian bandits look down towards Altheus leaving the temple.

"Take him," sneers the leader.

The scenario I chose for my first game was a small skirmish between Altheus, a Favoured Champion who'd traded the Insprational special effect for Shield, and a group of five Mercenary extras accompanied by a single Psiloi wielding a sling. Despite my attempt at random deployment for the villains using scatter dice, the villains were clumped together at the edge of the table.

The villains gained initiative and immediately rushed forwards. I decided that in the campaign, all villains would have a 'script' which would govern their movements. The Thracian Mercenaries would always move directly towards the nearest enemy, whilst the Psiloi would do the same, unless the opportunity for a clear shot could be gained.

The Thracians continued to gain the initiative round after round, and Altheus soon found himself under fire and beset by assailants on all sides. Despite his ability to Parry and his Shield, I quickly burned through the event cards (none which were directly useful as anything other than a modifier) just trying to keep Altheus in the fight.

Amidst the flurry of attacks, Altheus began to show his prowess, and despite continuing to lose the initiative, two of the Bandits fell to his blade. However, numbers told and with the event cards expended, Altheus was eventually beaten into unconsciousness and captured.

As Altheus' vision blurs, fade to memories of his younger life in Thebes: playing as a child; being stronger and faster than the other children; learning the arts of war and being told of his heritage.

Altheus' mother tells him than his grandfather was one of the Spartoi, the 'Sown Men' of Thebes and sons of Ares, God of War. Altheus resolves to venture to Thrace, Ares' birthplace, to search for his destiny and prove himself to his 'grandfather'.

Fade back to present, Altheus is chained to a wall and beaten by two Thracians. As his rage builds, we something burning behind his eyes and suddenly the tables are turned and the chains fall loose. Altheus uses the chain to quickly disable his tormentors. He grabs his sword, shield and helm and slips away.

Suddenly, a horn sounds and the hunt is on.

The next part of the story would be the Escape scenario. Altheus would be attempting to flee the table, whilst 5 Mercenaries and 4 Psiloi (1 sling, 3 javelins) would try to stop him.

Altheus luck immediately changed from the first scenario. Not only did he automatically have initiative in the first turn, but the event cards he was dealt were infinitely more useful for the scenario.

The random deployment of the Thracians also helped as a flank was left weakly guarded and Altheus headed straight for it. Whilst the Thracians rushed to stop him.

Altheus was immediately confronted by the Thracian that had blindsided him earlier. However, a skillful parry and winning an initiative roll for the first time helped him to dispatch his opponent with little fuss. Something had changed in young Altheus.

Nevertheless, the Thracians continued to swarm towards our hero.

Judicious use of the Out of Step and Run For It! Event cards allowed Altheus to keep one step ahead and take down several Thracians one at a time rather than get swamped again.

Surveying the damage he had wrought, Altheus notes the advancing enemy and decides that having proved his worth, it was time to leave.

As Altheus disappears over the hill, the bandit leader emerges. With lightning speed he slices the throats of two of his subordinates.

"Failure will not be tolerated. It looks like I must finish this myself. Find him!"

Cut to the ruined temple of Ares, which Altheus has found his way to again. The statue glows and animates as the God of War manifests to speak with Altheus.

"You seek your destiny? It is hidden from me, but you could be a great hero, lay your enemies low and stand alongside Theseus and Heracles. No more running, they come for you. Stand tall and meet your fate like a warrior."

The statue returns to stone and Altheus draws his sword, and walks out to meet his fate.

I decided to introduce a co-star for the finale, and so the bandit leader was a standard Deadly Assassin, accompanied by a Mercenary and a Psiloi on a mission to slay Altheus. Despite bringing in a more dangerous opponent, fate conspired to make this finale much less dramatic than expected.

Having located their quarry, the villains seized the initiative and moved purposefully towards the ruined temple.

Inspired by the words of Ares, Altheus rushed out to attack. In a blur of iron and bronze, our hero dispatched a surprised Psiloi and leapt towards the bandit leader. A furious exchange of blows ensued but the bandit failed to leap aside in time and was caught on Altheus blade. The remaining Thracian fails his shaken test and runs for the hills.

"Who are you?" splutters the dying bandit.

A blood-spattered Altheus stands, and walks back towards the temple. Standing before the statue he says quietly, "I am Altheus, favoured of Ares."

So, that's it. My first real go at narrative solo gaming, and I have to say that it was a lot of fun.

7th Voyage is a really simple and effective set of rules which helped a lot, as I didn't spend my time constantly flicking through the rule book. What's more the simplicity means that this will be an easy game to teach and so will be very good for encouraging others to play what is essentially a niche period.

My solo play house rules worked quite well. The balance is in Altheus favour, but that's not a problem as it kind of gives him plot armour. Also, during the first game, a run of poor roles showed that the bad guys do stand a chance.

I'm adding up his VPs for character and cast development, currently he's got 9 rating points to either spend or save. I've already decided that extras can be added in scenarios without cost, but co-stars need saving for.

I'm already planning a series of episodes where Ares tests Altheus, and my WFB collection is likely to be raided for stop motion monsters.

An Enterprising Opponent

Our next couple of games in our Star Trek: Attack Wing campaign were played over the weekend and saw Romulans defending against a Klingon invasion in a match up which will be hence forth known as a 'Cloak Off'. Meanwhile, my mighty Dominion fleet decided to have a go at expanding in a different direction and take on somebody they could actually see; the Federation.

As usual, my fleet consisted of three ships: Breen Battleship the 'Gor Portas' commanded by Thot Gor, a Jem'hadar Attack ship packing phased polaron beams (which ignore enemy shields) and a Cardassian Galor Class ship. I feel that I'm missing a ship as I'm still having to pack my ships with upgrades which feel surplus to requirements.

With Picard injured, the Federation fleet was led by the 'Enterprise' captained by Will Riker, a Miranda class ship with Clark Terrell in charge and a second Galaxy class ship packing an array of fiendish mines.

The beginning of the second turn, and everything seems to be going well...

Thing began well, with the Federation flying its two Galaxy class ships towards my fleet, whilst Clark Terrell took his ship around the back of the planet. Facing a divided enemy, the Dominion leaped forwards and poured photon torpedoes and polaron beams into the Federation fleet, knocking down the shields on one ship and putting early hull damage on the Enterprise. However, the Jem'hadar Attack Ship was engulfed in phaser fire and immediately put out of action.

The Cardassian ship tried to add fire to proceedings and aided the Gor Portas in taking down the Galaxy class ship. However, in return the Gor Portas was mined, torpedoed and phasered into submission, leaving the Galor class ship outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. It's one advantage of a 180 degree fire arc was worthless against a Miranda (180 degree also) and the Enterprise (360 degree) so I was left with no option but to run and hope I could turn quickly enough to return fire.

"Quick, turn around before space ends!"

I  did managed to separate the enemy ships by flying round the planet and traded shots with the Miranda, knocking down its shields. However, the Galor was left severely weakened and unable to match the Federation's maneuverability, was eventually cornered and destroyed.

I managed to avoid losing any unique cards for the campaign, but both the Gor Portas and Thot Gor we injured, and as I was attacking I didn't lose territory. However the addition of new ships to the Dominion fleet can't come quickly enough for me. I made a couple of mistakes by not going after the Miranda earlier, or concentrating my fire in the early exchanges, but I still feel over-matched by all three opponents.

Meanwhile, on the other side of space, the Martok led his Klingon fleet into Romulan space and promptly wished he hadn't as a generic Romulan fleet demonstrated the art of concentrating fire and systematically pounded one Klingon ship after another into dust.

This looks like the Romulans are surrounded, however,
those target locks tell a slightly different story.

With attacks proving fiendishly difficult to pull off for no significant reason, there's been little movement on the map. This campaign could last for some time at this rate.

Unless people start attacking me that is...







Klingon Fleet 1 - I.K.S. Kronos One, Chang ("Once more unto the breech"), Kerla

Klingon Fleet 2 - I.K.S. Gr'Oth, Martok
Federation Fleet 1 - U.S.S. Enterprise D, Jean-Luc Picard, Will Riker, Clark Terrell

Federation Fleet 2 - Generic

Romulan Fleet 1 - Donatra

Romulan Fleet 2 - Mirok, N'Vek
Romulan Fleet 3 - Generic

Dominion Fleet 1 - Kraxon, Gul Ranor

Dominion Fleet 2 - Glinn Telle
Dominion Fleet 3 - Gor Portas (injured), Thot Gor (injured), Luaran

Building For The Future

Well, it's that time of year again that gives me a chance to look back on what I've achieved and look forward to what I intend to get done.

Let's review 2013 first:

Batman Miniatures Game - I started this in 2013 and I have to say that I'm pleased with how I've done. 19 Miniatures done along with three buildings, lampposts and terrain for my board. Here's the latest building from Sarissa Precision:

This was a Christmas present and an absulute doddle to put together compared with both the Dust Tactics building and the Warbases warehouse. Especially considering that it has more detail than either. There's still a bit of finishing to do, but Sarissa can probably expect more of my money.

Resolution 1 - continue to paint and build at a steady rate. I got Bane, two more Joker thugs and two more cops for Christmas and I've decided to use a few more Clix figures for my Penguin crew, so there's plenty to do. I also want to get more games in.

Flames of War - one campaign finished, another one halfway done and a bucket load of games played. My Americans gained an infantry platoon whilst my Germans got Nebelwerfers and PaK 36's.

Resolution 2 - Get the Lorraine Campaign finished and possibly play a big D-Day landing game on the 70th anniversary.

Zombies - Zomtober got me motivated to finally start this project and now have two dozen fresh shamblers, half a dozen civilians and a couple of survivors.

Resolution 3 - begin my solo All Thing Zombie Campaign. I've a couple of survivors to do before this can happen, but I'm very close.

Bolt Action - had a brief flurry with this, and Matt and I settled on these as our preferred rules for VBCW. I've half-painted a 500 point Russian force.

Resolution 4 - Finish the Russians and the two VBCW units that have sat unpainted all year.

Impetus - another passing fad that I need to return to. I obtained Sicilian Greek army from Bill and began painting, although I only did a few stands.

Resolution 5 - paint the Greeks.

Bloodbowl - I began the year finishing off my Halflings/Mushrooms team and competed in a league where I actually managed to win a game.

Resolution 6 - play in another league this year with a team that has a bit more chance of winning.

Star Trek: Attack Wing - one of three games that I've been lured into by Pete in one way or another, but I'm enjoying it and in my customary manner have developed campaign rules for.

Resolution 7 - Continue with the campaign and try to learn how to make the Dominion not suck.

The Club - our club, the Wargamers Free Company, came to an end due to the differing priorities and family commitments  of the members. Although disappointing at the time, it has led to Matt, Pete and I (along with Wes on board game nights) forming a free-floating mini club which is a blast as we are pretty much in tune in terms of gaming interests and attitudes.

Resolution 8 - try to get more games in with folk from the old club, which includes getting out to the South Yorkshire Dice Devils in Rotherham at some point.

Resolution 9 - Begin work on my War of 1812 US Napoleonics, not only to clear the back log, but to help give Matt some motivation with his British.

The Blog - despite a couple of pauses, I've managed to keep this going on a fairly regular basis and I'm particularly happy that I've started to get some semi-regular contributors on the comments. Joining in Zomtober was a big success and I hope this can continue in the future.

Resolution 10 - Keep the blog regular and be more active in the blogging community. I'm a bit of a lurker, but if I want people to comment on here, I've got to get out and do the same on other blogs.

All in all, 2013 was a successful year for me in gaming terms. I've not painted masses, but I'm painting for myself and achieving a higher standard than ever before. Most of my long delayed personal projects have got off the ground and I'm really enjoying all aspects if my hobby as much as I ever have.

Here's hoping 2014 is as successful.

Happy New Year blogosphere!

"To boldly go where no campaign has gone before..."

I mentioned recently that we'd been playing a bit of Star Trek: Attack Wing, a Wizkids game based on the same design mechanics of the excellent X-Wing from Fantasy Flight. Although broadly similar there are a few significant differences between the games which makes for a significantly different game experience:

• Instead of being dogfights between individual fighters, this game focuses on battleships and so tends to have less maneuverability but more firepower.
• Captains (instead of pilots), crew and upgrades are interchangeable between the ships and even the different factions leading to more fleet tailoring (mixing factions is not something we're that keen on, but it is possible).
• Being Star Trek, there are more factions available than just Rebel/Empire, so currently you can get Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Dominion ships, and Bajoran and Independent crew. The planned releases include the Borg, Kazon, Species 8472 and Vulcans,
• The games makes more use of scenarios, drawing on the films and TV series' for inspiration, and each ship comes with a new scenario.
• The miniatures are not in scale with each other and aren't as nicely painted as the X-Wing miniatures (this is probably the major negative of the game).

As this is a Wizkids game there is a heavy emphasis on tournaments with a well supported organised play schedule with limited edition resources, terrain and ships as prizes. This is great for those who like the cut and thrust of tournaments and finely tailored fleets, however for those of us who don't have the time, temperament or money required for preparing for these kind of events it leaves you needing to find a different form of motivation to prevent this game becoming a bit repetitive (which is the only downside of X-Wing).

Hence the campaign...

Pete, Wes and Matt have all acquired the starter set and have swapped between them to begin fleets for the Romulans, Klingons and Federation respectively. Which left me playing catch up and buying ships from the Dominion faction which features a mismatched collection of Cardassian, Jem'hadar and Breen ships. I have to confess that many years ago I stopped watching Deep Space Nine before the Dominion War stuff happened, so I'm not entirely clear on who these people are. I was also a touch disappointed when beginning to search the internet about Dominion tactics to discover that the general consensus was something along the lines of: "the Dominion SUCK!!!"

The Dominion Logo - Interplanetary Branding

This campaign might hurt...

Using the map from Star Trek online, I've used a variation of the Flames of War Firestorm rules for the campaign. Broadly speaking, games are played as and when, with a dice roll to determine who is attacking to capture the enemy territory. The defender has the option of choosing a scenario for the game and if the territory being attacked contains a space station, the scenario is 'Destroy the Space Station' from one of the Klingon ship packs.

Fleets can be created by using any available cards for your own faction (we've ruled that the Bajorans are part of the Federation in case Matt manages to get his hands on the Defiant and Kira Nerys), but once unique cards are used they are committed to a fleet in a particular territory until you specifically withdraw them the next time you use that fleet.

After a battle, if the attacker wins, the capture the attacked territory and the defender must retreat to a neighboring territory. If the defender wins, the attacker goes back to where they came from. If the retreating side cannot move to an adjacent territory, the entire fleet counts as destroyed. Any unique ships, captains or crew destroyed in the game  must roll an attack dice, on a damage result they are injured and cannot be used in the fleet's next engagement, on a critical result, they are gone from the campaign.

And that's pretty much it...

Each faction has a different goal:

• The Federation, must control all of Federation space and all other space station territories.
• The Dominion, must control more territory than any two other factions.
• The Romulans, must control more territory than any two other factions.
• The Klingons, must deliver the killing blow to an enemy faction.

Yesterday, we played our first games:

Game 1 - Dominon vs Romulan

The Dominion attacked the Romulan home world (you can attack via Nebula or Star Clusters, but count as cut off if you lose) and despite initially out flying the cloaked War Birds, an ill judged suicide attack by a Jem'hadar Attack Ship achieved nothing and left the Dominion severely out-gunned. The Romulans finally got their act together and blew the Dominion ships back to Cardassian space. To add injury to insult, Gul Danar, one of the Cardassian captains was killed.

Imagine this with miniatures...

Game 2 - Federation vs Klingon

With their eyes on the prize the Federation went after space stations in the Alderbaran Sector. Although able to to avoid the guns of the space station, the Federation's flagship was funneled into the powerful phasers of the Chang's Klingon fleet. Jean-Luc Picard was injured in the engagement, but the Enterprise made it to safety.

"Run away!"

Game 3 - Romulan vs Federation

Brimming with confidence the Romulans took advantage of the Federations reversal against the Klingons, crossed the Neutral Zone and attacked the Argelius Sector. A scratched together fleet of little known Galaxy class ships flown by captains of little repute managed to swamp the Romulan fleet and crippled their ships, killing Captain Tomalak in the process.

"You called for reinforcements?"

Game 4 - Klingon vs Dominion

Feeling the call of battle in his blood, Chang took his fleet deep into Breen space and caught the Dominion by surprise. Blasting clean through the hastily assembled fleet they pushed the Dominion forces back into Cardassian space without suffering any losses.

"Cry Havok! And let slip the dogs of war!"

After those games, the situation looks like this:

Klingon Fleet 1 - I.K.S. Kronos One, Chang ("Once more unto the breech"), Kerla

Federation Fleet 1 - U.S.S. Enterprise D, Jean-Luc Picard (injured), Clark Terrell

Federation Fleet 2 - Nobody of Any Importance

Romulan Fleet 1 - Donatra

Romulan Fleet 2 - Mirok, N'Vek

Dominion Fleet 1 - Kraxon, Gul Ranor

Dominion Fleet 2 - Glinn Telle

Overall, it's been a fun start to the campaign. I've discovered that I have to find some way of dealing with cloaked ships if I'm not to be utterly destroyed. Matt's discovered that bog standard ships with unnamed captains can be effective as a swarm. Pete's learned that not going to cloak early can cost him. Wes has discovered that Klingons are filth!

"I'll get you next time you pasty-headed and pointy-eared,
cowardly-cloaking, more uniformly appearing fleets!"

Happy Christmas!

I won't get a chance to post this tomorrow, so I'd like to wish everybody out on 'tinterwebz' a happy Christmas (insert other seasonal greeting appropriate to your language, culture or religion as you see fit).

And for those of you opening presents tomorrow with relatives who query why you're still getting toys for Christmas, I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from C.S. Lewis as a suitable retort:

"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the desire to be very grown up."

Have a good one!

Firestorm: Lorraine - No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy

The last couple of weeks have been busy at work and home, leaving me little time for painting and most of my playing time has been taken up with a few games of Star Trek: Attack Wing (more on that in the coming weeks). With one thing and another, I've only just got round to sorting out the campaign map since our last game of Flames of War.

In brief, I was the Germans fighting Matt's Americans, who for once managed to actually gain the initiative and decided to attack Arrancourt across the Moselle. I decided to surprise him by taking an almost totally infantry force as a counter to his laser tanks. I wanted to give my Nebelwerfers a run out for the first time, and backed up by my PaK40's a borrowed Flak 88 and a shedload of Panzerfaust-toting infantry, my plan was to dig in and blow up the American Armour as it rumbled into view.

Matt dutifully picked an armoured list and all would have been well had we not rolled up the Counter Attack mission. Suddenly, I found my swarms of infantry penned into one quarter of the table needing to get out of their foxholes and engage in a footrace with Stuart tanks in an attempt to secure the undefended objective on my flank. What's more, I had no units suitable for being in reserve behind Matt's positions.

All in all I made a fairly good fist of a bad situation. I managed to repel an assault on my defended flank by two platoons of Shermans and a unit of infantry, and in the process, got myself into a position where just one more platoons destroyed would cause Matt to have t make tests. However, despite sending three platoons of infantry out to secure the other objective, only one and a half made it there. I did manage to secure the objective and kill a few tanks, but time was on Matt's side and a combined assault from Matt's armour finally broke my pioneers and won the game for him.

It was closer than I thought it would be, but I think I was always on to a loser. Matt, didn't rush or make any silly mistakes with vulnerable platoons and so didn't really ever give me a chance to destroy that final platoon, and by the end I was relying on either a very lucky artillery strike or a really unfortunate assault from Matt.

As you can see, this result saw the American open another hole in the German lines and push towards Strasbourg. There is now a gap in the US lines which a German general could exploit to cut off the US spearhead, however, the campaign appears to be tipping in the Americans favour.