Saga - I won a game!

Friday night was war game night with Spencer. We decided on Saga - 4 point armies and Clash of Warlords rules. Victory conditions are to kill the other Warlord.

We set up the battle field, some bits from both of our terrain collections.

My vikings in the fore ground and Spencer's Saxons in the background. We're fighting in the old Effilstan's pig farm... I just made that up now.

Spencer moved first sending his spear and shield warriors to the center of the small stead. I reacted by sending my bow-armed thralls to the small longhouse on the right for cover, the plan being they could snipe at the Saxons.

The Saxons then occupied some of the smaller buildings and the Warlord and a retinue of warriors stood strong in the center. Another Saxon warrior unit besieged the Viking thralls in the longhouse, casualties were dealt to both sides but the thralls stood strong defensively. They were not able to take any offensive measures as planned.

The Vikings then sent in a group of hardened warriors to meet with Saxon Huscarls and a shield wall. It was kind of a blood bath... on the side of the Vikings.

Both sides regrouped and the Saxon Warlord and his retinue moved forward more. The Vikings reacted by sending in the famed Val'Serkers who (rolling really well) bit well into the Saxon shield wall and lost only 1 Val'Serker. They then pushed forward on the lone Saxon Warlord, as the Saxon Warriors had to retreat, and with another excellent roll of dice they killed off the Saxon warlord as he killed all the Val'Serkers.

It was a good fight and I think I did things right when it came to running a Viking faction in the Saga rule set. Hit hard and hit quick and don't sweat the fatigue counters. No room for grand strategies here. Keep your eye on the victory conditions.

The drink of the night was:

Edit**

Thinking about the game more the one thing I did totally different was how I used my levies - the 12 "old men with bows" as I like to call them. As per Saga rules every faction gets "levies" or a cheap unit that usually has ranged abilities. They don't get many dice for attacks - 1 die per 3 minis - and are crap for armor and melee. Many battle board abilities are also only good for warriors on up nor do they generate a Saga Dice. On paper they just don't seem worth the 1 point they cost.

Historically these guys would be "old men with bows" ... or just peasants you handed a spear to and said, "Fight well man...". Not front line guys; Levies, thralls, militia, a sacrifice. These guys would have the family helmet maybe or a shield of their own, a knife and hand ax. That spear they were given or one they had on their own would be the best weapon they got. Slings were common too. I've read in some sagas about the legendary old retired farmer/warrior with his old crooked bow and how dangerous that man could be.

Spencer and I were talking about levies in the game. He's really effective at using Anglo-Dane levies. They can actually get a bonus die here and there when fighting ranged. Vikings levies? Not so much. I've never used my levies much nor effectively. Spencer brought up the idea of levies being great at occupation of certain terrain features like bridges or buildings and I agreed with that as I had not even thought of that until he mentioned it.

Levies, though thought of as your "ranged" option can still engage in melee whether it's offensive or defensive. Setting them in a terrain feature will give them some defensive bonuses making them not so poor as an open field levy getting hit by a unit of warriors or hearthguard. In the bridge battle we played a few months back they would've been great to set on one bridge to hold it, maybe backed by a hearthguard, while the bulk of your forces could be concentrated on the other bridge (there are 2 bridges).

This last game I tried it out and it seemed to work OK. Sure they were exhausted and could not fire bows offensively the whole game but they kept up in that a-frame  and did their job by both denying the building and creating an obstacle on the battlefield that could not be avoided.

The Great D&D-Satan scare of the 80s

BBC article - D&D turns 40 this year and a reminder how it was for some of us growing up in the 80s.
BBC article The Great 1980s Dungeons and Dragons Panic

I was caught up in some of this growing up. Got assaulted 2 different times for being a D&D player. I got bullied anyways because I was a fat nerd and not white. Many thought I was Hispanic (I'm half Thai) but that don't matter. I'm also not Christian, my household being predominately Buddhist. So, growing up in a white town was occasionally rough on a not white, buck-toothed, not Christian, Dungeons and Dragons playing fat kid.

** I got into Tae Kwon Do and then school football and wrestling. I got my issues worked out, the above being more a statement of events as opposed to some inner expose of some kind. I could bench more than some of the kids who beat me up by the time I was a senior in high school. Some of the guys that beat me up are dead now via drug overdoses and stupid drunk accidents. I'm doing all right.**

Not naming names -
There was this one kid, I was 13 or so at the time, that was in our D&D group for about a year. He molested some girl much younger than him. We, obviously, were freaked out by that when we found out about it. Some one in his camp (his Mom... him?) Pulled the D&D is Satan card in his investigation so we got picked to be questioned. The police and feds found nothing at our table after some interviews. All was good there. I was never even actually interviewed personally.

Investigators finding ZERO connection amounts to nothing in the eyes of circa 80s Van-Tucky Washington though. For about 6 months I was branded. I took my licks and came up swinging and did well. To this day I play Pathfinder. I enjoy the activity with good friends. Some of my best friends (who I SHOULD NAME as they are great people) have come to me via gaming. I game with my wife and hope to begin gaming with my 12 year old step daughter this summer.

Happy 40th Birthday Dungeons and Dragons and happy 35 year anniversary to me for keeping up with something I have been doing consistently and has brought me joy for that long (taking breaks for serving in the Navy and 2008-2010).

Workbench and urban garden

Sorry for the lack of blogging since my vacation. I've no active projects right now on my minis bench, not that I don't have anything to do. I'm just taking a break as the weather gets better and I can field a good army in either of the wargames I play.

It's spring, trees are sending out pollen to make baby trees, the sun shines more than not right now, I've got a garden going, and I've got an itch to do both kinds of camping I like to do - car and bushcraft. I just got my REI dividend (a bit more than $35) and I am in a weird quandary in that the things I want are at a range in price that are out of my immediate financial ability and the things I NEED are had and all in good working order.

One thing I am contemplating is getting a pre-built workbench at Home Depot and setting it up outside my apartment door. It'll give me a place to do more serious work like cutting lumber and plant potting and such. Also, I can set up our grill next  to it and the bench can also be a counter. Just some plans for this family guy tight on space.

Link to HD

It is outdoors and it does rain something fierce at times on top of the fact that the apartment has bad gutters and will fill up and drain right on the walkway, so I'm looking for a good coating to put on the bench to weatherize it some. If I waited for the gutters to get fixed (over a year now) I'd just never get this thing done. So fuck it, I'm going live.

As mentioned, I have a small urban garden. I picked up some City Picker planters from HD last month and me and my daughter got them all set up. We're growing all kinds of lettuce, snap peas and radishes, and some herbs like basil, chives, and some arugula. I have extra seeds so plan to get more planters going maybe. We also planted a little hanger pot with some flowers in it hoping that it attracts some lady bugs. The area we have to put planters is, at best, dappled sunlight from sunrise to 12 noon.

The cool thing about the planters is that they use SIP or submerged irrigated planter technique. In a nutshell there is a water reservoir at the bottom, you fill it, water is wicked to roots via the growing medium. Pretty cool stuff.

Vacation - San Diego

Was on vacation all last week with my family (wife and kid) and the in-laws (from Mississippi). Had a grea week in San Diego, CA. I have not been there since my Navy Days, would have been my 4th or 5th time there.

I was born in LA in 1971. Lived there until the mid 70s. Some of my very first memories in life were from when I went to San Diego with my Mom and Dad in 1975 or so. A few weeks ago my Dad came over for dinner and brought an old photo album that had pictures from that San Diego trip in it - mostly of Sea World.

In 1989 I joined the Navy and was shipped off from Portland to NTC/RTC San Diego for boot-camp. I left a week before Thanksgiving and graduated February of 1990. That was the year I missed the Holidays. I did not go back to San Diego after graduating boot and apprenticeship training until I was on the USS Shasta in 1993 while heading out on WESTPAC.

Until this last week I had not been back since 1993.

San Diego is beautiful, built for tourism in it's touristy spots. Mass transit is better than the once legendary Trimet here in Portland. Locals were nice to us. everything is well placed so we could have a vacation and stay out of the hair of the locals.

We ate at one restaurant that is Brazilian BBQ. You pay one price and you get an incredible salad bar (including salmon, mussels, fried bananas, and all kinds of leafy greens) plus the meat service where a "gaucho" comes to your table with skewers of rib-eye, sirloin, brisket, and flank all grilled over wood fire.

We went to The San Diego Zoo and had a ton of fun. We spent 7 hours there (or more) and only saw about half the zoo.

We went to the USS Midway Museum, the last time I was on the Midway was when I was a young 19 year old sailor on the USS St. Louis and the Midway had caught on fire after an accident and we had to provide a Rescue and Assistance team to her in 1990 in Yokosuka Japan. I was on that team. I didn't do much but it was pretty exciting none-the-less. We toured the ship and my wife and kid got a good taste of life on board a US Navy ship - very close quarters and not very comfortable. A lot of stairs (ladders as we call them) and hand rails and bulkheads and pipes all around you. We did a few parts and my wife and mother in law took a break while father in law and kid went with me and we did a thing for my kid where she'd go around and find answers to questions in a booklet and she could turn it in and earn her "wings". It was fun but everyone was getting tired.

 My kid being sworn into the USS Midway's Junior Wings.

The next day we went to Sea World. That was fun too, and the first time I'd been there since 1975. We saw the killer whales thing and walked around a lot and looked at all the sites. We ended our Sea World trip with "dinner with the whales" where you go have a nice meal and the trainers come out and have a Q&A and some of the whales are there. Gretchen (my wife) got some great pictures and we had a nice family memory.

The day after that I got my first Navy tattoo at Nittis Tattoo in Mission Valley. My artist was an apprentice and he did a great job.

Traditional American, back of calf. My first "Navy" tattoo 21 years after I got out.

Our last day there was spent on Coronado having lunch at the big hotel there and touring the city.

Pathfinder, Wrath of the Righteous - a new experience **QUASI SPOILERS**

I play in 2 different Pathfinder games:
1) Rise of the Runelords (anniversary ed.) GM Brandon
2) Wrath of the Righteous GM Jason

We played WotR yesterday after about 2 months off. Was hard to schedule a game post holidays. Yesterday's session gave me a, if not new, very rare role playing experience.

*I will be omitting minutiae so as to avoid spoilers*

I am playing a paladin... yes, I play a paladin in both games (both very different). Reluctantly he is in charge of a company of knights doing battle with abyssal minions and we have a mission. With him is the rest of the group:
1) dwarven cleric of Caiden Cailen named Brother Overhult
2) half orc barbarian that is smarter than usual named Kol
3) half elf sorceress named Kali
4) ... and for the record I play a human Paladin named Captain Aaron Marcovina

First, as is the trope, a sorceress, a barbarian, and priest of Caiden are all knee-deep in the chaos spectrum or leaning towards that. They are all good. Aaron is obviously chin-deep in the law and good spectrum. As I think it is weak role playing to play a Stick in the Mud Paladin I do not play Aaron as such. HE'S got a code HE must follow. He will not force others to do so though. As is the dogma of both his patron deity and his code his purity of heart is rated in action he takes and not prostelization. As long as the companions do not step into the realm of evil (devaluing life, not offering mercy to those that ask, not helping those that seek help or cannot help themselves, etc.) than he has no problem with actions they take.

These are the incorruptible, the charitable, the fearless. These are the paladins.
-Anonymus

I may have mentioned before, the other paladin trope in most D&D/PF/Fantasy D20 gaming is that paladins are dicks. It's like the "lawful good" part is not looked at by the player of the paladin or other players. Most play them like dicks and other players groan and treat the paladin like they are a dick. I disagree with this 100%. Lawful evil and that whole spectrum is "the dick". Paladins are gifted and bound by code to "not be a dick". If you're some farmer with a family and you've got an issue and are scared... it's awesome when a paladin shows up. THEY WILL NOT FUCK YOU OVER unless you're killing babies or something. Because paladins are designed to fight evil things it is awesome if you are some evil fighting group up against evil to have a paladin. On top of that, the paladin will not mess with you unless you are ... well, killing babies and eating puppies or something horrendous like that. Play your paladin like you're someone people like. One of your main stats is charisma... high charisma means you are personable and people listen to you. (...off subject, no wonder it is the main dump-stat... another discussion though).

The role playing situation at hand:
We had uncovered an agent of The Abyss in our own ranks. The NPC was undermining morality of the company (of over 100 soldiers and knights) with drugs and also admitted to leading some of our knights to their deaths and exposed a plan to assassinate the queen. We got full admission and, on top of that, a request for execution by the traitor.

Captain Marcovina, as is his duty, decided to have a trial in the morning in front of the company and have an execution of the traitor. They are a forward deployed unit effectively in enemy territory. The actions of the traitor has lead to deaths of soldiers and knights. For the most part all was said and done - but Captain Marcovina is not a dick!

He asked the "cabinet" (other PCs/Players) what they thought, as he also asked for a consensus from other NPCs in leadership positions. Two of these (Brother Overhult and an NPC cleric) cast augury spells to confide in their respective patron Deities and got answers that boiled down to:
"You can execute the traitor and no weal or woe will take place, but if you redeem the traitor it will be frikkin awesome!!"

Captain Marcovina was humbled and did an immediate about-face. He was reminded of how this Abyss/good and evil/souls/yadda yadda thing works. Of course the traitor wants to die, in the dynamic of this game and the 'verse we play in there is reward for one to corrupt their soul and sell it off to demons. It still is not nice but it's a known reality. (Not starting a real religious debate) In the real world there is doubt that this dynamic exists. In this fictitious world, Golarian, there is no doubt. Those demons we cannot see in the real world are trying to stab you with a poisoned dagger and steal your character's soul in the fantasy world.

A rift did emerge in the group, another red flag that the powers of the Abyss are being served. Captain Marcovina wanted the traitor set free. Not fully left to be autonomous, but given food, clothing, and peaceful tools to aid our company. The traitor will be protected and allowed to show us, if they chose to do so, that they were willing to change their ways. If they had chose to not try the way of redemption than we will defend ourselves as best we can, as we have proven we can do so.

Some demanded, understandably (and where Captain Marcovina was initially), execution. Others wanted the traitor marked and under guard if to be left living. Others wanted the traitor maimed as punishment.

In role playing some of us explore character traits and personalities we do not possess. In real life, some guy in my "combat unit" betrays us and leads a few dozen of my soldiers to their deaths purposefully? They get executed. It's not about vengeance but about morale and ease of facilitation and mission safety. This scenario allowed me to explore that in a world of fantasy where "souls" are a tangible thing and divine entities are an absolute you gain tangible benefits from. Executing the traitor would send their soul into the Abyss and into the hands of Infernal Lords, a commodity they could use at their whim against us and our allies. Leaving her alive with a choice of redemption is the "goodly" thing to do but also allows freedom to make a choice against us. Maiming or forcing is just "not a good thing to do" and we represent good in a tangible aspect.

After soliciting feedback from The Cabinet and a few NPCs Captain Marcovina judged that the traitor be given some autonomy but be watched. Their fate is their choice and we offer the freedom to make that choice.

Jason, the GM, then told us there was a "redemption mechanic". Haha! I knew it!!

Here here to more of this "quantified role playing" and more to come!!

Pathfinder - new mini for one of my characters

I received that "horse archer" mini (Reaper - Derek the Tall mounted) from Noble Knight Games last Friday. Had a weekend to stew it over. Came up with a plan. Now it's almost done and will be ready for the table on Sunday.

I really debated on straying from my rule of speed painting for war games, old-fashioned painting for single/character types. I hemmed back and forth the whole time. When I got the base coats on and dry I was all, "Hmmm... this will be done real quick if I just dip it now..."

I trudged through it though and am happy. Not all done yet but the painting aspect is pretty much done. All I have left is a gloss coat, a matte finish to dull it up, and some flock on the base... oh, and gluing the guy on the horse. I did not take a ton of pictures of the process but here's what I have:

Primed - rider in Army Painter "plate armor" and horse in AP "leather brown".

Built up my base coats, dark flesh-tone for rider, black for horse.

Linen white for rider's shirt sleeves, some grey and green for horse's tack and such.

Black hair and painted on a beard of rider. Brown for pants and bronze for greaves. I then decided I wanted him to have a "blood red" color for pants and a darker shade of red for boots after looking at some pictures of Scythians for inspiration. 

Balder, the character being depicted by this mini, is a human paladin. His god is Erastil, god of hunting, law, rural life, family, farming. His followers follow a simple life and wear clothes to depict such. Not a lot of flash or jewelry, the make of the clothing is the important part. I would try to depict this in the mini by not having trims or decoration on the clothing. Too bad 50% of the minis is a breast plate and chain mail.

This is when I was re-thinking my rule. I could be done with it with a quick dip. NOPE! I marched on.

I laid down a few layers of ink, Army Painter dark tone on the armor, strong tone on the skin. I then cut off the bow as it was rather plain looking and added a new bow, some elven looking thing I had in stock, and was pleased with my pinning work. 

Next I did some dry-brushing on the armor and highlights on the flesh, silver and "pink flesh" to be exact. I don't paint eyes anymore, it's just too hard and I screw it up more than not now. I just darkened them in some. I then added some highlights on the armor and greaves. Oh, and dry-brushed some brown into the hair.

Now... here is the thing. I've never done a black horse before. I could not find any tutorials on how to highlight a black horse. So I didn't do it. I'll have to ask one of my better painter friends how to do that at some time.

Where I am at now:

Tonight I flock the base and add a protective gloss coat via Vallejo acrylic gloss. Saturday I give it a coat of dull matte and glue the 2 pieces together... or maybe figure a way to add a pin to the horse so the rider is removable?? Hmmmnnnn.

All the King's Men - 54mm toysoldier war night, Battle of Gohfeld

Not quite finished with my Russians I decided to field them on Friday night anyways. I wanted them tested in the flames of battle! I was a "coalition" of French (Spencer's) and my Russians while Spencer played Allies, British and Hanoverian.

Shin deep in "Imagi-Nations" the map used was of Gohfeld. French-Russian Coalition formed in the south east corner and Allies formed across the west end of the field. A river (The Warre) ran through the middle and the FRC had the bridge so could access the north bank.

Map of the actual engagement, ours was more of a battle and we added the Russians to the French. Our map was also simpler. In this one you can see that the French lost.

Deployment:

French in command, the Russians had the mission to get across the Bridge over the Warre and make a go of taking a hold of the north bank. In front leading the column are 3rd Observation Corp Musketeers followed by the legendary Apsheronskiy, followed by the reserves of 3rd Grenadiers. On the flank are Ukrainian Landmilitia cavalry.

Deployed in column and ready to take the south bank of the Warre are the French. From left to right in the picture above are light infantry backed by cavalry, some old-timey and well regarded French musketeers, a newer unit wanting to prove themselves in the center, and grenadiers. Behind the "mill" building is our general and to his right are 2 artillery units.

On the other side were the Brits and Hanoverians, you can see them in the pics below:

At the onset of the battle I needed to deploy my Russians on the North bank, at the least get 2 infantry units there. This was paramount to my strategy. The French were to just move forward and get as close to the center as possible. I also wanted to get some kind of presence on the hill. This would later be a failure on my part as I had sent my skirmishers to do so but they over shot and ended up behind enemy lines and killed or captured to the man.

I was very successful in getting Apsheronskiy and 3rd Observation Musketeers across followed by the Ukrainian Landmilitia cavalry unit. Not full strength but enough for a show of force that would work out in the end.

I then was able to get my artillery in place and firing effectively. You can see them (some dead) in the second pic just above to the left and across the river of the Russian line.

Spencer moved his skirmishers forward effectively screening his whole south bank army from my musket and artillery lines. This forced a lot of my artillery fire and action economy on my Russians, one artillery volley wiping out one of his charging cavalry units and heavily damaging the second coming at my Russians.

On the south bank, after the failed raid of my skirmishers and in the face of very effective skirmisher fire from the Brits I was able to form up 2 lines of infantry. Backing the skirmishers are a stalwart and Hanoverian immovable infantry line anchored to the south via that hill which was later occupied by a Brit infantry unit.

I was, finally, able to break that skirmisher screen and smash another Hanoverian infantry line to the right with my French cavalry who then moved forward to smash the remaining artillery of the Allies. I, too, lost my artillery so it was payback!

The cavalry charge was supported from the north bank by Apsheronskiy volleys of musket fire.

Speaking of the north bank, things were getting bloody:

Apsheronskiy moved forward after offering support to the cavalry on the south bank and gave to to the allies. They took heavy losses after squaring off the line with the 3rd Observation Musketeers on their right. Russian cavalry charged forward, sent an Allied infantry unit to the left on the run, retreated, but was not quick enough to get away from a return volley from the allied right. Apsheronskiy crept forward a bit more to bring muskets to bare (at just above half strength) and held off any rally by the allies on the north bank.

Back on the south bank the Russian reserve Grenadiers were ordered forward to support French infantry as losses were building there. The fighting was heavy, acrid smoke filled the air, and line troops were exchanging volley after volley. The French cavalry was lost, no artillery, all skirmishers were gone or captured. It was up to the line infantry to win the day and adds were quite even.

In the end, through many casualties, the FRCoalition won the day. It was a matter of losses and morale (thus a die roll) and was pretty even all the way.

 Russian 3rd Grenadiers (in reserve) deployed to cover losses on the French/Russian south bank right flank.

Through attrition and with Allied morale broken, the Allies left the field leaving Grohfeld to the French/Russian Coalition.

Metagame-wise, the cards were pretty even. We'd both get solid runs of 5-6 turns in a row. It's pretty depressing to be on the receiving end of that. It's pretty lucky feeling to be the one making the moves. We had one round where the "deck-buster" card was at the very bottom of the deck and we ran through the whole deck. We had one round that ended immediately with the "deck-buster" right at the top.

The dice were black and white. You either got a real good roll or a real bad roll. It kind of washed out.

As mentioned, it came down to lost units and a "command roll" that depicted whether your general stayed or left the field of battle. I was the first to lose enough units to hit the bar for this roll. I made it. Spencer lost the next unit forcing a command roll and failed the roll, thus his army left the field of battle. The game was pretty even throughout.

Again, if you want to try out "toy soldier" scale wargaming give All the King's Men a try:

http://www.allthekingsmentoysoldiers.com/

Rules are free, minis is your choice. As mentioned before all of our minis are cheap BMC bags of American Revolutionary War plastic figures.