Assyrian army

Assyrian army

Saturday 31 August 2019

The Sunken City

Night 2 
The ship settled next to some of the strange structures. There were... sounds around us. I removed my pistol from my locker and ordered the crew to stand watch, arming themselves as best they could. It was a long, disturbing watch.



 Day 4

Strange fish men swarmed up the sides of the ship and attacked us on all sides!

Two of the larger creatures at the bow seemed fit to overpower my crew as a smaller one engaged another crewman.  I fired at them to no effect. The creatures at the stern were all of the smaller variety and the crew soon threw most of them over the side.

Joining my crew at the bow we were successful in driving off the attackers. Meanwhile, at the stern the last attacker was overpowered and killed. We had met our first challenge in these strange seas, albeit with one seriously injured and two others who suffered slightly.



The Rules  
Simple dice rolls to determine number of attackers and where. Crew were assigned a factor of 4 against small fishmen, 3 against larger ones. In the first round fishmen had a -1 as they found their footing on the deck, Captain added +1 in melee, -1 for any 'overlap'. If the fishman lost a combat he retreated back into the sea. if his score was doubled he died - as when 3 crew members ganged up on one of them! For the crew, lose a combat lose a 'life', lose by double lose 2 lives, crew have 3 lives, the captain 4. My first use of the Unit Commander scoring board! It does, though, limit me to 7 units/men in any combat! Drill a few more holes will allow up to 5 strength points per person though!


Evaluation of the game? System worked well, I'm pleased with and incorporating the Unit Commander score board was an undoubted success.





Friday 30 August 2019

Day 1

Day 1  

The sea is getting darker. Seaweed on the surface, reducing speed in case propellers fouled, radio contact with shore lost, doesn't seem to be a transmitter fault...

 Night 1   

Tried to take a fix... clear sky but something not right, stars all wrong. Continuing South by compass bearings but no confidence in those readings either.

Day 2


Increasing amount of weed on surface, slowing almost to a halt. Strange lights in the sky. Don't know where we are...

Day 3  


Propellers jammed but ship caught in a current and still heading South. Weed getting thicker. Later, strange structures piercing the surface of the sea... leprous weed-encrusted edifices with strange, unearthly markings or carvings. Strangely not human. Crew unsettled as ship drifts amongst the 'buildings'.


An update... the cargo ship is by SGTS' MESS.
 

Thursday 29 August 2019

The SS Something to do with Lovecraft

Just an update:   the ship is by SGTS' MESS.



A couple of years ago (or 3 or 4) I bought a resin 20mm cargo ship. It lay around quietly falling apart until recently when I started getting the Langley 1/76th scale figures at which point I repaired some of the damage and gave it a quick coat of paint.
Ship with Langley figures crew. Here they look spot on.

Still not perfect - the bridge crew and the enclosed bridge are still out of whack - but I don't think that you could get away with a taller bridge.

Meanwhile, 25/28mm crews certainly don't fit - this being the reason the ship wasn't put into service in the first place.

As to the ship itself, can't remember what make it is and I haven't painted a name on it yet - not sure whether to or not as I can imagine the model sinking several times in the future and don't want to have to repaint it every time!



Wednesday 28 August 2019

Cadet Commander and Great Tickling Contest update

Cadet Commander, getting on quite well with this.
Game Board and Score Board sorted and game playable using 42mm 1897 War figures.
Score Board is workable rather than pretty/display standard. I haven't bothered with a space for character's names.

Rather than colour-coding bases I've simply written the characters number on the underside of the base - it's a lot clearer on the figure than on the photo. Instead of a flag I'm using a standard bearer but having him stay put in the same way as the original flag.

Meanwhile, Great Tickling Contest I'm looking at a few different toys to provide the teams. There are some finger puppets on order fro ebay but meanwhile a couple of wind up toy teams.

This is the Dino Gang.

The next team is currently unnamed!

Monday 26 August 2019

Creatures from the pit...

Our cottage was across the the road from the Hospital sewage plant and frogs bred there in great numbers... so every year there would be a wet day when they all left and (swarmed?) across the road towards our house. As in... thousands of the things, about 1/8th" froglets. Perhaps not really scary as monsters, but make them bigger!

So originally I was going to use frogs for this little scenario but a visit to Langley's in Norwich came up with something else (and at 4 for a pound!)
Set it up as visiting time at St Norman's. The creatures were lined up along the ravine ready to crawl through the trees and feast on the visitors.

Movement rate worked well, 1/2 on dice = nothing, 3/4 = 4", 5/6 = 8". This has the effect of spreading out the attack.

4 of the creatures headed for the boiler house and Engineer's Office.
Against shotguns and shovels they didn't last long. The idea is for the creatures to be vicious but fragile - losing the combat without having half the score resulted in a dice roll, 4 or above and the skin has been damaged enough anyway to cause a kill. That system worked.

The rest headed for the visitors - when sighted, didn't cause enough 'panic' so I'll readjust the fear factor.


The attacks started to go in...

But the differential in combat between beast and hordes isn't enough., The creatures, instead of causing panic and lots of easy kills - well, mostly they just died.
 So, need to reassess things a bit. Could have just pulled back to the start line, lowered the combat factors for the 'hordes' to 1 instead of  2, perhaps tried a couple of other things (perhaps reduce the number of visitors for  start) - but temperature in shed past 90 so decided to just wrap it up. The scenario is still there for the future.

Thursday 22 August 2019

Partizan 2019 - the haul.

Having spent a few posts on other aspects of Partizan, thought it might be an idea to post what we actually bought. By 'we', of course, I mostly mean Sandra...
Let's see, I got a card game, some Bad Squiddo scarecrows and a couple of cans of spray paint...

Sandra saw Bad Medicine and thought it would be a good idea to get the sequel as well.

Then she got this...

Then this...

And then this (not all necessarily in the order quoted.) She didn't even watch the series!






Tuesday 20 August 2019

Cadet Commander




CADET COMMANDER

The second game from Partizan/Cranwell. Actually this one might be more useful in lots of ways - I can see me using for the war of  1897. Also now updated on pages.



GAME OUTLINE
Each figure controls a group of warriors and their leader. At the edge of the board in the centre nearest the player is their band’s flag. The winner is the first player to score 10 victory points OR capture the other player’s flag.

 THE PLAY SCOREBOARD

Your play board is used to tell the different fighting skills and strengths of your figures, and to keep track of points that you win and the strength that any of your figure lose.
                                                                              
THE PLAY AREA
The play area is 2’ x 2’ and is marked out in hexagons. Each hexagon represents one movement action.

No more than two figures may be in any one hexagon at the end of a figure’s activation phase. If there are more than two figures, the last figure to enter the pace has to move back to the space it came from. This is a free move and does not require an action. If this is not possible it must move into any other allowable space (ie with no enemy and no more than one other figure). If this is not possible it leaves the game and goes home to mum in a sulk (but does not lose any of its strength). In this case the other player does not get any additional Victory Points.


GAME SET UP
Place the teams’ flags in or near the centre of each baseline. Each player lines his figures up in one of the baseline spaces (up to 2 in each space).

THE TURN
During each turn a player may try to activate any or all of their figures to make them carry out actions.

The first figure to be activated is your leader, who is activated automatically. You may then choose one other figure to get an automatic activation next.

After this, dice for each figure you wish to activate. To do this, throw a D6 – anything other than a one allows you to activate one figure. If you throw a 1 your turn is over (sorry….).

During an activation, a figure can carry out up to two actions:

Move – up to 1 hexagon in any direction.
Have a punch up 
Rest – to get its strength back (counts as two actions)

MOVEMENT
Each model may move up to one hexagon in any direction in each action (so can move a maximum of two hexagons using both of its actions if it wishes).

If a figure crosses a wall or fence, wades through a river or spends any of its action in a woods, its uses one of its actions.

A figure can be in or pass through a hexagon containing one of its own friendly figures but no more than two figures are allowed in any hexagon at the end of its activation.

If a figure enters a hexagon with as enemy figure it must stop and have a punch up with him. If there are two enemy figures in the space the moving player may choose which is involved in the punch up.


PUNCH UPS

Each figure has an attack value (ATK) which tells you how good they are at fighting, and a Strength value (STR) which tells you how tough they are. Once a figure runs out of STR it is too tired to carry on and is removed from the board.

Each attacking figure rolls a number of dice equal to its ATK value. For most figures this is 2, for your leader or any heroes it is 3. Choose one of the dice to see what happens to your enemy:

Oh Dear
Poor show – no effect
Run away…
Moves 1 hexagon back towards his flag*
Ouch
Loses one token from his STR score
Hit and Run
Loses one token from his STR score and moves 1 hexagon back towards his flag*

*If a figure cannot move towards his flag because the hexagon(s) is already occupied by two figures, or if he is forced back into a river hexagon he moves into any other hexagon the he can and loses one from his STR.

*If a figure has to move 1 hexagon away from you and this causes him to go off the board, he goes home to mum and is removed from play.

*If a figure has to move away, the attacking figure can follow up and stay in contact if he wishes (providing this does not mean that here are more than 2 figures in the same hexagon).

Punch ups across walls or hedges.
If you attack a figure who is behind a wall or hedge or other sport of protection, your attacking figure only rolls one less die, not the usual number indicated by his ATK value.

REST
If your figure takes a rest action it can get some of its strength (STR) back. A  figure can never have more strength that it started with. A rest counts as two actions so the figure cannot carry out any other activity this turn.


SCORING POINTS
Each time one of your attackers causes an enemy to lose STR points, you score a Victory point. Mark these on your score board.

There may also be other ways of scoring victory points during some of the specific game scenarios.

WINNING THE GAME
The winner is the first player to reach 10 Victory points OR to capture the other player’s flag.

To capture the other player’s flag one of your players must be in the same hexagon as the flag with none of the other player’s figures in the same hexagon at the end of the other player’s turn.

 


What you will need:

·         2 bands of soldiers
·         2 flags
·         2 Play Scoreboards
·         6 ATK dice (3 for each player – with 2 faces “Oh Dear”, 2 faces “Run away”, one face “Ouch” and one face “Hit and run”.)
·         2’x2’ board marked I n3” hexagons
·         Some scenery
·         An opponent

And.. to be ready to have fun.