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THE TRAIN JOB

1/20/2014

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Since I was heading to Decatur last weekend anyway, my friends there talked me into running another GASLIGHT game. This one attracted even more gamers, including a friend I hadn't seen in two years. Word gets out that the opportunity to push miniatures around a table is available and gamers come out of the woodwork.

THE LEAGUE OF SCIENCE VS. THE GOVERNMENT

Throughout the West banks had been robbed, gold shipments had been intercepted, bridges destroyed, and other general mayhem. The difference was that, unlike the normal run of robberies and destruction, evidence was mounting that something strange was going on. Giant mechanical men were seen carrying off safes, other times a beam of light was seen that cut the gold car off from the rest of the train, posses chasing the outlaws found themselves ambushed by people armed with unusual weapons. Agents A. Gordon and A. Oakley were sent into investigate, and found that a league of mad scientists had formed and was raising money for some nefarious scheme. Learning of a planned robbery of $5 million in gold bullion, they got word to the Army. A plan was made to ambush the ambushers.

The League of Science 

Lead by Doctor Light this band of scientists, were supported by a few highly skilled mercenaries, plenty of mechanical men, and assorted riff-raff which consisted of "rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists!" who while skilled in killing were not so happy with standing up to people who shot back (counted as half their numbers for morale purposes).

The Government Forces

With information provided by Agents Gordon and Oakley, the U.S Army advanced onto the field. These forces consisted of three squads of cavalrymen, and two Small Armored Landships, all lead by that great leader Colonel Armaggedon P. (no it doesn't stand for Poopsie) Fluster. Men would follow Col. Fluster to their deaths, and probably will some day. Agents Oakley and Gordon had hidden themselves carefully to strike at just the right time, as had a surprise for the League. Another surprise for the league was hidden in the League was hidden in the boxcar at the end of the gold train. 

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The initial setup had a group of Riff-Raff, lead by the Gunman Gunter in the woods by the logs that blocked the tracks. Another squad, Doctor Light, two other scientists (including Two-Gun Macintosh) with their Mechanical Men, and two Mechanical Servants were in the woods north of the train. The armored train was coming up the tracks, with a Mechanical Man on one side and the Dark Gunman and a group of Riff-Raff on the other side. The train had come to a complete stop while the engineer and the fireman fled (were they paid off to flee, or did they just flee in fear).
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A close up of the right. The Mechanical Man promptly broke down, and despite the best efforts of Professor Smith and the Mechanical Servant remained so for a couple of turns.
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The two Mechanical Men right north of the train began their advance.
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While Professor MacIntosh's Driller Mechanical Man punch a hole in the side of the armored gold car, the other went up a hill to prepare to attack another part of the car. dozens of shots from carbines and the Gatling gun bounced harmlessly off of both.
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In the corner farthest from the train Colonel Fluster bravely lead a troop of Cavalry and an Armored Landship onto the table. Only one squad and one Landship could enter each turn.
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The Armored Train, the Dark Gunman and a group of Riff-Raff advanced toward the gold train, with the Armored Train blocking the gold trains retreat (which it could have done if someone had taken over the train's controls). Meanwhile Professor Smith continues to pound on his Mechanical Man with a large wrench trying to get it to start.
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With the approach of the army Dr. Light lead a squad of Riff-Raff to the other side of the woods, while Professor Jones and MacIntosh kept the Mechanical Men bashing on the gold car of the train.
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While the second Armored Landship crested the hill, the first cavalry troop fled after Gunther gunned five of them down on two cards. Those long ranged gas-operated heavy pistols were nasty, especially since Gunther could use one in each hand.
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After having smashed and torn more holes in the armored train car carrying the gold (forcing a morale check on the soldiers in the car). The army's armored walker crashed out of the boxcar. Instead of dealing with the Mechanical Men it began a gun duel with the Riff-Raff on a nearby hill.
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While the Riff-Raff wisely stepped back out of sight of the Landships on the hill, Doctor Light tried to destroy one with her death ray. Caught a cannon round right to the face.
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Meanwhile, Gunther was gunned down by the Landship armed with a Gatling.
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It took several turns of maneuvering, but the Fluster finally had his troops in place for a charge.
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The two Mechanical Men who had been tearing open the train both came to a halt. One just broke down, but other one was stopped by Sgt. Granite, who stepped out on the gold car's platform and threw a firebomb at the Driller Mechanical Man. The burning liquid seeped into the working and stopped its steam engine.
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Taking advantage of the broke-down Mechanical Men, the Army Battlesuit attacked the nearest one. He hit, then did no damage, and promptly was knocked down by a cannon shot in the ass from the Armored Train. After gunning down a couple of the Riff-Raff on the hill near the Armored Train, Agent Oakley killed the Dark Gunman when he tried to get closer to use his Gatling pistol.
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After guarding the logs blocking the track for several turns, the Riff-Raff on the hill by the front of the gold train began to move towards the approaching cavalrymen.
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Colonel Fluster and his second in Command. Otherwise known as Grandpa Marc and Nate. Grandpa figured out the tactics, while Nate moved some of the figures and rolled the dice. I argued it was unfair for Nate to roll the dice since he hadn't used up all his luck yet at that age. Still they worked well as a team.
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Back at the train things were looking bad of the Agents. After gunning down Professor Smith (you only have to stay in 24 inches of the Mechanical Man to control it, not right behind it) Agent Oakley was felled by fire from the Riff-Raff on the hill. Agent Gordon, who had damaged the armor on the Armored Train slightly with a preplaced bomb and badly damaged the sights on the cannon on the train (-6 to shoot!!!), fell to the metallic pincers of a Mechanical Servant (to the right of the boxcar- I need to learn more about doing close ups with this camera). All the Mechanical Men had restarted and continued to attack the Armored Train Car with the gold in it. Except for one, which smashed the fallen Army Battlesuit, killing the soldier manning it.
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But it was too late, the cavalry had arrived in the nick of time (which is what they are supposed to do). One troop, led gallantly by Colonel Fluster, crashed into a bunch of Riff-Raff. They took 50% casualties but managed to deal out the same to the Riff-Raff (the Riff-Raff may have poor morale, but they are better fighters than the newly enlisted cavalrymen). Note the Armored Landship with the man on top. That is a Riff-Raff from another group that had boarded the landship and was trying to force his way inside.
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That other group of Riff-Raff, that had finally made it too the woods, and was promptly charged by a troop and a half of cavalry. The slaughter on both sides was great, but still both sides fought on
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It was over. One group of Riff-Raff broke and fled, leaving the Professors that controlled the mechanical men to the not so tender mercies of the remains of the cavalry. All the leaders of the League of Science were dead. Another gang of Riff-Raff was outnumbered and being overrun (though at great cost to the cavalry doing so). The armored trains cannon was badly damaged and couldn't be counted on to stop the oncoming landships. A victory for the good guys, but at a terribly cost.

A couple things learned. First, even if you have a good Save, you can still die if hit often enough (I may think about giving the leaders 2 hits). Second, timing is everything, Colonel Fluster took his time to establish the landships on overwatch, which killed two of the leaders and kept the Riff-Raff off the edge of the woods (you have to be on the edge of the woods to shoot out or be shot at). Then he gathered his cavalry and was able to make a grand charge, rather than feeding his men in piecemeal to be chopped up separately. That last is just common sense, but too often in gaming players just act rather than plan (which is OK for orcs or French Knights but not OK for everybody else).


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GENCON 2013

8/19/2013

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Arrived in Indianapolis very late on Wednesday (a three hour trip that took six because of damn road construction- I hate traveling anywhere except during the winter because of road construction).

Thursday started off with a couple of quick games of King of Tokyo. A basic Kaiju board/card game in which you tried to develop the baddest monster and either winner by points or killing off all your opponents.
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A fun little quick game (less than an hour) that I'll have to get sometime. Out of the five new to me games I played this is probably the only one I'll buy. One hint for playing the game, try to keep your monster out of Tokyo. I no that doesn't sound right, but the monster(s) in Tokyo get pounded on by all those outside.

Played a free game of Settlers of Catan while waiting for my evening game (the coupon book came with a coupon for a free ticket to a Mayfair game).

The evening game was Retro Raygun.

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The Author of the rules, dressed up as Ace McQuire, Galacteer, somehow talked his daughters into dressing up as a Space Pirate and a Valkeeri. You can never go wrong at Gencon wearing a costume.

The game was the Galacteers vs. the Robot Legion in the search for the Galactic Key. Some where, beneath one of the structures, lay the vital Galactic Key, that would give the possessor great power. You just have to fight of the enemy, destroy the shielding devices, open the vaults to the underground to find it, and successfully get it off your table edge. Nothing could be easier ;)
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Some of the Robot Legion's initial start (Legionaires lead by a Centurion, a couple of Warbots, and a swarm of Minibots). I have got to get a better camera, my wife broke my old one and bought another that is only fit for taking pictures of people, not close ups of miniatures.
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Some of the Galacteer initial setup. Two squads of regular soldiers, with Dr. Zahn, Jane Hunter and Comet the Space Chimp accompanying them.
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One Galacteer Squad seized the high ground by flying to the top of a mountain. They quickly flew back down behind the mountain after taking enemy fire. In this game you can shot across the board (except through very heavy cover)). Even when there is jungle between you and the target you can still shoot (at a small minus). The only reason to advance is to seize an objective or engage in hand to hand (some units like the Minibots and Hoverbots have no ranged weapons).
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Because of this infinite range Queen  Meckanica (lower center), after the first move, just sat back at her end of the board with her squad. With her ability to force attackers to discard their best attack and defense die she and her troopers slaughtered many a Galacteer (though the guy running claimed they just ran off and only the robots actually were destroyed) and didn't loose any robot in her squad until near the end of the game, when the Centurian was hit. In this game a hit on a squad "kills" that squad. The only way to avoid this is to have a "hero" with it to get hit instead. Then you can "kill" the hero, instead of the squad. The players on the other side didn't realize this at first and kept their heroes running around separately. While the heroes were useful, this made it easy to kill a squad, which usually had more firepower than a character.
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On the right the large and imposing Warbots and Warbot Destroyers (the ones with heavy rayguns instead of hands) advanced. Despite being very dangerous looking, bad die rolls limit their kills on the Galacteers to Dr. Zahn, who was running about on his own.
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On the left great masses of Galacteers advanced lead by Ace McGuire. Simon-6 split off from the unit he was with to advance on his (its?) own
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Using the Vault as cover (it being one of the few things that would stop direct fire) the robots advanced. A horde of Minibots leading the way, closely followed be a Centurion with a squad of Robot Legionaries, and a Warbot. 
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The Warbot destroyed the force field generator and the Centurion opened the vault. Meanwhile the Galacteers blaze away at the Queen's squad doing no damage, while her squad's return shots destroy some Galacteer squads.
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Through the open door the Centurion and his squad descended to the lower level, unfortunately attracting hostile creatures and natives to the Robot Legion
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Such as the Giant Bug.
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And the Aquaclops, which managed to destroy a Wabot. Both monsters kept the Warbots on the right busy.
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The horde of Minibots advance but were downed by fire by the Galacteers. Hordes are a kind of unit in Retro Raygun. Even if not destroyed by fire or hand-to-hand they still lose one member each time they are shot at or fought. Their big advantage is rather than a set number of dice to roll in HTH, the number they roll is based on the number the remaining members of the horde. This makes them very dangerous in HTH.
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For instance this horde of Hoverbots destroys this unit.
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Then this one. Akk!! what a bad photo. I've got to get a better camera..
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Before losing to Comet the Space Chimp. Notice the open vault door? Good old Comet managed to Discombobulate it (that's his special skill) by monkeying around with it (sorry about that pun). Jane Hunter rushed into the Vault before the door shuts behind her. There the Centurion and his squad make short work of her and soon found the Key
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Meanwhile, on the surface, the Warbots finally kill the Giant Bug, but the Aquaclops battled on. The Queen's squad is finally hit after a multiple shots, but is not destroyed because her Centurion bravely (can a robot be brave?) stepped into the shot.
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The other Centurion brought the Galaxy Key to the surface. After dodging some last desperate shots, he escaped off the board. A win for the Robot Legion.

I found the system to be good, quick, and rather bloody. Our Warbots seemed to be a waste of points (one even fell to a horde of four natives with spears) and the Minibots only served as shot magnets. The Hoverbots speed let them destroy two squads. Queen Mechanika's ability to force the other side to remove one success on defense or offense proved very handy. Ace McQuire also had that skill, but it didn't work out for him as well. The main problem the Galacteers had was not putting their Heroes in their units. You could sacrifice the unit to save the Hero or sacrifice the Hero to Save the Unit. They also didn't use their Jetpacks well. With them they could move 24 inches (though they couldn't shoot when they used them). Instead of spending time trying to open the Vault on their side of the board, they could have flown a couple of units across to the Vault the Robot Legion opened and use that to get to the Key. Though with the hot dice I was rolling with the Queen's squad, I'm not sure even that would have worked.
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ONE LAST AAR FROM WINTER WAR 40

3/2/2013

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I played in a Where Heroes Dare game at Winter War 40 (I also ran one but with only one player I don't feel like posting those pics). This is the first time I got to play, as opposed to run WHD and it was an interesting experience.

The Plot
Dr. Evil was exchanging human captives for Element X from the Zombies of the Stratosphere. It was up to the US Rocket Soldiers, Doc Bronze and his gang of heroes, and two units of Aiship Mercenaries (OK I forgot what the names of the groups really were, so I am making that up) to assault Dr. Evil's Sky Lair. The Airship Mercenaries were lowered from their airship, Docs landed via Autogyro, and the Rocket Soldiers flew to the flaoting sky lair. Meanwhile, Dr. Evil awaited the arrival of the Zombies for Planet X to exchange human captives for Element X. Dr. Fong's Tong was also on the Sky Lair to provide the Dr. with extra muscle.


 

Here you see the Zombies caustiously exit there rocketships (yeah $1 rocket sippy cups) while at the far side of the lair Dr. Evil and his henchmen await. Between them await the captives, helplessly in a cage.

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The two groups of Airship Mercenaries (their motto "If you've got the money, we've got the death from the skies") charged over the hill and quickly gunned down two of the Zombies (it's nice to have the initiative). My group of mercenaries is the one on the left.
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Then the US Rocket Soldiers dropped in on the ones who had made it to cover.
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Dr. Evil met the other group of Space Zombies and turned over three captives to them. My group moved into cover behind a rocketship while the other mercenaries tried to get a shot in, but couldn't becuase of the captives being in the way. So they instead shot two of the "dead" Zombies that had stood back up (these Space Zombies were truly zombies, for death didn't always keep them down).
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Meanwhile the Rocket Soldiers snuck back to the other side of the compound, via the underground tunnels (see the hatch), to join up with Doc Bronze and his men.
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Unable to stop the Zombies from loading the captives on their rocketship (and unable to figure out how to open the door to the rocketship) my men (and one lady) charged the laboratory containing the Mind Control device with guns blazing. Maybe it was our gunfire, or maybe it was just bad die-rolls, but Dr. Evil couldn't get the device to work.
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Doc Bronze and his men charged Dr. Fong's Tong, dropping some with the Mercy Bullets before KOing the rest in hand to hand.
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I kept Dr. Evil's men engaged while being fired upon by the Zombies who exited their Rocket Ship (which promptly took off with the captives leaving them behind). Caught in a cross fire two of my brave men went down, but so did all the Zombies that came out to play. With the Rocket Soldier and my remaining men (and one lady) firing at the Lab with the Mind Control device, while Doc Bronze and his men took over the building right to the north of the Lab. Surrounded and out-gunned, Dr. Evil decided it was time to stop trying to get the Mind Control device to work and fled via a convienent hidden exit. Meanwhile the other Airship Mercenaries escorted to remaining captives to freedom.
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A victory for the good guys. Dr. Evil's Mind Control device and a rocketship was captured, and most of the Zombies of the Stratosphere and Dr. Fong's Tong were killed or captured. The Zombies did get away with three humans to experiement on, but I'm sure a genius like Doc Bronze can figure out the remaining rocketship and go to free them.

A few things I learned about Where Heroes Dare

1. Remember the Bullet Proof Vest
I was the only group to have such an item (I bought it since the guy running the game had to short me a weapon). With so much lead flying a vest is your best chance of keeping people in the game.
2. Numbers count.
Especially in the early turns the good guys had a great advantage by ganging up on one part of the bad guys. One group of Zombies ended up facing three groups of good guys, one right after the other. By putting out one enemy group right away (Ok sometimes they got to stand up again, but since that was all they could do on their turn they'd get shot back down) it left the good guys with a real advantage. When I ran a multiplayer WHD game at a Con I had several groups, that all had different objactives and different enemies. With just two sides (even if several players) it allowed one side to concentrate on part of their enemies to gain the upper hand.
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WINTER WAR 38

2/2/2011

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WINTER WAR 38
CHAMPAIGN, IL
JANUARY 28-30

Link to Part one of My Trip to Winter War 38
http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/winterwar-part-1.html
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    Mysterious Bill

    I've been gaming since the 1970's and even wrote some RPG adventures in the 80's for the Judges Guild. It seems that I can only get in miniatures is gaming at cons, but I do regularly play boardgames and RPGs.

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