Tales of Tricornes and Patriots: Pilot Episode (post 1 of 5)

Skirmish game at the time of the American Revolution.

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Game setup: Late 1774. The fictitious hamlet of Chalgrove in Worcester County, Massachusetts, pools its resources once a year and send its surplus to Boston. 

Everything gets sold including the wagons constructed over the winter and the draft horses trained to pull them. With the current unpleasantness growing in Boston it is reckoned a good price for the crops and goods will be available.

Elderman Joshia Maxwell is returning from Boston with an escort of local residents after selling the community's produce. 

The party consists of three veterans of the French Indian Wars living peacefully in Chalgrove. They remained in the county when their neighbours left for Boston, 'just in case' the rumours circulating about Mohawk incursions were more than just idle gossip.  Elderman Maxwell asked the three experienced fighters to rendezvous with the group returning from Boston as extra security on the final leg of the trip home, joining them before they passed through the notorious “Turpin's Wood”.

On the way to the meeting, our heroes make overnight camp mid-way through the sprawling wood.  

Note the measuring sticks. S, M & L.   The clear plastic template marks the edge of Firelight. Targets within L of the template edge are dimly visible and receive cover from ranged attacks.

The closest trees to the camp mark edge of open woodland. (Provides cover to all within. Maximum visibility inside is  2 x L. Models without 'Woodsman' trait move one category less in woods. EG M → S.)

Alerted by rustling in the undergrowth, the party catches glimpses of large wolves in the dim firelight on the edge of the treeline.

The wolves rush to attack. 

With a whoop, Diable Pomme draws his Tomahawk and countercharges. Nathaniel Collins rushes after him, snatching a burning brand from the fire as he goes. 

His hurried shot goes wide and he is then knocked to the ground by the closest wolf. Diable Pomme's swinging tomahawk is keeping the snapping jaws of his opponent at bay. Neither combatant is able to land a telling blow.

The rest of the approaching pack is circling the pools of light from the fire and torch. Unable to overcome their natural resistance, despite being desperate to charge at their waiting prey.

Dr. Thomas Young is the group's best shot and is waiting for a clear target.

Note the Smaller clear plastic template representing the torchlight. The Wolves have to make a successful Q roll to enter the area of the template. In the game, it worked well as the wolves who failed their test proceeded to 'prowl' around the edge of the light.

  

With Nate on the ground and more wolves closing, he is lucky to survive another round.

Diable Pomme is holding his own despite being outnumbered. Eventually, it had to happen and he falls to the ground, overcome by the weight of numbers.

With a clear shot, at last, Dr. Young fires and seriously wounds one of the Wolves. He then rushes forward and brandishes the fallen torch.

Enough is enough and the pack leader drags off the wounded wolf into the cover of darkness.

Wounds are tended, the fire is piled higher and the rest of the night passes without incident.    

Next post will be what happens when the party arrives at the assigned rendezvous point.  

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Rules Used :)  

A combination of Song of Blades & Heroes (with some elements from 'advanced' SoB&H), some rules from Tales of Blades & Heroes, some from Tales of Drums & Tomahawks. Some gaps filled from Flashing Steel. All available from http://www.ganeshagames.net/

Slowly evolving into a useable set of quick play rules for our own use. 

This is one of 5 scenes, all played to conclusion in a single Tuesday evening of gaming.

Warmaster Revolution

Our first games using the new Warmaster Revolution Rules.

AAR Orcs & Goblins Vs Araby
Dwarfs Vs Empire

Orc Deployment. So far so good.

I'm a big fan of Warmaster and would like to play more. It seems the new Warmaster Revolution rules might be a kickstart for more interest.
One new rule is that if a commander fails his first command roll of the turn then the unit or brigade he was ordering gets a half pace move. (No charge or change of formation though.)
This should make a big difference to Orcs. Even more to Trolls!

We used the scouting rules for the first time. (A lot of firsts during this game.)
You allocate a portion of your force to scouting.  Different types of troops contribute various 'scouting-points'.  Each player adds 2D6 to their total and the highest score 'wins' scouting.

• Winner puts on the table all the troops allocated to scouting. 
• Loser puts his complete army on the table. 
• Winner deploys the remainder of his army. 

With A flying character, wolf riders and 5 units of goblins, ... I won the scouting roll

Araby Army

The Araby army looks really interesting. Lots of unit types and special rules you don't see very often. I'd read the magic carpets shooting was deadly.   The unit of elephants look like they can throw out a lot of dice on the attack. 

I didn't take many pictures this time. Some that I did were pretty blurry. 

It has been a while since I played Warmaster and it quickly became obvious I had forgotten most of the lessons I had already learned.   I did remember to point my giants directly towards the enemy at deployment time. Unfortunately with one of them I angled it forward in front of my unit of wolf riders.  The giant failed the second order. When I rolled on the 'Giant-Goes-Wild' table it promptly headed for the base line. It ran into and attacked the unit of Wolf Riders in the process.  If this happens to you and your reaction is to laugh out loud..... Orc&Goblin probably 'is' the right army for you.  

The other giant did better... almost.   

Araby Conundrum

The Araby army thundered forward. Enthusiastic infantry raced ahead. They stopped out of sight behind the crest line of a ridge. My second Giant almost made it into contact but stopped short.  The Araby guards were now faced with the prospect of having to charge the Giant in the front if they went in on initiative.

Instead the Caliph ordered the the Elephants to take on  the Giant. .... after a successful first order they refused to charge into contact.   

The guards and other infantry did scramble up and over the ridge line, desperately trying to get far enough past the giant so that it couldn't see them to charge on initiative. With a fair bit of stand shuffling they managed it. The disappointed giant watched them go past. He was cheered up considerably when he saw the elephants to his front. 

Meanwhile: 

. 

They shall not pass.

The wolf riders along with some Orcs & Goblins blocked he approach of Camel riders. 

There was an earlier mirage that was charged by goblins on initiative.  According to the goblins they won that combat.  (A mirage unit generated by an Arbay spell evaporates when contacted by any unit. I'm still claiming it as a victory for the goblins though.) 

The rest of the game was lost in the mist of time. (I didn't take any more photographs.)

Conclusion: 

Despite the long gap since last playing and the pile of new (modified) rules...... I was very happy with the way it came together.  A lot of niggling little questions came up. (Especially with what supporting units can and can't do during pursuit.) A close reading of the rules will probably clear up most of the issues. What's left over I will post on the Specialist Arms forum. 

The game on the other table was Dwarfs Vs Empire.    Rash dwarf charges,  hurty Empire artillery and knights staying out of trouble appeared to be the story of the game. I could be wrong. 

I do know that the Dwarf's broke.

Dwarfs advance

Still advancing.  Short legs towards big cannons!

Troll slayers, supported by Warriors, make contact.

Gyrocopter targeting  knight's flanks

G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, does it get any better than this....?

I don't think I'll get shouted down if I suggest Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is possibly the module converted to more versions of D&D than any other? People clearly have an affection for it.  

Combined with G2 and G3 it still gets into a lot of  'best-of'  lists.
High point was possibly in 2004 when it was voted as best-dungeon of all time.  OK so it had a little help with the other G modules, the D modules and the big Q.

A while back I decided to do the three Giant modules using 4e.
By pure coincidence, as soon as I'd finished converting G1 to 4e for my own use, Wizards announced they were going to publish 4e versions of them as a 'homage'.

Dungeon 197 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.
Dungeon 198 Warrens of the Stone Giant Thane    
   (This was a new addition....but I like it!)
Dungeon 199 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
Dungeon 200 Hall of the Fire Giant King.
Superbly detailed. Outstanding artwork. I think they are all great.

The four modules were woven into a larger ongoing campaign that ran to conclusion in 5 (maybe 6 years)! It really was a a big one.  (Perhaps more about the Krulle-Campaign another time?)

By the time the party reached the Hill Giant's Steading, 4e was just too much like hard work.
I ran it using homebrew rules that 'boiled-down' a lot of the useful source material from the Dungeon articles.

Not content with chalking the wall out on boards....I decided to build it.
More precisely I wanted to make a representation of the outer walls that I could reuse as a palisade.

I was happy with one thing I did. 

I used Games Workshop Ogres as most of the Giants.  To begin with all of them were primarily flesh coloured as Hill Giants.  Once we were past the Steading a number of them were over painted White with a Blue wash to become Frost Giants. Finally they were painted Red to become Fire giants.

I thought the discrepancy in size would look wrong. In-game... it worked out fine.     

I've decided to put the walls up on eBay. Maybe someone else can  use them as the Steading. 

My suspicion is that they will end up being bought as 40K barricades or the edges of a trench system.  There is over 21feet of it (645cm)

You can search for 181804319100

28mm Palisade Wall terrain. 645cm (21'). Made for D&D Hill Giant Steading

       

link

Happy Bidding. 

PS: The last use of the palisade was representing the outer walls of the the 'Sodden Hold' warehouse in the  current Age-of-Worms campaign.   

                           

My interest in wargaming.

This is my first post on 'blogger'.  Moving across from Wordpress because I want to include in my blog some things I'd like to sell and it seems hard to add a paypal buy-it-now button.