Best of the Hail Caesar Yahoo Group, October 2012

A busy month both on the Hail Caesar Yahoo group, with new members looking for advice on basing for 10mm ("do what looks good to you!"), joining the Society of Ancients (it's not just for DBX anymore!), and some niggling rules discussion regarding cavalry charging with supports and follow up victory moves if the supports never actually made it into combat ("the rules are unclear. Make a decision at the table").

There was a succinct rules clarification I found useful,

"When evading you roll to see how many moves the evading unit can make and then it moves as far as possible. If the evade move will not allow them to clear an intervening unit, then it stops its move immediately in front of the intervening unit because that is as far as it could possibly move. 

[Horse archers] could not countercharge Roman [cavalry] because it is a unit in Open Order and the Roman cavalry are a formed unit (see Units Not Allowed To Charge on page 55)."

Also a cryptic tease from Craig Woodfield regarding some HC skirmish rules his group has put together that may see print!

"Song of Blades and Heroes" Halloween Brawl

I've been trying to pull off a Halloween themed game night for years, but never managed to get my act together. I was determined to finish up a final Flocktober project in time to run a Halloween themed monster bash using "Song of Blades and Heroes" this year. All of the spooky carnage after the jump.

Setting up the Halloween Skirmish

Other than a few brief solo plays or test runs with my son, this was my entire group's first trial of "Song of Blades and Heroes", a fast play set of skirmish rules for fantasy gaming. Each model has only two stats: quality (a score they need to roll on a d6 to do anything) and combat (a score that is added to their single combat roll). Figures are modified by special abilities that let them alter the rules, but keep the overall rules overhead to a manageable limit.

I put together five different warbands and let our group pick their favorite. Each warband deployed within a "long" distance of a table edge closest to the player's beer.

Bob's "Risen" (a vampire, four ghouls and four wolves) skulked near the Warehouse. Mike's "Cult" evil priest and two human archers summoned three demons (using smilodon warrior stats) in the Demon Circle. The Other Mike took a bullet for the team, setting up his "Hunters" (two clerics and three undead hunters) in The Woods, and helping his 6 year old son set up his "Cursed" (a mummy, 8 skeletons and a giant scarab beetle) skitter forth from the fields. I set up my "Stitched" warband (an alchemist magic user and four golems) in the Barrens.

The Cult takes cover behind their unholy stones.

The Hunters break camp to stalk something other than their usual big game.

The Stitched golems mill about awaiting orders.

I pulled stats from the rules when possible, but used the online warband builder to create a few custom creatures. After the game we realized there are a few more restrictions regarding warband construction regarding leaders and tough models, but everything seemed to work out ok for this initial play.

A Song of Blood and Horror

The initial moves saw the Hunters head towards the road to open long range fire on the Cursed skeletal minions of the mummy, who shambled out of the weedy fields towards the town. The Cult, caught between the vampires and monstrous Stitched, took up a defensive position within the Demon Circle.

The dapper vampire commanding the Risen sent his ghoulish minions forth to battle the Cult, but was unable to whip his wolves into a battle frenzy. By only using a single die to activate each wolf, they failed to move more often then not and spent most of the game lagging behind. One poor pooch spent the entire game in his starting spot (chasing his tail no doubt).

Having played Mike countless times, I knew he'd need to be double teamed and destroyed before turning my attentions to lesser threats. I sent three of my Stitched golems and their alchemist leader towards Mike's cultists. He shifted his forces in response, ready to drive off attacks from two fronts.

On the other end of the table, the Hunters methodically whittled down the Cursed skeletons. All five Hunters were lethal against undead and made short work of the rattling bones. Emboldened by their success they raced across the road to take the mummy and giant scarab on in melee.

The skeletons for their part noticed a ladder leaning against the side of the large gate ruins on the outskirts of the town.

They spent the rest of the game climbing to the top of the gate.  There was quite a breathtaking view up there! Tactically, that may not have been the best choice.

And then they opened a bungee jumping outfit.

Meanwhile, the Cult was managing to fend off the initial rush of ghouls, but things were looking dire for them. The main assault of the monstrous golems began. Distracted by the brutes, the Cult barely noticed the dapper fellow in the top hat nonchalantly rounding a boulder with an open path to their flank.

With the narrow entrances to the circle, the Cult managed not only to hold off the monsters but force a morale check by ripping one of them to shreds. The entire band was close to the table edge and when their leader fled from battle the remaining golems were forced to make checks seeing only one remain on the table at the end of the round.

"Blah! Blah! I'll fight you vith both hands tied behind my back!"

All was not lost though. The European gentleman turned out to be the Risen's vampire, and went into melee with the five remaining cultists. The undead bloodsucker held his own for several rounds before finally succumbing to the onslaught. When the vampire was slain, his wolves retreated into the wilderness.

The Hunters finished off the mummy but discovered a new threat. With my last golem bearing down on them, the Hunters took a page from the Cultist hand book and found a defensive position in some standing stones.

How tragic.

The Cultists raced across the field to finish off their last remaining foes. With time running short though the Hunters were forced to concede the field.

The victorious cultists possess the desolate town. Lucky them, I guess?

Quick Review of Song of Blades and Heroes

I really enjoyed Song of Blades and Heroes.  It was fast, each figure type had enough unique characteristics to make it interesting, and while this was our first time playing there was very little rules referencing. When the game was over I wanted to jump back in and play again, but wives were a-callin' and we needed to wrap up. Overall the rest of the group had positive comments and were up for future games. We had five independent teams, all of us were new to the rules, and we were coaching a child through the game and we wrapped up within 2 hours. That bodes well for future plays.

I'm sure we screwed some things up, but I'm hoping the latest edition of the rules clarifies some of our questions. I'd really like to play a long term campaign with Song of Blades and Heroes, but life is pretty rough at the moment and I'll have to console myself with the odd game here and there. Still, I'll likely pick up a few of the expansions in hopes of rolling SoBaH out once the Reaper mini extravaganza arrives in the Spring.

Flocktober! Polishing off some lingering terrain projects

It may not seem impressive, but I managed to finish off a pair of half completed terrain projects that have been nearly complete for years.

A roof for a Mordheim building

Flocked bases and drybrushing for some telephone poles.

I also made a lot of progress on a much bigger terrain project that I'm hoping to complete this week.

Battle of Hastings Reenactment

I don't quite know the full story behind these photos that popped up on reddit earlier this week, but I was still fascinated by this reenactment of the Battle of Hastings.

I love that shot of the archers loosing arrows. Lots more snapshots posted by the photographer on imgur.

Rome Total War II Update: Gameplay Video

Been tremendously busy the last few weeks, but hoping to make some progress on my Flocktober terrain projects this weekend. I just discovered a new gameplay video for Rome Total War 2 which I'm taking as a good omen for the historical wargaming work I'm hoping to accomplish this weekend!

I've Got Robots on the Brain: My Review of Mechwarrior Online.

Some of my mechs, painted up about 15 years ago.

I concentrate on miniatures and wargaming on this blog, but like most gamers I've got a wide array of interests. Typically when I get wrapped up in some non-table top pursuit in ends up influencing the figures I paint and the games I play. My interest in World of Tanks this past summer rekindled my desire to do some WWII gaming and I expect my latest video game pursuit to generate a few new figure and terrain projects as well.

One of my first true wargames (as opposed to board or RPGs) was Battletech. I was hopelessly addicted to the Mechwarrior 2 PC game, and got heavily into the tabletop game in the late 90. I painted up a ton of mechs, collected various supplements and terrible Battletech novels, but over time my group realized that playing a game of Battletech typically took us longer than we had time allotted, and we gradually drifted away into other games that could be wrapped up more quickly. I dabbled with other mech games like Heavy Gear and Gear Krieg, but I always had a soft spot in my heart for Battletech's giant stompy robots, crummy tech that had weapon ranges more in line with black powder weapons, and tactically interesting heat balancing mechanic.


A few weeks ago I managed to get into the new Mechwarrior Online Closed Beta. Now that the NDA has been dropped I can talk about it in detail. I was a big fan of World of Tanks and still enjoy the game, but I've found that Mechwarrior Online (MWO) has been drawing more of my interest lately. Even while I was falling in love with World of Tanks I felt the various tank "roles", equipment loads, and XP trees would have been suited better to Battletech or another sci-fi game. And seeing how WoT is introducing a bunch of ahistorical French armored nonsense, it sounds like they agree. /rimshot. My full review after the jump.




The gameplay of MWO is a bit faster paced than WoT, but not quite to the intensity of other first person shooters I've played. When I first started playing MWO I was a bit overwhelmed by the visual effects and camera shake in it. In WoT you'll get hit by a round and there will be a sound effect and slight visual indicator. In MWO, rockets and lasers are all up in your face, your mech is slewing badly from all of the weapon impacts, there are sirens going off because of your heat overload. Once I got used to the impact effects I realized you could ignore them and concentrate on your own weapon reticle and sensors the game became a lot more manageable. Also, standing where you can get pummeled by multiple enemies is jut a bad idea overall.

The Good Stuff

Unlike in WoT where you are forced to grind up XP trees to unlock tanks, where higher tier tanks are always better than lower tier tanks, and after moving up a tier there's really no reason to use an older tank, MWO introduces a number of improvements:

• Trial Mechs. When you start playing you automatically have access to four common "trial" mechs. They allow you to earn money to buy a custom mech, but at a slower rate, and don't allow your pilots to gain XP. These trial mechs aren't gimped either. The Jenner, Hunchback, Catapult and Atlas are all signature battlemechs and can hold their own in the game. Having access to the Atlas (which is like the King Tiger of battlemechs) from the get go allows you to jump into one of the most powerful vehicles in the Battletech universe at any time.
• Niche Protection. Some mechs carry more weapons and armor but at the cost of lower speed and flexibility. Unlike WoT where lower tier tanks feel like dogs and can't hope to compete with tanks like the Maus or KV-5, I've never felt that any mech is incapable of making a difference. I have a ton of fun taking my tiny Commando (the lightest mech in the game) and tearing holes in the rear armor of enemy Atlases, who's slow speed don't allow them to react effectively.
• Solo Fun. Planning load outs is solo fun.  In WoT you play tanks, gaining XP and unlocking upgrades. The upgrades tend to be linear, although there are few choices on whether to take a low penetration, high damage howitzer, or a long barrel penetrating gun. In MWO each mech has a number of "hard points", attachment locations for different types of weapons. Hard points are assigned a type of weapon (energy, missile or ballistic) but you have a choice of replacing the standard load out with weapons you purchase. Trying different set ups, tweaking the amount of ammo, sacrificing armor for engine speed or larger weapons are fun thought exercises that have taken over a few of my commutes. It feels a bit like the tweaking you might do with a character, their gear and abilities or rotation in an MMO.

The Bad Stuff

That's not to say MWO doesn't have drawbacks. There are a number of areas where WoT presents a more polished experience. One of the highlights of WoT for me is destroying property. Driving over a white picket fence, knocking down utility poles, bursting through a barn to take shots at an enemy on the far side gives me a visceral thrill. The landscape in MWO is static and unchanging in MWO, but destructible terrain has been promised in an upcoming patch. MWO does feature pretty intense destruction effects on mechs though. Seeing my weapon impacts turn parts of the enemy mech white hot from the heat of their destructive power or watching one of their arms cartwheel off in a shower of fire, smoke and debris ejected by a solid impact from my gauss rifle is a nice substitute.

There are only four maps compared to the wide variety in WoT, and as a group all four maps in MWO are ugly, dim and hazy. I'm hoping upcoming maps give a broader vista to fight over. Despite their grungy aesthetic, the much reviled "Assault" game format from WoT has not shown up in MWO.

Still, with all of the entertainments available (and we really are spoiled for choices), I find myself gravitating back to Mechwarrior Online, even for a few quick games in my Commando. The game is still in closed Beta, but I expect them to release the Open Beta soon. The game should be free both before and after launch, but even now you can purchase in game credits to unlock new mechs and weapons faster than playing the free version. Keep an eye out for it and give it a spin when it launches, it's fun :)

Flocktober! Improving Wargame Trees Tutorial

After figuring out how to improve my wargame trees last year, I didn't employ those techniques to bring the rest of my wargame trees up to par. To kick off Flocktober I decided to try using those same methods to improve some rather wimpy Woodland Scenics trees and document the process in case anyone else is interested. All my tips for building wargame trees after the jump.

Materials Needed for Building Wargame Trees

The most important thing you should keep in mind is that this project has a wide margin of error. I'm going to give you my tips but you have a lot of leeway in the actual materials you use if you are following along.

• Tree Armature: In this tutorial I'm using Woodland Scenics tree armatures I had sitting around that were looking a little sparse, but I've used twigs and branches from the shrubs out back. All you need is a twisty trunk like structure.
• Tree Base: The trees are based on metal washers, but you could use wooden craft disks, plaster,  MDF, plastic card, anything rigid that won't warp.
• Filter Material: I don't really know what this stuff is. I picked it up at a pet store and I believe its used in fish tank filters. You can see the package I used above, but really any sort of lacy, foamy, light weight stuff would work, as long as you can "tease" it apart and paint it.
• Spray Paint: I used a cheap camo green from the hardware store. 
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks: Now this you should probably try and use. White glue and super glue didn't work too well when I tried using them, so pick up a cheapy hot glue gun from a craft store.
• Clump Foilage: I used  Woodland Scenics Clump-Foliage  but I suspect there are other brands that would work just as well. I like the Light and Medium green shades.
• Scenic Cement: This is an optional item, but it should make the trees a little more resiliant. If you pick up  Scenic Cement  you'll need a spray bottle too available from craft and garden centers.

Creating the Wargame Trees

You need your tree armature affixed to its base and painted if necessary. I'm using an existing Woodland Scenics tree that looks a little anemic, so I won't be going into detail about building the tree armature.

The patient, looking a little thin around the branches

If your filter material is an unnatural shade (mine was blue for example), your first step is pull off a few chunks and spray it an earth or leaf color. Once dry, pull and tease a chunk of filter material apart to make a lacy net.  You want this material to be as 3-dimensional as possible, but don't sweat it. Even after teasing mine was still pretty flat.

Filter material sprayed camo green

Teased apart into a lacy net.

The filter material will bulk up the foliage area of the tree. Place it between the branches of your armature.  I tried hot gluing it to the armature, but found the filter material naturally clung to the pokey bits of the tree and glue turned out to be unnecessary. If your tree lacks an armature, you may want to use large amounts of unteased filter material to bulk up the tree.

Filter material worked into branches. Existing clump foliage peeks through gaps.

Now you simply need to spread a little hot glue on a section of the filter material and press some clump foliage on.  Work a little bit at a time so the glue doesn't cool and dry before you have a chance to affix the clump foliage. When you pull the glue gun away it will trail a thin strand of glue. Keep that strand under control or your tree will end up looking like a family of giant spiders lives in it!

Now just stick some leaves on. Watch your fingers, that stuff is hot!

Once all of the filter material is covered, give the whole tree a gentle squeeze to make sure the clump foliage is packed in and then spray it down with some scenic cement.

Before and after

 For real, this whole process is very easy and pretty quick. You may lose a few bits of foam here and there once they hit the table top a few times, but that's easily remedied with a little glue and replacement foam. 

Flocktober!

I'm hoping to put all of this to good use this month

I spend all year painting up figures and learning rules and then they wind up fighting over some pretty mediocre terrain. It's become intolerable. I've got a number of terrain projects lingering in limbo that I'm going to try and get finished off to bring the table top up to closer to the standard set by so many of the gorgeous games I see online and at shows. To keep me on task I've decided to christen this month as "Flocktober" (named after the bits of green flock that represent grass in these terrain projects, and God did my wife make fun of me for that) and work on terrain projects only. No buying figures, no painting figures, no basing figures. It's just trees and hills and grass from now until Halloween.

Hopefully between sticking to projects already in the house and selling off old bits that have overstayed their welcome I'll be able to keep the lead pile neat and tidy.