Battle for Planet Earth and the Question of Rules.

A friend of mine read an article.

(Riveting, right?)

I don't know the name of the article, though I myself would enjoy reading it.  This article wandered about a few different topics in the retelling, but in an aside it spoke to a central core of miniature wargaming that isn't spoken about enough.  Often the idea of the game, exploring each and every possibility, is more enthralling than the game itself.

It's not a bad thing I think, as long as you recognize it.  It feeds the Gamer ADD like dating a new girl.  It is what it is and on another drive between the Richmond and DC offices, after the last call was done, I chewed on the Battle for Planet Earth, that on again, off again Star Blazers redo.  The problem is the rule set.  I want it to feel pre-dreadnought, with limited formations, wildly random hit effects, and, well, not every ship looking the same.

The way I saw it, out there on 95, is that there are a few decent contenders, but I'm not really enamored with any of them.  They lack the elegance I've seen in other genres, but there's two that are out there that I think have some possible staying power.  Well, three, but one is not published.

First is Battlefleet Gothic, sadly their free Specialist Games version ripped from the website.  Thank you Games Workshop (again).  Simple system, basic mechanics, easy to teach and learn.  Little customization is required, the original models fits the models size I'm looking at.  It's not complex, but it's doable and it meets the need.

The other one I was looking at was one I played back in college, called The Stars Our Decimation.  We got through a half-dozen games in a short sprint, before folks moved on to other games of the era.  TSOD became Voidstriker sometime in the middle of the first decade of the new millennium.  So I decided to reach out to buy them, but the Cafe Press site is no longer functional.  This is what I would call a conundrum.  So I reached out, on a lark, to the writer....and now by the grace of a generous soul, I have a copy.  It's an excellent balance of playability and crunch.  What makes it interesting is the the fact that it is a hex game.  There are ways to play hex games on an open table....so this truly remains an option.

The third?  Song of Void and Stars has "been almost there" since 2012.  I like Ganesha games.  It's a simple rule base, and I have hopes for it, I'll just have to wait.

So....

I am still here, though with a 20 month old and an active work life there is little time available for anything but the necessary.  I've not completely stopped mind you, and figured I best come here for proof of (gaming) life.

So...What am I doing. Or trying to do. Limited time should help me focus but so far my Gamer's ADD has won out.

1. Duergar-As you may or may not know, Dragon Rampant is due to come out come winter.  At my current painting rate I'll not have a new army ready, even if it's for the smaller scale for which Dragon Rampant calls, but the rule set has me started.  None the less I have recently acquired some of Clam Miniatures Ewal Dvergar.  I've not seen much traffic of them but bumped into them while looking for Chaos Dwarf substitutes. I've purchased some of these, and along with some Skaven Auxiliaries I think my Duergar expedition is set.

2.  As seen elsewhere, I have a few of the Star Blazers ships in my Battle for Planet Earth project.  After a recent order, the few has blossomed into too many.  Still, I enjoy putting them together and hope to get a game going, though frankly the rule set on this one is deeply in doubt.  Clearly in my mind this is a story of Pre-Dreadnoughts in space, but the rule set remains a challenge here.

3. Lastly I looked at my pile of Mechwarrior Clix. That too has grown, and as a result I've added to them an order of N-Scale train kits from Japan with a distinctly Shogunate era flavor to them.  Between these two components I have a view of one of two options:

• Mech Wars a la Battletech on a sparsely populated city-state dominated world.  

• Kaiju Hunting on Hokkaido.  

In either case I need to figure out the rules.  For Mech Wars, give the number of Mechs we're looking at, Alpha Strike looks like a front runner (I can't stand filling out dozens of bubbles).  Alternately there is the Ganesha Set which between Samurai Robots Battle Royale (battle report elsewhere on this site) and Mighty Monsters.  This later gives the advantage of having two very specialized rule sets for the two participants if I go with Kaiju Hunting-but the rules have limits (six a side gets a little clunky as experience has shown).  Alternately I'm looking at Savage Worlds Showdown as an option.  What this all comes down to is the ability to push three inch tall mecha across the table.

So three options.  So what.  Pretty boring read, but my hope is that one of the three of these will actually turn into something.  Time will tell.  So far it's not gone well.  I have 2mm sitting by the way side, as well as others.  Too many others.

(By the by, any folks in DC with an appetite to unload a pile of Mechwarrior Clix, please contact me).

New Year, New Goals, New Opportunities to Drop the Ball

Well, it's 2015.  Who would have thought we'd be here with so little to show-but here we are.  I've been looking around The Miniatures Page (it's all but my home page at this point) and it's the time of year that folks profess to their new goals and mark progress on old ones.  While there's the usual professions to focus the hobby on to one approach or another, I saw one that was oddly novel.  One of the individuals wants to go all of 2015 without actually buying a model.  I was reading this as I was in the process of inventorying the Napoleonics I'm currently contemplating rebasing (Napoleon's Battles to WRG Standard).  And that's when I realized that this needs to be my 2015 goal.

You can imagine how put out my wife was at this proposal.

I've already acquired a few figures this year (individual Warhammer figures for Song of Blades and Heroes warbands) but that just puts me at a 1/15/16 cutoff.   And I'm ok with that. This means no buying figures, terrain, rules (yes, gasp, rules), or anything else.  I will except anything that help basing or preparing figures-so bases, paint, flock, etc, remain in play.  Instead the focus is on painting and preparing with what little time I can find.  The tragedy (ok, mayhap I protest too much) is that I've done a DBA army in 30 days before.  I can paint quickly (ish), though not well.

Q1 will focus on the battles of Napoleon.  I have acquired assorted figures, and any button counter or otherwise uniform sharpshooter would be appaled with what I have.  But it makes me happy.  So I will convert these figures to new basing (132 bases actually) and prepare for a battle for St Patricks between my French and Austrians.

Let's see how it goes.

Merits of Merit?

Since Power Legion is out, let's use it.  I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, nor will for a little bit, but in the evening moments I'd like to see what I can do to see what the system can do.  To that end, I'd like to look at one of my favorites: Merit Comics.  Hard to find, rarely referenced, but Merit Comics, first in the early 40s with Maximum Comics, then in the 60s-80s with the Merit Universe, set in such classic locations as Port Pacifica, Defiance Heights, and Haywood Crossroads.

I can't sculpt, I can't modify, but I have a bevy of Heroclix that are easy to repaint, and from there let's see what we can do.

Starting at the top, let's look at what a hero, rather a Villain in our case, looks like in Power Legion, starting with my favorite.  Pure late Sixties, may i bring to you the Atomic Cosmonaut.  One of the Archvillains of Paragon, first showing up in Stupendous Stories #4, but not really coming into his own in to the early teens arc of Paragon and the Port Pacifica Protectors.   First a simple cosmonaut traveling with his partner (later to become the Devolved) on the Invader Probe where he met the the two Americans (later Cosmos the Evolved and Paragon), over his history he became more and more non-linear, calling versions of himself from the future and past to aid him in his battles, and stepping in and out of time with his (its?) teleporting abilties. When communicating very alient, distant, without sense of time or location reference.  What's not to like.

Atomic Cosmonaut Villain 48 Pts

Mind	Agility	Strength	Knockout
d8	d8	d8	d12

Traits:
Teleport d8
Lethal d8
Damaging Aura d6
Intimidation d10
Duplication (3)

Figure: For this one I intend to use an easy fit that inspired the entire effort-the Evil Cosmonaut from Horrorclix.

Duplication is a missing power I feel from the rules, something of the style of Jamie Madrox or Multiplex. Something like this is needed to represent the non-linearity of the Evil

Duplication: Spend one action to create a duplicate, up to Power level. Each duplicate requries separate activations, but each duplicate other than the first can only take one wound before disolving. Which duplicate is the original is kept hidden until a duplicate is wounded. After the intial # of duplicates is created, additional ones can be created, but each one reduces KD by one step

For those who are checking the math, for simplicity sake I've divided the Power Legions points by 10. It makes it easier for me to baseline forces.

...Power Legion?

It was an oridnary enough day recently.  I was wandering around, and in my usual circuit of web comics I decided to stop on a dead link of mine, namely Goblins.  The owner had gone through a bit of diffculty some months back, but you had to hope.

Well, he's back.  Slow and steady, but moving in the right direction.

Well, on that note, after several months of silence from one of my favorite Web Comic properties, I figured I'd go and check a few other things.  At top of the list was a rule set by the name of Power Legion.  I've been waiting on it for years.  Produced by the same folks who brought you Song of Blades and Heroes, I think most folks expected a variation of the core rules....

Wait, what?

You haven't played SOBH?

Well, go on, it's $8-games run from 30m-1h; 5-12 figures; playable at seven, enjoyable far beyond, infinately flexible

No, seriously, go on.  I'll be here.

Ok.

Back?

Good.  Anyway, Power Legion was the superhero version of the "Song" rule set.  Long story in danger of getting longer, I went ahead and searched and found a reference to errata.  Errata?  A few short moments later I found it.

It?

Well this.

So I bought it.  It's who I am, the rules version of Hoarders. In review though, it wasn't a mistake. While I have deep respect for Supersystem, the industry standard for many years, it always felt a little too slow for superheroes.  Don't get me wrong, it's a practical, linear, translatable system.  Then there's Power Legion

It's not just another Song of <Fill in the Blank> rule set.  There's a few key differences.

1. Stats-There are four instead of just two, bringing a level of complexity above what you're used to.

2. Polyhedrialismo-No longer dealing with single stats, a hero (or villain) can run from d4-d20

3. No more doubling-there are wounding effects.

Now don't get me wrong, it's got its flaws (take this with the grain of salt originating from yours truly trying to deal with a seven month old, close quarter, and trying grok the rules).

1.  Powers are missing.  There's 91 included, so it's not from lack of trying.  I dropped a note to the developer, and he mentioned there was an intent for expansion to address at least one of the power, but part of it is clearly interpretation.

2. The version reads through a little light on examples and somewhat light on campaign components.

This said, it's a great starting point, I hope there's more coming, but happy with at least this much

So...2mm?

Actually yes, 2mm.  I'm looking soon to a world I'll have to give up the hobby room in to have a bedroom for another child.  My wife is doing the best she can supporting a hobby she find infantile, but it's greater DC-space remains a premium, and with as much as I get to the hobby (see blog title if there's any confusion) I will have to reduce.

While my eyes are good, I'm going small.  How Small.  Well, below please find my Late Roman Archers, my Sassanid Cataphracts, a Sassanid Elephant, and a Beer (the Tradition from DCBrau). Drink the last, paint the first three.

So, yeah, tiny.

At the least these are armies I can paint, base, and store in a limited space.  You should see these guys based on 1" x 1/2" to 1" x 1" bases shortly, but deeds not words.

In case you are interested, there's a good guide here. Especially the article on Atomic DBA that I'm using as the foundation.  I could do this large, with bases with twelve of these little castings each, but I'm going easy.  I could also do generic armies, instead I'm going to be stubborn with separate armies for each of the ones in my little "7th Century Collapse (or Rise depending on your point of view) Campaign". Like my aspirations for DBAesque Moderns, color is a major theme (little byzantine humor there).

Current Figures
  Byzantines - Red
  Sassanids - Purple
  Arab Conquest - Green

Phase II
  Visigoths - Blue
  Avars & Bulgars - Orange (Both, options, one army)
  Lombards - Black
  Khazar - White
  Lakhamids - Yellow

Still looking at some other options - Slavs, Ostrogoth, and Moors are shortlisted, but before I plan too much let me at least basecoat what I have.  I think this range would be perfect for Horse and Musket, but, you know, one project at a time.  More the pity there's only one source for these figs.  Irregular has a mixed rep-everyone always says they "paint up well", but can be a little rough.  Their selection is unequaled though, and looking at their smaller scales, whether these or the Dark Dwarf 6mm army I bought 16 years ago, there's few, if any better.

I wanted to make one last comment, in case you are still reading - I tried to buy some metal bases from the brick and mortar around the corner.  Apparently they can't get them for me.  When did we stop being able to get metal bases...but ok. I am going to go back to my porch and yell at kids in my yard, pining for the days when hobby shops were plentiful and I could afford Games Workshops models.

Further Thoughts on The Battle for Planet Earth

This is an opportunity post I started while I had a two month old passed out on my chest.  As the twin of this points to, he's six months now, so little progress was made. This means, probably, few links and no pictures.  Not sexy, but an opportunity to spitball.

Since I started this, I have failed the Guild challenge.  Between work and parenthood, it wasn't happening.  but I still have my fleet.

I can't argue that the ships from Bandai are cheap.  Running two bucks a pop, they're pretty well detailed, and well the occasional headache occurs putting them together, there's far worse I've encountered with fantasy figures in 28mm.

The problem is that of scale.  I originally bought these figures with an eye to mixing them with Silent Death ships.  I was inspired by this post and the rest is history.  The problem is that some mix, some clearly do not.  If you look at the lead figure variants here ships match, but the Bandai plastic Okita and Kodaikan (if you're still following me, bravo) are close to the same size.  Or in more sane words, Cruisers and Destroyers are roughly within an inch of each other in a game which huge ships clock in at 6".  A possible explination is the size of jump drives....but I will noodle on this.

As a side note for anyone who might care, I am a fan of Silent Death, it was the go to game for college days.  It plays fun but two problems arose, periodically.  The first is the moment we all remember from every bit of space anime in history, when the ships get to standoff distance, and every torpedo is released, and has to be tracked.  The other is the Conga Line of Death, where intiative feeds into ordered distruction. Still, fun and quick.  I'm now looking to see if I can convert CY6! to something playable...project 107 on the pile.

So what am I saying.  I like these ships.  I have now about 30 of them.  And I still have no clue what I will rule set I will use.