100.000 giveaway

Today, this blog is celebrating big anniversary - 100.000 views all time.

It took us 5 years to reach it.

First of all I would like to thank everybody who drops here occasionally.

To celebrate this event, I would like to make a little giveaway for a like-minded people.

So, I am giving two sets of Napoleonic 6mm figures - one French/Polish and one British/Spanish/Portuguese.

 This is British set. French is little bigger.

Sets contain infantry and cavalry models. There are 20 infantry models and 10 cavalry models (command included) for every unit in the set, so you should have enough models to make one army for rules like Muskets and Shakos or similar, or you can, of course, use them for skirmishes.

Models are mostly Baccus, with occasional Adler here and there.

All you have to do to get a chance to get these sets is to write a comment on this post between now and Monday,  4th of May, 9:00 AM Central European Time. Then, I will randomly select two winners, who will receive one of the above mentioned sets each.

I ship everywhere in the world.

Good luck to everybody.

Short dungeon crawl with sad ending

For a while I wanted to do a solo dungeon crawl using 5th edition of D&D.
Finally, I found some time for that, so I rolled a hero, half elf bard named Loneflute, and I went into adventure.

The dungeon is generated according to Appendix A: Random Dungeons, from the GM guide book.

The only thing i added is a random monster generator. So far, I created one only for first level characters.

When a monster is rolled on the Dungeon Chamber Contents table (GMG pp 296), I first roll 2d6 on encounter level table to define number and CR of the monsters. Then, I roll on the appropriate CR table to define what kind of creatures I met.It works, as you will see.

So, here is the adventure.
Loneflute entered the dungeon. Starting area was 4x4 square with 3 doors. There were wooden doors to the left and right, and portcullis straight ahead. Loneflute decided to examine corridor behind portcullis first.

After short corridor he entered 9x5 chamber. It was empty chamber with hidden treasure, but Loneflute failed perception check and missed opportunity to increase his wealth.
Chamber had 3 additional exits. Locked iron door to the North-West, wooden door to the North-East and open corridor to the West. He went that way. Another short corridor ended with small, 2x2 chamber. Chamber was inhabited by a monster with no treasure. Rolling 2d6 on encounter level table resulted in roll of 3 and that equals to 4 monsters CR0. Further rolling on CR0 table, resulted in 8, so there were 4 bats. Loneflute killed them, earning 80xp, but he lost 6HP in the process.
Corridor to the South resulted in dead end so Loneflute decided to take a short break and heal - good roll on d8 resulted in healing all 6 hp.
Loneflute returned to the big chamber and took North-East passage. There he soon entered another chamber - again monster with no treasure. It was single CR1/4 monster. After rolling 2d10, it turned to be a Troglodyte.
Not all CR1/4 monsters are made equal, and Troglodyte is among the worst of them. But Loneflute was too stupid to understand it. Instead of running away, he decided to fight. So, he failed to surprise the monster, then got poisoned and finally killed by two good strikes from monster's claws.

The end.

This was fun. I plan to roll new character and try again very soon.

Official surrender

I finally decided to try 5 Core (second edition) from Nordic Weasel Games. And, unfortunately, I have to confirm what other people already stated on the web - 5 Core is the best SF/modern skirmish game available on the internet. Didn't expect this to happen - but I am totally hooked :)

For my first game I decided to start easy. There are many ways to customize your character in this game, but I just took 6 grunts per side and went with it. I played orks (2 teams of 3 soldiers, with normal grunts armed with sub-machine guns, and support consisting of one auto rifle and one grenade launcher) while automated side consisted of space marines armed with infantry rifles and supported with 2 auto rifles.

Terrain is set as per Control the river scenario from One-Hour Wargames book, I just added more terrain peaces on both side of the river since 5 Core asks for dense covered table.
Game was played on 1"x1" table using GW Epic 6mm orks and marines and 1'=3' ruler.

Due to the nature of the scenario game evolved as two independent 3 men skirmishes.
Marines rolled for behavior and got Aggression level 6 - very aggressive, and their priorities were to advance on enemy positions.

Game started with some scurry actions. Troops approached the bridges while soldiers with auto rifles from both sides selected good position to rain support fire on enemies.

To the south, two orks tried to storm the bridge but were soon returned to their side of the river by marine fire.
Marines tried to do the same on the north, but they fared even worst - one marine got out of fight and one bailed.

Covered by support fire from auto rifle, one brave ork dashed across the bridge, engaged bailed marine in close combat and killed him. Later the same turn he got some unwanted attention from marine auto rife and had to bail out of table, but he already did his job.
To the south, two well placed shots from grenade launcher killed two marines (one with auto rifle).
Outnumbered 5 models to 2, marines decided to quit the field. It was middle of the turn 9.

At the end, higher firepower of sub-machine guns proved dominant in this scenario over long range of infantry rifles, since both sides needed to get into open at short range in order to control the bridges.

This was incredibly fun game, and I can't wait to try it again. The very important for the overall impression is the fact that all your actions are very logical. You should know what you want to achieve in every turn, so you can decide what you gain if you take a risk and is it worth it, and based on this you make your choices.
But you really have to play this game and feel it - I never expected this just from reading the book. So go ahead, and try 5 core.

6mm/10mm ruins

Here is the new terrain piece I made for my 6mm/10mm gaming table.

In the base, it is a free model from Lord Zsezse Works called Elven Ruined Sanctuary, scaled down with option "portrait, multiple 4 by 4 pages per sheet".

I simplified the model to fit to the small scale by adding flock instead of some outer wall elements.

This Gothic structure can be used both for fantasy and Gothic SF settings.

Building is based on metal sheet to connect with my magnetized table, and then the magnetic foil is applied before paper floor - so the figures with washer bases are secure within the building.