Elliscon November 2015

Elliscon

November 14th, 2015

Danielson Connecticut USA

It took me a couple of weeks after the event to get my laptop back to build this blog post. My daughter is in a Masters Degree program and was beginning her finals the Sunday after the con. Her chromebook died, and she needed Ol' Reliable to finish the semester and take her finals.

Let me try to catch up.

I ran Ganesha Games Mighty Monsters in the morning. Three and a half players. One kid dropped in and out halfway through the session. I chose to use a smaller layout and had each player run three monsters. 

As usual, when I run Mighty Monsters on the same day as I run Osprey's A Fistful Of Kung Fu, I forget that Powerful and Very Powerful Attacks are minus' for the defender instead of plus' for the attacker. As long as the player's don't find that out, I'm golden.

Everyone was quick to engage and forsook ranged attacks for the most part. The blue aquatic figure has a Force Blast attack consisting of a gout of water. He knocked the Giant off the bridge.

The Giant and the Giant Robot went at it hammer and tongs and knocked each other back a couple of times. The Giant was Massive, so it helped him in the clinch. It was hard for him to do any significant damage on the Robot with his Armor.

The T Rex was gnawing on Mecha Zeta, which kept Mecha from using his ranged attacks. The Mecha player should have kept his distance. Even with his armor, his best attacks are his ranged ones.

The young player who briefly stopped by ran the Big Damn Spider. He managed to cast a Web over Mecha, which slowed him up for a turn, allowing Howler to clinch him up.

The players were getting antsy not making much headway against each other. The dice were cold. I called it a draw and invited everyone back for the afternoon session of A Fistful Of Kung Fu.

This session of AFOKF, I did not foreshadow a potential arrival of gamemaster characters. This would be a straight street fight.

Again, I chose a smaller field. I finally get what game author Andrea was getting at concerning play areas.

The green coasters are a forested area.

The players developed their Mooks very effectively, for the most part. The younger players took a lot of damage from the Mooks, which softened them up for the Protagonists.

Note the Gazebo of Doom I recently acquired from the Dollar Store at Halloween!

Someone finally used the planks to make a Long Move without prompting!

Lots of Disarming going on. The two green fighters are an example of the Mirror, Mirror special rule which allows you to create a mirror image of yourself to help you fight, unless it gets too far from you and winks out!

Mooks were wreaking havoc on the Protagonists, who couldn't seem to make the dice listen.

The dual pistol wielder in the center of the picture was breaking up the mess to the left of the woodpile.
 

The dual pistol wielder lost her advantaged when the Green Girls locked her up. The girls were pretty bashed up, but they managed to take her down.

This guy was able to take out the rest of the Mooks bothering him and recovered his sword and pistol.  The Green Girls were in his sights.

Why they did not pick up the guns, I do not know.

One Green Girl was driven into the spools, becoming Entangled. This caused the other one to wink out.

The dude with  sword and pistol was undoubtedly the winner.

It was a great session.

I ran one more Mighty Monsters session later on in the evening. It was fun, but, unremarkable.

A great day at the Con. Looking forward to Havoc in Worcester Massachusetts in the Spring.

Teach your hobby or it will die with you.

Support small press games like Andrea's.

Ganesha Games and Osprey Publishing.

New Terrain Piece 9/7/15

This is a new terrain piece I created for A Fistful of Kung Fu.

It was made to replace the lame inverted yogurt cup I used previously.

Started with a CD-ROM base.

Glued the plastic end of a big roll of printer paper to the base.

Spray painted both black.

Cut disk to fit into cylinder top.

Used Crayola Modelling Clay to make water, about 1/4 inch thick.

Painted water with several colors of blue.

Coated water disk with Mod Podge. Almost blew it here. Should have done several coats rather than one thick one.

Planked the outside of the tank with coffee stirrers.

Cut balsa donut for top.

Planked the donut with coffee stirrers cut at a slight angle on both sides.

Hot glued the water disk into the base.

Coated the outside of the base with dried coffee grounds.

Painted the coffee grounds with browns, grays, and greens.

Glued some railroad bushes to the base.

Hot glued the top disk to the cylinder.

Sprayed with Dull Coat.

Took it out for a spin last weekend in my AFOKF game.

NO ONE GOT ON TOP OF IT!

But, I thought it was cool!

Much better than the yogurt cup!

AAR Vic-Con Sept 5, 2015 A Fistful of Kung Fu!

Vic-Con is an all day event held at the home of my friends Victor and Claire, who very generously put up with the invasion of a gang of wargamers, friends, family, and various camp followers. There is food, there is gaming, most of all, there is fun.

Seeven players played. Rules from Osprey [Ganesha Games] written by Andrea Sfiligoi. All terrain and monsters built or bought on the cheap. My goal is to show you don't need Big Money to play Fun Wargames.

I used the playing card initiative system I yoinked from Savage Worlds. Joker gives initiative place of player's choice and +1 for all attacks that turn.

No one has previously been able to freely enter the Sacred Quarter to cause mischief. The sorcerer Que Lung and his compatriot Princess Iron Fan have figured it out and they and their gang are stealing the greatest of the treasures in there. They plan to waltz across the city to their waiting limousine and trucks. They don't know seven gangs have heard about it, and plan to take their stolen treasures for themselves.
  
So, seven gangs on the table trying to be the last ones standing when the sorcerers leave the Sacred Quarter.

This will be the first time I played with guns being involved.

I also was playtesting the use of motorcycles.

View from the Sacred Quarter end of the table.

The Sorcerer's Limousine is parked under the skywalk in the corner. 

Warehouse district to the right. Water tower in the center front.

Water tower with Barrel of Dangerous Stuff in front of it.

Elephants mark the entrance to the Sacred Quarter. I wish I could find some temple dogs!

The observatory.

The skywalk.

Closer look at skywalk. I was impressed with the setup they made.

The skywalk is destroyed with an exploding rocket car beneath it (why would anyone park a fully fueled rocket car on the street? The dice never lie). Made short work of the limo and one of the protagonists.

Zack's Gun Fu Master fights off the huge razorbeast that came over from the Sacred Quarter to see what all the fuss was about.

Looking over the Sacred Quarter and warehouse district.

Looking over the center of town.

Looking over the far end of town.

So. I made a couple of mistakes.

I recently made some motorcycle mini flats and wanted to give them a try in game. After some previous bad experiences with functional vehicles in game, I had decided to tell the players in advance that all of the vehicles on the table were non functional for driving and merely there for eye candy. I gave them to Zack as the most experienced player there.

I have made it a habit in big games to hold back on giving my bad guys CHI points until the players started spending them.

Zack was "Meh" on the motorcycles. He took out one of the other the protagonists with one of his mooks on a motorcycle. He said the crowded battlefield was still too restrictive for effective transport using the bikes. I am not really disappointed, I just wanted to try it out for those who were so hungry to use vehicles.

If they really want to play Car Wars instead, I have that, too.

The CHI is a problem that takes away from the soul of the game, spending CHI to do cool stuff. Taking away the ability of the bad guys to do harm by not spending CHI is not helping. Bad guys will start the game with a full compliment of CHI and the players will just have to deal with it.

The players spent a good number of actions opening up vehicles, looking in them for useful stuff. THEY offered what they were looking for, rather than putting it on me to be creative. I really appreciated that, and made it easier to say "yes".

All in all, we had a great game. I usually give out a few tokens for clever play that can be exchanged for an automatic roll of 6, to be used for whatever they want. I gave out a half a dozen of these.

Support small press games like Andrea's, you won't regret it.

AAR Vic-Con Sept 5, 2015 Mighty Monsters!

Vic-Con is an all day event held at the home of my friends Victor and Claire, who very generously put up with the invasion of a gang of wargamers, friends, family, and various camp followers. There is food, there is gaming, most of all, there is fun.

Four players played two games of Mighty Monsters! Rules from Ganesha Games written by Andrea Sfiligoi. All terrain and monsters built or bought on the cheap. My goal is to show you don't need Big Money to play Fun Wargames.

I used the playing card initiative system I yoinked from Savage Worlds. Joker gives initiative place of player's choice and +1 for all attacks that turn.

This is the first games I've played with flying models used by players. I need to remember not to be too picky about height and distance. Keep the game moving! Flying models in conflict with swimming models is sticky to resolve.

Big Damn Spider dies under the guns of Mecha Zeta!

Dragon and Mecha Zeta duke it out. This is my first game using flying models. I have to resolve to not be tempted to be too hardassed on this. "Don't let the rules (however excellently written!) spoil the fun of the game."

So, I'm not sure what genius would locate the nuclear power plant and oil refinery in the center of town, but, it cleared a lot of real estate when they Blowed Up,Sir! (Stripes! reference)

Killer Bunn levels the oil refinery with flaming guns, Gobira cares not, moves forward to munch on the nuclear power plant!

Stegosaurus levels the building with a vicious tail slap. Globbo begins to pummel him with flaming globs of fire!

City is beginning to feel the pain of a monster mashup!

Stegosaurus succumbs to the flames of Globbo's fire globs.

Gobira shuffles away from the mess he has made of leveling the nuclear power plant. Not likely to catch up with Killer Bun or Globbo, who can freely snipe him from a distance.

Killer Bunn stays in the water to keep from burning alive from Globbo's fire

I did have the players rolling for effects on failed yellow dice to move the game along. In the second game, when everybody was yellow and the reds showed up, I eased it back to ones for yellow and fails for red, when there was two players left. The players were ok with that.

I was not clean on the rule to put oneself out when on fire. I stumbled around a bit with Quality rolls and such. I will clarify by using Wing Blast, entering water, or 2 BODY actions to put yourself out, consuming the rest of your turn. No Quality rolls or great explanation involved involved.

All in all a great session. Got me warmed up to run AFOKF, AAR separate of this one which I will write next.

Support small press games like Andrea's and you won't be sorry.

AAR HAVOC gameday Worcester Massachusetts USA 3/28/15 Mighty Monsters!

AAR HAVOC gameday Worcester Massachusetts USA 3/28/15 Mighty Monsters!

Seven players. I gave them the opportunity as usual to build their own gameboard with two features preplaced by me, the nuclear power plant and the oil refinery.  A brief orientation beforehand, which I am getting better at. Only two or three oh-by-the-ways later in the game, but the players were very understanding.

I did learn later that some kids came by and would of liked to join in, but, I didn't notice them. but were a little intimidated by the crowd around the table. I will have to advertise better next time, or put up a sign saying "Walk Ins, Especially Kids, Are Most Welcome".

I am most proud that I have not paid full price for anything on the table that I can think of, I am trying to show the young folks that you do not need hundreds of dollars to get a toe hold into gaming. I tout Andrea's rulesets as an economical start into the hobby.

Notice my Short measuring stick in the lower left corner. I have several like it for measuring other measurements in Ganesha Games' rulesets.

Today I also uploaded a look at some of the terrain pieces I've built for these games here on my blog.

One tool no one at this table was the god [insert divinity of your choice] die. The god die is a blank six sided die with YES on three faces and NO [or ON, as the players joked] on the other three. A gamer's way of flipping a coin. It was used several times during this game to settle disputed matters.

I used the pirated Savage Worlds initiative system with playing cards. Drawing the Joker gave you your choice of action, a +1 to all rolls, and operation of "The Bat" [see below] for that turn.
.

Cautiously, cautiously, monsters make their way into town.



The nuclear power plant only lasted about four turns into the game, as expected. I thought someone would shoot it from a distance. The gallant player shot it point blank after touching it and being blown backwards a couple of times.

The young player muses on the wisdom of blowing up the nuclear power plant.

My debris is cut up packing material. The glow rings add color and flash to the destruction.

So, 4 Arm Tree Man wanted to drop a building as a bridge across the water as a bridge. Use of the god die and the monster's Combat and Quality rolls decided it in his favor.

Mecha Zeta peeks around corner.

My tall skyscraper me its ubiquitous end midway through the game with 4 Arm Tree Man bashing it with an automobile and then his fists. No one seems to like this building, it gets knocked down every game I use it in.

You can't really see Gobira because he is standing in water over his head. Minutes later, yellow monster gets his rear toasted in radioactive breath!

Gobira bears down on yellow Spikey.

Gobira spends a moment to stomp a car!

You can see the The Bat flying low between the buildings. It is a reconnaissance vehicle controlled by the player drawing the Joker during his turn. It was very undergunned, and never got to shoot at anything during this game. It just looked cool.

The dino at the right off the board is the second monster force off the board. I ruled that they had to be dealt out of the initiative for the next turn and then be allowed to reenter at the same place they were forced out the turn after that.

Display your initiative card!

Young man on the left does fist pump for a good roll. It did not save him at the end.

Here are a couple of more pictures, courtesy of my good friend Mike Paine!

There's me with the blue Battle Group Boston South shirt and glasses. I never get a picture of myself,

My million dollar dice tower and a view of "The Bat". My area effect template is on the building on the left.

Carnage around the nuclear power plant.

Gobira leaving the water to radiation blast the yellow spikey guy!

All in all, a great game. I need to query the players more about the Special Rules on their monster sheets, so they understand them completely earlier in the game. I find the gamemaster gets less and less useful as the game gets going and the players catch on to the mechanics of the game. It makes his job a lot easier and fun!

I was scheduled to run A Fistful of Kung Fu in the afternoon, but no players showed up. Sad for me!