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.