The Voyages Of The Century Flamingo: Game 3

 YEEHAW!!! Gaming is back on the table! After my successful Five Leagues From The Borderlands game the other day, I decided to try and get Five Parsecs From Home going again as well.

So I played the third campaign game of the ongoing adventures of the intrepid crew of the Century Flamingo, in which Our Heroes took an opportunity job to attempt to access a data terminal in the middle of f***ing nowhere on this crazy pink planet they are visiting. And it just so happened to be a "religious shrine" for a nomadic band of scavengers that were returning to the area. The scavengers would be very happy if we all just left their shrine alone and went away, but we had a job to do and it was getting done even if we were under fire!

As the scavengers were approaching in two groups, we split into two groups as well, with O Oymsse, Iruulaa Kheug, and Khirki Nishekke taking the left approach, and Asvyaxke Dre, Aim Iashna, and Aaur Iigunim on the right.

In meta-gaming terms, Our Heros managed to make a single favorable Reaction roll during the game (Aim took a shot and dropped a scavenger on that one,) otherwise acting after the scavengers each turn. Asvyaxke completed the mission at the terminal on turn three, and during the escape after the scavengers took out Iruurlaa and Khirki in turn four. All told, three scavengers were killed, none fled, and we fled the area without Holding The Field. Iruurlaa turned out to be fine, but Khirki will be out four turns in Sick Bay. We earned four credits for our troubles, as well as looting a couple of damaged weapons. As it turned out, the life support on the Centruy Flamingo blew a fuse, and it cost us those four credits to get it repaired. Asvyaske had an existential crisis being so far from the nest, and is now just trying to survive long enough to get back home instead of trying to create a certain amount of order wherever she goes.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, and the ones I did take look a little odd in the afternoon light. I also missed the "Shiny Bits" notable sight I rolled up once I was setting up the game, so the crew missed out on a potential extra credit.

In other news, after years of use and abuse, my pink alien world terrain is starting to get a little beaten up. I may need to start a Bold New Scenery Project soon.

A Tale Of Two Tortles: Game 9

Well, it has been quite a while since my last game of Five Leagues From The Borderlands! Over three months. So during that break, I played through five campaign turns of "resting up" which included recruiting three new warband members, getting Morgan all healed, and re-equipping Tundaline for melee combat, since her ranged abilities were, well, somewhat lacking. Plog The Elder, a Tortle Mystic and Weppi's cousin, joined as a new Hero. Followers include Brarkisy the Feral and Grushnag the Duskling (of a different tribe than the group Our Heroes are driving out of Armskirk.)

I decided I wanted to play a regular game with this new team before I pursued the Quest further, so a quick check of everything yielded a Desperate Mob of eight men from The Ruin Within led by the notorious Captain Shiver, retrurning from a raid. We needed to drive them out of the general vicinity of The Crossing by Securing The Area.

The first turn saw advancement from both sides, Captain Shiver's slingers trying to move into position with Weppi and company moving forward to attack. Plog The Elder realized there were unseen combatants coming around the buildings to the left flank and began planning to delay them.

Turn two saw my first ever use of a Mystic ability: Plog The Elder created a Wall Of Fire (Barrier) between those slinkers trying to get on the left flank and Grushnag. We also saw our first combat attempt, with one of the slingers trying to hit Weppi. The shot missed, but was an omen of more deadly things to come. Everyone else tried to manuever into good position for the upcoming combat.

 
Turn three: Plog The Elder was unable to maintain his Barrier, leaving Grushnag to face three bad guys moving in on him. Weppi defeated Captain Shiver, but not before sustaining a wound. Grushnag took a wound from the slinger on the left flank, and Morgan felled one of the enemy.

 
On the fourth turn, Plog The Elder managed to get his Wall Of Fire back up to protect the wounded Grushnag. Weppi felled another cutist before in turn being laid low by a sling. Tundaline found her mark and killed a cultist, and Morgan managed to wound one. Brarkisy ran over to give Grushnag some back-up.

Turn Five included, in no particular order, Tundaline kiling a bad guy, Morgan charging towards a slinger (who then fled the batte,) the other slinger took Brarkisy out of action, and Grushnag killed the cultist revealed by the extinction of the Wall Of Fire. The enemy force now included exactly one slinger, and he didn't run away. Truly faithful to the cause!

There were a further four turns of trying to defeat this lone enemy. He managed to take out both Grushnag and Morgan, and Tundaline finally took him down. What a game!

After the game, Weppi, Brarkisy, and Morgan were all found to be just Knocked Out. Grushnag is going to require a turn to heal up from a moderate wound. We burned through 10 adventure points to reduce The Ruin Within threat level by two. We managed to get some tools and rations out of the battle, the tools sold for 2 Gold Marks and the rations have been added to the Stash. Plog The Elder made an advancement roll and gained +1 Casting.

Painting The Tortle Mystic

 OK, so when my Warband for my Five Leagues From The Borderlands solo campaign was mostly wiped out, I decided that it was high time to recruit a Mystic as a new member. And, because the name of my campaign is "A Tale Of Two Tortles" and I was down to only one tortle, I opted for another tortle as the Mystic. The miniature was a 3D resin print of a DM Stash pattern, purchased from Disaster Decisions Gaming I am sharing this because I am very impressed both by the print quality and the amount of detail on the miniature. I certainly plan to buy more of this stuff!

Anyways, I based the model on a GW-style 32mm base (or maybe it was 30mm?) instead of the 25mm sculpted base included with it. I primed the whole thing with black gesso, and blocked on the colors before hitting the whole thing with my special Shading Wash. During the highlighting, I had some trouble getting the detail to pop on the yellow parts, but otherwise it turned out as I had planned.

I found this model to be a bit intimidating to paint. There is an astounding amount of tiny details, and not the chunky kind of detail found on GW miniatures. This is more reminiscent of old Tom Meier sculps from Ral Partha. But I persevered and I am pretty happy with the final result. Hopefully, he will fare better than his forebears in upcoming games!

Here's a bit of a funny thing: a few years back, I was playing Rangers Of The Shadow Deep using cardstock standees, and my Ranger was named Turtle Power, from a set by Trash Mob Minis Take a look, can you see any similarites between the old standee and the new miniature?

Painting A Centaur

 OK, so I needed a Centaur miniature for Reasons. I wanted one quite a while back, and even bought one from Reaper but it wound up in the back of a box and sat unremembered for a few years. So, when I needed it, it was there for me. I'm just happy I remembered I had it before I ran off and bought a new one.

As a Reaper Bones model, the spear was very bendy, and so I replaced it with a plastic one of almost the exact same length from Fireforge Games. Pro tip: never throw any leftover parts away! I then based him on a 60mm x 35mm GW-style oval base; I trimmed off most of the integral base that was molded with the model.

Painting the model was very basic: I blocked the colors, I applied the secret Shading Wash (homemade, none of that fancy store-bought stuff,) and highlighted him. I hope you like the finished product!

1490 Doom: First Two Games

 OK, so Kurt and I gave 1490 Doom a test drive. He had built a beautiful aqueduct ruin for us to fight over, and it was quite the visual treat. We missed a few rules, misintepreted a few others, but we had a good time over the course of two games.

My little Doom Company was a Fighter (also my Captain,) a Scout, and a Brute. Kurt ran an Assassin as his Captain, a Fighter, and a Brute. I am writing this over a week later for Reasons, so my memory is a bit foggy on the specifics and this report will not be very long.

Things that rally jumped out at me during the games were that the Brutes were not fast enough to really make a big difference to the game, and that the Scout and Assassin were the two most interesting models on the table. I will be replacing my Brute with an Assassin for future games.

The game plays fast, and once we had a reasonable handle on the rules, we were getting through the turns from memory. I definitely want to play this one some more.

A Tale Of Two Tortles: First Quest Turn

 Wow.

Just wow.

I played my 12th campaign turn of Five Leagues From The Borderlands, which was also my first step of a series of Quest encounters. It started simply enough. We were at The Crossing doing the usual stuff; helping the Town Guard to avoid paying any Upkeep, and Weppi had to visit the Blacksmith to repair her weapon. There was a bit of a gambling craze sweeping the town, but we really aren't much in the way of gamblers. Morgan was still healing, which was fine as we still had five Heroes to go adventuring. No Trade was done, and nothing arose from our Connections. It seemed a perfect time to start the Quest!

So, the Quest began. A new location was placed in the Wilderness (note: I immediately forgot we had to travel to the new location, so no Travel rolls were made.) We were to fight a Meeting Engagement to vanquish a foe carrying an important Quest item. The enemy would be rolled on the Whispers From Beyond table, and led by a Captain who would be carrying the desired Quest item (Whispers From Beyond limits visibility to 9", which I forgot once I started playing and led to some bad consequences.) As this was our first Quest turn, I misunderstood the table on page 107 and rolled on the Quest Task Table, rolling a "5" and therefore adding a ranged trooper, two melee troopers, a Sergeant, and a Lieutenant. Further, they would be Outflanking, adding yet another melee trooper. All told, there would be 13 bad guys against our five. This went from a great idea to a distinct feeling of dread.

So first off, there were eight of the Whispering Cultists including the Sergeant and Lieutenant. I decided to deploy them intelligently, with the two archers on the upper floor of a building for a clear field of fire and protection from guys (and turtles!) on the ground, and the remaining six in two groups of three. On our side, I decided to put Drustan and Tundaline on the upper story of a building same as the Cultists, for the same reason. Weppi, Kipor, and Galdan all deploying together for mutual protection.

The first turn started off strongly enough: Tundaline killed the Cultist Sergeant with her first shot, and Weppi was able to ignore the shots from the Cultist archers. A lot of movement forward was made by both sides, Weppi and co. Anchoring themselves between a building and a fire.

The second turn continued the winning streak, with four dead Cultists and the Lieutenant having sustained a wound. Tundaline and Drustan were not hitting with their shots, and the enemy archers were trying to take them down (one of the archers even dropped down from the building into the open to get a better shot!)

Turn Three saw a turn in our fortunes: both Tundaline and Drustan fell to the hail of arrows from the enemy archers. Kipor killed the Lieutenant. Weppi and Galdan then moved forward, with Galdan killing the archer on the ground. The Captain and his four cronies also arrived this turn and made a good advance into the skirmish grounds.

On Turn Four, the Quest became apparent: the Captain had to be defeated in melee combat and he was bringing the fight to Our Heroes. In the ensuing melee, both the Captain and Kipor went down. The remaining archer broke and ran from his top-floor vantage, deciding that he was done with this fight.

By the end of Turn Five, Weppi and Galdan were facing a lone Cultist who was already suffering from a wound.

That Cultist was not to be trifled with, however, as he got the jump on Galdan at the beginning of Turn Six and took him down. Weppi in turn killed the Cultist, and was the lone standing warrior at the end of the fight. But at what cost?

The Dice Gods were not kind to the fallen members of the Warband. Kipor, Drustan, and Galdan all died. Tundaline too would have been dead if not for that point of Luck. I had burned four Story Points re-rolling Weppi's armor, keeping her on her feet and thankfully they were boosted again by the untimely demise of our other companions. And what did we get? An Adventure Point. A Quest Task completed. A damaged warhammer and an unstrung self bow. Was it worth it? Only time will tell...

A Tale Of Two Tortles: Game 7

 I played Game 7 of "A Tale Of Two Tortles" last night. The game was something different for a change, and I had a great time with it. This would be Campaign Turn 12, with Turns nine through eleven being non-combat turns. Turn Nine was spent laying low and healing up. Turn Ten involved travelling to meet the former Mayor of Arsmkrik, and on the way we met a Sociable Mok who offered a Contract to chase away Undesireables within three Campaign Turns; meeting with the Mayor yielded a Quest to be pursued at our leisure. Turn 11 was spent travelling back to The Crossing to pursue that Contract, and something was seen in the distance and an Unknown Location was added to the map.

Once back at The Crossing, it was business as usual. There was a Renowned Scholar in town, who helped Wepi with studying and led to the acquisition of the Crafting skill. The Town Guard was helped, negating any Upkeep costs. A new bow was acquired for Drustan, and our connections led to the offer of a new Contract; it was declined, as we have one already.

And with that, Our Heroes went to fulfill their "Chase Off Group" contract. It turned out that those Roving Fiends they had beaten away way back when had returned, and in greater numbers. Their lair was located, and the Camp Raid scenario was played. This was interesting, because part of the Roving Fiends group was deployed towards the center of the table, and some over on the far table side. Further, the Unknown Enemy rule was used, so three Fiends of the nine deployed were removed and replaced with a different model that would later be revealed. And then Our Heroes spent some time sneaking ("sneaky, Charlie, we gotta be sneaky!) closer to the bad guys. Everyone made a few moves closer, and eventually Kipor was spotted by the Fiends. And combat commenced!

Things started off poorly: Tundaline took a shot and missed. Kipor rushed forward and killed a Fiend, but was pushed back in return by another. Weppi spotted the Unknown Enemy marker, and revealed three more Fiends, killed a Fiend, but then wound up pushed back and stunned, Morgan did not quite make it into combat, and Galdan was still sneaking and hadn't made it to the combat yet.

The next Turn was a "Go Big Or Go Home" moment! Tundaline killed a Fiend, Galdan killed a Fiend, Kipor killed two of them, and Wepi killed one before getting pushed back and stunned. Morgan engaged a Fiend, but was pushed back. There were only two Roving Fiends left, but they were holding their ground!

Those two Fiends were tough! They felled both Weppi and Morgan before any of Our Heroes could act. Tundaline missed her shot, Galdan made it to the combat but only pushed a Fiend back, and Kipor pushed the last one back as well as stunning it.

The fourth Turn was similar; the Fiends acted first but without hitting either Galdan or Kipor, Tundaline shot a Fiend with her crossbow but had no effect, and both Galdan and Kipor pushed back and stunned their opponents. And once again, the Roving Fiends failed to flee.

Turn Five started with a revelation: I had not brought Drustan along for the fight! We were fighting the Fiends to a standstill while missing a member of the Warband! Oops, my bad... Anyway, there was a wonderful initiative roll and everyone activated before the Roving Fiends! Tundaline missed her target again, Kipor killed a Fiend, and Galdan pushed the last Fiend back. The Fiend in return accomplished nothing, and finally broke and ran away. Hopefully this would be the last of those horrible things!

But what of Weppi and Morgan? The dice would tell... Weppi was thought dead, but with the judicious use of a Story Point turned out to only have a broken weapon. Morgan was fine, having only been knocked down. As for loot, well, let's see, there was a Soul Sphere and an Old Dusty Manual, so now I need to look those up and see what they do. We also got a lead to a new Location, and after returning the The Crossing a letter from a Friend added +1 Story Point. The Contract itself paid three Gold, and now I am kind of sorry I didn't take that other Contract that was offered earlier.

I am noticing that ranged combat is fairly ineffective for Our Heroes. This game had only a few hits by Tundaline, and I had entirely forgotten to bring Drustan and his bow along. It might be time to let them go, and bring in some fresh melee troops instead. As I play on a 2'x2' board, there is less time for fire and manuever than in the Before Times, when I played on a 3'x3' board. Hmmm... I will ponder this.