Tortles In The Dust: First Game

 OK, so I started a new campaign for my Five Leagues From The Borderlands warband. I am calling this one Tortles In The Dust, because I am setting the campaign in The Land Of Ancient Dust using the supplement of the same name. Our Threats would be The Dust Rises, The Oldest Kin, and Outlaw Bands. To finish the campaign, we need to eliminate all threats, and finish/defeat/explore three each of Delves, Quests, Contracts, Unknown Locations, and Aberrations.

To start with we arrived in the village of Istahkr, a mystical site. Plog The Elder would feel right at home here! There was also a Wandering Scholar who had recently arrived, and offered to help Study. Unfortunately, we had other thing we needed to take care of. We paid our 1 gold for Upkeep, earned it back through Hard Work, and Recruited Plodo, a local Chitter (although his Chitter abilities will not be available until he achieves Hero status.) We bought Plodo a Warspear, because I have found that Warspears really make a difference in combat. We tried to make some Connections in this new land, but came up empty. One thing we did discover, however, is that there were some Outlaws nearby making trouble. So we decided to find them, fight them, and maybe find out what they are up to.

They were not near the village, so we had to make a trip out to the Wilderness. While travelling, we met a Physician who yielded some Useful Information (+2 Adventure points! Yay!) And since this was the first time we travelled in the Dust, we also picked up a Quest. More on that in the future.

And then we were upon the Repentant Deserters, who were counting their loot but ready to fight. The immediate area had four cases of Unpleasant Flora, three patches of Soft Sand, a lot of big boulders, and a big ol' Obelisk. I forgot to put out the Glimmers. The environmental effect as that the sand grasps and siezes, which meant our heroes could not Dash but the enemy could (we're not Sand Dwellers yet, the Quest will fix that.) There were six of the Deserters, three with self-bows. No leaders, no unique individuals, so it should be an easy fight, right? Right? We did not Sieze The Initiative.

The first turn saw both sides advancing towards each other. Plog The Elder got up a Barrier (a wall of fire) which protected the left flank, but a Deserter archer felled Weppi on the first shot. The idea had been for Weppi to be supported by Plodo and Rukacta, but now The new guy was left out in the open with the other weakest warband member. Tundaline and Quicktoes were heading for the Stash (represented by the Turn Marker Die.)

Turn Two went marginally better. Tundaline secured the objective, Plog The Elder failed to cast his Construct spell and wound up in melee with a Deserter but survived, and a skirmish with Quicktoes, Rukacta, and Plodo versus one of the Deserters ended with no casualties. The archers had no effect.

On Turn Three, things started looking less positive. Plog The Elder was taken down by a bad guy, and the cluster of remaining Heroes only felled two of the Deserters. Plodo's warspear was effective here, as his Counterattack with it was one of the killing blows. 8 Gold well spent! Those two Deserter casualties broke the morale of a third, and he promptly departed the battlefield, leaving the three archers facing our four friends.

The fourth turn was a bit of a disaster, with both Tundaline and Quicktoes going out of action, and the other two huddling against the Obelisk to try and minimize the amount of shooting that could come their way.

Turn Five (Turn Four in the pictures, I forgot to rotate the die previously) brought a daring attack by Rukacta and Plodo in the face of enemy archery! Plodo was cut down, but Rukacta in turn killed the offending Deserter, which led to another bad guy running away. Rukacta was face to face with the last enemy.

On Turn Six... but wait, here's the thing. If Our Heroes win the battle (we have already achieved the Objective) we stand to gain more Adventure points and Gold than if, say, Rukacta ran away at this point. So I mentally prepared myself to spend Story Points as necessary to achieve a victory. And it took three of them to re-roll the last deserter's three exchanges with Rukacta for our surviving Hero to secure that Victory and Hold the Field! THREE Story Points! The Turn Six picture is showing 5, due to the aforementioned reason.

Weppi was lightly wounded and would require two turns of recovery. Tundaline was also lightly wounded and would aso be out two turns. Plog The Elder was severely injured and would need to recover for four turns. Quicktoes was just knocked out, the lucky git. Plodo was moderately injured and would be out for four turns. We looted a suit of Fie Partial Armor, and found a Personal Item that we might find the owner of, and returning it would be beneficial. Finally, News Travelled that the Emir had raided enemy forces and the Dust Rises threat has been reduced by one. An Adventure Milestone was achieved for 5 Adventure Points and Plodo is now a Hero.

So that was six turns of fighting in the Dust. The Repentant Deserters were tougher than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. I am still working on my scenery for the campaign, so that will continue to evolve over time. I expect to be working on this for quite a while, so there is plenty of time to get it all done.

Papercraft Desert Tent

I have completed the desert tent from Forum Hoard #131. I replaced the base with a persian rug from Google images, and put the whole thing on a foamcore base.

2015 Forum Hoards: https://www.onemonk.com/fh-2015.html

Dark Ages Irish Warriors

 OK, so my wonderful and amazing wife gifted me the Dark Ages Irish Warriors plastic soldier set from Wargames Atlantic this year. They will be the core of a Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant army as well as a Saga warband More to follow!

Unpleasant Flora

OK, so my next Five Leagues From The Borderlands will be using "The Ancient Land Of Dust" supplement. Each game will require d6+1 "Unpleasant Flora" markers. Enter the cactus from the WWG Deadfall range. I retooled them so there are three sizes across the seven of them, mounted on 1" washers with the bases painted to match my terrain. 28mm figures for scale.

A Tale Of Two Tortles: Campaign Wrap Up

 OK, so now I have completed an entire solo campaign of Five Leagues On The Borderlands 3rd edition. It was quite a ride, with a lot of casualties involving dear companions, and many epic fights to the death with Threats. I've got some thoughts about the campaign and the game itself after 47 Campaign Turns and 25 tabletop battles.

I've been playing Ivan's games since FiveCore was his flagship product, and Five Parsecs From Home was a wild, superpowered expansion for it. When Five Leagues 1st edition launched, I fully expected Fantasy FiveCore and was very disappointed that it wasn't. But as I read through the rules, I saw something wonderfully sophisticated emerge, and by the time I had pushed around some miniatures to learn the game and learn to love it, 2nd edition was released. I played several games of it, some skinned for RuneQuest's Glorantha and some as generic medieval fantasy, but it was all fun. And then Modiphius launched the latest edition of Five leagues (after they had done a new version of Five Parsecs, which was very popular but I did not get into until later,) and I was hesitant. There were a few things I didn't like abut the new game, not the least of which was my general suspicion of bigger companies. But I persevered and gave it a try. I'm still not sure it is a better game than 2nd edition, but there is certainly a lot more to it, and more coming all the time. Ivan broke into the big time with both Five Leagues and Five parsecs, and I couldn't be happier for him!

I learned a lot about using the Map over the course of the Campaign. I wasn't too thrilled with the whole concept of the map when I first read the new rules, and honestly I'm still not 100% on board with it. But the mechanic is well integrated into the rest of the rules, and the extra enhancements available in Paths In The Wilderness make it more useful and less clunky. After using it poorly originally, I learned how it ties into the rules better and my next campaign will have a much closer relationship between the map and the tabletop games.

I tried playing through both the Quest and Contract rules, with one of each being undertaken. I did not really see the point of them, as they did nothing to advance the campaign. Sure, they gave some rewards (including a Quest reward not otherwise available) but did not eliminate the Threats at all. So they both wound up being under the "side quest" banner for me, and not being pursued further.

I played through only one Delve as a part of the campaign, and only because it was a part of the Quest. Again, it did nothing to advance the storyline and wasn't particularly hard to complete. Another "side quest" activity that also requires a certain amount of physical resources to set up. I used tiles from the "Imperial Assault" Star Wars game, which worked well enough, but I don't have enough of those to really do justice to the whole delve theme. But that's on me, as I am the one who did not put more effort into delve tiles.

The Monster rules also didn't really affect the outcome much. I only had one monster Lair scenario, again as a part of the Quest, but these encounters also do nothing to reduce the threats. I also added a Monster to a Threat encounter once, and it was a helluva speed bump but not really very important from a story perspective.

I really enjoyed the new "Adventure Milestone" mechanic. Wagering Adventure Points versus a d6 roll to accomplish something "meta" is brilliant. Reducing Threats, promoting Followers, cashing in your reputation for some gold... all good stuff. At the end of the campaign, I used all of my remaining Adventure Points to gain more gold, as well as selling off a lot of unused gear from our Stash.

So, what becomes the point of all of this? Learning, of course. What if it were possible to tie Quests, Contracts, Delves, and Creatures Most Vile into the greater Campaign framework? What would that even look like? As it turns out, it is surprisingly easy. As I am preparing for my next Five Leagues campaign (using "The Ancient land Of Dust" expansion) I decided to simply include them in the Campaign victory conditions. In addition to eliminating the three Threats, Our Heroes will need to complete three Contracts, three Quests, and so on. Now, all aspects of the game can be rolled into the Campaign victory conditions, which means they can all be enjoyed for the progress they bring!

Another thing that I discovered is that, after a certain point, the Experience advances create a warband that is very effective at eliminating the enemy. I ran into this with my Second Edition games as well. I didn't want to rock the boat too much with rules changes in my first campaign, but I've got some experience in doing just that from my Glorantha campaign. So the new campaign will hopefully bring new challenges for a warband that is already powerful. And now I will be more open to changing things on the go if they seem to easy!

And, what now? I want to acquire some new miniatures before I start up Five Leagues again, but that might be a while (I am looking at a better figure for Tundaline and something special for a Chitter.) And I need to implement my new easy method of making plenty of Delve tiles quickly. So in the meantime, I want to continue my Five Parsecs From Home campaign, try out Five Parsecs: Tactics, and try some of the solo Stargrave material. Also, my friend Kurt has just retired, so he is going to have evenings free now; the plan is to get together a few weekday evenings a month to try some two-player gaming. We have a Forbidden Psalm: The Last War campaign we'd like to get back to, and it would be nice to get some Colonials action back on the table. Only time will tell for sure, but one ting we can count on is that we haven't seen the last of Weppi and her friends yet.

A Tale Of Two Tortles: Game 25

 ...and so the Story went. This is the report of the 25th game of my solo Five leagues In The Borderlands campaign, and marks the final episode of A Tale Of Two Tortles. But fear not! The survivors of this game will return in an all-new campaign in the near future!

The story started, as it often does, in town. The Crossing, in particular, which passes as the regional center of Armskirk, the Ruined City. There was a Gambling Craze sweeping the area, but Our Heroes are very boring and strait-laced and did not participate. Instead, they helped the Town Guard and Weppi did some Training. This gave her enough experience for another Advancement roll, and she now has an Agility of 3. Not bad for a big, clunky tortle! We had to research the location of the Gnawling Horde's hideout, wagered 5 Adventure points with a roll of 2, indicating that we found it! It's in the Wilderness, though, so we will need to Travel to get there. We also used the remaining adventure points to Gather Money, spending the last 6 to gain 5 gold. Once upon our trip to the Hideout, we encountered Unfriendly Locals, who were Conspirators with those Gnawlings. We succeeded in a Wits roll, though, and gave away no information. And with that, we were there. There were 11 of them, 9 Ascended (again, randomly rolled) led by a Lieutenant and a Captain. Let the battle commence!

After the approach to the hideout, in which Weppi, Tundaline, and Myrrh all snuck forward before being spotted and the alarm being raised, I rolled quite well for Initiative on the first turn. Weppi and Tundaline advanced further, Myrrh shot and killed a Gnawling, and Rukacta moved up next to Myrrh. And then the Gnawlings were upon us! Remember, Weppi now has a War Spear, allowing her the Counter-attack ability. This resulted in two dead Gnawlings. The Lieutenant, Captain, and two more Ascended were closing fast on Weppi and Tundaline. On the other side, more ratmen were running towards Myrrh and Rukacta... one struck down Myrrh. Quicktoes lunged forward to avenge his fallen friend and was promptly taken down for his trouble. Plog The Elder moved to back up Weppi and Tundaline. One of the Gnawlings realized he'd lost three companions already and made a run for it. As far as first turns go, it could have been better; we may have eliminated a third of their numbers, but we had lost a third of ours as well.

Turn Two saw Weppi and Rukacta moving forward against their respective opponents; Weppi killed the Captain, while Rukacta found the Harness Of Vengeance he wears to be very useful in finishing off wounded ratmen. As the Gnawlings retaliated, Tundaline was able to turn the tables on two of them and kill them as they attacked, while Rukacta again had luck from his Harness to kill the last Ascended attacking him. One of them managed to cast a Bolt Of Energy at Weppi, who made a successful Devotion test to shrug it off. Plog the Elder summoned the Scary Clown Construct which then attacked the Lieutenant without effect. Tundaline for her own part then attacked the Lieutenant felling him on the first blow. The final Ascended became enraged and moved towards Weppi, ready to attack!

On Turn Three, Weppi activated first and killed the last Ascended Gnawling. We had won. The threat of the Gnawlings had been broken in Armskirk, the Ruined City. We had previously eliminated the Duskling Warbands and The Ruin Within. The city was safe, and could re-build in peace now. Our job here was done.

Quicktoes was seriously injured, but will be back on his feet by the time our Next Adventure begins. Myrrh was dead. He will be mourned and missed. We were able to loot a suit of Fine Light Armor, and we found some evidence of a plot, now thwarted with the elimination of the Gnawling Hordes threat.

This game should have been harder. I rolled a LOT of 6's to hit and to wound against the bad guys, which mitigated their overall toughness a lot. Weppi's War Spear worked better than expected, so I am going to get one for Tundaline as well for the next campaign. Next campaign? Why, yes! Stay tuned for "Tortles In The Dust," wherein Our Heroes travel to The Land Of Ancient Dust. To be continued...

Space Wolf Blood Claw

Way back in August I picked up a free Space Marine Blood Claw for free at the GW store. I have been working on it here and there on the intervening time, and I finally finished it today.

I painted it using panzer camo colors, two out of three at least. I've tried this before with all three, and it's just a mess on a 28m Space Marine. I've always thought a Space Marine was a walking panzer anyway, so the concept fits (at least to me.) The Dark Yellow is a little more yellow in the pictures than in real life, but other wise the pics do it justice.

Once upon a time, I had started a whole force of these guys, back when Space marines were smaller and significantly less expensive. I called them the Coyote Knights. I sold them off about 15 years ago. I might do up another four of these guys as a Xenos Rampant army, but I'm not sre on that yet.