Fantasy: The Book of War (and other tangents)

I think it will be clear to anyone who has gamed with me, or even read this blog before, but I am slightly prone to wargaming tangents. Part of it is shiney syndrome but it is really rules and settings I tend to get enthused about. This has expressed itself before in terms of rules mods I have made for various games that I've really enjoyed playing. Be that maps for a Dystopian Wars campaign or a new mission for War of The Ring (because there weren't many) or new rules and lists for that game or Trojan War  AND LOTR (I really like SAGA)  SAGA battleboards. Impetvs Fantasty Lists were another thing I breifly dabbled in. Of course I wrote a set of game rules (to go with Jason's Fallout Campaign rules) for our NATCON 2014 demo game. That was actually quite fun, if really time consuming. I am probably supposed to be finishing that but... shiney. I wanted to go to Ides of May but can't as its the eldest boy's birthday. Then I wanted to play Fantasy again. Then I realised the rules annoy me then...

I looked at my unfinished heavy cavalry.

And drew the obvious conclusion that what I really need to do is create a whole new ruleset. Because 'reasons'. Here are chapters one and two. The TOC shows there are quite a few more to type yet. Link to shared version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0OLQ_8T9X5pS0oyZ25KT052TDg/edit?usp=sharing


Before that last tangent, we did get another game of Post Apocalyptic skirmish in. We based if on Fallout for Natcon but the rules themselves don't need to be for Fallout and will do for any skirmish for near future settings.

One big rules change that I made for the game (inspired by my lack of a dice bag) was to use cards for orders as well as encounters. Picking dice out of a cup is annoying noisy. Cards work much better.

The game was once again hilarious. Jason's guys really do have a knack for finding incredibly dangerous things in pretty much every place they enter.

Inspired by something I stumbled upon  recently, an idea for a better Star Wars viewing order, the oldest boy and I watched episode IV last weekend. The theory is that you need to watch IV then V, then go back and watch II and III, then watch VI. That way the story works better. You may have noticed that means no episode I. Just watch the Darth Maul fight on youtube and maybe the Jedi at the start and that's the watchable bits from that movie covered. Of course, after watching, we had to game it. The boy was the Millennium Falcon with Han and Luke as gunners, Chewie steering, and R2D2 as a scenario upgrade.

My four TIEs did a lot of damage. I got his shields and half the hull but R2 worked overdrive in concert with Chewie on damage control and of course the Han + Luke gunner combo is lethal. Well played.

The oldest was on school holidays so wrote up a game to go with the mass of LOTR miniatures we got him from Trademe. There are rules for the game but he never liked them and just used the stat numbers on the bases for his own system. I think the balance needs work (he is eight, so doesn't play many wargames...) but I really like some of his crazy additions. Good and Evil get 'power turns' and every unit has a handwritten stat card (on the right). The piece of paper on the left is an Icepool template. When it melts... units sink lol.

Alright. Kids are hungry so enough tangents for today. Thanks for reading.