Blast Pistol

It seems shaking my habit of buying rule sets is harder than I thought, as I have added a few to my collection, including Blast Pistol. This is the new game from Nordic Weasel, and intended for quick pick-up games in sci-fi settings.

One interesting thing about Blast Pistol is that it is published as a "living rules system", meaning it will be updated as time goes. Right now the rule book is very bare-bones, and I would normally be wary of this proposition (having purchased rules that were later abandoned in a bad state by other authors). However, considering how Five Core has evolved in a relatively short time, I think it will work well.

Right now, Blast Pistol is a very simple rules system, with an alternate activation turn sequence in which players select and activate a number of units at a time. Miniatures are single based and grouped into squads or act as individuals. There are some unit templates for squads, heroes and vehicles. The writing is clear but since the document is very concise, it requires attention. For instance, in my first read I was hunting for the definition of damage in vehicles, which is presented in a bullet point on the section about big models.

As a pick-up game, battles are played as meeting engagements, fighting four turns and counting how many points in units each player has destroyed after that. Here is one simple example with balanced forces: on one side, three colonial militia squads, a gunsliger and a hero (302 points) against 3 precursor squads (300 points).

Board setup: a virtual 4'x4' table with some obstacles. Precursors at the bottom of the image, colonial forces at the top. The grey patches are rock formations that are impassable and block line of sight.

Turn 1: the colonial forces go first but don't kill anything. The precursors cause damage to one of the colonial militia squads.

Turn 2: colonial forces keep advancing and the hero and gunslinger move. In the exchange of fire, both sides lose some units.

Turn 3: the colonial forces move to a position where they can fire more effectively, but miss most shots. The precursors are then able to shoot back and cause lots of damage. Two colonial squads flee the battlefield.

Turn 4: the precursors defeat the gunslinger and hero. The last colonial squad only hits one enemy. The game ends with a clear victory for the precursors.

After this battle, I played again two more times (that is the beauty of a virtual tabletop: you can set up a scenario, save it and then quickly replay it several times.) On the second, the precursors won by 146 vs. 120 points (point costs of defeated enemies.) The third was also won by the precursors, 210 vs. 120 points. I guess the terrain favored the longer range of the precursor weapons, although I also had some terrible rolls for the colonial forces.

These are only my first impressions, as I have not tried battles using vehicles or other big models. I also want to try other board sizes and setups. So far, it seems to work well for quick games. Based on the rules for activation and morale, I think smaller squads (of 4-5 troops) are better than larger ones.

There are no solo rules, and I do not think this game is aimed at solo play. That said, I think it would be simple to adapt the solo rules from Five Core or No End in Sight if one wanted to.

The Five Core Expanded Steatlh Rules

A while ago, I posted about Black Ops and it was fun playing stealth missions with that system. Afterwards, I bought Five Core Field Guide, which has a number of optional rules and extensions to the Five Core rules. One of the most interesting is the expansion for stealth missions, which was also incorporated into Five Core 3rd edition.

The expanded stealth rules include more detailed rules for patrolling defenders, distractions and stealth kills. Here is a battle report using them with "basic" Five Core 3rd edition rules.

In this battle, the infiltrators, set up on the left, must contact the small building guarded by the defense forces and make a task roll to plant explosives. The following picture shows the table setup. The red dice are patrol points. The two chainsaw-wielding soldiers in front of the building are static sentries. The rest of them may move between patrol points.

Game setup

One fire team of the infiltrators moved through the woods while the other waited in cover. The patrolling sentries started moving towards the other patrol points.

Let's get moving.

One of the infiltrators created a distraction for the closest sentry (marked with the green die), allowing the other two to run behind the other patch of woods. However, the noise from running caused another sentry to cross the woods and find them. The sentry raised the alarm and the stealth segment was over.

What's that noise? Surprise!

One of the infiltrators fired at the sentry but missed. From this point on, it took a few standard Five Core turns (with only one rolled fire fight and no scurry turns) until the infiltrators were pushed away from the map.

A few turns later, only the infiltrators in the ruins remained.

The infiltrators in the ruins still tried to make another push, taking cover behind the hill, but when they got closer to the building, the rest of the defenders had already taken positions to suppress any attempts of getting closer.

Conclusion
Compared to Black Ops, the stealth rules in Five Core are less complex but also result in a fun game. I have the impression that in Black Ops it is more difficult for the defenders to raise the alarm. Maybe this is because that game is noticeably inspired by "stealth-action" video games, so the focus is in smaller, elite infiltration forces that try to keep hidden until the end of the mission.

In Five Core, it seems to me that stealth will play a part in initial infiltration and positioning of a strike force. In particular, I am interested in trying a few more games between evenly matched forces, to see if stealth can compensate for the positioning advantage of the defending force.

There are no specific rules for handling the sentries in a solo stealth game using Five Core (or at least I could not find them), so here are my house rules:
1. Spread patrol points to make a large triangle on the board, with one patrol point near the defenders' edge of the table. Number the patrol points: the one closest to the defenders' edge is #1, the others are #2 and #3.
2. Roll a die for each patrolling sentry. On a 1-2 they will make a circular route around the patrol points. On a 3-4, they will move back and forth between points #1 and #2. On a 5-6, they will move between points #1 and #3.
3. Roll another die to define direction of patrol. For circular routes, even means clockwise and odd means counter-clockwise. For linear routes, even means the sentry starts moving towards point #1, and odd means they start moving towards the higher-numbered patrol point.
4. Deploy the patrolling sentries within 8" of the edge. Sentries in a linear route should be placed as close to halfway through the route as possible. Sentries in a circular route should be placed near patrol point #1.
5. When a patrolling sentry moves, they will approach a noise marker if it is closer than the next patrol point on their route. Afterwards, if there is no contact, they will resume their route.

It might be possible to fine tune these house rules by taking into consideration the level of aggression of the defenders and other factors.

Fringe Space: a short playtest review

This is my first adventure using Fringe Space, a "lite RPG" from Two Hour Wargames. Essentially, you control a small band of characters going from planet to planet in the 5150 universe, doing legal and illegal jobs.

As in 5150 Urban Renewal, your goal is to gain enough during your career to be able to have good life once you retire. Indeed, Fringe Space is like a toolbox with bits from Urban Renewal, New Hope City: PI, and Larger than Life. There are nice ideas to move the campaign forward and combat, when it happens, is a lot more abstract than in other miniature games.

Using the character creation system I rolled my main character and added two companions. Winston is an investigative reporter selling holo-vids about corporations (projects, conflicts etc.) to Gaea Prime networks. He also performs smuggling and information theft jobs for select customers. Pingh is his assistant, operating the holo-vid equipment and Axor plays bodyguard for both of them. Actually, he is somehow indebted with Pingh... good luck prying into a Grath's personal matters. All of the three carry big-*** pistols and wear body armor.

Winston (center), Pingh and Axor

Winston - Rep 5 star (25 years old Basic male)
Investigative reporter (Mercenary / social standing 3)
Charismatic, Coward, Resilient
Home world: 3rd ring, 5th sector, class 1 planet, law level 4
Family ties: 24 year old female sister
BAP, Body armor

Pingh - Rep 3 grunt (32 years old Hishen male)
Initiative, Brawler, Slight
BAP, Body armor

Axor - Rep 4 grunt (33 years old Grath)
Brawler, Brick wall, Initiative
BAP, Body armor

Information Brokering

Winston was on a settlement on the Groff planet, on the 5th sector of the 4th ring -- the outskirts of Gaea Prime domain. He arranged a lunch meeting with an information dealer at a restaurant in a mid-level neighborhood -- alone. On his way, using the public transportation system, he met Alys [basic female, 25 year-old, rep 4, resilient, brawler, poser], a medical tech operator. He got her comlink ID in case he might need to hire someone with medical knowledge.
[I rolled for the two possible enemy forces (PEFs) on the way to the encounter; the first was this NPC, and Winston succeeded at a Talk the Talk test. The second one was nothing.]

Five Core Company Commander

I picked up Five Core Company Commander and its supplement Company Commander in Spaaace during the "winter offensive" sale at WargameVault. As explained in the product description, this is Five Core adapted to a larger scale: each unit is a squad, and each player is expected to field 2-4 platoons of 2-4 squads each.

We must destroy that machine gun!

Instead of attributes, squads have a type (e.g. rifle squad, assault squad, heavy weapon team etc.) and may have up to two specialist attachments -- single figures that abilities to the squad, like an extra machine gun or a medic.

The main rules are the same from Five Core but there are changes to reflect the fact that now each unit is a number of soldiers instead of a single person. There are also rules for vehicles but as the author states, this is a game focused on infantry. Therefore, tanks, helicopters and transports are there to provide some support to the soldiers. As a result, vehicles are not highly detailed, with different transportation modes and weapon types. Instead, they fall into broad categories relative to each other an to infantry.

The "...Spaaace" supplement includes rules for many things found in sci-fi games like: bugs, grav tanks, power armor, walkers, giant mecha and monsters, orbital bombardment, and psionics. There is also a more general discussion on how to model aliens in the system by giving them modifiers to different actions, but there are no example templates.

Assaulting the outpost
I played a few test battles on a small board (around 2'x2'). As in Five Core, providing cover and avoiding long corridors is necessary to make an interesting battle. In the first one, the blue army was defending an outpost, while the yellow army must destroy it. Blue had two rifle squads (one of them with a medic), and a machine gun team. Yellow had four rifle squads, two of them with demolitions experts, one with additional light machine guns and one with a scout.

Mission setup: Blue guarding the outpost, Yellow with two groups trying to explode it.

The Yellow forces advanced in two groups. The scouts crossed a hill to probe Blue's left flank but were surprised by the enemy hiding in the ruins; they scattered after suffering heavy losses. Blue's heavy machine gun team then fired at Yellow's approaching squad, also taking them out of action. The hail of fire was so intense that even the nearby demolitions squad was pinned down.

Yes, that is an "out of action" result from snap fire!

A solo review of Black Ops

Following a tip from Aleksandar, I picked up Black Ops: Tactical Espionage Wargaming, by Guy Bowers, published by Osprey. I completely agree with Aleksandar: this is a game with a lot of solo potential.

About the book: I purchased the 68-page PDF which, like other Osprey books, has a very professional and clear layout. There are also some nice and fitting illustrations, as well as inspiring pictures of miniatures and terrain. There are no quick reference sheets but those can be found at the Osprey website.

My test board to try the Black Ops rules.

The rules make the distinction between two types of scenario: the standard mission and the stealth mission. The standard mission is a confrontation where opposing forces know of each others' presence (but blinds may be used; more on that later.) The stealth mission has an asymmetric structure until the alarm is raised, after which it becomes the same as the standard mission. This is great for solo play because enemy movement and reaction is mostly automated while in stealth.

Units are individually based and belong to a class (leaders, heavies, specialists and soldiers.) They also have a stat line describing fighting ability (ranged fire and close combat), morale, defensive ability and equipment.

Activation is card-based by unit type, e.g. all soldiers, or all specialists of one force. Obviously this can turn into IGO-UGO if both forces are made of all grunts, but this game was really meant to be played with small groups of mixed character types. Reaction is possible by having a unit reserve one of its actions, to be triggered by another figure's movement.

Ranged attacks are resolved by rolling a die against the character's ability, with modifiers due to distance, smoke etc. while close combat involves an opposed roll. In both cases, a character who is hit makes a saving roll based on defensive ability and modified by circumstances (e.g. cover, armor.)

Hoping that an ace card comes up before the guard is activated... and that my leader succeeds in close combat.

Besides the stealth mission rules, there are three things that make this game interesting for solo play: activation, blinds (and hidden movement), and neutrals. Card-based activation is usually helpful for solo play, as it makes the sequence of actions unpredictable.

Blinds are cards placed on the table representing units that have not been contacted yet (as suggested in Featherstone's books.) The game also adds an "observation test" to verify if the enemy can spot blinds and hidden units.

Neutrals are other parties that may be on the board during the mission (e.g. police) along with civilians, and the book includes rules to determine their actions. It is a good starting point to create other behavior tables for the enemy and thus a handy resource for solo play.

Conclusion
After playing a few test games to get the rules (especially observation and the structure of stealth missions), I can state the following:

1. The stealth rules are very nice for solo play. To me, they feel more like stealth in movies than video games. An operative may fail a "stealth kill," keeping engaged in combat for a while but that does not cause all enemies to instantly go full alert. On the other hand, if you start running and shooting, you will be discovered soon.
2. That said, the rules for guard reactions require a bit of interpretation and I am still trying to find the "sweet spot." The book does give examples on how to adapt a nonsensical result (e.g. a guard walking into a wall) but I think the rules are a bit strict to avoid abuse by players. When playing solo, I think that they could be allowed to move more freely. For instance, considering the location of noise tokens, instead of just the direction they are facing.
3. Saving rolls in melee combat can be frustrating, especially when trying to perform silent kills. I am thinking of house-ruling that armor does not improve the save of an unaware opponent in close combat.

This is all for now. I still have to try the mission generator included in the book, so expect more detailed battle reports later.

A solo review of War Story

War Story is the most recent title from Nordic Weasel Games (NWG). It is a mix of story generator and light, story-oriented rules for miniature games. Due to its nature, it is presented as more adequate for cooperative or solo play. For these reasons, I could not resist the urge to pick it up and give it a try.

When I got the PDF book, I was mostly curious about the narrative rules system. Other titles from NWG have campaign generators that work well, and I assumed that some of that expertise would be applied in this title, too (spoiler: the book does contain a scenario generator.)

The text starts in a very general tone, discussing possibilities and play styles for the game. It sounds like a "meta description" of miniature games, and I suppose the decision to write it this way was to have a core set of rules that may be further expanded. This also means that newcomers to miniature games will probably end up reading through the book more than once or looking for tips elsewhere to figure out what options to use.

The action resolution system reminded me of the task system from Five Core, extended to deal with different situations during the game. Combat is similarly resolved with a single roll, as the level of detail here is that of narrative events, not recreating each moment of a firefight. There is also a system to answer general questions about the scenario, which is like a simplified Enquiry Table.

But how does it play?
Having read through the 27 pages of the book, the next step was to play a game to find out how it feels. There is no set scale for the game; instead, it is one of the things that players must define. I liked the insight that ground scale and time scale are tied together by the standard movement rate of units; while not stated, this is what is going on.

In this scenario, an invading force (on the left) must attack and destroy the defenders' outpost. The invaders have two regular squads, an infiltration team and an assault squad who are in charge of destroying the target. The defenders have three regular squads. One is guarding the outpost, and the other two are on patrol. Each figure represents two soldiers.

Setup for the test game.

First impressions: Savage Worlds Showdown for solo play

Recently I read and played a bit with Savage Worlds Showdown, the free set of miniature rules based on Savage Worlds RPG. It is available as a PDF book 44 pages long and very well produced.

Miniatures are grouped into units, and the game assumes most of a player's force will be organized this way, although it is also possible to have single miniatures acting independently -- usually heroic figures, or "Wild Cards." Each unit or figure has a number of traits and skills, adapted from the role-playing game, which are rated in terms of dice size, e.g. Agility d8. Action resolution involves rolling one or more dice against a target number, and on a few occasions players roll against each other.

There is also a handy unit builder spreadsheet to calculate point values for different figures and groups. Even those not inclined to use point systems may use it to get a feeling of how to build new profiles, based on the samples included. The upside is that units can be varied and detailed; the downside is that setting up a force takes some time.

Although the game does not provide any rules for solo play, it does have a number of features that make it suitable for that purpose. Specifically, I would highlight the following:

1. The rules for "rogues", figures that act independently of the players and may attack anyone, may also be used as a basis for a simple "artificial intelligence" for automated enemies.
2. The card-based activation system provides an order of activation of units, thus removing the need for a solo player to select which enemy to activate.
3. The "fortune and calamity" system adds random events that are welcome in solo play, as they provide another source of uncertainty.

On the other hand, there are a few problem points in adopting these rules to play alone. Here are the ones that drew my attention and some proposals to handle them:

1. The choice of when to use "bennies" can be problematic. Removing them altogether is probably not the best option, unless playing a "gritty" scenario. My approach is to roll a six-sided die to decide if a "benny" should be spent. If the roll is equal to or lower than the current number of available "bennies", then it is spent. Subtract 1 from the roll if the "benny" would be used for a soak roll of a Wild Card.
2. The choice of when to hold an action can also be problematic. One option is to simply remove this action from the game. An alternative is to judge the option to hold an action as one would consider the option to set a unit on overwatch in other games, e.g. if it would benefit from guarding an area.

In my test games, combat with modern weapons was very lethal: a single pistol shot is quite likely to take down a figure, and smaller units soon start suffering morale effects. Therefore, a large table with lots of terrain is recommended.

Conclusion

My initial impressions of Savage Worlds Showdown are positive. It may take some time to build the unit cards but the game flows quickly, with a simple turn sequence and combat resolution. The trait and skill rolls are very flexible and might be used for battles with role-play and stunt elements. It is worth a try for those interested in an alternative for large skirmish games (say, up to platoon size). It might also work with a handful of Wild Cards fighting each other, but I have not tried that. Although the system does not include support for solo play, it is not hard to adapt it.

Breaking through!

While I was looking at my collection of rules, I found out that I had never tried the Gunstorm solo skirmish rules by Spacejacker. So I picked up some miniatures and set out to do that. Instead of chits for phases and wounds, I used cards from a common deck. Not as simple to manipulate as I had to keep shuffling the wound deck, but usable.

In my trial games I just used two squads of regular soldiers with light armor, assault blasters and no stunts [other stats were Shoot +2, Fight +2, Sprint 0]. The enemy squad must break through my defenses and escape through my board edge.

Enemy on the left, my squad on the right.

In the first game, I forgot to roll the guts saves when a model was hit. This, combined with drawing only "dead" counters, resulted in a very lethal game. The enemy crossed the bridges but was defeated before escaping. The game played in 15 minutes or so, and this made me want to play a bit more.

In the second game, the guts save rolls made the enemy survive longer, and they even killed more of my troops, but in the end, did not complete their objective.

For the third game, I decided to use Aleksandar's alternate wound resolution, presented at the end of his battle report for Gunstorm. This completely removed the need for a wound deck. The result was a faster game as I did not have to reshuffle the wound deck. If using chits, I suppose the speedup would have been minimal. As I was using a small number of figures, the game played a bit longer as one-hit kills were less likely.

I used dice to mark bleeding wounds.

Conclusion

I liked Gunstorm, even playing with basic troops. The game plays quickly and the solo mechanisms work well. I liked the movement table, which makes the enemy more cautious as they lose units. The variable turn sequence is another favorite mechanic. My only doubt is about the use of the "power" stat for ranged weapons, as I did not see it mentioned anywhere in the rules.

Pseudo-Tactical Simulation

I picked up "Professor Badger's Quasi-whimsical Pseudo-Tactical Simulation of Military Encounters of a Science Fiction Persuasion at the Company Level" by impulse, as it was offered at a deep discount from the already low regular price. Besides, who could resist such an intriguing title?

The rules are set in 10 pages plus cover, in what one might call a "no-nonsense" style: The first paragraph gets straight to starting the game, of which you know nothing about in your first read. After that come turn structure, unit actions, unit definitions and their stats, unit creation rules and three scenarios.

The forces created to test the game.

Visually, the book could have been improved in layout and would gain a lot from the inclusion of some diagrams or pictures, for instance, in the scenario descriptions. The writing is too concise (and there are also a number of typos and mistakes around), and some examples of the rules and unit creation would be helpful.

It took me three reads to get the rules, due to the problems above (and I am not sure if someone new to miniature games would understand the game enough to play it.) Still, once I was done, the important question became: "how does it play?"

The first step was to create some units. The rules allow the creation of infantry squads and vehicles. These are then combined into infantry platoons and vehicle platoons. I made a regular squad of soldiers and a medium attack vehicle, considering the limits to unit stats.

Infantry squad (Trained, armed with assault rifles)
AIM 4 / STR 2 / ARM 3 / MLE 7 - 14 points per squad

Battle tank (Trained, with a light gun and HMG, movement type: tracked)
AIM 6 / STR 4 / ARM 5 / MLE 8 - 28 points per tank

Then I created two opposing forces using these units, each one adding to 336 points:

BLUE FORCE
2 infantry platoons, 4 squads per platoon (including command)
2 tank platoons, 4 tanks per platoon (including command)

RED FORCE
2 infantry platoons, 3 squads per platoon (including command)
3 tank platoons, 3 tanks per platoon (including command)

And finally I put them to fight each other in a board with some rough terrain, using the basic victory condition (80% casualties). I played with reduced scale counters (equivalent to 6mm miniatures), measuring distances in centimeters on a 60cm x 90cm board. With assault rifle fire reaching 50cm (or 50" in the rules), the board still felt a bit small.

Setup for my test battle.

A few remarks about the rules: activation is per squad or single vehicle, and based on card draws. It is therefore possible that one side activates three squads in a row before play passes to the enemy. Combat is resolved with each side rolling a die and adding modifiers given by the units and context. Morale checks are performed on specific circumstances.

While playing, I assumed that suppression and fatigue only affected infantry units, and that the "fire and maneuver" option was only available to infantry squads, too. There were a few other questions raised:

• What are the arcs of fire of units? I adopted the usual 45 degrees to either side but I am not sure if this is the case. 
• When do the forced moves caused by failed morale tests happen? Some of them explicitly state that they happen immediately, others do not.
• How does line of sight interact with broken terrain, cover and elevations? This is a point in which different rule sets tend to disagree, so I am not sure about the approach here. 

Conclusion

"Professor Badger's..." is a light game that delivers what it promises in its long title. Do not expect detailed modeling of unit profiles for various alien races or special equipment: this is mostly sci-fi human (or human-like alien) grunts and tanks, with some options to add variety. However, it did work well, fast and did not feel overly simplistic. It also does not require many counters on the table (only to mark hunkered down and damaged units.)

I really wish the author creates a revised version of the game, including more examples and adding a little more detail in all areas.

Xenomorph

Xenomorph is a simple dice-rolling game available for 50 cents at DrivethruRPG. You create a character by allocating points to four stats and then play up to 20 turns trying to escape an alien-infested station.

My "control panel" for Xenomorph: health, skills and turn counter.

On my first game, I spent three hours trying to bypass a jammed door, only to then face an alien and die in combat.

I started fighting a small xenomorph on my second game. It was easily killed. Then I found a shield that improved my defense. Then I found an alien scout and died again.

On the third game, I found a shield right away, then met a brute alien -- game over.

Conclusion
This is a very simple game, with very low odds for the player. Still, it works well to kill a few minutes. Although there are similar offerings for free, like Dice of the Living Dead, I think it is worth the price. The publisher also has a number of other mini-games at similar prices, and some free downloads.

Fernewelt

I recently picked up Fernewelt ("distant world" according to Google Translate), a free, 9-page story-oriented RPG system. It is a very compact and simple set of rules to describe characters and resolve actions. The rules nicely tie greater risks to greater rewards, which makes me think it is best fit for fantasy or epic stories.

There are also some tools intended to help playing without a game master: first, a creativity tool in which you generate three random letters and interpret them in the context of your game. This is a welcome addition to the solo RPG toolbox, along with Mythic tables, Universal NPC generator etc. Then there are random lists for motivation, crime, plot twists, behavior and a number of other things.

The text is generally clear and to the point. The only doubt I had was how to judge a character's competence in order to determine their chance of success. I have assumed it is evaluated based on the character's profession and nature (and thus, depends on the players and narrative, rather than stats.) That said, I can imagine players could write down important skill ratings, e.g. "average strength" or "bad driving skills", for their characters. As with other story-driven RPGs, it seems that the author assumes all players are interested in taking part in a story and use common sense, so there are no concerns about "exploits" or players trying to create an invincible character.

To try the system, I played a very quick game, in which a goblin attempts to steal a relic from the church of a village.

The story of Speedy
"Speedy" is a goblin that left his tribe to join a band of greenskin bandits. To prove his worth, he must steal a golden relic from the human settlement of Discipline. It is a small village with a temple at its center and a small garrison of empire troops. Speedy's profession is "trickster": he is undisciplined, sometimes even careless, but also very adept at hiding and misplacing things. He has a mental nature, being very quick to notice and react. His usual equipment is a dirty cloak and a knife.

Speedy reaches the outskirts of the village as the sun is setting. Keeping behind bushes, he observes the villagers and guards. He decides to wait until later to start his mission. [I rolled for a small chance for him to be detected while waiting. It did not happen.]

Carefully, Speedy sneaks through the village, avoiding the attention of the guards. At one point, a dog starts barking but he manages to hide behind a wall, undetected. Finally, he reaches the temple. [In my judgement, sneaking across the village at night was a "normal move" for the goblin, as he was alone and unencumbered. I also judged his sneaking ability at a "trained" level. These corresponded to a "possible" chance of success, corresponding to a difficulty rating of 4 (on a six-sided die.) I decided that the consequence of failure would be a wound, not to end his adventure right away. Since I rolled a 4, I decided to add the barking dog -- although the rules do not discuss degrees of success.]

Speedy peeks into the temple and sees nobody. On a table by the far wall rests the relic that he must steal [I rolled to see if there would be anyone inside, with a 50/50 chance.] He sneaks in, then crawls up to the table. The goblin unties his cloak and uses it to wrap the relic, and crawls back to the entrance. At this moment, a dog starts barking again -- but it is on a leash held by a guard on patrol. He releases the dog and shouts, calling for other guards. Speedy starts to run, grabbing the relic. He gets out of sight of the guard but the dog catches up with him and a gruesome fight happens. When Speedy's knife stabs finally kill the creature, his face and arms are torn and his leg is deeply wounded. [Given Speedy's story, I decided he would also have a 50/50 chance of taking the artifact and sneaking out of the temple unnoticed. Since this was his main goal, I decided he would need a reward of "find an artifact". This implied a risk of being disabled. Unfortunately I failed.]

Weak from the fight and the wounds, Speedy tries to crawl out of the village but guards find his trail, and then his twitching body. They recover the relic, and in the following weeks, increase their patrols in and around the village. [Due to the circumstance, I decided that escaping the village was a special move at average ability (thus reflecting the goblin's wounds.) The consequence of failure would be death. I needed to roll a 1, and instead rolled a 2.]

Conclusion
I found that the action resolution system worked well when used to resolve the outcome of a scene in a story. It is interesting to note that the consequence of an action (wounded, disabled) can be physical, mental or social. So, for instance, I might have opted to make Speedy socially disabled when he failed to sneak out of the temple: he might drop the relic and flee, and then be kicked out of the bandit gang and mocked so much that he gets a local reputation of being a coward. It is a matter of choosing what works better in the story.

I think that interpreting degrees of success and failure may be helpful to add details to the action resolution rolls. It may also reduce the problem with using only a six-sided die, which causes large steps in the chance of success between difficulty ratings. For instance, since I failed the last roll by 1, maybe Speedy could have escaped but become permanently scarred, rather than die.

In any case, Fernewelt was a welcome surprise and should be checked out by anyone interested in solo RPGs. The various generators may also come handy for miniature gamers playing campaigns or other story-driven games.

Solo play review: No End In Sight

This is a review of No End In Sight, a platoon-level tabletop game for post-WWII conflicts (that may also serve for near-future conflicts) by Nordic Weasel Games. I intend to give an overview of the game and discuss its solo playability.

Rules summary
The game is designed to be played with about one platoon per side, although there are optional rules for playing with less figures, like a squad per side. There are also rules for vehicles, artillery support and aerial support but the focus is clearly on infantry.

Each squad has a leader, and the platoon may have an additional leader too. Game turns involve alternating activation of leaders. A die is rolled to give action points that the leader uses to move soldiers under their command. The same leader may be activated more than once per game turn, but they accumulate stress points. Normally, three stress points are removed each turn but leaders might start accruing permanent stress, that make them less effective.

Troops have three different quality levels (irregular, trained and professional) that are assigned for each squad. These influence their effectiveness when moving, attacking and making morale tests. Small arms, squad automatic weapons, heavy weapons and grenades, as well as body armor are handled in the rules but there are no detailed equipment or weapon stats. Most weapons have unlimited range, except due to intervening cover.

Review: 5150 Urban Renewal

Now that I have played a number of games with 5150 Urban Renewal (and New Hope City PI), I feel confident enough to write a review about it.

For those who do not know this game, a little explanation is necessary. 5150 Urban Renewal is the new edition of 5150 New Beginnings. This is a sci-fi miniatures game with noticeable RPG elements. By that I mean that there are provisions to help the players creating an overall story. While the rules can be used for one-off battles between small groups of figures, in my opinion most of its value comes from narrative play. For those who have already played 5150 New Beginnings, I suppose that the big question is: what has changed?

The biggest changes have been in the campaign system. In my opinion, the original New Beginnings was like a big toolbox for playing sci-fi narrative-oriented games, and it included a campaign system to help players getting started. On the other hand, Urban Renewal feels like a very detailed campaign system, which you may also tear apart to use only parts of it. So there is a change of focus, and a lot more cohesion between parts in this new edition. The goal of the campaign has also shifted from items to character improvement, and so the items system has been further simplified.

As the campaign system changed, so did characters. Previously, characters had a class, profession and motivation. The latter has been dropped, and a new system of social Circles has been added. The Science skill has also been removed, and now the People skill is quite possibly the most useful.

The rules for vehicles have been replaced with a comprehensive Public Transport system, that may also be used to simulate travel with a car. This also means that the rules for using a vehicle in an encounter are gone. The rules for buildings have also reverted to essentially the same found in Chain Reaction 3.1, instead of the more complex, floorplan-based ones found in the previous edition of New Beginnings. The chapter about media crews has also been removed. On the other hand, there are three new types of encounter: Confrontation, Gaming House and Deal, adding more options to the campaign.

In terms of writing and presentation, Urban Renewal is more organized and clear than the original New Beginnings. When that book was released in 2012, it showcased many of the newer rules for Two Hour Wargames products. Things like the new In Sight system, item system and building rules were presented but, at times, there was little "glue" between them. I think that this gave it the "toolbox" feel. In this new edition the parts seem to fit each other better.

Conclusion
In my opinion, 5150 Urban Renewal offers an interesting experience for solo players. It is possible to use the campaign system as is, in order to create various stories in the New Hope City setting. With some extra work, the campaign system may also be adjusted to fit other sci-fi settings. The streamlining and organization of the rules make it easier to learn and use, but it still has lots of information. Therefore, both new players and those upgrading from the first edition are advised to read the book carefully and make the "Stop!" box exercises.

Playing CROM solo

I recently bought CROM by Paul Ward from Matakishi's Tea House. It is a fast-play skirmish game inspired by the stories by Robert E. Howard. From the preview, I read that it is "... designed primarily as a multiplayer game but can be played with two players or even solo if desired" and this drew my attention.

Overview

CROM is presented as a 64-page book laid out in single column with colored illustrated backgrounds, as well as some stunning shots of gaming tables and miniatures. It is very readable on the screen, and a quick read too. Around 24 pages are dedicated to the rules, followed by a multi-part scenario and play aids. There is also a free supplement, called CROM Companion, which I recommend even to those who do not own the game. Besides an introductory scenario, it contains a set of recommendations for scenario design. Those seem very useful for skirmish games in general, and also for solo gaming.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

One of the games I picked up in my vacation was the recently released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey by Reiner Knizia, published by Cryptozoic. The game box said "1 to 4 players," which drew my attention. There are some informative reviews at BoardGameGeek and I thought it would be both an interesting solo game and something to attract new gamers.

Essentially, this is a cooperative game where players roll dice to complete goals on the board. This has led to comparisons with Elder Sign, although I am not sure yet about how close the two games are. Dice may be allocated to goals and unallocated dice are re-rolled once. Players also have two types of cards they may spend to complete goals: company cards represent the dwarves and Bilbo and may be recovered in some situations. Resource cards are gone when used. Failing to complete any goal pushes you towards losing the game. Finishing all the goals on the two game boards, which are played sequentially, is required to win. There is a sizable random element in the roll of dice and in event cards that are drawn at the beginning of every turn but the game still offers significant choices such as which dice to allocate or re-roll, when to spend each resource and which goals to complete first.

My first solo game ended very quickly, as I was too stingy with my resources and lost the game while completing only four goals on the first board. On my second game I managed to get to the second board, but lost the game with two goals to complete. Lesson learned: the card that allows you to ignore an event is a very important resource! I finished my third game, with a total of 18 victory points -- although it felt like I was going to lose again with a couple of goals to complete.

Conclusion
I liked my first solo matches of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It is easy to forget to draw an event card every turn as you are considering your options. Now I have to play this with more players to see how the cooperative aspect of the game works, especially regarding the use of the shared resource cards. I am also curious to see how the expansions will work with the base game.

Review: Raptorz

After the conversation in the comments for the previous post, I decided to finish the post about Raptorz that has been sitting in my drafts list for about one year.

Raptorz is a game by Rebel Minis in a partnership with Two Hour Wargames. It is meant to be played with the 15mm figures from that company, but for now I have been playing with MapTool, and also with the pieces from the free Patrol: Lost print and play boardgame. The PDF version (which I own) consists of a rulebook and a set of room and corridor tiles, created by PaperMakeIt.

The game uses some mechanics from other products from Two Hour Wargames. Therefore, people familiar with Rep, reaction tests etc. will be at home. One important difference is the usage of a more abstract movement system, where figures move from section to section rather than measuring inches. Sections can be rooms or corridors and some abstraction must be adopted about them, too, especially when fights happen on narrow corridors.

Here is a shot of a game playing with the Patrol: Lost pieces. Note that in Raptorz, you set up the whole board before play. In this picture, I was using a team of three soldiers: leader, marine with rifle and marine with squad automatic weapon. The dice mark the possible enemy forces (PEFs) and their Rep. I had to decide beforehand which tiles belonged to each of the sectors 1-6 referenced by the rules.

Another shot a few turns later. Up to this point I had met two PEFs but both resolved into nothing but nerves. Then I rolled doubles three times in a row, thus spawning three new PEFs. One of them appeared behind my marines, just as they approached a dead end... talk about ambushes!

At this point, I thought it would be better to start moving back to the entrance, even if I had not scouted the whole map. My soldiers fired at the PEF that had appeared behind them, and it was resolved as six raptorz!

Although my soldiers were able to defeat this group of enemies, they lost one marine in a later battle and eventually were overwhelmed when another PEF resolved as 10 raptorz. Still, a fun game that lasted around one hour.

The rules for Raptorz are only seven pages long, which means you can start playing in minutes. The downside is that the text is very, very concise, and requires some interpretation (which may vary according to the experience of the reader.) For instance, here are the conventions I've adopted:

1. The game states that PEFs are resolved only when they share a section with marines. However, some weapons may fire up to two sections away. Therefore, if a marine opens fire against a PEF, it is first resolved. However, a figure or group that fires when active does not move. Also, if the PEF resolves into raptorz, the whole group may move when next active -- there is no roll to check how many enter the room.

2. There is a recovery table that seems to allow a marine who went out of the fight to regain consciousness. However, it is not mentioned in the rules text. The way I play is, if a marine goes OOF but does not suffer other hits until his next activation, he gets to roll on the recovery table.

3. If a marine is in a Confrontation against multiple aliens, I resolve all of them before carrying out a Fall Back result. If any of the aliens reaches melee range, the marine cannot fall back.

4. If raptorz and marines remain at the same room when a turn ends, I run a new confrontation test when either group activates again. I use the confrontation test #1 if the marines activate or confrontation test #2 if the raptorz go first.

Conclusion

Raptorz is another alternative for a quick and simple solo or cooperative "dungeon hack" with a sci-fi theme. There is room for experimentation -- for instance, trying to add ranged enemies, traps and random events. The room-to-room movement keeps the game fast and allows playing with little regard to scale of miniatures.

Dungeon Tiles and Walls

Today I built some pieces of the Dungeon Tiles and Walls set, created by Eddnic of the Fantasy Paper Miniature Models blog and published by Avalon Games. There are several products for the creation of paper dungeon environments, from flat tile sets to full 3D scenarios. This one offers a lot of flexibility and modularity with the added bonus of allowing all pieces to be stored flat. OK, calling it a "bonus" is unfair as the set was carefully designed to allow this feature -- this becomes evident when you see the flat-folding stairway...

The heart of the set are the pillars, wall sections and door frames, which can be combined in a variety of ways. Most of the building process involves easy cuts with a hobby knife and some folding. The layout of the pieces on the sheets makes the process of scoring (marking the fold lines with a dull knife or ball pen without ink, to make folding easier) the pieces very efficient. The only parts that require glue are a few tabs on the pillars and on the stairway piece. Here are some shots of the built pieces.

The doors are slotted into the door frames, so it is possible to show the open or closed state of each passageway. There are different versions, such as wooden doors and metal bars. There is also a stand-alone door frame model, which could be used just to add some 3D elements to a flat map.

Here is a shot of the separate pieces that I built. It is possible to see a dungeon tile (there are many others in the set), some connectors, which are used to create passageways and bridge rooms together, the slotted pillars, wall sections and doorways. A clever modular system.

And lastly, the unfolded pieces, ready for storage. This shot highlights the simplicity of the pieces, which are easy to cut and build. To be honest, this was supposed to be a test build just to check out the product, but I really enjoyed making these and so I decided to make a post about it.

Conclusion

I love modular terrain systems, and this was the reason I got this product. It proved to deliver what it promised, with easy to build, good-looking pieces that can be stored flat. A friend of mine has been interested in playing some dungeon hacking so I might make more dungeon pieces to use in that game.

Review: Resistance Is Futile

Being a compulsive buyer collector of rulesets, I recently got some new games. Among them was "Resistance Is Futile" by AGEMA. Previously I bought and played their "Sacre Bleu!" rules which I am very fond of as the chaotic play sequence serves very well for solo (although it might be frustrating when playing against an opponent.) This led me to purchasing other games from the company, despite finding very little to no information about them.

"Resistance Is Futile" (RIF for short) is a set of sci-fi skirmish rules for 15mm or 28mm scale. The 32-page book includes a sample setting called "Sigma-14" and the author encourages players to make their own to add meaning and motivation to their games. The setting is actually an entertaining read, with a good amount of humor mixed with different sci-fi conventions. Take for instance this description of one of the factions:

"There are also within the towns and cities what is termed The Resistance which rejects all forms of government and who are effectively anarchists who love conspiracy theories and trust no-one, including themselves most of the time."

Sacre Bleu! Pirate Skirmish

My most recent experimentation with miniature games is Sacre Bleu! from AGEMA. It is defined as "mass skirmish wargame rules for the age of pirates, reason and wayfare." The entire rules are contained in just six pages. The book also includes four scenarios with different objectives. The text is well-written and the few tables are clear.

The main distinguishing feature of Sacre Bleu! is that it is played as a succession of randomly determined phases. A given phase may allow one of the players to move their figures, or to shoot with figures that didn't move in the previous phase, or allow all figures (from all players) to fire simultaneously. Close combat is resolved at the end of every phase as necessary. The game designer explains that this was done to model the chaotic nature of skirmishes. From a solo gamer's standpoint I found this idea very cool; in a way it is a variation of activation rolls that can add even more unpredictability to the game.

Each figure is described by its discipline grade, the weapons it carries and possibly one of a few modifiers. Discipline is used when a "decision check" phase is rolled. Essentially it is a kind of morale roll that can cause a number of figures to move randomly (they panick or decide to try some crazy plan) if failed -- but if they succeed they may gain an extra action too.

Rush for the Treasure

In this scenario, two bands of pirates try to grab the treasure chests from the center of the board. Once a figure is in contact with a chest, it can pull it at half movement rate. The green patches provide soft cover. The bands are almost the same, however the left one (side A) has two peg-legged pirates with pistols while the group on the right (side B) has two guys with polearms. All figures count as bad-disciplined units and the leaders are the figures carrying the pirate flags.

Last Stand at Kirrinbahr

This is just a quick post to comment on the solo adventure "Last Stand at Kirrinbahr." It is a paragraph-based adventure, along with some maps to help understand the context and a simple action and combat resolution system. I've just finished playing it in about 3 hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. By the end of the game I was really immersed -- a feat in solo games as it's just too easy to step back and analyze the game from the outside.

Two things I liked: your actions have logical consequences (at least for me) and the story does have some twists. Actually, make it three: the action and combat resolution systems work well to keep the game moving.

Two things I didn't like: the PDF could have hyperlinks to aid navigating across paragraphs and maps (I bet many people will play this on a computer or tablet instead of printing the book) and some character options don't seem to matter so much as others (but I didn't explore every possible path in the book.)

It's hard to comment much more without spoiling the game, so I'll stop here. As with most paragraph-based games, the replay value isn't very high although I'll probably try again with different character choices.