Mixed bag of gaming

Even though I haven't blogged much in the past month, I have been playing a lot more!

Since the last blog post (from the beginning of April), I have been doing this:

Multi-player gaming Me, in a fierce battle of Song of Blades and Heroes! Ran one game of Song of Blades an Heroes with one of my gaming buddies. We had a lot of fun, especially in the end where my single human left on the board knocked down my opponent's five six orcs and gave me the win! Very unexpected, but a lovely twist! Have started a long-term campaign of Memoir '44 (with the same gaming buddy). Got my hands on the Memoir '44: Campaign Book Volume 1. It was not an easy find, since the book has been out-of-print for quite a while. Anyway, I'm glad I got it, since it's very well done. So far we have played three scenarios and we intend to play through all three major campaigns (50 scenarios or so).

Solitiaire gaming Field Commander: Napoleon, in the middle of a battle! I have, finally, dug into the solitaire game Field Commander: Napoleon from DVG (which I have owned since it was released last year, but not played, until now). The game is a masterpiece and I have rated it a 10 on BoardGameGeek. One of few games that I have rated this high. Reasons are many, which I will explain in a review (which will be posted here) as soon as I have played through all campaigns. Other solitaire gaming activities would include some iPad gaming (yes, I bought an iPad2 not long ago; a wonderful piece of hardware). I have been playing Neuroshima Hex and Forbidden Island -- two very faithful digital implementations of board game originals.

Soft cover

Wow, what a quiet blog!

Life has once again eaten all (or at least, most) precious gaming time.

But I have been playing some solitaire Tales of Blades and Heroes (the RPG version of Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha games). Hopefully I will have chance to post an After Action Report from that session soon. And I have been able to create a couple of bushes, to be used as soft cover in Song of Blades and Heroes. See photo below (15mm orc for size reference).

Hope spring will offer more gaming time. I really need that.

Trees!

Last week, my eldest daughter came home from kindergarten with a plastic bag full of tree cones. She had found them in the woods when the children were out there playing. She offered me to have some of them. First I didn't see a need for them. But later that evening I started to think in game terms, more specifically, in miniature terms. I thought to myself, they would be really good as trees!

Now, a week later, I have completed thirteen of them, and I'm very pleased with the result. Okay, I know, they do not look like real trees should. But hey, they are for my Song of Blades and Heroes setting, and since we are talking fantasy, more or less anything is allowed!

Okay, here are two photos of the final products, with a 15mm orc lurking in the woods for reference:

And here are a couple of work-in-progress photos:

Found a box of washers in the garage. Good
enough as bases for the trees.

The first cone attached to a washer/base.
Used spackling paste and some stone
glue to build a little foundation for attaching
the cones.

All cones attached to one washer each! Next they
were all coated in Chaos Black and then painted.

AAR: The depressing battle of Björnåsen.

"I have a no good feeling, sir", said the hardened soldier in the heavy armor. The young noble kept silent, but nodded deliberately. With the wastelands in front of their eyes, the soldier's feeling would prove to be correct. The party would, in just a few minutes, meet what mortals call death.


INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the first AAR (After Action Report) on this blog! The game played was a solitaire session of Song of Blades and Heroes, using my solitaire module SBH-SOLO (downloadable here for anyone interested in trying it out).

I was leading a gang of cautious humans passing through the wastelands of Björnåsen, located around five thousand steps South of the large town of Borås. Five civilians equipped with swords and bows, escorted by three armored soldiers, were on their way back home to their manor in Kinnarumma. They've been visiting the King of East Borås for a couple of considerable matters. Halfway home, their journey was interrupted when they ran into a group of bestial green-skinned creatures -- eight bloodthirsty orcs. The battle was an actuality, and it did not end in favor of the humans; all men lost, except for one rider, escaping the battle in fear of his life.


BATTLE INFORMATION

Human warband
* Young noble, with sword, [PTS=50; Q=3+; C=2] and [Leader].
* (x2) Young noble's close friends, with swords and [PTS=30; Q=3+; C=3].
* Young noble's brother-in-law, on horse, with bow, [PTS=60; Q=3+; C=2] and [Mounted; Long Move; Shooter (med)].
* Young noble's cousin, on horse, with bow, [PTS=45; Q=4+; C=2] and [Mounted; Long Move; Shooter (med)].
* (x3) Armored soldiers, with swords, [PTS=26; Q=4+; C=4] and [Short Move].
=> 293 PTS

Orc warband
This warband was entirely controlled by SBH-SOLO, i.e. my imaginary opponent.
* Orc leader, hand weapon, armor, [PTS=100; Q=3+; C=4] and [Leader; Tough].
* Orc warrior, hand weapon, armor, [PTS=42; Q=4+; C=3] and [Long Move; Steadfast].
* (x6) Orc warriors, hand weapons, armor and [PTS=23; Q=4+; C=3].
=> 280 PTS

The game was played using 15mm miniatures, on a 60x60 cm board, with a few pieces of terrain (mix of self-made ones and a few Games Workshop hedges). The board was crafted and given to me in Christmas present by my father. He used an old green billiards rug and attached it to a wooden board! Looking really good and very steady! Extremely grateful for that piece! =)

The game was played over two evenings and ended after 12 turns. Or actually, the battle never ended, one last human, the young noble's cousin on horse, fled when he was the only survivor. (He did not flee by the terms of Song of Blades and Heroes rules, but I made him flee, since there was no idea of continuing the fight with just him on the board, and four orcs! Who wouldn't have left the action by then!)

I had a lot of fun playing this battle! I think the SBH-SOLO module did a good job in simulating a real live opponent. Found some minor problems in the SBH-SOLO rules that I will correct, but apart from that, the game ran smoothly. I will definitely run a similar session again soon. Will have to paint a few more 15mm fantasy miniatures first though, so the variety of miniatures increases.


BATTLE HIGHLIGHTS

I will here present a number of highlights from the battle, in the shape of photos. I will not go through the battle in detail, just present a few distinctive moments.

The wastelands of Björnåsen. The humans in the lower
part of the photo, and the orcs in the upper. They have
just spotted each other, and the fight is ineluctable.

Turn #3: The young noble's cousin rides up on a small cliff
and fires his bow. He makes the closest orc temporary
drop his weapon to the ground and lose his balance.

Turn #4: The human warband fumbles and loses one turn.
In game terms; two failures on the first activation
roll attempt made in that turn! Seldom a good start of
a turn... ;-)

Turn #8: Two orcs charge a human rider. Later, in the
human part of this turn, the rider leaves the hand-to-hand
combat using the Free Disengage a mounted model is
entitled to if it disengage a foot model. Lucky him!

Turn #8: One of the noble's close friends attacks one of the
orcs charging into the rider previously in this turn. He succeed
in making the orc fall to the ground!

Turn #9: The fallen orc from the preceding turn is killed!
Unfortunately, the human is soon to be killed too...

Turn #9: The armored soldier slays one of the ugly
creatures, even though he is surrounded by two
more of them. Good work!

Turn #10: The fourth orc is killed and the remainder of the orc
warband must perform a Morale check (since the warband
was reduced to half in size). Three of the orcs runs off
toward the board edges. The one in the photo stops just
a few centimeters from the edge!

Turn #12: End of game! The last remaining human is seen
in the lower right of the photo. He is desperately leaving
the battlefield. Four orcs watch him leave in panic, while
they dismissively laugh...

DungeonMorph Dice

Finally, they have arrived in Sweden - the DungeonMorph Dice!

One set - five dice.

Very cool! I'm really happy with how they turned out. Now I have to figure out in what contexts/projects to use them. So far, I have these ideas:

1) First and foremost, I will use them in a writing exercise I started up a few weeks back. It is a solitaire roleplaying project, where I use the Story Engine Plus Editon as the roleplaying ruleset, together with the Mythic Game Master Emulator. I bought a small (A5 sized) notebook, and I'm actually playing/writing by hand! (Feels great being analogue for once!) In the last pages of the notebook, I have glued photo copies of the Mythic GME tables, and I will glue some Story Engine references too. With this notebook, I can play whereever I want - like at the bus, in the bed just before closing my eyes for sleep etc. I will write more about this project (and show photos of the notebook and how I organized it) in later posts. Anyway, the story I write/play is a fantasy story, so the DungeonMorph Dice will be perfect for creating dungeons that my PCs will explore as a part of their adventure!

2) Song of Gold and Darkness - an expansion to Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH). Not an expansion I own, yet, but it looks interesting. It covers dungeon adventuring, using the SBH rules. I thought I might use the DungeonMorph Dice for creating the dungeon.

3) Create a dungeon crawler game, and use the dice for randomly create the dungeon layout. There are tons of dungeon crawler games out there already, but I have never made one of my own. So perhaps, it has become my turn to contribute in this genre with a tiny game, with simple character characteristics, quick game play, easy rules etc. Nothing serious really, just for fun!

SBH-SOLO [Project update #7]

Okay, so here it is, the first "stable" release of SBH-SOLO (downloadable zip file, containing pdf files, from Google docs):

SBH-SOLO.zip

It is not perfect. I know it isn't. But it is playable. And I find it enjoyable (of course, my biased opinion).

If you want to play Song of Blades and Heroes but have no live opponent for the moment, have no other solitaire rulesets at hand - give SBH-SOLO a try! Any comments/questions/complaints are MORE than welcome! Any feedback is appreciated, really!

I will not stop developing it, this is just the first drop. I have many ideas for its future.

The zip file will also be uploaded to the Song of Blades and Heroes Yahoo group, and possible to the Song of Blades and Heroes BoardGameGeek entry.

SBH-SOLO [Project update #4]

The SBH-SOLO project is coming along quite nicely!

I have reached a point were I'm satisfied with the bones of the rules document, as well as the supporting documents (e.g. the document containing all the MicroAIs).

SBH-SOLO is now in version 0.20, and is downloadable via this Google docs link: SBH-SOLO-v0.20.zip

What I will do for the rest of the remaining two weeks of the Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month, is pure play-testing. The rules will probably change a lot when I really start playing, and the MicroAIs will for sure need tweaking.

I have already got some valuable input/suggestions from Aleksandar (http://battreps.blogspot.com/), how to make SBH-SOLO better - thank you! =)

SBH-SOLO [Project update #3]

Hi there!

Time for a short update of my SBH-SOLO project. I have not reached as far as I hoped this week, but still, I have made progress. Here are three (Google docs) links to the latest status of the project:

SBH-SOLO-Rules-v0.1.pdf
sbh-solo-microais-draft.pdf
microais_definitions-draft.pdf

The SBH-SOLO-Rules-v0.1.pdf is the main document, describing the mechanics of SBH-SOLO. It has the near-final layout, but is not finsished, even though a good part of the text is in there. Still need a few days to get all text in there.

The sbh-solo-microais-draft.pdf contains a number of pre-defined MicroAIs. This document is just a draft, so the layout is not set. I have changed the format of the MicroAIs a bit, comparing to my previous blog entry. New keywords, keywords on a higher level, sort of. The MicroAIs are not that detailed anymore, they are a little bit more open-ended.

The microais_definitions-draft.pdf document contains (so far very incomplete) instructions how to read the details of a MicroAI. This information will be transfered to the rules document soon.

Still two and a half week left of November, and I think I'm keeping my time plan fairly well. My goal is to have something playable at the end of November, and the documents (rules, MicroAIs, player aids etc) ready (but as early versions).

Note: I don't encourage, or even recommend, anyone to try SBH-SOLO yet. A lot of vital information is still missing in the above documents, it is still in my head! ;-)  I just wanted to post something, so that you know that the project is ongoing.

SBH-SOLO [Project update #2]

Okay, time to talk about the inner concepts of SBH-SOLO - my solitaire project for Song of Blades and Heroes.

Note: The models controlled by the SBH-SOLO rules, i.e. the player's opponent/enemy, are hereafter referred to as the ENEMY.

The central part of SBH-SOLO is something I call MicroAIs (where AI = Artificial Intelligence). Each of the ENEMY models are given a MicroAI at start of a game. There are a number of MicroAIs to choose from, and it is easy to create new, unique ones. One could say that a MicroAI is a super-tiny little mini-brain, that brings an ENEMY model into life, although a very limited life.

A MicroAI consists of Conditions and Routines, and those together form a flow of logic. A Routine is an action that the ENEMY model performs if a certain Condition is fulfilled. The MicroAIs should be kept simple and not too long, just a few Conditions and Routines, so that game play is not slowed down too much.

MicroAIs can be of general nature, that suites many models. But there can also be MicroAIs that are more specialized, having prerequisites. For example, special rule 'Mounted' is required by the model, otherwise that specific MicroAI cannot be used.

At game start, each enemy model is assigned to one MicroAI each. The player chooses, paying attention to prerequisites and the nature of the MicroAIs. Same MicroAI may be used by several of the ENEMY models. Obviously, models using the same MicroAI will behave according to the same pattern, but since they will not start in the exact same spot on the board, they will start with different Conditions fulfilled, and therefore (probably) act different.

Besides the individual MicroAIs assigned to one and each of the ENEMY models, there are also MicroAIs called Pre-Default and Post-Default. They are used to catch obvious actions, that is, actions that a player most likely always want to do with a model if it's activated, e.g. raise a model if it is fallen.

Each ENEMY turn, there will be mechanics to nominate the next model, and then determine how many D6 to roll. I have not worked out those details yet, just been using random while play testing. Then, when an ENEMY model has rolled the dice and got more than one successful activation, these MicroAIs are processed:

Pre-Default --> Model's own --> Post-Default

Click the picture to the left, to see an example of what those MicroAIs could look like. Note: These are just examples. The exact phrasings are not set. 

In the LOGIC part, you'll see Conditions marked with "IF" or "ELSE", and Routines marked with a star ("*"). If ambiguity ever arises, the rules of SBH always have precedence. In second place, player's best judgement.

I have so far created seven different MicroAIs. A few regular, a few for models with special rule 'Shooter', some for 'Mounted' etc.

Next steps: (1) More play testing of the entire basic concept. Identify the big flaws. (2) Fine-tuning of the MicroAIs written to date. (3) Write a few new MicroAIs. (4) Create mechanics for nominating ENEMY models, and determine how many dice to roll. (5) etc

SBH-SOLO [Project update #1]

SBH-SOLO = Song of Blades and Heroes Solitaire

In other words, SBH-SOLO is the official name of the project that I have undertaken for this November as a part of the Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month, mentioned in an earlier post this week. I am about to create some kind of solitaire rules for the miniature skirmish wargame Song of Blades and Heroes.

This is the first post, showing the progress of the project. Not much details in this post. More details of the basic concept/idea/mechanics behind the solitaire rules will follow tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Anyway, here's a photo showing early play-testing. I don't even have "real" miniatures (have ordered online, not yet received), so I'm playing with small wooden cubes. Since my goal is play-testing and developing of the solitaire rules, this setup is good enough.

Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month is here!

It is dark. It is rainly. It is cold. It is a typical November in Sweden.

And it is the Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month!

By an initiative by JF of the SoloNexus blog, this is an event dedicated to solitaire tabletop gaming. Any project related to solitaire tabletop gaming seems to be welcome, so I will join the force of solitaire gamers and contribute with the following project:

A solitaire plugin module for the fantasy skirmish minitaure wargame Song of Blades and Heroes. In other words, my goal this month is to create a set of rules, that (on a VERY basic level) mimics a human player, and could be used as an automated opponent when playing this game solitaire.

I will most likely not have a finished product by the end of the month, but my hope is to have something playable. A draft. I will continuously update this blog with the progress, and in the end of the month, the result.

A board for Song of Blades and Heroes

Have spent two evenings in creating a simple board for the miniature wargame Song of Blades and Heroes. Went amok with my water color on a large white paper, and created an abstract painting that could resemble (with quite a bit of imagination) some kind of grassy nature area. I attached the painting onto a piece of cardboard and then covered it all in transparent film (normally used for protecting books).

I made the board 60x60 cm, so that it is suiteable for 15 mm miniatures.

Speaking of miniatures... I have no 15 mm miniatures... To start with, I will just use small wooden markers or similar, to test the rule system. Then I will buy a few warbands from either Pendraken Miniatures or Magister Militum.

Song of Blades and Heroes

Bought Song of Blades and Heroes today - a set of rules for fantasy skirmish miniature wargaming. About 35 pages of easy-to-learn rules to be used with any kind of miniatures, e.g. paper miniatures, Lego figures etc. Will download or draw paper miniatures for a few races and try this out.

Need to try this on my own first, maybe develop a simple set of solitaire rules, so it will be easier to play on my own. Then try this with my gaming friends.

I have a half-painted Warhammer Fantasy Battle Chaos army deeply buried somewhere on the attic. I love the game, but I hate to paint. Or actually, I like to paint those miniatures, but I cannot spend the required time in doing so. Pity of course, since I really want to play the game, or at least some kind of miniature wargame. So that is why I started to look around for an alternative to Warhammer, and found Song of Blades and Heroes. Simple, quick and cheap!