Tumissa Nights pt 2

As I was saying: The event was a palanquin race/scavenger hunt in the market of Tumissa. Each player was to prove their worth as a noble by managing their bearers, guards and runners to find the most valuable items in the market, There were six players, each with a palanquin.. They also had 4 guards, and 2 runners. The task was simple. At each merchant site I had a pile of cards representing goods of interest. They fell into a few categories. 

Spirits

Drugs

Artifacts

Texts

And they also had to acquire buttons, from soldiers of various levels of status. The value of the cards was generally based upon their rarity. The players were given 20 coins (chips) and they were the limit of their spending. Their Victory points were the total of all items they acquired. 

The market had terrain, but also a number of NPCs of various social rank. The players were all of High clans and each had a bit of background telling them why they were competing and what their personal stakes were. 

I used SOBH rules. They are a very simple and elegant miniatures skirmish rules set, but not really meant for a race. Normally there are only two stats per figure, plus special rules. They are Quality (Q) which determines how easily the unit can be activated, and how well it does non combat stuff, and Combat (C) which determines how good they are at fighting. I added a stat for Status (S) for social challenges, making it possible for them to stair down a superior, or be ignored by an inferior. I was surprised that the figures that used it most were the guards.

The role of the figures was intended to be

Guards could clear paths by moving NPCs along, they could be used to defend against, or attack others, and some players tried to use them to negotiate with NPCs.  The guys with purple bases left, are guards. In this shot, they just killed a dog that wouldn't move. Dogs don't care much for social status. 

Runners had a singular use, which proved a bit less valuable than I expected. They were intended to scout various piles of cards, and report back on the relative value of items in the pile. When a runner reached a merchant, they would leave a token, representing the fact that they had been there. Then when they returned to the palanquin, the player could look at that pile and decide if they wanted to go over there to buy something.

Palanquins represented the player. They had to travel to merchant shops or stalls to acquire goods. They were the highest status figure in the players  retinue. To the right  was the player who worshiped Dilinala. You can also see a wooden token indicating that her runner (blue) has been here, and her runner on a blue base. 

Tekumel has slipped into a Bethorm again

I am hoping to conjure it back out, but, gaming time has been so limited of late. I am trying to sort and purge stuff to make room, which may also make time, as I won't have to climb over piles to get to things. But, while I do that, I am also expanding some areas of my collection.

I have been puttering about with terrain, primarily for Japan, because I have painted samurai that can be fielded to the the table, and because much of it is has an exotic feel that can fit in Tekumel. Mostly I am building simple, generic terrain pieces, hills and rock outcroppings and such. But, specifically for samurai, I started a bamboo thicket, based upon the tutorial here... which I found via the Ronin Skirmish rules forum here.  I started the project a while back, but stalled while trying to find the appropriate leaves for the bamboo stalks. Then I found this thread on the same forum.

Seemed a simple solution. So I ordered a pack of the kind that comes in four sizes, and accidentally ordered a second pack. Which, as it turned out, was fine. It is going to be one big field of bamboo. And got a few Woodsies cut outs for basing.

snip off the top close to the leaves.

A few quick holes and some glue, and I had a few of these...

snip the subsequent leaves close and at an angle

 But I didn't want the original bamboo project to go to waste, and, even the tallest of these isn't really tall. So, I took some left over from the smallest, and snipped and cut and glued. This gives all the bamboo the same generally look.

Scoring and painting the skewers is covered in the blog post I linked to above. The top bit of the plastic bamboo is cut off and hot glued to the top of the skewer. I probably should have painted the ends of the skewers, but they are mostly covered by the plastic tops.  Then cut the subsequent leaves each just flush with the top at as steep an angle as possible. This gives you a little pile of leaves with stems. I found it quickest to simply snip, spin the "plant 180" and snip. Careful not to loose the bits.

Bamboo can thow out short branches where it sprouts leaves. Some you will shorten to be flush with the leaves, some will end up with longer stems glued to the side of the skewer.

With a bit of work you end up with these. My original project had bases that were way too small, and the bamboo wouldn't stand up to a light breeze. So I glued them down to larger  bases and added a few of the plastic bamboo pieces to fill them out and tie the two bamboos together. I found this allowed me to get away with being fairly sparce with leaves on the skewers, as the shorter bamboo adds a good deal to the sense of Foliage.

I will update this post when I get the bases completed...

Minor progress this evening.. I got some vinyl spackle and a stirring stick and textured the bases.. waiting for them to dry..
If I do more, and I probably will, I will do this part first, then drill and place the bamboo. I had to be careful not to get spackle on the plants..

But it should give me a good earth texture that takes paint and protects the thin wood bases from warping, if all goes well.

Berserkon

Last weekend I went the inaugural Berserkon Event in Duluth MN. I will say, I went expecting ePic Fail. I had not been impressed with the coordinators communications with the teeming masses, and I was disappointed in a failure to respond to my efforts to make a contact between them and my historical miniatures wargame friends.  But, I was happily disappointed.

This is not to say I don't have complaints, but I did manage to keep myself entertained, primarily with boardgames, and one off indie RPGs.  I will cover that after I gripe. Not a full on rant. I did much of that prior to the event.

I think this event benefited greatly from too much space. Coordination of events seemed poor, but the huge swaths of terra made it possible to easily set up a pick up game for anyone interested. Several events I heard about on Sunday didn't seem to go off.
The price is not competitive with other, larger, Cons. Not a problem for locals, as we save fuel and hotels. But outsiders are paying a premium, and more than they would pay to go somewhere local. 

A three day holiday weekend and you don't take advantage of the third day. Ok, it is Memorial Day, and some might see that as Crass. So pick a different three day weekend if that is your concern. Friday afternoon was a wasteland. I considered creating an twitter account just because I was bored..

Next the miniatures world is larger than GW. LakeSWATT did a nice job with their miniatures event, by all accounts. But, I certainly didn't want to play a tourney when there should be a host of opportunities to play new things. I do appreciate the painting class they put on.. it gave me an opportunity to try blending.. by the schmeer method, as I call it. I don't have patience for the layered method. I ramble..

Things I did do.. and enjoyed..

Artimes Starship Simulator.  This was a hoot,  and it was busy most of the con. For 40 bucks in software, (hardware is another factor, nothing unusual, and your crew can probably provide much of their own..) you can command a starship. Or serve as communications on your friends. Or whatever. That is the price for a crews worth of installations. If you get a chance, try this out.

Power Grid was a pretty decent game, complex enough to be a challenge, simple enough to be approachable.  I would recommend it.

Watched a bit of Standard Action  I had seen the first two seasons on the web, and watched some on a poor screen with lousy sound quality in an nearly empty "theater space" at the Con while I ate and checked facebook. And I crushed a bit on Edda who was there with some other guy from the show.. my inner fan boy found an outlet, for a few minutes, then I drove him back into his Ikea storage cube..

Played a bit of Bare Bones RPG.. late on Fri. The game has a simple, OSR feel to it, with a few add on bobs to push the RPG aspects. The primary mechanic for that is the traits you self assign - one good, one bad, one more for humans (I was human). They added a fate point like mechanic for working them in and playing them up. I took Blind as my bad trait. I was an archer/priest.. I took snap shoots at sounds as a good trait. And Zealot to the phrase my religious texts "Make the whole world blind, that they may see..".  I think I spooked the other players when I threatened the local eldars with hot pokers to purify their souls, but in the end, everyone actually thought it might be a good Idea..


Saturday began with Last Night on Earth.. which was an ok game. I have trouble with a mechanic that lets Zombies act intelligently and gives them options. Might improve the game play, but it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Painting class was next.. I chose an Eldar from the box, in part because I don't own any, and in part because I wanted something I could approach in a completely different way than the IG I am used to.

     add pic here..

Then I talked a couple guys from the cities into a game of Flash point..  which went ok. I promised I would return after a scheduled game of

Werewolf. I had heard of this and played a game online. Pretty much strictly a social game, trying to suss out which players are werewolves eating everyone else and betting a villagers life that you have pegged it correctly.. Eaten once, Hung Once, Nailed the werewolf once.  An ok record. Werewolves are tricky..

Returned as promised, and played Conquest of the Fallen lands, which was a quick and tricky little game. I was led to believe it was out of print, but that appears to be an error. 

Sat eve got to be late for me. Went to dinner with friends, then went home and cobbled together a kit for demo-ing Song of blades and Heroes. I had been considering doing this, or perhaps Hordes of the Things. I decided I didn't feel comfortable with HOTT rules, which are simple and written for an English professor.  I had loaned my SOBH to a friend, and when I tried to retrieve it, he couldn't find it, so I had tabled the idea. But I knew Sunday had little of interest going. (I think Pandemic was Sunday.. ) So, I dug in my Geek Pile and found another copy, and spent the night pulling figures, and terrain, and printing up Warband rosters, and reprinting them with built in QRFs.  And finally went to sleep around 4 AM, which meant I was late arriving in the AM to Con, which meant I couldn't demo anything before (ah .. that's when that was.. ) Pandemic, so I spent the AM re reading the SOBH rules, which was probably a good thing..

Then Pandemic.. game is good, I had played it before. It is high on my list of cooperatives.. but it is a short list.. so.. not much to say.. Play if you can.. We lost in the end.. with only one disease left to cure..

 And a local chap ran a FATE rpg game he is kickstarting called Time Heroes, a serialized and somewhat silly saturday morning cartoon themed game. This episode was called Rise of the Plushies, and involved trying to stop a time displaced H.P. Lovecraft from melding thousands of animate Cthulhu Plush Toys into a full size Eldar God with cybernetics. I am not sure where the Cyber came into that. But since it did, and since I was a Cyberprincess ala Inspector Gadget.. I eventually got a chance to hack directly into his firm ware. I don't think it was I that ultimately took him down, but, I did insert a bit of viral code called "stop hitting yourself...". I think he would have eventually beaten himself up..


Finally,  I set up my game table and started playing SOBH solo. . The ref from the Barebones game wandered over, and I talked him into taking control of a Warband. I was using my Fractal Cave terrain and Mage Knight figs and the Techno Dwarves were trying to rid the caves of Orcs (me)..

The terrain is my "Fractal Caves" concept.. It was not finished, and looks way too green. I started building it for a battle in the Womb Of Hrihayel, from my Tekumel campaign. I have since toned down the green, and it blends better with the cave formations you see above. They are cast from Hirst Arts molds. I purchased them cast from... hmm. I don't recall, but a licensed seller.*

The demo was successful, though I messed up a few rules and completely forgot to utilize my hero special rules (which grant some auto activation successes), and the Orcs lost, their shaman scampering off into the caves..

So I start breaking it down, as the place is really getting thin. And then I was approached by another gentleman from the twin cities region. We both admitted to being a bit brain dead, but we decided to try another game. He took the Orcs, I took the Dwarves, we cut the Orc Shaman, and several Dwarf warriors to balance, so as to avoid the complications of magic casting. And played a quick game.. It was pretty well balanced, for a bit, but the Orc Poison did it's work and eventually the upended the mounted Dwarf leader, and broke the morale of the few remaining Dwarves..

So two games of SOBH.. And I have a nearly grab and go demo kit assembled.

* I do have a small and growing collection of Hirst Arts Molds. Probably should start using them..

Older projects

I have been on a bit of a terrain kick of late. Lots of things half started. It would be a lie to say lots of things half finished. Tekumel is kinda in Idle. We have played, a bit, but I haven't blogged on it.. which I will remedy. Working on the History of the Three States of the Triangle, but I keep being distracted. Both real life, and terrain. Haven't had much chance to play anything of late.  House projects, and local politics are competing for my attention. Tekumel has been too strenuous, intellectually, I think I need a minis fight..

Towards that end I have been buying or trying to build terrain.  First I bought a Hirst Arts project someone else created, off TMP. Space ship interiors, kinda for Space Hulk type scenarios. They were assembled and rough painted. Figured I could put them on table as is. Didn't figure on shipping damage. Pics

very disheartening. Kinda my fault. I asked him to ship them cheapest means possible. And, I didn't note that the description said plaster, not hydrocal. Some of the damage has been repaired. A lot of tiny pieces missing. Currently Boxed.


A couple years back I bought a pile of Hirst Arts Water Cavern Castings, with the intent of making a Cave setup.. This should have been during the Cavern portion of my Tekumel campaign, but, I don't find any posts on it.. which surprises me. At any rate, I have returned a bit to that project. I already have a pile of painted stalagmites and limestone formations. Working on a system for building a cavern. Originally I was just planning on duplicating the Hirst Arts Set, but feel it looks more like a dungeon than a cave. Good for certain types of games, but not really for a tactical fight, and not flexible enough. So, this is what I am thinking at the moment..  pics

cut some pieces out of foam core

build em up as limestone flows

use them to highlight the rock formations. They will need some texturing, and paint to match. Hope I can figure out how I painted these castings..


Building terrain will serve several purposes, I think. There is a bit of a zen quality to the task, so it might relieve some anxiety, It will hopefully consume some of the clutter I have accumulated over the past few years.. most of which I acquired thinking I would use it somehow in terrain of as troops. And it might generate a place for me to field some figures, any figures. A water cavern is generic enought to allow me to stage a battle among pirates, ImperFNORDial Troops, or Sarkus Minions. Or a host of other figures. I also have been cutting bases for all the foliage I have collected. But none of this is getting the campaign arc up to date..

The Riot on the Avenue of Uplifting trade

dscf2590.jpg
Originally uploaded by kokigami

On the 28th, Geo and I went to the Twin Cities to take part in the annual Tekumel miniatures event. I ended up running my own table, using the scenario I had created "The Riot on the Avenue of Uplifting trade". Rather than do another write up right now (it is getting late) I will, without further delay, direct you to the Flickr set that contains a narrated account of the fight. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the account given by Herechi of the Clan of Saffron light, who was there, but is known to be a bit of a zealot. Still, the pics are commented to coincide with his testimony to the Tomb Police on the subject.

More to Come

This is a filler post, to some degree. I had planned to post about Recon, held in Anoka, hosted by MMGA. I did attend, and played a few games of SBH with Mike Z, who provided D&D pre paints in a battle between a Dragon bent on burning homes and a small band of dwarfs. It was a good scenario. Surprisingly complex. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera, and Mike has not responded to my request that he send me pics or links. So I have no bling to bring on that front.

I then was transported by Chirine (pronounced Cheer in nay) to his Tekumel haven, where he and his cohorts were preparing for the November game (scheduled for the Source on the 28th). His terrain in progress is fantastic. And I marvelled at the logistics of maintaining the vast collection of figures, props, and artifacts of Tekumel and M.A.R. Barker lore that he has amassed, while still trying to live in his home. In the past week I have put a good deal of effort into painting some figs I bought off Ebay for low clans folk, so I can add them to the Skirmish game in November. I have approximately 60 now that I would feel unashamed to field. They will add to the force of unaffiliated rioters. I will have pics of them soon.

Looking forward, Next year will be a year of Tekumel at the Superior Force. This year I spent a good deal of money on projects unrelated to Tekumel, money that could have gone to buying nice figs from the Eureka line. Soon Eureka will be adding Shen, Ahoggya, and other non humans. I plan to make a big purchase sometime in Jan or So. What this means, in practical terms, is that my spending and game time will be focused on Tekumel. Realistically, I plan to spend 80% of my gaming budget on Tekumel appropriate fair, with 20% reserved for other sundries I may need. My gaming time will probably be less focused. I have a reasonable force of Fnord, and lots of troops to build HOTT, and enough Samurai to do some skirmish in that genre. And, of course, there are the various board games that we play as family, and possibly some more generic SBH using Mage Knight figs not already assigned to a HOTT army. But, I plan to have a Tekumel RPG game going by spring, on a bi weekly basis.

I would also like to offer a belated Happy Birthday to Professor Barker, here, though I know he will never see it. Tekumel has always been my inspiration in gaming. It is the reason I have always believed that the act of Gaming can rise to the level of fine art. A form of improvisational readers theater. Professor, be well.

Three games, well 2. 216 maybe

The last bit of gaming I have managed in the past month (oh, for the Halcyon days of High School and College, when I could game rather than study, or, if I recall, eat..) was an intro to Song of Blades and Heroes. In less than a month, Chirine and his pals will be hosting a Tekumel event in the Cities. They are planning to battles, a large scale clash of Armies and a skirmish. The skirmish will use the simple mechanics of Song of Blades and Heroes. I designed the basic scenario*. SBH as it is called by its fans, is a pretty simple, fast, and kinda elegant system. It is not made for exactly what we are doing, however. I am still trying to create some mechanics for bits of it, as the Tekumel game we will be doing has several sides, and there will be a host of unaligned figures on the map. Also, many figs will not be trying, specifically, to kill their opponents. At least, not to begin the game. That can change.

So I thought it might be a good idea to try the game out. Seems the least I could do in the way of planning. The very least. George came over, and I created a couple warbands using the excellent WB generator (Javascript) that can be found on the SBH yahoo group. He took the Orcs and I took the Elves. We only got three turns into it before I had to leave. Bad planning on my part, but there was a concert (Argentinian Folk/Rock ) my wife wanted to see. Not much bling here. This was, after all, supposed to be a simple exercise in learning the mechanics. I took these pics so we could approximate where we left off, if we could get together on this one again. Or we may start over.



Turn one I tested my luck on a Q2 unit, rolling three dice and rolled two ones. That ended my turn one. George then decided to reposition his leader, and only got half way to safety. He brought a body gaurd, though, so, according to the rules for targeting, I had to shoot at the closest legit target. I moved my leader closer to my shooters on my left flank in order to improve their activation rolls, then moved them to shoot the vulnerable leader. So far, I had pierced one of his orcs with an arrow, and narrowly missed his Leader. He had the bulk of his troops strategically holed up in the woods. I can't shoot into the woods, but he can shoot out. I have some sneaks, though, who can't be targeted next to anything that qualifies as cover, so they were beginning to move up along the village huts on my right flank.

We were just getting the sense of flow by turn three. I can see the game can go pretty fast, but I am concerned about what will happen when we have 6 or 8 players. Hope to squeeze in extra games before then. Maybe do a big game, but I am not sure, locally, who to try to get into it.

no posts for a month, and a broken promise of pictures. I am a failure at this whole blog thing. Real life has been interfering a bit. I was trying to buy a spare house, and we had a death in the family, and such, but, I still could have put up pictures.

On the other hand, I do have some news. My shopping impulse got the best of me and I bought a pile of Mage knight figs. 800. I have been sorting and classifying for HOTT purposes. I should have taken a pic of the table overflowing..

I have also been working on the Dwarf army. Trying to decide on unit types, really. I have Dwarven Fusers, and a couple thunder gunners who will be shooters. I had originally planned on putting mixed melee weapons together for Warband, but, the Orcs are currently warband, and the trolls are leaning towards warband. And, dammit, do I really need more warband? I considered redoing the orcs as Hordes, but I would need more of them. That might be a long term option.

I am also trying to keep enough figs free to base for Song of Blades and Heroes or TFT. I know that I am building my HOTT armies way too large, but the impulse to have spare units for the kind of game I would like to run is strong.

Let me talk, then, a little about my ideas for a HOTT campaign. The rule book has a system, but it is very formal, and kinda dull. First it assumes that all armies deployed are the same size (24 points). But in reality, Commanders deploy forces in variable sizes, so I would like to let the commanders in my campaign do this. Of course, concentrating too many forces in one spot leaves you hinterlands exposed, but that is a risk one might take, if the reward were right.

I was also thinking of adding rules for spying on other armies. A commander could deploy certain units - Heroes, Magicians, Paladins, and Sneakers, into enemy controlled areas for recon missions. If there were enemy units in the area, they would dice to see if they could learn anything. I haven't determined the odds yet, but sneakers and magicians would excel at this, and Paladins and Heroes would we be the weakest. It might also work to use SOBH to play out these encounters, if the spies were discovered.

Another tweak might be to add in supply lines and scavenging. Each area might have a maximum capacity for "living off the land". This is all very nebulous so far. I should probably take pencil to paper and sort it out. I still sort best with pencil and paper.. Old school

just an update

To keep my hand in, I suppose. I have been fighting with getting Ubuntu on an old puter and wireless for my Geek room. Finally succeeded yesterday, so that is nice. Now I have to find a spare hard drive, cause I can see I am gonna run out of space pretty quick on the 13 gig that was in this one. My thanks to whichever neighbor leaves an open network available, as it was very helpful in the process. When I needed to look up some step I could connect to open wireless networks and go online to look up the problems I was having with our WEP network. Personally, I would rather our wireless network were open, but wireless security is an issue for my wife, so we are WEPed.

On the topic of small victories, I also succeeded with the DIY table saw project, at least marginally. By cutting a steel plate that then sits on the tabletop, and restricts the blades lateral movement, I am managing to cut reasonable HOTT bases. They aren't perfect rectangles, but they will work. There is a problem with Heat, and the subsequent risk of fire. I stop often,and cool the plate and blade with a damp cloth. I will post some pics of this.

Otherwise on the HOTT project, I was notified yesterday that the second pack of Mage Knight figs I bought on Ebay has finally been shipped. I payed for it on the 12th, so this is a bit annoying. I have pretty much finalized my needs for figures, and I am waiting on this order to see what I am short before I contact a dealer in CA who, if I'm lucky, can supply me with everything in one shot - that's assuming his prices are reasonable..

I have been a bit distracted of late by an email I received out of the blue from a gamer we will call, for the moment, Spoon. He is a transplant to the area from a more civilized gamer Haven in the southern part of the state, and, as it turns out, he has a hankering to play some samurai games. He has his own collection of 28mm samurai. So we have been kinda chatting via email about what game system to use for Samurai Skirmish. We have talked about Lord of the Rings, and Songs of Blades and Heroes. I once ran an event using Savage Worlds Showdown, but it seemed too static. Song of Blades looks fun, but perhaps a bit too simplistic for rich genre of Samurai. I am waiting to see a copy of the LOTR rules, and looking at some freebies online.

If I find one that really impresses me I will link it in here somewhere..