Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old



Using Sellswords and Spellslingers, along with bits and bobs lifted from other rule sets or invented on the spot, we set about to some dungeon delving in Middle-earth.

Scott made up some custom dice to procedurally generate the rooms and their contents. We used the walls and doors offered by UrbanMatz and some furniture from HeroQuest and Mantic's Terrain Crate line. The front porch, as Tolkien might have called it, of our dungeon was a cozy goblin dining hall. Before dealing with all the goblins lounging around in there, a curious hobbit started exploring further until running into a corridor full of the Necromancer's minions - including a terrifying Morgul Stalker!



The frightened little hobbit slammed the door back shut and, with a couple of his hairfooted friends, desperately tried to hold it closed while the goblins screeched and pounded on the other side.

Meanwhile, another curious hobbit found himself face-to-face with a slavering warg! The plucky little fellow managed to stick the beast a few times but the other members of his fellowship could not save him from its snapping jaws. Poor little blighter.

Back on the other side of the dining hall, the goblins managed to smash down the door - just in time to be greeted by some grim Dwarves looking for a fight. The Morgul Stalker was unexpectedly tough but the Dwarves overcame him in round after round of furious mêlée.

Pushing on, the fellowship discovered a gruesome torture chamber. But everything was still and peaceful ... I suppose that only made sense considering we had slain six Moira Goblins, six Mordor Orcs, four Morannon Orcs, five Dead Marsh Specters, a Warg, and a Morgul Stalker in the first couple of rooms. Well, actually it was more than that as we had to recycle enemy models after a point ...

The surviving fellowship rummaged through the goblins' plunder, finding little of value. We really need better loot tables.

Charging through the only other doorway, our brave Men, Dwarves, and Hobbit beheld a terrible sight ...

A Cave Troll holding court over a horde of chattering Moria Goblins!

Strangely, this combat was a total breeze. I think we are going to need to make up original monster cards to better represent Lord of the Rings content rather than just using the ones available for Sellswords and Spellslingers via Wargame Vault.

It was getting late but we generated the next room and its occupants just to see what awaited. More Dead Marsh Specters, some Army of the Dead type guys, and a Barrow White. I wonder if it would have been as thrilling as the fight against the Morgul Stalker or a let down like the Cave Troll.

And here's an overview shot of the dungeon generated by the end of the session.



Demo AAR - Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes ... and Jungle!

I ran a demo game of Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes (hereinafter ASoBH) for my friend Doug this past weekend using some of his gorgeously painted models: Doug took on 3 Blightkings from Games Workshop's Age of Sigmar range against my six elves from GW's Hobbit range - four Mirkwood palace guards and two Mirkwood rangers. It was a fairly straightforward fight, this being a demo game.

now that's a clear cut situation with the promise of comedy - tell your friends!

Ancient trees gone rotten overnight, putrid carcasses of deer littering the seasonal trails, and the nauseating reek of decay hanging heavy amid leaf and branch ... something evil was defiling the forest - something a pack of Elven scouts had little trouble tracking down. The disease-ridden monstrosities made their lair in an old ruin. There were only three: one carrying a ponderous shield, another waving around a hoary axe in one bloated claw and a rusted sword in the other, and the third wielding an enormous scythe. The Elves choked back rage and contempt and prepared to close in ...

oh man look at those knife ears go

I won initiative and began by firing with my rangers in the woods at C on the map above while two teams of shield and spear moved up to B. Doug sent two of his Blightkings to flank the archers and the third, the dual-wielding figure, south to carve up one of the sword/shield teams. Because I gave the Blightkings the Lumbering trait, they couldn't "grab" the Elven rangers - who led them on a merry chase through most of the game. Meanwhile, the dual-wielder almost immediately cut down an Elf spearman. I moved the others in to support the surviving shield Elf, confident that Doug would keep after my rangers with his other two Blightkings.

The Blightkings all had Heavy Armor and Tough. Taking one down was an uphill battle even for three Elves. By the end of the first scrum it was also literally uphill:

new cocktail - pox on the rocks

I gave the Elves Q3 C3 and the Blightkings Q4 C4. We did not use the Leadership trait at all so Doug got a bit frustrated that his Blightkings gave up Initiative so ... willingly? (lazy bastards!) and seemed reluctant at best to take reactions. But they also had the Big trait, meaning I was only breaking even with them when I was fighting them three-to-one! And even when I had them knocked prone, their armor got them out of quite a few tight spots.

The dual-wielding Blightking eventually went down and I moved my surviving Elves up cautiously to intercept the next target. My plan had been to lure one of the remaining Blightkings to the center while "kiting" the other away with my rangers.

gonna need some freaking back up here!

But the rangers' long bows had proven so absurdly ineffective against Nurgle's favored layabouts that Doug was now content to pretty much ignore them. He also closed in with his shield-bearer, who I feared the most - Block combined with the other "survivability" traits I gave the Blightkings would make him the greatest challenge. My elves could not even manage to put a single wound on the scythe-wielder by the time the shield-bearer was in position. Things were looking grim indeed.

But then the clouds parted - I knocked the scythe-wielder prone with one Elf and then tripled Doug's combat roll with a power blow from another Elf! The scythe-wielder lost all of his three wounds in one mighty thwack (swish?) of flashing Elven steel!

get him out of my sight

Oh but wait - we had forgotten his Heavy Armor trait, which saved him from the Gruesome Kill I so desperately needed. Instead, the scythe-wielder simply took the first of three wounds ... truly, Papa Nurgle was pleased with his servants' earlier lethargy! Basking in the sordid favor of his patron, the shield-bearer proceeded to nonchalantly murder my remaining Elf spearman.

blessings of Nurgle upon you, friend

Not to be outdone, the scythe-wielder cranked back his Huge Weapon for a power blow and eviscerated one of the remaining Elven warriors in a hideous shower of gore.

the gruesome killee becomes the gruesome killer

The final warrior failed his Morale test on all three dice - seeing the tide turn so viciously seemed to have broken his mind. He is probably still hiding somewhere in the forest, rocking back and forth while sobbing.

By the way, the two Elven rangers were around the whole time, plinking arrows into the unassailable hides of the Blightkings. One failed her Morale test on two dice and fled off the board. The other only failed on a single die but I could not imagine going on against two of Nurgle's favored warriors with a single bow-toting knife ear and so resigned.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time during the week leading up to our game to draft a cool scenario or even think much about what traits the opposing sides should take. The only thing I knew I wanted to do was see Doug's awesome Blightkings on the table. I wrote up the traits in about ten minutes before we started, while Doug set up the terrain.

This was the first time either of us played ASoBH and I wish I had taken more time beforehand to plan the demo. I know Doug was bored - almost literally to tears at times - controlling three figures that had difficulty activating. From my perspective, there were some truly exciting turns. I thought the Blightkings easily overmatched my Elves but when ... for that brief shining moment ... the scythe-wielder (erroneously) went down, I had just a glimpse of potential victory.

The most important thing that I learned from the demo game was that ASoBH is a good enough rule set to partially overcome my hamfisted scenario-writing and character-building. This is crucial because one of the major features of ASoBH is crafting your own scenarios and characters. I imagine we will have even more fun when we play a scenario with actual thought behind it.

Doug's pledge rewards for the Blood & Plunder Kickstarter also arrived this week so I got to look over all of those awesome toys - in anticipation of receiving my own haul, of course! I was so inspired that I spent the following Sunday night building an entire jungle.

we've got fun and games

The foliage is all from Pegasus Hobbies. I bought a tall stack of these kits some years ago for the sake of playing - you guessed it - a pirate game, Gav Thorpe's Cutlass!, which I have to this day still never played. But at long last the jungle is unleashed! Look for it not only in upcoming games of Blood & Plunder but also future ASoBH scenarios set in the world of Savage Core from Lucid Games.

The bases are MDF from Angry Mojo. I asked them - via Dakka Dakka - to make up some area terrain bases with removable round bases. They complied and I immediately ordered six (and will probably require at least three more). Each base accommodates five 60mm round bases, which can be removed to mix and match your terrain or just to get out of the way of units moving through. I will post pics of the completed stands as/when.

Rogue Stars Overview

I was not excited for Rogue Stars until reading through a copy of Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes this past fall. Having purchased, digested, and ultimately disliked the revised edition of SBH back in 2014, I had pretty much written off Ganesha Games. But whereas Revised was a near miss, Advanced turned out to be a near hit - thanks to reactions. So I pre-ordered Rogue Stars hoping that Andrea Sfiligoi had continued along the design trajectory toward my preferences.

He did not disappoint!

oh man look at those space men go

By using a d20, Rogue Stars has plenty of room for modifiers and can afford to eschew stats altogether. Characters (i.e., models) are defined entirely by Traits. Each player has 200XP to create a Squad of 4-6 Characters and must spend 30-70XP on each. Squad creation begins with selecting a theme. What kind of Traits and equipment are available to your Squad at the outset depends on which theme you choose. Themes come into play elsewhere - for example, Pirates and Mercs get extra XP for looting treasure chests. Finally, each player chooses a Tactical Discipline for their Squad, a special rule that applies to all the members, such as being able to re-roll a morale test.

Expect Squad creation to take a while - Rogue Stars is chock full of Traits and all kinds of equipment. Themes help narrow your choices but there is still a lot to think about. Folks who prefer a WYSIWYG approach over hunting down the most competitive builds will find plenty of options for bringing to life whatever miniatures they use. I have no idea whether there are game-breaking combos in Rogue Stars and honestly don't care; I plan to use this game to tell stories rather than run tournaments. But I have no doubt that some mouse will find the cheese, given such a wealth of options.

There are three tables - mission, location, and complication - for rolling up scenarios. Each has twenty (!) options. Aside from just terrain and weather, there are also rules covering gravity and exotic atmosphere conditions. There is a whole table for determining the consequences of firing projectile weapons aboard spacecraft. And there's another table for randomizing what sort of wonders and perils you might face while exploring a derelict. There is plenty of support here for having all kinds of space adventures.

Once the Squads are assembled and the scenario is set up, players roll off for initiative. The winner is the active player. The active player attempts to activate her Characters one at a time by taking an activation test - rolling up to three d20s. For each roll that is 8 or above, after applying modifiers, the character may perform a single action. She may use any or all of her available actions but the Character gets a stress token for each action performed. Each stress token grants a -1 modifier to subsequent activation attempts.

The active player can attempt to activate any or all of her Characters as many times as she pleases. But the more dice she rolls, the more rolls she may fail. Each modified roll below 8 grants the non-active player a Reaction Die. The non-active player may used Reaction Dice to attempt to activate his Characters. If he succeeds, his Characters can act before the active player gets to perform any actions with the Character she is activating. So "reactions" are really more like interruptions. Just like with actions, Characters take a stress marker for every reaction they perform.

One very important type of reaction is making a Take the Initiative roll. The non-active player needs to roll a 16 or better, after modifiers. He becomes the active player if he succeeds but the newly non-active player removes all stress markers from her Characters. Losing the initiative is the only way to remove all of the stress tokens on all of your Characters. The active player does not have to wait for the non-active player to roll a successful Take the Initiative reaction; she can simply pass initiative whenever she chooses.

Everything in Rogue Stars is a d20 roll and that includes combat. The basic TN for a ranged or melee attack is 10 - but there are many, many potential modifiers, taking into account everything from cover to weapon quality to making called shots. (Yes you can go for the headshot, at a 30% penalty. And yes, headshots can be lethal.) If an attack is successful, the target determines hit location (unless it was a called shot) makes a damage roll. This roll is modified by the amount of damage the attack inflicted, whether the target is protected by armor, whether the target is already wounded, etc. The result may take the target out of action (OOA), or may result in pin and/or wound markers, or may require a roll on a further table that breaks out the wound by hit location and wound severity. That includes Character death!

Melee is a somewhat more complicated than ranged attacks. Being outnumbered, knocked prone, making Powerful Blows, and trying to disengage ... there are rules covering it all. But my prediction is, ranged attacks are sufficiently deadly to render melee rare absent boards truly covered in terrain. Then again, there is teleportation in Rogue Stars ...

As a final note, you don't get your money out of a d20 mechanic without critical failure and critical success. Rogue Stars covers both for all sorts of rolls, including Activation. There is even a critical failure result for firing a pistol in melee - you manage to shoot yourself in one of your legs, of course! That's an example of how gritty these rules get and no doubt there are lots of things to remember. Fortunately, Osprey has promised a QRS is on the way as one is not included in the book itself. Probably due to the constraints of the series, Rogue Stars also does not use the usual SBH  mechanic of set distances.

I am really looking forward to playing Rogue Stars in 2017! The older I get, the more I want to play low model count games with a heavy narrative ("RPG creep"?) and this ruleset seems perfect for that. I know some folks are already put off by the complexity but I don't think Rogue Stars really qualifies as complex. The structure of the game itself is as streamlined and intuitive as SBH. I know that is small comfort for gamers allergic to modifiers. If you're one of them, best to stay away. But Rogue Stars is a great bet for anyone looking for a simple game that is crunchy enough to really bring the character out of the minis.