Original map and campaign from blog: Here

Assault to EXT9A-Complex. FiveCore AAR

  Nordic Weasel is a relatively new company, headed by Ivan Sorensen, who has publish a wide variety of ruleset that try to offer simple and easy games, to be played in no more than one hour.

 This time I would like to share this AAR that has a few time, but could be very interesting to show how FiveCore works.

 This ruleset, don't use stats for their troops, everybody impact with the same stat, a 1 or a 6 in a 1D6. How are the troops differenced? Normally by the use of different weapons or using or giving traits or  benefits to the characters.

 The original FiveCore rulebook started with no more than 30 pages... now the third edition has no less than 160 pages. So the game has become bigger, but no more complex, just more clear and expanded.

 "The mission was very simple, assault the building, and put the bomb to eliminate the laboratory.
The assault Universal troopers where teleported to the free area near to the complex, after a stealth introduction, they arrived the main floor, where the guards were trying to stop the assailants.
Assault Universal Troops


The Guardians advanced, patrolling looking for contact with the assailants...
The shooting begins

Smile to the photo ;)
First fled

 At the end, the combat finished with only two guardians alive that quit to the Universal Troopers"

 The game was good, very easy to remember who is going to move or attack, just a pair of markers and all is smooth! For the next battle, is necessary more scenery to cut the Line of Sight.

Using Jedis in Starport Scum

  Starport Scum is a wargame RPG-like very easy to learn and to play, with a  sandbox setting
that lets you play skirmishes from Star Wars to Blade Runner, through Fyrefly or Stargate.

 Because of the copyrights, the author couldn't publish rules for jedis, but here they are. I hope that they could be useful for the readers:

 First of all, these rules follow the magic rules for Dungeon Scum, so take a look on them.

The Force users had been a lot of time learning to control and use the Force, for that reason, they are not trained in the use of other weapons than the Lightsaber, neither armours.

The Force spells require significant concentration, so they can't move if they are using it.

The caster could no bear higher armour than Defence 2D6, that will be the Lightsaber used to deviate the attacks against him. If the shooter attacks him and get a FUMBLE in the shoot, we will consider that the jedi has deviated the shoot against the shooter with the lightsaber.

Stunned Force users could not cast spells.

· Force Ray: Range 12". Roll 4D attack. May be defended only with Armour dies.

· Mental Control: Range Contact. +1D to social dice roll [Based on Attract]

· Telekinesis: May move any visible object as far as 5".

· Feel variations in the Force: Negates Ambush, Surprise or Stealth kill bonus dice, when attacked himself.

· Trance: Range Contact. One character may heal a wound or recover from being down.

· Malacia: Range 4". One character within 4" of the Force user will result stunned on a 3+.

· Control Animals: Range 2". +1D to social dice roll just with animals. [Based on Attract]

 You can follow David Sorensen, the author, in his blog.

 By now, there is a very interesting offer for a Bundle of Starport Scum and Dungeon Scum in a pack for a reduced price. Take a look!

Legends of Araby and Maps fo Campaigns






4aD: Space Frontier

     After my review of Four Against Darkness, and discovering the big possibilities of the games to be used with another theme.. this is the AAR of the first test of a sci-fi version for 4aD, that I have called 4aD: Space Frontier. This is a freelance version of 4aD.

 The corporation Tyler-Fang Group has hired the services of 4 new mercs for a secret operation in the Third Sector, they have lost contact with the starship STS Knossos since the last two weeks, and it's necessary to go there and take a look and recover some info in the Space Transportation System.

  The troops are four chosen marines:
Severin Tannen: A soldier armed with the typical Flux rifle, with a light armour reinforced. Level 1 and 7 points of life.

Patrick Wachter: A physician armed with a Eclipse rifle with explosive bullets, with a light armour reinforced. Level 1 and 5 pints of life.

Ulrich Kapsner: Is the bull of the group, bearing a Salvation heavy weapon, called "Betsy", is in charge of cleaning the path... when the things get hard. Level 1 and 8 points of life.

Iris Strasburger: Is the rogue of the group, nobody knows too much about her, she is armed with a FT pistol, she is specialised hacking the computers and will be the one who could open the door if the system still works. Level 1 and 5 points of life.

 The mission begins...

 The spaceship Moonsight contacted with the STS Knossos, but they didn't receive answer, so they decided to enter into the hulk. When they entered in the Space Station Transport, all was look like  quiet...

 Three corridors advanced into the station, they decided to choose the one of the left, they opened the door, and suddenly a group of deformed humans, dressed in medical scrubs, plenty of blood and with rotting flesh that assaulted the newcomers... the group answered firing their weapons and killed them.

 After some identifications and research Patrick said that the death corps are from the physicians of the Level 3, where they were investigating about the substance found in a spacehulk found three month ago. They must found the substance and go out from there.

 The group advanced though the station slowly, walking very attentive to any noise in the corridors or in the rooms. They found some objects, that could be appreciated in the black market, so Iris decided to slide them into his bag.

 Some rooms later they arrived to one of the main laboratories, there Patrick walked to touch a central computer, but Severin cry to Patrick to stop him, his sixth sense advised him about something was wrong... Iris take a look on the computer... and there were a trap... she started to hack the computer till she get to eliminate the trap and get the info for the medic...

 Some hours of investigation later in the other side of the station, they found a immense creature, it look like an human but with the heigh of three meters, the group opened fire against the thing, but this time Ulrich had some difficult with his weapon that got hammed and received some wounds from the creature... at the end the creature died filling the room with its entrails...

  The physician healed Ulrich, after a resting moments, the group advanced through a corridor and at the end they hear some sound like moans and drags.. they decided to enter in to the room, some bodies of zombie crawlers where awaiting to the marines... fire and death... at the end the creatures died but in that moment the door of the other side of the room exploded and appeared a terrible creature...

 The fight was an epic battle, bullets, cries and blood... the creature's fangs and claws tried to impact into the marines, without success... at the end, the creature fell down, and died... Patrick took some samples and all of them decided to go out from the spacehulk... too much action for a day...

 They run away from the spacehulk, but when they were arriving to the entry a group of zombies appeared but Severin through a grenade eliminating the enemies... and them, they arrived to their Moonsight. 

The spacehulk generated was like this.

 To play this adventure I used the basic rules from 4aD, using a Warrior, Cleric (Physician), Barbarian (Heavy Weapon) and a Rogue. Nothing was changed except the terms and name of the creatures... the Fat zombie was a Giant Spider, the first minions encountered where zombies, the crawling zombies where rats and the Final Boss was a Mummy. The last one zombies where goblins, and al of them died in the first attack of the heroic group with attacks with a lot of six scored... for that I decided to explained the attack with a  grenade. 
 The levels has been maintained, only the names changed. The mechanism is very simple, so is very adaptable.

Four Against the Darkness, a review

The guys from Ganesha games have released a new solitaire dungeon-delving game, it is named Four Against Darkness, it is a pen-and-paper game where you can choose between eight classic character classes. The mechanisms are very simple, the characters only have three stats: Level, Attack and Defence. The Level bonus, in some cases, the attacks or save of the characters. The combats are solved rolling a dice and adding the bonus. In an attack the character have to get a score that must be over the Lvl of the enemy. If you hit this score, your enemy suffer a wound. With the attacks of the enemy you must hit his level adding your Defence bonus for avoiding receive a wound. And that's all.

 There is a plethora of tables for generating the dungeon, the encounters, the enemies, the rooms, the treasures, the spells.... a bunch of them that let you to play alone with a pair of papers and a pencil. In the encounters you can find Vermin, Minions or a Final Boss or Weird Monster. The Minions, Final Boss and Weird Monsters let you get a level up roll that let you improve your warrior.

 You can see a character that I used in my last adventure, in the character creation the player have all the control except for the initial money.

Slorm the Cleric
Level 1
Equipment: Light Armour, Shield, Weapon. You can exchange the shield and weapon with a Heavy Weapon (Two handed).
Trait: adds half of his level to his Attack rolls, and his full level when he attacks undead creatures. He may cast the Blessing spell up to three times per adventure.
Starting Money: 1d6 gold pieces.
Attack: +0
Crushing Weapon: +1 against skeletons.
Defence: +2= Light Armour (+1), shield (+1)

The map was generated rolling in the table, and it finished in this way. The rooms were generated as the characters entered in them.. so you never knew where were you going to go.

 During the exploration the group found a wide variety of creatures: invisible gremlins, goblin swarmlings, fungi warriors, orcs, vampire frogs, a medusa, a giant spider and a small dragon. The enemies are from several backgrounds, but nothing force you to use them like appear in the text. You can change the names and modify their appearance... the fungy warriors could be a group of orcs with poisoned weapons, the small dragon could be a Troll with a vomit attack instead the fire attack, and things like these. The stats are very suitable for representing other creatures....

 After each combat, or when you find a treasure by search in a empty room, you can roll in the treasure room, and get from a bunch of coins to a magic weapon, a magic scroll or things like these... all in a very old school way.

 This time I am not going to tell the adventure completely, but I will tell some events that happened during the crawl:
The Final Boss was a Medusa that petrified three of the four warband members... included the Cleric. The warrior survived so I decided that he could go to the town to buy a Blessing Scroll to revive the Cleric of the warband and them recover the other members. As there are no rules for this situation, I roll an Average D6 and I get a 3, so the warrior would have to travel through three forest section to arrive the Town and buy a Blessing Scroll
The forest between the dungeon and the Town is a very tight wood, so it worked as a dungeon, the trunks were so near one to others that they look like walls...
in his travel the warrior found a statue, but he was wounded and worried about his comrades so he ignored it and in the other section he fight against a Weird Giant Spider, at the end he won and get to the town.
When he came back to the room with his petrified friends, he blessed the Cleric, and them the Cleric blessed the other members... but as I considered that the situation required of some dramatic I roll in a table:
1-4 some member is not recovered
5-6 all the members recovered

and the elf was impossible to be recovered... At the end, they decided to go back home...

The game is very adaptable to be used as an outdoor dungeon, in a Mirkwood style... with the tight trunks creating walls, and the leafs working as doors... or in a Spacehulk way, creating the corridors with the same tables, just only changing the name of the creatures, and considering that the attacks are with shooting weapons... the mage converted into psionics... the clerics as medics... and heavy weapons and magic converted into high technology weapons...

PROS: Easy to play and to learn, RPG style, School, very adaptable, very few elements necessary to play (a pen, a paper, a pair of dices, a copy of the book), you don't need miniatures.

CONTRA: Maybe the combats could be to much simple because they are solved with only one roll of 1D6. The characters with high levels are possible to much powerful.... could be "burned" the encounter tables if you play it to many times in a short time, you don't need miniatures.

Highly recommended, get it here!

Guarding the Shop

As the old man asked for to Slorm and his bodyguards, they were watching the shop, the night was dark, so, they should be very cautious to the shadows.

 Jasen heard somebody approaching and go into the shadows, they were a patrol of watching in the patrol. Jasen greeting them, and come back to his position.

Cleovis and Slorm advanced to another sounds in the corner, and there they found a pair of grunts, with blackjacks, that started to run against the warriors when they bump with them.
 The combat was violent, Cleovis was wounded, but he continued fighting against the raiders, Jasen arrived from the other side of the square, and joined to the combat. At the end, two of the grunts were wiped out, and the last one was taken prisoner and escorted to the shop. 
 While the men were advancing, two more grunts appeared from a side, and Slorm and Cleovis charged against them. And combat them without a word, it was clear that Miloton is not a safe place...

When the last man fell down into the sand, two watchmen  arrives from the shadows brandishing their weapons menacingly, they asked to Slorm what was happening there, and Slorm explained them all about the assault, the watchmen were not to much happy about what they were listening, but at the end, a bag of gold, sealed their mouths.

Slorm and his men, entered in the shop, and the interrogation began.....

Reactions for solo gaming

  Somewhere in the net I found this tables, and yesterday I recovered it from my pc.
They are based in a dice rolled, checking the "Reaction Skill", this skill could be Reputation, Moral, Elan, Iniciative or whatever skill could consider the wargamer.

 I hope that it could be useful for the solo wargamers.

All epopee has a beginning...

The basis are been established, for now I have begun with the Jimland maps creator and the encounters from Warrior Heroes Legends and the things go in this way:

 Month 3, Year 22.

  Slorm decided to go to the nearby village of Miloton to visit his good friend Acastus Zenon, he chose as bodyguards to Cleovis and Jasen, two warriors at his father service that were born in the far Thace.

 After a travel of no more than five hours, the arrived Miloton, and when they were walking along the main street an old man surprised by the Slorm's showy armour call him to come closer for offering him a job. The man was in trouble, two of his guards were ill, and the last night his shop was assaulted, he could stop the raiders, but he have to go for two days out of the village to get the herbs for health the guards, and need of brave men for guarding his shop, after his return, he will pay them.

 As Slorm everytime is happy to get some extra coins and during the day he'll can visit his friend, he decided to accept the job.

Rebuilding my world

Hi all, normally I don't say here anything about my personal life, but I think that 6 months in a dry spell, requires of some explanation.
 The thing is easy: problems at home, divorce, move, new house, new life.

 And now the most important things, the new projects. With the move I discovered that I have too much lead, and too much projects unfinished, so, with the new house, I decided to stablished two main projects for work on them mainly, and them... to have little projects with a very few miniatures.

 The two chosen are

 - Mythical Greek, with a Medieval Fantasy flavour, I mean... to use Greek and mythical monters miniatures, to play but using wargames from the Medieval Mainstream Fantasy. So... there we'll can't find elves and dwarves... but sure fauns and minotaurs. The heroes will have to rescue distress damisel, but not from the claws of a group of dragon, but from a hydra. The fauns will be very dangeous foe in the forest... in a elf way... and the orcs will be degenerated humans...
 I have a big bunch of Xyston miniatures for developing this project, so I think that I will no have to buy much more lead. But I have bought a greek hoplites box for build a 28mm warband for ASBH or whatever wargame tha I could use.

 - Weird Seventeen Century, this century was one of the most important period in the Human's History, because of the wide variety of discoveries, inventions and advances in the sciences. This enlighted era, has a dark side, with the medical tests, failed inventions and the old fashioned legends that were maintained in the villagers minds... With this broth, I plan to wargame in an alternative world where the wolfmen assault the Parliament patrols, or the royalist have to expulse the witches that are preparing a sabbath. Solomon Kane in pure state. I have some miniatures from the Nine Years World, and some musketeers are in the track. I plan to continue using Jimland for the expeditions during this age.

 I plan to recover the Prehistorical campaign, and to remake the "American Hunger" campaing into a Seventeen Century campaing.

 I have my doubts about which rulesets I am going to use, because I have my beloved THW books, but am very tempted with Mythos or Dogs of Hades from Savaje Worlds and Hero of Hellas from Barbarins of Lemuria.

 Another possibility is to choose GASLIGHT with Jimland everything modificated to play a complete campaing where the map will be creating by the way the heroes will go exploring.

Stay tunned....