TOOL TIME

With an opponent unfortunately having to postpone a gaming session and my painting mojo running low, I thought I'd make a quick post on some of the tools I make for my games. 

First off, an example of my fondness for peg-boards, are my 'What a Cowboy' (WaC) peg-boards as used in a recent game.

I like TooFatLardies rules, but have always found their record sheets liable to shed tokens; these are designed to be more portable and less prone to upset.  The body is two layers of foamboard lightly glued together with the design printed on adhesive sheets (A4 labels) and wrapped around the boards with a nice picture stuck on the back to hide the joins.  The holes are punched with an awl and the pegs taken from games of Mini-Mastermind purchased off eBay.  For anyone who plays WaC the use of these should, I hope, be obvious.  I still have yet to make name plates to be attached by two pegs in the 'Name:' section.

I also made some dice for WaC, to make it obvious what the Action Dice indicate; these are shown below with similar sets I'd already made for the 'What a Tanker' (WaT) rules.

Next, my umpire's map board for my 'Breaking of the Fellowship' game (see previous posts), complete with my random movement die: four sides are marked with arrows indicating 'straight ahead' and one each for 'turn left' and 'turn right'.

This was just made from two layers of fairly thick card glued together, although I would be tempted, if making this now, to use magnetic tiles as the cardboard ones are a fairly tight fit.  As you can see, the tiles, numbered 1-25 are randomised both as to placement and orientation.  The players in the game move around a grid with the numbers reading from left to right and all oriented in the same way, thus when they leave a square through a given side only the umpire can tell them which side of which square they enter.

Finally, and including some of most recent pieces made for the cancelled gaming session, are some bespoke movement, and ranging, sticks.

The grand-daddy of them all, at the top, complete with its bespoke die, is a roundshot bounce stick for Charles Grant's 'The War Game' rules.  The rest are made for the reduced scale I use in my much tweaked (butchered?) version of Brigadier Peter Young's 'Charge' rules.  For these I equate 1" to 2cm as the 'Charge' movement distances and artillery ranges are too generous for my sub-sized table (sub-sized that is compared to Charles Grant's 9'x7' table on which most of the games seem to have been played).

Old & New Games - Day 1 of 2

I've spent the last two days gaming with three friends who came round to my cabin for some miniature action.  

On the first day, three of us refought the Battle of Barnet Chit game, described in an earlier post (13-Oct).  This was followed by a quick gunfight using the Too Fat Lardies' (TFL) 'What a Cowboy' rules after which we set up for the following day's game and adjourned to the pub - Hic!

Battle of Barnet, 1471 - DBM

The Barnet game, using DBM rules modified to work on a hex grid, started with the Yorkists (nearest the camera), groping their way through the fog.

When they bumped into the Lancastrians, they found their right wing (Gloucester) was overlapped while their left wing (Hastings) returned the compliment to the Lancastrian right.  The photo below shows how Hastings' troops had gained a free pass to outflank the Oxford's command on the Lancastrian - indicated by the yellow arrows. 

Before the Lancastrian's could respond - courtesy of the randomised turn sequence - Edward IV's battle, which he led in person, slammed into Montague's command in the centre of the Lancastrian line and started to wreak havoc over several turns.  

 

Warwick, the Lancastrian commander, faced further setbacks as Gloucester, throwing some excellent dice, inflicted several unexpected losses on Exeter's command largely negating the Lancastrian advantage on that wing.  Warwick valiantly tried to shore up both wings by feeding forward troops from his reserve but was thwarted by a lack of PIPs and a capricious random turn sequence.  The inevitable sequel to all this was the collapse of both Lancastrian wings and the subsequent flight of the Nevilles in the centre.  So, this time the Yorkists managed reverse the result from the last time we played this game.  

A Fistful of Dice - What a Cowboy

After packing away the Barnet troops and terrain, we moved on to play our first game of What a Cowboy using some old Foundry figures and my nearly completed Wild West town.  Unfortunately, I don't have a decent mat to place on this so we made do with a sand-coloured length of cloth.

The scenario was based on 'A Fistful of Dollars' with two gangs trying to run the town while a mysterious stranger tries to play off both sides against each other.  As my first game with these rules, I got well and truly sucked into the game and forgot to take photos.  The game started well for my gang and our opposition was soon pretty much down and out and the 'Clint' character kept in check.  Unfortunately, Steve, playing Clint, made his move but was embarrassed by a steak of poor dice.  My mirth was short-lived when some bystanders (non-player characters) who the scenario allowed to back him up had no such problem and my gunmen came to a sad end...

Day 2 to follow later...