A rusty veteran and new arts of war?

Not so much 'rusty' as 'seized up'!

As I noted last month, my old buddy Mark's mayday visit was marked by his introduction to my current game of games: Combat Commander. This was going to mean more visits to Scenario 1. Fat Lipki, which I guess I've played more than any other because I've already introduced 3 players to the game (but scenarios 4. Closed For Renovation and 9. Rush to Contact are 2 alternative candidates for my single most played Combat Commander scenario). Just as well I still like the scenario then.

Following up the scenario's sitrep notes in my efforts more precisely to locate the action I was unable to locate the specific Lipki via google or wiki. I had to turn to my books for the map to the right. I also learned that the 18th Panzer Division was in Panzer Group Two's 47th Motorised Corps under Army Group Centre.

In the main map you can see the path of the bloody swathe the Second Panzer Group cut through Belorussia in those early days of Barbarossa, skirting the Pripet Marshes to their north on their way to the Stalin Line by the 9th of July. The inset map shows the lines at the end of 3rd July, the day of the scenario ('Vitebsk' is that blurry word in the German pocket near the top of the inset; on the main map, you can see Vitebsk just below the inset). The Bialystok pocket (right back at AGC's startline) was only finally reduced the day before Fat Lipki takes place; so it's easy to imagine the Germans covering their flanks while the Army Group's main body rushed, at marching speed, to catch up with its armoured spearheads.

The hard way?
I told Mark that the consensus was this scenario favoured the Russians, but he gamely agreed to random selection, so drawing the Germans for his first outing (although not necessarily in that order I must confess). We were able to get the action going quickly because Mark had wisely downloaded, printed and read the copy of the CC rules made available by GMT.

You can see our setups above. Mark's reveals that he didn't really know what he was doing- ie. how things would pan out in play, so he was angling his force towards what he could expect from mine; that is to say:

• His squads are set up in a simple symmetrical formation, with his most powerful units in the position from which they can most easily deploy in any and all directions.
• His junior leader is in a position from where he can lend assistance to the flank from which Mark rightly expected to face the strongest Russian attack.

I thought, at the time, that Mark's deployment lacked focus, but that's because I know the position from previous experience. For my part, I tried a variation: I put all my MG's on the right for added firepower. This turned out to be a poor plan; fortunately Mark didn't punish me for it.

The time 3 position (above right) shows what I mean about Mark's teething troubles: he's got Lt. von Karsties and his squad into their objective neatly enough, but the rest of the platoon are separated from their leaders. The time 4 position (left) shows that Mark was able quickly to bring Cpl. Winkler forward to take command; but that was time wasted while I was bringing my own troops forward. In particular, you can see that I was in the process of moving up to seize the orchard house when the time trigger came through (the fight on the western flank often goes to the player who's first to occupy this objective).

The map on the right shows the final position. Mark had launched what turned out to be a premature close combat on my left. I won an easy victory and then, IIRC, went stalking that other missing rifle squad. Where my missing squad on my right went I can't recall, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't off the map for exit VP. At this point, with me ahead on VP and poised to gain a heap of exit VP on my left, Mark retired.

The easy way?

Starting to get to grips with the game- as opposed just to the rules, Mark was keen to play again, naturally enough. We swapped sides. Our setups are on the left. My setup was more focussed than Mark's, concentrated as it was on the tasks at hand as my plan defined them:

• Take and hold the pond house to keep the Russian main force stuck in the woods.
• Make a fight for the orchard house.

Mark's setup was essentially a copy of mine from the first game, including the significant flaw, for which I did punish him. And that mistake? To leave the Soviet secondary force without an MG. Why a mistake? Because only an MG will have the range to OpFire at the Germans should they venture a sprint up the eastern board edge to try and seize the orchard house in a single bound. This is what I did, as can be seen above right.

This time 3 map also shows the outcome of a purely speculative move I tried, one which ultimately only worked because Mark's MG's all broke down as soon as they opened fire! I sent a squad west, through the fields. Mark countered with a Russian squad. Unfortunately for him, my pesky hero popped up, and promptly led my squad into a victorious close combat. Then I was able to work them down the edge in search of exit VP. A first for the Germans in our plays of this scenario, IIRC.

Faced with a grinning German goon across the table from him, Mark showed his renowned resolve and ingenuity. He started working his squads eastwards through the trees. I wasn't too worried at first, and exploited the opening to dash for more exit VP.

And so the position developed as you can see in the time 5 map, above left. As for those wayward rifle squads of mine? Well:

• The one in the SW would've been my first exited unit re-entering before Mark's manoeuvres had changed the situation.
• The one right down in the SE was placed and dug in with the time trigger at which we paused to record the position; ie. after Mark's manoeuvres had changed the situation.

The potential effectiveness of Mark's tactics can be seen in the map on the right, to wit:

• Objectives in play included:

1. K, #3= 3VP.
2. L, #4= 3VP.

• I stood to lose as many as 6 casualty VP in and around the orchard house.
• Mark had 2 exit VP to play for.

The sum total of all these would've been a 20VP swing, more than enough to overcome my 14VP victory margin. So, I won, but it was closer than it looked.

The evening's plan involved Mark and Badger playing CC, because I thought they'd both appreciate the opportunity to face new opponents (I know I do, when 'Uncle' Martin turns up). Knowing that Badger would be happy to let Mark choose whichever side he wished, for our final game of our first CC session, I suggested to Mark that he get in some practice. So he played the Germans again. I won, again; but it was even closer than the preceding game. In fact, the game teetered on a knife-edge at the end; and had just fallen my way when Badger made his appearance.

The right and proper way
Amiable as ever, Badger did indeed let Mark take the Germans out for another run after we'd had our dinner (another visit to the surprisingly tasty chickpeas with winter vegetables and saffron).

Tactical genius at play?

I'd decided that I couldn't be bothered taking notes, so I just kibbitzed, and rolled around in hysterics at some of the hijinks that went down in the 2 games the pair played. (I was just entering phase 1 hypomania, remember? And wasn't fully aware of it right at that moment.) The kibbitzing proved a valuable learning experience, teaching me that my natural instinct so to do would have to be controlled while I was acting as GM during CC@UK Expo'09.

My chatter's manic pace probably made it less helpful to Badger and Mark. In any event, Mark kept his cool, and treated Badger to 2 utter tankings perhaps unmatched in their clinical execution. The second game in particular saw Lt. von Karsties and his LMG squad dish out merciless execution on a huge scale as Badger decided to see what might happen if he sent his main force over the fence and through the fields. The results can be seen in the final position of that second game (above left).

And so Mark's first CC session came to an end. He'd served his apprenticeship with the game; proved his mettle; and more than lived up to his reputation as a master tactician. And he'd got a taste of the sheer delights of Chad Jensen's reimagining of Courtney F. Allen's groundbreaking design concepts. I think I can safely say that this had all proved satisfactory. Well, not quite all: he could've beaten me. ;)

Acknowledgements
Maps courtesy of:

• Natkiel, Richard,1982: Atlas of 20th Century Warfare; London, Bison Books.
• Bellamy, Chris, 2007: Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War; London, Pan MacMillan.

(Reproduced without permission.)

Combat Commander quickies

Fun in Stalingrad!

Badger was round on Friday. We played Combat Commander, naturally enough, choosing to embark on the campaign scenario from BP#2: Stalingrad. Representing a single September day's fighting atop the Mamayev Kurgan (Badger was pleased to discover that, Stalingrad campaign scenario notwithstanding, there are no city maps), the multigame campaign scenario uses the RSG with a few variants:

• A limited mapset across which to fight; this represents the ebbs and flows of the tactical situation as the battlelines move back and forth across the mountain.
• Predesignated force pools, with named leaders and their platoons replacing the OB's from the RSG.
• Extra rules for fortification resources; for units which survive one scenario becoming reinforcements in the next; and for spreading devestation - a personal favourite this, it adds an increasing amount of rubble to the map each scenario.

Badger got the Germans (curses!).

We played 2 games; Badger attacking in both. I won the first with a crushing victory; Badger the second, in a much closer run thing. The key to my victory was my willingness to abandon low value forward objectives in favour of exit VP (a feat I managed on each flank). The key to Badger's victory was a secret objective that gave him just enough VP to be able simply to sit back and hold, despite his attacking posture. I'd been wondering why he wasn't attacking, as we both knew he had to; and was berating my stupidity when the revelation of the secret objectives explained all!

The games were played using the RSG RAW, because we didn't want to run them as tests of any variant radio rules. Badger forgot his asset roll in the first game; and failed it in the second, when it might've made a difference (an open map, covered with fortifications and teeming with troops - it'd've been a bloodbath). Even so, I think that this campaign scenario might be grist to the mill of my argument about radios in the CC RSG.

Why? Because the situation represented in the campaign scenario is one in which the attacker and defender postures are local and momentary variations in the overall operational initiative. This I like, because it's authentic. I don't think it's authentic that either side should effectively gain or lose battery access because of these momentary variations. All that said, I can also see how the addition of the campaign scenario to CC might explode some of my objections.

Why? Essentially because the campaign scenario underlines the notion of using 'bidding for posture' as the mechanic which delivers the effect of applying for battery access. That is to say: you get a chance at immediate battery access if you commit yourself to an attack. This I like. I would be happier with it as a system if I hadn't read so much about the defensive use of artillery to break up enemy attacks.

Two years later, on the Western Front

I wrote last month that Badger and I were going to try out some variant RSG radio rules when we played CC that mayday weekend. We did, although we had time for just one game after Mark had left.

Our game took us to 1944, where my German elite rifle company faced off against Badger's detachment of American paratroopers. Bemoaning his paucity of support weapons- the lack of MG's in particular, Badger decided to exercise the variant RSG rules, and took the 81mm radio his support roll offered him.

Faced with this, and with Badger's setup, I pondered quite long and hard my decision about whether or not to make an asset request. I decided not to bother in the end, reasoning that I preferred to keep the extra time I'd been given by Badger's purchase of a radio.

With hindsight, I still think that was a sensible decision. It's just a shame that it was pretty much my last. I mean to say: there I was facing US paras, dug-in in woods, and with an open flank just inviting an envelopment (see setup map, above right). So why, oh why did I decide just to go toe to toe in a firefight in those woods? I'm sure my overwhelming firepower had something to do with it. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten just how intimidating the American assault fire can be when you're trying to get into close combat.

In any event, despite quickly seizing the building on my right, I got bogged down a firefight in the woods. Meanwhile Badger's paras proved exactly as stubborn in defence as you'd expect; on top of which Badger played an exemplary withdrawal (the results of which can be seen left).

The game was fun and full of incident (I lost count of the number of times Badger picked up 4VP because of that damn Command And Control event!). It struck me at the time that it's worth bearing in mind that elite forces are likely to be very active, so that games featuring them are likely to be more eventful than average. Badger won a convincing victory, while I bemoaned the sheer stupidity of my plan.

And as for the variant RSG? I think the new rules were OK. I didn't feel overpowered by Badger's artillery, although that's as much situational as anything else, so is hardly germane. More important IMO: that extra time period? Not only was it something I gained from Badger's decision to purchase a radio; but it was also something important enough to influence my own decision on the matter. I was pleased. More on this soon, I hope. ;)

Another bloody Sunday?

From the skies and the forests they came!
It was just Donald and me for games on Sunday, so we decided to begin our first campaign from DoW's Memoir '44 Campaign Book, Volume 1, which this M44 completist had treated himself to with the hoary old "it's my birthday" excuse.

The quick play and simple unit representations make M44 an ideal game for a system linking a series of scenarios into a campaign, and M44:CB1 was eagerly awaited by the game's many fans. After just 2 games it is impossible to have a sense of the full scope of what the DoW team have added to M44 with CB1, but I can report that I like the look of what I have seen so far (surprised, dear readers?):

• A nice hardback book, with full colour art throughout: it's expensive to go hardback, but the book's more durable, and I think kids'd be extra proud of one.
• A punchboard of counters stuck in the back of the book (keeping these in good nick is another good reason for a hardback book).
• 51 new scenarios, many drawing on underused expansion sets.
• 3 grand campaigns; each comprising several mini-campaigns, themselves played out across 3 or more scenarios (as many as 8 in the really big ones):

1. Unternehmen Fall Gelb: France 1940.
2. Operation Barbarossa: Soviet Union 1941.
3. Normandy: France 1944.

The core campaign rules themselves are simple but effective:

• Reserves: each player has a reserve pool; reserve rolls at the start of each scenario govern access to your reserve units.
• Objective VP: many scenarios contain various objectives other than just destruction of the enemy; these provide bonus Campaign VP as well as victory medals in the given scenarios.
• Victory events: dice rolls made before each new scenario begins, these provide another layer of variation by enforcing small changes to each side's deployments.

All told, these rules will add a few minutes to each scenario's setup time, which I would expect to see become increasingly insignificant as players gain experience of the campaign game.

Unternehmen Fall Gelb: Airborne Operation
#16. Fort Eben Amaël
Starting at the beginning, as you do, and with some random selection, I found myself the Belgian defenders of fortress Eben Amaël on the Meuse near Maastricht, under attack from German glider-borne combat engineers. The original action there was one of WW2's first and most famous coup de main operations.

Historical revisionism took root right at the start of our new campaign: the Belgians held the fort against the German attack so that the panzers were unable to cross the Meuse as quickly as had been planned. There was a minor rules hitch which might've contributed to my 5-4 victory, but I reckon more significant was the excellent shooting of my units, which was some 1 pip above the mean on the day as a whole.

#17. Unternehmen Niwi
Another interesting scenario showcasing the new depths brought to this old favourite with the expansions, Unternehmen Niwi features the operation in which the Germans used Fieseler Fi 156 Storch light utility aircraft to seize crossroads vital to the planned panzer 'infiltration' through the Ardennes. Among the new rules in play were:

• Depleted units: units starting at less than full strength.
• Armour Breakthrough: armour reinforcements which can enter on your opponent's side of the map.

History was again rewritten, despite Donald's canny use of an Armoured Assault card to mobilise his Armour Breakthrough. I had kept my own armour units safe, ready, and waiting, and so was able to mount a decisive armoured counterstrike which won me the game.

So, with 2 scenarios to go, the Unternehmen Fall Gelb: Airborne Operation minicampaign stands at 10-7 to the Allies. All to play for then!

Score
Grizzled veteran 0
Stubborn defenders 2
:-)

Attack Sub
I've recorded a game or two of Courtney F. Allen's Attack Sub with Andy in the past, but none with Donald. We'd played it several times before, although sufficiently long ago that we decided to stick to the introductory scenario.

I drew the Russians. The game started well for me, as I was able to build up contact sufficient to take the first shot (IIRC), which missed. All told I think Donald and I each fired 3 times; mine all missed; 2 of Donald's were the 1-shot kills that won him the game. I will have my revenge.

Score
Old seadog 1
Not quite got his sealegs 0
:-\

PS. I don't know why the scans for the M44 maps turned out so scabby. I'll look into it. ;)

A Sunday sessions roundup

So, I've got 3 sessions' worth of games unreported. The Combat Commander games played with Mark and Badger are going to have to wait a bit. Meanwhile, I'll do a quick run through our last 2 Sunday sessions.

#1. Triumphs: complete, petty, or otherwise
Ivanhoe
Elsewhere on Saturday after showing what he's made of across the Combat Commander table, Mark was able to join us Sunday. I was keen to play Judge Dredd, so that I could return to my rightful place in the Chief Judge's chair, there mercilessly to lord it over Mark as befits ancient rivalries we share with our old Edinburgh mob.

Gav's impending late arrival meant that we had to turn to filler, so that Knizia's old favourite Ivanhoe appeared on the table as if by a law of nature. We fitted in 3 games while waiting for Gav. Andy particularly enjoyed the first: he won, which is rare. The next 2 games went to me.

Score
Andy 1
Donald 0
Mark 0
Me 2 (that's the "complete"...)
:-)

Fluxx
The overweening arrogance with which brave Sir John had displayed his prowess on the field of valour must've left a bitter taste in the mouths of his defeated rivals (or were they just sore losers, after all the thwackage that'd been dished out?); because there was no appetite for a 4th game of Ivanhoe. Fluxx, Looney Labs' cardgame of ever-changing rules it was then.

The game was its familiar self, with added confusion (prompted, in large part, by the impact of Stage 1 Hypomania on the short-term memory, attention span and concentration of yours truly). Mark won with milk and cookies while I was answering the door to Gav and our surprise guest, Antony.

Score
A master of cardplay 1
The pack 0
:-\

Judge Dredd
And so it was that we were 6 for our game of Judge Dredd. IIRC, that was first time I've played this game with the full complement of players - and all the added finkery that represents, since the 1980's. That, and ancient rivalries to boot? Hud me back, as we say!

I cannot right now think of anything to add to what I said about Judge Dredd back at the end of April so, without further ado, the judges taking to Megacity 1's streets of duty and corridors of power that Sunday were:

• Judge Mac: who else?
• Judge Drew: Mark.
• Judge Ment: Donald.
• Judge Jules: Gav.
• Judge Magenta: Andy (chosen for the colour of his playing piece; a name that Andy patently felt unhappy with).
• Just another rookie: Antony.

I had 2 goals in this game:

• Win.
• Else: keep Mark from winning (and that's the "petty"!).

In the end I was only able to succeed in #2, seeing Mark pushed to 3rd place, to wit:

1. Judge Jules: 44VP.
2. That nameless rookie: 35VP.
3. Mark: 33VP.

I was down in 5th place; on 25VP, a sliver behind Judge Ment's 26. You can be sure that Mark savoured his schadenfreude at least as much as I did my own!

Score
"Chief Judge Who?!" 1
Getting on with the job 0
;-/

Totals
Andy 1
Antony 0
Donald 0
Gav 2
Mark 1
Me 2
:-[]

NB. For those keeping track, Gav's score includes a game of Ivanhoe played while I was finishing the dinner. :-)

#2. Honours all round
So, to try and get this done and dusted: Dave and Donald made us 3 last weekend. Frazzled as I still was; and after fraught scenes the previous week as my condition had its impact on hi-octane 6-player finkage with newbs and novices everywhere; we opted to begin with some nice relaxing Settlers.

Settlers of Catan
Dave played an absolute blinder in our first game:

• Building the first city.
• Building 3 roads and a settlement to regain the Longest Road.
• Regaining the Longest Road again, and playing 2VP for the win: a record-breaking 1-turn 4VP dash to victory!

The second game gave us an odd board, with 2 brick regions on 2 and 12, plus 5 out of a total of 6 sheep regions in 1 giant block. Donald took this game with a quick dash thanks to the Longest Road (that 2VP leap again).

Chaos Marauders
Another vintage game from GW's halcyon days (1987 in this case), Chaos Marauders is "the manic game of Orcish mayhem". We played this quite a lot in Edinburgh's dog days, and I remember it fondly. So I was pleased to get my second hand copy out for the first time in quite a few years.

As ever with GW from this period, the production standards are top notch: the 112 full-colour patience-sized (ie. half the size of a poker deck) cards just have to be seen to be believed; being rich in detail, colour and sheer character. As ever, the gameplay is logical, and a lot simpler than the rules make it out to be. More than that, for all its beer'n'pretzel comedy value, Chaos Marauders is a surprisingly good introduction to the grim world of perilous adventure and mighty armies that is the Warhammer Old World.

More I have not time to add in this brief report. Except, naturally enough, to note that Donald won a crushing victory:

1. Donald: 1320VP
2. Me: 340VP
3. Dave: 170VP

Ivanhoe
Well, well, well: we ended up with 3 visits to the tournament field. Dave won 1; me 2.

Score
Promising rookie 2
Grizzled veteran 2
Frazzled goon 2
;)

Oooh! Shiny! (AKA floating like a butterfly)

It seems like an age since last I posted, but it was actually only last Tuesday. Stage 1 is ongoing. I take comfort from the fact that I seem to be levelling out, but am only too well aware of how easily this might change. I've done some proper shopping and cooking this week, which is about all that's gone to plan. I'm just a bit frazzled.

CC@UK Games Expo'09
I've made some decent progress in my preparations for this tournament, but less than I'd've wished. Still, with a tad less than 3 weeks to the due departure date, I remain confident that I'll manage to do all I'm planning for the event.

Meanwhile, look at the lovely piece of kit I was able to pick up the other day at the local Ryman stationers (formerly known as Stationery Box): my very own LOS checker! (AKA: Retractable chrome badge reel.) Dirt cheap at £1.99. So you where to go fellow CC fans.

#Grins#

A gem of a game
Facebook continues to rule my life in a way I haven't experienced since I first got involved in the online miniatures' gaming scene back in 2000; on sites such as the late, lamented Warp (which appears to have been reincarnated as TheWarp.net), or the Bolter and Chainsword, which goes from strength to strength.

Hanging out with friends old and new; liking and commenting on their posts; doing the silly wee quizzes - it's all good. And I recently recently added Bejewelled Blitz to Mafia Wars in the list of fB games over which I obsess. I had seen the BBlitz achievement medals of a few of my fB friends already, but for some reason had thought that it was a quiz (no, really!). I took a proper look when I noticed a new friend plays it. I was hooked after one game.

The gameplay in BBlitz is very simple:

• Swap orthogonally adjacent gems to create lines of 3, 4 or 5 of the same colour (there are 7 colours).
• Lines so created are scoring lines, which disappear so that every gem above them drops down to fill the vacant spaces, while the missing gems are replaced by random gems dropping in from the top of the screen.
• Lines of 4 or 5 create special power-ups, gems whose special effects can give you lots of extra points.

And that's pretty much it. The influence of the legendary games Connect 4 and Tetris strike me as sufficiently obvious as to need no elaboration.

Of course, there's more to it than that once you start playing. First I reckon is the cascade, when the removal of one line sets off a chain reaction of new lines as gem after gem drops into a new position. This is a lot of fun, and looks and sounds great at the same time.

Once I'd become aware of these possibilites I began to realise that there is a layer of strategy in BBlitz bound up with moving gems across the board. This looks to be all about making the right decision when faced with a choice of which line to create for scoring purposes. The most typical example of this faced by us BBlitz newbs is: vertical or horizontal? I've often seen myself choose one only to rue the situation developed by my move because I realised that I could've developed a better position if I'd gone the other way.

Which leads us to what I believe to be the unique features of BBlitz@fB:

• The 1-minute game.
• The tournament.

This is just a race to get a weekly high score in short, 1-level games. This game has a harsh learning curve (my max. score is still only some 50k; as against more than 150k at the top of my board; I can only imagine how to play that in just 60 seconds!), but I like the challenge structure.

Compared to the fB implentation, the full game has lots to recommend it:

• Full screen play.
• Open-ended multi-level play.
• Four styles of play.
• A richer presentation, including gems which move into place with a satisfying 'thunk'.

All of this is very nice, but it doesn't give you the real competition against friends the fB implementation offers, which is why I suspect that I'll still be playing the fB version regularly and often. Too often, no doubt. ;)

Adjusting the throttle

Bloody hell! No sooner had I survived the mayday gaming bash with Mark, Badger and the lads, than I found myself snapping awake and bouncing out of bed in the instant; a sure sign of my Stage 1 Hypomania. Oh dear, I thought, and I'd just got used to the unanticipated mood downswing.

Faced with this wakeup call, and after a frazzled week at the end of which I was pretty weary, I've decided that RD/KA! will be taking 2nd place in my gaming priorities until June. Or, to be more precise: Mark's, Badger's and my mayday weekend's games of Combat Commander and Up Front will be the last full-length game report I post before I return from CC@UK Games Expo'09.

CC@UK Games Expo'09
The event now has 4 players booked (myself excluded), plus 6 CC sets available. This means that we can already accomodate up to 12 players. Such a turnout would push the event up to the limits of this year's space, which would just prove my point about the demand for a WW2 tacsim tournament circuit in Britain. Fingers crossed I guess.

Meanwhile, I've made a start on the task of clipping, bagging, tagging and inventorying all the games I'm taking with me (CC aside, I'm taking my Memoir'44 and my Commands & Colours: Ancients to lend to Barry Ingram for his main-event tournaments (Saturday and Sunday, respectively). Hardly a thrill a minute (task and entry both), I'm going to get the latter done so's I can make headway on getting the former dusted. I've got two Sundays' games results to post, which I should get done before the week is out. ;)

Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

I'm so busy with things right now that I've got no idea exactly what I'll do, and how quickly I'll progress, but I have an idea where to start, which is right back at the beginning. So, I should finish rebasing old Terminator Franken. There he is:

Franken Lar
Founding Chapter Master of Chapter Astartes Penumbra's Talons
"Remember each leaf, and every blade of grass. Make them your friends before your foe makes them your enemies."

Then I think I'll try my hand at redoing him, with the newer parts available since he was my first Golden Demon also-ran back in 1999 or 2000 (I can't quite recall). My green stuff skills have improved since I did this piece, and the new plastic terminators should be a delight to work with.

I've also got a present I promised to do for a friend, so many years ago now it's embarrassing! So I'll get to work on part of that alongside redoing the old greenie.

Sweat the small things?
I wrote, on April Fools' Day funnily enough, about the fun I was having playing Zynga's point-and-click strategy/roleplay Mafia Wars @fB. I said at the time that I wasn't really sure why this game, above all the many others I tried thanks to the many invites passed on by fB friends, had taken hold of my imagination.

Those reasons I can now sum up in a short list:

• XP ("we cry!"), levelling up and customised character improvement (never get old those!).
• Exploration: the world of Mafia Wars (your turf) just gets bigger as you get further into it.
• Working with fB friends who're in your mafia - a fun way to hang out on the net.
• Fights, robberies and the hitlist; it's weird just going out to do the dirty on strangers, but fun in this virtual environment; I try not to overdo it.
• Strategising: how can I do this; where does that come from; how do I work my resources more efficiently, etc, etc.
• Setting and achieving goals.

This last is the one I was prompted to write about after an fB-friend and twitter-fellow gave me the impression that I was doing quite well to be a level 72 mogul banking his 2nd $billion so quickly. This flattered me into thinking that I might be able to offer some strategy tips. Here they are:

• Bank your cash: I know you lose an extra 10%, but money in the bank seems to be more secure, even if you can still be robbed with no cash in pocket.
• Invest in lots of land and cheap properties: it takes longer to build up your income initially, but:

1. These properties are easy to buy in large amounts, ie. the hundreds.
2. They won't get robbed so often: some can't be; and I know I always look for the shiny big casinos first when I go out to grab some much-needed readies.

• Buy everything in 10's as soon as you can: it's just much simpler to work that way.
• Buy big when the money's big:

1. Don't fiddle around trying to save piddling amounts by buying then developing to avoid the rising land prices, just buy as much land as you can afford so that you've got sites lying waiting to be built on.
2. Buying land or developing, buy/build as many as possible of the most expensive properties you can afford, then ditto for the cheaper property next down the list, and so on.

• Don't sweat petty attacks and robberies:

1. They're part of the game.
2. You'll get help if you need it because fB is friendly that way it seems.
3. Hitlist the ones who whack you though.

I have no real way of measuring my achievement with those all-too-unreal $billions, and I don't pretend this list is exhaustive. I just hope some readers find these tips useful.

Just plain sweat
UK Games Expo'09 looms on the horizon, and I've got a lot of stuff to get done:

• Get my CC:P ready.
• Prepare inventories for the games I'll be taking down to loan.
• Post, mail, and message to publicise the event more.
• Relax so that I don't end up heading south in a tizz!

Wish me luck dear readers! ;)

PS. 09:45 - Account Balance: $1,002,359,126! :-)

Related@RD/KA!
- My life in the mob

A definite hankering...

It's been a long time since I did any roleplaying, and longer still since I've GM'ed. There are various reasons for this, but they all boil down to two in the end: dissatisfaction and weariness.

My WFRP campaign ran for about 30 sessions over a period of some 16 months, ie. roughly every other week on average. I wasn't a seasoned GM, and I'm not really the seat of the pants type either, which meant that I put a lot of work into those games, not including the write ups here at RD/KA! (Keynote was a godsend!). In the end it was all too much for me. I was worn out.

What was more, I wasn't getting the satisfaction I wanted from the game. As I explained to the lads one night while we were eating dinner before a game with Bill: playing boardgames with Badger is a simple matter of opening the box and off we go; a 100% successful recipie for enjoyment, which couldn't be said of the roleplaying, even when it was going well; which wasn't all the time, naturally enough. This was my motivation to turn the Sunday sessions into a regular boardgaming bash.

Even when Bill became the GM, the group dynamic changed because the midweek date ultimately reduced us to just 2 PCs: Tony and me. I think this just wasn't enough to give the games real momentum. Quite why the 3 of us failed to reach critical mass escapes me, although I do know of some contributory factors. I now believe that primary among them was Katana.

Readers who've known me since bygone days might be shocked by that admission, since they'll be all too aware that Katana is one of my all-time favourite PC's, so close to my heart that I coined the phrase 'primary projection' to express what he meant to me. That is to say: he was a creative expression of some of the deepest wellsprings of my subconscious strivings. Well known primary projections include Conan and Philip Marlowe.

At first sight you'd think that I'd've been delighted to return to a PC like that; in the hands of the GM who presided over his creation and the first phase of his adventures; and with the player - Tony, natch - who, as GM, gave Katana the second phase of his adventures, when we first roleplayed together back in the late 1990's. And I was. It's a nice experience to pick up an old PC and 'put him on' like you would a well worn coat. And that blog I wrote upon his return weighed heavily in the balance which eventually tipped in favour of my acceptance that rpg's are art.

Even so, with the benefit of hindsight after the roleplaying had unravelled, Bill mused that going back to Katana might've been a futile attempt to relive old glories. He was right, of course. Precisely because Katana is that primary projection, he is too deeply embedded in pasts that can't be revisited. Sure Bill and I could do Katana easily and well, but it was, as Bill said about Frank Miller's Sin City, a five-finger exercise.

Worse still, with the benefit of lengthy reflection on Bill's offhand remark, I have come to the conclusion that not only was Katana too easy to play for the pair of us; he was also an unfair obstacle we unwittingly threw in Tony's path. I mean to say, teaming up Tony's Witchblade with Katana effectively reduced her to a guest star in Katana's continuity, instead of being a co-star in her own. This is OK for one-offs or short mini-campaigns based on player transience, but not if you want a proper ongoing series. Each and every player should enjoy equal billing after all.

All of this is by way of looking back at some of the mistakes made in past roleplaying in the hopes of avoiding them in the future because, yes, we're talking about doing some roleplaying. In the end Donald's wish to roleplay again was just too keen to ignore.

I'd already suggested to Donald that he try the HERO system, and was pleased he was agreeable. On that basis, Donald is talking about a couple of ideas. It's likely that we'll begin with his first: an outlaw mini-campaign using Iron Crown Enterprise's highly esteemed 1987 Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign. I am already looking forward to this. I'm thinking of a character who is a master of the quarterstaff. Whatever complaints people might have about HERO, it cannot be gainsaid that its skills list and combat system renders weapon mastery in rich detail, and with mechanics that reward real tactics and actual practice as opposed to just dishing out stat upgrades.

For my part, I have two ideas for mini-campaigns of my own. One is HERO too: a return to my take on TSR's 1993 Bughunters. One of two books I've got from the late, unlamented Amazing Engine system, I liked Bughunters' concept: clone troopers in space fighting the bugs? What's not to like? I immediately realised though that I would run this game with HERO instead of the dumbass TSR AE.

I ran this with Tony and other friends back in the late 1990's. I've still got all the material I worked up for the game and the setting (a piece of background work was posted to the Trollslayer forums a few years ago). It just needs to be updated, and I'd be ready to run it again. This is something I'd like to do, because I liked the kinds of stories I was aiming at in the setting; and I had a few surprises in store for my shell-shocked players. Unfortunately we moved on to other games, and never went back to my Bughunter.

My other idea is to go back to WFRP, naturally enough. I'd like to run a more hi-octane game in a classic D&D style, albeit with a bit more than just dungeon bashing; a game in which I'd unleash without let or hindrance the full power of the game's hideous antagonists and its deadly combat system. Of course, I plan on making the potential rewards commensurate with the risk.

We still don't know quite how, when and with whom our return to roleplaying is going to pan out, but we'll be getting something going for sure. Expect to hear more. ;)