Lord Of The Rings SBG: Gandalf Miniature Poses

How many poses do you need for Gandalf the Gray, for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game? Apparently, at least four. I think I have several more poses of Gandalf, but I painted all of these miniatures at the same time, to speed up the painting process.

Gandalf the White, on horseback, is in the back row. A buddy of mine painted that for me as a gift. I think I have at least two other Gandalf the White poses that I have not yet painted.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

We've been remarkably lucky: No snow for over three weeks. However, we got snow yesterday afternoon, between 2 and 6 pm. Combined with a temperature around the freezing mark, this resulted in pandemonium on Calgary streets. It took me 3 hours and 10 minutes to get home from work last night, where it usually takes me only 25 minutes. Along the way, I passed innumerable cars, stuck on ice, or in accidents, plus at least one city bus/school bus crash-up, attended by several ambulances, tow trucks and other emergency vehicles. There were apparently over 100 city buses stuck on hills. Time to hunker down for the weekend, and not go too far from home!

What Happened In Vegas...

Sadly, not as much as you'd think.

Here's a picture of Vegas, looking towards the Mandalay Bay Hotel (at the end of the Las Vegas strip, on the right) where I stayed.

More on my trip to Vegas shortly.

What Happens In Vegas...

I'm currently in Las Vegas (work-related). Anybody know of a good RPG hobby shop in Vegas?

The Sentry Box

I have been frequenting The Sentry Box since it first opened, 30 years ago.

I'm sure Gord, the owner, has no memory of me from that time, but I remember my regular visits to The Sentry Box as moments of sheer bliss.

At the time, The Sentry Box was located at the Corner of Crowchild Trail and Kensington Road, in a little hole in the wall on the north side of the building now occupied by Canada Mortgage Direct.

That tiny space was crammed full of role-playing, wargaming, and miniatures goodness. I can recall spending far too much time there (and i'm sure at the time, in Gord's eyes, far too little money) looking at all of the gaming stuff. As it was at the bottom of the hill from where I lived, in Capitol Hill, and the buses sometimes only ran on the hour, I did a lot of walking to and from his store.

The Sentry Box has moved twice since he first opened his shop. The first time, to a larger location just off Crowchild Trail and 33 Avenue SW, in Marda Loop. I think his old space in Marda Loop is now filled with an "Original Joes" Restaurant and Bar. The second move was to the current location, under the Crowchild Bridge near the Bow River. Interesting that his locations have always been close to Crowchild Trail!

Now, as then, it's one of my favorite places to visit, as I still tend to find something that piques my interest, and I leave with my wallet just a little lighter.

Dungeon Scenery

I am intensely jealous of those of you who have the pre-painted Dwarven Forge or Thomarillion dungeon and outdoor scenery. As someone who came late to the miniature battles hobby (the last couple of years), I had never felt any need nor desire to buy dungeon scenery: in the 70's and 80's, all of our D&D games were either miniature-less, or we used miniatures simply as placeholders, to show our position in marching order.

It was rare that we actually worried about tactical placement in combat. It was standard operating procedure to inform the DM that we were positioning ourselves in combat in a way to ensure the casters were protected from melee.

After playing my first miniature battle game, I began to appreciate the appeal of this form of gaming, and how it ultimately begat the role-playing form. RPG's will always be my favorite form of gaming, but miniatures battles have their own appeal. While similar to chit and hex boardgames (Squad Leader being among the closest in form) miniature battles give you complete freedom of movement, in 360 degrees. And directing whole hosts of combatants, rather than your character alone, creates tactical options that you might never otherwise consider.

Having come to enjoy miniature battles, I naturally began thinking about creating my own "sandbox", not with actual sand, of course, but a table upon which to play miniature battles. While the sandbox project remains unfinished, I did come across the Hirst Arts website, which has molds from which you can create your own plaster-cast dungeon and outdoor scenery.

I purchased several of the molds. Now, one of my ongoing projects is trying to create my own dungeon tiles, from which I can build dungeons. I have been building several 10'x10' sections, that can be put together in a myriad number of ways (the picture above is nine 10'x10' sections that make a 30x30 room, with two doors). As you can see, I have not yet painted the tiles.

I invested a not-inconsequential sum of cash in the Hirst Arts molds. They were well worth it, but sometimes I wish I had made it easier on myself by going the pre-painted route!

Legends of the Ancient World: Wolves On The Rhine

Several weeks ago, I reviewed Legends of the Ancient World: The Dark Vale. My review can be found here. I had several positive things to say about that adventure.

For those who may have missed my earlier posts, I should explain that Legends of the Ancient World is a retro-clone of The Fantasy Trip, comprising the two old Metagaming microgames, Melee and Wizard, with a little "In The Labyrinth" thrown in for good measure. My fondness for that old "rules-light" game system makes me want to champion Dark City Games, the retro-clone system's publisher, so they will continue releasing more of their pre-programmed micro adventures.

I purchased another Dark City Games adventure, Wolves On The Rhine, at the same time I purchased The Dark Vale. While The Dark Vale is a traditional fantasy adventure, Wolves on the Rhine is billed as historical fiction. Wolves on the Rhine was published in 2007: DCG has published at least four new adventures since then.

Wolves on the Rhine is set in the late Roman Imperial period. For those who are running a campaign based on an imperial setting, this adventure may be of interest: it has an Appendix, providing a system for generating realistic Roman names, and many of the encounters have a strong historical feel to them. The adventure itself is railroady: you are a small band of Roman Legionnaires, assigned the task of uncovering the motivation behind several "barbarian" attacks on remote imperial outposts. The encounters in this adventure lead you to macguffins, death, or clues to the true causes of the recent attacks.

I noted, in my earlier review of The Dark Vale, that most pre-published adventures are railroady. While I have resigned myself to that fact, and it may therefore be a tad unfair to criticize this adventure for that common malady, I found this adventure to be annoyingly railroady. I certainly like the idea of the adventure. Several of the encounters have a very authentic feel. However, many of the encounters in Wolves on the Rhine feature events where the players have no control over the outcome, regardless of their actions, and where the npcs serve only as sources of information to spur the players on to the next pre-determined encounter.

As a convenient Roman name, term, and armament reference, or as a skeleton upon which to build your own imperial adventure, Wolves on the Rhine will ably serve. Running the adventure, as is, will be acceptable with those Players that enjoy being along for the ride, or are more interested in the combat, and see 'story' as merely the bits that link those combats together.

I still intend to purchase more DCG pre-programmed adventures. But I trust that the other adventures will be more like The Dark Vale.

Quests For Legendary Gems and Jewels

I purchased the double-disk set of Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer last week, and we watched "the Barbarian" friday night.

In Conan the Barbarian, Conan, Valeria and Subotai steal the legendary "Eye Of The Serpent" jewel from Thulsa Doom's Snake Cultists, and Valeria keeps it.

That got me to thinking about gems and jewels in Dungeons and Dragons: specifically, the lack of quests or adventures related to the recovery of legendary gems and jewels, and the absence of named jewels and jewelry. In D&D, most jewels and jewelry are immediately fenced and converted into cash, or, used as cash themselves. The jewels and jewelry treasures are usually described fairly generically, with, at most, the type of jewel or jewelry and the gp value disclosed. I can't think of very many ocassions where the jewels and jewelry were kept by the characters, for their own pleasure, or where the players discovered that the items had an interesting backstory.

This is unfortunate, particularly considering the classic image from the cover of the original AD&D players handbook, showing several thieves prying a huge gem from the eye of the temple's idol. Shouldn't those jewels have had some interesting name or backstory?

Magic Realm, one of my favorite games, has several named jewels and pieces of jewelry that the players can discover. Those include the "Eye of the Moon", "Blasted Jewel", "Dragonfang Necklace", "Eye of the Idol", "Glimmering Ring", "Glowing Gem", "Regent of Jewels", and the "Timeless Jewel".

I think it would be interesting to give backstories and names to the larger jewels and more valuable pieces of jewelry, and plant rumours periodically on where they may be found. Players may be more apt to keep those items if they have some interesting history behind them, or at least appreciate them more, prior to selling them off.

Encyclopedia Harnica 8

As I had some rather uncomplimentary things to say of Harn here, I thought it would only be fair to post a little of what I do like about the Harn system.

First, I no longer own the Harn system (burned, lost or tossed), but I do own a couple of Harn supplementary items, so I make these comments mostly from memory, but I recall being impressed with the level of detail that went into the rules. At the time, I liked the Harn skills and combat systems.

What I do like about Harn though is the world-building material, the town, castle and city maps, and other supplementary material. If you are happy to jettison most of the flavour and background of the Harn materials, you will likely get value from these products.

Case in point is the wonderful little map (above), which is a player's map of the Kingdom of Kaldor. Hand-drawn, showing the major roads, rivers, towns, mountains and other terrain features, it is the perfect handout to provide players who purchase a kingdom map from a cartographer. This map appears in Encyclopedia Harnica 8, EH being a periodical published by Columbia Games during the 1980's.

The EH series was a fantastic little resource. EH 8 contained maps of different areas of Kaldor, geneology of the current ruling family of Kaldor, relationships between the various Earls, the Royal household, the Coats of Arms of the various Earls (in full color), and a section on Astrology. The background itself? Jettison. But the templates, the coats of arms, the concept of constellations and superstitions you can add to your campaign. Invaluable.

I understand that much of the materials that appeared in the Encyclopedia Harnica series eventually found its way into newer Harn publications. For example, Trobridge Inn, which appeared in Encyclopedia Harnica 4, was reprinted as its own adventure. I purchased the adventure, and would happily use the Inn setting as an outpost from which the players might foray to a dungeon, something like the Keep in B2. But I don't think i'd use the Trobridge Inn adventure itself, as the background is too "particular" to Harn to fit into any world I would like to adventure in.

Horses, Cavalry and Mounted Combat in OD&D

Several months ago, I shared my dissatisfaction with the D&D hit point mechanic, and compared it to the Lord Of The Rings: Strategy Battle Game approach. LOTR:SBG uses a combination of wound and fate points instead of hit points. Wounds represent physical damage, while Fate represents your ability to avoid a wound, dodge or parry a blow, or otherwise escape injury. While those two types of "damage pools" each operate a little differently in LOTR:SBG, I feel that the similar approach could be used in D&D.

The D&D rules for cavalry, horses, and mounted combat are similarly dissatisfying. They are dissatisfying because there are no rules in D&D for mounted combat! Having spent the last 45 minutes trying to locate something in the way of mounted combat rules, in the AD&D books, I finally turned to Chainmail.

Chainmail provides some guidance in regards combat between mounted and foot units. In the Chainmail rules, 2 light footmen attacking 1 light horseman have a 16% chance of killing the horseman. Conversely, 1 light horseman attacking 1 light footman has a 45% chance of killing the footman. A medium horseman has an even better chance of killing a light footman, somewhere in the 65% range.

I like the way LOTR:SBG handles combat between cavalry and footmen. In LOTR:SBG each rank-and-file figure has one attack. However, any mounted figure gets an additional attack, if charging. If the mounted figure wins the attack, while charging, he gets twice as many chances to wound the footman. Therefore, since the horseman had two attacks while charging, he gets double that (4 chances) to wound the footman. Conversely, if a footman wins a combat against a cavalry figure, there is a 50% chance that the attack will hit the horse instead of the rider.

I think similar rules could be used in D&D. You could give an attacker on horseback an extra to-hit roll. That attacker could roll all of his attacks at the same time. If the attacks hit, you could then double the number of damage dice rolled.