Cold Wars Report (3)

Well, I made it back from my trek to Cold Wars 2012. My first two reports are both on my Dale's Wargames blog. The first report was about my game using the It Is Warm Work Age of Sail naval rules and the second report about my second game using the Pride of Lions rules.

Game 3 – Victorian Science Fiction (Hordes of the Things)

This game was entitled War of the Worlds and was put on by the famous Bob Beattie. After having read so much of work and ideas online, I was finally able to meet the man, and it was a pleasure, as was his game.

The scenario was modelled after War of the Worlds – no, not the Orsen Wells radio drama, but the 1898 book by H. G. Wells. In Bob's version, however, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen call up various Victorian forces for good while the "Martian" invaders bring Earth's forces for evil under its control. Bob adapted a number of characters to troop types from Hordes of the Things (HOTT) and added a few scenario rules.

I showed up first so was given the choice of commands and I chose the Invaders as, well, the flying saucer and tripod war machines looked cool! I later found out that I had five elements that required a PIP roll of '6' to come on and a further ten elements (or so) that were Lurkers that could only enter in special terrain that slowly crept across the board and that no one wanted to enter!

Pre-battle view of the entire board

Bob had some absolutely lovely and ingenious figures that he has collected and built over the years. In the picture below you can see Fu Manchu's aerial troops strapped to kites (on the left) and the Invaders' flying saucer and some walkers.

Posed picture of the Aerial Forces of Evil

Every turn another 6" (or so) hex would be added to the board, in a random direction from where the last hex was placed. This represented the invaders' plat life slowly taking over the planet, much like the plants in the movie War of the Worlds (with Tom Cruise). As you can see in the picture below, it is turn five as there are five hexes on the board.

One of the fiercest weapons the invaders had were the Black Smoke creatures (rated as Gods in HOTT) and the invaders had three of them. In addition it had two very large tripods which counted as Dragons. Each of these elements require a '6' on the PIP roll to bring on. Given that it would be very hard to bring these on using normal rules, Bob gave the Invader 2D6 to roll for PIPs, choosing the highest die. This also had the side effect of altering the odds that Gods went away. Normally, a God in HOTT is brought on when the player rolls a '6' and uses all of the PIPs to bring the God on. On any subsequent turn, however, if the player rolls a '1' for PIPs the God is removed. As I was rolling 2D6 and choosing the best, a God (or Dragon) could be called up if either die was a '6', but would only be removed if both dice rolled were '1'.

Needless to say, I never lost a God to a bad PIP roll, and I got all three Gods and two Dragons onto the board. I even ignored calling up the Black Smoke a couple of times that I rolled a '6' as I would rather have used the PIPs for movement.

The Creeping Crud of the Invaders

 It was interesting watching the interaction between some of the other troop types in the armies, but in the end, the Gods (three for me, one for John Carter's forces) dominated the field. I lost count of how many elements the first Black Smoke took out, and it was never destroyed nor removed because of a roll of double '1'.

Are those the aerial troops of Fu Manchu?

 The forces of good were unusually timid and did not make much effort to move, much less attack. Eventually, as shown in the figure below, the Creeping Crud started to divide the board and (randomly) provide a barrier of rough going for me to defend. Anyone daring to enter would be attacked unmercifully by my Invader Brains (Lurkers).

The Creeping Crud cannot be stopped!

 Although I had some interesting and powerful elements – artillery and behemoths in sufficient quantities – they just did not compare to the Black Smoke, so whenever I was short on PIPs I simply moved that rather than all of these lovely elements.

The Invaders' Command

Although I was not bored with the game, I can see that such a force would be rather boring after a steady diet of it. Not that a "normal" game of HOTT would ever play this way. A player willfully choosing three Gods and two Dragons as the majority of their force is just asking not to use most of that force in a normal game. This was only possible because of Bob's generous PIP rule for the Invader command (me).

The god-like creatures of each side battle it out ...

Everything thrown at my first God – Hero General, Magician, Cleric – was destroyed. When John Carter's "God" (I cannot recall their name; they were shiny people) was brought on, it started to rampage through the forces of evil. I eventually called for a Black Smoke creature to stop it (after it had killed one of my tripod walkers). As shown in the photo above, I got a lucky roll and the Creeping Crud grew underneath their God, I then rolled a '6' for PIPs, allowing me to call up my Black Smoke, and then with me at +6 and the enemy at +4 (everyone but Invaders were -2 in the Creeping Crud), I was able to barely beat them, banishing their weapon from the board.

... but the Forces of Evil prevail!

That pretty much broke the morale of the enemy players. Still more Black Smoke rampaged through their armies, taking out aerial heroes, dragons, and all manner of creatures.

The Black Smoke creatures are relentless

 At the end of the game, there were not many losses on the side of evil. Most had occurred on the far flanks, away from the Black Smoke in the center.

The far right flank at the end of the battle

 In the center, the Creeping Crud had absorbed quite an impressive section of board. My forces were largely intact (I think I lost one Dragon and one Behemoth) and although the game was declared "close, but an Invader victory", many players declared it a significant victory for evil.

My forces at the end of the battle

Summary

I really enjoyed the game as it was visually impressive and different from all my other games of HOTT, which were the typical Dwarves, Elves, Humans, and Goblins. Even though they were the same rules, they did not feel like a medieval fantasy game.

Bob later said that he should have removed the God if either die rolled a '1', rather than if both did. That would have certainly balanced out the sides, but I think I would have been reluctant to throw in any Black Smoke unless it had been absolutely necessary, given the odds. Bringing a God on would almost certainly have resulted in its loss, unless it came on at the end of the game.

The rules played well, even with some players never having played HOTT or DBA. Clearly some players were more involved than others, so some further balancing of forces is probably necessary, but I am sure Bob will work that out. As it was, for me, it was a fun four hours.

Next up is my DBA tournament using my wooden Early Armenian army.