Darkest Night

Just finished my first game of Darkest Night from Victory Point Games, played solo with the Prince, Seer, Wizard and Druid randomly selected to defend the kingdom against the power of the Necromancer. The Necromancer spent the first few turns wandering blindly from Ruins to Village and back; meanwhile, the heroes searched for keys to unlock a Holy Relic. As the tide of darkness rose, the prince and wizard moved to the ruins to to dispel the blights there, while the seer and druid kept searching. The druid, in raven form, finally unearthed the Relic. The prince and wizard went to meet him, with the Necromancer in hot pursuit. The wizard was badly wounded but had his most powerful magic available; so the druid handed him the Relic, the prince used his ability to Inspire, and the wizard attacked with an overwhelming blaze of flame. The game finished with the Shadow level at 13; 3 blights in the vilage, 2 each in forest and ruins, and 1 each in the remaining spaces; the wizard had 1 Grace point left and the others each had 3.
The game rules were written well and unambiguously, and it played pretty quickly once I had internalized them. It had good pacing, with a definite sense of scrambling to fight off Impending Doom. However, the tactical options felt limited; during fights, each character had only only a few choices and usually one choice was clearly the best.
Generally, for each character, one tactic is better. For example, in this game my seer could Fight with 1d6 or Evade with 3d6. For most monsters, you have to beat the same number to succeed whether you Fight or Evade, and a failure has the same consequences whether you Fight or Evade, so it's a no-brainer to choose the option where you have the bigger dice pool. Not always--one monster had different target numbers, so I had to decide whether to try for 1d6 needing 3+ or 3d6 needing 5+. Aside from that kind of situation, my Seer would always Evade, and my Prince would always Fight. Which is okay, to some extent, because it differentiates between them, but the tactical level is not as intriguing as it might have been. 

I think gameplay might be improved by adding a third resource--Mana, perhaps--and forcing the player to choose "do I spend it now, when I really need it, or do I hold on so I have it later, when I might really, REALLY need it?"

There is also a strategic level, where you have to choose between strengthening/repairing your character, searching for the McGuffin you need to win, or destroying monsters to keep their numbers down to manageable levels. I found that level to be better, because you have time limits and can't do everything you want. In my case, with the cards I had, it was fairly simple--Prince and Wizard fight, Seer and Druid search--but the pressure was still there.

Problems with Conflict of Heroes

Josh and I had a game of Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel, using the State Farm 158 scenario that I played with Marco in January.  Josh took the Germans, and didn't lose any to the pre-battle attrition rolls; my Russians lost a couple of hilltop units.
I tried the same ploy I did last time, of sending an SMG over the hilltop into the German mortars, using a Free Action card to make it out of the balka and up onto the hill; however, Josh had a flamethrower card, so things didn't work out well for me. I also made the mistake of moving into close combat; the unit I was attacking had spent all its action points, but Josh pulled out a Free Action card of his own in order to have his unit take a shot, and his panzergrenadiers trounced my rifle squad. As I recall, he needed an 11 to hit their flank, and he had 2d6 +5 for his firepower and +4 for close combat.  Not hard to roll 11 or above when you have a +9 modifier. After that, I merely moved adjacent and fired from there, rather than get into close combat. And his artillery obliterated mine. I did get one turn of fire off, but between his direct fire and his 105mm mission, only one 81mm mortar survived to turn 2.
But despite all this, the Russians won. Partly this was because I got 2VP for each of his units, and he only got 1 for mine. Partly it was because he moved adjacent to the balka instead of using smoke and recon-by-fire; I could send a few squads to adjacent positions and overwhelm one of his units. Partly it was just because I had more units than he did, and could afford to stall until he'd used all his actions, after which I could attack and he couldn't respond.

There are a few things that bug me about this series.

• No leaders. Leadership functions are abstracted into command points, and those command points don't have any specific location. You can apply those command points to a mortar in the rear, and an infantry squad on the far right, and an SMG squad on the far left, with none of those being in communication or having Line of Sight to each other.
• Telepathic units. If your mortar squad is threatened in the rear, your troops on the right can turn, move, and take the threat under fire, with no communication and no time delay. They don't have a specific mission, or lane, or target they have to stick with, just instant response to whatever the commander's whim is.
• No differentiation of unit quality. One a unit is Unnerved, for instance, it doesn't matter whether it's veteran troops or raw conscripts, they still have the same roll to rally. In some scenarios, a unit may not be affected by a particular damage result at all, which partly mitigates this problem; however, it would be straightforward to say "this veteran unit is +1 to rally, these militia are -2". There are also no differences in training and doctrine--for example, when ambushed, a conscript might stand bewildered, a trained soldier might dive for cover, and an elite might assault through the ambush. CoH doesn't distinguish.
• Wound markers instantly make a unit a priority target, since a second wound will eliminate it. There may be times when you turn your attention to another, unwounded target because it's more of a threat, but in general, you want to finish off a wounded unit. That's how you reduce the enemy CAPs and you gain victory points.
• If you have more units than the enemy, you may be able to stall until the enemy has no action points left, then you move when he can't respond. You can always send one unit at a time to recon; there's no time pressure. That one's easy to fix, though. You get, say, five activations and have to get all your moves done with that, using group activations as needed. 

The South Shall Rise Again

Victory Point Games produced The South Shall Rise Again as a solo or cooperative skirmish game pitting one to four Union soldiers against Confederate zombies ("Zebs").
What you get in the ziplock bag edition:

• 12 x 13 hex map in muted tones, depicting a field bordered by a road, two fences, a fieldstone wall, and trees. 
• player aid card, with Union info on one side, Undead on the other.
• Union soldiers, Zebs, Revenants, and Glorious Dead, depicted as vertical counters with bases; they're not miniatures but they give something of the same feel. 
• status markers, such as Rifle/Unloaded, Pistol Ammo, Stunned, Wounded, and Grappled.
• Skill markers, such as "Bushwacker" (-1 to Ranged combat, +1 Melee) or "Slippery" (ignore the first Grapple result from an Undead attack), to personalize your soldiers
• Heroic Action cards and Event cards
• Five Scenario cards, including one "Make your own"
• Rule booklet
• A ziplock bag, which is a little too small to comfortably stuff everything back in--but it's not like you can't find a larger ziplock in your kitchen.

Your Union private can move, shoot, reload, melee, or move-and-shoot.  Zebs and Revenants simply close for melee; Glorious Dead can also load and fire. Each unit takes two Wounds to kill; there's a small chance of inflicting two Wounds with a single attack but you can't count on moving up to a Zed and destroying it with one attack. That's a key point...

For my first play through, I played the On The Road scenario with one soldier facing two Zeds and two Revenants. I fired at a Revenant, stunning it. I reloaded my rifle, then backed away from the undead shambling toward me. I took another shot, which Wounded a Revenant. By this point the Undead were closing in, so I ran off to one side, thinking I could quickly deal with the Zed there and then have room to maneuver. The Zed moved into contact with me and Grappled; my counter attack Wounded it and broke the grapple, but I didn't have a chance to move away before the two Revenants moved in and attacked. That was the end of poor Private Picket....unless he comes back as a Revenant himself! 

Playing time is listed as 30 minutes, which seems about right. Quick and easy, but requires some thought to win.

edit: took me two more games before I won. The key seems to be, never let them close to melee range. One you take out the Revenants (move 2), dealing with the Zeds (move 1) is easy.

Tiny Epic Roleplaying

At LibertyCon, I was in a game of the Tiny Epic RPG, run by its creator Todd Lyles. It's designed for fast character generation while still giving some flavor. You draw three Avatar cards, such as Steam Dwarf, High Elf, or Half Giant, and select one. Then draw three cards and keep one for your Profession, such as Spy, or Gladiator. Finally, choose one of three Legends, which set you apart from ordinary folk; for instance, your Half Giant Gladiator might choose "I'm Not Left-handed", which lets you add your Strength and Agility together (instead of using just one) for your attack modifer. Put these three cards together and you have your character, including his stats (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Charisma), special abilities, and even suggestions on what gear he's carrying and how he knows the other party members.

The mechanics are pretty straightforward. Roll a number of d6s based on the appropriate stat for the task, with 4, 5, and 6's being successes. If you're fighting someone, a 6 also lowers his Defense, so even if you can't hurt him at first, you can still wear him down if you can survive and keep attacking long enough. This wasn't a problem in my case, though; my Gnome Sorceror Prince of Thieves had a Psychic Blast based on his 10 INT, which meant I was killing my targets even when I wasn't really trying.

What you buy is the deck of cards for character generation. The Player's Guide, GM's Guide and some scenarios are available for free from the website. Note that the game is intended for one-shot convention scenarios, where you teach people the rules, play for four hours, and you're done. There's no guide on loot or character advancement, and there aren't complex tactical rules. Just deal the cards, grabs some d6s, and you're on the way.

The scenario we played was an attack on a pirate base, where our team of four had go ashore and eliminate the pirate gun batteries around the island before the fleet arrived. For one battery, we got the pirates to brawl each other. For the next, our Chronomancer and I zapped half of them; then our Kitsune (legend: "Fairest of Them All") stripped naked and beguiled the rest of the men. We used the beguiled pirates as cannon fodder to attack the tower; once inside, I located the powder magazine, our tinker put together a fuse, and we pulled back and watched the tower go boom. A quick, successful scenario and we got it done in about two hours of play.

Mythic Game Master Emulator

The Mythic GM Emulator is intended to let people play roleplaying games without preparation. The theory is that when you discover something, it doesn't matter whether the thing was already there because a scenario writer put it there, or whether you made it up on the spot. You are in essence acting as the scenario writer as you go along.

The way this works is that you start a scene, keeping track of the characters involved and their objectives. Decide what would be a logical next step or information you need, pose it as a "yes/no" question, and roll the dice. You may get an Exceptional Yes, a Yes, a No, or an Exceptional No; in addition, the dice may tell you that the scene is Altered or Interrupted.

For instance, your Noir Detective bursts into the gangster safe house. You decide it would be reasonable to ask "Are there gangsters here?" and roll the dice; your answer may be:

• Exceptional Yes: a lot of them
• Yes: one or two
• No: not at the moment
• Exceptional No: the place has been cleaned out

An Alteration might be that you meet a woman who is looking for one of the gangsters. Perhaps she's trying to serve a warrant on him; perhaps she's the gunman's wife and is worried about him. And an Interruption would be something unrelated: there's a report of zombies at Maple and Third Street, perhaps, or Nazi goons attack as you're clearing the gang's hideout.

There's a list of keywords to help jog your imagination when you're trying to decide what the Alterations and Interrupts might be.

The key parts of this are the concept, plus the Fate Chart which gives your die roll results, and the key words; you shouldn't need to refer to the book during play.


It's a $6.95 PDF, which I think is worth it.

Piquet's campaign game Theater of War

Santa Clarita Wargamer: Review:

The post is worth reading for more detail of how the system works--he uses an ACW campaign as an example but you could equally well use medieval, or WW2.

Summary
Theater of War lets you run a campaign, organize the armies, generate the battlefields, and keep track of victory. Like most Piquet-based systems, the sequence decks generate a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds for your little Battle Groups.
You might want your BG to move into the light terrain outside Frederick, Maryland, but until you get that Light Terrain Move card, it's not going to happen for you. Just like in real historical campaigns, your armies and subordinate generals don't always react right away to your orders and desires.
Do you concentrate on marching your armies to execute your masterplan or try to build up your hand to improve the Battle cards you have available in case Stonewall Jackson is lurking in ambush behind that mountain range? Is that Battle Group in front of you a screening force or the Army of the Potomac on the move?
Even if you're not a Piquet player, the cards supplied with the rules allow you to customize each campaign deck to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing forces. With some tweaking, TOW can be modified to give you an excellent campaign system.
If you are a Piquet player, the rules allow you to fight campaigns with any army from any Piquet supplement you own. This is a must-have for the Piquet library.
The production values are decent. Some of the type is a little small and you won't see any interior color pictures, but the book is jammed full of typo-free tables, charts, and rules. There are some black and white photos of nicely painted miniatures. The package includes sample battle maps, campaign maps, and sheets of Campaign Sequence cards you need to cut out to play with.