A Basic Rundown of The Mechanics for My Solo Skirmish Wargame

Each troop type has a number of tokens, these tokens are the same as the troop type’s stats. For example a unit with speed 4, shoot 4 and close combat 3 will have 4 speed tokens, 4 shoot tokens and 3 close combat tokens. The tokens for every unit are then placed in a bag or cup, and mixed together.

One player draws a token from the bag, and the token is then immediately resolved. For example Bill draws a speed token for the Orthodox Sword Sisters. Each Sword Sister still in play is then allowed to move up to 4”.

MOVEMENT

A move is always 4” unless a special rule states otherwise, this is because speed is determined by the number of tokens a troop type has, not the distance it moves each time it performs a move action. You can apply effects to movement such a rough terrain costing half movement etc.

SHOOTING

A hit is scored on a 4+. Each model has a choice between firing upon its nearest enemy model in cover or its nearest enemy model in the open, unless the nearest enemy model is in the open in which case that model must be fired upon. Models in cover will be hit on a 5+ or a 6+, but this is determined by the cover they are in. For models to be in cover they must be obscured from the firing model by half or greater. When a model is hit they lose 1 shield point.

MELEE

A melee or close combat attack is performed when two opposing models are in base to base contact and one of their close combat tokens are drawn. A model causes a hit on another when they roll a 4+. If a model moves out of base to base contact the other model is allowed an immediate free attack (meaning a token doesn’t have to be drawn) against them which hits as normal on a 4+. When a model is hit they lose 1 shield point. If a model is not in base contact with another they may perform a move action instead, but this move action must be towards the nearest enemy model.

SHIELDS

If a model is hit and is reduced to 0 shield points it is killed. When all tokens have been drawn from the bag the turn is over, all tokens are returned to the bag, all models’ shield points are fully restored and a new turn begins.

There will also be a number of special rules,but these have not yet been decided upon and potentially a magic system that works the same way as my previous solo game idea - there will be an additional stat for magic. When a magic token is drawn you put it to one side. When another magic token is drawn, or the turn has reached its end, you must declare what you want to do with your stored magic. Your opponent then declares an equivalent action. Pick up a number of dice equal to your stored tokens and roll them, on a single 6 your action is performed, on a roll of no 6s the opponents action is performed. You cannot combine the stored magic of multiple troop types, each troop type uses their magic individually.

Thanks for stopping by!

WGP

How Easy it is to Adapt 'That Solo Idea' for Two Players

Roll off to determine which player gets the first turn. Each player gets the standard 10 dice. On your turn you declare your action, your opponent then declares their equivalent action. You draw a card and roll your dice. If you succeed you perform your action, if not your opponent performs theirs. It is then your opponents turn, they declare their action, you declare your equivalent, and then they draw a card and roll their dice.

Repeat this process until someone wins!

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

More Playtesting of That Solo Idea and Thoughts

So I played another game again today with similar forces. Sir Gildain his Squire Pharen and their wizard friend Tannik faced off against Lord Urleth and his Zombies. It did not go well for Sir Gildain and his companions. Sir Gildain faced off against a Zombie in the middle of the field and was soon overwhelmed by more arriving and the infamous Lord Urleth. Pharen managed to reach Gildain slaying a Zombie on the way but more soon arrived. Finally Tannik got moving and attempted something drastic, he tried to pull a tree up from its roots and cause it to fall on a Zombie to free up Gildain's withdrawl. Unfortunately it fell on Gildain knocking him unconscious. Pharen then lunged desperately at Urleth hoping to dissuade him, but was knocked flat, and like his liege was out of the fight. Urleth then leapt the fallen tree as Tannik retreated to a ruined house to make his final stand. Tannik attempted a risky spell, casting an arc of energy to shoot Urleth from his horse and out of the battle. However Urleth's apparent magical resistance again came into play. The arc reflected from his black armour and struck Tannik. The day was lost, and once again the vile necromancer Urleth escaped.

I had a lot of fun with the game, and realised the openness of the system really opens things up, especially for those magic characters. All I had to declare was what Tannik wanted to use his magic to do, and then an equivalent - no spell list needed, no long list of points values and the system automatically balances itself.

The card system also really came into its own. The reason things went south so quickly was because I knew I only had a few cards remaining in the deck and if I hadn't taken out Urleth by the time they were gone he would automatically escape, this pushed me to make rash decisions, and it didn't help that at the time I was running low on dice!

I need to play with more ranged characters that aren't mages though. the challenge of thinking of an equivalent action when not using something as chaotic as magic should be interesting. A crossbow will either hit or miss, it's not likely to deflect and hit the firer!

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Play testing that idea for solo gaming plus some pics of my growing 1/72 fantasy collection

 Lord Urleth and his Undead

 Tannik Druze, Sir Gildain and Pharen Thark, Knights of the Green Blade

 A selection of heroes yet unnamed except for Kora the female barbarian, and yes the one in the middle is a dwarf. The guys without flock on their bases are not quite finished yet.

 Centaurs!

The Centaur leader up close.

So I tried a little game with the top most two forces using the ideas from my previous post, Lord Urleth and his horde and the Knights of the Green Blade. It was a really simple set up as the two forces faced each other on completely open ground, although the way I'm going for movement rules I should really have played with more terrain.

The zombies slowly advanced while all of Tannik's magic managed to backfire incapacitating him before combat had even been joined. The zombie's split with two attacking Sir Gildain and the other two going after Pharen. The zombies seemed strangely tougher than normal with two managing to down Pharen, and as they attempted to bite their way through his armour, Sir Gildain downed his two, but he came off worse for ware. As he stumbled about attempting to regain his composure Lord Urleth charged, his sword at the Knight's neck height. Sir Gildain dodged at the last second and struck a blow that would have easily killed a mortal man. Lord Urleth rode off, leaking his black blood down his horses flank. The Knights of the Green Blade had been victorious but at what cost?

The game played so quickly I didn't really have the time to take pictures, but I have to say it probably was one of the better solo experiences I have had, and thinking about the rules I can see why, it's essentially one step up from playing as a child would with the dice, cards and abilities determining the outcome of events rather than just your imagination. Also it's a fun challenge to manage your dice well, and knowing when to roll lots of them and when to hold back.

It was a simple 9pt game. The forces stacking up as follows:

Sir Gildain - Devastate, Immortal, Elite.

Pharen Thark - Devastate.

Tannik Druze - Ranged, Heal.

Lord Urleth - Devastate, Immortal, Elite, Fast.

Zombie (x4) - no abilities.

Devastate increased the strength of any wounds dealt by 1.

Immortal reduced the strength of any wounds dealt to a character by 1.

Ranged enabled a character to attack at range.

Heal enabled a character to heal wounds.

Fast enables a character to move twice.

A character has a base cost of 1pt and then costs 1pt extra per ability they have.

Thanks for stopping by!

WGP

Here's an idea for solo gaming

Grab a deck of cards with all the kings, queens and jacks removed, so you get a deck of Aces to 10s. Then take a large number of six sided dice and take ten of those and put them to one side. The deck is your game deck, and the 10 dice are your dice pool.

Set up your table with your figures and with your scenario in mind.

Declare what you want one of your figures to do and then declare a roughly equivalent action one of the enemy figures will do.

Draw a card (always draw the card after you declare the two actions, never before!), if it's red it increases your dice pool by the number on it. Aces=1. If it's black it locks a number of dice in your pool equal to it meaning you cannot use them in the roll. Pick up a number of dice you want to roll and roll them. The action you declared for your figure is performed if you roll a single 6. If no 6s are rolled then the action you declared for the enemy figure is performed. You must always roll at least 1 die, unless the black card locks all your dice in which case you automatically fail.

Return any rolled dice to the big pile, declare two new actions and then draw a card.

Repeat this process until the deck is exhausted or you complete the scenario objective.
If you haven't completed the objective by the time the deck is exhausted you automatically lose the game.

You could play the game as simply as that. You could enforce a stats system on top of it, whereby when an action is 'performed' it still needs to be rolled for. For example, I failed and so get charged by an enemy and attacked, the enemy can only move up to their move stat in inches, and will only hit me when they get there on a roll that is equal to or lower than their fight stat. You could on the other hand impose a system of special rules. For example - I declare that my warrior will strike the enemy causing a light wound on their barbarian, the equivalent is obvious, he will attack me instead and cause a light wound. I draw the card and roll. I score a 6 meaning my warrior hits the barbarian. My warrior however has the special rule 'devastate' which turns any light wounds caused into heavy wounds, so although I declared a light wound I deal a heavy wound. The enemy barbarian does not have the special rule devastate, so had I failed the roll, my warrior would only have taken a light wound.

Thoughts?
Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Randomly Generating an Enemy Force for Skirmyth

Since the system is at present incredibly generic with basically no special rules, it is still incredibly easy to entirely randomise a force creation. This will be good for me in the playtesting and to see if any set up can break or really challenge the points system.

When playing solo you should generate your own force first, and make a note of their own points cost. For example in previous playtests I've been using a 120pt force. You would then roll for the scenario (which is a system I'm working on) which will dictate the nature of an enemy force, it maybe a force you have previously generated so there's no need to randomly generate one again. You then roll for resistance level on a D6, on 1-2 it's low, 3-4 it's matched and on 5-6 it's high. Each of these results gives a rough points cost for the force you will be facing. Matched means the enemy force is roughly equal to your own, with a margin of 20pts on either side (which may be larger for larger forces). Low means you generate the force but as soon as it exceeds you own forces points cost you drop the last character generated. For high resistance you stop at the character that exceeds your forces points cost. For matched you stop when the points cost lands within that 40pt buffer zone (20pts either side).

So let's go with my 120pt force. I roll for resistance - 2 which is low. So I'm dropping the first character to exceed 120pts in the enemy forces total points cost.
CHARACTER 1, INI:6, ATT:3, SPD:2, RES:5. PTS:35 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 2, INI:3, ATT:5, SPD:1, RES:5, PTS:23 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 3, INI:5, ATT:2, SPD:1, RES:5, PTS:20 TYPE - WARRIOR
CHARACTER 4, INI:4, ATT:5, SPD:3, RES:5, PTS:37 TYPE - MAGE
So that's a running total of 115pts, so I'm certain the next character will exceed the final 5 pts so we won't go on.
So how did I generate those characters?
Initiative, Attack and Speed were all simple D6 rolls. Resolve was D6+2 (I couldn't stop rolling 3s), and the type was determined by a further D6 roll (1-2 Warrior, 3-4 Ranger, 5-6 Mage).
If you can't remember how the points costs were generated it was (Attack+Speed)xInitiative and finally adding Resolve.
You could then go on to generate names for the characters if you so wished.
For forces you have already generated you drop or add characters to meet the resistance level. When dropping I would recommend dropping the character that brings you closest to the points cost.
The system shouldn't cause too many problems and it shouldn't generate hugely outlandish characters, with your lowest points cost at 5 and your highest running to 80. With most stats capped at 6 except for resolve which is capped at 8, it's unlikely you'll get totally wrecked in a single attack from an enemy character. I am however concerned about speed and may apply a D6+1 to it instead of a straight D6 as above. Assuming the character can spend half of their initiative on speed before the end counter is drawn, Character 2 above will cover roughly 1.5 inches per game turn... which is really slow!
The other problem I'm working on is the counter system. Since when generating a new force new counters would have to be made, a total of 18 for the force above. I'm working on a system which means you won't have to, but we'll see what comes of that in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

The hopefully improved fantasy/scifi name generator

I felt that my previous incarnation with twists on a D6 roll was a little too restrictive and not fast enough. So here's the simpler new incarnation of the system.

Roll 1D10 for name length.
Roll 1D10 to determine starting letter type - Odd = Vowel, Even = Consonant.
It's then the classic vowels on a D6 (including Y) and Consonants on a D20.
This time however you also roll a D6 after you've generated a letter. On a 6 the letter repeats. On a 4 or 5 you repeat the letter type but roll for the next letter, and on a 1-3 you go to the other letter type. You can only have a maximum of two of the same letter or letter type in a row.

Much simpler. Let's give it a whirl!

Fji Qxiag
Kkiwecihy Szyyduy
Uuwe Mtoe

Those are our 'raw' results. Just what the dice dictate, and with some editing we get -

Ji Xia
Kiwe Szyydu
Uwe Toe (I was hoping for Boll... but Toe will have to do)

Eventually I'll get a system together that stops those bad letter combinations but until then the system will always have a chance of churning them out. Though it's true purpose still works, to generate names that don't all sound the same, which is what I can't do when I come up with the names myself.

Skirmyth - The Solo Skirmish/ Light RPG: A Second Encounter

I played a quick solo game this evening using my second incarnation of the Skirmyth rules. A system with more visible stats, but still with no real need to look anything up. Characters are activated when a counter with their name on it is pulled from a cup, the counter has written on it not only the characters name but their speed and attack stats. The number of counters a character has in the cup is equal to their initiative value. Speed determines the distance a character can move in inches when their counter is drawn and attack determines the number of dice a character will roll when making attacks. They do damage equal to the number of successes they score on the dice rolled (Warriors 4+, Rangers 5+ and Mages 6+). Apart from character counters there are also joker counters in the cup. Jokers stay out of the cup until the 'end' counter is drawn but return all other counters to the cup. When the end counter is finally drawn the number of jokers determines which column on a table is rolled on to determine a random event. For example in my game, two jokers were drawn and so when the end counter was drawn I rolled a die and consulted the event table, for two jokers and a roll of a 6 there was a small earth tremor which caused both sides to take morale checks. Morale is currently an extremely simple system. When a character is killed or you are forced to take a morale check by other means pick up a die per character still alive on your side and roll them. You pass the morale check if you roll a single 4+, if you fail to roll any 4+s you fail the check and lose the game. I thought it might be too simple initially but it creates a really interesting dynamic - you don't want a small number of hugely powerful characters because you'll get less dice when making morale checks, on the other hand you don't want a huge number of weak characters because that will normally mean you have to make more morale checks. I also thought it might create unrealistic scenarios where heroes flee from much weaker foes, however should a band of heroes lose a character surely their concern is no longer the mission, but protecting and restoring that fallen character to health? So in that sense it portrays greater realism. The real strength of it however is in the fact that morale is controlled by a standard dice roll meaning you never have to look anything up. The number of dice you roll being the number of remaining characters you have!

This evening I played a simple 4 vs 5 line up and charge at each other game.
On the one side we had -

Sir Gildain - I:4, A:4, S:3, R:6, PTS:34, Warrior
Pharen Thark - I:3, A:4, S:5, R:5, PTS:32, Warrior
Terse Kolf - I:2, A:6, S:5, R:5, PTS:27, Ranger
Tannik Druze - I:2, A:8, S:3, R:5, PTS: 27, Mage

And on the other we had -
Prince Lorek - I:2, A:5, S:5, R:10, PTS:30, Warrior
Harken Drane - I:2, A:7, S:3, R:5, PTS: 25, Mage
Kel Krace - I:4, A:2, S:2, R:4, PTS: 20, Warrior
Skorth Dar - I:3, A:3, S:4, R:5, PTS: 26, Warrior
Ajen Low - I:1, A:12, S:7, R: 5, PTS: 24, Ranger

The game was supposed to be 120pts, however while writing this up I realised that Prince Lorek's force was 125 points... but considering Sir Gildain tabled him without losing a man it's not like those extra 5 points really helped.

The game played exceedingly quickly. I remember reading lots of rulebooks where games claim to be 'fast paced' but this one truly is, with a standard skirmish like this taking around 10 minutes to play. You may also notice I was intentionally trying to break the game with characters like Kel Krace and Ajen Low, Kel having a huge number of activations but being pretty weak and Ajen only a single activation but devastating when he does activate.

So what have I learned and what questions have this little playtest brought to light?
Primarily I need to decide what route I want the main focus of the game to take. At present I'm playing it much like your average skirmish game where two evenly matched albeit different forces face off, rather than a dungeon crawling, hack and slash style game with multiple enemies each far weaker than our main characters.
Secondly I need to decide how damage dealt is increased by circumstances - at the moment if your characters remaining resolve is double their targets the amount of damage they do is doubled, and tripled if triple etc. Alternatively if  two characters are ganging up on another the damage dealt is doubled. I need to playtest further to see if this is too dramatic an increase and maybe adding rather than multiplying would be more appropriate. Obviously +0 if no damage is dealt, +1 if resolve is higher, +2 if double, +3 if triple, and +1 per additional character in the combat.
Thirdly I need to develop the actual solo AI mechanics.
Fouthly I need to develop scenarios to make the game more interesting/ narrative.

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

The Counters and Cards Conundrum in Skirmyth

I like the simplicity of my current system. Each character has a number of cards equal to their speed and attack stats. For example a character with speed 3 and attack 7 will get 3 speed cards and 7 attack cards in the deck, and it works really well in play. The only problem is the mass of cards required to play the game.

The flip side of this is for each character to have 1 card with all their stats on, and when a characters card is drawn a player gets to decide which action to perform based on the stats of the character on the card.

So we have - System 1 - Each point of a stat has a card, and System 2 - Each character has a single card with all their stats on.

The question is then, is there a middle way? A way between these two extremes?

Yes, what if a character has some cards containing their stats (say speed, shooting, melee) the number of which was equal to their initiative stat. For example a character of initiative 4 would have 4 cards in the deck with their stats on. When one of their cards are drawn the player in control of them would be allowed to select an action to perform based on the stats on the card.

This may drastically change the current system I have, but it removes the need for saving cards since you would never draw a card that you couldn't use. I can also still use the standard rolls for types - Warriors hit on a 4+, Rangers 5+, Mages 6+.
Your stat earns you a number of dice equal to it, the amount of damage you deal in an attack is equal to the number of successes you roll - Warriors 4+, Rangers 5+, Mages 6+.

Further notes -
Warriors hit on a 4+ and have no ranged ability.
Rangers hit in a 5+ and have a ranged ability. Characters further than 12" away are hit on a 6+ as are characters in cover. Characters further than 12" away and in cover are hit on a 6+ and you half the number of dice you roll.
Mages hit on a 6+ and have a ranged ability, their attacks are not effected by range or cover and they can spread damage dealt among multiple targets as they desire.

A characters total points value is equal to the total of the stats on their cards, speed, shoot and melee, multiplied by their initiative (the number of cards) and finally adding their resolve (hit points).

Multiple enemies can all be controlled by the same card drawn, for example all zombies could act when a zombie card is drawn. To make things really interesting why not include counters on the board that represent enemies that have not yet been spotted (including some decoys?), that all move when an 'unseen enemies' card is drawn, and they all make a standard 3" move towards the nearest player character.

Why not include more than 1 joker, and a different card that signifies the turn end. When a joker is drawn all cards are reshuffled into the deck, but the joker drawn is placed to one side. When the turn end card is drawn the number of jokers drawn could signify something, maybe you roll on a random event table, adding the number of jokers drawn to increase the severity of the event? Or the number of jokers dictate the number row on a table you roll on...

Thanks for stopping by, and if you've read this, thanks for putting up with my ramblings!
WGP

Scurge of the Solo Wargamer Part 2 of N: Solo Skirmyth (Skirmish-Myth geddit?) First Playtest

Reflecting on my previous post in this series I drew up a simple set of rules. The goal of which was to eliminate the need for statlines, which while they exist are effectively invisible. My first attempt works as follows, a character has 3 stats, Attack, Speed and Resolve. The Resolve of a character is equal to their level, and the Attack and Speed when totalled are equal to their level. My hero, Sir Gildain Knight of the Green Sword, has Attack 7, Speed 3, Resolve 10 and is level 10, simple enough. Resolve is the number of hit points a character has, once Sir Gildain has taken 10 points of damage he is out of the game. Speed and Attack are converted into cards that go in the game deck. Sir Gildain gets 7 attack cards and 3 speed cards (or alternatively counters in a cup). When a speed card is drawn, Sir Gildain gets to move D6". When an attack card is drawn Sir Gildain gets to make an attack, or if he can't he can save the card for later.

Here's Sir Gildain and his cards, I just used playing cards with labels stuck to them. The top row say 'Sir Gildain Attack', the bottom row say 'Sir Gildain Speed' (maybe 'run' would make more sense).

Battles are fought between equally effective forces, just use their levels like a points system. For example -
The Heroes

Sir Gildain - Attack 7, Speed 3, Resolve 10, Level 10. Type - Warrior

Kora the Barbarian - Attack 5, Speed 5, Resolve 10, Level 10. Type - Warrior
Total Level - 20

The Orc Bandits (or Celts painted green)

Krug the Shaman - Attack 3, Speed 2, Resolve 5, Level 5. Type - Mage.
Boleg the Archer - Attack 4, Speed 1, Resolve 5, Level 5. Type - Ranger.
Bazgar the Berserker - Attack 0, Speed 5, Resolve 5, Level 5. Type - Warrior.
Agaz the Axe Orc - Attack 3, Speed 2, Resolve 5, Level 5. Type - Warrior.
Total Level - 20.

You'll notice each character has a type. Types are as follows:

Warrior - No ranged ability, hits in melee on a 4+.
Ranger - 5+ to hit at range or in melee.
Mage - 6+ to hit at range or in melee, magic user.

Once you have all your cards shuffle them with a single joker included, and draw the top card to begin playing. Here's a little playtest battle report, I'm not adding much flavour but simply listing the cards drawn at what happened so you get an idea of how things work -

The two sides face off against each other, on a rather barren plain...

A speed card is drawn for Kora and she charges 6" forwards, then the same is drawn again, she rolls a 4 but opts to only move 2", so she doesn't get too far ahead of her companion. 

The Krug the shaman draws an attack card and saves it, Agaz draws 2 attack cards and also opts to save them.

Sir Gildain draws 1 attack and saves it. He then draws a speed, rolls a 1, and steps forward. He then draws 4 successive attack cards and opts to save them all.

The Orc Berserker Bazgar draws a speed card and charges 5" towards Kora. The Shaman draws another attack and saves it.

Then the joker is drawn, returning all saved and used cards to the deck, it is shuffled and play begins again.

After the first bout of cards, the two forces are nearing each other, who will get first blood?

The Agaz charges Kora while the archer fires at her and and misses.
Sir Gildain saves an attack.
The archer fires at Kora again and rolls a 1, missing by miles.

Sir Gildain saves another attack.

The Orc shaman saves an attack and then runs up behind Agaz the axe Orc for protection. Agaz saves an attack.

Kora saves 2 attacks.

The archer fires at Kora again and misses, Boleg needs to get to the firing range more often!

Kora saves another attack.

Sir Gildain saves 4 successive attacks.

Kora saves another.

Kora draws a speed card and charges Agaz, if she makes it into base to base she'll get a free attack, and can use her other saved cards in the attack too! She makes it the distance and uses her speed card and all 4 attack cards together getting her a total of 5 attack dice. She could opt to go all out, meaning she rolls 1D6 and on a 4+ does maximum damage and on a 1-3 does no damage, or she can roll 1D6 for each card. 

Here we are, with cards and dice before the roll!

And there's the roll, a devastating one!

Kora does damage for every 4+ rolled because she is a warrior type. Damage would normally be 1 point per successful die, however since Kora's level is double that of the character she is attacking, she does 2 damage per successful die. Had Sir Gildain been in base contact with the Orc too, she would have done 1 extra damage per successful die. But as it stands with 4 successes, and 2 damage per success, she does a total of 8 damage. The Orcs resolve of 5 is no match and he is killed. Kora immediately draws a speed card and charges after the shaman but comes just short.

Bazgar the berserker draws a speed card but only charges 1" towards Kora... maybe he's afraid?

Sir Gildain draws 2 successive speed cards and manages 8 inches of movement.

Bazgar draws another speed card and makes it into contact with Kora, but only rolls a 2 when using his free attack failing to damage her.

Boleg the archer draws an attack card, with Kora in contact with Bazgar he cannot shoot her, so he opts to attack the rather slow, Sir Gildain. He manages a 5 and does 1 point of damage.

Kora draws an attack card, rolls a 6 and slams Bazgar for 2 damage.

The Joker is drawn.

After the second joker, Sir Gildain is still slowly moving forwards under fire while Kora faces off against the berserker.

The Orc berserker tired of fighting Kora attempts a charge on Sir Gildain, he makes it in but rolls a 1 on his attack, his poorly maintained axe bounces off of the Knight's pristine armour. Boleg takes a shot at the now exposed Kora and fails to hit.

Kora charges the shaman and fails in her attack, she then wheels round and charges Bazgar but misses him too. Sir Gildain opts to save his attack card. Kora then attacks the berserker and misses.

Sir Gildain attacks using his saved card also, he chooses not to go all out, needing only a single success to score enough damage to kill the berserker, he rolls a double 2, failing on both dice and doing nothing. He then draws a speed card which he opts to ignore.

Kora bounces off of the berserker, leaving him in Sir Gildain's hands and again charges the shaman, but again she misses.

Boleg saves his attack card, since both his targets are in melee combat with his friends. The shaman opts to back off from Kora giving the archer something to shoot at, and luckily for him, forcing Kora to save the attack card she draws next.

Boleg shoots at Kora, using both his attack cards, and scores 1 hit resulting in 1 damage.

Kora saves another attack card and Sir Gildain saves another 2.

The shaman saves an attack too, but then the joker is drawn.

Bazgar charges Kora and manages 1 damage. The shaman saves an attack card.

Sir Gildain saves an attack card and then draws a speed, enabling him to attack Bazgar with two dice!

He rolls a 2 and a 6, scoring him 3 points of damage (2 for being double the level of Bazgar and an extra one since Bazgar is also in contact with Kora), the berserker is killed. Kora then charges the archer and the shaman and misses both free attacks,

Boleg the archer saves an attack card.

Sir Gildain saves two attack cards.

Boleg draws another attack and uses his saved card too, he rolls a 5 and a 2, scoring 1 point of damage on Kora.

Krug the shaman draws another attack card and opts to cast a spell, if he succeeds he will do 5 damage to Sir Gildain, if he fails to cast the spell will backfire doing 5 damage to himself. He rolls a 4 and two 2s, with no successes (6+), the spell backfires and he is killed.

To speed things up, Kora and Sir Gildain then chase the archer down and finish the Orcs off by killing him.

I'm using D10s to keep track of resolve. If you use the dice to keep track of remaining hit points rather than damage done it means you only have to look up a stat the first time a character is damaged.

POST PLAYTEST THOUGHTS...

The game as it stands plays incredibly quickly, although to speed things up I do want to develop a morale system games where you fight to the last man often turn into a boring, going through the motions type game rather than being interesting or dynamic towards their latter half. I also noticed the importance of speed over attack. Kora although her attack was lower managed to kill 2 Orcs to Sir Gildain's 1 who spent most of his time playing catch-up (maybe his armour was too heavy). This isn't a problem with the balance of speed vs attack, it just means that Sir Gildain has to be played in a certain way. He may take a while to get to the fight, but once he's there, he's pretty devastating.

The card mechanic works perfectly, the only chore being having to make the cards. I think in the end I will opt for counters drawn from a cup, but until then it works fine. What I like most about the card mechanic is it builds in character quality without any additional characteristics. The higher level a character, the more cards they have, the more likely they are to get cards before the joker is drawn! This is why opted for a card per point of stat rather than the stat on a single card. Sure it means more cards or counters, but it gives you something extra for your troubles. Something strange I did notice was that I no longer looked at characters as a line of stats because I couldn't see their stats, but I felt the characters. That may seem like a strange sentence and it is, because I've never experienced that in a game.

Although the game doesn't currently have a solo mechanic built in I have left space for it, by which I mean that when a card is drawn it's a really simple decision for an AI to make since your decisions are so restricted. For a speed card warriors are most likely to charge the nearest enemy, and rangers and mages are most likely going to use them to keep their distance. AI controlled Rangers and warriors will always use their attack cards as they appear, saving them only if they can't use them, since mathematically it makes no difference. Mages will be more likely to hold on to their attack cards so they can cast spells but I devised a simple system for that while playing. The magic system which is 3 lines in the current rules allows any spell you can imagine and is fully reversible, meaning you will come up with horribly cunning spells for the AI to cast on your own characters more on that another time.

The rules even have room for a full leveling up system, which in it's first iteration is as follows -
1 XP per enemy character your character killed.
1 XP per objective achieved by your character.
Pick up an number of D6s equal to the total XP gathered by your character and roll them.
The character levels up 1 level per 4+ rolled.
The new levels can be used on either attack or defence in any way you choose!

For example here's what I actually rolled after the fight -
Kora killed 2 enemies and so gets 2 dice, she rolled a 5 and a 6 taking her up to level 12. She opts to put 1 level into speed and the other into attack.
Sir Gildain killed 1 enemy, and luckily rolls a 4. He opts to put it into speed (for obvious reasons).

The leveling up system fits because of the card system, it's easy to include any number of stats because you can add any number of cards to the deck, you're not limited by the dice used, a stat can be more than 1-6 or 1-20 or even, if you're crazy 1-100.

That was a long one, but thanks for sticking with it and thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Making the most of cheap toy soldiers - Different schemes make different men!

The following 3 guys are from a bag of toy soldiers currently on sale in poundland, the reason I bought a large number of them is because, unlike most cheap toy soldiers they are pretty near heroic 28mm scale! The particular figure I'm using here is by far the best of the lot, and I wanted to test to see how different paint schemes could hide the fact that all 3 are the same model.

So from left to right we have: a member of a local militia, an officer of the NAPD which I think stands for National Police Department, and last of all a zombie solider.

 The paint jobs were very quickly done, although not 100% finished in the pictures. The zombie was the fastest as you could probably guess and the militia member took the longest.

I've found that because the figures in bags of cheap toy soldiers are so generically military, that they can be painted with almost any scheme and it looks as the figure was intended to be. A good example is the NAPD officer's ballistic vest, and his balaclava which are details that were simply painted on.

All three models are for use in a skirmish game/rpg I'm working on set in a post-societal collapse of America which was possibly caused by aliens. Each figure represents one of the main factions in the game, the militias, the police, a private army of reanimated corpses. There'll also be a mutant force, a sewer scum force and the plain old army force so look out for this same figure kitted out for each of those, with the mutant having a small amout of work done with milliput. Oh and the aliens which are currently under construction and do not use the cheap toy soldiers, but use something equally as cheap!

As always I hope you had a good Christmas, and thanks for stopping by!

WGP

Generating your own 'Game of Thrones' style Houses

So as you  can probably tell, I've been thinking about expanding upon the uses of my name generation table, and here's something that came to my attention after reading an article in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 74 on creating figures for Game of Thrones using various plastic historical sets. My brain however is never happy with simply copying, but thinks what if I could use my universe generator currently in development to generate a Game of Thrones style fantasy world with its own Houses? Then all I'd need are some simple rules for combat and I can solo roleplay in that universe too. Which is a concept that's been on my mind a lot lately, that of creating a universe to write stories in and using wargaming to work out the outcome of battles, skirmishes and one on one fights. Which like George R.R. Martin, should kill off characters in a more realistic way.

Anyway, on to generating houses.

Use the table as standard to generate a house name, here's one I generated earlier: House Yzikku (Iz-ee-ku)
Roll 1D% to determine the number of generations the house as existed for: 10
Roll 1D10 for the number of current Lords: 5
Generate the name of each Lord, the ruling lord must have the same surname as the house, however each normal Lord only has that name on a roll of 4+ on 1D6.
Ruling Lord: Slazu (Slay-zoo) Yzikku
Lord 1: Eqo (Ek-oe) Buokyi (Boo-oe-key)
Lord 2: Rik Yzikku
Lord 3: Vira (Vie-rah) Yzo (Ee-zoe)
Lord 4: Falon Yzikku

Then we start drawing up a basic family tree by making rolls to determine the relation of each Lord to the Ruling Lord on the table below:

D10 Roll	If the Lord has the same surname as the Ruling Lord	If the Lord does not
1	Brother	Brother in Law
2	Brother	Son in Law
3	Brother	Father in Law
4	Son	Uncle
5	Son	Life Long Friend
6	Son	Climbed through the Ranks
7	Uncle	Step Son
8	Uncle	Step Brother
9	Uncle	Half Brother
10	Half Brother	Tournament Champion

These rolls should generate gaps, which then require more characters to be generated to fill. This system is a little patriarchal, so if you desire, why not invert it, and have a family of female lords, maybe miniatures wise using Wargames Factory Amazons. The dice rolls on the table above will enable you to work out the rough ages of each Lord, and so generate an age, which in turn will help with modelling later.

After my rolls on the above table I saw a House plot developing, Eqo FiL, Rik Bro, Vira CttR, Falon Half Brother

Slazu's Father and Mother had him and his brother Rik, their mother then passed away, their father re-married and had a third son Falon. Slazu eventually married, and gave his new father in law Eqo the title of Lord in House Yzikku. Vira climbed through the ranks, from a member of a Lord's retinue, to a Lord's bodyguard, to finally a Lord himself. Since it is the custom to execute any bodyguard that sees his Lord die, it can be worked out that Vira was previously (randomly determine) Falon's bodyguard. Slazu's father then died, making Slazu the Ruling Lord of House Yzikku.

We can then determine rough ages, because we can map out generations - Slazu, Rik and Falon are all the same generation, Eqo is the older generation and Vira could be either. First Eqo is 49 years old (D20+40). Slazu, Rik and Falon are (D10+20 assigning Slazu the highest value, Rik the second and Falon the lowest), 29, 27 and 21. I've decided the roll for Vira's age should put him somewhere between 25 and 45, and so am rolling D20+25, which should give him time for all the necessary heroics that gave him Lord status. Vira is 37 years old.

Next I would proceed to generate all the other people necessary to make possible what we have so far, wives, sisters, daughters etc. Then  maybe move on to generate the founding Lord, who no doubt although dead will be revered by all. Then the Lords' bodyguards and finally all the stats necessary for the rules I'll use, whatever they may be.

Here's the basic family tree of House Yzikku centering around the Lords, because you didn't need to see me roll for all this:

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Solo RPG Session 1 (with commentary)

First things first, lets randomly generate our player character, I've chosen to be a male, because I find it hard to roleplay the opposite sex, the home planet is generated before the race because of the chance that the race will be named after the home planet. I threw in a home city and country for fun.

Name: Ipsyrubye Iploa, or Ips (Eye-ps) for short.
Home City: Ronog (Roe-nog)
Home Country: Psucybec (Soo-cy-bec)
Home Planet: Otootupa (O-too-too-pa)
Home System: (Star) Big Yba (Big Ee-ba) and 10 other planets Otootupa is the 7th.
Race: Xohels (Zo-hels)
Race Type: Intelligent Energy/ Elemental (currently just for aesthetics)
Gender: M
Strength: 4c
Skill: 4s
Personality: 2c

To speed things up when generating the home system I only generated the home planet and star and just rolled for the number of total planets and Otootupa's position in the system. For the Star I rolled a 7, and generated Bigybap, it just made sense to me to drop the 'p' and split it into two words. For generating stats I now decided on 3 stats to keep the system simple and when drawing cards I only included 2s-6s so we have a lot of progress to make. Ips seems like a pretty strong and skilled Elemental, but is lacking severely in the personality department. For the next step I've drawn up a list of yes/no questions to ascertain where Ips is and why. I shuffled my deck and drew cards, red=yes, black=no, I'm ignoring any jokers. You might notice a lot of the questions are broad and are intentionally used to generate conflict situations, if I'm in a strange location I'll be asking about wars before I ask about holidays. The questions are also about generating a lot about your character and a lot of it is created on the fly.

Am I on my home planet? Yes.
If not I would have gone onto asking 'Am I in my home system? Sub-Sector? Sector?'
Am I in my home country? No.
What country and city am I in? Trivlo in Amo. (Generated in answer to the question)
Does my home planet have more than one race? (I rolled a D3 to determine the number) No (1).
Is this foreign country at war with my home country? Yes.
Are we winning the war? Yes.
Am I a soldier? Yes.
Am I currently on a mission? Yes.
Am I in charge of the mission? Yes.
Am I in charge of a squad? Yes.
I started small considering my stats, but if not would have moved up to platoon, company, army etc.
How many members are their in my squad not including me? 5 (D6 roll, re-rolling 1s)
Are we regular army? No. (Meaning they'd all most likely be Xohels)
Are we mercenaries? Yes. (Meaning a potential mix of races, depending upon tech level)
What tech level are the Xohels? (Because I forgot to ask earlier) Tech 6, Advanced Civilisation, Use of Aircraft, Communication with other planets, Satellites. (So my squad are all most likely Xohels, but I'll roll for it, on a 6 we have an alien mercenary)

Squad Leader: Ips Iploa (Me)
Strength: 4c, Skill: 4s, Personality: 2c
Squad Member 1: (Xohel) Utax Ogamo.
St: 4s, Sk: 3c, P: 6c
Squad Member 2: (Xohel) Mo Lo Kiu (Lots of shortening, almost a 30 letter name there)
St: 6d, Sk: 4d, P: 4c
Squad Member 3: (Xohel) Xagwe Jul
St: 5d, Sk: 5c, P: 3h
Squad Member 4: (Xohel) Mili Efe
St: 5s, Sk: 6h, P: 3d
Squad Member 5: (Xohel) Alix Omoja (dropped the third name 'Kibybu')
St: 6s, Sk: 3s, P: 5h
Are we currently fighting? Yes.
Are we in a good position? No.
Are we outnumbered? No.
Are we trapped? No.
Is there a bomb that needs defusing? Yes. (Maybe I shouldn't have asked that)
Are we also fighting enemies? Yes.
Do we outnumber them? Yes.
How many are there? 2 (I rolled a D6, ignoring 6s because we outnumber them)

I went back and generated the stats for my squad.

Are we well equipped? No.
Are the enemies? No.
(I'll ignore equipment for now, and assume we each have a ranged weapon that provides no bonuses, no armour and a melee weapon that provides no bonuses)
Are the enemies between us and the bomb? No.
Do I have the initiative? No.

I generated the stats for the Amo Fighters. I decided they would be 1 level lower than we were, so only put cards in the pack from 2-5 and didn't generate a personality stat, because I thought it would be pointless for this encounter.

Amo Fighter 1
St: 5c Sk: 3d
Amo Fighter 2
St: 3c Sk: 2s

I'll now ask some questions about the temperament of the two Amo Fighters, to gauge how they have reacted to walking in on us defusing their bomb.

Do the two Amo fighters stand and shoot? Yes.
Who does the first Amo Fighter shoot at? Utax (I rolled a d6 and went down the list of my squad including me)
Does Utax have cover? No (if so I would have added a negative modifier to the hit draw)
Skill Draw: Kc (King of clubs), the Amo Fighters Skill is 3d, the card is higher, and the wrong colour, meaning a critical failure. The Amo Fighters weapon jams.
Who does the second Amo fighter shoot at? Mo
Does Mo have cover? Yes (since the skill of the second fighter was 2 I couldn't add any value modifiers, so I added a suit modifier, only on a black 2 would they score a success).
Skill Draw: 7h compared to the Sk of 2s = critical failure, the second Amo fighter's weapon also jams.

I'm deciding each character in the combat can make 2 activations, so now i'll draw to decide what the Amo fighters will do for their next actions with the most sensible first. But before that I'll need to get some more info on their situation.

Is AF1 (Amo Fighter 1) in cover? Yes.
Is AF2 in cover? No.
AF2 will spend their second action running for cover.
AF1 will spend their second action unjamming their weapon.

Now it's my turn.

At this point I realised the defusal draw and firing will be dependent upon the Skill stat of my squad. And I'm not too worried about the shooting of the Amo Fighters, they seem to have proved rather useless. Before I start ordering folks around though I'm going to take a closer look at that bomb.

Am I near the bomb enough to work out what kind of bomb it is? Yes. (not sure if that's a good thing, but if I wasn't I would have spent my first action getting over there)
Is the bomb on a timer? No. (that's bad)
Does the bomb remotely detonate? Yes. (that's very bad)

I'm going to have to defuse this bomb, or this could be over before it starts. Milie has the highest skill in the squad so I'm going to send them to defuse the bomb.

Is Milie near the bomb enough to defuse it? Yes.
Skill Draw: (now I'm very nervous) 10d compared to 6h, the diamonds are the same colour, but the wrong suit and a higher number, that counts as a standard failure. Milie's action is spent and the bomb is not defused.
Milie does have a second action because they were already near the bomb, so I'll order them to keep at it.
Skill Draw: Qc compared to 6h, the result is higher and the wrong colour, a critical failure.

Let's ask some questions about the bomb, they all have to be pretty negative due to the critical failure, so lets see where this ends up.

Does the bomb immediately go off? Yes.
Is is an explosive bomb, designed to level buildings and kill people? Yes.

Poo.

Scene end.

That new and yet to be fully tested name generation table for human(ish) languages

Step 1) Roll 1D10 to determine the length of the word, rerolling 1s and 2s.
Step 2) Roll 1D10 to determine if the word begins with a consonant or a vowel, odd = vowel, even = consonant.
Step 3) Roll for your letters alternately on the following tables. Roll an additional D6 with your D6 for vowels and D20 for consonants. On a 6 this additional die adds a twist, roll it again to determine which. A twist is allowed to extend the word beyond its original rolled length:
Vowel+Y Table
D6 Roll	Vowel	Twist 1		Twist 2	Twist 3	Twist 4	Twist 5	Twist 6
1	A	Aa		Ae	Ai	Ao	Au	Ay
2	E	Ea		Ee	Ei	Eo	Eu	Ey
3	I	Ia		Ie	Ii	Io	Iu	Iy
4	O	Oa		Oe	Oi	Oo	Ou	Oy
5	U	Ua		Ue	Ui	Uo	Uu	Uy
6	Y	Ya		Ye	Yi	Yo	Yu	Yy
Consonant Table
D20 Roll	Consonant		Twist 1	Twist 2	Twist 3	Twist 4	Twist 5	Twist 6
1	B		Bl	Bl	Bl	Br	Br	Bb*
2	C		Ch	Cl	Cr	Cs	Cz	Ck*
3	D		Dr	Dr	Dr	Dr	Ds*	Dd*
4	F		Fl	Fl	Fr	Fr	Fs*	Ff*
5	G		Gl	Gn	Gr	Gw	Gs*	Gg*
6	H**		-	-	-	-	-	-
7	J**		-	-	-	-	-	-
8	K		Kl	Kr	Kn	Kt*	Ks*	Kk*
9	L		No twist	No twist	Lt*	Ll*	Lt*	Ll*
10	M		No twist	No twist	Mn*	Mm*	Mn*	Mm*
11	N		No twist	No twist	Nt*	Ng*	Nd*	Nn*
12	P		Ph	Pl	Pr	Ps	Pt*	Pp*
13	Q**		-	-	-	-	-	-
14	R		No twist	No twist	Rt*	Rr*	Rt*	Rr*
15	S		Sh	Sl	Sr	St	Sv	Ss*
16	T		Th	Tl	Tr	Tw	Ts*	Tt*
17	V		Vl	Vl	Vl	Vr	Vr	Vv*
18	W		Ws	Ws	Ws	Ws	Ws	Ww*
19	X**		-	-	-	-	-	-
20	Z**		-	-	-	-	-	-
*Re-roll if at start of word. **This letter cannot twist