New Conan Game for Scrum Con - Swords Against the Cult

 I am doing two Conan games for the upcoming Scrum Con in Silver Spring, MD in April of this year.  One of the games is the Conan game I did at Barrage two years ago.  I wanted to do two different Conan games for Scrum Con, so I picked another famous part of the original 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie.  The other two possibilities to me were the raid on the snake tower to get the gem and kill the giant snake, or the raid to capture the princess.  I went with the later just because I thought the terrain would be easier ... although in hindsight it has taken me three weeks to build this layout and I think I made an wrong calculation about which terrain would be easiest!

I am going to do something I don't normally do with terrain which is post a picture of the layout completely built, but unpainted.  This I hope will give a sense for how "rough" things look until you actually put some paint on them ... the paint to me anyway is the "magic."

Here are some shots of it on my basement floor.  The "board" is 3.5 feet long (a little longer but just a couple of inches) and 18 inches wide.  It's made out of craft foam (the thick 6mm kind), wooden craft pieces, and rubber tubing.  It's more or less finished (I have one more detail to add to the snake pillar but it's just a minor cosmetic part of it).

Here is a view from the front with the cave tunnel entrance to the main hall.  In the movie the orgy is happening around the snake pillar.  The stairs lead up to the upper level where Thulsa Doom and the princess are.  The four little round tables will have gold treasures on them and the two wooden pieces closest to the entrance are actually fountains, so they will have hot glue "water" on them as well, but not until after they are painted.

 

Here is a closer up view of the place where the orgy is happening.

The beads around the base will be painted as skulls (nice, right!?) and they are glued to the foam at this point so they won't move during play.  The circular raised platform is the top of a very large (13.75" I believe) paper mache box.  The round tubing was hot glued onto the foam.  In the movie, there is a rounded "railing" like feature on the stone, and this tubing was the easiest way to get this effect.  We'll see how it looks painted but I think it will look good. 

Another close up.

You get a better sense for the tubing here.  The smaller wooden pieces on each side of the stairs up are burning light sources for the room.  The styrofoam white piece is the stone bowl that holds the "pea soup" in it in the movie.  It can be moved so if Conan wants to push it over, he can.  The snake pillar in the middle will have another architectural feature under each of the snake heads, but this is more or less what it is going to look like.  It, too, is not glued to the raised circular platform so it can be moved if needed.

Here is a view from the rear of the whole game board.

The top layer is where Thulsa Doom (the figure will be on the circle in the rear of this picture) and the princess are located.  

I have all the figures done as well except for the three heroes, Conan, Subotai, and Valeria.  But I will show the figures like I normally do, after I paint them.

Barrage! Convention Conan Game

 Spent yesterday at the Barrage wargaming convention and as always, I had a blast.  It's just a fun relatively small local gaming convention where I get to connect again with old friends (so good to see you Chris!), play games with the "regulars" from the Hawks who always play in my games (good playing again with you Rob and Norman!), and chat with my gaming heroes (thanks again for playing in my game, Zeb!).  We missed 2020 because of COVID obviously, so the last Barrage I went to in person was 2019 where I ran a Lord of the Rings game.  This year's game, as you know if you have been following this blog, was going to be Conan!

As is always the case with Barrage, I offered two games and had two great groups of players.  The organizers also gave me a table to myself so that I could leave my game set up in between the two games.  This is really not an easy thing to do, and I really, really appreciated this.  Thanks Hawks convention planners!

The game is co-op which is different than most games a minis conventions like this one, but the players in both groups embraced the necessity to use team work and seemed to enjoy the games.  Here are some pics.  Most are from the first game.  I was so tired for the second game that I didn't take very many pictures but there are a couple.

Onlookers soaking in the "weird" figures.

Speaking of "weird" figures.  We've got the two groups of riders as well as the anti-heroes Thorgrim (with maul) and Rexor (with sword).  The riders come on in turn 1, the two anti-heroes come on after turn 3.

Princess restrained so she does not flee back to Thulsa Doom!

 

After playing the test game I realized that I needed more visual interest in terms of terrain.  I added more sponge/bushes, which helped a lot, but I realized after watching the scene from the movie again the scarecrow skeletons of the long dead warriors who fought eons ago on this battlefield were very important in making the battlefield look distinctive and interesting.  So last week I threw together some skeleton terrain features (that the heroes can hide behind) including a skeleton horse cavalry figure!

A view from the player's side behind Valeria's funeral pyre.

Another view of the riders and anti-heroes from the other side at the start of the game.

First Turn:  Valeria charges off the pyre towards the riders!  You can see her next to that boulder in the upper right of the picture.

Here they come!

Brave Valeria charges into their midst!  "Get away from my man!!!"  You can see how this group used the three clumps of sharpened sticks and the one row of them (bottom of picture) to funnel the riders into one area of the boulders.  The riders can move through these obstacles but it takes several turns and really slows them down.  This keeps them from using their fast horses to ride around the side of the heroes and get to the princes!  The rider in the lower part of the picture thought about trying to ride around these pointy sticks, but later thought better of it.  It just takes too long!

Conan leaps out from behind a boulder, surprising the riders!

This was a very interesting combination during the first game.  As predicted, Conan and Valeria stand side by side trying to keep the riders at bay.  However, Akrio can be seen behind a boulder in the upper part of the picture, preparing to charge a rider from the rear by surprise.  The enemies on foot were knocked from their horses at some point and are now having to fight the heroes on foot.

The first group of players pulled Subotai back to the princes to protect her from Thulsa Dooms magical snake arrow which the heroes cannot stop from being fired.  But by having a hero next to the princess, the hero can take the shot from Thulsa Doom instead of it automatically killing the princess, causing the players to lose the game.  Subotai is making his last stand reloading as many of his spent arrows as possible from those he stuck in the ground on top of this burial mound before the battle began.  He took two wounds from the magical arrow from Thulsa Doom but saved the princess!

All four heroes surround Rexor and deal the killing blow.  Victory for the players in the first game with all heroes surviving!

This was during the second game and Conan is in trouble!  Valeria and Subotai are too far away to help, and this second group used Akiro to protect the princess so he is far away at the back edge of the board at this point in the game.  This could have been real trouble for Conan but the player rolled really well and ...

... although they made their armor saves and survived, Conan won the melee combat against four enemies and drove them back, causing them all to be shaken by the defeat!  This was a turning point in this second game with the pendulum swinging in favor of the players!

One added level of tension in this second game was that the heroes ended up having to fall back to the burial mound with the princess, which allowed the enemies to get closer to her and possibly killing her!  This is close to the climactic end of this game with three of the four heroes making their last stand at the base of the prince's burial mound.  Thorgrim is in the mix and Rexor is out of the picture towards the bottom but charging and would eventually arrive.  Akiro is still on top of the mound protecting the princess but would after saving her from Thulsa Doom's magical arrow make his way down and join the fray, casting his "Eye of Doom" spell at both Thorgrim and Rexor injuring them enough so that they could be killed off in melee combat with the heroes.

Interestingly, this game ended with the anti-heroes being killed and there was one remaining fanatical regular infantry enemy left alive, but we called the game here, there was no way he could possibly survive a melee combat against all four heroes at the same time!

Two very enjoyable games that in some ways were similar, but in others were very different.  It was easier for the horses to get past the heroes in the second game because of where the barriers were placed by the players, but they were still able to slow them down enough without a single enemy getting to the top of the princess's burial mound to try and kill her.  Both groups used great team work, which is the point of a co-op game, and I am very please with how these games went.  I hope to be able to run them again at Scrum Con this year.

Finally, Conan!

 Sorry I have not updated for a while.  Unlike for many, COVID has not increased the time I have spent with my hobby.  Quite the opposite.  But, I am back in the swing of things and am getting ready for my Barrage game in two weeks.  As has been planned now for almost 2 years, I am running a Conan game, the Battle of the Mounds, which is the final big battle of the 1982 Arnold Conan Swords & Sorcery classic.  I have had these figures made for a while now, but just recently got them painted.  I did a test game with the guys from my wargaming club (Army of Central Maryland) this past Sunday and here are some pics of everything.

First, the figures ...

Conan the Barbarian!

I decided to go with the big axe rather than his sword.  I am planning to do some other scenarios based on scenes in this movie and he will be using a sword in all the rest of them, so I decided for a different weapon for this game.  Plus, this is what he is using when the Battle of the Mounds begins ... so, it's "historically accurate." <smile>  Here is another pic of the painted Conan from the rear.

Conan is not complete with his beloved Valeria.  By this time she has been killed (sorry for any spoilers) so in this game she is a ghost.  Here she is ...

Next is Subotai, Conan's trusted companion.  This one is probably my favorite figure ... plus he gets the award for having the coolest helmet!

And Conan would have died had it not been for the magic of his wizard friend, Akiro.

Just like in the movie, I love his oversized helmet!  You have to use what you have when you are looting the dead for their weapons and armor.

And now for the game ...

I used my homebrew rules that I have used in the past for the LotR games I have done.  I just changed the heroes' special abilities to fit these characters.  Here is the battlefield before the enemies arrive.  You can see two of the three mounds (the third is off to the left and is where the Princess is chained to the rock to keep her from running off back to Thulsa Doom.  The big die on the far mound is a counter, counting down the turns until Thulsa Doom arrives and shoots the magical snake arrow at the Princess, trying to kill her.

You can see Valeria on her funeral pyre where she goes when she is "wounded."  She can't be killed because she's a ghost, but if she takes a wound she has to go back to her pyre.  The black circles are used to allow the heroes to hide.  Most of the circles are blank, one for each hero (3, Valeria can't hide), and one is a trap.  The enemies when they touch a boulder allows me as the GM to turn over a black circle.  Also the heroes can no longer hide behind that boulder during the game.  I had rules for allowing them to appear at different boulders as well so that they could surprise the enemies, just like in the movie.

Early in the game.  The Servants (left) and the Black Guard (right) are riding to kill the heroes hiding in the boulders.  You can see Conan and Valeria next to some spikes to protect them from the mounted enemies, and Akiro is off in the upper right corner, possibly being ridden down by some of the Black Guard during the next turn.

Here is a close up of the same point in the game.  Four Black Guard ride towards Conan and Valeria hoping to slay them!

The battle progresses.  I have rules for dismounting riders (you can see one of the Black Guard is on foot).

The end of the game.  Only one Black Guard remains and Rexor (middle) and Thorgrim (right) have joined the fray.  Conan and Valeria continue to fight together with Subotai rushing toward the melee.  By this time in the game, Akiro unfortunately had been killed.  The gold gem next to Thorgrim indicates that he is Shaken.

The end of the game.  Valeria, Conan, and a very wounded Subotai fight together against Rexor who is Shaken.  The trio would eventually slay Rexor.

The victors!  And ...

They succeeded in saving the princess!

The game went well, just a few tweaks I think and it will be Barrage Convention ready.  I need to finish a Thulsa Doom figure.  In the game he is a plot element attacking the Princess with a snake arrow and it forces the players to have one hero stay back next to the princess to take the shot so that she won't be killed.  So he just shows up for one turn and is really just for visual fun in the game, but it would be great to have a Thulsa Doom figure nonetheless.

African Wars Technical

Well, this is probably about as "finished" as I am going to get with my first "Granny Grate" vehicle, a Technical for the African Wars.

My hope is that as I get better using wood filler for the body, I can get a smoother finish. I suspect the culprit was my impatience at sanding such a small item.

I am happy with the glass window effect – I watched several Youtube painting tutorials on the subject – but admit that it should probably be a bit dirtier than it is. I will have to experiment with that more.

The weapon system is made from the same needlepoint canvas as all of the guns were for my troops. I used one piece for the tripod and another for the weapon. Simple, but it conveys the effect, which is all my minimalist style goes for.

I am still trying to figure out what style of grill I want to use. For now I am keeping it black while I paint different styles on scraps.

My next effort has to be either a tank, 2 1/2 ton truck, armored personnel carrier, or a helicopter. As it stands, I am very pleased with the results. I look forward to experimenting with more designs.

Barrage 2019 Games - Two Lord of the Rings Affairs!

I got back from Barrage 2019 late last night, too tired to post about it.  24 hours later, I'm still tired, feeling very much the "old man," but am going to post some pics of the games I ran at the convention.

First off, it continues to be one of my favorite minis gaming conventions.  It is a little on the small side, but the Hawks, who host the convention, are very professional and organized in putting together a local, but still two-day convention that attracts enough gamers to make it fun and interesting.  I have been to probably six of the last eight Barrage conventions, and have had a good time at each one.  Now for the games I ran.

My plan after last year was to get my Dark Ages game done and run that.  Didn't happen.  But Buck, one of the Hawks and one of the main organizers of the convention, contacted me and asked me to run a game or two, even if it was a rehash of my old games.  He told me that the games with my little wooden miniatures have become somewhat of a "standard" at Barrage in terms of there always being a game or two with them offered at Barrage, and I was too flattered not to put on a game or two after being asked so nicely.  So I decided that the easiest thing to do was to do a Balin's Tomb game with my 2nd generation LotR figures (since I had already done one for my club over a year ago), and I would also do a Bridge of Khazad-Dum game, since that would force me to get off my duff and finish the balrog … a figure that has been unpainted in my basement for … I can't believe it … more than a year!  So I committed to Buck that I would run these two games.

Before I get to the games, here is a shot of the finished Balrog miniature.  I made a lot of additions to him, besides the paint, since the last pictures of him that I posted on this blog over a year ago.

I am very pleased with how he turned out.  I changed his feet, I put him on a different base, and I used the hot glue gun to fill in a bunch of the areas that used to be open space, such as around his "elbows" and this turned out to be a great decision.  I also used the hot glue gun to make the "ridges" on his horns and face as well as to create a mouth opening.  His teeth are tile spacers.  The fire coming out of his back behind his head is just paper with hot glue all over it to give it strength.  I painted the areas on him that were going to be fire white and then used the neon craft paints (orange and yellow colors) to create the fire effect.  Then I painted the dark brown over the fire to create the look like what is on his shoulders.  There are other pictures of him in the second game report below, but above is a close up of him.  I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have him finished!  I think he turned out really good!

Game 1 - Balin's Tomb
The first game was the old stand by the skirmish in Balin's Tomb.  I used different terrain for this game than the last time, so I'll spend more time talking about it.  The main difference is I used a oil painting canvas as a "board."  This turned out to be a good decision because it made it easy to move the "tomb" floor plan around and all I had to do was paint it black and then do some lighter to darker tones starting with the middle of the room going to the edges.  The corners are black cardboard boxes I got at a craft store.  The "doors" are just wooden craft shapes that I glued together and painted to look like the doors.  This is the beginning of the game before the goblins rush in, but the doors have been broken open.

Here is a shot after the battle has been joined.  Aragorn, Gimli, and Boromir have rushed to the front to stop the onslaught of goblins pouring through the doorway.  Legolas provides supportive bow fire from behind and the hobbits and Gandalf provide moral support from the rear.  The gold gem on Aragorn means that he is shaken because he lost a melee combat with that goblin, but he wasn't wounded.  He would rapidly recover from the shock and fight on!

In game shot … I accidentally got a shot of Zeb Cook's hand in the shot.  As you can see Merry has moved up on the goblin's left, getting ready to join the fray.

Here is a shot right before the end of the game.  The dreaded cave troll has entered the room, striking fear in the hearts of the Fellowship.  Lucky for them Zeb was playing Legolas, who before this point in the game hadn't hit anything with his bow, and he got two shots into the cave troll as it entered the room before it could get into melee with anyone and I rolled a "1" on the death check … "www-UUUUhhhhhh …" went the cave troll as it fell face-first onto the floor of the tomb, dead.  You can see that Sam has moved up to help out Gimli, and that goblin in the upper right of the picture was Shaken for three turns I think, never recovering, and spent the entire battle cowering back on that corner <laugh>!

It was a pretty easy victory for the Fellowship.  Killing the cave troll so quickly certainly helped, but I didn't put enough goblins in the fight.  Next time, more goblins.

Game 2 - The Bridge of Khazad-Dum
Probably my favorite scene in the first LotR movie is the Fellowships flight to and across the Bridge of Khazad-Dum.  Seeing the Balrog, Gandalf falling, all highly dramatic stuff, and something that I wanted to try and capture in a minis game using my little wooden fellows.

I had a great group of players in this game, all very experienced minis game players and this really helped out a lot, because they had a very bad shock of bad luck within the first few turns of the game.

The Fellowship has about three or four turns to try and get as far from the door, and to the bridge, as possible before the Balrog makes an appearance.  The problem is there are goblins coming in from the sides to try and serve a speed bumps to slow them up so that the Balrog can get them.

Here is a close up of the Fellowship running through the doorway in the mountainside on their way to the bridge, with Balrog and goblins in hot pursuit!

And here is amore distant shot.  The mountain wall was made with thick craft foam cut into the shapes and layered together to give the impression of a thick rock formation.

Here is a shot of the game right before the Balrog arrives.  You can see that the Fellowship is making progress, with Gandalf leading the way, but the goblins are closing in and causing some problems for them.

Tense times for the Fellowship.  Boromir is about to have 4 goblins on him, Frodo is under attack (they lose the game if Frodo is killed), and Gimli is being held up close to the door by a lone goblin.

But they do manage to start making some progress thanks in large part to Boromir blowing the Horn of Gondor and causing 6 goblins to become shaken, allowing the Fellowship to run past them without getting stuck in melee with them.  You can see the edge of the bridge in this shot (it is also made out of craft foam) and the blackness over the edge is just black felt that the two canvases that serve as the two boards (one on each side of the bridge) are painted more or less the same way as they were for the Balin's Tomb game.  And then … the Balrog came through the door!  And you'll note that … wait … where's Gandalf!?  He fell!  Gandalf fell!  No way for the Fellowship to hold back the Balrog now!  And they can't destroy the bridge anymore either!  Oh no!  The poor guy playing Gandalf rolled a "1" on the first Death check, the only thing that would kill Gandalf, and Gandalf was removed from play.  This sapped the morale of the players, but like the heroes they were playing, they pushed on!

The Balrog moves at a steady 6 inches each time it is activated, and if it comes into contact with friend or foe it doesn't stop moving … it pushes them forward with it.

I took the backdrop cave wall down because I kept knocking the #@$%! thing over, so it doesn't look as good as in the other pictures, but what can I say.  I got tired of knocking it over.  At this stage you can see Frodo, Pippin, and Sam have rushed across the bridge and are nearly to the other side.  Merry is close behind but there is a goblin next to him (Frodo and Sam knocked the goblin down in the turn before so they could run past him this turn!).  But you can see a goblin closing in from their right ready to attack them in melee once they exit the bridge.  Once any one member of the Fellowship is within an inch of the bridge, the new goblins that come on each turn can come enter on the board that is on the far side of the bridge close to the exit.  Boromir, Aragorn, and Gimli are attempting to hold the Balrog back on the other side of the bridge!  The issue is although they can "win" in combat, they have no way of hurting the creature (only magic can hurt it) so the best they can do is slow it down.  But they were able to fight this thing for several turns as it pushed them across the bridge and they were not miraculously wounded or killed!

The Fellowship got stuck on the other side trying to get out, but the Balrog kept coming!  Without Gandalf, they can't destroy the bridge!

This is the next to last turn.  I think it was this turn that the Fellowship won the melee combat with the Balrog and the lone goblin (you can just see him in between two of the hobbits on the right side of the fray) and they caused two Hits.  The goblin takes one of them, and he died, and the second must be taken by the Balrog.  Normally this would be ignored because only magic can hurt the Balrog but since Frodo, using Sting, was in the melee the Balrog could be wounded.  I rolled … he was wounded, and had to make a death check.  If I rolled a "1" on a D6 he would die ... but I rolled a "5" so he was only wounded, not killed.  Finally the cards (which are used to activate the figures) were kind to the players and the Fellowship all acted before the Balrog which allowed them to flee up the stairs and out of the cavern to safety.  To win the Fellowship had to get Frodo and four other members of the Fellowship out alive, and they were able to get all out except for Gandalf.  Player victory!

I also played in a game at this year's Barrage (I don't always do that) and had a really fun time in the game I played in as well … even though I was soundly defeated!  Another great year at Barrage and I'm already looking forward to next year.