Planning a Game

I'm itching for some gaming. Any gaming. I was browsing through the Google Play store & looking at phone games. But I'd rather push some figures around. I think that it's finally time I start trying to put together my first solo game in the Marienburg vs. The Undeadish campaign.

I rambled on about rules from a few angles before, and I think I've decided to start with Hail Caesar rules. I will be using the HC rules plus the "Shadow Storm" fantasy modifications available at...

Ady's Wargames Den's "Shadow Storm" rules aka Fantasy Hail Caesar

I have started cutting, pasting, and tweaking his army lists into two modified lists for my own factions. I'm considering these as just a starting point. The Marienburg list is big, and represents a lot of both painted and possible units that may appear at some time. The Undeadish list is smaller and simpler, but could see more additions. I imagine that I will change things up quite a bit after both lists see some action. I still need to add the commanders.

My Modified Marienbug List

My Modified Undeadish List

Since this is my first solo game, first game of Shadow Storm, and first game in years of Hail Caesar (and one of only a few I've ever played) I'm going to keep things simple. Maybe an undeadish "breakthrough" scenario. I can deploy the Marienburgers at the edge of a village. Undeadish will then be deployed randomly. Their goals will be to head off the other side along any of several exit zones, killing everything that tries to stop them. The Marienbugers will, obviously, be trying to stop them from entering the village.

That's about it. This will give me my first chance at playing solo, as well as getting reacquainted with the Hail Caesar rules. I can add on programmed actions for the Undeadish, event cards, and some of my other planned experiments later.

Leonardo vs. the Undead

That's more a concept than an official title, but who knows.

The idea I'm pursuing for a solo game is fantasy. My old Empire/Marienburg army as the live player (me) against a programmed/solo army of the undead. Seems like a good fit. I'm heading out of WFB territory. The first rules I'm planning on trying out are a variant of Hail Caesar and either Crusader's Legions of Battle (fantasy) or a variant of their historical Crusader rules (which I think I prefer for a few reasons) or a combination of the two Crusader books.

So that means no "army lists" either, just my own ideas, which is liberating. I think I had already grown tired of the rigid & overly competitive atmosphere that was increasingly dominating WFB. I've just started to poke around some of the blogs/pages of "Oldhammer" stuff, and I think that's sort of more my calling.

I've been posting  some of these thoughts at Warhammer Empire, which I've still continued to visit during my "break" from gaming and increasingly jaded view of WFB. (Great people on the forum, they feel like old friends...) So I will copy & paste what I wrote there regarding my first concepts for the two forces below. (Next time I may post my first thoughts on solo gaming rules.) But first, a few pics. Because this is the internet, and a miniatures blog, and I know that we don't "just read the articles," as the saying goes.

These are some old ancient Germans I still had from my now sold ancients. A mix of Foundry and Crusader. Painted to look a bit undeadish... but not entirely. My initial concept is inspired a bit by the Brothers of the Pines from Moorcock's second Corum series. They've sold out to an inhuman power, and are now unnaturally bound to service, while still retaining some will of their own. So not the mindless undead, but not entirely free, either.

 

 And also a few more artillery crew for the Marienburgers, old GW figures.

So on with the words...

Concept for the forces of Robo the Necromancer

Robo (as I am calling him/her/it for now) is obviously the C-in-C, but for now will remain out of the picture. Or off the battlefield, at least. That will leave various subordinates commanding in the field. I'm going to use the structure of Hail Caesar/Warmaster as a starting point, so armies will have several commanders, each in charge of their "brigade." So to begin with, I will define several subcommander archetypes, which will mostly determine the composition of their forces, but maybe to a certain extent will also determine their leadership capabilities as well. I think most of these will be unique, except there will be multiple Military Animators. Possibly more than one Spiritual Enslaver.

1. Military Animator: Animates undead troops, which are directly controlled by the leader, in a militaristic style. These will form the backbone (haha) of Robo's forces, and will be composed of typical skeleton infantry & cavalry.

2. Spiritual Enslaver: A manipulative leader, controlling the semi-undead & magically bound slave troops I mentioned before. Infantry & Cavalry of formerly independent humans, and possibly other races.

3. Agent Provocateur: Scheming necromancer who destabilizes towns/cities, then animates the dead into mobs of zombies. Since the Agent is more a social manipulator than military leader, this explains why the zombies are masses of sloppy, meaty dead compared to the more reliable skeletal troops of the Military Animators.

4. Vermin Lord: Allies. I have some Skaven and other rat themed figures. I like them, want to use them, and think vermin fit well with the undead. This is not a GW Vermin Lord, but I do like the name.


Other hazy concepts under consideration: Etherialist, Beastmaster, Constructor, Besieger. Maybe those last two are combined into an Engineer.

Also under consideration are individual mercenary or slave units that may show up in any of the commands above, as individuals, or maybe together in a sort of "evil dogs of war" type mercenary brigade. This is entirely based on either figures I already have, or things I may want to get & paint up for whatever reason. So far this would include (from my existing collection) Greater & Lesser Goblins, Myconids, and maybe Greater & Lesser Troglodytes.

Concept for Marienburg forces

Well this one is easier, as it's just a slightly modified version of the canon Marienburg, though my AltHammer setting will be somewhat different than the official Warhammer setting. So it will be an independent city state with a mixed relationship with the neighboring Empire. Since it's mercenary based, I will have less distinct brigades. Most will be mixed. I will keep the diverse racial composition. But I do have a couple of distinct brigades.

1. Mercenary. The core of the army, diverse troop types.

2. City Militia. Only present in armies directly defending the city and immediate environs.

3. Wood Elf Allies. I have a small 3rd ed. Wood Elf army. May as well use it on occasion.

Hail Caesar, DBA and Fall In Loot Collection

Had a #000000 Friday mini game day. Well, very mini, just four of us and it the games only lasted a few hours.

First up was our first trial game of Hail Caesar. Metellus Pius and his Romans on the left, Lucius Hirtuleius with a mixed force of Spanish, Celtiberians and a pair of Roman legions. It was a small game with two commands on each side.

On the far end of the battlefield, the Celtiberians broke, but not after wearing down the Romans including the one unit of veterans. On the near side, the Roman led Spanish smashed through the Metellus' nameless (and incompetent) subcommander's division.

The Sertorian faction stays in control of Spain... for the moment.

There were a few bumps in learning the new rules, but we still finished in less than 2 hours. Overall, I liked the rules. I'd like to see some larger games, especially after getting to know the rules a little better. Overall, though, I like Hail Caesar so far. Not sure if I'm as instantly fond of the rules as I was with Black Powder, though.

Next up was a bit of experimental DBA, Alexander v. Porus. The brown strip was actually a (muddy?) river, which turned out a bit difficult to cross. The Indians won a cheap victory by raiding the Macedonian camp and taking down Alexander.

I also got to pick up the loot I had a friend pick up for me at Fall In: "Last Argument of Kings," some landsknecht casualties from Artizan (they were out of the looters) and a 1/72 Esci SE5a. I also took the copy of "Trench Wars" that he didn't sell at the flea market off his hands.

(not the) Last Argument of the Consumer

I would like to order Last Argument of Kings, but it seems that Amazon is still not stocked yet. Disappointing. I'm really curious to take a look at the book.

I'm still holding off on Hail Caesar until we can try the game out a few times. I've still got a copy on loan from a friend. I need to get some painting done so I can put a game together.

Hail Caesar on the Horizon

Is it my imagination or does the cover of the new Hail Caesar rulebook look like the love child of the Black Powder cover and the WAB2 cover?


I played a game of WAB last weekend. My Romans vs. Selucids. I've got some photos & a report to post, but just haven't had the time to do it this week.