Confessions of a Patron Player #BROvenloft

 To readers of my blog, here is the reason for the lack of posts.  I have been spending all of my gaming time on this amazing project as a patron.

Confessions of a Patron Player   #BROvenloft

I woke up today a little groggy.  Groggy form the dense, intense, patron level campaign play that has been going on in the #BROvenloft campaign for the last week.  For those not in the know the quick and dirty of it is that Brovenloft is a live 1:1 time always on campaign based off of all the classic horror tropes found in the original Ravenloft module, showing how that concept is so much more innovative and fun when viewed through the lens of patron play.  The game is largely taking place over Twitter, but Discord has also been vital.  But I guess what I want to do here with this writing is to give my full perspective on where I am today, and how I got started in this world of online patron play, and why it’s so amazing and potentially addictive.  

Right now I’m feeling grateful that several people involved with this game have recently posted online to all of us involved that we shouldn’t forget to get outside, exercise, enjoy life, and not live on our devices playing a silly game.  I’m definitely guilty of being on my phone and laptop or with my nose in an AD&D book WAY too much this week, and I know I need to back off a bit.  But here I am Monday morning, and I’m dealing with the excitement and wreckage of last night's PC session where we did something that started out very silly, then got very serious, then potentially did a game altering thing.  A thing that resulted in the death of a few very well played and loved PCs, all kind of from a silly whim.  That’s both cool and crushing, losing a long played PC, but also being excited that  his death got to tell a cool campaign altering story.  Couple this to a Saturday afternoon where I got pulled into a discord chat to resolve a very brutal sneak attack that left me literally adrenaline fatigued and exhilarated at my super close escape from death at the last second.  Then add in all the guilt and time management stress of playing this game super hardcore, but still managing family and work responsibilities and you can hopefully appreciate the feeling of fatigue i’m feeling.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely, but ONLY IN MODERATION.  I think it's brilliant that Brovenloft was intentionally planned to last only a month.  It’s too intense for anything else.  It’s only 10 days in and people are already checking in to make sure no one's going all Mazes and Monsters.  I could not last more than a month.  I can only imagine how much herculean effort our mighty DM is putting in.  This is intense, elite level gaming.  I never really understood what that meant, I thought it was just pro wrestling grandiosity.  

But I came into this community last winter by way of this awesome youtube channel called The Joy of Wargaming who was doing these amazing videos on how you can have great, living wargaming campaigns all from the core AD&D books and he showed you step by step how to do it.  From there I became aware of the BROSR community on twitter and really got their use of kayfabe to troll the greater twitter gaming community.  Then I found Jeffro’s blog and was really enjoying his session reports, when I commented and asked how I could get involved with 1:1 Brosr games.  He immediately screenshotted my post and put it up on twitter and literally within 3 hours I had like 4 offers of games and I ended up joining up with the Red Frontier campaign who accepted me with open arms, the short lived Aegyptus Campaign, the Blackbird campaign as a patron, and a patron in Dill’s game Mentlegen and Wagons.  Though I really enjoyed all of those games, being in live online sessions of Red Frontier has been great. I highly recommend anyone who doesn’t already know it to check out session reports and join a game or two, it’s super fun, well-run games.  From Red Frontier my wizard tried to do a sacrificial thing he thought would save Red Frontier from a big problem, and he ended up in Brovenloft as a minor patron, unprepared and unaware.  I’ve had to really scrimp and scrape for everything I acquired in Brovenloft, I’m kind of a minor leaguer who got called up to Brovenloft and is now playing with super stars. It’s been very challenging and fun, getting to meet all these characters from the Brosr, and match wits or share wits.  This truly is elite level gaming and only a very few gamers are currently experiencing what we get to experience.  I salute my fellow players, and all who are enjoying the incredible banter and storytelling that is happening on twitter #BROvenloft.  It is must view content.

Electronic D&D

Scored at the Brimfield flea market.  Complete, works.

Planning this Mashup, PC to Domain Level Play

 

Campaign carnival After Action Report Scenario 4

 After Action Report-  Scenario 4.3  Counterstrike!

Rules-  Chainmail 3rd ed.

Force Composition-  

Baron Elizabeth’s Forces

6x  Heavy Foot 12

6x Armor Foot w/ 15

Hero 30

6x Med Cavalry 24

Hero/ Magic Sword 30

8x Light Cavalry 24

4x Light Foot 4

4x Heavy Foot (Elf Ally) 4

6x Heavy Cavalry 30

Wizard 50

       217

Orcs Gnashers Redux

8x Archers 32

2x Heavy Cav 10

2x Ogres         30

4x Armor Foot 10

Wraiths         10

6x Heavy Foot 12

4x Med Cav 16

Hero 20

6x Light Cav 24

        161

Scenario-

Terrain and Deployment

Humans deploy first, with heavy cav on left flank, armor foot with hero, heavy foot and med cav with hero across the front, and light cav in column on the right flank.  Wizard posting up in the rear.

Gnashers respond by spreading out the monsters, with ogres on the flanks, and wraiths in the center.  The armor foot posts between the 2 barricades, with heavy cav and heavy foot behind them.  Med cav and light cav take the right flank.  

In-Game Events-  Since the orcs are at significantly lower points, they will auto win initiative for turn 1.  Orcs choose to have the humans move first.

Turn 1-  The 4 human units on the left rolled to see if they found the goat trail, no luck.  The light cav swings around the hill in column, staying out of charge range of the orc cav.  The human med and hvy cav make half moves while the infantry make full moves forward keeping them near each other.  The wizard targets the wraiths with a fireball, but they make their save and only the armor foot adjacent the wraiths perish, but it causes the other base of armor foot to lose morale.  The orcs move forward with the wraiths and ogres pushing forward, the med and hvy cav keeping pace.  The archers move behind the earthworks and fire on the human heavy foot killing 3.  The orc light cav presses on the human light cav.

End turn 1  Humans 1, Orcs 0

Turn 2.  Humans win initiative and choose to move first.  The light cav does a left turn and charges the orc light cav, trading wounds and forcing it back in good order.  The hero and med cav charges the ogres and the armor foot charges the wraiths.  The other human hero and the heavy foot charge the other ogre and the human hvy cav charge the orc light cav.  The elves and the light foot move forward staying out of bow range.  Then the wizard fireballs the orc med cav with the hero attached and kills two bases of cav leaving the hero to act alone.  Orcs respond by the hero charging into the human med cav, and the heavy foot charging the center.  The human hero with the magic sword gets a hit on the ogres and slays them.  They also kill the heavy foot and the hero fails morale and surrenders.  The wraiths touch 2 units of armor foot and paralyze them and the armor foot responds by killing all but one heavy foot.  The ogres on the left smash all the human heavy foot, leaving just the hero in single combat.  The human heavy cav slays the orc heavy cav.  

Score end of turn 2- Humans 5, Orcs 1

Turn 3-  Humans win initiative and elect to move first.  

Human light cav charge the orc light cav, but the wounded orcs from the camp mobilize in the face of total annihilation, and some orc med cav manages a countercharge into the melee.  They trade wounds and the orcs are pushed back in good order, all fatigued save the med cav. The wizard fireballs 2 bases of archers, limiting their effectiveness.   They respond by doing 1 wound to the elves.  The human hero and the med cav pivot and charge into the orc hvy foot and the wraiths, i ruled they had to slay the orcs before they could reach the wraiths.  The orcs died and the hero with magic sword moved forward to fight the wraiths but failed to do enough wounds.  The armor foot were unparalyzed by the elves who moved into their rear, but cannot affect the wraiths so they just stayed locked in combat.  On the left side of the battlefield the heavy cav charged the ogres and with the hero did enough wounds to slay them.  All of the human units on the field save the wizard and the light cav and the elves are now fatigued.

End of turn 3 Humans 7, Orcs 1

Turn 4  Humans win initiative again and go first to deliver the death blow to the orcs.  

The elves swing around the armor foot to threaten the wraiths as they are able to inflict wounds on them, but the hero with the magic sword manages to finish them off.  The med cav detach from the hero and about face to cover the orcs cav on the right.  The wizard fireballs the remaining archers who held morale last round, and the rest of the army rests as the light cav receives a charge from the orc med cav, hvy cav and fatigued light cav.  The light cav trade wounds and the orc light cav breaks due to losses.  The rest of the melee holds.  I’m going to call the game at this point as the orcs would probably take the opportunity to run away while the humans are resting.  

Score at end of turn 4-  Humans 10, Orcs 1

Final Score-   Humans 10, Orcs 2

Duration-  5 turns (turn 5 was just the orc hvy and med cav routing the human lt cav in melee, scoring 1pt)  they then flee with the rest of the orcs.  About 3 hours of play including set up.  

Conclusion-  The Baron Elizabeth’s forces won 3 out of 4 games in the Campaign Carnival.  Their original goal was to beat down the newly reformed tribe of Gnashers Redux from the Whitehart Wood enough to consider her hex in the Wood cleared, which would then allow the construction of her keep.  The next phase of the Whitehart Wood Campaign will be the arc of Baron Elizabeth gathering her materials and resources and constructing a proper keep and wall and defending her territory while doing it.  The Gnashers Redux are severely whittled down but still will cast a presence in the hex.  Their surviving numbers are 3 bases of heavy foot, and 1 base each of armor foot, light cav, med cav, and hvy cav.  This force will be added to the map for future campaigns.  

Status of Casualties- The orcs skulk away off the battlefield into the dense wood with just 3 bases of heavy foot, and 1 base each of armor foot, light cav, med cav, and hvy cav.  No additional human units are killed as a result of this battle.  

Thus ends the Baron Elizabeth vs Gnasher Redux Campaign Carnival.  The Baron’s forces started the campaign with a fairly successful retreating action, followed by a disastrous escorting of a supply train that affected their resources and numbers.  They managed to muster strength and counter with a successful surprise attack on the orcs and then a masterful assault on their main camp.  With 3 victories out of 4 2 being rather large victories, I proclaim the Baron successful in her efforts to put down the Gnashers and make her hex safe for keep construction.  This campaign has been an absolute blast, kept me solo wargaming all summer!  Big thanks Purple Druid!

Giving Away a 2mm Ancients Army! Mini-Wargaming Pay It Forward To Our Community

*Update- It has been paid forward*

 I would like to give a big thanks to Jon Mollison for sending me a mini wargaming gift.  He sent me this sprue of  Black Powder Epic Prussians all the way from HI to MA free of charge and asked that I pay it forward.  A friend of mine just built up a big army of French, so these Prussians will definitely be getting some use.  You likely already know the man, but if you don't check out his amazing youtube channel and website which are both linked on my blog.

So here's how I would like to pay it forward.  I'm giving away a small 2mm Ancients/Fantasy army from metal minis from Irregular Miniatures and bases.  I'm happy to pay forward the miniwargaming love by sending this to anyone interested in 2mm minis that will paint and use them.  Perfect for Chainmail or all kinds of wargaming/RPG uses.  Configure the minis however you want, here's one config I put together.

It's enough minis for 2x Armor Foot, 3x Heavy Foot, 1x Light Foot, 3x Archers, 1x Medium Cavalry, 1x Heavy Cavalry, 2x Heroes/Characters using Chainmail rules, but you can configure them many ways.  

So I will be posting this blog post on Twitter, and hope some member of the miniwargaming community will take me up on the offer and somehow pay it forward to someone else, possibly even a miniwargamer. I WILL PROMPTLY MAIL YOU THIS ARMY FREE OF CHARGE to the first person that messages me either here or on Twitter.  I will post when/if someone claims this offer.  Thanks again Jon Mollison, be sure to check out his amazing Youtube channel "The Joy of Wargaming", and his website jonmollison.com

Historical Minis Wargame Rules I'm Reading/Reviewing

For the last few weeks I have been researching some possible choices for rules sets to use in my fantastic historical wargames campaigns I am planning.  I have definitely decided to use The Solo Wargaming Guide to plan and manage the campaign, but I need to find a rules set or sets to use to work out the actual battles of the campaign.  So far I have acquired the following rules, pictured below clockwise from top left-  Quick Kill (6mm WW2), Oh What a Lovely Wargame (WW1), The Portable Wargame, One Hour Wargames, Hell By Daylight, Hell in Microcosm, FUBAR Vietnam, and Battle for 2mm Earth (2mm WW1).  These choices are specifically for my planned upcoming WW1 and Vietnam campaigns, and I have several others that I have found but haven't printed out yet.  The goal is to choose a rules set that is not overly complicated that can be adjudicated in a solo setting, and the games move along and don't cause mental fatigue, but still being fairly representative of the period.  So far I have yet to really hook into a particular set, definitely need to deep dive several of these systems and decide if I'm going to try one system for both WW1 and Vietnam, or separate systems.  So far I have played One Hour Wargames a few times, and I find that system to be a tad too simplistic, but pretty close to how simplistic a system I want for solo play.  I'd love to find a system one or two clicks more complicated than that.  I think for solo play I will more enjoy the campaign planning and map movements more than the in game tactics, and I think completing games and getting on with things is a better approach than overly complex, long games where its difficult to remember everything.  I would appreciate any feedback from anyone that may know about any of these systems.  

6mm Sci Fi Tanks

 

A Heavy Hover Tank and Hover Troop Transport 6mm