We come in peace…Shoot to kill

Welcome to part 2 of theTrek Hulk mashup “It’s Trek Jim but not as we know it”.

For those that can’t remember and can’t be arsed to go back a post, an Away Team from the USS Cousteau have beamed aboard a damaged Borg recon vessel in order to download its communication logs.

The following pictures and text help illustrate some of the rules and are not, you’ll be relieved to hear, an exhaustive blow by blow account of the game.

The Away Team head out up the corridor with security officer Ensign Ginsella and her phaser rifle in the lead. The miniatures have 4 action points to spend plus the chance of a 1-6 command point boost to this total each turn - which could be translated into extra movement if I wanted, though moving more than 3 squares per turn automatically switches the Borg from ambivalent and semi dormant to full on hostile mode.

Should I get the Away Team to leg it or opt for caution? The orange counter in the middle of the countdown stack indicates the buggers will come to life whatever I do on turn 5, but until then I suspect it might be best to make as much progress as I can without disturbing them.

Note that until the Borg become actively hostile the Away Team player controls the movement of any of those not in a regeneration alcove and MUST roll 1D6-2 for their movement every turn. A negative die roll outcome means an individual Borg will stay where it is but anything positive means it has to move that number of squares.

The die roll for the Borg in the nearest corridor recess was a 2 so he didn’t move, but just to be on the safe side I put Ensign Ginsella on overwatch using the action points I hadn’t used on movement.

The team tiptoes past the Borg in the recess and spreads out to leave a 1 square gap between them. Once again unused action and command points were used to put the Ensign on point into overwatch. Anything coming down the corridor was going to have a nasty surprise.

Which was all fine until I rolled for the mandatory Borg movement and got a 5. Even with a -2 deduction he was still required to move 3 squares and obviously couldn’t.

There are 4 things that will tip the Borg into instant hostility; weapon fire, interaction with an objective, rapid movement and yes…blocking the path of a moving drone. 2 of 10 stepped out into the corridor behind Ensign Ginsella but couldn’t go any further. He was not best pleased.

Finding his path blocked 2 of 10 became immediately hostile which meant (since the Borg are all linked together by a single hive mind) that all of the other buggers had suddenly become hostile too. Dammit. So much for the stealthy approach.

2 of 10 had only used 1 point to move into the corridor and still had two points left which was enough to initiate a melee on the unsuspecting Ensign. Ginsella had been placed on overwatch, a stance that allows her to fire at any moving enemy outside of the Away Teams turn however she was carrying the phaser rifle which cannot be fired at targets in an adjacent square. The Borg roll 2d6 in melee and pick the highest score while Starfleet officers roll 1d6. Highest scoring mini wins the melee. Note there is no facing aspect at work here as there is in Space Hulk.

2 of 10 rolled badly but Ginsella, who in fairness was looking the other way at the time, rolled even worse. Assimilation tubules shot out of the Borgs wrist and burrowed into the security officers neck. Assimilation in Trek Hulk is a two part process, and though Ginsella now had millions of transformative nanobots swarming through her body the length of time it takes to become fully Borgified varies from individual to individual. 

Luckily for the stricken Ginsella, Lt Posc (the Away Team medic) was next in line behind and he launched straight into a melee of his own with 2 of 10. Posc has a hand phaser of course and could’ve just shot at the Borg, but I forgot in all the  “excitement”. Lol. Posc bravely grappled the drone while Ginsella lay writhing on the deck plates in transformative agony. Could the doughty Denobulan medic save her? Well yes it seemed he could. His melee die roll was a 6 and the best that  old Borgy chops could muster was a 5.

2 of 10 is removed from the board but will be recycled as a new drone as soon as a regeneration alcove is empty. 

With sufficient action points remaining Posc injects Ginsella with a shot of Federation anti assimilation nanobots that hunt down and destroy their Borg counterparts. He only has two  doses of these on him, so he best not to be too liberal with their application.  (Yup this is my own invention and may prove to be unnecessary game wise or a bit OP as the kids say - we’ll have to see).

The Borg are now in hostile mode but a roll of 2 means that only two of the drones on the board can be activated this turn. In the above picture two drones step out of their regeneration alcoves leaving the spots clear for future casualties to re spawn on them. Given that the Borg vessel is considered to be damaged I have not allowed the Borg to use their one in game corridor blocking forcefield.

With no further need for caution the Away Team move quickly towards the target that lies unhelpfully just out of shot on the right.

Drones began to fill the corridor between the Away Team and the target data node. There was a lot of poor shooting and a seemingly never ending stream of targets. In this instance the drone advancing on the Ensign was able to adapt his shielding to her phaser fire when she rolled a double in overwatch - shrugging off the hit.

The Away Team slowly ground their way forward often having to resort to desperate hand to hand action due to Ginsella and the bloody annoying 1 square prohibition on phaser rifle fire. Given that characters can not pass through each other in the narrow corridor or fire weapons around those in front, Ginsella’s weapon was all they’d got to keep the Borg at bay.

Finally the phaser rifle comes in to its own. Fired during the Away Team activation rather than in overwatch it catches a whole line of Borg coming down the corridor. Doubles and adaptive shielding only help save drones during overwatch fire so this time it was all down to getting kill scores on the dice with mods applied for repeated shots at the same target. 

The phaser rifle needs a 5 or 6 to kill and uses two dice per attack. The advantage it has over the regular hand phaser is that it is able to kill an additional enemy in an adjacent square to the original target - if two kills were actually rolled. Two Borg in a line went down to the first shot, leaving those behind them as new prospective targets. More action points were available so Ginsella fired again, achieving yet another two kills with one shot. Sweet.

Times up!  The game turn counter reaches 10 which means the Borg have guessed the Away Teams intent and have fractally encrypted their computer access. No I don’t know what that means either. Ensign Ginsella ducks down a side corridor in order to take the end ladder square up or down to another deck while the gallant Doctor Posc takes up overwatch in the corridor. The first Borg he fires at in overwatch is saved through shield adaptation when the Doctor rolls a double 1. Time to beam out quick sharp!

So the whole thing ended in a Starfleet failure, though I’m sure that Ensign Ginsella will get a mention in the Captain’s log. Sufficient recompense I’m sure you’ll agree.

The whole shebang took 45 minutes to play and only minutes to set up and put back again - which for me is a definite plus. Without a doubt this has proved the most successful of my homebrew rule sets to date and trust me I’m my own worst critic.

Given that I wanted as vanilla a testing set up as I could get I did not use movement between decks via ladders and crawl-ways, overloaded phasers as explosive devices or force fields. Apart from the Doctor doing a bit of healing there was no opportunity for any of the other command, security, science or engineering division specialisations to be used either.

Lessons learned and observations:

It’d be interesting to fight on tiles that are more than 1 square wide or allow for a passing / position swop option between adjacent characters.

Next time I’d take a bigger Away Team and split them into two groups.

I need to think more carefully about the deck plan layouts. The one I used was thrown down in haste and the limited number of approaches to the target looked nice but may have handed an unwitting advantage to the Borg.

I hate the term “going forward” but I have a mind to make my own Federation ship tiles utilising 3d terrain pieces acquired from a good friend of the blog. We’ll see how things turn out after a bit more testing.

Toodle ooh!

It's Trek Jim, but not as we know it

I know that this blogs regular readership are unlikely to be interested in Star Trek, and as a consequence this latest post may elicit little more than a yawn and a click of the mouse to take them elsewhere. To those that keep reading, thanks for bearing with me. 

I've always been a huge fan of the Star Trek franchise and for many years I've had a fancy to game out a couple of scenes from my favourite Trek movie, namely 1996's First Contact. 

My recent acquisition of miniatures from Modipheus coupled with  some starship deck tiles from Games Workshop's Space Hulk have allowed me to mash it all together and create...well...Trek Hulk. Lol. 

The original GW rules architecture needed a little tweaking to match the different protagonists, but for the few that are curious or want to have a go themselves my suggestions are in the home-brew rules tab up on the top right of the blog page.

In the hopes of providing a little context, here's a clip of Captain Picard's attempt to regain control of main engineering after a Borg incursion on the Enterprise.

The GW ship deck tiles are fantastic quality and while they don't look very  Federation they do look sort of Borgish. 

I've now run two games based on a Starfleet Away Team fighting in a Borgified environment and I thought I'd present the results here in Broom Battle Picture Library format (just loads of pics with relevant rules info very briefly explained underneath).

Even if Trek's not your thing, I hope you enjoy the gaming aspect.

Scenario 1. We come in peace...shoot to kill.

It's Stardate 50893.5 and the USS Cousteau has intercepted a small Borg reconnaissance vessel. Worried about what it might have transmitted back to the collective, the Cousteau's Captain sends an Away Team to download the communications log from the enemy ships data core.

The map:

Deck 16 of the Borg recon vessel. Computer core in the far room, Borg regeneration alcoves (grey pads) and the Away Team beam in site (room at the bottom of the picture).

Turns out that a 23rd Century Borg data node looks very much like an upside down empty Epson black ink cartridge. Weird that.

Starfleet:

4 Person Away Team:

Cmdr Tamara Castille - Human female (Command - Phaser, Tricorder)

Ensign Ginsella - Denobulan female (Security - Phaser rifle)

Lt Posc - Denobulan male (Medical - Phaser, Tricorder, 2 x shots of anti assimilation nano bots)

Lt Cmdr Sorik - Vulcan male (Science, Phaser, Tricorder)

Lt Cmdr Sorik, Lt Posc, Cmdr Castille, Ensign Ginsella - locked and loaded. Ooh look - the Borg in the background are waving!

Time clock - 10 turns

Borg automatic trigger point - turn 5

Automatic beam out - Information downloaded or when 2 away team members have been assimilated.

Special weapons - none.

Borg:

6 Drones in regeneration alcoves

2 Drones in corridor computer alcoves

2 Drones in outer edge corridors (must be 10 squares or more from beam in site). 

No force fields in play since vessel is damaged.

Victory conditions:

Starfleet win if the communication logs are downloaded from the Borg data hub. The Borg win if the Starfleet away team are forced to beam out without the information (i.e. run out of time or suffer two assimilations). 

The away team have to start in adjacent squares when they beam in. The game count down clock is a series of TTS numbered chits from 1-10. (Centre of table). The Borg will remain indifferent to the Away Teams presence as long as they don’t move more than three squares per turn, don’t fire weapons, don’t block Borg Drone movement and don’t interact with the objective. The orange counter in the middle of the count down clock is the point at which the Borg automatically become alarmed and turn hostile - whatever the Away Team do. Adding another team member to the initial 4 causes the Borg to become automatically hostile 1 turn earlier, and deducting a team member allows the Starfleet personnel to gain an extra turn before this happens…

Resistance is futile. You will adapt to service us.

Since I’m pretty sure you’ve already had more Trek than you can cope with - I’ll give you the “deets” of the game itself in the next post.

I bet you can hardly wait. Lol.

Toodle oooh

WTF

The Tribe.

My latest gaming dalliance is with the excellent Paleo Diet Stone Age skirmish rules.

I can almost hear you saying WTF* Broom?! Where are the ruddy muskets, where’s the pikes? 

I know, I know, you didn't sign up for this nonsense (as was politely explained to me in an email by a recent ex blog follower!) however the heart wants what the heart wants and I guess in this day and age we all have to learn to live with disappointment don't we...besides Norm himself recently posted about subject matter drift - so I'm clearly in good company.

Anywhoo - should anyone out there still be reading this let me introduce the chaps I'll be using for my Paleo Diet hunting party. 

Igg: Quite a looker is our Igg, well that’s what his mom says anyhow. Igg has an eye for the laydeez and is currently trialling a new cologne of his own devising called… “hint of mammoth”.

Dave: Dave has a weird name and is often taunted by the others over his continual promulgation of conspiracy theories. Dave reckons that the Cromagnon’s and their so called “rock music” are somehow linked to the disappearing ice sheets. 

Ugg: A couple of Cromagnon boys gave Ugg this strange hunting contrivance - well they did when he agreed to stop strangling them. Now he’s got to work out how to use it.

Ogg: Ogg loves his new sedimentary cryptochrystalline chert tipped hunting stick. It sports the latest in bark textured grip control too. Here… Feel the weight.

Egg: Poor old Egg is a life long sufferer of explosive flatulence. Hunting parties have to ensure that Egg and Agg are kept apart where possible due to their potential combustibility.

Agg: Agg has quite a thing for fire. Quite an unnatural thing for fire come to think of it. If it burns…well you get the picture. Agg isn’t his actual name but it is the sound he makes when bits of burning tar drip off the branch onto his head.

It’s been a long old time since I’ve painted figures this big (32mm - Lucid Eye) but I think they came out okay. Both Ugg and Agg are fairly clumsy conversions to cover the requirements for characters wielding fire and a bow - but they sort of work. Before I can get to actually gaming with them I’m obviously going to need a selection of animals to hunt and be hunted by. Fortunately there are a couple of sources to obtain these from and the whole things very much an ongoing, when I can be arsed, type of project…so no pressure.

Toodle ooh!

* My grandchildren are very keen for me to encourage a younger demographic to the hobby through the use of "text speak". As a strong advocate of all things new (cough) I am of course very happy to oblige and am delighted to learn that "WTF" apparently stands for Well That’s Fantastic. 

Who knew?

The devil makes work…

For idle hands to do…

What I really did not need at the moment is another project. I’m currently painting Star Trek figures for my “Trek Hulk” mashup, Neanderthals for my Paleo diet campaign, and another unit of British infantry for the VSF project.

Modiphius 18mm Trek - based on clear acrylic rather than the manhole covers they actually come with.

Unfortunately I recently had time to browse the internet a few extra quid in the bank and the urgent need for some some morale boosting retail therapy.

I was not going to get involved in anything new. As I said above, I really didn’t need another project. 

Absolutely not. 

No way. 

No.

Oh bugger… 

Mr Mersey has a new early dark age set of rules out called “Age of Penda”  (available on wargames vault)

Dammit. 

I’ve been a fan of this particular rules meister since I purchased “glutter of ravens” off him way back when - so I downloaded them quicker than my French PayPal account could say ping. 

There’s a lot of familiar stuff of course - but there’s an interesting blend of other elements in there as well. I spotted a bit of DBA, a bit of Dux Bellorum, a bit of twisted TTS (off set gridded squares…mmm) even a bit of SAGA (sort of) with an unusual tactics battle board affair. He has a nice set of 18mm figures ready to support the rules, (sculpted by Copplestone) and as a dark age rivet counter (if there could possibly be such a thing) I have to say I like them a lot. 

Wiglafminiatures.com - coming to a distributor near you…soon.

There seems to be an issue with distribution at the moment but I don’t think that’ll take long to overcome.

Anywhoo - I’ve got the rules, I’ve got the ability to quickly add squares to an unused battlemat, but I just need to settle on a scale. The 18mm figures look splendid, but then there’s Kalistra 12mm, Baccus 6mm and god help me irregular 2mm. What’s a boy to do?

Also…what’s up with those Citadel contrast paints? I bought the black and the blue for the Trek figures and even got the special undercoat spray to make the paint “work” but all I ended up with was a disconcerting mess and something that seemed neither paint nor ink. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?

Hey ho. 

TTFN

Major Clanger's hat

I'd set up a game yesterday to work through my own set of 2mm ECW rules and Major Clanger (as he now styles himself) came along to play the opposition.

After a series of interruptions and a very distracted set up I grabbed dice, order counters, and the A.I deployment cards and had at it. I took a few piccies and had just got everything ready when real life called a halt to proceedings before they'd really begun, (yes at 58 I'm still being called in from playing to have my tea!)

Deleting the few images relating to the abortive game this morning, I noticed there was something not quite right going on.

Maybe you can spot it?

Clanger's new hat is courtesy of the nimble fingered current Mrs Broom by the way. 

The death of innocence

Margot, aka…Margymo, little mo, sugar boo, mookymoo, the ginger rocket, croissant, super cat. 

06/06/20 - 10/12/21

Everything that you love will be taken away.

The battle of Bridgetown

Okay then, welcome back to the world of eye strain that is 2mm gaming. Best get yer specs on I reckon.

Given the victory conditions required to win this battle (see previous post) I felt it was better to concentrate on capturing just the one bridge rather than splitting my forces over the two. The enemy on my right flank seemed the weakest so I deployed the more mobile part of my forces accordingly.

The two C&C cards I chose out of my four card hand allowance support this plan, and the remaining two, drawn randomly, turned out to be useful too. Of course once the chosen cards had been used I was dependant on what came out of the deck…which seemed fair since no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

My initial intentions. Foot in blue, small units of horse in red, and artillery in yellow. There you go. Clear as mud.

I’ve felt for a while that I needed an actual opponent in my wargaming, and as you can see “Small Clanger” took on the role of opposing generalissimo for this occasion.

Don’t be fooled by all that children’s tv cuddliness. He’s got a drink problem, bad breath, and a foul temper.*

I got to kick off proceedings and the first card I played allowed me to move all eligible units in one game section. For those who’ve never played C&C before the battlefield is divided into two wings and centre, and I offer that up only for general info…there won’t be a test afterwards I promise.

My small regiments of horse were sent straight off in the direction of the bridge, determined to do their worst against  any enemy blocking their path.

Turn 1. My small horse regiments gallop over the heath towards the bridge. Using the pre chosen cards meant I was able to get off to a good start.

Turn 1. SC moves his right flank Dutch school horse cautiously towards my forces, masking his artillery in the process. 

Turn 2. The cavalry charges go in, with mixed results. A regiment of horse is forced to retire by preemptive fire from the defending foot and while casualties are inflicted on the foot nearest to the bridge they are prevented from retiring by their heroic Brigadier.

Turn 2. Small Clangers foot advance down the road and into the first of the enclosures, while his mounted dragoons move through the narrow alleyways of the town in the hope of preventing me seizing the best defensive terrain.

Turn 3. And just like that the Parliamentarian left flank collapsed. My reorganised horse charged the guns previously on the right of the picture, destroyed them with no loss, took a breakthrough move into the empty hex and then hit the next enemy unit in line with a bonus attack. An almost identical outcome occurred to the right of the picture. If the destruction of units had equated to victory banners (for me) I’d have gained four out of the five required!

Turn 3. The Clangers reserve horse regiments cross the river to reinforce the centre - or intervene on his left flank.

Turn 4. Disaster! The first regiment of horse to cross the bridge and hit the defending foot on the far side helped to determine the Roundheads “raw” status (red counter) but were rudely handled and thrown back in confusion. The follow up regiment of horse also took a hit when attacking but this damage was doubled when they were unable to retire into the hex behind them as required by the dice. 

Turn 4. The disaster continues to unfold. Clanger’s brave foot wade into my retreating unit on the bridge and finish them off in melee. The only bright spot is the loss of his foot unit on the riverbank which came about in a spirited back and forth that cost me another hit. The score is one nil to him at this point.

Between turns 5 and 8 there was a lot of manoeuvre and further casualties were inflicted - mostly on my forces. 

By turn 9, pictured below I had captured the bridge, giving me three victory banners and he had destroyed 3 of my units giving him three victory banners. I needed to hold the bridge for a further two turns to give me the 5 victory banners required to win. 

My small horse regiment holding the bridge was battered and only had one hit left in it. My foot were making best possible speed (given the cards I had) in their direction, ignoring the enemy dragoons now firing into their flank from the enclosures and the two full regiments of Dutch tactics horse marshalling on the road outside of the town. Clanger needed to destroy two more of my units to reach his five banner target.

Turn 9. I control the bridge and try to hurry my foot along to give the horse some support. The raw Parliament foot still holding the far bank refuses to die

Turn 10. I held the bridge against a final do or die attack by the raw Parliament foot, which resulted in their elimination and me effectively gaining one more victory banner for holding the bridge for a full turn (4 out of 5).  Unfortunately his cavalry charged from the road and destroyed one of  my advancing foot units giving him the 5 banners he needed to win. Another case of a bridge too far I suspect.

Thoughts and observations

Unfortunately 2mm doesn’t really make for a blog friendly picture fest, as you will have observed, but it does have a small playing footprint and still gives an enjoyable game. Set up took 10 minutes and the game itself was over in two hours. I suspect its the sort of game I’ll probably play without bothering to report on it here, and now the units and terrain have been created I’ll have the freedom to experiment with my own hexed rules in the future as well as C&C. 

If 2mm was an itch…I can now consider it well scratched.

In this battle I was keen to capture the bridge as quickly as possible, using fast but brittle small horse units to get to it before  Small Clanger could counter by redeploying reinforcements. As it turned out I might have been better grinding slowly forward with my more resilient foot, but hey ho…could’ve would’ve should’ve, eh. Despite this mistake the outcome was in the balance right up to the end and was the closest fought engagement I’ve played for ages.

Something bigger next time I think.

And finally…

Small Clanger taunts me with a brief victory dance before going off into the cupboard to get drunk.

TTFN

*After the series was cancelled in ’72 most of the cast had trouble coming to terms with their lost celebrity status. Many tragically turned to drink and drugs. 

In 1975 The Soup Dragon was caught shoplifting in Finefayre and in ’76 the Iron Chicken was arrested for possession with intent to supply. 

Tragic.