7TV Campaign: Desert Dust-UP

(With thanks to Overlord for this excellent write-up)

The Darke versus Riot Squad- In Color!

Parts of a ARC (Albion Rocket Consortium) satellite have fallen to Earth and been scattered across a small, remote desert town.  Riot Squad, training local police in public order, have been dispatched as the nearest available representatives of HM Government to retrieve the vital pieces. 

The unplanned satellite re-entry has not gone un-noticed by Lazarus Darke, who decides to personally lead a team to recover the components, convinced they will yield important data to aid his ultimate goal.

Prologue:

The Director decided that the set was a bit too cluttered for the sweeping camera shots he wanted, so a couple of minor scenery items were cleared (Darke Event: Sparse Location).

Feature:

RAS-AL-BOWRAJ, EXTERIOR

The Darke won the roll and selected a table edge, chiefly deploying in two main groups, each led by Lazarus and Black.  NERO kept a solitary watch.  The Riot Squad formed up in a close formation, clearly expecting trouble in the narrow middle-eastern streets.

The Riot Squad took the initiative and moved forward as a group.  Their Marksman peeled off into a compound towards the first component, and a suitable hide.

Konrad Black moved forward then used his Grapple Gun gadget to sweep up onto a rooftop and recover the first item.  Lazarus commanded a Knight to secure a second component before BLINC*-ing, teleporting himself to a third part of the satellite in the distance.

The cops retained the initiative, with the marksman retrieving their first component before going to ground in a building.  The Squad proceeded in an orderly manner, picking up a second component and sealing off the street.

The Darke held their position apart from a solitary Knight who dashed across the street, in full view of the Police line, to the final satellite remnant.

Epilogue:

A rather low key episode, with each side only vaguely aware of the other. The Darke recovered 4 components, greatly assisted by Lazarus’ teleport SFX.  Points totals were 14 and 7 for each side, giving The Darke 2VP and the Riot Squad 1VP.  Canny use of their Think Tank meant The Riot Squad gained a second VP for deploying a Miniature Camera; 2 all!  However, Lazarus stole a minor victory with an extra 1VP for his Most Wanted SFX.

Ratings War:

With no casualties in the episode the behind the scenes campaign aspect was quickly resolved.  The audience were obviously impressed with the cool control of the Squad in the searing heat (of arc-lights on the gravel pit OB location), winning them a ‘Benny’.  The Riot Squad gained a 10PP bonus for fielding a slightly smaller cast than the Darke and spent only some of their gains on extra event cards for the next episode. 

The Darke studios suffered a mysterious fire, halving the proposed production budget, which halted work on the ground-breaking SFX planned for the next episode.  Its producers decided to improve Lazarus' Alien Pistol marksmanship to a 4+ (10PP), increase Black’s INT to a vaguely cognisant 3 (3PP) and add a female Administrator to the all male cast (8PP). 

* Bi-Locational Inter-spacial Nexus Connector

The Highlights Of This Winter's Television...

The 7TV campaign finally kicked off tonight at Abingdon Wargames Club.  Stiff upper lipped SpyForce UK squared off against the brash American S.P.A.C.E Man, Jimmy Albion and the Nuneaton Ninja crossed paths with the Man from F.R.A.N.C.E. once more and finally the Darke descended upon Riot Squad- In Color!

I'm awaiting critics reviews of the three episodes that were broadcast tonight, and will revise/edit this post as production stills and critics' copy arrives on the desk...

Nothing is certain with Warfare...

Nothing is certain: So much for cracking on with 7TV this Friday past.  A last-minute shuffle at work meant I had to step into some quiz master shoes.  Tsk-tsk.

Warfare:  The Doc, Bowman and I zipped down to Reading on Saturday to attend Warfare, where we bumped into 7 of our Abingdon Wargames Club compatriots (three competing in the various competitions, one supporting a trader and three also there as punters).  It was pleasant enough, but getting round was a bit tight, rucksacks and shoving wargamers notwithstanding (wargamers shoving us, that is, not the other way around).  The layout didn't help, as it felt like we were squeezing past and walking through various games to try to take a gander at those in the centre.  

6 of us crammed into a Legends of the Old West inspired game and even if the bank was robbed, at least my US Marshals helped to stop Lincoln being assassinated prematurely.  There wasn't any game in particular that grabbed the attention overall, but aspects of some were clocked.  There was the cunning use of LEDs in an Aeronef-style game and what looked like a large-scale game based around Cambrai.  Unfortunately, it seemed to take forever to set up, and still really didn't seem to have got going when we left (a good four hours after we arrived at 10am; we really were trying to nail the idea of a leisurely stroll around the show...).

No complaints on the shopping front.  Picked up some trucks from QRF to motorise my ARVN, various odds and ends from Peter Pig for my Vietnam and WWII BEF, got a variety of palm trees from various suppliers to continue jungle building for Charlie Don't Surf, and finally grabbed some Kaiser Rushforth boxes in which to hide the lead pile.  It's almost all out of sight now, y'know...

Nothing is Sirte-an...

No Bloody Picnic try out on Friday night; entirely my fault as my brain broke over the week and I couldn't assimilate the rules.  Sorry, Dillon!

As such, I ran a game of Peter Pig's Squarebashing (of which there may be a new version in the future) for four of the chaps, set in August 1914, each pair sharing a division apiece; continuing the confessionals, the Hun forces were barely undercoated, let alone base coated.

There appears to be an oasis ahead, sir...

As a result of German pre-game decisions and some significantly worse-than-average German dice rolling, a distinctly under-strength German division was to fend off a full-strength British Division's advance.  The British gained a clear victory, driving through to the enemy baseline.  Whilst this was not necessarily a foregone conclusion, a major factor was the German decision to split their limited force between the flanks of the deployment zone, leaving the centre entirely clear.  This caught most of us by surprise, including myself, and I'm not the sharpest tool in the box.  Even then, the British still ensured that their assaults were well supported, as opposed to the penny-packet attacks of the Germans.  

The German players didn't mind losing too much (after all, it's what eventually happened in 1918).  The British were quite pleased- they were up against a game countdown, and managed to sneak in under both that and real-time constraints.  Given the fact it was an early war game, and at divisional level, it was felt the level of abstraction found in Squarebashing was appropriate- the difference made to assaults by rear and flank support was also noted in particular.  

There was more gaming today as it was Club Sunday.  This time we had an excellent trio of linked Force On Force scenarios set in Libya, based around the search for a recently deceased North African leader's son...our referee having created a very topical day for us!  It's been the first time in a long while where I've had to number crunch modifiers, and the noggin is still hurting, but it was well worth the effort.  I 'got' the idea that different die types represent different levels of training, morale etc, and we also quite liked the Stress mechanism that was used across the three scenarios.  As for the results, our NTC forces managed to whizz along a dried wadi to reach our destination with the loss of one technical (scenario 1),  eliminated an urban enemy HQ en-route (scenario 2) but fell at the last hurdle!  Whilst a fog of war card meant that our target was inadvertantly revealed due to some media types interviewing him, NTC forces were unable to get into the compound or eliminate the attached squads of bodyguards.  To compound this, a friendly special forces team that might have snatched our target was blown out of the sky by an AA missile.  Curses.  As a result, our victory point ratio dropped from 5:1 to 3:1.  Nevertheless, an excellent day's gaming.

Next Friday sees a return to the 7TV campaign , as various shows- Spyforce UK and The Man From S.P.A.C.E., for example- vie for audience ratings, and Saturday should see a visit to the Warfare show in Reading...

Playing by the rules...

Given that Friday is the 93rd anniversary of the end of WWI, the offer of a WWI game for that night's Abingdon Wargames Club meeting seemed appropriate.  It would also be a chance to try out a new ruleset for that period, A Bloody Picnic, using a meeting enagagement basic scenario included with the rules.

However, an understanding of these rules seems to be elusive at the moment.  Hopefully, they will click into place once play commences on Friday night.  If not, Squarebashing by Peter Pig may be employed (whilst a start has been made on forces for Through The Mud & Blood, they are nowhere near ready).  

This does raise the question of how set some of us might be when it comes to trying out new/innovative/'different' rule sets.  Even before playing, I've taken on board various Peter Pig rules like Patrols In The Sudan and Squarebashing, lapped up Too Fat Lardies rules aerial and terrestrial alike and had an inside-view of 7TV's development, so why hasn't A Bloody Picnic clicked?  

Clearly a prescription of regular gaming with these rules is required, to be repeated as necessary.

Paint! Paint like the wind, my friend!

Sunday 30th November: "By normal standards, it'll have been a productive week if 3 sections get completed!" 

Crikey.  An entire company of Peter Pig early WWII British painted, along with support weapons in the form of 2" and 3" mortars, Boyes Rifles and even some ATGs with associated crew.

Painted in a week no less.  That's a miracle for a painter of my habits. 

Clearly the Lard works in mysterious ways, and I Ain't Been Shot Mum is still inspiring painting in these parts...

Of course, they still all now need to be based, and a better camera than the one on an iPhone might be useful.

From one extreme to another...

Here at Abingdon Wargames Club, we try to have a campaign or two run over the winter months to get club members into something a bit different and playing against folks they might not normally meet over the gaming table.   There's a Warhammer Fantasy battle campaign this season, and I'm helping to run a 7TV campaign.  

Tonight therefore saw some of the 7TV participants draw up their casts.  So far we have "The S.P.A.C.E. Man" and two from as-yet-untitled series, one a 1960s pastiche of Torchwood and the other based around a bunch of London coppers.  A couple of other players unable to make tonight just need to get up speed, and then the first games will take place on Friday 18th November. 

We then got in two games of Pandemic (failing to halt the advance of the diseases both times) and finished with a quick and very amusing game of Worm Up.  All dice-free.

I swear I've got withdrawal symptoms already.