This Quar's War; Clash of Rhyfles review

 

Let's play a game and discuss the rules. 

Everyone likes to discuss rules!

Just like everyone likes pizza and frozen yogurt.

Disclaimer: Opinions about what makes rules good or bad are subjective and a matter of personal taste.

Just like opinions about what are good toppings for pizza or frozen yogurt; it's whatever you like.

Except everyone hates pineapple.  Pineapple is gross.  

Clash of Rhyfles Review / Overview

A Rhyfler's Pocketbook 2.0 is the ruleset included in the Clash of Rhyfles starter box, and in a very class-say move is also available as a free PDF HERE from the Rhyfler website, as is almost all of the past Quar books.   These rules are labeled 'Quickstart' and there is a full version on the way sometime. 

I didn't get the starter box, as I went straight for the big infantry boxes for each faction along with various blisters.   I'm not too fussed about rules, as Quar are World War -ish without magic or anything supernatural, so almost any 20th century rules could work.  I'm seeing Quar more and more as World War Imaginations.  

But it would be nice to like the rules written specifically for the miniatures, and the price was right, so I wanted to give them a try.  Enter Mr. DJ, a fellow Quar enthusiast, from the Lasgunpacker blog and places beyond...for a game.  

Setting Up a Dinner Table Battle

A Rhyfler's Pocketbook (RPB for short) is a skirmish game and needs a small 2x2 or 3x3 table.  My dinning table is 3' and a wee bit more so I claimed it for the game, telling the kids and wife to get out of the house because men were going to be doing some serious wargaming and shouldn't be bothered.

Dining table set

I don't have any Quar specific terrain yet,
but Quar are found in all sorts of environments.
Today they find themselves in an AWI/ACW ish countryside.

I actually told the wife that she and kids didn't have to go anywhere because I don't have people over that my family can't be around.  But she was all "no no, I'll take the kids out to lunch and then maybe to that place with the large bouncy area so you guys can play in peace."  and I thought 'my wife is the best' and I also thought 'this free ruleset just cost me $60.  Kids multiply the price for everything.' 

 

RPB is a little light on the terrain rules but there is enough there that you can define the things on your table as you see fit.  Wanting to try a little bit of everything we declared: The fields and forest bases would be difficult ground (as well crossing any fence or wall) so 1/2 move.  For cover modifiers: we declared fences and the areas with trees without a base would be light cover (-1 to be hit), Forest bases and wood piles would be 'Good' cover (-2), and the stone walls would be the 'best cover' (-3).  In hindsight this was being over generous to the walls and really the 'best cover' should be reserved for trenches / purposely build fortification.  Building were impassable LOS blockers.  LOS could go into a forest base but not through.  

The RPB suggest for the first battle to play at 300 Pts which gets you around 10-12 miniatures.  But Mr. DJ and I are veteran gamers, we don't get to play all that much, we're both handsome and rugged individuals, and I'm not painting all these silly Quar for the fun of it, so we did 400ish points instead.  Giving us 15 miniatures each: 

The Crusaders

The Royalists

Actual lists for the Quar initiated:

Coftyran: Is-Caerten, yawdryl, Cryfen LMG, sharpshooter (sni-PAH), and 11 Rhyflers

Crusaders: Is-Caerten, yawdryl, H-11a LMG, sharpshooter (sni-PAH), and 11 rhyflers but 3 have Ryshi.

-Basically the same lists, but the Crusaders kept coming out like 10 points up; so to even it out I gave the Royalists an extra point of Pluck.   More on Pluck later.

Mr DJ won the roll off so he got to pick which faction he wanted to play, and choose a side to deploy on, and we played "the meeting engagement" scenario which seems to be the one that everyone picks for a first game.  The objectives are to keep more of your Quar alive than the other side, but also advance into the opposite half of the board.  Which creates a nice paradox of conflicting interests.  

Mr. DJ chose the Royalists and deployed behind the barn in one large group

I took the Crusaders and deployed in 3 small groups across the edge.

As Mr. DJ deployed first, he starts as the active player, so I drew a card from the Activation Deck and gave him my best shit eating grin.

Rounds, Actions, and Reactions

Because his card was a 3.

In RPB, the active player gets a certain number of Activations based on a card from an Activation deck (I used normal playing cards, you need three 3s, four 4s, and three 5s).  But the player doesn't know how many activations they actually have; they know it's at least 3, is probably 4, and might be 5.  So the player does 3 Activations and then looks expectantly at their opponent who will tell them if they have a fourth, the player does a fourth activation and then looks slit eyed at their opponent to see if they have a 5th.  When the active player uses all their activations the opponent shows the card and says something snide or mocking like "Nope, you all done." The round ends, then switch, a new round begins.  

I thought I would dislike this.  I thought it would be annoying.

I actually loved it. It was fun.  

The Royalist yawdryl does a group advance 

RPB uses the terms Activations and Actions kinda interchangeably which can get confusing, but they are not the same thing.  Basically the player uses Activations (from 3 to 5) to perform Actions with his miniatures.  Each Miniature can take up to 2 actions during a round (but only 1 combat action).  Most Actions cost 1 Activation, but some Actions cost 2 Activations but are still only 1 Action. 

Stompin through the forest, Gonna shot someone.

If you know you have at least 1 Activation left but want to take an Action that costs 2 Activations (like throw a grenade) you can push your luck and try it.  If you have the required Activation you do the action, if not then you lose that activation and your round ends.  It's a fun gamble to take because you feel like a genius when it works.  

Actions are what you think they are: shoot, move, recover from being stunned, eat some bugs off the ground (Quar are insectivores), ponder the meaning of life, wonder if she left you due to her damage or your own....

It's not really an action economy game; there are NEVER enough actions.  Even if you have 5 activations and 10 miniatures, at least 5 of them won't do anything that round.  What you get are like cut scenes of intense action in various places of the battlefield, but not the whole thing at once.    

2 of my Crusaders are having a firefight with some advancing Royalists.
The one on the ground is Out of Action

Most rolls are 3d6 versus a target number determined by the Skill of the miniature, plus / minus modifiers.  

A unique aspect of the rules is the Reaction system.  When you're not the active player and one of your miniatures is getting shot at, you can choose a reaction.  I think this has to expanded on / explained more and maybe it will be in the full rules; but what I like about it is that when it's not your turn you still get to make meaningful choices.  The only 3 reactions available are do nothing (no reaction I guess, be all stoic), fire back, or dive for cover.  These are meaningful because if you choose fire back you get a free shot at the Quar shooting at you...but you only get it if his shot misses....risk versus reward.

Dive for cover is great because you get miniatures just diving everywhere and it reminds you of every war movie EVER where someone is running around being chased by bullet impacts.  Diving for cover is a big negative modifier to be hit but leaves your miniature prone.  Actually, it's kinda unclear if you miniature HAS to be prone after a dive but we declared that made sense.  It's also unclear if you can dive for cover if you're already prone; and we declared one couldn't because how would that work?  Which was rare because prone miniatures in / behind terrain can't be seen (another original concept). 

Also if you dive for cover and your opponent misses but still rolls pretty well it's your opponent that chooses where the miniature dove to and it ends up prone and Gobsmacked / stunned.  And that's still significant because stunned miniatures are useless until they recover and that takes Actions and you never have enough actions....

The Quar in the foreground is about to throw a grenade...

Status States (Mine and Yours)

In RPB there are more states that miniatures can be in than I am used to; some uniquely done.  

Prone is one of those.  Miniatures that are prone and in cover / behind something have no LOS.

Gobsmacked is stunned.  Gobsmacked is a stupid word, sounds like a punch line to a dirty joke.

Out of Action is uniquely done.  Usually, OOA that means the miniature is taken off the board, but it's different in RPB.  

I tried to advance over the wall and through the field and got hit by a bunch of shots. Didn't go well.
The guy laying down in OOA, the ones by the wall are both prone and gobsmacked.
I chose to mark prone with a marker and OOA by lying the miniature down.

The Coftyran sprue comes with these backs with baguettes sticking out.
I thought they would make great Gobsmacked markers.

When a miniature is OOA, it stays on the table.  We just laid it down.  You don't really know it's final status until you go up and do a 'tend wounded' action.  he might be OK!  this creates motivation to go help and is another call back to EVERY war / action movie you've ever seen where someone is wounded in the field and his friends are behind in cover shouting "We have to go get Henry!  He might be OK!" "Are you crazy?!  he's done for! Don't go out there!"  (explosions) "No, I can make it, cover MEEEEEEEE!"  

You don't have to do this or course, you could just ignore the wounded.  But it's amazing that just the chance of getting a miniature back can be such a powerful motivator.  

1-2 the guy is OK and back in the fight; 5-6 the guy is KIA.

3 is walking wounded; is up and about but can only take movement actions rearward.

4 is wounded; lie there, but not dead.  

Both DJ and I liked this mechanic, but 3 and 4 proved to be troublesome as we didn't understand how they affected the scenario, because you got points for having Quar alive at the end.

So if walking wounded: why would I spend any of my precious few activations to move him rearward? just leave him where he is; but then what's the difference from being actually wounded.

if Wounded: He counts for being alive, which means the enemy is motivated to change that from a game perspective; but shooting or bayonetting the wounded who are just lying there is not pretty.  If I wanted to play the SS I could do real WW2.  

3 of my Crusaders take the flank
while an OOA Royalist lies by the fence.
He foolishly tried to stop them.

Ultimately, we left OOA miniatures on the table until they were tended to, and if that roll was 3+ we just took the miniature off the table.  It was just easier.

But I like the idea so much that I'm very interested in how the full rules will expand on it.  Otherwise I might do a houserule; something like 1-2 is OK, 3 is wounded so only allowed one action, and 4+ take off the table.

Pluck Off 

'Pluck' is a resource you keep track of on the side.  We didn't really 'get it' at first.  Part of the idea is that you could batter with your opponent like "hey, if I spend 2 pluck can this guy here do a back flip off the house, onto the log pile, then to the ground landing in the splits and fire his pistol?"  

"better make it three pluck."

I just don't see anyone doing that.

For the first 2 turns we just kinda spent it where it was obvious; like if you miss a skill check by 1, you can spend 1 pluck to pass the skill check.  BUT MOST skill checks are shooting, and a successful shot puts a miniature OOA, putting a miniature OOA earns you a pluck, so you really didn't spend anything and it's just a free +1?  Odd.

Though by turn 3; I will say that we were spending it way more often on things like supporting fire and opportunity fire, etc.. and it became a more dynamic resource, though in 5 turns we never ran out.  

Protip: a Quar with an LMG with a Quar providing supporting fire becomes a Murder Quar.  

Wrapping Up

Hopefully I've provided an idea of how the game plays.   It's fun, you stay involved and there are plenty of moments when you are making choices, which are the things that make games fun.  Overall it's a 20th century skirmish game with some unique mechanics / concepts.  In the game there is a lot of back and forth and jumping around the battlefield as spots become the priority.  

As said in the beginning, these rules are labeled Quickstart, which to me always read as 'incomplete.'  That sounds meaner than I intent it.  RPB is enough to get you playing but some processes need more details or examples to make them clearer.  I've pointed out some in the above wall of expertly crafted text.  There are others but I don't need to bang on about it.  That's what the Facebook group is for....

I will definitely play again.  Kinda wish now that I got the starter box as it's the only way currently to get the physical copy plus the cool Quar-ish playing cards for the activation deck.  When the full rules come out I'll for sure pick those up. 

Thanks for reading

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till Next

Fistful of Lead (FFoL) Review

 

I've got a Fistful for ya,

A Fistful of Opinions! 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this Terrible blog are made by an unqualified and self important person and are not to taken seriously.  While the writer is kinda clever and everyone always agrees is also good looking; he's a well meaning amateur at best and a crazy person with a computer at worse.

Fistful of Fun

Not least because you get to say "Fistful of (Blank)" over and over.

Fistful of Lead is by Wiley Games and has been around for awhile now, BUT! I only heard about it last year.  So just in case you haven't heard of it either, let me tell you that this is a FUN skirmish game.  I'm always on the look out for skirmish games that are simple enough to teach to people at a convention, have enough going on that they still require some thought, and good for around 4-6 players.  FFoL hits all those marks.  

Fistful of Lead started life as a cowboy / wild west game (hence the title. talk about a Fistful of cliches!) and then evolved into a generic skirmish game that can tweeked into this genre and that, and de-evolved into genre specific supplements.  More on that later. But the Core rules are the same across all the publications and once understood, can be used for fun in anything.

Fitful of Miniatures

A core force in FFoL is made up of 5 miniatures.  This of course can be moved up or down depending on your needs and desires. but I've found that the number of miniatures one payer can control tops out at around 10.  That because each miniature is an individual and activates by itself.  So in the core force you get one miniature who is the 'Leader" and is the most badass, one miniature is the second in command and less bad ass; sometimes called the specialist, sometimes called Number 1, and sometimes called Samatha.  And then the rest of the force is made up of 3 regulars / standard / mooks.  

A miniature then is an individual and its abilities during the game are made up from a combination of the equipment it's carrying plus it's traits / skills.  The rules call them Traits but could be thought of as skills and attributes.  This miniature is better at shooting so has the "deadeye' trait.  That miniature is especially strong so has the (wait for it) 'Strong' trait.  This other miniature is really good at needlepoint so has the 'girly' trait.  That other miniature has an encyclopedic memory of star wars trivia so has the 'super nerd' trait.  Some of those I made up.

The Leader gets the most traits, the second gets some, and the mooks get one each.  this is kinda cool because it allows for each character in the force to be unique.  for example; if building a little Viking raiding party you can have the Leader butt kicker; the second could be a crazy Berserker or maybe a skilled archer, the last three dudes with slightly different abilities.  

Fistful of Cards

The basic turn structure of the game uses a deck of cards.  Each player is dealt one card for each miniature in their force.  The cards are ranked King as highest with Ace as lowest (kinda, stay tuned).  After everyone has their hand of cards (and is either groaning or cheering), The cards ranks are called out starting with Kings, and going down through to the bottom.  (Kings, Queens, Jacks...).  When a card rank is called and you have one, you show it with a flourish and then activate a miniature of your choice to do 2 actions.  This is important; is NOT like Dead Mans Hand, where each miniature is assigned a card and activates when it comes up NO.  It's you use the card to activate the miniature you want to, which I really like because it means you can activate the one that needs to move NOW.  If more than one player has the same rank (say three players have Jacks) then the play is in suit order of Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs.  

Also, some cards have bonuses when used to activate.  For example, the Jack of Spades gives a +1 to shooting.  You don't need to use the Jack of Spades to shoot but if you do then the miniature gets a +1.  The 2 card allows the miniature to roll an extra die and pick the best.  there are a fair number of bonuses in the deck.  Aces are wild so can be any card. If you have 2 Aces they can even be the same card if need be...

Fistful of Actions

When a miniature activates it can take two actions.  Actions are what you think they are: move, shoot, fight, do a task, aim, pick his nose, reload, ponder the meaning of life knowing that we are brief specs of dust in an infinite void of space.  The standard move is 5".    There are the usual modifiers for range, terrain, cover, all the stuff you expect but there's not really that many of them; one could say only a Fistful.

The game uses D10s, though really skilled characters can use a D12, and really bad ones a D8.  When a character is hit, there is a roll on the wound table and can result in a shock (temp damage that can be removed) a wound (permanent damage), and a small chance to be killed outright.  Characters can take 3 wounds though this number can be changed with traits.  I really like that every time a character is hit there is a small chance that it gets killed outright, as I find that realistic as these are mortal men and even Kings can take an arrow in the eye.  

Clint Eastwood from Fistful of Dollars.
Also known as my identical twin.

Fistful of Observations and Suggestions:

(so that would be two fists then yes?)

The game is usually played on a smallish table; 3x3 or 4x4.  But as I've hinted at this thing scales pretty well so larger or smaller could be used.  Games benefit from a good amount of terrain.  Games of 2 players with 5 miniatures each take about an hour ish to about an hour and half.  Adding more players or miniatures will increase that time obviously, but one should remember that each miniature activates alone, which means everyone is standing around while that player is resolving those actions.  However, the activations are short and tend to be quick.  I think the game tops out at about 6 players and/or 30ish miniatures total.  

There are no points, and the game is very scenario dependent.  Each Genre supplement has a good number of scenarios included (more on that later).  A good scenario and this game is an awesome combination: Like pizza and ice cream.  What? my kids tell me that's a good combination and kids never lie about things that are yummy.  Just everything else.  

There are a whole lot of Traits in the game, I think there is over 100, and each trait has a different effect.  While no trait is game breaking, some traits are better than others.  For example, I don't see the trait "leaper' where the character can jump further than others being much use.  No, I didn't make that trait up.   Now if you design your own warband you'll be familiar with the traits you select but if you're handed a warband and each miniature is super unique it means that one has to become very familiar with 9 traits very fast and that can lead to trait overload; too many things to remember.  

To avoid this it's easier to give all the regular dudes the same trait and just make the leader and the Second special unique snow flakes.

A force roster is essential, but I think it's way cooler to make Character pokemon-like cards that summarize things in one pace.

Example of character cards I made for a Dark Ages game.
Just a clever use of text boxes in Powerpoint.

Just helpful in a convention or club setting where you might have many players new to the game.  

As mentioned above; the game uses a card deck for activations and many cards have special rules attached to them.  This is hard to remember.  One solution is to write the bonus on the actual card as a reminder, but that's a poor mans option.  Plus I have really bad handwriting.  Instead, I opted for one of the custom card decks from the website.  There are lots to choose from to match the genre of your choice; the attributes of the cards don't change just the pictures on them.  I opted for the generic fits all kinda plain card deck.  I'm well off sure; but I don't have 'get 4 different card decks that have the same information but different pictures on them' kind of money.  

Specialist card deck that I got.
Image taken from Wiley Games website.

There are lots of game play vidoes on Youtube if one in interested.  The cards and the combat sysem combine to create lots of dramtic die rolls and roll offs.  The activation system gives a player the right amount of decisions; enough for the player to feel like they have options and can pursue a strategy but not so many to invoke analysis paralysis.  While each figure only gets two actions, it's not really an action economy game.  

I've played about 4 games of FFoL and enjoyed them immensely.  During these games I noticed there was a higher amount of laughter and swearing, and that I thought was a good sign. But it was G rated swearing, my kids were in the house.

Fistful of Books (buying guide)

The Core rule book is pictured at the start of the post, and then there is a supplement for almost any genre you can think of (Old West, medieval, black powder, post apoc, far future, Star Wars..).  Now, each supplement is actually a standalone game.  So you don't need the core rules just to play a certain genre.  In fact, most of each supplement is a reprint of the core mechanics.  You also don't need any of the supplements to play any genre if you have the core rules.  What each supplement offers are a few little twists to the rules to make it fit the genre better, some new traits, and a bunch of scenarios.  

I tend to think of the core rulebook as the supplement for 20th century combat.  

PDFs of the book are pretty reasonably priced.  I did my usual thing where I buy the PDF for the instant gratification and if I really like it I then buy a printed copy.  So now I have a PDF of several books and a printed copy of my favs so far: Might and Melee (medieval / dark ages) and Black Powder.

A nice touch, is that there is an Ultimate trait list on the website for super cheap that has every trait from every book in it.  So you don't feel like you're missing out on anything.

So if you feel like checking out the game, I would suggest just picking up the supplement for your preferred genre for skirmish as that will be all you need to get started.  

So far I've used FFoL for games set in the Dark Ages (Viking versus Saxons) and Black Powder (AWI).  While the core rules were the same; just the fact that one genre was mainly hand to hand and the other was shooting made the games play very differently.  In a good way. 

I'm hosting a FFoL game at Conquest in April, and planning another project for FFoL later in the year. After I finish all these wooden soldiers.  better get back to that now.

Fistful of Tears

Because it's time to say goodbye.  

Thanks for reading

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.

Starmada Unity Review

 In this post I review the spacehip combat game Starmada Unity.

When I started to look for rules for my Star Trek games and was asking around the internet for rules the two names you hear most often are "Full Thrust" and "Starmada."  I've settled on Starmada as my go-to.

Starmada Unity Review

Starmada Unity is the latest version of the Starmada rules which apparently have been around for a long time with several different names (Starmada, Starmada Admiralty,. Starmada Nova... there are a lot.).  So I guess to be clear I'm talking about Starmada Unity Version 2 published in 2020.  

The jacket says this is supposed to be definitive version. 

Somethings to know up front:

Starmada is a 'universal' starship combat game in that it has no universe attached to it.  it's a TOOL KIT rule set so that you can build your own ships  and flush out any universe you want.  This fits my needs perfectly because there are no prepackaged Star Trek miniature starship games (or I would of gotten it) and I LOVE to tinker with stuff.  Tool kit rule sets are the best as it basically states 'use this framework to create what you want.'  

Ok I lied, there IS a Starmada Universe presented at the end of the book as an example of what can be done.  The ships examples are useful for seeing various sizes / power levels and the author seems to go out out his way to show different options / traits in use.  But I barely skimmed the universe background fluff as the whole point of me playing Star Trek is that I already know that universe and don't need to learn another.  I don't want to learn about the bleeping aliens from planet bleep that like to bleep in the bleep with the bleep.  

Starmada uses hexes.  it's basically 'a miniature board game (which is says so on the cover) and your awesome miniature ships are just gonna be pretty counters.  As it is with almost every game.  Now most of my miniature wargaming is grid-less / hex-less but I like hexes when it comes to games with starships, airplanes, sailing ships, submarines, battleships, warwagons, mechas. helicopters, and dragons.  You get the idea.

Basically I think hexes just work really well in the starship combat genre.

Starmada recommends using hexes from about 3cm to 5 cm (1.25" to 2") big and a minimum play area of 18 hexes wide and 32 hexes across.  I didn't pay super close attention to that initially which is why I am bringing it up now.  I got my space mat from Cigar Box battle mats; it's a '6x4 plus' (which is 5x6) with 2" hexes on it and it has just enough hexes on it to be 30 hexes wide by 39 hexes long.  Whew!

2" hexes with 1/7000 ships.
Mat from Cigar Box battle mats.

Starmada is really well written and easy to read.  Everything is easy to understand (except for the maths on designing ships but more on that later) and nothing is vague.  I've read a lot of rules books in my time and I get frustrated when things are not clear; so it's nice when a rulebook is clear and concise and deserves to be pointed out.  And big plus is that every concept is in BOLD and there are page number references throughout so you're never really flipping through the book looking for the odd rule.

The layout of Starmada works well: it first goes over the parts of the ship in the Starship Display sheet, then the basic rules for moment, combat, and then goes into TONS of optional rules about how those core rules can be tweaked to taste (to fit the universe you want), then terrain rules and scenarios, and then the Starmada Universe and sample ships. 

Game Play

Like every other starship game (and Age of Sail games for that matter) each starship will need a Starship display sheet, so you can track what happens to it through the game.  here is the basic form:

 

This is the display sheet for an Ambassador class starship for the Federation
You can design ships and generate the display sheets using the spreadsheet.
More on that later.

I'm not gonna go over everything on the sheet (because that's what the rules do and do it well).  But everything you'd expect to be a sheet is there; and once you know where to look and what is what this is all you need to steer you starship to glory!  By it being blown up.  Especially if the ship is called Enterprise because that thing is always being blown up.

There's a spot for how many Hull points the ships has (because when they're gone so is the ship), engine rating, shield rating...  It shows how many weapons the ship has, the weapon firing arcs and all the stats for the weapons.  Everything important that a captain needs to know.  Only thing missing is a map to nearest restroom.  A display sheet with the table to write orders for moves takes about half a sheet of paper.  

The idea is that as the ship takes damage and things break you tick off boxes and systems degrade till they stop working.  I often feel like I have about half my boxes ticked off; I'm halfway through to system failure.

Ambassador class starship; 1/7000

Turn Sequence

Now that we have our ships, it's time to play.  The game turn goes through 5 phases of Orders, Movement, Fighter, Combat, and End (the clean up phase).  In each phase all players are doing something. The Orders phase and the Combat phase are really the right and left ventricles of this game. That is to say the Heart of the game.

ORDERS PHASE:

Everything that a ship does that turn needs to be plotted out during this phase.  You actually write out what the ships movement is, including any special maneuvers you allow.  Usually this is expressed something like '3P2L2' which means 'move 3 hexes forward, turn to port, move 2 hexes forward, slide slip to the left, and go 2 hexes forward.'  The standard movement rules in the core rules are moderately complex; and can get more or less complex depending on what optional rules you use.  I like the Optional rules for Free Form Turns and Graded Turns that make ships act more like sailing ships / airplanes (because that's how they move in Star trek on TV).  

The main thing is a ships movement is confined by how strong it's engine is; ships will have a current engine rating (that will decrease when the ships takes hits to it's engine naturally) and any move can NOT exceed that rating.  Things that drive up the engine requirement are big changes in speed and multiple turns.  What this means is that ships can do big changes in speeds or multiple turns but have hard time doing both at once. 

This is also the most complex part of the game turn because the players have to do MATH.  It's basic math, not long division, but math none the less.  For example: in my games with the options I use the formula for the engine requirement goes: [Difference in speed from previous turn and current turn] + [modifier of number of turns (1 for 1 turn, 3 for 2 turns, 6 for 3 turns)] = Engine requirement.  

If I'm explaining it right then it should sound mildly/moderately complex depending on your IQ and how well the GM explains it.  people tend to 'get it' with a few examples and within a turn or two.

The orders phase is potentially the longest phase; because each ship needs it's orders / movements plotted out.  Depending on how many ships you are moving about this can take awhile.  All players are doing it at the same time so everyone is engaged.  Though if one side has a lot more ships to pilot or one side has a stronger sense of analysis paralysis someone could be left waiting around.    5-7 ships seems to be sweet spot (and again, this will depend on how many optional rules you use to make ship management more or less complex).

It's also a lot of fun as you try to guess how your opponent is gonna move and move your own ships into a better position.

MOVEMENT PHASE;

Now everyone reveals orders and moves the ships.  There are clear rules for what happens when ships end up in the same hex and etc.. It's a great drama as ships move around each other into better or worse positions as everyone anxiously / expectantly sees what all the ships are doing.  It is EXTREMELY satisfying when the enemy ships go where you thought they would and you have out maneuvered them.  Right after you slide your ship behind the enemy's ship and at close range; It is the time to look up, smile, and give the player the double finger guns. 

Galaxy to Negh'Var:
"pew pew pew pew"

FIGHTER PHASE:

I'll tell you that I read this section and thought "Everything here looks like it's in order. Very good.  spit spot. tut tut tut."   and then never read it again.  Star Trek doesn't use fighters (name one Star Trek episode where someone said "launch the fighters!") which is part of the appeal for me.   

COMBAT PHASE:

In this phase ships fire their weapons at each other, and the dice rolling begins.  In the core rules all firing is simultaneous and damage is not applied till the END phase; so it doesn't matter the order and if a ship is blown up it will still get it's chance to fire.  The captain will get the chance to say some cool last words while the ship breaks apart. "I never got to tell her, that I...(boom)"  

Basically each side takes a turn picking a ship and firing EVERYTHING that the ship has/can and then move on the next one.  

Shooting weapons is not complicated;  Each weapon has an arc of fire (the directions it can shoot from the hex the firing ship is in), a short range, medium range, and a max range, a rate of fire (how many dice to roll / how many shots), an Accuracy rating (number needed to hit), and Impact rating (how many dice to overcome the targets shields) and a Damage rating (how many dice/ damage it does).

There's also a bunch of traits that weapons can have as well.

There are a few modifiers that affect to-hit rolls but not a lot.  Mainly it's easier to hit at close range than long range.  

As damage happens to the ship you tick off boxes on the display sheet but don't actually apply it to the end of the turn (there is of course, an option of having it apply immediately).  I like to circle the box during combat and not cross it out till the end of the END phase;  because sometimes you'll need to see the number in the box for later on.

This phase can take awhile depending on how many ships you have and how many weapons they got. naturally to speed things up you can roll weapons that are firing at the same ship together.  It's also a lot of dice rolling as you roll to see if you hit, each hit then rolls to see if it overcomes the shields, and then roll for where the damage goes.  once you know the process it goes fast but the first couple of shots can drag.  

Klingon Birds of Prey 1/7000

One especially clever aspect of taking damage is the idea of the Loss Limit.  This only applies to the Weapon track of a ship, but it ensures that as a ships weapons take damage, that damage will be spread out all over the ship's available weapons and special equipment.  For a totally made up example: Say a ship has 10 piss shooter guns, 1 cannon of devastation to make your mom cry, and 1 cloaking device.  When the weapons systems take damage; obviously the piss shooters will be the first to go (it's the player of the ship taking damage that decides what are lost) but the piss shooters probably have a loss limit of 5.  Which means after 5 are crossed off the next losses have to be from somewhere else...so do you lose the cannon or the cloaking device?  Losing weapons can be full of fun choices.  

END PHASE: 

Lastly it's the end phase and it's basically the clean up phase. Players apply damage to their ships, check for victory per the scenario, etc..  Then the game turn starts over again in the orders phase

Optional Rules

When I say that Starmada is a tool kit rule set I mean it's a COMPLETE tool kit.  At least half of the book are optional rules that players can add to modify the game to their tastes.  It's all about the universe you are trying to portray.  It will be too long winded of me to go over many of them here, but let's look at options for starship shields as a quick example as it's common in Starship settings.

You could of course have no shields, and ships just take damage when they're hit.

You can have shields that protect the ship like a bubble around it.  Weapon fire can still overcome the shields (depending on the weapon's Impact rating and traits) but the shields are stable and always there (until the ship takes damage to it's shield track)

You can have shields that protect the ship like a bubble but stop everything thrown at them, but degrade over time until they are gone, like hit boxes.  (the game calls these Screens).

You could have a mix of the two.

Instead of the shields being a bubble around the ship in uniform strength, the shields can be Directional and have sperate rating for Forward, Port, Starboard, and Aft.  And you get idea.

Basically there are optional rules for EVERYTHING.  I think this is strength as you can craft the game to play how you want it, to fit the TV world that you know.  

Galaxy class 1/7000

Ship Construction:

There is about 5 pages on how the maths of the ship construction work.  SKIP IT.  SKIP IT unless you like maths and more maths.  You can't do this stuff unless you really know math and have one of those hefty calculators they make you buy in high school to do graphing.   I guess it can be nice to know how some traits load into others but the book could of do a better job of saying "Doing this math by hand is impossible, go get the spreadsheet."  

In the player resource section there is more about the spreadsheet, where to get it, and directions on how to use it. The spreadsheet is free and updated.  

Spreadsheet being used for Ship Construction.
An Excelsior class Starship.

I will admit that I was skeptical about all this because it started to sound like work and effort.  "why do I need a spreadsheet?  I just want wanna make whooshing noises while moving ships and saying  'Make it so, Number One!' A spreadsheet sounds too serious."  

But I was wrong, because actually the spreadsheet makes ship construction so. damn. easy.  All the math is just done for you and it lets you make ships that break the rules if you really want to.  Plus as I mentioned before, the display tab will print you out a nice looking Starship Display sheet to use for gaming.  

There is a small learning curve for using the spreadsheet.  But I guarantee that if an ape like me can learn to use it then you can to. It's really a simple tool and again directions are included in the book.

Ship design follows the well known principle that a ship's hull size will determine how much 'space' it has to hold weapons, engines, coffee machines, yogurt shops, special gear.. etc.   There's a nifty mechanism in the Tech Levels you can assign (the ship above has none).  But if you increase the tech level of say weapons then all weapons will cost less hull space and therefore free up more room for MORE weapons or what not.  That represents ships that are superior in tech and therefore could have more stuff in them than a similarly sized ship from a less advanced society.  Ships will be assigned a Combat Rating  which is the estimate of how effective a ship is in the game and works like a point value.  

The spreadsheet is also where you design the weapons under the weapons tab.  You really can design any weapon that you can think of, just by the stats and traits available.  Once a weapon is inputted into the spreadsheet under the weapons tab, it shows up in the drop down menu in the ship tabs. 

I can't stress enough how easy it is.  And you can make anything you like. 

Excelsior class Starships 1/7000

The only thing really missing from the rules is power allocation; which seems to be a staple on other games.  Starmada assumes the ship has full power all the time.  I actually like this because it's a feature that I do not want.  The game is more about maneuver than it is about good ship management.  The captain doesn't tell his crew to stop using the dishwashers so there's power for the air conditioning.

The Endless Tinker

If there is one drawback to all this freedom, it's that a game of Starmada can take awhile to set up.  Depending on how fussy you are, one can spend a lot of time designing ships to get them right.  There's also a lot of options to shift though.  For me this was part of the fun, but it's also the fun of mild frustration as you take on a creative project like designing your own universe even within the well defined and extensive framework that the game provides.  Such as:

What should the stats for a phaser weapon be? 

How many hull points should ship class X be?

If  ship class X has suchandsuch hull points then how many should ship class Y have? 

If I want a ship to be able to do whateverthing, how many engines should it have?

There's a lot of opportunity for endless tinkering and a project could never feel finished.  But maybe that's not a bad thing?  

Endings

I hope that this review of Starmada Unity will be useful to someone.  I obviously think very highly of it, and I only purchased it on a lark.  "if I'm gonna do space ships might as well check out these rules...."  glad I did.  

If you're looking a for a rule set where you can create/copy your favorite IP then Starmada would warrant looking at closely. 

Thanks for Reading.

Till next time.

Ravenfeast: Escort the Priest Scenario and Review

 

Feeling Dark

Me: "Doctor, I just feel like it's coming back after a long time away."

Therapist: "What's coming back?"

Me: "I've just been feeling so Dark lately."

Therapist: "Uh-huh, and how long does this last?"

Me: "Oh, it lasts for Ages. What does it all mean?"

Therapist: "It means that it's time to blog about the Dark Ages on that silly little miniature wargame blog of yours."

Me: "oh, I can do that!  Sounds Great!  Thanks Doc!"

Therapist: "No problem.  Glad I could help.  That will be $500 for the session and I don't take insurance."

Me: "....."

Ravenfeast produced by Little Wars TV

I'm sure most of us are aware of Little Wars TV the youtube channel.  Lots of vicarious fun going on there and a great presentation of what a miniature wargame club could be like (My favorite guy is Keith).   They also do a nice job of promoting 'the hobby' and have put out a FREE set of wargaming rules for the Dark Ages called Ravenfeast.  Billed as a simple wargame aimed at beginners.  Very admirable and the group deserves a lot of praise and support.  It's the first entity that I've seriously thought about supporting on Patreon.  I haven't; I got a family to support and a small drug habit that needs feeding.  But I've thought about it.

I also thought to myself,  "I love the Dark Ages, and I love new rules, and I haven't played a miniature wargame in months, and I'm so bored lately, and I stubbed my toe, and my hair has split ends, I need to have some fun, so why not give the rules a try out?"  Yes, I tend to think in run on sentences.  

Escort the Priest to Victory

Ravenfeast comes with 3 scenarios and there are more online, but I still made up my own escort scenario just for fun-zees.  Here's an attempt at a dramatic backstory:

"King Alfred is moving his armies of Saxons against the Vikings lead by Guthrum.  A great battle will occur soon.  Several days journey from the armies a priest has a vision; If he carries the cross from his holy order of the Incredibly Nice Saint Augustus Nativity Ecclesiarch (or I.N.S.A.N.E) to the battlefield then God will surely grant victory over the heathen Vikings.  So he begins to walk without stopping and word travels ahead of his coming.  A Saxon Earl takes his men to provide an escort for safety and protection.  A Viking Jarl is dispatched to capture/kill/prevent the priest from fulfilling his quest and sets an ambush...."

Set Up: Use the exact same set up as the 'Back to the Boats' scenario in the rule book.

Forces: The Saxons are the Defenders and the Vikings are the Ambushers.  The Ambushers have about 200 more points than the Defenders (in hindsight I reduce this to 100 after playing it).  There are sample troops in the book which also provides the point structure so you can create your own unique profiles.  The forces I used were composed of:

That is 403 points of Saxons and 607 points of Vikings.

I used the open point structure to create the Viking Hirdmen Archer; basically a slightly better archer with some armor, because I HAD THE MODELS and they LOOK COOL.  

Distorted image but you get it....

Objectives: The Saxon Defenders must escort the Priest safely across the table.  The Viking Ambushers must stop that from happening. 

Victory:  The Saxons win a major victory if the Priest and at least one Earl or Earl's Champion exit the table (at which point they are somehow magically saved from further pursuit).  Minor Victory if only the Priest leaves the table.  Anything else and the Viking win.  Dirty Vikings. 

Special: Add to the Saxon force the Priest who has the following profile and special traits:

I made up 3 of those traits.
He has a 3" move because he is tired and carrying something heavy.

Game Pics from the Dining Room Table

RF uses a 4x4 table but I am lazy and didn't want to drag out the folding tables from the garage, so just used my dinner table which is around 3x3.  We'll get to the carnage faster that way.  

Table set up

 

Brave Saxon Defenders guard the Priest.
The Earl is the one with the fancy cloak and the raised sword.
All good leaders point their swords in the air.

Dirty Vikings block the road.
The Viking Jarl is wearing the fur cape.
He's also pointing his sword straight up, so he must be a great at this job.

Saxons (on right) move to block the force

Saxons (on left) use the waddle fence as an obstacle to defend
against the Viking flank attack from the other side.

Mid game

Saxons (foregroud) advance toward the Vikings blocking the road

Shieldwalls form and clash together

General Mayhem as the fight breaks down to individual engagements.
The Vikings are able to start attacking the Priest.  

Oh no, the Viking Jarl and some nameless Bondi
are ganging up on the Priest, there are just not enough Saxons to prevent the attacks.

For awhile there it looks like the Saxons are winning.
Viking dead on the left, Saxons on the right

At this point I had to take a break in game due to the Great Interrupter (otherwise known the baby boy) needing a diaper change, a bottle, and 30 minutes of rocking before going back to sleep.  

When I got back, I played two more turns and the Vikings killed the Priest mainly because the Saxons did not have enough men to block each Viking.  

Rules Review?

You don't really need a rule review for Ravenfeast.  The purchase of rule reviews is to give more information so that folks can decide to buy a set of rules or not, and these are free so no need for that! 

Though here are some observations from my game play:

The rules are really well produced.  These look sooo professional and better than some rules that I've paid for. 

The rules do exactly as intended; it's a simple fun rule set.  Us veteran wargamers might find them a little too simplistic (because we're all tactical geniuses right?!)  And there are some nice general hobby encouragement pieces.  It's very well written as well.  

Other observations:

Miniatures are stuck in combat unless they do a disengage move which grants a free attack with no save, which seems strange to me.    I had several models that were stuck in place for several turns because no one could win a fight.  

For example:
The Viking Champion and Saxon Earl shown above were stuck in combat
basically the whole game just trading blows.

Morale tests happen at the end of a turn, and the rules are a little unclear if miniatures who are stuck in combat should take them.  Or maybe I'm just used to LOTR where miniatures are who are fighting are too busy to take morale tests.  I played it that models DID take morale tests and if they failed made a disengage move. 

Rules don't say if a shield wall could be formed in rough terrain (Shield walls move at half speed and rough terrain is also have speed so would a shield wall in rough terrain be half half? I just played no shield walls in rough terrain.

The rules do mention that if a miniature is attacking over an obstacle it takes a negative modifier to it's melee stat.  This did come up in my game.  But it's unclear what happens when the miniatures get stuck in combat like I was describing.  Is one still considered the attacker?  When the Vikings charged the Saxons defending the fence, I gave the Vikings the negative; but if two models continued to fight over the fence I gave them both the negative.   

Overall though, I had a nice evening messing about with my dark ages stuff.  Scratched an itche if you know what I mean.  Till next time.