En Garde review: touché!

Once more Osprey has released one of their little gems in the Osprey Wargames series. A Rennaissance successor to Ronin called En Garde is the latest addition. 

En Garde is a tabletop skirmish wargame based on the Ronin rules "engine" en set in the Rennaissance period. Meant to be played with some 5-20 figures per side it covers the historical period from around 1550 to 1750. That means fans of the Three Musketeers, Alatriste, the Border Reivers and all kinds of small actions in the English Civil-, Thirty Years- and Eighty Years War have finally found their ruleset! 

Cardinal's Guards sneaking through an alley

It is written in the standard Osprey format: A5 booklet in full colour across 64 pages providing a complete ruleset. Apart from the rules the book offers special rules, army lists as diverse as Conquistadores and Aztecs, Musketeers and Turkish Janissaries, scenarios and some tips on making your own army lists and reading.

But how does it play and how does it compare to its parent ruleset Ronin? 

Just like in Ronin a turn has a Priority (Initiative + Morale) , Movement, Combat and End (Combat results) phase. The Action Phase however has been dismissed. 

Also like Ronin the game has an alternate turn sequence. Players move their figures alternately starting with the player with highest Priority moving one first, then the other player moves one et cetera until all figures have been moved. 

Aramis in serious trouble....

This achieves the same tactical depth in the game, as figures strive to maneuver into the best positions one by one. Unlike Ronin, En Garde enables group Activations by ordering groups around a Commander (an Attribute for high-ranking figures) to execute the same action all at once. Deadly musket volleys ensue! 

D'Artagnan escaping through the back door of the tavern

Missile weapons only fire once per turn in En Garde and usually must be reloaded, which also takes a turn. As the Action Phase has been removed, firing and reloading missile weapons now happens in the Move Phase instead of Moving or (modified) after a Short Move. Miscellaneous actions happen in this Phase as well, instead of or alongside a Move. 

The terrific Combat system from Ronin has been transplanted and improved. While in Ronin combatants could use chits from their Combat Pool to simply enhance attacks or defences, in En Garde opponents may choose from a number of specific enhancements. Parries, Feints, Ripostes and Mighty Blows all cost Combat chits but deliver different benefits and penalties. Selecting your Combat Pool is now only the beginning. 

This results in opposed die rolls where the difference between the rolls determines a succesful attack or defence. Only succesful attacks may cause damage and the larger the difference, the more serious the damage. 

Poor old Planchet laid low by a musket volley

In practice this results in a tense and quick game wherein a skilled Musketeer can hold his own against a horde of knife-wielding ruffians, may play for time by Feinting but may still be overwhelmed by their numbers before reinforcements show up. 

The black powder firearms are slow to reload, but have range and are especially lethal at short range. Interestingly, pistols may play a part in close combat. 

The book includes 8 scenarios and a simple campaign system. Inspiration for more scenarios is not hard to find in movies and books of the period. There are even tips for adding Fantasy elements like witches, werewolves and Revenants and a certain duo of large Barbarian and wiry Thief. 

As yet untried is a simplified Attack procedure also included in the book to facilitate larger group actions. 

Conclusion: like its predecessor Ronin En Garde is an interesting, quick playing game with lots of athmosphere for the period it is placed in. Recommended! 

I already have a Dutch Revolt table in mind.......

En Garde

64 pages paperback

By Craig Woodfield

Osprey Publishing 2016

Triple Osprey Review

In the past year I bought three of Osprey's new rulesets. Osprey rulesets have a lot going for them: a good professional publisher backs hem, they are nicely priced and presented even nicer. Eye candy abounds within as the artwork is of a high standard, photographs are professionally made (or at least definitely look that way) and tables and reference sheets are clean and crisp and usually can be downloaded together with a lot of bonus content from the Osprey site. So it's a "Yummie!" so far. But how do they stand up to the test of playing them? By now I have played all three of them and wish to share my opinion about them with you.

A general observation beforehand. Perhaps because of the similarities in presentation people often assume these rulesets are variations on the same engine, themed by the period they are set in. This is not the case. The three sets reviewed here are written by different people and the game mechanics are quite dissimilar. They really are very separate games, only sharing the fact that they are all skirmish rulesets that aim for a specific period.

Another sidenote is that I could have included Tomorrow's War in this review but chose not to. This is because TW is a ruleset with a much wider scope than the three reviewed here and isn't a skirmish ruleset either. So those hoping for a TW review must turn elsewhere for now, I am afraid.

So here we go.

Ronin by Craig Woodfield    +/+

With 65 pages, like the others, Ronin is the only purely historical set of the three. Set in Japan's Sengoku Jidai period: the Time Of The Warring States it enables you to play small-scale fights set in the golden age of the Samurai.

Ronin is like the others a 1-figure-1-person game. The basic unit is the Buntai ("team") which consists of about 8 figures and upwards. There is a choice from a number of Buntai: Bushi (professional samurai warriors) and Warrior Monks but also the more exotic ones like bandits, ronin (masterless samurai), peasants and Koryu (wandering students of Ken-Do: the way of the sword). There are also lists for Koreans and Ming Chinese and even for early Kamakura period as well as the modern 19th-century Japanese army of the Late Edo period. You can add to your list by hiring sellswords, usually ninja, bandits or ronin. The lists are point-driven, points being paid for character quality, skills and equipment.

A Ronin turn has a Priority (Initiative + Morale) , Movement, Combat, Action and End (Combat results) phase.

Ronin has an alternate turn sequence. This means that players move their figures alternately: the player with highest Priority moves one first, then the other player moves one et cetera until all figures have been moved. This simple mechanism brings some tactical depth into the game, as figures strive to get the best positions one by one. Also, you cannot charge someone by running, so manoeuvring gets even more important. Alternatively, a figure may choose to fire a missile weapon instead of moving. Missile weapons really come into their own in Ronin, as they can be quite effective against unarmored targets and may fire twice per turn (just wait..). 

The game really shines in the combat phase. Combat demands base-to-base contact. Both combatants have a number of combat chits equal to their Rank: the Combat Pool. They may secretly allocate these chits to either or both attack or defence, which enables them to attack at all or strengthens their defence. This gives some interesting tactical choices in combat: should I gamble on my armour and attack full force? Or should I be cautious and strengthen my defence in case my opponent counterattacks? This really lifts Ronin above the roll-higher-than-your-opponent standard!

 

In the Action phase figures may do other things, like load an arquebus, pick up things or shoot. Bows do not need to be reloaded and now can shoot (for the second time in the turn), so in general there are a lot of arrows flying around! Unarmoured figures should be aware and usually die quickly if they don't!

The book includes seven standard scenarios and Osprey offers additional army lists for downloading, scenarios and even a list of supernatural beings from Japanese mythology.

So in general Ronin is an impressively interesting, quick playing game with lots of opportunities for beautiful tables and figures. Recommended!

In Her Majesty's Name by Craig Cartnell and Charles Murton +/-

Here we meet the same number of 65 pages which in this case houses a set of rules for Victorian Science Fiction games. VSF is a very popular period the last few years so this set does not stand on its own and competes with others like G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

 

IHMN plays teams of 6 figures and upwards against each other. There is much opportunity for variation, as the basis rulebook alone sports half a dozen pre-generated ones and much information to make your own. The individualization of the teams has gotten a  lot of attention in this game, as there are lots of different weapons, historical as well as weird equipment and rules for steam driven walkers and such. So you can play Prussian scientist with Zombie Tod-truppen, British gentlemen with lightning guns or Chinese Tong warriors with martial art skills and magic! The lists are point-driven, points being paid for character quality, skills and equipment. 

Perhaps due to its small format, the game misses (in my opinion) the opportunity to add a number of typical Victorian archetypes, like Dracula, Springheeled Jack, Jeckyll & Hyde, Martians, The Invisible Man and the like. But the game definitely succeeds in capturing the VSF flavour and you can go full throttle at painting and collecting figures and stuff for this game.

There are some scenario ideas in the book, somewhat sketchy for my taste but still nice and there are a surprising large number of terrain suggestions, some of which are quite original, like a table made of rooftops!

IHMN starts off each turn with determining Initiative and follows up with alternate movement. This way teams move into position without having to wait for the other one to completely finish and this makes manoeuvring interesting. Movement is a saldo of quite a number of values and modifiers (standard value + speed bonus + sometimes a running bonus - armour encumbrance penalty - terrain penalties). This should have gotten me worried.

The same alternate sequence is used in shooting, so Initiative will get you the first shot, but not all first shots. Shooting demands even more values and modifiers. A hit is determined by adding a D10 roll to the Shooting value and the Weapon Bonus and subtracting the target's armour and cover values. Lots of tables. There are dozens of weapons and six (!) basis armour values (plus six more against lightning weapons) so there is some calculus required. More tables. When all this results in a hit, the target rolls against Pluck (plus Talent bonus, minus Weapon Pluck modifier) and survives, drops down or dies. After some 30-45 minutes of play all the adding and subtracting became grating and quite distracting. It seemed a very complex way to simply determine whether or not you move or hit someone with a gun. All this is not improved by all the different weapon ranges, which you are not allowed to measure beforehand by the way.

We did not get to use robots, walkers or vehicles but I fear that, since even walking and shooting is quite complex, strolling about in steam vehicles is even more complicated. The game mechanics feel slow and clunky like a 19th century steam engine. My main gripe being that this distracted terribly from the gameplay and narrative of the game.

Can I recommend this set? Well, not yet. Maybe it's just me. Perhaps IHMN is an acquired taste. It is definitely a must to work your entire team into a QRS where at least all the movement and weapon modifiers are at hand. That should save a lot of time looking things up in tables. I will play it some more and we'll see.

A Fistful of Kung Fu by Andrea Sfiligoi ++/++

We dove into FFOKF with a casual read and a taste for cheesy chopsocky movies. FFOKF does not attempt to portray a period as such, but aims at playing in the world of the 70ies and 80ies action movies, mainly those made by the Hong Kong producers that made the likes of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan stars. It is said that the set is written to play the movie Big Trouble in Little China and that you will manage to play the entire movie, action scene for action scene, effortlessly. So my expectations were high.

Like in Ronin and IHMN you play a small team of about 6-10 figures, pulled right out off the cinematographic heritage that birthed this game: Kung Fu heroes, tough cops, vicious Chinese sorcerers or cool Yakuza gangsters. The rules allow for even more variety: zombies, cyborgs, Chinese demons or vampires, ninjas and what not. If you ever needed an excuse to buy exotic miniatures, this game supplies it! Teams are headed by a Protagonist, a star actor, supported by a cast of a sidekick and a number of Extras. The lists are point-driven, points being paid for character quality, skills and equipment.

Contrary to the former two rules sets FFOKF is a IGO-UGO system. One player activates all his figures before his opponent may do something. Or is it? Activation goes by throwing 1 to 3 dice against the figure's Quality. Every success gives you an Action: walking, shooting, charging and fighting et cetera. However, every failure grants a free Action to your opponent's Protagonist. Before you can do anything! And two or more failures end your turn, even before all your figures have been Activated! That doesn't sound very predictable and it isn't. It makes for dynamic play and calculating risks before throwing more than one die. Your Protagonist, with his high Quality, will end up doing the most, just like in the movies!

Shooting and fighting use the same Statistic: Combat. Roll and add Combat (and modifiers) to shoot or hit someone. The target rolls and adds as well and the highest score wins. In case of the attacker that is a hit, in case of the target it can be something bad for the attacker, like a jamming gun, depending on how great the difference between the rolls is. A table provides you with alternative consequences and the winner may choose the result that can apply. So a shot may kill your opponent, may shoot his gun from his hand or may result in your gun clicking on an empty chamber or a free Action for the target. Fights go similarly. Interactions with prop items and terrain are called for, so if you have always wanted to throw someone through a fish tank, here is your chance, provided you have one on the table!

It struck me that consulting the tables in this game was never a bore, contrary to IHMN. Why? I think it is because consulting tables in IHMN will only ever result in a simple result, like a move or hit/miss, while a table result in FFOKF might result in something that makes the game more interesting and easily fits into the narrative and makes it more exciting. 

Last but not least your Protagonist has a limited number of Chi points he can use to reroll dice or cause group actions of his Extras. Chi can be recovered during the game, but mainly through lucky dice rolls, so you have to use them wisely.

All this made for a quick, narrative and excitingly unpredictable game that felt EXACTLY like a Hong Kong action movie! Even in our first game the rules played fast and intuitively and we had immense fun.

FFOKF is definitely recommended. For fans of Big Trouble in Little China it really is a mandatory purchase!

Playing the ninja raid

Today I hosted the Ninja Raid game as a participation demo at Ducosim in Amersfoort. It was a bit of an experiment as I usually host multiplayer games and this was a 1-on-1 game. The convention, held three or four times a year, is a combination of mainly board- and card gamers, some wargamers and that elusive category in between, the participation game. It was the first time my Japanese manor featured on a con and also the most compact demo I ever hosted: I carried all the stuff from my car to the table in two boxes!

 Here the terrain is shown. While the entire game is basically confined to the manor, I thought it good to dress up the table with some more fluff.

The brave (but somewhat sleepy) inhabitants of the manor. The dice are thrown into the building to represent  where the inhabitants are and whether they are awake or not.

Background fluff: temple, gate and Buddha. Yes, here be cherry blossom trees....

The sneaking route for the Ninja up to the back door.

The front gate. As you can see the time to paint the dragons flanking the gate somehow eluded me.

Two cute girls played the first game and as usual in reality turned out to be bloodthirsty hack-and-slash players intent on slaughtering their way to victory...

Here Ninja and samurai battle in the garden. Note the Koi fish. I am very proud of the Koi fish....

Audience gives some constructive criticism while the ninja player ponders his plan of attack.

 Note the blinds that cover up the rooms. This way the ninja player has no idea where his target (or the guards) are and the samurai player knows where they are, but not whether they will be awake...

Ninja sneaking over the garden wall, taking aim with the blowpipe with the poisoned darts...

Here a poisoned dart target, pardon a samurai guardsman reclines on the bridge in the garden.

After the bit with the poisoned darts, ninja sneak up to the back door. Unfortunately several AWAKE samurai were waiting inside!

A smoke bomb took care of the first round of combat and prevented the samurai from using their superior numbers.

One ninja even confronted the Daimyo directly in his sleeping chambers! Alas, in the end the target  ran too fast to be caught...

For Ninja caught inside a building filled with awake guards and staff, times have become interesting indeed! 

Here my neighbours played the venerable game Battletech Classic, which is a silly tag, since, well, what other kind of Battletech is there, really?

Some impressions of the convention: lots of card- and boardgames, some wargames and a huge FoW game. Not my thing, but impressively huge.

I spent a very enjoyable day, hosted 4 or 5 games and chatted with a lot of people, known and unknown and even got a bag of Thirty Years War Cuirassiers for my birthday. Thank you Sander! They will grace some Witchfinder General Table in the future.

The making of The Raid: how a scenario is born.. Part 3: The Building

On with the show. Now the scenario and rules have taken shape, further building can continue! 

Roofs will be detachable. Doors and gates must be able to open and close. The buildings must allow for a lot of cover, given the lethality of missiles in the Ronin rules. And where would a ninja sneak if there is nothing to hide behind? 

As usual I made some sketches for the design. No blueprints, just an impression to guide me during the building process.

The building should look distinctly Japanese. This calls for a maximum of clichés and the watching of some samurai movies while making a list: shoji doors, tatami floor coverings, cherry blossom trees in a Zen garden, a little arched bridge, curved roof ornaments and Buddha statues in some of the rooms. A Chinese food-and-novelty shop proved a treasure trove!

The building was undertaken in my proven fashion. Sturdy foamboard outer walls with small windows detailed with balsa and basewood timber would hold the roof made of cardboard. 

I decided on rooftiles instead of thatch: the owner of the manor is supposed to be rich and powerful enough to warrant assassination after all! There are lots of expensive and laborious ways to make rooftiles but being a stingy and lazy peasant I chose corrugated cardboard, cut in strips and glued in layers overlapping each other. Once painted this is remarkably effective. The top of the outer wall would be likewise tiled.

Interior walls will have to be double-walled to enable the sliding shoji doors to move into the walls. All interior doors and doors opening into the courtyard and garden have to follow this pattern. As shoji doors are relatively easy to break through, opening them would signify a broken or opened door, needed to either look or walk into a room. The doors are made from plasticard, as they would have to be moved around a lot and need to be resistant to friction and sliding. 

I make extensive use of printed paper to decorate the rooms and walls. Wall panneling, floor planks and stuff like paintings and screens are all googled, printed and glued. Be aware that the usual printer paper is too thin to take glue well (see the regrettable result on the floor in the picture below) so take thick paper to print on when you have to glue large surfaces like floors.

Rooms get foamboard lids resting on the interior walls to prevent the attacker (and up to a point the defender) from finding out what is in them too soon.

Wooden gates and exterior doors, reinforced to enhance the fortified nature of the manor, are made of glued basewood (praise the Heavens for coffee stirrers!) and move on dollhouse hinges.The same technique is applied to the double front gate and the rear garden door.

The garden presented me with a challenge in that it would need a pond. So different ground levels were built using thick cardboard and construction paste. The garden would then lay higher than the courtyard, but as these two spaces are separated by one wing of the manor this is not disturbing. Grass would be flocked around the pond, cherry trees fit into the garden (and can be replaced with bare winter trees) and fine gravel is glued onto the paths in (hopefully very Zen-like) patterns. The roof gets some simple ornaments. The building is then painted. I try to use as much cheap acryls as possible. 

The lanterns are beads from a huge box with all kind of beads I bought years ago.

All that remains is the interior detailing. I always add a lot of prints for interior and exterior decoration. All are found on the Internet. Used are several different wood patterns, Japanese art and such. Japanese rooms were sparsely furnished in any case and as this is essentially a wargaming table enough room should be available for moving figures around. So tatami floor coverings and some ornaments (Buddhas, a wire Bonsai on a plasticard table or a vase made of a large bead) made up the furniture.  Added to these was a scratchbuilt rack of bows and arrows and some wooden boxes, some of which could contain an arquebus, powder and shot.

I also made modern furniture so I can use the manor for modern games as well. Below is the Oyabun's office. Mind the aquarium! All items are largely made from plasticard (old gift cards and credit cards) and plastic sprue or tubing. 

The local Chinese store also produced a lot of useful stuff. The screens are again prints. 

A rack of bows from the bit box and some balsa wood. 

The garden. Mind the loose cherry trees. They can be replaced by bare winter trees for winter games. 

And the courtyard. Park your horse or BMW here (depending on the game played). 

 I need to add a sword rack because it looks so darn Japanese and for any players that like a less bloody scenario in which the ninja steal something instead of kill someone. Whether they do so with or without violence, I am not able to predict. But I have my suspicions….

Let the Raid begin!

PS

Thanks to Peter's generous donation I was able to add this Ancestral Sword Rack and Offspringly Firearms Locker!