Planning games for vacation.

As I mentioned previously, I am going on vacation this weekend and I need to put together a gaming kit. I intend to do some more Chronicales of Loa, and perhaps an RRtK battle in the Talomir campaign. In addition to this I was thinking on how I could make a sort of portable gaming kit.

So here is my plan so far:

I've ordered some stands from Precis Intermedia for paper figures here. I'm going to print out some figures from Paper Friends and print out some terrain form the various sets that I have.

I'm thinking of focusing on WHAA/ Swordplay / WHL for a dungeon crawl. I also have the Jewel of Murinae scenario from THW. I still also want to do a Cthulhu themed game of LTL. Thus far I have read WHAA and LTL but only thumbed through Swordplay and not read WHL at all. so I may cut my losses with WHL. The other question is if my brothers friends want to play. He said they will be coming for this big party my folks are throwing and like to game, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go live with a bunch of gamers. On the other hand it could be fun.

I also did a little retail therapy the other day and bought a card game box and die bag made by Fantasy Flight Games from my local Barnes & Noble bookstore. The box is meant for holding your Magic cards, but will work well for holding Munchkin Conan. It even has a little box that attaches to the bottom that I'm going to use for holding the die and level marker tokens.

Two part card game box and large die bag.

Chronicle of Loa - 987

In the Spring of 987 the countries of the Loa peninsula made ready for war. Armies were replenished and more mages hired in Eskelin, Kurinthia Malohad, Riata and Zamba. Heroes also emerged in Eskelin, Riata and Sortium. All nations chose to keep the mercenaries they had but not hire new ones. (This is mainly because the named units were already hired and I felt like keeping track of these special companies and dove tailing with the Talomir Tales campaign was going to be an issue. I need to work out a more generic or Loa specific list.)

Eskelin and Malohad declared war on each other but Eskelin was the aggressor and invaded. Being the more mobile force Malohad easily otscouted Eskelin and won a major victory. The Eskelin Mages were wounded and for Malohad one Level 1 mage was wounded and the Level 2 mage deserted.

Spring 987

Summer 987 saw Barylistan split their forces to invade Eskelin while defending against an invasion from Zamba. Malohad took the initiative from Eskelin and invaded their northern province.

Summer 987

After a drawn out battle Malohad was victorious over Eskelin with all but one of their mages deserting or wounded. The Eskelin mages and hero were also wounded. Barylistan's invasion of Eskelin was uncontested, and Zamba was repulsed at the cost of a wound to the Barylistani mage.

In the Fall of 987 war swept across the peninsula as never before. Malohad continued its holy war against Eskelin while Kurinthia sought to reclaim its province from Barylistan who now held it. Sortium woke from its slumber to attack Demeskeen while Riata thought it would pillage Barylistan while it was occupied fighting Kurinthia. Barylistan gave up pursuing its war with Zamba to defend itself on two fronts.

Fall 987

Kurinthia defeated Barylistan and regained the province it had lost to Eskelin. One level 1 and the Level 3 mage were injured in the battle. Barylistan was more successful in holding off the invasion from Riata. One level 1 mage was injured but the hero left the service of the realm in disgust. Malohad routed the Knights of Eskelin. Both the Malohad leader and the Captain of the Black Company (Alfred Badenhorst) were wounded. And in the final battle of the season Sortium lost  a close battle in the invasion attempt of Demeskeen. The Demeskeen mage saw too much of battle and deserted but the Sortium hero was enticed to stay. In the aftermath of the battles Eskelin, Riata and Sortium sued for peace.

Winter 987

During the Winter the High King of Riata died, some say of shame, others of poison in his mead. But the spring would see Riata riven in civil war. Kurinthia decided better of war with Barylistan and sued for peace. ( I forgot that Zamba and Barylistan were technically still at war so I will recheck that and write it into the Spring turn of 988. Barylistan had seized initiative and then basically handed it back by not following up.)

In 988 I hope to expand the palytest to include the income rules and also try out some characterization of the leaders of the various nations. My record keeping is still a shambles but I'm getting it slightly under control.

Again, this is all book keeping that needs to be done in a standard  game of RRtK, the rules I'm testing have added no extra work thus far. They have only simulated combat and I think work pretty well. I'm wondering if Eskelin should call upon the faithful to help them withstand the tide of invasion from the followers of the Black Moon.

And here is a quick tutorial of how I changed the texture on the Talomir Map. Quick and dirty, how I like it.

Click for full size

Chronicle of Loa

While I am playing in the Talomir Tales campaign I had an opportunity to play test some rules for simulating table top battles in RRtK. Why would someone want to you ask? Well because there are 39 countries in Talomir and it would be difficult to manage the whole continent and game out every battle.

At Talomir Tales, Ruarigh has been slowly expanding the nations involved and having some of us from the Yahoo group play out the battles. Other nations just remain in stasis. So I thought, why not take eight nations from around the Loa peninsula and have them fight out their part in the time line from the Spring of 986 to the present (Spring 993). I also had an idea to restart a campaign from 20 years ago, but that is for another post altogether.

So for this exercise I will be looking at the nations of Barylistan, Demeskeen, Eskelin, Kurinthia, Malohades, Riata, Sortium and Zamba. The majority of the mechanics for determining who is at war and preparing for battle are straight from the Rally Round the King (RRtK) rule book. It is the simulation of the battle itself that is part of the new mechanism, but it is very much in line with THW principles and procedures.

In the Spring of 986 both Demeskeen and Zamba felt that Barylistan's Shah was too weak to defend his realm and attacked savagely. Barylistan chose to ignore the invasion from Demeskeen and concentrate their forces on the invasion from Zamba. With their superiority in light, fast troops the Zamban army out scouted the Barylistanis but had to engage them in the hills. The Barylistan general ws up to the task and gained a minor victory. The battle had raged and swirled with many captains and heroes captured on both sides. Zamba conceded defeat and peace was imposed until the Winter of 986. Barylistan was now the hated enemy of Zamba. Demeskeen, meanwhile, occupied the province it had invaded.

Red for external borders, green for internal borders.

In the Summer of 986 Barylistan turned its attention on the invaders from Demeskeen. Demeskeen had a slight edge in scouting but Barylistan turned the tables and put the Demeskeni on the defensive. They met in the hills and the Barylistani army was victorious, although a few mages were captured. This season also saw Malohad invade Sortium and Zamba attack Kurinthia. The Malohad army had a huge scouting advantage with some Wind Maidens they had forced to do their bidding. Luck however was not with them as General Alexios drew them into hilly terrain and scored a major victory for Sortium. The General was captured but exchanged back to sue for peace as the Malohades had lost their stomach for fighting. Zamba, some think misled by their Brethren Mercenaries, attacked Kurinthia. They out scouted the Kurinthians but met in hilly terrain again. The Kurinthians gained a major victory and Zamba sued for peace, which will last until Summer 988. Kurinthia is added to Zamba's list of hated enemies.

The Fall of 986 saw Demeskeen, Malohad and Zamba recruit more troops to replace their losses. Eskelin saw it as their duty to civilize Kurinthia and invaded. The tribesmen of Kurinthia were no match for the Knights of Eskelin who won a major victory. Kurinthia sued for peace which will last until Fall 988. Demeskeen's light cavalry out scouted Barylistan but they had set up a defense in rough terrain. Barylistan scored a minor victory and kept Demeskeen from further inroads into their country.

During the Winter of 986 there is some kind of Magic Flu that causes the death of mages in Barylistan, Demeskeen and Kurinthia. Over the Winter Demeskeen thinks better of it and sues for peace with Barylistan. There will be an enforced peace until Winter of 987. Barylistan is the hated enemy of Demeskeen.

So the status quo remains except for Eskelin's gain in Kurinthia. I'm sorry that the narrative is not quite where I want it to be but I have been sitting on this for far too long and wanted to get it out there. The Land Battles mechanism itself is quite simple and gives believable results. What I am getting bogged down in are the regular rules for campaigning. I think once I make index cards or some such thing to track the kingdoms, life will be easier. Shuffling through the notebook is confusing at best.

This has also re-invigorated me to work on a Talomir map project I let languish for over a year. (Sorry Ed and Paul).