Chainmail Scenario

[Sometime around 2004, I not only decided I was going to jump feet first into wargaming, but was going to use the original fantasy/military wargame, Chainmail. I condensed the rules into a 7-page document, drew and colored terrain squares on paper, and wrote up a first scenario. It did not go well. My three friends who played that first night agreed that the morale rules were their least favorite part, considering them too random and too skewed towards desertion. Although we could have tweaked the morale rules, I could not fire up any enthusiasm for Chainmail in them after that and I haven’t played it since. Here, anyway, is the background I wrote for that first scenario.]
All was well in the Barony of Revona, and had been for some time. But “well” was not good enough for its people. A council of concerned citizens appealed to the baron with what they believed to be a wise plan. To improve the Barony’s fortunes for the next generation, they insisted that the baron’s son should be married at once to a wealthy lady of higher station. And though it is said that Baron Kelzew was reluctant, it was not in his nature to say no to his people when they stood united behind an idea.

Nor was young Lord Michael, the baron’s son, disappointed by this notion, for he had long eyed the Lady Sonya as a potential mate. Sonya was the daughter and only child of County Pritchard of Blake. Only 40 miles separated the County of Blake and the Barony of Revona, but it was a wider gap than that between County Pritchard and the idea of his daughter marrying anyone less than a prince. Numerous gifts and offers from Revona were rebuked and returned, so much so that Baron Kelzew forgot his initial reluctance. He was now hot with anger and dispatched a force of men, along with his son, to Blake. Their mission was to capture the Lady Sonya.

Meanwhile, Count Pritchard found, to his dismay, that his daughter was becoming swayed by these constant signs of affection from Lord Michael. So he assigned a force of men to constantly protect her and defend her to the death.

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After buying troops with 80 purchase points, players will choose to fight for either Baron Kelzew or Count Pritchard. They will take turns laying down the terrain squares until they are all placed. This is where Baron Kelzew’s men will encounter Count Pritchard’s men while escorting the Lady Sonya cross-country. Each side must kill or route enough of the other side to leave the Lord or Lady unprotected and capture him/her.

OGRE Review

After owning it for 3 years, I finally got Tyler [my son] to play OGRE with me. Is this ever Old School! After playing Heroscape with its painted minis, Ty was disoriented at first by wargaming with chits. The layout of the tiny rulebook was confusing and I had to flip around a lot before I realized I simply had to keep a bookmark on the attack tables page buried in the middle of the book. Basically, unless there were more rules than I understood there to be, the OGRE tank always wins unless through some fluke. I was defending with infantry and a heavy mortar. Tyler delighted in running over and shooting down all my infantry units. I managed to only slow his movement by 1/3 by shooting at his tank treads and disabled 3 of his 8 laser cannons. Maybe you’re supposed to try only one tactic or the other, but there was no way I could try both before my troops were gone.

Heroscape Review

Tyler [my son] got Heroscape for Christmas. He wanted it for the minis inside, and I think I’ve enjoyed playing it more than him. First of all, the game has a huge set-up time as you’re supposed to build the terrain out of these Lego-like interlocking pieces. It can take me up to an hour to make the layouts as shown in the instruction book. The actual combat mechanic is nice. There are attack dice and defense dice and you want to roll more skulls on your attack dice than your opponent can roll shields on his defense dice. In the basic game, this means a kill, but there is a “hit points” mechanic in the advanced version we don’t use. Big monsters (particularly the robots) have lots of defense dice, so you basically have to keep attacking and hope to just get lucky. Also, a lot of the figures have special powers. Tyler loves these aliens that can clone themselves when they’re in water. I have to take them down fast, or they just come back faster than D&D trolls! The scenarios can take 1 to 2 hours to play out. Tyler hates scenarios with goals other than “kill everybody,” as he then has to out-think me rather than out-fight me. Most other scenarios are “capture the flag”-like setups.