Love Child: Hold the Line and Black Power

I like the American Revolution game Hold the Line (previously published as "Clash for a Continent") by Worthington Games. In the game, each player rolls a D3 (3 sided die) plus a fixed number depending on the scenario for action points. Each action point allows one unit to move or fire or, with 2 action points, perform a close assault. I've not been entirely satisfied with this scheme: it would be nice if units far from the commanders were harder to control (e.g., costs more action points) and if groups of units could be giving similar orders for the same action point (in effect a "discount" for having multiple units perform the same action).

I have recently been looking at the miniatures rules Black Powder, a 17th and 18th century version of the Warmaster rules. I think there's enough synergism that one could play Hold the Line scenarios using an hex-grid adaptation of Black Powder. I need to play some games, if only solo, to see how this plays out.

BattleLore Reinforcements

I purchased a bunch of BattleLore expansions (Scottish Wars, Dwarven Battalion, Goblin Marauders, and 2 Goblin Skirmishers) on a 20% off sale with the thought that I would sell them on eBay. In the end, since they are out of print, I decided that I would keep them and use them for scenarios.

I like to paint green, blue, or red stripes around the base of my BattleLore to aid in the recognition of light, medium and heavy troops. Because the bases are grey, green or brown, the colors don't come through very well at times. However, I've discovered paint pens. First, I paint the side of the base with a white paint pen, then use a green, blue, or red "Sharpie" marker to paint the sides of the bases. Here's an example of my older efforts. The color isn't bad, but you can see that the green color is a bit dull:

Game Table Online Works with Safari 5!

I enjoy playing Battle Cry at Game Table Online, but it's always been a bit flaky with Macs, my preferred OS. I've recently had success using GTO with Firefox even on Macs. Apple recently released Safari 5, which seems to work great with GTO. I was able to play a solo game of Battle Cry with no problems. Yeah!

Imperium 2nd Edition

I'm a big fan of GDW's space game Imperium. Imperium came out in 1977 about the same time as Star Wars. Gavin, a friend of mine from college, and I played this all the time. I just recently found out that you could get a PDF copy of the 2nd (GDW) edition from Drive Through RPG. (The illustration that they use is from the 1st flatbox edition, which I have, but the rules are from a later edition.) One significant change is that the Imperial player has to pay 2 Glory Points for appeals to the Emperor rather than 1, so that it's harder for the Imperial player to gain the resources he needs to fight the war.

Yet More Panzer Grenadier

I picked up a copy of Panzer Grenadier: Fall of France plus Kokoda Trail and the Elsenborn winter boards from an artist who did work for Avalanche Press.

He mentioned that he hadn't yet been paid for his work for Avalanche Press and had received a bunch of games instead, so he was selling them on eBay. Very said.

What I Did During KublaCon

KublaCon is over. I ran two events, neither of which were terribly successful in terms of number of participants.

On Sunday morning, I ran a "Learning Panzer Grenadier" event. Only one person showed up, but he seemed to enjoy himself. We played a 12 turn nighttime urban assault of Battles of the Bulge. Because it was a nighttime scenario, I decided to use my new counter sleds to hide what units of both sides were in each stack. Units were revealed only when they came within sighting range, which in a nighttime scenario is only one hex.

On Monday morning, I ran a "Commands & Colors Fest", which involved bringing all 4 of the current C&C games: Battle Cry, Memoir '44, BattleLore, and Commands & Colors: Ancients. Four people participated. Two people decided to play a game of Memoir '44 with the new Memoir '44 Breakthrough boards. I played games of Commands & Colors: Ancients with two other players. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was disappointed that no one was interested in playing BattleLore. I'm starting to work on some feudal era scenarios for BattleLore, such as the Viking scenarios Clontarf and Brunanburh.

Counter Sleds

I finally decided to pick up some counter sleds from Rdoxx.



For those that haven't seen them, they are L-shaped pieces of wood that are big enough to hold a small number of counters vertically, with the counters facing the player and hidden from the opponent. In essence, this allows you to make any hex and counter wargame into a block game. The sleds come in a number of sizes: 0.5" square, 5/8" square, 3/4 wide x 1/2" tall, 1" wide x 1/2" tall, or 1" wide. I decided to order a set of 100 of the 5/8" square size ($12.95 for sets of 25). At this quantity, Rdoxx gave me a 10% discount.

My idea is to initially use them for Panzer Grenadier. Having played some PG night scenarios (where the sighting range is just a hex or two), it's way to easy to maneuver your forces towards enemies you really shouldn't be aware of. I thought with sleds you could simulate the uncertainty of war by giving extra sleds to each side so that players could maneuver dummy as well as real stacks. And of course, you wouldn't know what was in those stacks until they fire. Having bought 100 of them, I'm sure I'll have enough to use in other games. I've seen people paint their Sleds, but I thought it would be best to keep them in natural wood so that you didn't have to decide how many of each color.

The other product that Rdoxx makes is 2.1" wide hexes, which can be used for hills for the Commands & Colors games. I thought about these, but decided to make them out of brown 6mm "foamie" material at craft stores. For under $2 one of these sheets will make lots of hexes.