PLAYTESTING A NEW SCENARIO

Play a combat... And fight it again... And again... And once more...

I'm playtesting a new scenario, and I'm just trying to make it as balanced as possible. Playing the scenario is fun, playing the same once and again ten times is not so funny, but if you enjoy the scenario all this will have been worthy. 

These are some pictures I took while playing, I hope you like them.

As soon as this scenario is finished I'll give it for free, but I'm thinking on how to benefit the people that have supported this project. 

I think the best way is to put the scenario in wargamevault together with the ruleset as an update, and the people that bought the game just have to login in their wargamevault account, download it again and the new scenario will download together with the rulebook. 

I see it the best way and it is like a big "thank you" to all those who bought the game supporting this project.

CARS, SCALES AND WARGAMES

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO SUKI WARGAMES BLOGSPOT

I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCOVENIENCE

CLICK IN THE IMAGE BELOW TO VISIT THIS POST

SOLO WARGAMING

There is many people who don't understand what are we talking about when we deal with solo wargames. 

Fear of the Dark skirmish wargame was born as a solo skirmish wargame, as I always leaned to solo gaming, and many people ask about how does it work, or even why do I play solo. 

Playing always has a social component, meeting with friends or acquaintances to have fun around a table, but we do not always have opponents against which to deploy our miniatures.

It may be for various reasons that we end up approaching solo wargames or with the option to play solo:

There are no players in our surroundings; Nobody collects miniatures or loves to roll dice while making the noise of shots with their mouths... Pew, pew... (yes, we have all done it at some point).

No other player wants to play THAT particular wargame that you like so much ("my little pony skirmish battles ... why the hell doesn't anybody want to play this game?").

You want to try new rules or variants in games and nobody else seems to care. ("Who says that my paratroopers can't face werewolves? Okay, the characteristics don't come in the Chain of Command ruleset but ...").

Know perfectly a particular ruleset ("they have been playing Flames of war for two years, and I start playing now and I haven't even read the rules yet, but they are not going to beat me up").

You don't have time to meet friends because of real life responsibilities (work, kids ... The f*****g real life).

You just like to play alone, some will see it as something strange, but we see many people play video games or computer games alone and nobody finds it strange.... Many times we like to play our way, at our own pace, take our time...

In fact, there is currently a great demand for miniature wargames to include rules to play alone, or at least have an adaptation that allows it, and more and more games include rules that allow you to play and have fun by deploying your miniatures in the table and play alone.

I have to tell you that (for me) solo wargames don't deal with wining the enemy or prevent him from wining... Solo wargames are about IMAGINATION, creating a story and seeing it develop through your actions. Many times when you lose a game but the story has been great (or epic) you feel comforted. This is not competing to win, it is creating a story.

You may think that what I say is a bit childish, but ... What can I say? I am 44 years old and I enjoy playing with little toys in a table... Don't tell me that something may sound childish ...

What do we usually think when we talk about solo miniature wargames? A player who sets the table and then plays both sides, unable to fully identify with either side and trying not to cheat himself?

A basic idea about playing solo is to split up and play with both sides... That may work for some people, but it is not common, since when splitting you cannot fully identify with either side, and it is difficult to make decisions without your previous or future actions been affected these decisions.

There is much more beyond that image, we can really play solo and make it a very fun experience.

For these reasons we will avoid this solo game mode, since (from my point of view) it is not totally satisfactory, since what we are looking for is to choose a side and face the enemy, fully identifying with our side and doing everything possible to defeat the enemy. So let's see the possibilities we have...

We generally find two types of games that we can enjoy playing solo:

Narrative games based on scenarios or adventures with a plot. Each scenario will set the story that we are going to play, will establish the layout of the table, where each side displays and the behavior/actions of the enemies. These types of games are the closest mixture of skirmish wargames and role-playing games (at 75% and 25% respectively), giving great importance to the story behind the scenario.

Within the category of miniature skirmish narrative games we can include many available titles that are directly intended to be played solo: Fear of the Dark, ​​Rangers of Shadow Deep, Pulp Alley, Arkeo Obskura, Perilous Tales, Blood on the Blade / Blood in Space, the Walking Dead All Out War, Last Days, Battlespace...

In these games we will have a base game (a core book) with its system of rules and a lot of scenarios or games, each with its specific characteristics (number of minis, deployment, table layout, enemy behavior, possible events...) so that when we read the scenario we know the layout of the table and the enemy's deployment, but there are always points of interest, plot points, threat tokens or whatever you want to call them that are nothing more than random events that make the course of the game random enough to surprise us when playing it.

In fact, you can replay these games and most of the times the result will be very different games.

Games designed to be played by two players in which an artificial intelligence (AI) system has been made to decide the actions of the side we face. Generally, the layout of the table, the deployment and everything related to the enemy side will have a fairly high element of randomness and luck. These types of games are the classic miniature wargames to which an AI system has been implemented to face us.

Within this category we can find books that offer us some tools that will allow us to play as if we had a real enemy. What these tools will provide us is a multitude of possible confrontation scenarios, each one with its own table layout (or totally random) displays of the different sides, structure and composition, possible events... Everything you need so that you can face the enemy and do your best against the enemy who will act/react based on programmed decisions.

These systems have a solid base such as one hour wargames, one hour skirmishes or platoon forward (for World War II), although what we will find easily will be adaptations or mods made by the players' community themselves.

And another important issue is: of all the existing ruleset available, which rules to use? And there is a golden rule: play with the ruleset with which you feel more comfortable.

The rules have to be simple and easy, since you are alone to carry both sides, and the more complicated they are, the easier it will be that we get stuck in the mud and cannot move the story forward. We can complicate them as much as we want as long as we are comfortable with them and can handle them in a fluid way.

Let's list a few of the existing rulesets for solo play:

Fear of the Dark. What can I say about this ruleset? I made it, so, whatever I say is going to be quite subjective and it's not going to be a fair opinion. 

Made for solo play (or full coop) in the horror world created by H. P. Lovecraft. It's a narrative skirmish wargame as it mixes classic skirmish wargame with a rpg lite system in a narrative setting. 

If you want to know more bout this game click HERE

Frostgrave. A successful and well known game. In the Perilous dark supplement it includes some rules to play solo and a campaign of 10 scenarios. It is very interesting to read just for the ideas it generates when explaining how to play solo. Although apart from those 10 scenarios and a random system to create dungeons, it is a bit difficult to use it as a solo game itself.

Rangers of Shadow Deep. Narrative skirmish wargame perfect for solo play. 100% recommendable. Everything I could say about this magnificent game is said in this review I made in a brother blog a few months ago and that you can see by clicking HERE.

THW. Initials of TwoHoursWargames, a classic of solo wargames with a multitude of settings. Highly recommended. This system has deserved its own post in a brother blog in which you can read the virtues of this system. You can see it clicking HERE.

Battlespace. A recent title designed for a modern warfare setting and designed to be played solo. Through a random enemy deck the enemies and events appear in a random way. This game is fast and deadly. And really fun, it´s a great game.

Frontline Heroes: Fields of Normandy. This is a solo/PvP skirmish wargame set in World War II. In this game, our soldiers will be members of the Allied forces battling against the Nazi army on the European front.
Frontline Heroes features a comprehensive rules system and 21 missions for solo or multiplayer play, presented in a nearly 200-page book, available in english and in spanish.

This ruleset is a fast-paced, easy to learn and dynamic game.

Check the Facebook group for more info (click HERE) 

Last days: zombie apocalypse. A recent game from Osprey publishing with very good reviews, with a solo system created by its own author and posted on their website for free. Zombie games have the advantage that zombies have a fairly simple AI, so the games in which we face our side against groups of zombies, the solo mode is perfect and runs smoothly with guaranteed fun.

The walking dead: all out war. It has a solo system that works very well, and like any other zombie game, it is perfect for solo game. A must if you are a fan of the comics / series saga.

Blood in the blade (and its twin brother blood in space). This game is a set of rules for solitaire or co-op skirmish game, set on a fantasy background, but can also be used for non-fantasy games it introduces a really good AI decision-making system based on flowcharts or decision trees.

This AI system makes the enemies act in a logical way as a real opponent would do.

Pulp alley. Created by David Phips is a pulp adventure game with a solo system created by its author based on a deck of cards that will control enemies and events that will create uncertainty in the games. 100% recommended and with a multitude of games and campaigns. And an author and a community devoted to the game.

Perilous tales. A game that has been in the gaming community for years, but continues to be played solo because of the advantages it has, as it even has an automatic scenario creator on its web page, you simply press the "create a scenario" button and a new scenario with enemies, objectives, a completely different story appears created.

Arkeo obskura. A rara avis. It is a game created by Massimo Torriani that started with great interest in the gaming community, on his webpage you can download 4 very interesting free adventures. The system by which the plot of the game is developed is very successful and is very good. Unfortunately the game has been abandoned for a long time. It does not have a community of players, the author does not publish absolutely anything about this game... Which makes it less appealing to start playing it.

Zona Alfa. A very attractive and interesting post-apocalyptic game designed for two players to which its author created a solo game system available for free.

In addition to these rulesets, we have a few books that provide us with tools to play games (mainly battles between two armies), such as:

One hour wargames (and its little brother one hour skirmish wargames) that provides us with a large number of different scenarios specifying table layout, deployment, size of the opposing sides, events, possible options...

There are more books of this style (which we will mention below) but these two are the most current and most interesting that I have read, their information and tools being the most directly applicable to the game.

Platoon forward. This deserves a separate mention, since with this ruleset you will have a large number of possible combat scenarios based on the Second World War, and each one with its own random tables to generate the enemy troops and their deployment, this being hidden.

And many more, that although they are older, provide us with ideas of different scenarios, events, displays, ways of arranging the game table...

And there are many more games, books and rulesets that I haven't mentioned either by oblivion or ignorance, although you already know that here below is the comments section in case you want to add any ruleset, specify any detail or whatever comes to your mind, that will surely help more people with doubts about the possibility of playing solo miniature wargames. 

Believe it or not, the community of solo miniatures wargames players is quite big, so we can see a facebook group called SOLO wargaming with miniatures that has 11,500 members in which players post their battle reports, rulesets, reviews or simply post their ideas regarding this style of play.

Knowing that there are groups like this one, it makes me remember the motto of this blog: 

"You may play alone, but you are not alone."

PS:

And something to keep in mind, that is implicit in the philosophy of this blog, is that the solo wargames player is alone to buy the miniatures, paint them, get the scenery done, get a playmat... 

...And that implies a big economic expense, that's why this blog was about to be called low cost wargames,  as always I try to ensure that the needs to play can be made in the cheapest way possible.

I already wrote an entry about this topic on how to set up a gaming table without spending a fortune. You can read it HERE.

PS 2:

Those two cats in the pictures are my cats, the second one was Suki, who passed away three years ago, and the black cat is Kira, that is always around when I'm playing. 

LOW COST WARGAMES

Or how to set up a nice game board on a budget...

Many people who wants to play Fear of the Dark tell me that the game requires some different terrain, and in fact that's true, as you need to represent different settings (a secluded house, a cabin in the woods, a forest, a small town...), but my answer is always that although this hobby is quite expensive, everything can be done in a cheaper way. 

Many times, when I say that I play solo, most people think that I must have spent a huge amount of money in miniatures and terrain. As a solo player you have to buy everything by yourself and keep it at home. 

The miniature wargames' hobby has always been seen as a expensive hobby only within the reach of gaming clubs or people who can spend that amount of money by themselves. 

We are used to seeing enormous boards covered m with huge armies of fully painted miniatures, with lots of resin scenery, tree forests, rivers, mountains and lots of terrain pieces.

A bit scary, isn't it?

And even scarier when it comes to playing solo, in that case all expenses are assumed by only one person...

Well, in this article I'll try to explain that it's not that expensive to make a gaming board good enough to play...

Let's start with the figures, there are miniatures of all types and sizes: lead, resin, plastic, 28mm, 20mm, 15mm ...

Prices will vary according to size, material, brand...

If your idea is to make yourself a large army, then there is a range that is unbeatable in terms of price: the 20mm or 1/72 scale, it has a large number of different historical periods, ranges, units and whatever you are looking for, generally in plastic and always with prices more than affordable.

On the other side, I advise you to play skirmish games, which generally deal with two bands of up to 10 models each, which will be a maximum of 20 models... a quite reasonable cost regardless of the models you choose.

When playing Fear of the Dark you will use between 5 an 10 miniatures per side, what makes it an affordable game in terms of figures. 

As for game boards, we will see them of all kinds: 3d modular wood boards, made to order, professional mats printed in neoprene... but one of the simplest solutions is a green felt mat with an approximate cost of 3€ (and it's not a joke) that can be purchased at any fabric store...

If we talk about terrain, there are all different  kinds: we can find terrain made of resin, plastic, 3D printed (PLA or resin)... with different prices according to the quality or size of the piece

But returning to the idea of making this hobby cheaper, I have to advise you that you can find terrain pieces on the Internet ready to print them on paper of cardboard and make them ourselves with very good results.

Nice gaming table, isn't it? Well... All the buildings and even the roads are papercraft, and they were less than 10€... 

We also have a lot of terrain pieces at quite reduced prices in Asian distributors, be they physical stores or online (aliexpress).

The last and perhaps most important terrain pieces are the handmade, made of any material we can imagine (cardboard, Eva foam, wood, coffee stirrers, cardboard...) and here the limit is our imagination and our skill.

Internet is full of tutorials with different degrees of difficulty to make almost any piece of terrain possible.

And with these guidelines we can set up a game board without spending much money, which is quite important if we intend to play alone without applying for a bank loan.

And to finish this article, what better than to make a practical example, this is a game board in which I have played a game.

Let's see the cost of this 90x90 cms gaming board:

the felt mat 2'5€ (1x1 meter)
Houses printed on cardboard 6€
Trees 4€
Road 2€ (cork board)
Fences 2.50€
Walls (ordered in 3D printer) 5€
River and bridge handmade (approximate cost 4€)
Various pieces (boxes, barrels ...) 8€
Crop fields (artificial grass samples, free on internet companies)


34€ for a quite nice 90x90 game board... 

As you can see, it is not difficult or expensive to get started in this hobby, or at least it is as expensive as we want it to be.

And from here I encourage you to start playing Fear of the Dark, setting up your own low cost gaming board, starting with the basics: game mat and trees, then you make some paths or roads, a river (even if it is a short section), with a river you have an excuse for a bridge, the houses are really cheap and quick to make and they are wonderful on a table...

And step by step, little by little, when you want to realize, you will have terrain to fill several boards with even different settings...

(this post was originally posted by me a year ago in The Lone Warrior blog) 

GAMEPLAY VIDEOS

First of all, I want to thank Frank Castillo for making these videos. He bought the ruleset and started to play the scenarios, and he decided to make a video of the scenarios he was playing.

As these videos show most of the mechanics (combat, activation, AI system...) I asked him to post them in this blog so that people could have a better idea on how Fear of the Dark works.

Apart from that, the figures and terrain are really good, making the videos really entertaining. 

I hope you enjoy the videos and get a better idea about this game.

FEAR OF THE DARK AAR BATTLE REPORT 1

This is going to be the first scenario that I play and show as a battle report. This kind of scenarios are a bit difficult to show as an After Action Report (AAR in advance) because it´s dificult not to spoil the story.

As the scenarios are highly narrative, they are intended to surprise or at least not to tell the player all the story that is going on, but when you make an AAR it´s easy to say something that will be an spoiler and that will make people who hasn´t played the scenario know things that they shouldn´t know till they played that scenario.

So, I´m going to make a battle report but in some moments I won´t tell you some of the things that are happening, ok? 

You´ll see that I don´t say anything clear about what they find in the Points of Interest, that because I don´t want to spoil your games...

So, let´s play this scenario...

Our characters go to a cabin in the woods to search for some clues that help them understand what has happened with a person that was killed two days ago.

These are our characters, a Hero (Roger Barney) and two Allies (Carl Smith and lady Madeleine), our Hero has a pistol, the Ally in the middle has a rifle and the Ally that is in the right hand side has no weapons at all:

As there are no enemies, their activation is easy, we don´t care about activation decks or anything, just move them around the table in the order we want.

Turn 1:

The characters move towards the Points of Interest in order to check them as soon as possible.

Our hero moves towards one of them but has no actions enough as to check it (maybe next turn).

The two allies get closer to the Points of Interest but can´t check them.

Turn 2:

Our hero checks the Point of Interest with his first action, revealing some clues about the death oh the man that used to live in that cabin. With his two actions left he moves towards the next Point of Interest.

The ally moves towards the Point of Interest with his first action, and with the second he checks  it, finding some clues that reveal how the man died.

The other Ally (Lady Madeleine) moves towards the third Point of Interest with her first action, and uses the second action to check it, finding some clues that are quite relevant to the case that they are trying to solve...

Turn 3:

We move our hero to the nearest Point of Interest with the first action, and with the second action he checks it... And then... three people armed with axes appear from the shadows as they were hiding.

We place one of those persons as we are told in the scenario, and in the end, we have one next to our hero and the other two close to the two allies.

We are told in the scenario that we have to atart a new turn, making an activation deck with one card of each side for every character that we have of each warband and we have to add one random event card...

I know... that´s rubbish, but I forgot the cards in another place, my bad, please forgive me.

Ok, let´s assign the opportunity and danger tokens to the enemies we have in the table.

This one has an opportunity and danger token as he is in melee combat with the hero:

This one has a danger token as the ally that is close to him has a rifle (the distance between them is closer thn the distance between Lady Madeleine and the other bad guy) :

And the last one has an opportunity token as he is close to an ally that is not armed.

So we shuffle three cards of each warband and a random event card.

We draw a card and it´s an enemy character that activates, following the activation order, we find that activates the figure that is close to our hero.

Following the flowchart, that figure attacks our hero with an axe and he shoots his gun in melee combat, both roll their dice, the guy with the axe fails his attack and our hero is succesful:

The difference is more than 5, so when rolling in the injury table, our hero has a +2.

6!! and with a +2 bonus... that´s an 8. The hero makes an injury on the guy with the axe, that falls on the ground bleeding...

We draw another card from the activation deck and we get a player´s warband card, and I decide that I want to activate the Ally that has the rifle, and try to shot down one of those guys.

Unfortunately, he rolls an 8 and misses the shot, so, with his second action he decides to move away from that guy with an axe so that he can´t be attacked by him next turn.

We draw another card an it´s a player´s warband card, so I decide to move Lady Madeleine towards one of those armed guys and hit him, unfortunately they roll their dice trying to hit eacj other but fail with their dice rolls.

We draw another card and this time it´s an enemy´s warband card, so following the AI activation order I activate the guy that has the opportunity token, he moves towards Lady Madeleine with his two action and though he his next to her, he is unable to attack her.

We draw another card and this time it´s an event card. Trapped. the next character activating won´t be able to move at all!! I draw another card and it´s a player´s warband card... as the only character that I hadn´t activated was our hero, he is grounded and can´t move, staying away and not been able to help lady Madeleine.

I draw another card and it´s an enemy´s warband card, following thwe AI activation order, I activate the guy with the Danger token, and checking the flowchart, he attacks Lady Madeleine.

Both roll their dice on a Characteristic test trying to score the same or less that is on their Melee Combat Characteristic, and the two of them are succesful (the guy on the left had a +2 bonus, +1 for attacking with an axe and +1 for attacking helped by another bad guy)

They roll a die on the Injury table, and Lady Madeleine doesn´t make any injury while the guy with the axe makes an injury on our Ally.

Ok, this turn is over...

Turn 5:

We make an activation deck shuffling two enemy´s warband cards, three player´s warband cards and a random event card.

I place the Opportunity and Danger tokens on the bad guys, and though both are in a similar situation, I decide that the guy on the left has a Danger token just because the Ally with the rifle is close enough as to be a danger...

So, let´s stat with turn 5. I draw a card, and it´s an enemy´s warband card, according to the AI actoiivation order, I activate the guy on the right of Lady Madeleine, and after having a look at the flowchart, he attacks our Ally with his axe.

Both of them roll their dice, the bad guy has a +2 bonus (+1 because he has an axe and anoter +1 because there are two of the bad guy attacking Lady Madeleine), and our Ally has a -1 (beacuse she is injured, and every injure gives a -1 to EVERY die roll) and after rolling their dice, the result is that she is succesful (3) with her hit and the bad guy fails his blow (0)...

She rolls a die in the Injury table, and as the difference between both die rolls is more than 5, she has a +2 bonus in the Injury table die roll. She rolls her die and scores a 3, but we have to add +2 because the difference betweeen both die rolls was equal or more than 5, som she makes it a 5, making an injury on the bad guy and killing him...

We draw another card from the activation deck and a Player´s warband card comes out, and as Lady Madeleine is making her day I decide to activate her to hit the other bad guy.

She attacks him, he has a +1 bonus because he is attacking with an axe, and she has a -1 modifier because she is injured (I´m starting to think that maybe I should have done another thing). 

Both roll their dice in a Melee Weapon test, and the results are 1 for him and a 9 for Lady Madeleine.

She fails the attack, and the bad guy is succesful, but not only he hits Lady Madeleine, but he rolls in the injury table with a +4 modifier (+2 beacuse the difference between bot h die rolls is 5 or more, and +2 because the bad guy scored a natural 1 on the dice)...

thnigs are getting though to Lady Madeleine...

The bad guy rolls a die on the Injury table with a +4 modifier, and he rolls a 6, that would become a 10 with the +4 modifier...

So, Lady Madeline is KO...

I draw another card from the activation deck and a player´s warband card comes out, so I decide to activate the Ally with the rifle that is close to the only one bad guy still standing.

He moves closer with his first action, and with the second one he tris to shoot the bad guy down with the rifle, but he rolls an 8, missing the shot.

I draw another card from the activation deck and I draw a trapped event card. The next character activating won´t be able to move this turn... And I only have twp characters left to activate , ouir hero and the last bad guy standing...

I draw another card from the activation deck and it´s an enemy´s warband card!!!!!

So I draw the last card in the activation deck, and it´s the last player´s warband card, I activate the last character left (our hero) who with two actions moves closer to the enemy (remenber that last turn he was grounded, not being able to move) and uses his last action to shoot the only bad guy standing...

He has a 7 Ranged Combat characteristic with a -2 mdifier as the bad guy is in cover with the car...

He rolls a die and the result is a 2, he hits the bad guy!!!

I roll a die on the Injury table and the result s a 7, so , the hero makes an injury on the last bad guy standing, killing him...

Our Hero and the Ally come out alive of this scene, with some important clues about the man that was killed that guide them to another place...

Will they find out who killed that man? 

Will they make it alive?

I hope that this battle report helps you to understand how the game system works, if you have any doubt do not hesitate to ask!!!