Still haven’t got to my “Saratoga” game set up on the table for the last three weeks..... but did take my Samurai on the road for a Monday Game.
The Oyamata were to escort the musicians and gifts to a wedding while the rival Takeda wanted to halt the convoy. Used Lion Rampant rules with an add-on for the Teppo (handgunners).
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| The Oyamata procession |
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| Takeda ashigaru soldiers |
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Short story: the Oyamata players rolled poorly and wore out fairly quickly. Extremely poor courage tests by both sides had units vanish rather than be battered. I guess one’s life (based as ever on the randomness of the fates) was not worth the honour of wedding gifts, even for the Samurai…..
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| The mounted Samurai who, with rather poor activation rolls, did not move but once the entire game (but didn't really need to....) |
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On Friday, it was the ClubNight and, after offering scenarios set up for Will’s Jacobite game (see his blog: link ), I got into Lisa’s Congo rules game of slavers vs tribes vs rival tribe three-way. She made a call for additional figures and a couple of us offered what we had; and ended up playing in the game anyway.
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| The jungle, the Lisa version, using plastic plants to good use. |
The interesting rule introduction by Congo is the method of unit ordering and activation.
The player has a handful of cards each. The cards have an initiative number together with symbols for movement (footprints), shooting (bow and arrow) and/or panic (umm, something scary to Congolese warrior). These come in various amounts and so the player can pick three of these to play in their next three plays. You can sorta guess what you might need to do in the next 3 turns but things could certainly change which makes the selecting difficult and hit-and-miss.
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| The 'ordering and activation' cards. The rules use an assortment of dice |
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| Various 'stress' tokens. Too many and you start having fellows leg it. |
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| more examples the activation cards. In this case, my turn is probably after everyone else (the top '2' is low). I can shoot with 1 unit and move another. |
Points were allotted to victory conditions. As a Masfusi I wish to rescue our prince, and the other captives, kill slavers and prevent the hated Kosi from doing the same. It did not start well for me as, of course, I picked up the dreaded chit as I entered the rough terrain and so panicked so firing at the nearest group (friend or foe). It was to be my fellow Masfusi for me to blast away using my only trading-muskets causing death and wounds. This then panicked that group who fired back with accurate spear fire, killing three of five musketmen! Meanwhile another group of mine were shooting at the slavers. There was only a small chance to killing one’s own but my fire firing did just that! While usual for me, not a great start….
I managed to gain the most victory points at the end so redeemed my early ineptitude however. I still think I eliminated more of my own than the enemy!
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| To add a bit of weight to her plastic models, Lisa glues them to old pennies (the same size as an American penny). Canada no longer uses pennies as currency. So when I mean old, I mean old - note the minting in 1929! Mind you metal washers cost much more than 1 cent these days..... |
Quote of the game: the Kosi player having fun with a small group of poison dart armed Pigmies (pun included??) also envisioned his tribe to be cannibals. A rule of ‘Congo’ could have you add a stress token to your unit for a chance of saving figure from being killed. “Nah, we’ll eat him later” We had a light and fun attitude to the game….