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Grimdark Future at C3 GameCon

Posted by Comrade on March 7, 2023

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: club, convention, game night, grimdark, majestic gamers, skirmish, wargames. 2 Comments

I ran a game of Grimdark Future Firefight at C3 GameCon last month! I’ve run many convention games before, and it’s always a real joy to welcome new players to the table and give them a glimpse at this wonderful hobby that has brought so much happiness and creativity to my life.

For this game, I selected Grimdark Future Firefight because I wanted to get my gorgeous infected city terrain onto the battlefield. This was a batch of terrain that I commissioned from Morti5 Studios a couple years ago … my pandemic splurge, as I recall. It’s a big setup, and I haven’t had very many opportunities to get it all onto the table at the same time. That changed last month!

The best advice I can give to anyone who is considering running a convention game is this: “Focus on the spectacle.” Get your best terrain and your most impressive painted miniatures onto the table. You want to attract peoples’ attention, to have them walk across the room to inspect your little miniature world, and have them say “What IS that?!” in a breathless tone of voice. If they do that, you’ve won before a single die has been rolled.

Pick a game that’s simple to teach and explain, and then strip out all the superfluous content. Don’t worry too much about game balance. Toss out special rules and anything that slows down gameplay. A convention game is not the time for flipping through a rulebook. Make sure each player has some cool figures that perform exactly like they’re modeled to behave – the guy with the big gun goes boom, the rogue in the cloak is good at sneaking around, the barbarian charges into battle. Just aim to give the players a taste of the general gameplay and provide a few opportunities for them to explore deeper strategies. If they like the game, they’ll do all the additional research on their own.

Anyway, my game had four players with some basic background in tabletop RPGs, but none had played Grimdark Future Firefight. No problem! I provided printouts of the 2-page rules document as well as prepared teams of commando operatives for each player.

The scenario pitted the four players against two GMs (me and my buddy Daniel). We’d be managing a city full of plague zombies, and they would be running the infiltration teams tasked with killing the zombies and retrieving the data cores from deep inside the infected city.

The game unfolded exactly as I’d hoped, with the players whispering about strategy as they warily eyed the roaming hordes of plague zombies arrayed against them. Who’s gonna take the left flank? What about that bunker full of zombies? Grimdark Future Firefight is a pretty simple game, and after a short explanation they were chucking dice and pushing plastic around the table.

The scenario (players against the GM) is one I’d definitely recommend for future convention games. It was structured so the players couldn’t lose – the only question was how badly they would beat up the zombies before we hit our turn limit and the game ended. This led to lots of high fives and backslaps as the players laid waste to the zombies and generally felt awesome. Again, this is a key goal of a convention game: make your players feel like they’re capable and in control.

We got plenty of onlookers as the game progressed, due in large part to the impressive terrain setup. At the end, to no one’s surprise, the players emerged victorious – though we all agreed that it was a pyrrhic victory, and that the commandos were almost certain to be slaughtered once night fell and the zombies regrouped.

Once again Grimdark Future Firefight gave a great game that was perfect for newcomers. After the game, each player received their very own custom purple dice emblazoned with our game group’s logo – the Majestic Gamers. You can see a pile of them in the lower right in the pic above.

As I was packing up, two other guys from my game group (Lawrence and Paul) were arriving to set up the next session – an introduction to WarCry! Like me, they also had a full house and seemed to have a blast teaching new players about this fun game.

Thanks to the fine organizers of C3 GameCon for giving us space to host a fun afternoon of gaming! We’ll definitely be back next year.

Age of Fantasy Skirmish at C3 Game Con

Posted by Comrade on June 3, 2022

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: convention, game night, majestic gamers, real life, scenarios, wargames. 6 Comments

Back in February I volunteered to run a game at C3 Game Con, a brand new local game convention in Corvallis, Oregon. As it was the first year for this event, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Corvallis is home to Oregon State University, so I knew we had a captive audience of students and young adults who were likely to check out an event like this.

The convention was heavy on anime, cosplay, RPGs, and board games. Age of Fantasy: Skirmish seemed like the perfect way to to give them a little visual spectacle and maybe rope in some new gamers.

I set up a basic four-player scenario centered on Bayard’s Holdfast, the nifty little dwarf fortress I painted up last year. Two players would command the dwarf garrison tasked with defending the holdfast. The other two players were in charge of undead raiding parties tasked with smashing through the defenses and sacking the charred remains of the fort.

As you can see, I had a round tabletop, which actually helped the scenario – I was able to plop Bayard’s Holdfast into the exact center of the table and then arrange the attackers and defenders around the perimeter.

My players were fairly new to miniature wargaming. Only Parker had dabbled in painting & gaming before sitting down at the table. I selected Age of Fantasy: Skirmish because it is a simple, easy to understand ruleset for people who are fairly new to this sort of gaming. I whipped together some unit cards for each player’s warband, and of course they got their own copy of the rules to look over before the game.

The game started with a general advance by the undead players. They had to occupy the courtyard in the fortress and outnumber the defenders by the end of the game to secure a win. They could also gain a minor victory by slaying the dwarf artillery crew, which started the game in an outbuilding far from the tower and had to hustle to safety.

The dwarven defenders quickly understood their role in the scenario, and they mustered a stout defense that saw their elite troops meeting the undead near the crumbling stone walls on the perimeter of the fort’s territory. Fearsome blows were exchanged as the undead forces gradually pushed the dwarves back.

But! The dwarves had an ace in the hole! If they could get their artillery crew back to the fortress in one piece, they could load & fire the mortar mounted on the parapets. Thankfully, they were able to achieve this goal by the closing turns of the game, and they rained thunderous devastation down on the undead that were swarming around the walls of the holdfast.

By the end of the game, the undead legions had reached the walls (in fact, the ghoul king shown here was actually able to breach the defenses and begin rampaging through the courtyard). However, the stout dwarven defenders had succeeded in waylaying or defeating the bulk of the undead warbands, which meant that the defenders had secured the victory. The surviving undead warriors retreated in good order back to their nefarious swamp hideout.

Age of Fantasy: Skirmish is a great game to try out with new players in a convention setting. It requires some prep work – I don’t think the game would have been nearly as successful if I hadn’t put in some hours making the unit cards and handouts. But the ruleset is solid and it definitely ticks the boxes in terms of what a new player will expect from a wargame experience.

And I’m pleased to report that C3 Game Con was a wild success! We had more than 500 attendees over two days, which was way above our expectations and suggested there’s a big demand for this sort of event in Corvallis. I’ll be signing up to run some games next year for sure!

2021 Year in Review

Posted by Comrade on January 5, 2022

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: club, game night, hobby, majestic gamers, majesticon, painting. 1 Comment

The sun has risen on a new year, and so I am taking my customary look back on the annum that just concluded.

2021 began with a burst of energy as our local gaming group rallied around our nascent Frostgrave campaign. This nifty skirmish game was a great focal point for our painting and terrain creation efforts.

We played probably 6 or 7 sessions in the spring and summer of 2021, some of which ended up on this ol’ blog. All featured the beautifully painted miniatures and terrain that you’ve come to expect from Comrade’s Wargames. Here’s a rundown if you want to check in on the action:

Frostgrave was great fun and we all became fairly adept at navigating the gameplay and post-game campign advancement. And the campaign is not over! We’ve all still got our wizards and our campaign rosters, so I expect we’ll explore the frozen city again in 2022.

2022 was also the year that I started putting some structure around the haphazard collection of fantasy models that I had been referring to as my “little-C chaos army.”

See, I had always loved the idea of collecting an army comprised of black-hearted humans in dark armor, equipped with a variety of brutal instruments of war, aided (but not defined) by a supplemental force of vile demons. A chaos army, but not one tied to any particular setting or universe, that I could plop down for a game of Dragon Rampant, Kings of War, Age of Fantasy, or countless other Warhammer-type games.

I had been collecting units and figures for a few years now, always thinking I’d paint them up and create a semi-coherent chaos army suitable for the grand battles that played out in my imagination. It seems I did that very thing in 2022! Here’s a rundown of what I painted up:

The whole pile of awesome evilness hit the table last month in a big game of Age of Fantasy. Check out the battle report here, and share in gory glory of a chaos victory!

I’ll do a post in the next few weeks showing off my complete chaos army in more detail.

2022 also saw the launch of our own mini-convention: MAJESTICON! This homegrown weekend o’ gaming came about because we were all sadly unable to attend a previously scheduled convention back in September, due to the arrival of the delta variant.

So instead, our local gaming group planned a weekend of game sessions to hopefully capture some of the excitement and fun that comes with attending a convention. With food, too! It turned out really well and it’s my hope that Majesticon will be back again in 2022. Read all about it in these two recap posts.

2022 was also a year where we steered hard back into the One Page Rules family of games. Honestly, OPR fits our game group extraordinarily well. We are a group of casual gamers who are not super interested in chasing the meta or achieving victory through list building. We are far more interested in creating a cool shared tabletop experience with our nicely painted toy soldiers and terrain.

And that’s what OPR provides with games like Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy. Both are delightfully simple clones of Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar, with strong-yet-concise core rules mechanics and well developed army lists, backed up by an attractive array of original 3D figures.

Here are links to a couple of battle reports that give a good overview of the strength of the OPR system.

And lastly, 2022 was the year that I dipped a toe into teaching others how to paint and create terrain. I became an instructor through a local community center here in town (the inimitable Majestic Theatre, long may she reign) and ended up teaching three courses in 2022: two introductory painting classes and one terrain building class. All were well attended and I am planning more for 2022.

It is really rewarding to give back to the community and help others learn some skills and/or just find a little confidence to try something new. There’s something different about sitting in a room with some new friends (masked up, of course) that you just can’t get from watching a Youtube video.

I’m hardly a professional — in fact, I’m probably a fairly pedestrian painter overall, but I have the benefit of lots of experience (decades, really) and a fairly outgoing den mother type of personality, which makes it easy to mentor new hobbyists. If you’ve ever considered running your own painting classes, I highly recommend it.

Heading into 2022

So there you have it — my 2021 in a nutshell. Goals for 2022 include doing a big writeup on my chaos army, tackling my biggest single piece of terrain yet, and doing another burst of work on my Death Guard army. (It’s already largely complete and very playable, but I’ve got a few extra units I’d like to add before I’ll call it done.)

Happy New Year – what’s on your list?

One Page 40k: Breakthrough in the Ash Wastes

Posted by Comrade on January 1, 2017

Posted in: Posts. Tagged: 1p40k, 40k, battle report, game night, majestic gamers, sci-fi, skirmish. 2 Comments

Last week the Majestic Gamers gathered at my place for another go at One Page 40k (1P40K). Unlike our previous game, which was a learning session and didn’t have much in the way of balance or parity, this time we all brought actual armies built using the rosters in the rulebook, kitted out and ready to slaughter their enemies.

We had five players, but Jim had extra models and was able to expand his Imperial Guard to allow for a 3-vs-2 game pitting two Imperial Guard players versus a strange alliance of Orks, Chaos Space Marines and Tau.

The battle was a baptism by fire for Jimbo’s newest Ork vehicle — a spectacular kitbashed battlewagon created from a Sherman tank scale model. Feast your eyes on this.

We played a breakthrough scenario, which awarded victory to the side that managed to get the most points’ worth of models into the enemy’s deployment area. This meant both sides would have to stay fairly mobile — even the Imperial Guard, which is better at digging in and awaiting the enemy with lots of gun barrels pointed at them!

Here’s a look at Jim’s fantastic, beautifully painted Imperial Guard motorized company. That’s two Leman Russ tanks in the foreground, a Basilisk on the right with a fully armored crew compartment, and a Chimera in the back.

And here’s a look at the other Imperial Guard force, played by Ben using models from yours truly. The tank and most of the figures are from Pig Iron Productions. The green-suited guys on the left are from Lead Adventure Miniatures’ post-apocalyptic line, standing in as seasoned veterans for this Imperial Guard detachment.

The game opened up with a series of advances by both sides. My Chaos marines rumbled forward in their Rhino, attracting the attention of Jim’s tanks. Their chose target, however, proved to be Paul’s Tau Pathfinders. Everyone was duly frightened of their marker lights (which grant bonuses for other Tau units). They were lucky to survive a barrage from Jim’s tank cannon!

Jimbo’s Orks lurched forward on their rumbling battlewagon. Not only was the vehicle massive, but its payload was equally impressive! There were, I believe, 30 Orks (3 squads of 10) deployed aboard the battlewagon at the outset of the game. Yes, we made plenty of clown car jokes as Jimbo motored his dudes across the battlefield.

But then when he got within charge range of the enemy tanks … this happened.

Yes, it was tremendous. Many dice were rolled. But the tank was still intact (battered, but still whole!) at the end of the first combat. The right flank (where most of Jim’s tanks were arrayed) turned into a grudge match between him and Jimbo, as the latter presented as many targets as he possibly could (in the form of howling Ork mobs) while the former agonized over whether to just annihilate the advancing Orks — or to hit the gas and start moving toward the opposing deployment zone (and victory).

Soon thereafter, a lucky shot popped my Chaos Rhino, causing the 4 surviving squad members to pile out in a hurry. You can see Ben’s Imperial Guard advancing through a crater field in the background of this pic.

Meanwhile Orks continued to pour forth from Jimbo’s clown car/battlewagon. The last to disembark was his warboss, who promptly charged into the nearest squad of Guardsmen.

Slaughter ensued!

But unlike in regular 40k, 1P40K doesn’t let units get “stuck in” to close combat. At the end of each melee, if one side wasn’t annihilated, the combatants separate. This is critical because either unit can now be targeted by gunfire. So Jimbo’s warboss had his way with this squad of hapless Guardsmen … and then he took a tank salvo directly to his head. Oops!

Across the battlefield, Paul’s Tau had been surgically excising various threats using their advanced weaponry and targeting systems. On the second turn, Paul was able to call in his Tau Crisis Suits via deep strike, landing them in the enemy’s rear and laying waste to several squads of infantry.

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With armored targets approaching fast, my Helbrute climbed atop a small ridge in the center of the table and proceeded to open fire with his multi-melta.

The laser cannon turret was actually part of the scenario … if a squad could get in base contact with it, they’d have a chance at at activating it and putting its destructive capability to use. Jim’s Guardsmen arrived and were able to activate the turret, but they were picked off in the process.

Ben’s tank arrived in the vicinity, and my Helbrute started to feel a little … exposed … on top of that ridge. Luckily, Paul’s Tau turned their attention to the tank, and in short order this was the result.

Yeah, Tau are *really* good at shooting stuff.

Anyway, here’s my last photo from the game. Tanks burning, a lone Chaos warrior lifting his sword to praise the dark gods … you know, just another Friday.

The game ended with lots of laughs, as Jimbo’s battlewagon (still alive!) careened into the enemy’s deployment zone, shrugged off several blasts from the huge tanks … and died to a piddly rifle shot from an Imperial Guardsman!

The bad guys managed to squeak out a win because my daemon prince was in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the last turn. Despite a few close calls, the other side wasn’t able to reach our deployment zone, and so we won.

Once again, 1P40K gave us a great game. Seriously, this ruleset is everything I want from 40k — simply and concise, yet still comprehensive and suitably fiddly (for players who want to customize their figures and try out different gear options). The army lists cover just about everything you’d ever need, and the advanced rules add in a bit more complexity if you’re missing that sort of thing.

I had a fairly productive half of 2016 painting up my Night Lords and knocking out a few smaller projects. I’m looking forward to lots more painting and modeling, because 1P40K is definitely gathering steam here in Oregon.

Comrade's Wargames

Painting toy soldiers in Oregon