We played an small, introductory game of Age of Fantasy since it was Lawrence’s first outing with this particular ruleset. I set up a compact battlefield to showcase my snazzy new buildings, and then we commenced our battle.
I don’t recall the ebb and flow of the game, but it featured plenty of brutal fights between my stout dwarf infantry and Lawrence’s ghastly daemons.
That gnarly chaos spawn ended up rampaging up my flank before eventually falling in single combat versus my bear-mounted dwarf lord. Twas a melee for the history books!
Elsewhere the daemonic hordes continued their assault to seize the settlement and drive back the dwarven defenders. My iron warriors proved to be a particularly effective speed bump as they held the gap against a Great Unclean One.
In the rear, my artillery piece peppered the smaller daemons with lead shot, reducing their ranks even as they closed with the dwarves.
The details of the game’s conclusion are a bit dim, but I recall that I pulled off the victory. All in all, it was a small yet visually stunning spectacle – a perfect weeknight game!
The original PDF supplement (all 172 pages of it) was created by James Diemer and hosted on his now-defunct Hour11 Wargaming blog. The supplement has been gone from the Internet for at least a few years, maybe more. All that’s left is a wasteland of broken links on gaming blogs around the world that had been inspired and energized by the crackling creativity in this massive tome of scenarios.
Of course, I had already downloaded a copy to keep handy on my computer. Little did I know it would become a rare artifact! I reached out to James via the email address in the scenario document and asked for permission to re-post this supplement on my blog. He never responded, but judging by the generous notes from the author on page 2 of the document, I don’t think he will mind.
So there you have it – a legendary lost resource has been rediscovered! This supplement takes Song of Blades & Heroes – one of my all-time favorite skirmish games as well as the game that single-handedly kickstarted my resurgence in this hobby – and adds in all of the glorious Warhammer and Mordheim scenarios you remember from your younger years. Share it, adapt it, enjoy it … above all, have fun with it!
We’ve been dipping a toe into the wonderful, rules-lite world of One Page Rules lately, and I finally had an opportunity to take some photos and do a writeup.
One Page Rules publishes Grimdark Future, a fantastic fast-playing game inspired by Warhammer 40,000 (but minus the codex creep and insufferable meta that has come to characterize the actual game itself). Grimdark Future Firefight offers the same fast-playing rules in a skirmish-sized package. GF: Firefight is a great alternative to Necromunda or Kill Team.
We got together at John’s house last weekend to roll some dice and push some plastic, and both goals were accomplished in short order. I brought over my Infected City terrain (commissioned by the excellent Morti5 Studio) and we set up a 2-versus-2 battle featuring my Plague Marines and Paul’s Tyranids versus John’s Inquisitor & retinue and Daniel’s Ultramarines.
It was a classic good-versus-evil matchup! The (self) righteous defenders of the Imperium squared off against the oozing, slithering, skittering hordes of Nurgle and the Great Devourer.
List-building for GF: Firefight is extraordinarily simple. Just pick your guy, figure out what he’s armed with, and move on to the next figure. It’s very much a WYSIWYG approach without a lot of invisible wargear or gotcha strategems. Our warbands ranged in size from Paul’s Tyranids (just 3 frightful models) to John’s Inquisitorial horde (12ish models, as I recall).
We placed 5 objectives onto the battlefield, using some newly painted markers that John had just knocked out. They were little baby Tyranids, so we decided that the narrative plot hook involved the Tyranids seeking to retrieve some hatchlings from a plague-infected city. The forces of Nurgle were only too happy to run interference on this operation…
We quickly found out that my Plague Marines were extremely tough and hard to kill, by virtue of their high defense value and Regeneration ability that gave them a chance to shrug off wounds taken in battle. They began plodding forward, an inexorable green-armored wave of putrescence, while in their wake mobs of plague zombies fanned out to hold the seized objectives.
John and Daniel had the advantage in numbers, but they were plagued by poor dice rolls from the start. And they quickly found that they had to deal with the Death Guard as well as the fearsome, fast-moving Tyranid monsters led by Paul.
In truth, once the gigantic alien horrors fell upon them, there was no escape. There were just too many targets, and not enough guns.
Daniel had some success on the right flank, keeping my Plague Lord on the ropes for the entire game as he struggled to just stay alive. Fast-moving bikers looped around the flank and threatened our mission objectives. But again — once the Ultramarines drew the attention of Paul’s Tyranids, they were not long for this world.
During the final turn, John sent his newly painted Ordo Xeno Inquisitor into the fray, and it was everything we hoped for — he dealt fearsome damage and proved his worth as a servant of the Emperor. Then, of course, he got eaten.
All in all, it was a fun game that was surprisingly close once we added up the victory conditions at the end. Grimdark Future is just so darn fast and simple, both in terms of gameplay and list building. The alternating unit activation is such a modern mechanic, and it keeps all players engaged throughout the game. It’s definitely got me re-energized to play some grimdark games with my large collection of 40k models. Stay tuned for more!
The second day of our mini-game con kicked off with a morning session of Zona Alfa. Astute readers of this blog may recall my general infatuation with Stalker-inspired gaming, and that is what Zona Alfa delivers in spades. The game was released in January 2020 and Comrade’s Wargames got its grubby paws on an advance copy to read and review.
I was pleased to return to Zona Alfa for this session — and to incorporate some exciting elements from the new supplement Kontraband.
I designed our session as a cooperative scenario that tasked four groups of stalkers with traveling the length of the infamous Khimbruk Road deep in the anomalous Exclusion Zone. There were a several points of interest along the road, and each crew also had its own unique goal that they could work toward.
The road, as you might imagine, was fraught with both threats and potential rewards. Only the hardiest crews would survive to reap the benefits and return home with packs bulging with salvage.
Zona Alfa and Kontraband both use a system to generate random bad guys and loot when players interact with “points of interest” on the map. We had 7 such points of interest on our map, each corresponding to a particular Good Thing or (more likely) a Bad Thing.
The first firefight erupted when John sent his commandos tiptoeing up to a leaking chemical tank. Turns out it wasn’t just a chemical burn he was risking…
A swarm of nasty rad bugs surged out to attack the crews. Thirty years ago their descendants might have been locusts and cockroaches skittering around the irradiated ruins of the Zone, but today they were fearsome chitinous monstrosities that had to be dispatched with brutal prejudice.
While this was happening, Paul’s tunnel scavengers hoofed it to the roof of a nearby outpost and looted another objective marker — drawing the attention of a nearby band of raiders in the process! They popped out of cover and began pouring automatic weapons fire into the unlucky crew! We’re not alone, comrades!
Nearby, the crews noticed a swirling, pulsating energy field that seemed to warp the laws of physics. This could only be an Anomaly — one of the enigmatic hazards that frequently occur in the deepest reaches of the Zone. At great personal risk, the crews moved in to explore the Anomaly.
Well, they didn’t die! That much is certain. Will they sprout vestigial third limbs a few weeks from now? Perhaps. Only time will tell.
The crews continued to battle their way down the pockmarked asphalt of the Khimbruk Road. The presence of enemies ebbed and flowed as points of interest were searched and bad guys dispatched. Rad bugs continued to be an ever-present threat. Thankfully, Vince’s warband was comprised of medics led by a doctor, so there was a limited supply of first aid on hand to keep the injured on their feet.
By turn 6, the warbands had nearly crossed the entire length of the tabletop and had achieved their individual objectives. Remarkably, nobody died — though we had several close calls that required med-kits to patch up warriors in the heat of the moment.
Special props to Vincent’s sniper, who scaled a tower early on and provided pinpoint fire support throughout the game. I doubt the outcome would have been quite so favorable if not for the guardian angel watching over them from above.
As with our previous game, we planned lunch at the conclusion of the game. I had prepared a Russian-themed meal to reward the stalwart Zone explorers. Hearty dark rye bread, gigantic dill pickles, and cold salami — a fine spread to be eaten whilst squatting in the dirt at the end of the Khimbruk Road. Давайте есть, comrades!
John and I got together earlier this month for a quick midweek game of Open Combat. It was to be John’s first game; I had played Open Combat a few times over the last few years and found it to be an excellent rules-lite skirmish game for small scraps featuring 6-12 figures per side.
The default playing area is two feet square, which is quite small compared to a game like Warhammer 40,000 or even Saga: Age of Magic. But it was perfect for my kitchen table on a busy weeknight, which is certainly part of the appeal of Open Combat — you can knock together a warband in no time flat and sneak in a game whenever you and your opponent can find a spare hour or two.
For our game, we both made chaos-inspired warbands of evil brutes equipped with gnarled armor and savage weaponry. We selected a scenario from the Open Combat rulebook called “The Arrest,” where one warband is trying to overpower and capture the chieftain of the opposing warband. We put a narrative twist on it and decreed that John’s warband was emerging from the green, glowing portal in the terrain piece above, having been on some nefarious errand in the realms of the outer dark, only to be met by my warriors who had been ordered to subdue and drag off the loathsome leader before she could exploit the dark secrets she had acquired. Yeah, that’s the stuff!
Per the scenario, John deployed a portion of his warband in the center of the table around the portal, then kept the rest in reserve (to arrive on turn 3). My warriors could enter from any table edge, giving me the opportunity to surround and engulf John’s dudes before their reinforcements arrived.
The first few turns were tense and tough. I was able to quickly make contact with John’s sorceror and began dragging her to my table edge, but the arrival of the reinforcements leveled the playing field and stymied my progress. John’s guys were just a little bit tougher than mine, and that paid off as the game entered its final turns and my guys started dying in droves.
Open Combat is tightly written ruleset with plenty of meat on the bone, but absolutely no fat. Every rule and special ability is carefully crafted to dovetail perfectly into the game as a whole. We’re still waiting on the magic supplement for Open Combat, but you can make a decent approximation of some common magical abilities using the existing rules from the main rulebook.
The best part of Open Combat, of course, is how it inspires you to grab a handful of miniatures that tickle your fancy — newly painted figures, leftovers from an abandoned project, whatever — and have a quick and satisfying battle. Doubtless we’ll play this one again soon!
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