Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Xarbleng-Zordworp?

Private Godfrey was tending his garden in the company of his sisters Dolly and Cissy when their peace was disturbed by a whistling sound from above. Glancing up, they saw a large metal object hurtling down towards the field south of their cottage. After hearing a loud impact, Private Godfrey rushed inside to call his commanding officer. Captain Mainwaring and his first platoon soon arrived, still dressed in their work clothes, followed by the second platoon in uniform who had been patrolling the sea front.

As the dust cleared, a rocket ship could be seen embedded in the earth, like something out of the Saturday morning serials that Frank Pike so enjoyed. But then a hatch opened and a bunch of mysterious armed figures starting walking slowly and menacingly towards Godfrey's cottage.

And now our story continues...

This game saw the full Home Guard reporting for duty along with an additional four members in uniform.  The figures were split between Andy and Stuart playing together (mostly!).

They deployed in one corner of the gaming area with Godfrey and his sisters starting in the garden.

In the opposite corner were my Galactic Adventurers and their crashed rocket ship.

Spread roughly along the diagonal between the two casts were half a dozen objective markers, representing parts of the heatshield that had detached from the rocket as it entered the atmosphere.  If the Galactic Adventurers could retrieve four of these, they would have enough to repair their ship and safely go back into orbit.  The Home Guard had to prevent this happening but given the heat emanating from the debris, they could not pick them up themselves.

The Home Guard won initiative and their first script card enabled them to prevent activation of any enemies within a 3" blast template.  Unfortunately for me, the compressed deployment around the rocket ship resulted in 6 of my figures missing their first turn (my actual deployment didn't match the pre-game photo above - I had the Contessa, Inventor and Medic deployed to the left of the ship with the remaining six figures on the other side).

Godfrey briefly considered defending his garden before deciding to escort his sisters to safety, as his companions advanced towards the cottage from one side and the garden from the other.

In my first turn, I could only push forward with the Contessa, Inventor and Medic towards the edge of the garden just clearing the hedge, whilst my remaining figures considered their options for the next turn.

The range on the Home Guards' rifles meant that they could then start taking shots at the Galactic Adventurers (I should have had the dust from the impact still airborne to reduce the range by half!).  Some pretty fine shooting by Andy's men saw the Inventor and Medic taken out of the game.  Stuart's figures pressed on into the garden, sheltering behind the greenhouse.

Now isolated but still very mission-focused, the Contessa boldly grabbed the first objective marker from under the eyes of the Home Guard.

Seeing how devastating the shooting had been, and that the Home Guard had mostly come towards the garden, I moved the six now-awake Adventurers along the edge of the table towards the next most easily accessible objective marker.

But how is the Contessa now in the background of this photo?  She had stolen the scene, deploying a grappling hook to reach a second objective marker, picking it up and then leaping the hedge to move towards the pond.

Shocked by this sudden turn of events and after much discussion, Stuart circled his figures back around the cottage to defend an available objective marker.  Andy pressed on towards the Galactic Adventurers but his shooting didn't have the same impact as previously.

I next used the Contessa to grab the third objective marker next to the pond whilst my bold blade Captain Gamma and his loyal sidekick Jek Killstar pressed on to the side of the cottage.  

After a quick check of their inventories, the Sergeant led his marines towards the garden and launched a devastating grenade attack on the bunched up Home Guard figures, eventually killing Sergeant Wilson and three supporting Home Guards.

However, the remaining Home Guards then unleashed a hail of bullets on the Galactic Marines and they were pretty quickly wiped out, with Pike's sub-machine gun doing the most damage (please don't tell his mum).

Having lost six of my nine figures at this stage, I decided that was likely to be my final turn should see some Captain on Captain action, as Captain Gamma charged Captain Mainwaring for a heroic battle.  

Gamma managed to inflict a wound but it was too little, too late.  Although I had saved a plot point to add a stretch dice to my Spirit Test now that my cast was axed, I failed the roll.  And then to my opponent's understandable glee, I rolled pretty much my first 6 of the game to determine how many figures should be removed.

Despite the tragic loss of Uncle Arthur, the Galactic Adventurers were now axed and completely wiped out, giving Andy and Stuart's Home Guard an Epic Victory!

(Credit to Chris Fairchild on the excellent 7TV Facebook page for the episode title).

The Second Night The Reindeer Died

In the New Year, I repeated my 7TV Christmas game and I got to play as the Nice Listers against David and John playing the Naughty Listers.

Casts, playing area and scenario as previously described here.

After deploying on their respective table edges, the Heroes rushed out to try and intimidate the Villains.

The Villains responded by coming forward, taking a bit more advantage of the sparse cover available.  In their second turn, the Nice Listers nabbed three presents, shot an Evil Elf and wounded Jack Frost.

The Naughty Listers then picked up a present, restored Jack to full health, and killed a Good Elf who had attempted to hold the North Pole on his own.  A ferocious Yeti attack failed to inflict any damage but the Villains gained a point for occupying the North Pole.

On the left flank, a pair of wolves engaged a Nutcracker Soldier.  However, he played his Toy Soldiers prop card and two reinforcements joined him and they saw off the wolves quickly before disappearing back into the woods.

On the other flank, the soldiers were immobilised and weakened by Jack Frost before the Polar Bear came to their rescue.  However, in failing to count the Script Cards, the Heroes missed their chance to take the North Pole and the Villains gained another victory point.

Then Lee Majors got stuck into the action firing his minigun into a gathering of Snowmen, managing to miss every single one of them.  Despite that drawback, Lee decided to Steal the Scene and successfully shot Evil Santa, who had just been revealed when a piece of wobbly scenery he was hiding behind collapsed to the side.

Luckily for the Villains, the next script card saw Lee Majors stunned but despite lying on the ground unconscious, he survived a vicious attack from Evil Santa.

Unluckily for the Villains, the following script card saw Evil Santa captured by the Heroes, who piled all their nearby figures onto the North Pole.  In the last turn, Evil Santa managed to evade his captor and his colleagues rushed the North Pole, outnumbering the Heroes to get one more victory point.

The Heroes had recovered four presents and the Villains only two, but they had managed to hold the North Pole at the end of each of the three acts, the 5-4 result giving them a Minor Victory.

A second win for the Naughty Listers. Fingers crossed the Heroes do better next Christmas!

The Night The Reindeer Died

The Bill Murray movie "Scrooged", a 1980s version of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol", is quite a lot of fun but for those of us who grew up watching "The Fall Guy", the highlight was the featured trailer for a Christmas movie called "The Night The Reindeer Died" starring Lee Majors.

So earlier this year, I started thinking about hosting a Christmas 7TV game based on the fictional movie.  I had a handful of suitable figures already and I'd been adding to them over the last couple of months.  I recently started looking at profile cards and thinking about the scenario, and then happily Crooked Dice dropped their The Night The Snow Turned Red scenario in Wargames Illustrated, based on the very same movie trailer.  This provided a set of new profiles, prop cards and excuses to buy more figures.

I increased the casts from 32 to 49 points and adapted a number of the cards to match some the figures I had.  For example, Mrs Claus became Buddy the Elf, the Easter Bunny was replaced by a Yeti, and the evil co-star The Twizzler became The Ruin-deer.  I renamed attacks and special effects to more appropriate names for the replacement figures.  As well as the new profiles, I used some from the Fantasy Genre Guide and adapted the Water Elemental to be an Ice Elemental for Jack Frost.

The Nice Listers comprised:

and the Naughty Listers were:

Here are the group shots:

And I put a teaser trailer together featuring all the figures:

A couple of days after Christmas I put the game on for my friends - Kieron and Adrian were the Nice Listers, and Stuart and Andy took the Naughty List, with me as gamesmaster.

The gaming area was around the North Pole with plenty of trees, snow drifts, a couple of igloos and some rocks, along with the remains of Santa's Workshop.

I raided my Lego Winter Village to provide the North Pole marker and presents that would serve as objectives.

Collecting a present would be worth 1 Victory Point and unwrapping it would yield an extra Prop Card to add to the two randomly allocated at the start.

In our game, the Naughty Listers won the initiative and cracked on towards the presents.  The Nice Listers' well-drilled soldiers paraded forwards in support of Lee Majors with the Elves sneaking up the other flank (hidden by trees in image below).

By the end of the Villains' second turn, they had secured three presents and were marking two more, and the Nice Listers had yet to collect any but the Elves were lining up to scare the wolves away.

The end of the Naughty Listers second turn was also the end of Act One, and they gained a victory point by sneaking a single Evil Elf onto the North Pole marker.

In the Heroes' second turn, they picked up their first present and spilled the first blood on the snow, taking out the Evil Elf and one of the Frosty Snowmen.  The Heroes' Polar Bear charged at the Yeti, with Santa's fearsome "Ho! Ho! Ho!" ringing out of the forest, and the combination took the Yeti out of the match - a blow for the Villains as it was the Unit Leader for the Snowmen.

However, the Villains' collection of presents was boosting their ability to collect more.  Jack Frost deployed some Toy Soldiers who assaulted a Nutcracker Soldier allowing Jack to pick up a fourth present.  The Frosty Snowmen unleashed their snow cannons on the Polar Bear in revenge for losing their commander.

As the end of the Second Act came to close, Buddy's Elves took out the Wolves, allowing them to claim a second present.  And Lee Majors bravely stepped up to the North Pole to give the Heroes another victory point.

Although ahead on points, the Villains had taken more losses and were worried about their cast being axed.  They reincarnated an Evil Elf and the Ruin-Deer retreated and took cover.  Their Penguin waddled into action and tommy-gunned a Nutcracker Soldier to splinters.  Buddy and his Elves went into berserker mode, killing three Snowmen in quick succession.

Preparing for the last act's occupation of the North Pole, the Villains' final moves were to deploy four figures to hold it.

The Heroes had two more opportunities to gain some victory points, in the hope of bringing the score up to a draw.  The first was to rush the North Pole with four figures and attempt a push attack on the Penguin to get the majority.  It almost worked... but with four figures each, nobody got an extra VP.

On the other flank, Buddy and his Elves unleashed a storm of bullets at the remaining half-dead Snowman in an attempt to axe the cast.  Remarkably each of the six shots missed him.

At the end of the game, the Naughty Listers had gained 4 presents and occupied the North Pole once, and the Nice Listers 2 presents and also held the North Pole once.  A score of 5-3, giving the Villains a Decisive Victory despite their notably greater losses.

Judas Haul plants the Haulmark Films logo firmly atop the North Pole. The company sets up a new headquarters in the wreck of the Grotto, using it as sets for their upcoming films. Santa has escaped, but the rest of his Helpers are captured and used as set decoration when the new movie demands it. The Ruin-Deer reigns as a capitalist puppet and Christmas is changed forever.

An excellent scenario from Crooked Dice, with some really entertaining Attacks, Special Effects and Prop Cards.  The Nice Listers will get a chance for revenge in a rematch in the New Year...

Cops and Robots

Another 7TV outing, this time for Cops and Robots.

The Law and Order cast was lead by Austin Powers (Secret Agent), Crockett & Tubbs (Maverick Cops), Riggs (Police Sergeant), Murtaugh (Plainclothes Cop), four street Cops and two motorcycle Cops.

The Robots were led by a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 and Mad Scientist, along with four other Terminator T-800s (Infiltrator Robots), a Military Robot and a Killer Robot.

The objective was to recover as many of the computer chips distributed along the halfway line and destroy the opposition, and the scenario took place on an industrial estate.

I positioned my Maverick Cops on the left, the large police unit in the centre and Loner Secret Agent on the right.  With no Units, but plenty of Loners (who activate for free if further than 6" from any other model), John deployed much more spread out.

Both casts had a lot of firepower and the cops rushed forward to ambush the lone robots attempting to recover the computer chips.  Despite a hailstorm of bullets, the Infiltrator stood his ground for some time, and the cops took some losses as their grouping for their Unit status also left them vulnerable to Spray area attacks from the robots.

Arnie moved to the corner for a computer chip and a bead on the action down the street...

...but Austin Powers was creeping up on him, feeling brave and reckless.

Despite the other Robots in the vicinity, Austin went in for melee, stunning the Model 101, inflicting a wound.  He then Stole the Scene to inflict another wound and retired to distance using the Grappling Hook, leaving the Villainous Star in a bad way.

On the other flank, the Miami Vice duo kept together to double up their attacks and take out another of the Infiltrators.

Back in the centre, following the loss of Arnie, a group of robots started to take revenge by picking off the Cops, who were steadily wiped out.

The Hero cast was now axed but they bravely battled on.  The Military Robot had been mainly on defence duties protecting the Mad Scientist but was hampered by being unable to move and shoot in the same turn.  The Mad Scientist was letting the metalwork take all the risks for him but a late Script Card saw the scenery he had been cowering behind moved to the side.  This provided the opportunity for Crockett & Tubbs to take him out, and the Villains were also axed in the last turn.

The two casts were well-matched and this made for a good close game.  Losses were high and both casts were axed.  The Robots collected more objective markers but lost their Star and Co-Star whereas the Cops only lost Extras, which meant the Victory this time went to the forces of law and order.

Shiver me timbers! - a 7TV Pirate game

I have a lot of old Foundry pirate figures with which we used to play Warhammer Historical's "Legends of the High Seas".  I was delighted to see a lot of pirate profiles in the recent 7TV Fantasy Genre Guide so put a couple of casts together to try it out.

The Heroes comprised a Dashing Rogue star, Enchanting Beauty co-star, a Freebooter Captain, a Freebooter Bosun and three Sailors.  The Villains were co-stars Callous Corsair and Greedy Governor, with a Cursed Pirate Captain, a Cursed Pirate Bosun and three Cursed Pirates.

The 3 feet square layout had some old buildings, a few trees and a very small coastline.

And in the centre was the legendary pirate pub, the Drunken Parrot!

The casts were deployed within 10 inches of the opposite corners bottom right and top left.  Along the other diagonal were randomly placed three chests - one empty, one full of gold and one full of skulls.  Opening the chest with the gold would reveal Davy Jones' Chest maguffin, and the skulls the Treasure Map, following a successful roll against the Cursed Treasure adventure trope on page 151 of the Core Rulebook.  We played with Fantasy script cards and Fantasy props.

I had initiative in the first turn with the Heroes but the script card required all my characters take a Spirit test to activate, which they pretty much all failed.  Pushing forward on her own, the Enchanting Beauty took cover behind some boxes of snuff and barrels of rum.

Kieron's Villains had a better start and made good progress towards two of the chests.  In my second turn, my cast woke up and started progressing.  Before Kieron's pirates could reach the Chest outside the pub, the already well-advanced Beauty stole the scene and opened the chest to reveal Davy Jones' locker.  Given her lack of support she then started retreating back towards her crew.

The villains began to chase her to recover the loot and nearer the coast, Cursed Captain Blackbeard was filled with rage as he found his chest was filled with nowt.

Giving up their firearm advantage, Kieron's cast ran into the town square, pinning the hero pirates, and a huge melee ensued.  Kieron deployed the "Royal Crown" prop which knocked most of the Heroes down, but they were not out.

The Heroic Star finally got involved in the action shooting the Greedy Governor from distance, eventually despatching him.

The Freebooter bosun used (appropriately enough) his free seven league boots to bound across and open the remaining chest, despite now knowing it contained cursed treasure.  Fortunately, the curse was merely an earth tremor that he easily withstood (those sea legs serving him well) and he took the Treasure Map.

The Enchanting Beauty lived up to her billing and bewitched the Callous Corsair twice but both times failed to entice him to successfully land a blow on one of his own Sailors.  When the spell was broken, the Corsair and the bosun eventually took out the Beauty and she dropped the chest.

However, the Villains' losses were piling up and the cast was axed and the remnants ran away before they could recover Davy Jones' Chest from where it lay, resulting in an Epic Victory for the Heroes.

We had a fun game and I was pleased that 7TV Fantasy enabled me to get these figures back out again.  The profiles worked well and the only change I would make next time is to have bigger casts with some Sea Dogs for the Heroes and more Cursed Pirates for the Villains.