7TV Gaming Day: "Roundabout Way"

On 13 July, I attended a hugely fun 7TV Gaming Day at Wargames Workshop in Milton Keynes, organised by David Brown and promoted on the 7TV Facebook group.

Eight competitors each brought a 40 point Hired Help cast to fight their way through four Milton Keynes-themed episodes.  I fielded the A-Team (Bold Planner, Organised Criminal, Practical Mechanic, Pilot) and their associates Amy Allen (Reporter), Frankie Santana (Driver), with special guests Alex Drake (Plainclothes Cop), The Jackal (Sharpshooter) and - because you can in 7TV Episodes - a Yeti (Missing Link).

I also took along my film crew to record the episodes.

Episode 1: Dude, Where's My Car

Last night was going great, exploring the various districts of the new town looking for opportunities. That was until the fuel ran out - someone's for the chop! The consequences, following a long walk home in the dark, are that fuel needs to be found, and your vehicle recovered. And do it quickly before the boss finds out, and explanations ramp up a level!

BA's van started on my opponents baseline and the cast had to make their way across town, collecting fuel, to refuel and drive off the edge of the playing area.  The Yeti proved useful in knocking opponents down so that other characters could attack them without the defenders using their stretch dice.  We both made it to our vehicles and my opponent collected more fuel but lost more cast members, giving the A-Team one more victory point in total - which 7TV rules reasonably enough judge as a Draw.

Episode 2: It's A Matter Of Scale

In a terrible metric/imperial measurement error, reminiscent of Spinal Tap's Stonehenge, the first cow constructed from the original drawings by Liz Leyh was rather oversized. Fortunately, being the prototype, it was just wire mesh and paper mache.

In an echo of the A-Team Season 3 episode Showdown! my cast faced a group of imposters resulting in what looked like blue-on-blue action, with Hannibals trading bullets, and Faces wrestling each other.

My Hannibal took charge of the cow and in a slightly dubious move, managed to swap locations with an ally with a lucky Script card and quickly got to the edge of playing area.  However, as my Star, I elected to keep him on the table rather than escape with the cow, judging that he would contribute more to victory by remaining in play.  This paid off as the A-Team managed to collect more of the objective markers and keep control of the cow, giving them a Decisive Victory.

Episode 3: Don't Have A Cow, Man

The concrete cows are now synonymous with Milton Keynes, but when initially displayed they were open to abuse by inventive groups. Whether simply displaying a gang's tag, hiding a stash in their hollow interior, or locating a listening device for law enforcement, they could be very useful.

I faced a tough sci-fi flavoured cast in this game and although I eventually managed to take out a co-star by massing my figures on to it, I was unable to get around to tag as many of the cow objective markers as my opponent, giving them a Minor Victory.

Episode 4: The Roundabout Way

Milton Keynes is not only famous for it's concrete cows, but for many other things (101 according to Destination MK!). A simple episode to close the series, but a good understanding of Milton Keynes may enhance your chances of finishing on a high.

This time the cow objectives were flipped when claimed, revealing a Milton Keynes-related symbol underneath which brought an associated benefit, or penalty in one case.  The A-Team were doing well here until the last Script card provided one of their enemies with a turn of guaranteed successful shots, equalling the losses across both casts and resulting in a Draw.

Summary

This was an excellent day's gaming.  David had put together a great set of scenarios and also provided each competitor a set of the special MDF objective markers and a Roundabout Way measuring stick to take away, so we can replay these episodes again in future.  All the games were played in a fun and friendly spirit, as encouraged by the 7TV rules.

Finally here are the seven other casts at the event, the first four are my opponents in order.

Episode 106: We're doomed. Doomed!

First game introducing Perilous Tales to someone else.  Andy controlled the Dad's Army characters and I ran the game mechanism and rolled for the villains - the Tentacled Aliens  

The mission started with another telegram from Colonel Pritchard outlining the three objectives:

The playing area featured a couple of buildings, a pond, some trees, the searchlight and three switches. The threat markers were set up in Standard pattern.

The villain and peril stats were as follows:

The Home Guard proceeded as a group round the back of the Nissen Hut, triggering and eradicating baby aliens (I may need to increase their number of wounds next time).  

Jones took some wounds when the Mother Alien was revealed but was healed effectively by Godfrey.

As a lurker, the Mother Alien retreated enabling the team to start activating the switches.  The Mother took a lot of hits but a horrendous roll on the Threat Level check saw her remove three wounds and more baby aliens appear.

Eventually, Pike managed to finish off the Mother Alien and Captain Mainwaring took a photograph of the body as evidence.  Meanwhile, Wilson and Godfrey located the radio in the Nissen Hut but then prompted the appearance of the ARP Warden, who attacked Godfrey viciously.  Unfortunately (for me as spectator), Godfrey successfully convinced Warden Hodges who he was, and the Warden joined the team.

Pike reached the 2nd switch and managed to turn it on in his second attempt, using the Last Ditch option.  Mainwaring ordered him onto the third switch but Pike failed again, and with the threat level now at 10, it was too late to turn on the searchlight.

Final score: 3 for finding the radio, 3 for taking the photograph, 2 for two switches, 1 for Leader surviving and another 1 for losing no team members.  Definitely need to make the aliens harder to kill.  And I failed to increase the threat level each time a switch was made and the photo taken.  But "a truly heroic performance" by Andy.

Second playtest of Perilous Tales - Episode 102: Mexican Slayride

Perilous Tales is a solo or cooperative skirmish wargame of thrilling tabletop adventures.  Beta versions of the rules are available for playtesting at the Planet Smasher website.  After last month's playtest with my Dad's Army figures, I thought I'd try it this time with the recently painted A-Team.

I wanted an Amy figure for the scenario but she wasn't included in the A-Team pack I bought, so I converted Crooked Dice's "Ripley from Alien" character. I took detail off the uniform and reduced the massive space gun to something more resembling an assault rifle.

So the full team looks like this:

I made up cards again with Nandeck which I could use to record the wounds taken with some plastic hearts I recently bought (originally sticky-backed for craft projects but an overnight soak in some white spirit removed that):

The objectives for the mission were as follows:

Nuevo Paraíso reflected a typical Mexican town in a typical A-Team episode:

...but of course not with the typical stereotyped A-Team baddies.  This time the soldiers of fortune had a Tentacled Alien and her babies to contend with:

I used some Villain and Location characteristics from the Perilous Tales rules:

The threat markers were set up in the Encircling pattern and the boys headed into the town.

A baby alien was quickly revealed, dealing 3 wounds to BA, who defeated it in hand-to-hand combat the following turn.  A second alien attacked Hannibal whilst Face and BA fell to the ground following a minor earthquake.  

With the wounds piling up, the A-Team started to take a more cautious approach, using their last action of each turn to get their Eyes Peeled, so they could attack the aliens as they were revealed before they had the opportunity to ambush the revealer.

This proved almost too successful.  The Mother and the remaining aliens were finished off either as soon as they appeared or immediately in the following turn.  By the 6th turn, the A-Team had killed all the Villains and exited the playing area a couple of turns later.  Three objectives completed at 3 points each plus a further one for not losing Hannibal and another for not losing any team member, gave a final score of 11, ranking "A" - "a truly heroic performance!"

I reset the scenario and downgraded Face and Murdock to Teammates rather than Leaders and tried again, this time with an Aggressive deployment of threat markers.  But got a similar result.

I then wondered whether I was interpreting the Eyes Peeled rule incorrectly as you are not allowed to shoot targets who are already engaged, as the newly spawning villains always are.  This was a much more challenging game, although bad luck played a part, with four "From The Shadows" results on the threat checks spawning an additional 4 baby aliens during the course of the game.  The Villains were defeated in the end but only at the expense of losing both Hannibal and BA!  The final score was still 9 as the three objectives were achieved, giving a "B" rank for "a tale fit for the telling".

This last time was a more challenging and hence more enjoyable game.  But then afterwards, I spotted that Eyes Peeled was the only time you could shoot a target who was engaged.  So I think I have some questions to take back to the playtest group.

Soldiers of fortune

Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem... if no one else can help... and if you can find them... maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Latest painting project finished.  I've had these for years and had to Google to remember who made them.  Foundry do a set called "The B Team" but these are "Barca and the Boys" from Studio Miniatures, which are much more finely modelled.  The incorporation of Murdock's sock puppet Socki the Talking Dog is pretty niche and I love it.

It was the Perilous Tales rules that inspired me to paint them as, like Dad's Army, it's another set of heroes to play with.