Cats and dogs living together

This was the first play using the 7TV Paranormal Exterminators Programme Guide. The scenario was the first in the guide ("Cats and dogs living together") which is based on the first Ghostbusters film but I expanded the casts to around 36 points by adding a Sergeant and four Cops to the heroes side...

...and remixing the villains side to comprise two Demon Dogs, the Bell Witch and the Missing Link as co-stars, with two Harbingers, two Spectres, a Sewer Alligator and (of course) Slimer.

The three foot square playing area included the Ghostbusters Firehouse headquarters, some factory buildings and a playground in Central Park.

The defending heroes of Kieron and Stuart deployed in "Riverdance" formation on one side of their starting edge...

...whilst the attacking villains of David and James deployed more spread out so that they could make a good start for the majority of the five objective tokens.

We played with the 80s Genre plot cards and the first one drawn required an Extra to move into contact with any enemy co-star.  It had to be Dana Barrett in Gatekeeper form being drawn to Peter Venkman.

The heroes ignored her and pressed on together further into the park, with Winston then bravely engaging alone with the Demon Dog that had moved up to the central objective marker.

Despite his beam gadget knocking down the Bell Witch, Winston was swiftly the first casualty.  Having collected all the objective markers between them, both heroes and villains held off a bit in expectation of a super supernatural event in the finale.  Control of both Harbingers switched between the teams and they were used to harry the rears of the casts.

As the game entered the final act and the Destructor was summoned, Ray Stantz foolishly recalled his favourite corporate icon from his childhood, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man stomped into New York.  This figure stands about 17cm tall and I was very pleased to find this original 1984 model on eBay a few years ago.

However I was less pleased that he entered on the heroes' turn in the place we agreed it made most dramatic sense to enter.  The heroes were ready for him and he was melted before the villains had a chance to cause havoc with his impressive range of attacks.

The film ended here but this wasn't a scenario end condition so, although disheartened, the villains battled on.  Slimer did get to slime Venkman who subsequently killed him.  The Sewer Alligator together with Louis Tully's energy blast made short work of the Sergeant and another couple of cops. 

However, the involvement of the Bell Witch really turned the tide, as did a crazy cop who kept firing into close combat, missing and taking out his colleagues instead.  Over a couple of turns, the heroic cast melted away almost as quickly as the Destructor.

So although the heroes earned big points for taking out the Marshmallow Man plus one of the Demon Dogs, the villains earned more points by wiping out all of the Ghostbusters, giving them a minor victory.

Thoughts on the scenario:

• the rules say the referee decides where the Marshmallow Man appears. Without a referee, we agreed beforehand the Destructor would enter along the central road from the villains' starting edge, which dramatically made sense, but from a game perspective it might have been better to randomise which end of the road. And I think he should enter in the first villain turn during the Finale so he actually gets a go before being toasted!

• the finale as described in the scenario is 10 turns (longer than the first two acts together) as Heroes can only take one card each time, and Villains don't take one at all. A longer finale was welcomed as it would give the Heroes a better chance of finishing off the Destructor but given how quickly they accomplished this, playing out the remaining turns felt too long. I think we will add a Scenario End Condition of destroying the Marshmallow Man. Storywise, it's the climax and it felt odd to continue playing.

• the Bell Witch can gain plot points for each enemy near her, and then use these to change dice rolls to 1s or 6s. In close quarters, this effectively rendered her invulnerable. We wondered whether she was overpowered but I think we should try more ranged attacks on her before concluding that. It is worth noting that the Ghostbusters only used their proton packs on the Marshmallow Man and didn't trap a single ghost.

All in all a great game, with Star Qualities and Special Effects that capture well the action and story of the movie.

7TV Vlad's Army Episode 3

In the third and final episode "The Siege of St Aldhelm's", the Home Guard are taking refuge in the church whilst Major Shreck and his vampire horde close in to finish them off.

The Home Guard and Reservists deployed within the graveyard...

...with the Vampires, Half Bloods and Swarms on two edges of the playing area.

The entire Home Guard rushed into the church to rescue the Vicar and Verger, and stock up on the gadgets hidden inside.  The Reservists were left to defend the perimeter.

The Vampires started advancing on the graveyard, deploying a cannister of Axis Gas which transformed one of the Reservists into a Totganger.  Hauptmann Kurtz used his ability to control and swarm and wolfpack attacks.  Sadly, he was incapacitated in the following turn as we mixed up the Gadget Cards, and the Home Guard put him into a coffin for the rest of the game. The mistaken confinement of the co-star and his control ability was a significant loss to the villains.

The Reservists rescued another couple of civilians and began to bring them into the safety of the church.  The Reservists used a Crucifix Beam on the swarms and the wolves charged in to attack.  The Reservist was killed and a wolf picked up the torch in his jaws, but it was killed and the Maguffin recovered in the following turn.  After several failed attempts, the villains thought to use a stretch dice on their Totganger check, so some zombies finally emerged from the graves to attack the Reservists.

Major Shreck then started causing havoc, killing a series of Reservists in turn.

In their last turn, fearing the approaching dawn, the villains drew back from the church.  The Home Guard then finally emerged from St Aldhelm's, deploying a range of weapons and gadgets, and fistfuls of dice, resulting eventually in the loss of a NachtJagerKommando.  Despite lots of Reservists and Totgangers taken out, this loss was the sole Victory Point awarded in the game, giving the Home Guard their third Minor Victory in the campaign.

We enjoyed playing these scenarios but when we come to play them again, we will balance out the sides somewhat.  The gadgets and Leader abilities of the Home Guard give them a huge advantage over the Vampires, particularly with the latter's lack of ranged attacks.  We are also considering whether we need a way to ensure that the first player doesn't also have the last turn of the game, a double advantage with significant impact on the outcome.

Don't Panic! Hitchhikers vs Aliens

Another 7TV game with John playing Mars Attacks and Grey aliens, and his son Tim playing the characters from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

We used a simple three feet square gaming area with some scenery, a scattering of alien plants and rocks plus half a dozen crystals acting as objective markers.

We used the "Watch the skies!" sci-fi trope in order to introduce even more randomness to the story when the objectives were recovered.

Between them, the Hitchhikers made swift work of two Imperial Troopers before revealing an objective with the "They're Here Already" effect, enabling them to turn the Imperial Trooper Commander to their side, and promptly using him to kill the remaining Imperial Trooper.

Things were looking pretty sticky for John with four of his nine figures already lost but fortunately he was able to Steal the Scene with General Tor (his Evil Overlord) and snap the Commander out of his dominated status. His countdown card also enabled him to bring one of the Troopers back to life.

This rebalancing was to prove short-lived.  Tim swiftly killed the resurrected Trooper and even more devastatingly, Marvin emptied his SMG into an unfortunately closely grouped set of Alien Greys.  

The Alien leader rolled so well for defence that a roll of 9 was required.  Usually this is challenging on a D6 but 7TV's option of adding extra dice allows every 4, 5 or 6, to add +1 to the highest die roll.  Tim made sure of it by adding a ludicrous 10 extra dice and the whole lot were wiped out with one roll.

Although John's cast was axed, they battled on, with General Tor ambushing Trillian, who had already been infected by an alien egg, and she soon returned as a Cursed Creature fighting on his side.  

However, the following turn saw General Tor's morale waver and he promptly left the set.

John's cast earned a couple of victory points for the statuses attached to the opposing team but with the aliens essentially wiped out, and most of the crystals collected by the Hitchhikers, it was a Crushing Victory for Tim.

7TV Vlad's Army Episode 2

In the second episode "The 8.15 to Eastbourne", the Home Guard are trying to stop Hauptmann Kurtz and his vampires spreading along the South Coast by train.

Stuart and Andy's Home Guard and group of reservists started as close to the station as they could.

Kieron and James' German villains began on the opposite side behind Jones' butchers shop.

The Home Guard leadership rushed to the station and boarded the train before its departure whilst Fraser led the Reservists unit around the houses towards the Germans.  Swarms of bats and crows, along with Totganger zombies, slowly processed while the Half Bloods started moving towards the railway lines.

Hauptmann Kurtz controlled the swarms in a pincer movement and started picking off the Reservists.  Flushed with his success he charged into the unit, killing another Reservist.

Unfortunately Fraser had a butterfly net - an incredibly powerful gadget which instantly stunned Kurtz who was then unable to defend himself from the subsequent charge assault and follow up fight attack from Fraser, and was immediately wiped out in a single turn.

As the Third Act began, the train moved into the last third of the playing area, and the Home Guard prepared to take their turn surrounded by Germans.

And then we broke the Scenario.  Here's how.

The Home Guard had an incendiary device which could be planted on the gasworks and would explode the following turn wrecking the railway track and preventing the villains from escaping.  Since the Home Guard had the initiative in the game (due to their victory in Episode 1) they controlled the Countdown Cards and so were able to take the first turn in the Third Act.  But they were only going to get two turns (unless the villains were particularly generous/naive) so they had to plant the device straight away.  There were rules for boarding the moving train but not for leaving it.

If we said the Home Guard had to use the same rules for jumping off the train, and their second action was moving to the gasworks, they wouldn't be able to plant the device.  So their whole game strategy would be suddenly wiped out.  But if we allowed the Home Guard to move off and straight into contact with the gasworks, they could then set the device, and in the following turn the best the villains could do was move to the device and pick it up.  So the device couldn't be prevented from blowing up, and the villains strategy would be toast.

It looked like a rules discussion was going to resolve the game conclusion which was very unsatisfactory.  That's not what we wanted, we wanted a resolution through gameplay.

So we got rid of the device and decided to fight it out instead.  The Home Guard promptly threw grenades at the gathered Half Bloods and Totgangers, pretty much wiping them all out.

Although one Kommando failed to jump on the train and attack Wilson, the surviving Half Blood and the other Kommando did board the train and attacked the Home Guard, killing Walker and panicking Mainwaring in the last turn, using all the remaining plot points to roll an eleven!

In the final reckoning, the villains had just one Half Blood on the train and with the status on Mainwaring, that earned them 2 Victory Points.  The Home Guard had lost Walker and four Reservists, but the remaining three Reservists earned them their 3 Victory Points for another minor victory.

Our thoughts on this scenario:

1. The initial initiative in this game appears to make a game-winning difference in the Third Act.  If the villains had the first turn in the Third Act, they would have boarded the train, engaged the Home Guard and scuppered any plans for the gasworks to be blown up.  Since they didn't, the Home Guard could either have disembarked and blown up the gasworks unopposed, or (as we played it out) the Home Guard obliterate the villains patiently waiting in groups alongside the track. An alternative might be for the Home Guard to try to press on for the gasworks during the Second Act, and plant the device earlier.  But this Special Rule didn't work for us and we couldn't quite see how to fix it.
   
   
2. With Mainwaring's Leader 2 ability and Fraser's Unit Leader ability, the entire Hero side can be activated with just three plot points. Again contrast with the Germans, who effectively have to leave a large number of extras doing nothing simply to generate plot points for the remainder.  Kurtz can helpfully operate the bat swarms but the lack of any leadership or group ability hampers the villains. In the core rulebook, activated Zombies can Moan to bring on a couple of allies 2", so that might help if we added that to the Totganger.  Another thought was whether they should automatically just shuffle towards the enemy, only requiring plot points to actually do an attack.  Zombies are always in crowds in the movies and we'd like to try and get that feel with them.
   
   
3. We also reduced range to 12" again given the fog in the scenario description.

7TV Vlad's Army Episode 1

Vlad's Army is a Feature Pack for 7TV pitting the characters of Dad's Army against the Fuhrer's vampire fiends. The VHS tape box includes an episode guide, profile cards, gadget and countdown cards, and some counters.

I already had Dad's Army figures and various WW2 Germans and civilians who I rebased to match, and the Feature Pack gave me the push to complete my set of plastic Nazi zombies.

In this first episode, "Bloodbath at Godfrey's Cottage", Mainwaring has sent Wilson with a group of men to investigate reports of something coming down in the woods near Cherry Tree Cottage, where Godfrey lives with his sisters Dolly and Cissy.  The playing area was set up as per the episode guide.  I GM'd with Stuart playing the Home Guard, and Kieron the Germans.

The centre of the board has Godfrey's cottage with a shed, vegetable garden and a greenhouse I just finished.

In the North-East corner, the villains had landed in a German replica of a Horsa glider - a cheap MDF kit recently picked up on Etsy.

Sgt Wilson, the Home Guard and a group of Reservists deployed along the road.

The bonus counters placed around the glider turned out to all be civilians, promptly killed, bitten and zombified by Kieron.  Making use of their speed, his wolves raced around the garden and were engaged by a handful of Home Guard, killing a Reservist before being despatched themselves.

Stuart's troops checked on Dolly and Cissy, leaving them in the care of Private Sponge before setting up a perimeter along the road side of the cottage.  Eventually, the Germans breached the cottage grounds and there was a firefight and some close combat.  Two of the NachtJagerKommandos were killed but the remaining one took out another couple of Reservists.

Another Reservist was transformed into a Zombie following a well-aimed Axis Gas bomb that was lobbed through the window of the cottage.  This new Zombie swiftly turned one of Godfrey's sisters terrifying the remaining civilians still in the room with them.

At the end of the episode, the Home Guard had killed 2 Kommandos, 2 Zombies and 3 Wolves, earning 2 Victory Points for the Kommandos.  The Germans had killed 3 Reservists and zombified one more, but didn't manage to take out either of the co-stars - although Jones was still carrying the wound that Godfrey had repeatedly failed to heal - and so didn't earn any victory points.  This notionally gives the Home Guard a Decisive Victory.

We're hoping to play the rest of the campaign over the Christmas/New Year period.

Some thoughts that other players tackling this scenario may wish to consider.

1. The stated objectives for the Home Guard are to protect civilians and survive the encounter. The Germans are to create as many undead from the civilians and prevent the Home Guard from escaping to raise the alarm.  In our game, 8 civilians in total were revealed and the Germans killed one, changed one into a Half Blood, and another two into Zombies. Two were left free but unescorted with two more in imminent danger from a pair of Zombies in the cottage.  However, the Victory Points table doesn't give any credit for this, so players could just ignore the civilians which rather undermines the scenario.  Consequently, I think the Germans are due a point for their achievements in turning the civilian population resulting in an overall Minor Victory for the Home Guard.
   
   
2. The scenario is at night in fog so I reduced maximum range to 12".  As the villains have very limited range attacks, and the Home Guard generally have 24" range rifles, this balances things up a bit.
   
   
3. "Steal the Scene" can only be done by a Star or Co-Star but the Germans only have Extras in this scenario so I ruled that the Kommandos could use this ability.
   
   
4. There appears to be a huge imbalance in the use of plot points in this scenario.  The Germans are all Extras with no Leader or similar ability and so every figure activated requires a plot point, so at best, only half of them will do something each turn.  In contrast, Wilson's Leader ability along with Pike's "Uncle Arthur" effect means that one plot point can activate the three best characters on the Home Guard side.  I didn't do anything to affect this but will consider for future episodes. Ideas welcome.

Colours 2024

Andy and I went to Colours at Newbury Racecourse yesterday.  Not as big as Salute but plenty of traders and demonstration games to see and we spent the best part of six hours there (including over an hour eating our picnic outside and getting a little sunburned).  Other advantages over Salute include the cost (£5 a ticket instead of £12 plus parking plus ULEZ charge) and that it's not much than an hour's drive away.

My favourite demo games included one set in Japan:

The 1812 battle of Salamanca with what I thought were gorgeous autumnal colours but are perhaps sun-scorched summer Spanish colours:

Operation Sealion:

A Second World War battle between Finland and Russia:

And a fun Lego game of the trench run from Star Wars:

I haven't spent much money at shows in recent years but managed a good haul this time, including a lot of varied scenery (some of it from the Bring & Buy), the Vlad's Army (Dad's Army vs Vampires) expansion for the 7TV rules, and the Scooby Doo gang and Mystery Machine to paint.