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Post by Timf on Oct 10, 2017 13:06:20 GMT
The next RPG night is the 30th, so next week works for me too. I shall turn up, properly ratty then.
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chad
Loquacious
Han Chinese tonight...or maybe Space Goats
Posts: 150
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Post by chad on Oct 11, 2017 12:24:32 GMT
So Rory, Tim and I are up for the 16th - Katie are you in?
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Katie
Cato Would Be Proud
We need bigger datas.
Posts: 625
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Post by Katie on Oct 11, 2017 18:46:21 GMT
MMmmmmmmmaybe.
I've got a 5pm phone call Monday, might take an hour. I'll try and sort stuff out.
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Katie
Cato Would Be Proud
We need bigger datas.
Posts: 625
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Post by Katie on Oct 12, 2017 10:53:29 GMT
Move it to Tue.
Undeads or rats?
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Post by Timf on Oct 12, 2017 11:41:35 GMT
Well we have one rat already - Rats and necromancers against the pointies?
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Katie
Cato Would Be Proud
We need bigger datas.
Posts: 625
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Post by Katie on Oct 12, 2017 13:18:17 GMT
Or humans. I've got several human forces nearly done.
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Post by Timf on Oct 12, 2017 15:17:45 GMT
Gnaw....not humans.
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chad
Loquacious
Han Chinese tonight...or maybe Space Goats
Posts: 150
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Post by chad on Oct 13, 2017 8:10:14 GMT
OK so it looks like a mighty battle (or over-egged skirmish depending on your point of view) is in the offing for this Monday 16 October!
I shall rouse the Sylvan clans for battle!
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Katie
Cato Would Be Proud
We need bigger datas.
Posts: 625
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Post by Katie on Oct 17, 2017 8:28:47 GMT
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chad
Loquacious
Han Chinese tonight...or maybe Space Goats
Posts: 150
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Post by chad on Oct 17, 2017 12:40:50 GMT
Yes, was a great game - next time we'll have to start it earlier so we can get a decisive outcome.
Not sure how to play with an unbalanced team set up - I think even with the compensatory activation dice the elves were at a disadvantage, as the rats with three players had the first and last phases in a turn, so they had the initiative, then still had the luxury of being able to react to the elf moves!
When are people available for another game then?
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chad
Loquacious
Han Chinese tonight...or maybe Space Goats
Posts: 150
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Post by chad on Oct 17, 2017 18:55:33 GMT
One possibility for activation order in multiplayer games would be the rulebook suggestion of having randomised turns within a phase - roll a dice or draw a card type thing.
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Post by kaustic on Oct 17, 2017 19:16:38 GMT
Great game, thanks all. Sorry if getting there late slowed things but with A14 speed restrictions in place its the best I can do.
Have gone and bought a set of the rules as well. Still have reservations about it but it runs quite smoothly. Noted that Osprey do a SF rule set as well that looked interesting.
Looking forward to Rory's excellent AAR.
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Post by Timf on Oct 17, 2017 20:12:23 GMT
I cannot do the next two weeks but can do after that
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Katie
Cato Would Be Proud
We need bigger datas.
Posts: 625
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Post by Katie on Oct 17, 2017 20:43:32 GMT
"Noted that Osprey do a SF rule set as well that looked interesting."
If you mean Rogue Stars, I have a copy you can have a glance at. It's quite a low figure count -- think 4-8ish.
Of course, we still have Kill Zone to get on with on that front..
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Post by rflowings on Oct 17, 2017 23:35:39 GMT
As you know, I am permanently interested in SF systems to model Mass Effect so I'd also appreciate a glance through Rogue Stars. Katie, if you want to play Kryomek next week, please feel free, there are a few things I can do and I am happy to do a farmland/undead battle whenever you please.
When the sky turned red at Feyrings.
Both sides uneasily claimed the red sun as a good omen. The rats were convinced it was a sign from Smintheus, veiling his light so their verminous eyes would suffer less from the glare of day. The High Elves murmured the Eye of Balor had opened once again, to cast its vengeful rays upon the rat invaders. The Wood Elves advised that it was dust thrown up by an unseasonable typhoon out towards the Notonic Sea, and that this was the result of a change in the atmospheric temperature of the Neythyr Regions which was caused by excessive burning of the sacred woods. The High Elves retorted that the temperature change could also be cyclical, and why should they have to change their lifestyles just because some elves wanted to keep living in the bronze age, and that was that, because suddenly there was a dire screeching and whooping from just beyond the ridge and battle was joined.
The rat army was colossal. The breeding pits had turned out a force a third again as large as even the direst intelligence reports had predicted. The rats brought rank upon rank of disciplined clan warriors. They brought swarms of verminous, dwarfish, and phibian slaves, crazed by the sight of the sky after months underground. And they brought a bizarre, wheezing brass engine on wheels, fuelled by an unnatural flame within. And beneath the tramping claws of the verminkind moved a shifting, squeaking carpet of common-or-garden rats, who were just along for the carrion... or so it seemed.
The Elves were braced for action. The Sylvan King, venturing from the Jade Paths in a rare condominium with the Topaz Throne, had summoned the most sharp-eyed archers, the most furious swordsman, and had even persuaded one of their oldest tree-lords to uproot himself and join the wood-elf host with the insensitive and groundless rumour that there was an entwife somewhere across the Cabochon river. Lord Chancellor Calenhad had brought the high elf field army down from the fortress of Onyx, and Morbryth the Sinister had ventured from the Tower of Amethyst to pay back his comrade Rossendyl The Single-Handed for an old favour.
With a keening cry, the rattish line advanced. Great clouds of earth were thrown skywards as the legions of slaves dug saps toward the wood-elf lines, counting on their earthworks to shield them. The wood elves through out their skirmishers on the right flank, and began to harass the rat lines with a shower of arrows. On the left, the giant war-engine rolled forward, rats swarming beneath it, screeching rat monks surrounding it, belching green fire. The high elf cavalry, with characteristic impetuosity, sheathed their bows, drew steel, and thundered toward the engine, outstripping the rest of the high elf advance. The shock of the elvish horse bowled over the rat monks and sent them fleeing back to their lines. Laying into the rattish war machine with the ferocity of the Noldor of old, the elves peeled open its armour and plunged their swords inside, coating the slender blades with blood and matted fur.
The cavalry charge provoked the entire rattish line to swarm like a hornet's nest up the ridge which divided the main bodies of both armies. A teeming, seemingly limitless tide of the rats' smaller kin swarmed the elvish cavalry, dragging down horses and elves with a million tiny, scrabbling claws and jaws. The horsemen did their best to extricate themselves but wave after wave of rats pushed them back to where Rossendyl's warriors were endeavouring to shore up the battle-line beneath a cloud of mystic mist.
The rat slaves on the right flank formed ranks and files just out of bowshot of the wood-elves, presenting a formidable shield-wall and screeching defiance as showers of arrows fell among them. The wood-elves, seeing the compression of their high elf kin on the left, began to feed their heavy cavalry and swordsmen into the centre, ready to counter a decisive push from the rats. The tree-lord, realising his passions would remain unsatisfied this century, flexed his mighty boughs and prepared to exact vengeance on the rat kin. He threw himself at the line of armoured clan warriors on the ridge, crashing into them and being thrown back again and again, unable to penetrate their shieldwall or make headway up the slope. Simultaneously, the wood elf heavy cavalry charged the rats on the high elf flank, hoping to force a decision. The rats, advancing one paw at a time, slowly advanced as they weathered onslaught after onslaught.
The red haze across the sun was making it increasingly difficult to make out the enemy, for either side. Rat regiments continued to pour onto the ridge, unwilling to risk further advance yet frustrating all attempts to dislodge them. Rossendyl led his warriors in a final charge on the rattish left, scattering the smaller vermin. With his own swordsmen, he came nose to snout with a rattish chieftan. In a sharp exchange, elves and rats fell and Rossendyl found himself withdrawing as the warriors on his left flank, their spirits broken by the complex taxonomy of the rat host and the highly ambiguous portents in the sky. The elvish centre and right remaining strong and largely unassailed, and the rat assault seemingly stalled on the hillside, the action wound down and both sides warily edged apart over the next few hours.
The day ended as it had begun, with very little wisdom to be gained from fish guts or the number of magpies to be seen picking up stray elvish jewels. The rat commanders grumbled variously that entire regiments had been lost to scrumping in the woods, or that the slaves on the left flank had been encouraged too much in their pursuit of precision defensive drill in the parade-pit. Strong squeaks were exchanged on the structural integrity of the fiery war-machine, although these were swiftly drowned out by enthusiastic support for the blueprints of the next hare-brained design.
On the elvish side, the condominium held, but the wood-elves resented the long walk they had been obliged to make, without shade, for a highly ambiguous result. The tree-lord in especial refused to stump back to the Jade Paths and instead took up temporary residence among the tangerine plantations near the coast. Lord Chancellor Calenhad received a censure from the Topaz Throne due to her highly questionable behaviour skulking to the rear of the allied forces. Her excuses that she was just inspecting the battle-readiness of the shirtless wood-elf swordsmen fell on deaf ears.
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