Death of Warwick-A battle in my Attic

 

I was sorting out my figures in my attic the other day, making space on the shelves for yet more boxes when I got distracted by making a scene on my gaming table.

The scene grew bigger and bigger as I added more figures and more terrain and so I took some pics!

This guy is what it's all about! He is the Ruckus Captain , the new metal figure from Wargames Illustrated Giants in Minature range and the first of the figures specially created for Ruckus

Here he is depicted as Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, meeting his end at the battle of Barnet 14th April 1471

As the camera pans out it  becomes obvious that he is very much alone

The swirling fog blows away revealing the devastation of a battle lost

In this pic I was using standard light bulbs and a warm setting on the LEDs

LEDs on full with a "Cold " setting

The Impatient Heir from Ragged Staff Minis

The 15th Century Terminator

 that is Edward IV

The Peasants are Revolting!

 

-The Peasants are Revolting-

Playtesting a solo scenario for Ruckus.

The Story so Far

Those unruly Peasants have been causing trouble again. The Kings deer herds have been noticeably smaller this season and the remains of several deer have been found in the woods. The King has asked you to lead your Retinue in a punitive raid on the local village. These Peasants must learn who is boss!

You must search each and every building in the village

There is great excitement today in the village of Dirt in the Hole, not only have the villagers been feasting on a surfeit of venison thanks to the local poachers but the traders have come to town to sell their wares

 “How much be that there then?”

    “Five groats or half a haunch of venison”

    “That’s a bit deer!”

This scenario features a lot of peasants, surprisingly, we thought it would look good and set the mood if the figures were deployed on the table at the start of the game. Then when they appear as adversaries, we could just move them into position

Look out villagers, a spear led by a squire approaches the outskirts…

…and enters one of the houses. This is a punitive operation; the Retinue must search all six buildings just to show those unruly Peasants who is the boss

…they are in for a shock though, these are no ordinairy villagers, that is the local blacksmith’s boy and he is huge

Bam! Squire down! Suddenly this mission does not look quite so easy

the Scenario Specific special rule Brave Archers results in Young Hal soon resmbling a pin cushion but the feisty peasants do for the Bill man. Without their leader the two archers become Feckless

Another one bites the dust

The first house searched was an old abandoned cottage, the Spear were attacked by a swarm of wild bees that had been nesting there!

  The next house had a stash of strong home brew and one of the Retainers, marked with orange counter, imbibed became Feckless drunk and soon began singing …noisily and out of tune

On to the next building, an old barn, what will they find here? These Perry Miniatures have been beautifully painted by Leigh Parslow

Its an old crone, Hag Agnes and her bowl of Good Enough stew! “It ain’t magic but its Good Enough!

   Hag Agnes has some special Traits that ensure she will be left alone by these intruders!

“I don’t care who you are, you ain’t coming in here with them muddy boots! Now clear orf!” Hag Agnes figure is one of the new Oathmark Human Light Infantry metal figures from North Star and very nice too

Leigh draws a Divers Alarums card and a huge Ferocious Longhorn Bull appears in the centre of the village

This unfortunate Bill man had been sprinting across the village when he Mishapped leaving him exposed to view and he catches the Bullseye!

He put up a good fight wounding the bull but paying the ultimate price. The villagers cheer the bull on, it’s turning out to be quite an exciting Market day. The Squire Rodney Plumeverte, does not appear to notice…

However, Rodney is no slouch and delivers the tercio de Muerte! 

Plumeverte joins up with the archer who survived Young Hal and they advance on the next barn…ohoh! That’s Ferg, the town drunk. The archer is overwhelmed by his Alky Breath Trait and the fumes render him Feckless drunk.

The Archer is not a nice drunk though, he gets fighting mad and takes a swing at Rodney…who knocks him out and then finishes off Ferg

Meanwhile, at the fashionable end of town, Sir Antoine Gervais knocks on the door of the only tiled house…

…it even has its own beehives

It’s the home of the village head man Arthur Six-pennies. His fellow peasants quickly scrag an unlucky archer, this poor chap had run out of arrows and was equipped to fight but could not resist the onslaught 

“Stop right there!” Arthur is a fairly tough proposition surrounded by his villagers; however, he failed his WTF test and so could not use his Rabble Rouser skill to enrage the Peasants.

The Arthur figure is the Oathmark Human Light Infantry King with a West Winds head

It’s a tough scrap Arthur scores a couple of wounds on Captain Gervais…

…but pays the ultimate price. The Kings Deer are dearly bought it seems.

This was a fun game; I was simply an observer and watched as Leigh worked his way through the scenario. The scenario was no push over and Leigh looked quite concerned at times. It took fifteen turns which did not seem over long as it went quickly with only one Player.

This game reminded me that Playtesting is an important part of game development and I altered a few things and added a rule or two. I think this would make an excellent two payer scenario and that is what I want to try next, it does seem to work well as a solo game too.

This scenario is planned to appear in an article in December’s issue of Wargames Illustrated no 444

Ruckus Attack!

 

This weekend I took Ruckus to Attack at Devizes. The organisers had asked for games of a short duration of no more than an hour with a fast turnaround to engage as many players as possible and so my original idea was to set up a system whereby each player had a smaller than usual Retinue, a Spear really, of one Squire and four Retainers. Rob Squires has used Ruckus to run RPG using exactly this idea of one player one spear.

The plan then, was that there would be two sides York and Lancaster and as each Player was taken out of the game another would step in with a different Hero and play would continue uninterrupted. I envisaged a sort of “Shirts and Skins” style kind of thing, where play never stops. One player on each team would have a Captain as their Hero. I reckoned Ruckus could handle 8 Heroes activating each turn without slowing down too much

Get Orf Moi Laaaand was to be the scenario and I packed enough terrain to lay out a nice rural farmscape. I created and printed six pre-rolled Captain Profiles and twelve Squires, not only would this save time, it allowed me to flesh out the Characters with a bit of back history

I thought I could round up and prep prospective players while my lovely assistants ran the game. However…

Both of my comrades suffered from RL issues and could not make it, which was entirely right, it is family first ... always!  And after all this is just a game. However, it meant I had to use plan B which was fine except I didn’t have a plan B…

 Attack is a much bigger show than I expected. It is held at Devizes school, which considering the size of Devizes is HUGE! Apparently over a thousand people attended last year. There were traders everywhere…all the usual suspects…

I spent a happy half an hour chatting to Athens Miniatures John Caboshe and bought some of his exquisite figures. These are beautiful, detailed, well-proportioned, characterful sculpts that are ideal for Ruckus and as they come in bags of twelve would be perfect for Billhooks too!

 Overall, I was very restrained. I spent about seventy quid for a haul of three Ospreys, four boxes of grass tufts and a few bags of various scatter and the Athenas

Anyway, I had no idea of how many folk would turn up to play or how to run the game so in the end I kind of made it up as I went along

Toby, Chris, and Steve played the first game. I sat in on Steve’s side. I gave up on the idea of a continuous game and settled for a compromise somewhere between a standard game and a smaller faster version, in fact I created a slower, longer version!

 We each had a mini-Retinue of two Spears, one led by a Captain and one led by a Squire, with two bill men and four archers. Each Retinue also had a standard bearer- just for colour.

The game went well, it was a hard-fought affair that could have gone either way-a typical Ruckus! Everyone enjoyed themselves, which is always the objective and I received some positive comments, lots of praise and a well thought out positive criticism, that I am still ruminating on.

I made some new friends and I will definitely be taking Ruckus to Frome one Saturday, thanks Toby for the invite!

Pics from the first game

The second game was fun too and involved an extraordinary encounter! I have a good friend, Nick, who I have gamed with on line for about fifteen years, we share a very similar brand of humour and have always got on very well…to my surprise and great joy, he turned up and played Ruckus!

Nick and me! Wherever Nick goes he wears a small basketball net on his head....

We never mention it...

The first game went very well but with eight Hero cards was a bit drawn out and slower than the usual game of Ruckus so for the second game with six people playing each had a Captain and six Retainers. This worked well and the game moved along at its usual slick pace.

This game was also a nail biter with a Peasant Ambush to spice things up. I didn’t help my side at all by consistently rolling ones and twos!

Steady by the sheep! Sprinting here is a High Risk Gambit and might involve a wooly encounter

I can heartily recommend Attack as a show and I will definitely return next year.

I met some interesting people and made some new friends and had a lot of fun!