Thursday 30 November 2017

VSF Diversions with Hordes of the Things

Mark Stevens recently sent me some reports of Hordes of the Things games he had, and kindly gave permission to post them onto this blog. I'll put up subsequent battles as separate posts;

I had a free evening recently, so out came my VSF HoTT armies that haven’t seen action for a long long time.

For both games the French and British faced off at the village of Prosecco, in the Lombardy countryside. There’s obviously a missing back story here, but I can’t find it right now.

Royal Bicycle Artillery to the rescue!

The first battle of Prosecco was a standard 24AP affair. The French were nominally defenders, but with way better PIPs for most of the game they attacked with their customary elan.

The first photo, taken from an observation balloon behind the French lines shows the Foreign Legion (3xSh) advancing up the road to take the village. At the rear of the column is one of the new wonder weapons from Louis Vuitton - a power armour suit (Pd). To their L the line infantry (4xHd) cover the flank. To their R the steam tank is a Bh(G), and on the R flank a cuirassier brigade on the latest ‘bicyclettes’ (3xKn) also advances. The weird Bh thing on the baseline is the French stronghold. Note to self: make a plausible VSF stronghold.

In the distance perfidious Albion awaits its inevitable fate, seemingly transfixed by the sight of the advancing French (or perhaps, a run of terrible PIPs). They have a thin red line (6xSh) supported by a power armour suit (Hr(G)), troop of lancers (1xKn), a Sn (great detective & loyal companion), and a battery of the Royal Bicycle Artillery (1xArt).


The French pushed forward, taking the village and threatening the British L with the cuirassiers supported by the Pd & Bh. The British Sn was swept away (flee move) by the advancing cuirassiers. It played no further part in the battle, although it was beginning to line up an attack on the steam tank Bh(G) as the game ended.

The second photo shows first contact (not counting the Sn road-bump), when the Pd destroyed a company of redcoats, but a cuirassier element was forced to recoil. I bungled that, it should have been destroyed (beaten by Sh with which it has just moved into contact) and didn’t realise until too late to change.


Anyway, the French piled on the pressure. Casualties were low but positionally the French had all the advantages. The British desperately used their few PIPS to hold them off hoping that something would turn up.

Which of course it did! The last photo shows the final turn of the battle. The British L has almost collapsed. And although the British Hr(G) and surviving Sh are giving the French L a hard time, it looks like the Frogs will win by turning on the exposed British flanks.


And then, the gallant chaps of the Royal Bicycle Artillery saved the day. They took a shot at the French Bh(G) and the dice in the photo tell the story. The final score: 4-8G to the Nation of Shopkeepers! The frogs lost a Sh, a Kn, and the Bh(G). The lobsters lost 2xSh.

Saturday 18 November 2017

Treasure Hunters of Charlemagne

The latest adventure from Ganesha Games in the Four Against Darkness (4AD) series is Treasure Hunters of Charlemagne. I wrote this supplement, and thought it might be a good idea to say a little about it...

From cover to cover, it is 44 pages, and requires two of the core books to play, the original Four Against Darkness and Four Against the Abyss, written by Andrea Sfiligoi. The reason is that the party starts at 5th level, so all the rules in Four Against the Abyss come into play, such as expert skills, madness, lycanthropy, hirelings etc. I really love the additional things Four Against the Abyss brings to 4AD, and this adventure has been developed with those rules in mind.

Treasure Hunters of Charlemagne is set in Europe in the late 8th Century. You use a party of 4 characters which can be of any class, except for elves, dwarves and halflings. Despite being in a real world setting, it is outright fantasy, so you still have wizards with all their spells, clerics, barbarians, rogues, warriors and swashbucklers.

Inspiration is drawn from mythology of the time and works such as chanson de geste. The world is full of mythical beasts, enchanters, and magic items. It is also full of deceit and intrigue, some of which makes its way into this adventure.


The game takes place on a map of Europe. You decide which areas to travel to. Each area has its own fixed encounter and background, so you have a lot of control in the path taken and developing the unfolding story. The campaign is not meant to be scripted, there is no one correct answer. Many different paths that can be taken to achieve the end goal.

Random encounters happen as the party travels around Europe from place to place, from things jumping out of forests and mountains, to bustling towns. The game is meant to play like an "edited highlights reel", where sometimes you travel without incident, at others all manner of things start to go wrong.


Towns are very important, it is here where a party gets to recover and engage in other activities; there might be a jousting tourney for warriors, thieving opportunities for rogues, wizards might try to track down ancient books for spells and clerics pray in a monastery. You might also bump into interesting people and hire some help. Things can also go terrible wrong here, such as characters getting into drunken brawls and even be arrested.

Another aspect I wanted to model was party unity, or fellowship. Unlike a one-off dungeon bash, here the game could represent many months of travel, so keeping the party motivated becomes an issue. The party will face tests of its fellowship, that could see a character storm off!

The ultimate aim is for the party to find clues, survive all the various challenges, including political and other intrigues that may be thrown its way to recover the spear of destiny and deliver it to Charlemagne. No doubt that once this happens, new chapters will be added to the chanson de geste!