Scenes from a game of Oathmark

Our group started playing Oathmark last month year, an miniatures-agnostic rank-and-flank fantasy wargame from the creator of Frostgrave.

It's been a chance for me to put together an Oldhammer-style lizardmen army with a bunch of vintage citadel figures, as well as newer castings from Reaper.

My opponents have drafted historical, Lord of the Rings, and the official Oathmark minis to fill out their ranks.

Our matches down at the local game store always draw attention from passersby, and the game itself is fun and easy to learn and play.

Anyone else taken up the Oathmark banner?

Engines pumping and thumping in time ...

Since we finished our first Gaslands race of the evening early, we had time for one more rally, this time with smaller teams: E. Winters Group's Frankenstein, Blues Brothers' Jake and Elwood, and Justice League's Batusi.

I was in Frankenstein, and as usual I tried to take advantage of that vehicles ram. I rolled a total of seven dice against the Batusi, but only scored one hit.

The performace car left us all in the dust, I spun out, and Elwood made it just through the first gate to to weapons hot. Jake, however, was just a smidge short of the line and couldn't shoot at me that gear.

Meanwhile, the Batusi launched a couple of remote-controlled cars that explode if they hit or get hit.

However, that didn't prevent Elwood from setting it on fire, which was enough on top of previous damage to wreck the Justice League car. 

But it wasn't just the Batusi suffering from Elwood's flamethrower--Frankenstein didn't like fire either.

With one hull point left, the flaming monstrosity rammed the Blues Brother, taking both vehicles out.

Just Jake was left running, so the musical siblings won by default. And with that, we called it a night.

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line ...

Yes, it was Gaslands the other night at the game store. With just three of us present, we each took a multi-vehicle team for a Death Race. I was Met At Work (pair of construction vehicles) while my opponents were Notorious RGB (red, green, and blue cars) and Born To Be Wild (the trio of dusty post-apoc jalopies)

As usual, it was carnage right out of the starting gate, with all the racers bunched up. We had a few collisions and gained some hazard tokens as the race began.

Heavy Metal Thunder's crush attack and big tires were a huge help in this race, as the rig didn't pick up hazards driving through rough terrain and could just roll right over other vehicles, like Blue Monday above, which was the first racer to wreck.

The grenades from Notorious RGB resulted in Overkill becoming the next vehicle to get destroyed, right at the second gate and just before the home stretch.

But Who Can It Be Now? soon followed, with an explosion ...

That detonation ended up taking out Green Manalishi as well.

But even though Born To Be Wild still had all its vehicles running, Red Rain was able to streak ahead past the finish line, winning the race.

Landing party

Terran Transolar Federation Naval Command's signal woke the Devastator-class heavy galactic war machine from its suspended operation. Terran MAATAC* Unit LMR-682 checked its internal chronometer, which indicated that it had been 359.81 standard years since it was ordered to stand down. 

*Multifunctional Armed & Armored Tactical Attack Computer

Checking the local net, the cybertank learned that the base where it had been parked had been sold to a mining consortium, which for 265 years used the area as an industrial waste repository until encroaching glaciation shut the operation down. Now, transparent ice coverd streaks of mine tailings and toxic chemical spills, while blocks of frozen water thrust up from the plain.

According to the Navy, an Entomalian Imperial Fleet squadron of three Wasp-class stellar destroyers and a Hornet-class stellar cruiser excorted four Locust-class galactic transports into the Rellis system. While the TTFN galactic battlecruiser Colossus chased off the enemy warships, the cargo vessels made landfall, depositing an unknown number of Bug war machines. Some of which, the Terran war machine computed, would soon be scouting the area.

I played a quick solo game of MAATAC to familiarize myself with the rules. My painting table, along with some broken up styrofoam packaging, made an adequate battlefield. It was a simple scenario: one Terran Devastator-class heavy galactic war machine had to defeat or drive off a quarted of Entomalian Black Widow-class destroyer war machines, whose goal was to defeat the Terran. The Terran had better armor and more weapons, but the Bugs had the numbers. I would play out movement, which is supposed to be simultaneous, by moving the Terran first, then the bugs either randomly or whatever made the most sense for them. Shooting (also simultaneous) was simple: The Terran would fire everything at one Ent, and the Ents would fire everything at the Terran.

The first turn was just maneuvering, as everything was out of range. On the second turn the Devastator was in range of the first pair. Both sides had climbed outcroppings, hoping to obtain a hull-down advantage. Instead, they shot at each other with everything they could. The Terran hit one bug with several lasers, none of which penetrated its hull. Another shot hit the Ent's mobility system, slowing it down. The Black Widows' return fire failed to penetrate the Terran's hull, but one shot did disable one of the Devastator's launchers. 

Turn three saw the Terran move closer to the first pair of Entomalians in order to keep the other two out of range--but that meant giving up the high ground. Most of the Devastator's shots landed on the ice in front of the Black Widow, but it did manage to take out one of the bug's particle weapon launchers. In return, the Entomalians strippped a launcher off the Terran. A hull hit failed to penetrate, and successful shots to the Terran's treads did not slow it down.

The second pair of Black Widows tried to close the distance during turn four, but the Terran heavy kept its distance while closing with the first pair, who stayed in place. The Devastator's energy weapon volley again was mainly ineffective, hitting a laser and a launcher, but doing no other damage. However, its particle weapon launcher, which I play as indirect fire, scored another hit on the bug's mobility system, reducing its speed even more. The Entomalian shooting was more successful, as they stripped the Terran of three laser cannon and one particle weapon launcher. However, the Devastator's armor abosrbed two laser hits to the hull and one to the turret with no damage.

The fifth turn saw the Terran move closer to its targets in order to keep the remaining Entomalians out of range. However, with just a single heavy laser and a single particle weapon launcher, it was not able to do much damage to its hull-down target. Although the particle weapon hit its target's weakest armor, it still was not able to penetrate the hull.  And as the damaged Black Widow fired back with just one medium beam and one heavy beam (its partner was too far back to shoot), it stuck the Devastator's hull and turret. A successful penetration roll meant the heavy galactic war machine was destroyed--a resounding success for the Entomalian scouts!   

The burning Terran MAATAC sank into the melting ice, as the Entomalian vehicles chittered at each other in hexidecimal code. Merging their signals, they sang to a satellite in low orbit. The objective was secured, and the troop carriers could bring their cargo and begin building the new hive.

A fun and quick game, and I should not have been surpised that the Terran got blasted. It should have sniped at long range and used line of sight to hide until it had a good shot. With the way combat works in MAATAC, the smallest unit always has a chance to take out the largest vehicle. I need to play again. Let's see if the Terrans can prevent the Entomalian reinforcements from getting through.

MillenniumCon Day 3 (p.m.)

Saturday afternoon I played a Starfighter! space combat game, based on the Fistful of Lead game engine.

The game master had 3D-printed all the ships, which were based on some computer game I can't remember. It was the humans against the Vaanduls, if that helps. Anyway, I played the capital ship and the space station, which eventually got blow up. But I had fun doing some space combat again.

Speaking of space, the next table over had some kind of War of the Worlds battle in 28mm. It looked pretty cool, and was voted one of the outstanding games of the convention.

There was also a Bolt Action tournament going on that afternoon. Not my jam, but there were plenty of players on a variety of terrain settings.

That was it for my evening, other than dinner with a gaming buddy I hadn't seen in two years. I did get a couple of pics of this massive long table for a Civil War battle.

This game looked like another 28mm event. I didn't stick around to watch people play, because again, tired.

That was it for the third day of the convention.

MillenniumCon day 3 (a.m.)

The third day of the convention, I joined my brother in a huge American Civil War game using the Black Powder rules and the Warlord epic scale minis.

Although we had historical forces (from the battle of Shiloh, I think), the scenario itself was ahistorical, with the Rebels trying to advance on the Union camps, and the North trying to hold off the Southerners long enough for reinforcements to arrive. I was the Yankees on the far left, including that lone regiment in the cornfield.

My goal as the Union commander was to try to delay long enough for other Northern forces to get to the battle. Somehow, that single regiment held off advancing brigades, and I deployed my other forces in line to stop the advancing Rebs.

There was a lot of shooting, both artillery and musket fire, with both sides inflicting casualties. Many units became shaken, meaning they couldn't do much, and some units ended up whipped, but remained on the battlefield.

We even got a few infantry charges in (on both sides), but I didn't make a single command roll to get my cavalry moving the entire battle.

When time was up, the Union had won by holding off the Confederates, and I won a tape measure for my regiment's brave stand against the Confederate onslaught. It was a fun time.

Monopolis second session (MillCon Day 2)

My second Monopolis game had a little poorer turnout, because I didn't decide to do it until well after electronic registration closed. I figured there was enough demand for another session, and running them back-to-back meant just setting up once and breaking down once. I decided to leave in the craters from the previous game, building a new road and replacing some of the destroyed town hexes with parkland.

Just five players for the evening game, and since the last one was late because of car trouble, I got to participate as one of the defenders for long enough to launch a nuke on some unsuspecting GEVs. 

The final player showed up soon after that, and I was back to refereeing the game. Once again, lots of Ogre-on-Ogre action, with the small guys as kind of an afterthought.

That Doppelsoldner is a beast, with its two mains, eight secondaries, and three missile racks. Because of all the cybertanks running around in this scenario, I warned the players at the start of the game that any time one side ended their turn with more than a single Ogre in a hex, their opponent could call in an off-board cruise missile.

The attackers didn't care, as they needed to cross a ford west of the city guarded by the green Mark V. Lucky for them, they shot down the incoming cruise missile, and it didn't detonate. They also made mincemeat out of the defending cybertank, which at least allowed me to use my Ogre hulk.

They had also destroyed the defending laser implacements, and managed to launch a second cruise missile, which they detonated above the river, rubblizing most of downtown.

The game was pretty much over at this point, but the attackers wanted to get off their second nuke, which levelled the eastern suburbs for a near total destruction of Monopolis. This game was obviously a victory for the attackers, pyrrhic as it may have been. 

So I handed out more prize support, packed up with the help of my brother, and went home late Friday night. It was a long day, and hosting back-to-back games wore me out, but I'm glad I did the second event.