Fallout 3 - The art of doing it wrong

As may have been gathered, AWB has a little bit of time for the Fallout universe and has recently been playing a bit of Fallout 3.
Now as we know, Fallout 3 does have a storyline. A deep and involved quest to, well, go and do boring stuff in search of your character's dad and save the world. Or something. And yes we all know just how much we want to do that constantly when there are other things we can do in the game.
First up, we need to remind you that the Fallout universe is a dangerous place. Take for example some of the animals you can find...

Take for example this friendly looking creature. On the plus side your character is currently safely hidden, which is probably a good thing as, based on the size of the rifle you are holding, that puppy is HUGE. Let's just hope all he really wants is to chase the stick.
Not to fear, the Wasteland isn't all scary animals. There are actually some nice friendly people and a touch of romance. Take this young lady...

This is Angela and she is clearly very happy as she is currently getting married. Yes, that man in the sharp knitted vest is a priest and the guy in the right foreground her hubby to be.
Just ignore the honking great big knife in her right hand, okay. There is probably a perfectly rational reason with nothing at all to do with her landing her hubby by using ant queen pheromones for a bit of casual date rape.
Nope, this is Fallout 3 after all. Fallout 3 is a nice universe. After all what other game version would take such a strong view on harming children?
Cannibalism on the other hand...

Well thank you Old Man Harris, we are glad you cleared that up.
Still, Fallout 3, unlike earlier games, prevents you from actually harming any character under the age of 16, which is probably the only reason this charming little fella isn't currently a red smear across the pavement...

Remind us again why we are helping you, you ungrateful little brat?
Still, the one advantage with Bryan, for that is his name, is that near the start of the quest involving giant fire breathing ants that he begs you to help him with, he chooses to hide inside a shelter for safety.
One of these in fact...

Cosy looking aren't they?
And the big advantage of him decided to go hide in one, is that unless you decided to formally speak to him again and close the quest, the lovable little scamp gets to remain in there.
Not that it really effects the game, but walking past him from time to time to hear his slightly distressed cries does have a strange satisfaction.
As does other actions within the game. Fallout is a universe that contains teddy bears, and let's face it, what game universe would be complete without them. In fact there are large numerous amounts of teddy bears located within the game, and if you are careful enough with your searching, you can have a small picnic with a few them...

Don't worry. You can still fit on the bed. It is all completely safe.
Also completely safe in Fallout is starting a small fire from time to time...

Here is one we started earlier. Nothing to worry about. All perfectly under control. What could possibly go wrong...

Quite.

Combat Commander

Played Combat Commander at Club Dave last night.
Now for those not in the know, Combat Commander is a popular board game series from GMT Games using card decks to control company sized tactical battles. Everything is driven from the cards. 'Dice' are tested by turning cards, random events come from cards and even the length of the game are driven by the decks.
As was said, a very popular series with regular expansion releases, over a hundred scenarios, infinite ability to mix and match to invent your own games off the cuff and, due to the randomness of the system, lots of replayability.
Having said that, AWB really doesn't like it that much.
So, having taken off in the face of public opinion and streaked naked in front of the partisan fan, why does AWB take this stand?
Randomness and gaming the system.
Each deck is 72 cards. Depending on the situation a player will have a hand of between four and six cards. To do ANYTHING you need to play a card, but what if that card is the 'wrong' one?
Well, too bad.
Each card has an 'Order' type listed on it. Move, Fire, Advance, Recover et al. There is by extension a limited amount of each in each deck. Now because the game engine also means you are turning cards to cover dice rolls and random events, it is possible that the cards you want may not come out into your hand until the next reshuffle, and even then, may not the next time either.
The fans and supporters of the system argue that this represents the eb and flow and confusion of battle. Yes, fair enough, no real world situation has radio controlled troops and for various reason troops often fail to act in manners which would be perfectly obvious to outside observers.
On the counter side, the game encourages you to hog some of the really useful cards. Ambush, a card that allows an instant flip on an enemy unit in melee combat is a prime example. What this means is that rather then being able to have a broad plan and see if come off, you are effectively setting your troops up the best you can and then playing for the moment. Those Ambush cards you have in your hand? Best hang onto them as it looks like my opponent is setting up for something... and since they are now 50% of my hand, guess I wont be doing too much else until one of us actually attempts to go to melee. The player can at times become nothing more then an observer, victim to whatever fate the card deck turns over, playing cards not part of a cunning master plan, but as the appear.
There are other points. Game length is controlled by how many times a card deck is passed through. This means if you are ahead on VP it is in your best interest to burn through the decks as fast as possible and can result in taking actions not because they will do something useful on the game board, but because they burn through a lot of cards. An example? In last night's game, AWB was playing the defender. The attacking side had gained from random events offboard artillery support. In the decks are cards that 'break' offboard support, forcing the owning player to waste cards 'fixing' the support before it can be used. As the defender, AWB decided it was better to not play a card to break the attacking artillery for the reason that while being shelled was clearly a risk, to bring down an attack the owning player was going to be required to play or turn over a minimum of 10 cards.
Card burn kids. The quicker the decks are worked through the quicker the game ends and the quicker the defender gets his shot at winning. Ever so slightly gamey...
Still, the game IS very popular. Inspect the GMT upcoming releases and dare yourself not to find another expansion set on the list. And by what metric are we to judge games anyway? People, flaws or no flaws, enjoy buying, owning and playing Combat Commander, so even if AWB would prefer to game something else, it does show a lot of people are having good fun.
Which, when you think about it, is all really matters.

Super Mutant Masacre - Fallout in 15mm

After having the grand idea to play some Fallout as a miniature game, AWB FINALLY managed to live the dream last Friday by putting on a small game in 15mm for the Butchers of the Bell Curve gaming group.

System was Tomorrow's War, which was the reason AWB purchased these rules in the first place, and figures from GZG. The game had a raiding party of nine Super Mutants vs a Science type team from one of the Vaults numbering in at eleven. Inspiration was mainly from Fallout:3 for, as fans of the game probably know, West and East Coast Super Mutants are slightly different.

For those playing along at home, the Super Mutants were classed as D8 quality and morale with one Super Mutant Brute as leader which was morale D10. The Brute was classed as 'Hard to Kill' as per the Tomorrow's War rules and the rank and file were given 'Tricky to Kill', a variation to this rule where a D4 is rolled as the saving dice instead of the normal D6. There was a two mutant weapons team with a minigun (+1D support weapon) that was also classed as Intimidating, all others had stand weapons and none had armour.

The humans had a two man 'Science Team' armed with pistols, a 'Security' team of four figures in armour (1D), a 'hero' (D10 quality/morale and armour, Designated Marksman skill) and a four figure squad of 'Hangers On' armed with SMG/Shotguns. All except the 'hero' were D8 quality/morale and the side's Confidence was rated as Poor based on the rational ground that their mission was rather risky for little 'real' reward.

The humans were tasked with retrieving as much 'science' (read VP) as they could from a small shack they had found in the middle of the wasteland without getting killed and the Super Mutants had the more straight forward task of wiping out the PUNY HUMANS!!!! Hence the humans got no VP for killing Super Mutants, while our favourite big yellow skinned idiots had no interest in the 'science'. Both sides therefore could obtain victory here...

Although (spoilers), the Super Mutants ended up getting butchered.

The humans were gone for all money at one stage. The 'Security' team was being forced back, the 'hero' had been last seen collapsing under a hail of minigun fire and what's more, a Molerat had just popped up randomly to be annoying.

Then, having also randomly found enough loot to increase the 'Security' teams supply level for the rest of the game (which under the rules gives that team a very useful +1 dice to roll when firing), the luck swung back, the Super Mutants were falling like Bloatflies and by turn seven the humans were casually finishing off the wounded.

All good fun really and completely justified all the time the last two years spent, on and off, painting figures for this project. Neither of the two players were experienced with the source game and probably missed some of the deliberate references (as well as referring to the Super Mutants as 'Ninja Turtles' for most of the game) which was a mild pity. There was also a few of the 'house rules' that probably need a little more Beta testing. The vault dwellers all had PIPBoys for example, which as players of Fallout:3 and Fallout New Vegas will know, allow use of the VATS system. Sliding VATS into Tomorrow's War without making it a game breaker is still a work in progress. Current version/theory has PIPBoy equipped teams being able to reroll failed reaction tests with the chance to take a VATS shot coming up via the set of home made Fog of War cards. These random event cards also include such 'Fallout' type events as the Mysterious Stranger and the appearance of various non friendly animals.

So, still a bit of tweaking to do with the house rules for this project (as well as a LOT of painting still to finish) but overall a very entertaining Friday night using a reasonable straight forward game engine that provided an amusing dialogue to the night's events.

Good fun, with the only real failure of the night being the complete failure to remember to take any photos.