Before we go into the specifics of my claims, let's review the basic hardware specifications of the ColecoVision and similar systems which are based off the TMS9928A Video Display Processor (VDP).
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Donderdag 19 Maart 2020
The CollectorVision Phoenix Part 2 - The FPGA System Built By Thieves And Sold On Disinformation
Three blog posts ago, I was rather critical of the CollectorVision Phoenix, an FPGA console which implements the ColecoVision : https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-collectorvision-phoenix-fpga.html I said all that I believed needed to be said, but since then I have determined that the console was deserving of further criticism.
Before we go into the specifics of my claims, let's review the basic hardware specifications of the ColecoVision and similar systems which are based off the TMS9928A Video Display Processor (VDP).
Read more »
Before we go into the specifics of my claims, let's review the basic hardware specifications of the ColecoVision and similar systems which are based off the TMS9928A Video Display Processor (VDP).
Read more »
WIP - "Rescue Of Hommlet" - Playtest Weekend
Having written stolen and mashed up rules to create a Chainmail/Book of War hybrid Frankenstein monster, I wanted to make sure that the thing played well, and I wanted to see what comes up that I hadn't thought of.
And I wanted to give the model a shakedown, to see how it would be used by (hopefully) friendly faces before taking it to GaryCon to sit next to two other Greyhawk games taking place with the same topic - the goings on of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the infamous Moathouse.
But first... picture porn of the model! I've made progress since the last model update from early December.
It felt really good to get the model to a point where I could play with it. Obviously, a lot of work left to be done, with painting details, making the mucky moat and surrounding terrain. The comments I got from players was very positive!
Playtesting - I had three concerns with the scenario and rules:
I'm happy to say that I got tons of great feedback from my very patient friends! Overall, they all expressed enjoyment with the scenario and with the approach of playing "D&D" with Chainmail as the battle mechanism. It became clear that what we had was more of a skirmish game than a huge battle. That turned out to be OK!
If you go and look at the rules, you can see a number of tweaks and approaches that I've adopted to reflect lessons learned. Here are the three big ones:
I. Having a character figure that isn't a superhero somehow take out a troop unit figure with just a single dice roll didn't feel right. The character should be a lot more threatened when they go against a unit of soldiers [1].
To solve that, I took this approach:
1. If the battle is troop unit figure vs. troop unit figure, or character/creature vs. character/creature, roll number of dice equal to Fighting Capability (FC) of unit. Count hits. This is standard Chainmail or Book of War.
2. If battle is troop unit figure (representing 10 soldiers) vs. character/creature, scale the dice. Roll # of dice representing FC of unit multiplied by number of soldiers left in figure. Count hits against character. Character rolls number of dice equal to their Fighting Capability.
So, Rufus the Fighter is facing a figure of bugbears. He has an FC of 6. He is attacking as Heavy Foot (HF) and the bugbears are defending as Armored Foot (AF). In my rules, he needs a 6. He rolls 3 6 1 1 2 5, so he scores a hit! That means a bugbear will be a casualty out of the unit.
The bugbears return the favor. Their FC is 2. The figure represents ten bugbears. So the player for the bugbears would grab TWENTY six siders and roll. The bugbears attack as HF and Rufus defends as AF. With twenty dice, the chances are likely for at least 3 to 4 hits, so Rufus might be in trouble here...
THIS felt right, even though it would be murder on the characters - as it should be! Up to about Superhero level, a single character is taking huge risks to get involved in an Aragorn-esque fight against a bunch of baddies.
What helped was the adopted rule that magic armor removes a dice from each roll. So if ten bugbears are rolling 2 dice each, Rufus's magic armor made that 1 dice. Which, magic armor should have that effect. So this felt right as well.
It does mean I'm going to have to track the "hits" on a troop figure from characters. So that as the character whittles away at the troop unit, it grows less and less effective in attacking, meaning less dice to attack with. I'm OK with that right now, but I'm still considering if this is the approach I want to take.
I may revert to the approach of Chaos Wars and represent units as multiple figures - so it will look like a 1:1 game, although troops on troops will still be adjudicated at a 10:1 scale. I'm not sure yet.
II. Magic and the different classes. At first, I was struggling with how to interpret the various bonuses and minuses from the gear that the inhabitants of Hommlet and Moathouse have with them. Through testing, we agreed to use the approach from "Compleat Chainmail" - if the defender (against ranged or melee) has magic armor, attackers remove a die from their roll. If attackers have a magic weapon, they add a die to their roll. This worked well for a convention game approach.
I also had to dig through OD&D history, original booklets, supplements and the Strategic Review articles to fill the rules and approaches for things in T1 that don't come in OD&D/Chainmail as written. Things like how to implement Elmo the Ranger (riff off the Ranger article from Strategic Review Vol 1, #3), the Druid Brother Smythe and his spells (look at Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry), how does Lareth's Staff of Striking work in the Chainmail combat rules (riff off of AD&D/DMG description of the staff and have the player opt to improve a hit to be two or three, while spending charges).
That was a fun exercise in looking at how iconic classes were built, and how AD&D was still a similar game to OD&D in that you could easily use magic items from one in the other.
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III. Crossbowmen are murder! The basic scenario has the Forces of Woe at the Moathouse, prepared with full knowledge of the approach of the Forces of Weal. This means that logically, the ranged forces are going to be on the ramparts, ready to shoot down any who approach. It's a sound tactic, used effectively through history. In the first game, I had written down the wrong range for crossbows, using the heavy crossbow range of 24" versus the actual range of 18". I also had two figures of crossbow units on the ramparts, to represent the 20 Guards of the New Master.
Had we run with the rule of multiple dice x FC of troop units versus single characters, I doubt that many would have survived the approach!
In the second game, I reduced the number of New Guards with crossbow to 10 soldiers (1 figure) only, but even with that, they murdered the approaching forces of Weal - taking out both single figures of mercenary bow and militia bow, then the elderly farmer captain armed with a crossbow.
The one factor in both situations was that the crossbowman had cover on the Moathouse's ramparts while the forces of Weal were out in the open.
I have a solution that is tied to the description of the terrain around the Moathouse.
So it's a tough choice, go slow and with benefit of cover, or go fast and possibly get cut down. I think this is a good tactical choice, so I will leave the forces as-is, and playtest this approach.
Plus, I get to make more terrain! Scatter terrain to represent the bog/swamp around the moat.
There are a lot of other lessons and tweaks from the play-test, but these are big ones. I'm really glad I did the testing, it's going to make my Greyhawk game that much better.
And I wanted to give the model a shakedown, to see how it would be used by (hopefully) friendly faces before taking it to GaryCon to sit next to two other Greyhawk games taking place with the same topic - the goings on of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the infamous Moathouse.
But first... picture porn of the model! I've made progress since the last model update from early December.
It felt really good to get the model to a point where I could play with it. Obviously, a lot of work left to be done, with painting details, making the mucky moat and surrounding terrain. The comments I got from players was very positive!
Playtesting - I had three concerns with the scenario and rules:
- Will the rules work in reflecting that we have figures that represent single characters (1:1 scale) and figures that represent troop units (~10:1 scale)
- With using the forces as represented in the module T1 - Village of Hommlet, is there a huge mismatch?
- What surprises do I need to account for that devious players will come up with?
I'm happy to say that I got tons of great feedback from my very patient friends! Overall, they all expressed enjoyment with the scenario and with the approach of playing "D&D" with Chainmail as the battle mechanism. It became clear that what we had was more of a skirmish game than a huge battle. That turned out to be OK!
If you go and look at the rules, you can see a number of tweaks and approaches that I've adopted to reflect lessons learned. Here are the three big ones:
To solve that, I took this approach:
1. If the battle is troop unit figure vs. troop unit figure, or character/creature vs. character/creature, roll number of dice equal to Fighting Capability (FC) of unit. Count hits. This is standard Chainmail or Book of War.
2. If battle is troop unit figure (representing 10 soldiers) vs. character/creature, scale the dice. Roll # of dice representing FC of unit multiplied by number of soldiers left in figure. Count hits against character. Character rolls number of dice equal to their Fighting Capability.
So, Rufus the Fighter is facing a figure of bugbears. He has an FC of 6. He is attacking as Heavy Foot (HF) and the bugbears are defending as Armored Foot (AF). In my rules, he needs a 6. He rolls 3 6 1 1 2 5, so he scores a hit! That means a bugbear will be a casualty out of the unit.
The bugbears return the favor. Their FC is 2. The figure represents ten bugbears. So the player for the bugbears would grab TWENTY six siders and roll. The bugbears attack as HF and Rufus defends as AF. With twenty dice, the chances are likely for at least 3 to 4 hits, so Rufus might be in trouble here...
THIS felt right, even though it would be murder on the characters - as it should be! Up to about Superhero level, a single character is taking huge risks to get involved in an Aragorn-esque fight against a bunch of baddies.
What helped was the adopted rule that magic armor removes a dice from each roll. So if ten bugbears are rolling 2 dice each, Rufus's magic armor made that 1 dice. Which, magic armor should have that effect. So this felt right as well.
It does mean I'm going to have to track the "hits" on a troop figure from characters. So that as the character whittles away at the troop unit, it grows less and less effective in attacking, meaning less dice to attack with. I'm OK with that right now, but I'm still considering if this is the approach I want to take.
I may revert to the approach of Chaos Wars and represent units as multiple figures - so it will look like a 1:1 game, although troops on troops will still be adjudicated at a 10:1 scale. I'm not sure yet.
I also had to dig through OD&D history, original booklets, supplements and the Strategic Review articles to fill the rules and approaches for things in T1 that don't come in OD&D/Chainmail as written. Things like how to implement Elmo the Ranger (riff off the Ranger article from Strategic Review Vol 1, #3), the Druid Brother Smythe and his spells (look at Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry), how does Lareth's Staff of Striking work in the Chainmail combat rules (riff off of AD&D/DMG description of the staff and have the player opt to improve a hit to be two or three, while spending charges).
That was a fun exercise in looking at how iconic classes were built, and how AD&D was still a similar game to OD&D in that you could easily use magic items from one in the other.
Had we run with the rule of multiple dice x FC of troop units versus single characters, I doubt that many would have survived the approach!
In the second game, I reduced the number of New Guards with crossbow to 10 soldiers (1 figure) only, but even with that, they murdered the approaching forces of Weal - taking out both single figures of mercenary bow and militia bow, then the elderly farmer captain armed with a crossbow.
The one factor in both situations was that the crossbowman had cover on the Moathouse's ramparts while the forces of Weal were out in the open.
I have a solution that is tied to the description of the terrain around the Moathouse.
A scrub of thorns, thistles, weeds, and shrubs grows thickly along the edge of the track which leads to the ruins, and even the track is mostly overgrown and cluttered with fallen branches and trees.I had been saying that the only place where normal movement can happen is on the path/track to the moathouse. If you go off-road, you are in that thick scrub and vegetation, therefore you move at half movement. My fix here is to give anyone in the weeds the benefit of cover as well.
...
After two miles of distance, the land begins to sink and become baggy, as the track turns more northerly, and tall marsh plants grow thickly where cattails and tamaracks do not. Off to the left can be seen the jagged silhouette of the moathouse.
...
The bogs here stink, and the vegetation appears dense and prolific, but somehow sickly and unhealthy, creepers and vines throwing their strangling loops over the skeletons of dead saplings and living bushes alike. The rushes and cattails rustle and bend even when only a slight zephyr blows over the marsh, and weird bird calls, croakings, and other unwholesome sounds come faintly across the fen.
So it's a tough choice, go slow and with benefit of cover, or go fast and possibly get cut down. I think this is a good tactical choice, so I will leave the forces as-is, and playtest this approach.
Plus, I get to make more terrain! Scatter terrain to represent the bog/swamp around the moat.
There are a lot of other lessons and tweaks from the play-test, but these are big ones. I'm really glad I did the testing, it's going to make my Greyhawk game that much better.
Researching Greyhawk is interesting for me, because it's such hallowed, well-trodden ground in D&D lore. The Battle of Emridy Meadows and the Temple of Elemental Evil are well-known and beloved. This has led me to approach this scenario with a lot more preparation and thought than I normally do with my "plan a little, play a lot" approach.
I want players to "feel" like this is OD&D/Chainmail and that the game is accurate, for the most part, to how T1 - Village of Hommlet sets things up. Judging by how my testers reacted, they weren't all that familiar with Greyhawk, but they enjoyed the experience. So I'm hopeful!
As a reminder, if you want to see what I'm doing, here are links to my documents on Google Drive:
[1] I blame Daniel Collins (of Delta's D&D Blog) for converting me to the view that many of the 'single person versus an army' fantasy scenes are just really unrealistic. I feel like it's a better game when I keep that in mind and take that approach.
Maandag 16 Maart 2020
Sondag 15 Maart 2020
Captain Tsubasa Rise Of New Champions Announced
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Asia today announced that Captain Tsubasa RISE OF NEW CHAMPIONS will be available on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC (Steam) in 2020.
Captain Tsubasa game released after a decade!
Captain Tsubasa RISE OF NEW CHAMPIONS is a soccer action game, inspired by the wildly popular anime series, to be released on PlayStation 4/ Nintendo Switch/PC (Steam).
Expect high-quality visuals and experience exhilarating speeds in this one-of-a-kind game!
Catch the newly released trailer and take a trip down memory lane as you catch the appearance of the players from Japan Junior Youth Generation team, including the beloved main character Tsubasa Ozoro materializing this dream through the latest generation of home console.
Donderdag 05 Maart 2020
Duff-up In John's Shed: The Austrian's First Outing
Things start to go wrong on the Austrian right- the line is in the process of being shot to bits
I slipped up to Cambridge to John's shed for the day in order to get the Austrians actually on a table for the first time. There wasn't a massive amount of thought put into the game, it was just a bit of an excuse for a duff-up. John is easing his way back into Napoleonics after a lengthy lay-off so we wanted just a quick, low intensity game that wasn't going to tax the brain an awful lot.
Close up of the attack columns on the left. Everything fine at present (sausage roll in support)
It was a pretty straightforwards set-up, a village complex on the (Austrian) right, some skirmish buildings and walls on the left, a few woods in the centre. No big artillery platforms anywhere, French defending. We didn't have a huge amount of time so the French deployed quite far forwards,which didn't help the Austrian cause much. In retrospect we probably could have been a bit cleverer with the terrain,
Panorama of the early stages
The only decent area for cavalry was in the centre which unbalanced things somewhat. I concentrated the Austrian's new shiny hussar brigade there and the French had a regt each of Chassuers, dragoons and cuirraisier plus a horse btty. Each flank had an infantry division to take the respective village areas. The one on the right had a dragoon regt attached.
We used a variable morale system for the infantry, all btns were treated as 1st class line until they took their first morale test,where-upon they rolled to discover their true class: Austrians: 1 to 3- 2nd class line. 4 to 10 1st class line.
French: 1 to 4 -2nd class line 5 to 7 1st class line, 8 to 10, veteran.
French young guard: 1 to 5, veteran. 6 to 10 Elite.
All cavalry was line and all artillery was 1st class.
The Austrians fielded 1 infantry division of 2 Grenzer, 5 line btns with a 6lb btty and 18 skirmishers, these took the left flank. In the centre was a hussar brigade with 14 squadrons of hussars each of 6 figures.
On the right was an infantry division of 6 line btns with a dragroon rgt of 6 x 6 man squadrons plus a 6lb btty and 12 skirmishers. All btns were 48 man strong.
5 battalions: should be enough to take a village, surely?
Connoissuer French attempt to outflank the Austrian left
The French had a 2 infantry divisions each of 6 x 36 supported by a 6lb btty, 24 chassuers and 18 skirmishers. One of each occupied each flank.
In addition they had a young guard division of 4 x32's plus a heavy cavalry outfit with 1 x 32 of dragoons and 32 cuirraisier with a 3 gun horse btty.
All in all, I think the French were too tough for the poor old milkshakes.
The Austrian right develops
The Austrians trundled forwards, because of the speed of our set-up it meant the Austrians couldn't really get any artillery preparation, however they manfully pitched into the attack against each village. They actually did ok, they got forwards,got the guns into position and started to work towards their objectives.
In the centre the massed hussars nullified the french cavalry, a typical ding-dong Grand Manner cavalry scrap continued through the whole game. A lot of folk can't cope with the cavalry system in ITGM but the more I read of historical accounts the more they turn out like ITGM battles. Units go forwards, battle it out, retire, new ones go in, the original ones rally, go back. Its all about having local reserves. Both sides (typicaly) won the combats they should have lost, and lost the ones they "were certain" to win. The rest of the cavalry was squeezed on the extreme Austrian right, and this went a bit more to the script, with the Austrian dragoons making short work of a chassuer regt, which forced a couple of French btns into square and took them out of the fight for the village.
A recent new acquisition: Classic Connoissuer infantry painted by Doug Mason, skulking in square.
On the left a grenzer btn waddled in line through a wood on the the extreme flank, it never got anywhere for the whole game but it did tie down 2 French btns (a bit) so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Meanwhile the asault against the skirmisher buildings and the walled compound went in. John concentrated a lot of fire on one unit (always a mistake in my book) but the size of the Austrian units allowed it to be shrugged off. I had some success at first and things were looking rosy.
6lb battery supporting the Austrian right
The French artillery btty retreated when charged and the lead 2 Austrian units crunched into a lone French btn manning the wall. In fact I had a bit too much success. The French btn routed after the first round of combat, with relatively light casualties. I would have much preferred for it to have stuck around for at least a second round of combat as I had 2 more btns to re-inforce with and the French had one. This would have allowed me to ruin 2 French units, as it was it meant the French just pulled back a bit, I couldn't exploit, and the 2 units I had in the front line were badly shot up. They took more and more fire from the flanks and that was about it for my attack on the left village.
Hussars and Grenzer demonstrate in the centre
The right hand flank told a similar story, despite the dragoon's success I couldn't get sufficient force to bear on the village, I was reasonably successful at clearing the walls but couldn't find room to deploy those big Austrian firing lines. When I finally did, it being Austrian, it took so long to deploy that it was shot down before it could do much damage. Again, the Austrians after initial successes just couldn't finish off those Frenchies.
High point for the left. The Austrians couldn't get over that wall.
Things were coming to close, dinnertime was approaching, and the Austrians had run out of steam. We called it a day.
So in the end it was a suitably inauspicious start for the Austrian army, but then, as we all know, all troops get beat the first time out!
(Good Lord!! I've just noticed...60,000 hits!!- does that mean I can have drink?)
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