Renegade Crowns Writeup Part 3

 Last blog post I introduced two of the three Princes that occupy the region of Two Geysers. The first was Throndrig Goldbuckle, a Dwarf ex-Mercenary who is a minor Prince with aspirations to start a Dwarven dynasty.  The second Prince, was an extremely veteran Dark Elf Knight, Nounic Shadowreaver, who is a major power in the region and has an unquenchable thirst for slaying monsters and unnatural beasts. 

I said I need a third Prince to round out the region, and for this minor power I rolled up a Human who is native to the Borderlands region.  He is deep into his third career, and curiously enough also an ex-Mercenary.  Turning to a webpage of random name generators, I find that his name is Diethard Fried and he has titled himself Gildemeister. Evidently ‘Gildemeister’ is Low German for ‘guild master’; so, I decide that Diethard, though retired, never really got out of the mercenary game. He considers himself a ruler by virtue of being the most veteran of his mercenary band, which he has organized along guild lines.  Given that King Throndrig Goldbuckle is also an ex-Mercenary I make a mental note that there should be at least some professional rivalry between the two. Maybe it has even festered over the years as they plied their trade in opposing mercenary warbands and it has turned into a deep poisonous grudge. Further rolls will define what relationships the Princes have with one another so I end this line of thought and continue rolling on the Renegade Crown tables.

For Diethard Fried, I rolled his goal as being This Power is Mine, and his principle turns out to be My Word is My Bond. Thus, Diethard wants to maintain his grasp on power in his minor domain and he will only be happy if he does so. My Word is My Bond means Diethard has more than a sparkle of nobility in his actions, but because of his background as a former (successful, he did survive after all) mercenary captain he also has a very serious grounding in realpolitik. Together I decide that though he keeps his word, he is very damn careful with his words, reluctant to make a clear stand unless he is fully committed on a situation or backed into a dangerous corner.    

Further rolling reveals that Diethard’s style is Lets Get to Business, very much fitting for a former mercenary captain and for his careful-with-words personality.  I note that Throndrig Goldbuckle, the Dwarf ex-Mercenary Prince, also shares the same style of how he interacts with others.  Perhaps there is the possibility of friendship or at least friendly relations between the two minor nations assuming that they could both see past their rivalry. More on that later.

I actually got the result Roll Twice for Diethard’s Princely Secrets.  Further, I rolled up the Secrets, Open Book and Act of Virtue.  These seem a bit contradictory at first, but I figure I can meld them together.  Recalling Diethard’s background as a Human of the Border Princes region, I rule that he is a local of the area and his mercenary band were very expressive about their exploits. Given this is Warhammer, this suggests to me that a minstrel, or more than one, followed Diethard’s warband and spread news of their exploits and misadventures from town to town in the Borderlands region. Thus his history is an Open Book. 

With Diethard’s Act of Virtue I get the inkling that he saved a village somehow. Being unsure about where to go with that, I leave it and find that Diethard has 6 courtiers. Great! One of them must be the mercenary group’s old bard that traveled with them I mentioned above, and the remaining five would be mercenaries that are part of Diethard’s “guild”.  In fact, let us make Diethard’s political governance similar in style to a circle of guild masters debating matters, but with an autocratic leader, himself. Do the people in his domain like being ruled over by a bunch of crusty veteran mercenaries? Well, it is better than being ruled over by bandits or the like. We shall see.

There is one feature in Renegade Crowns that I did not use for the Princes. That was the Quirks table (2-9).  I understand the utility of having a table of roleplaying features for the Princes, but simply I didn’t like any of the ten choices given. The Quirks table is ultimately for fleshing out Princes that are good targets for the players to overthrow by giving the Princes a personal weakness for the players to exploit. Personally, I would rather have my Princes of Two Geysers be a bit more noble than that.  Not much, just a bit.

The next large section of Renegade Crowns details Princely Relations.  Presumably these are messy interactions so let’s get started!  First up is Dwarf King Throndrig Goldbuckle’s relation with Dark Elf Viscount Nounic Shadowreaver. I roll up that a state of War has existed between these two Princes for about six months.  This is a relatively recent war. Interesting. As to the motivation for the War, I roll up Envy and Glorious Reputation.  Let’s look at the participants of this conflict in detail to figure out who would be most likely envious of whom and thus be the aggressor. Now the Dwarf King is a minor Prince and will have holdings smaller than the major Prince, the Dark Elven Viscount.  I could see either one wanting to extend their territory, but the trick is, the Dark Elven Viscount is a very dangerous senior warlord and could cut a rival Prince in half were the war to boil down to personal combat.  So maybe this is more of a proxy war where there are several border skirmishes but major gains/losses in territory have yet to be taken.  After all, as I mentioned, this is a young war that has only been going on six months. Also, I decide that the Dark Elven Viscount’s total forces cannot fully engage the Dwarf King because there is some sort of distraction. I have yet to roll up Hazards of the Borderlands like Greenskins, Undead or Chaos forces, but I make a mental note that some threat equally dangerous to the Dwarven King’s forces assails the Dark Elf’s territory and splits his forces.  Maybe King Throndrig even decided to attack Viscount Nounic’s territory knowing the Viscount would be distracted. Yes, that fits.  I decide the Dwarven King is envious of Viscount Nounic’s glorious reputation as a warlord and monster slayer, so he decided to raid the Viscount’s territory for more fertile farmland for his people and bolster his people’s opinion of himself.  Sounds like a Dwarfy thing to do. Stick it to that Dark Elf!

So, what about the relations between King Throndrig Goldbuckle and Gildemeister Diethard Fried? I roll up Bitter relations that have lasted a good decade. I don’t bother to roll for reasons behind the bitterness because I am sure I know why the Dwarf and the Human have this relationship. The fact that they came from rival mercenary groups just fits so well here.  They remember the bad old days when both up and coming mercenary captains had to fight against each other for their respective employer’s gold and they never forgot the scars, slights or dead brothers they buried as they worked against one another.  This poison of memory shades their every action against each other as they bitterly politic for land and resources.

Right then, so what about Viscount Nounic and Gildemeister Diethard? The dice say there is a state of Hatred between the Princes that has lasted one year because of someone’s Public Humiliation.  I decide that Gidemeister Diethard’s forces are not in a state of war with the Dark Elf’s, but strong words have been uttered from both sides. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the minor Prince Diethard did something to humiliate Viscount Nounic, the seemingly unassailable veteran monster slayer?  I imagine there was a particularly wily Orc warboss (lets call him One-Eye) who was an expert in guerilla tactics that continually harassed Viscount Nounic’s lands.  He escaped time and time again from the Dark Elf but when he went south to Gidemeister Diethard’s lands, Diethard simply bombarded an important bridge, destroying it but also sinking One-Eye in the fast-moving rapids.  This sticks in Viscount Nounic’s craw as being a “dishonorable” action, particularly since some of Nounic’s people regard Diethard highly as the slayer of One-Eye.  Perhaps One-Eye’s band of Greenskins is still operating in Nounic’s region. I’ll have to remember this when I roll up Borderlands Hazards.

So, all in all we have a powder keg of a region politically.  In fact, the most stable relationship is that between the two mercenary veterans as they draft veiled threats and polemics against each other. A happy little slice of the world we have here, but hey, it is Warhammer after all.  Next time we will discuss in detail the communities that populate the regions lorded over by these warring Princes and how the economic landscape is set.  

Renegade Crowns Writeup Part 2

 Before we get into the unfortunates who rule this wasteland, the book prompts me to come up with a history of Two Geysers based on the Ancient Ruins that populate it.  The earliest Ancient Ruin would be the Khemri tomb.  I decide to place the Khemri tomb at about 2000 years old.  Wandering around the Warhammer Lexicanum wiki entry for Nehekhara I figure I need a reason for the flesh-eating beetle swarm to exist, and because it is so old, I want to tie it into the geography of the region. I also decide that since the Khemri became increasingly focused on the search for immortality, some priest or another would have studied water magic. After all, water is life.  

So, the tomb is now the last resting place of a High Priest who terraformed the area and made it livable for the Khemri people by summoning two massive geysers that created two life-giving rivers about 2120 years ago.  Yeah, that fits. Also, the High Priest had attempted experiments into necromancy and eternal life, which failed, but generated a corpse that has continued to “live” due to regenerating flesh.  His own corpse. This corpse is the unfortunate food stuff of the flesh-eating beetles swarm, but it explains why the swarm never died out.  Having waxed in size and power by consuming the fat of a Khemri necromancer High Priest, the swarm is more intelligent than normal, capable of basic tactics and resetting traps that the ancient Khemri trap makers constructed so diligently.  Also, I imagine the spirit of the Khemri High Priest is chained to his ever-regenerating corpse, awash in anguish as his body cannot die naturally and thus he cannot enter the afterlife.  Yes, this would serve well as a higher level dungeon.  

Moving on, the next Ancient Ruin in terms of age would be the Arabyan Fortress out there in the grassy badlands.  Let us say it is a Historical ruin of about 1000 years old.  I’ve previously said this ruin is half a fortress, half an administration center. I imagine that this Arabyan Ruin was established first, and then the Arabyan Outpost (nestled in the mountains) is an offshoot of the Sultan’s forces in one of his early invasions.  So, let’s say the Arabyan Outpost is about a 100 or so years younger than the Fortress, and the Fortress has, engraved in stone, bureaucratic records and even an early floor plan of the Outpost. Will the Prince who owns the Arabyan Fortress seek to take over the Arabyan Outpost or perhaps use these bureaucratic records as a bargaining chip with which ever Prince owns the land around the Arabyan Outpost? Time will tell.

The earliest ruin is the 100-year-old recent human ruin, which is the remains of a settlement and harbors a swarm of Skaven-related rats.  Nasty nasty rats peeking out of every corner with their beady red glowing eyes and hungry whispers.  Since the location is a settlement that was evacuated due to a policy change (food supplies were calculated to dwindle so the community was told to migrate elsewhere), then I imagine the settlement is a little more than half-finished, with wooden walls, maybe palisades, and a combination of wood, stone and rock making up the empty homes and shops. Also since the rat swarm is the product of the Skaven, there would be tunnels and catacombs under the settlement, not seen by human eyes, that harbor at least one brood mother rat.  So, the surface ruin may be a good target for low level adventurers, but if they want a challenge they can delve into the lightless depths.

Who are the political movers and shakers of this region?  Given the 15 x 15 size of the area, I wanted one major and two minor Princes to stake their claims.  After several rolls I came up with three unique Princes.  The first Prince called himself King Throndrig Goldbuckle (name also randomly generated). A Dwarf mercenary, he was a relatively young lad only into his second career.  Warhammer Fantasy roughly measures your prowess by the number of careers you have completed.  For King Throndrig’s goal I rolled For the Love of the Children, so I translated this into a desire for young Throndrig to start a family and establish a dynasty.  Perhaps there are Dwarven ladies who arrive by caravan from the mountainhomes to court dear King Throndrig.  Perhaps Dwarves are so very rare in the region Throndrig’s immediate goal is to accumulate wealth to afford a massive dowry for a suitable Dwarven lady.  That or he’s on the hunt to kidnap one.  Either, or.

King Throndrig’s ruling style is Lets Get to Business, perfect for a former mercenary. He has three courtiers, likely all Dwarves given the very low number or perhaps even veteran mercenaries from his old band.  Hmm. Why not both? Throndrig has one secret, he is a Secret Agent for another power.  This gives me pause. I’m not sure what to do about this for the moment so I leave it alone.

Initially for Throndrig’s Principle I roll Kill the Mutant! That doesn’t mean King Throndrig is a passionate Sigmarite, instead it could be a strong moral stance against the forces of Chaos. I bet Throndrig has spent more than a few cold evenings preparing for a battle, as a mercenary, against Chaos Cultists and other madmen and he’s thoroughly sick of them.

The next Prince was immediately interesting. I rolled up an Elf Knight. In Warhammer I know there are at least three types of Elf so I rolled randomly. 1-3 would be High Elf, 4-6 a Wood Elf and 7-9 would be the very interesting choice of Dark Elf.  I rolled Dark Elf.  A Dark Elf Knight, huh. How would that look? I know the Dark Elves have Cold Riders so I picture the Prince as one of those. Dark Elves are usually murderous and xenophobic, but maybe this one has a different worldview from his peers. Perhaps he is a noble outcast that wants to rule so badly he doesn’t care if his princedom is mostly made up of degenerate humans.  For his goals I roll This Power is Mine, which fits perfectly. His name comes out to be Nounic Shadowreaver which is good enough for me.    

The following details fall scarily into place for a Dark Elf Prince. Nounic is in his fourth career, meaning he is a dangerous veteran and likely a very capable warlord.  Given his obvious skill at arms I make Viscount Nounic the major prince in the area.  His Principle is Death to Monsters! and his Style is I Wouldn’t Expect You to Understand. Yes, this makes sense.  As a Dark Elf his style is as a flighty careless fop or immediately intense micromanager.  Typical superior and chimerical Elven personality.  However Viscount Nounic has a burning hatred for monsters in his blood and because he is so senior he’s really good at laying waste to them. That is why his subjects put up with is weird and exasperating whims.  His secret is that he is a Foul Murderer. If this was a normal murder this would shock no one given that Dark Elves are aficionados of the very god of murder.  This has to be a very dark thing to terrify the people of the Borderlands so I put it on the shelf for the moment. However, I’m imagining smoke-stained skies and Nounic walking out of a now silent and hollow village with a blood slicked blade.  Somehow the Viscount convinced four courtiers to follow him.  How he pulled that off I must leave to a later time.

Next time we’ll meet our last Prince and dive into the geopolitics of Two Geysers by examining the relations between Princes.

Renegade Crowns Writeup Part 1

 I got turned on to the supplement Renegade Crowns for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (written by David Chart) by a fellow denizen on the Night At The Opera Delta Green discord.  What Renegade Crowns is, is a kit. It is a kit with random tables for generating your own slice of the territory within the Border Princes, and populating it with monsters, lairs, villages and rulers for your Warhammer group to explore and politic with.  And I have to say, the book is very good and brilliantly designed.  Construction of the region flows organically from geographical placement of different biomes to natural results of points of political friction that the rulers of the area will vie for.  I was also very impressed (and entertained by) the development diary included in the book called Making Masserschloss.  I found another very well designed and written development diary on the RPG.net forums called Steve’s Renegade Crowns Diary.  In addition, there is a GURPS adaptation of a Renegade Crowns development diary here.  Inspired by the above three, I decided to try my hand at making a wild and (mostly) random driven Border Princes location of my very own. To make things easy on myself I googled how to make graph paper out of Excel and I used the humble Paint program to manipulate the images.  Excel was great for setting the landscapes of the Borderlands because I could easily fill a large number of cells with a specific color indicating their terrain composition. So, let’s begin, shall we?

The geological results of the map of the region I’m calling Two Geysers are interesting. Interesting in that there should be a food crisis for anyone living here. A good half the map is unfarmable barren plains. I’ve decided that that means the region is largely lacking in topsoil, and consists mostly of rocky ground. It is bisected by a small mountain range.  The only saving graces of this rocky expanse of nothing are two geysers that produce rivers and the scrubland plains that are sort of farmable.  So, I expect the rivers and scrubland plains to be natural resources to be fought over, and that food would be a major import of all settlements in the area. It is also possible that some folk turned to animal husbandry of grazing animals (likely goats) and that may fare better in the scrubland plains and possibly even in the scrubland mountains, assuming the latter is absent of greenskins.

There are four Ancient Ruins in the region.  The first is an Arabyan ruin of an outpost that dates back to the time when the Sultan of Araby attempted to invade the Old World. I roll again and I find the reason for the ruins is magic and the ancient menace that lurks in the ruin is a plague.  I juggle these details in my mind. I decide that the outpost is located in the mountain range, likely to have a lookout post so it could have overview of the surrounding plains and badlands. Being a military outpost, I figure it is self sufficient with a large enclosed courtyard for training, a well, possibly sanitation that is approaching the sophistication of a sewer, and a large barracks adjoining kitchen.  As to why it fell? Well magic and a lingering plague seem to me like the work of Skaven, so I imagine the proto-sewer accidently broke into Skaven tunnels close to the surface in the mountain and the dastardly rat-men took advantage by invading with poison globe bombardiers. Is the well tainted? I don’t know right now. It would make the ruins more of a prize if the well was untouched, that’s for certain.  All I can imagine is the lovely mosaic inlayed walls of the outpost marred by a foul miasma that the Skaven left behind that clings to ground level and keeps the bones and treasures of the outpost company.  I also figure there is a minaret for the call to prayer that is dwarfed by the outpost’s central scouting tower.

For my second ruin I also roll an Arabyan background.  This time it is a fortress. Not wanting to copy my previous decisions, I consider that this fortress also may have more of a political oversight role, so it’s half a fortress, half an administration building.  Rolling nothing for the ancient menace and the reason for ruin being resource loss, I figure the fortress is unguarded and a good building to base a settlement in. I place it in the grassy badlands to keep it away from the mountain outpost and I figure it would be the main prize for a prince of that area. That is exactly what happens, and a very interesting Dark Elven Knight actually takes up residence there, but that is a story for a future blog post.

The third ruin is a recent human ruin for a change.  Turns out it is the ruins of a settlement, with a swarm as an ancient menace and a policy change as the reason for the ruin.  I figure since it is a recent human ruin it might as well be about 100 years old.  The swarm menace makes me think of Skaven again so I figure a swarm of rats occupy the area and maybe they helped the decline of the settlement into a ruin along. If a rat swarm was present in the ruins, then because the land is significantly food poor, it makes sense that the powers that be ordered the settlement abandoned simply because they could see their rations would be running out in such a situation.  I place the ruined settlement on the central hills as I imagine the humans wanted to capitalized on a high place to oversee the valleys and plains below.   

The last ruin is a Khemri tomb. Since I have two squares of desert plains on the map of Two Geysers, I place it there.  This is going to be an old place I’m sure of it with many ancient murals and statues still standing. I roll swarm again for the ancient menace and this time I roll enigma for the cause of the ruin’s abandonment.  With enigma I figure the tomb is largely untouched, with evidence of work and craftsmen present but dying where they stood. An ancient curse perhaps? For the swarm I’ve seen the Mummy so I just have to include a swarm of flesh-eating scarab beetles that patrol the premises.

Next time, I roll up the Border Princes who are unlucky enough to rule in this food-starved Province!  

Zona Alfa, Entering the Zone: The Airdrop

 

The mission was simple.  A faction had sent a helicopter with a crate of supplies and airdropped them onto the crossroads of a once-busy city street.  Our objective; secure the crate. Get in, get out.  But this is The Zone, tovarishch. Nothing ever stays simple for long…

Welcome to The Zone and the first adventure where my Zona Alfa team becomes blooded. This was a tutorial one-shot adventure run by the GM with another player as my active antagonists. Like I said, the mission was simple. There is a package in the middle of the map. Go get it. There is a complication however.  My smiling antagonist had access to a team of 4 veteran independents; roughly equivalent to my military crew of 3 veterans and a leader. Each veteran and leader receive three actions per activation. It would be a race to see which of us could grab the crate full of salvage and make it back to our side of the map.  Oh, and by the way, we were playing together using Foundry virtual table top.

As you can see in the first picture, I split my forces in two.  My leader and a squad member with an AK-74 on the left were nestled in an abandoned gas station with chest-high hard cover all around, and my medic and the squad member with a Squad Light Machine Gun were leaning against a bombed-out car, also hard cover.

We were informed by the GM that if we got within 3 inches of the crate, something would happen. Seizing the initiative, I had my leader order my medic (specifically what was happening is that my leader was transferring one action at a time to my medic, because my medic was within 12 inches) to approach the crate and see what would happen.  In retrospect, this was my first mistake. I should have had the medic Toss a Bolt at the Hot Spot (the supply crate) and not get out of cover!

At any rate, my medic triggered the Hot Spot that was co-located on the supply crate.  The GM gleefully had me roll 1d6 on the Zone Hostile tables (in the core book, section 8.3). I rolled a six, the maximum threat level. Fortunately, we were at Threat Level 1 Blue in this area of the Zone, so four bandits trundled out of a nearby shack and set up a perimeter, threatening me and my erstwhile opponent. However, my roll of 6 had a secondary effect. There was also an Anomaly present at the cargo drop location.

My medic had been shot at a couple times by my opponent’s half-way accurate sniper so I had him throw a smoke grenade up north to block the sniper’s annoying field of fire. Recall in my last blog post I specifically loaded up my medic with two med-kits and two smoke bombs to serve as a support unit.

After a few shots from my medic’s battle rifle, a hail of lead from my squad member’s Light Machine Gun and my opponent throwing a goddamn satchel charge very accurately into the mix, the four bandits were human jelly or toast writhing on the ground.

Even though I had thrown a couple smoke bombs, that annoying sniper had done his work.  My medic had been shot a couple times and expended two med-kits to make sure he was still in action, albeit with two Pinned tokens.  My leader in the gas station I thought would be protected from shots from the north thanks to the Hard cover that made the northern border of the gas station.  I was wrong. He had one wound (of two) left thanks to a lucky shot.

Now, among other things, Pinned tokens reduce your chance to seize initiative. What my opponent had done, as his last activation, was to move up a unit to be within base-to-base contact with the supply crate (and the Anomaly) by sneaking through the smoke I had placed as a counter to the annoying sniper.  If I won the initiative roll, I would be able to go immediately and steal the supply crate and investigate the Anomaly out from under his nose.  Keep in mind for every Pinned counter I had that was a -1 penalty to my initiative roll. The roll was tense. It was important. It was a chance for Fate to rear its ugly head. What he rolled I totally forgot because I know what I rolled. A one out of ten. Minus two for two Pinned tokens means he had to get higher than a -1 to go first. And he took advantage of it.

Seething impotently, my leader watched as the opposing unit that had snuck through the smoke, MY SMOKE, threw an additional smoke grenade down to obscure the supply crate area.  Then the opposing now robber salvaged the supply crate (rolling a 3 on 1d6, indicating a salvage value of 500 rubles, not bad) … and then he went for the Artifact. You see in The Zone, if there is an Anomaly, a location where the rules of physics as we know it break down and turn wild, then there is an Artifact within.  The only thing my opponent needed to make was a will check minus 1 from the Zone’s level. If he failed there would be a potentially fatal explosion. I held my breath.  He succeeded.  

Not only did the rat bastard succeed, he rolled a 6 on the 1d6 Artifact table. A hush grew over the table as we realized he had rolled the most expensive artifact in the game, an artifact worth half of any man’s 10,000 ruble retirement. We imagined my opponent’s independent STALKER was laughing gleefully and in shock as he rabbited crazily to the north with a 5,500 ruble shiny in his hot hands.

This I was not going to take lying down. Now, brothers, NOW is the time to fight. I mentioned in my last blog post that I had anticipated that I would need many, many actions on a given turn to try to turn a battle around or lay down a blitzkrieg of withering fire.  Now was that time. All of my units had one dose of Electric Juice, a lovely concoction of methamphetamines and Vodka that bestowed the imbibing unit with +2 actions at the penalty of only having one action on their next activation.  My leader was the unit closest to being in range of the escaping STALKER.  He downed the Electric Juice, bounded over the wall of rubble and rusting cars, and ran to within striking distance of the now-filthy rich STALKER.  He adjusted his Red Dot sight on his AK-74 and shot a three round burst two final times. 

So, what happened? Let’s slow down and zoom in on the mechanics. For every action used to shoot an AK-74, you get three 1d10 to roll to see if you roll under your Combat Ability.  This is recorded on the sheet as the weapon’s Firepower.  My leader was also within half the maximum range of the AK-74, so the Red Dot sight’s advantage was active. My leader was given +1 to his Combat Ability to shoot.  Out of 6 1d10s (I expended two actions to shoot) I hit 3 times. 

Now the Damage of my AK-74 was 1 so this forces a -1 to Armor tests.  My opponent had to make 3 1d10 rolls of 4 or less (his Armor minus one) to survive. What I didn’t anticipate was that the STALKER I was targeting was a medic and was carrying two med-kits.  Two Armor tests failed but it didn’t matter as he spent two free actions using his med-kits. He was still up and he had one wound. He had to roll 4 or less this time to avoid dying in the street like a dog. He rolled….it was a one.

A critical success? Yes! But what does that mean in Zona Alfa. According to the rules, “A Critical Success is an unmodified D10 roll of 1: Regardless of the task’s difficulty or modifiers, a roll of 1 means the Action/task attempted was automatically successful and the model gains a free, extra Action. This extra Action must be taken at the end of the model’s current activation and does not roll over into the next turn.” I had unwittingly given the STALKER with the 5,500-ruble Artifact an extra action which he used to immediately move off of the map and into the sunset.  Welcome to The Zone, tovarishch; welcome to The Zone.

There was immediate laughter and virtual high-fives at this awesome narrative and crushing defeat.  It shows you how even a simple scenario can turn into nail biting high-stakes in Zona Alfa. Actually, that feeling of you’ve got to sacrifice everything to win is something our group wants to maintain with our future Zone campaign. So, we’ve come up with a modified rule.  Instead of rolling to see how much an Artifact is worth immediately when you secure it in the Zone, we decided we would roll for Artifact value after the game had ended and a unit had successfully escaped the scenario. That way everyone would be jumpy and second-guessing about if they should track down and shoot the STALKER with the Artifact, or turn their attentions to unresolved Hot Spots in the hopes of future treasure.  

We are also considering allowing a new skill, Artifact Scientist which would allow a player to roll for an Artifact’s value once it is picked up. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that write up. I’m excited about our further Zone adventures.

Zona Alfa: Preparing for an excursion into The Zone

 

I got invited to join a group of scavengers and STALKERs to play the skirmish wargame Zona Alfa by Patrick Todoroff, published by Osprey Wargames.  What is Zona Alfa and what the heck is a STALKER?  Well, in very brief, the former is a Russian-themed post-apocalypse scenario featuring extraterrestrials and the reality bending detritus they left behind on Earth after a short stopover.  This area that the aliens visited that is currently suffering errors in reality as humans understand it is called The Zone.  A STALKER Is an acronym for Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers.  Gentlemen (and gentleladies) that explore The Zone are called STALKERs because they often fit all of these categories depending on the situation and time of day. They are desperate people scavenging for alien artifacts in the mutant, radiation and Anomaly-riddled Zone for a massive payout. Assuming they survive unscathed. That’s a joke. No one survives unscathed.

Zona Alfa, The Zone and STALKERs are based on the 1971 novel Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It is a great piece of Russian speculative science fiction that spawned both the STALKER and Metro series of video games and ultimately the skirmish wargame I am playing.

So, I bought the Zona Alfa pdf from Osprey, and initially having no idea what I was doing because I was in a rush to play, I made a crew of STALKERs for a game after a few hours of knocking around the rulebook.  I was looking on the internet for advice on what equipment, skills, weapons and units synergize well together; and after not finding much help I decided to write this blog post with my initial assumptions and crew combinations. Subsequent blog posts will discuss my adventures, and retrospective analysis on if my setup and assumptions were worthwhile investing in or not.  Let’s put some equipment together and go on an adventure then, shall we?

When building a crew or squad in Zona Alfa you initially have two considerations. How much Khrabrost do you have to spend to assemble your squad, and what faction do you belong to? Khrabrost (Russian for ‘mettle, bravery or courage’) boils down to the number of actions collectively your squad has.  This is used as a balancing factor between opposing squads or squads engaging in campaign play. At any rate, I have 12 Khrabrost (K) to spend for my side.  I decided to take a Crew Leader (mandatory) and 3 veteran units, each having 3 actions per activation (or in other words, 3K per unit, for a total of 12K spent).  Now because actions per round are critical in this game, I’m looking for ways to enhance the number of actions I have.  There is an item called Electric Juice (Meth and Vodka) which immediately grants two additional actions, however only one action is allowed on the following turn. Because I want to be able to run a blitz with the number of actions I have if I need to, I stock every unit I own (4) with one Electric Juice item. 

Now maximizing my actions is fine and all but I also want to be able to hit when I use my actions for ranged combat.  That’s why I chose the faction I belong to as Military. Joining the Military faction gets you two Red Dot Sights and one load of Hot Load Ammo to be distributed to your units as you see fit. A Red Dot Sight gives you a +1 to the ranged attack combat ability roll at half the weapon’s effective range or less, and it can only be affixed to pistols, SMGs, Shotguns and good old Assault Rifles. Now I don’t want to stop there, so I give two of my three veterans the Steady Hands skill, which gives them a +1 to ranged attack rolls.  You see, when I shoot, I really really want to hit successfully. Most monsters and units in this game only have 1 wound so if you hit successfully with a ranged shot and the target misses their armor save, then they suffer a wound unless they have a Med-kit. 

Speaking of Med-kits my squad is a little vulnerable because with the exception of my Crew Leader (who has two wounds) each veteran only has one wound.  So, not only do I give one Med-kit to everybody, I make one of my veteran units a medic by giving him the Bone Doc skill.  The Bone Doc skill allows the unit to carry 2 Med-kits per slot and Med-kits are enhanced, a Med-kit can replace 1 wound with 1 pinned counter on allies and on self.  Non-Bone Doc users of Med-kits replace 1 wound with 2 pinned counters.  Pinned counters negatively affect initiative outcomes and are generally bad things to have, so I want as few of them as possible. I also give 2 smoke grenades to my Bone Doc veteran. My hope here is that Bone Doc stays out of trouble and uses the smoke grenades to set up a controllable field of fire for my two veterans with Red Dot sights and Steady Hands, you know the guys who can shoot real well, to optimize their killing field strategy.  Now this might be a liability because I’ve committed 3 actions per turn to reside in the Bone Doc, but this is an experiment in tactics, so we’ll see if I can manipulate the battlefield to my advantage with the tools I have deployed.

Will this combination of skills, units and equipment work? Only time will tell. The only thing for certain is that there is nothing for certain in The Zone.