Mission: The Hermit

Here's another Stargrave scenario, completely untested, as per usual.

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THE HERMIT

Pagurus Titanicus is known for grabbing bits of debris to build itself a tough outer shell, and there's plenty of debris among the dead stars. There's loot too, and rumour has it this monster is carrying treasure on its back.

SET-UP

Place terrain as normal. Multi-level terrain is handy for jumping down on the Hermit in dramatic action movie style.

Place two loot tokens according to the normal rules.

Place a large crab-like monster in the dead centre of the table. This is the Hermit, and it has the third loot token on its back. Determine whether this is data or physical loot as per normal.

SPECIAL RULES

The Hermit: The Hermit starts in the centre of the table and moves as normal in the Creature Phase, although it is peaceful and always moves randomly and only moves once. It is so large and strong that it can never be pinned in combat.
If an attack beats the Hermit's Armour, or if it is the target of a successful psychic power, it panics, and immediately -- yes, out of sequence -- makes two moves in random directions.
If the Hermit's move would take it off the table edge, it moves along the edge instead.
The Hermit never attacks but if it panics and moves through a figure then that figure suffers a normal Fight attack as the Hermit tramples over it. If that figure wins the "combat" they take no damage but also do no damage in return.
If the Hermit is killed leave the model where it is; crew must still climb its corpse to get at the loot.

Climbing the Hermit: To access the loot token a figure must climb up -- half movement -- or jump to it as per the normal movement rules.
When the Hermit moves any figure "riding" the beast should roll 1d20; if the result is higher than the inches moved by the Hermit then the figure has held on. Otherwise they fall -- at the end of the move -- and take damage as per the normal falling rules.
The loot token is embedded in the Hermit's shell and never falls.

(If may be safer to mark which figures are on the Hermit's back rather than try to balance figures, especially when it starts moving. Perhaps you can use counters, or even have a little off-table "map" of the creature's back on which you place the figures. I leave it up to you.)

Option 1 - Interested Parties: Each crew should -- secretly -- roll a dice to determine if they have been employed by:
Odd: Friends of the Planets: 100Cr if the Hermit survives the scenario.
Even: Galactic Hunting Club: 100Cr if the Hermit is killed.

Option 2 - Seeing Double: Place two Hermits! It is impossible to know which of the beasts has the loot token until a crew member is on top. Roll a dice: if even the loot token is on this Hermit, on an odd result it's on the other.

LOOT AND EXPERIENCE

Loot and experience are scored as normal, with the following additions:
+10xp whenever a crew member falls off the Hermit (up to 30xp).
+10xp whenever a crew member is trampled by a panicked Hermit (up to 30xp).
+30xp for killing the Hermit (unless Option 1 is in play).
The Hermit loot token is worth two rolls on the relevant table.

THE HERMIT
Move	Fight	Shoot	Armour	Will	Health	Notes
6	+4	+0	14	+1	16	Amphibious, Animal, Immune to Control Animal (sorry!), Large, Strong

"Playing Games Turns Me Into a Person Who Makes Sense"

This is a lovely Grauniad piece about autism and board games. These parts resonated in particular:

Growing up, board games were my refuge from a baffling, often hostile world.

and:

Games gave me quiet, structured time with family and friends. If I didn’t know what to say, the game filled the silence.

I've written about this before. I don't think I'm on the autism spectrum; I've done a number of tests -- which I know aren't definitive -- and have never scored enough to be classified as autistic. I am a bit odd, no doubt, but that's more social awkwardness and crippling anxiety, and games provide a sort of social focus that help me ignore and overcome those issues, for the most part.

Anyway, it's an interesting piece, and if you have any interest in games or neurodivergence, it's well worth a read.

It Would Take Too Long to Explain

No 2024 Survives Contact With the Enemy

So here we are, about to shuffle 2024 off into the euthanasia booth (for its own good), and how did I get on with my goals for the year? And those projects I was trying to finish?

Er...

Let's do the projects first:

• Maps for [REDACTED]: well, this didn't go well. [REDACTED] is out, my maps are not in it, and the whole situation has been a bit of a confusing mess that I would prefer to forget.
• The Gargantuan Ovum of Sir William Hatcher: I completely lost confidence in this with about 50% done. I'm just not sure it's any good. Maybe I will revisit it.
• Untitled Adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess: I don't even remember what this is, which suggests I didn't start writing it.
• WAR 16XX: Indeed not the final title. This one is almost done. I've decided to chuck an adventure in the book, even though it doesn't really need one, so that's added some development time. This one's coming out in 2025, whatever happens.
• Griffin Hill: This bubbles away in the background. I may end up publishing this myself, piece by piece, then go looking for a publisher for the final product. Maybe.

Not a great level of success there. And my other goals?

• Stargrave: Stuart and I got a couple of games in before the end of the year, but only just! I think we've got a taste for it again, so I'm confident we'll play more.
• The DOOMED: I played one game and enjoyed it, but I don't know if Stuart and I have enough headspacetime for another skirmish wargame. It does have solo rules, so maybe I'll try a few games in that mode.
• Legions Imperialis: Still in the box, unassembled and unpainted, under my desk. So much for my love of epic scale warfare.
• My gaming group and the unplayed rpg list: I didn't make a full return, but I ran a couple of sessions of Lady Blackbird and played in Stuart's Night of the Hogmen game, both in-person, and also playtested Stuart's 1941 Call of Cthulhu scenario over Discord/Roll20. I played in some of Ben's Delta Green game, and I also dropped into some board games with the gang.
• The 40K Project: It wasn't on my goals list, but Stuart and I finally kicked off our plan to play every single edition of Warhammer 40,000 in order and we had good fun. We're painting up some final units for second edition, and hope we can get that played in the first few weeks of 2025.

That looks a bit more successful!

I'm not going to make any real solid goals for 2025, but:

• I should be able to get WAR 16XX (not the final title) finished. I plan to do the art myself, which does mean regaining confidence in my drawing...
• I think I have at least one more LotFP adventure in me, so I'll see if I can get one done.
• More 40K, The DOOMED, and Stargrave.
• Legions Imperialis? Maybe?
• Let's try to tick another one off the unplayed rpg list. Why not?

That looks suspiciously like a list of goals, so maybe I should stop now before things get out of hand.

Happy new year everyone! I hope 2025 is better!

A Return to the Stars

After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good!

It was also a bit of a challenge trying to remember how to play the game after such a long absence, as you will see.

First up, on the 13th, was the Data Vault mission, which Stuart set up using black dominoes for a nice 2001 type feel.

This mission turned out to be a bit of a disaster for Stuart's crew, for a number of key reasons:

1) I was rolling 20s all over the place and Stuart barely rolled above a 4 all game, prompting numerous excommunications of Traitor Dice to the Box of Shame™.

This happened (to me) quite a lot.

2) We decided to use the "Unwanted Attention" rule for a bit of added drama, except all the drama happened on Stuart's side of the table, and the Space Cops and Space Bounty Hunters between them massacred his crew.

3) In the intervening 23 months we had both forgotten that Stargrave crews are limited to 10 members, and I seemed to have 11...

One of those two troopers toward the bottom of the picture shouldn't be there.

You can read Stuart's summary of the mission here.

A few days later, on the 19th, we met again to play(test) my homebrew mission Starfall. In the intervening time my squad had discovered that an alien shapechanger had infiltrated the crew, and the offending extra trooper had been encouraged to "walk the airlock".

Ahem.

Now, Stuart won the game (spoiler) as he got away with the loot and most of the xp, but he may not consider it a total victory, as you will see.

With only a rough idea of where the satellite could crash-land, the two crews fanned out to cover as much of the table as possible.

On the third turn it became clear where the landing point would be, and there followed a mad scramble. Alas, I had fanned out a bit too much, and the crew on my left never really got involved. Stuart's crew got to the satellite first, and managed to unlock the precious data, so I decided to hold back and blast away while they were exposed.

New -- and expensive! -- recruit Arnold the Power Armoured Bastard (Retired) got involved and managed to get away with the data, before two of my robots pounced and gang-stomped him into the dirt.

"Get to da (space) choppah!"

Stuart had better luck this game -- only one d20 was banished! -- and I'd used most of my 20s last time, although I'm not sure he'd agree, as I did manage to take out all of his crew aside from one lonely drone, but crucially, the drone had the data. My crew was too far away to catch or shoot the drone and my only hope was a lone wandering monster that saw the shiny thing and loped after it, but couldn't quite catch the mechanoid, so it zoomed off into the distance with the loot... and victory!

The scenario went quite well and we both liked how the pace and tone changed between the before-crash and after-crash phases. I had some worries about a couple of minor details of the mechanics, but Stuart assured me they weren't issues, so I've made no changes, beyond beefing up the xp award for "catching" the satellite. If you have a go at Starfall, please let me know how you get on!

We've both caught the Stargrave bug again and as long as real life doesn't intrude too much we are keen to play more in the new year. I've also had another idea for a custom mission...

Mince Pie Fest 2024: Non-Cornish Cornish Pasty Lemon Mince Pie

Special #MincePieFest2024 special feature special day four! I've had the lemon flavour before and it's been a firm favourite, but how will it fare in 2024?

Alas, there's only a dash of lemon curd in this one, so it's basically just the normal one with a hint of lemon. So still very good, but not as lemony as I'd like.

But at least there are no huge chunks of cherry. 3.5 out of 5. #MincePieADay

Mince Pie Fest 2024: Non-Cornish Cornish Pasty Custard Mince Pie

Non-Cornish Cornish mince pie #3! Custard!

The custard had set so I bunged this one in the meecrowavey to get the molecules a-jiggling. The result was absolutely gorgeous (but I am a bit of a custard fan) so much so that I was about to waive the usual -1 penalty for being a £4 pie, but then I remembered that getting some fancy mince pies and some custard would still be cheaper. So 4 out of 5 it is. #MincePieADay #MincePieFest2024

Mince Pie Fest 2024: Non-Cornish Cornish Pasty Chocolate Mince Pie

Non-Cornish Cornish Pasty mince pie day two! Chocolate today.

The pastry is really quite nice, with a similar texture to yesterday's, and a good chocolatey flavour. No discernable cherries in the filling mix, but there was a little nugget of pure chocolate -- or maybe a big chocolate chip -- that I assume was put there on purpose, but was a nice surprise either way. -1 for the price, obviously, but otherwise 4 out of 5. With an asterisk, because the chocolate is... untraditional. #MincePieFest2024 #MincePieADay

Mince Pie Fest 2024: Non-Cornish Cornish Pasty Traditional Mince Pie

Special #MincePieFest2024 special feature special! The first of four mince pies from Brighton's non-Cornish Cornish Pasty Shop.

I honestly, genuinely, only went in for one.

First, the traditional mince pie, which somehow exploded in transit.

This has a lovely chunky pastry with a nice, almost digestive biscuit, texture, and a generous dollop of filling that probably would be quite tasty, were it not for the over-abundance of cherries.

(I don't like cherries.)

-1 for the cherries, and -1 for the price (£4 each! I'll just put this link here for no reason at all: https://ko-fi.com/thekelvingreen) for a decent 3 out of 5. #MincePieADay

It's Over Nine Thousand

All of the Marvels, by Douglas Wolk, isn't really about one man's experience of reading 27,000 Marvel comics, although it touches on that. It's not a history of Marvel, although it touches on that. It's not a summary of the Marvel Universe story so far, although the final chapter skims through that.

Instead, this is Douglas Wolk, after reading 27,000 Marvel comics, picking out his favourite bits, and that makes for a compelling book, although it's not exactly how the book is marketed.

But it is interesting how, in all of those thousands of stories, Master of Kung Fu stands out as problematic as heck but also really, really good, or how the Dark Reign crossover turns out to be more clever and insightful than it appears, or how Jack Kirby was a genius but his Black Panther run was (probably) terrible.

I like that personal, my-favourite-bits, approach, and while a couple of chapters feel a bit perfunctory, I could quite happily have read another 15 chapters of this.

(Or maybe another 15 chapters by someone else. It would be lovely -- if impractical -- to get other people to read 27,000 Marvel comics and present their own favourite parts, just for a variety of voices. I'd love to read sequels to this by other authors.)

There are some disappointments -- there's an early interesting Grant Morrison-esque thought about the Marvel Universe being a unique fictional construct that doesn't go anywhere; the Black Panther chapter doesn't quite grasp the importance of what Don McGregor was doing -- and perhaps overall the book is a bit fluffy, but it's always entertaining, and well worth reading for the parts in which Wolk pulls out a surprise favourite, or delves a bit deeper into a subject, or both.