Tag Archives: Tabletop

Combat in Dragonbane

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned while getting ready to play the solo campaign in Dragonbane it’s that combat is fast and deadly.

I just had Splats run another encounter with a pair of orcs, and I learned how to ‘push a roll’ in order to avoid him getting killed by one orc who was armed with a spear.

He eventually managed to kill the two orcs, with 4 of his 15 hit points left.

MEDIC!

Prelude: The Duck Knight of the Misty Vale

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Splats Gleamhelm stood before the gaping mouth of the cave

The cave where the troll had been spotted the previous night by the anxious onlookers who now stood a good distance behind him.

Go on then, Splats, he thought to himself, what’s the worst that could happen, besides getting killed by a troll?

Upon entering the cave, Splats found it unusually well lit, for a cave that is.  He didn’t need to light a torch or an oil lamp, it was lit as well as the morning was, just outside.

“Boo,” said a voice ahead of him.  It was the troll.

Wasting no time, Splats took a defensive position as the troll strode toward him and proceeded to bite the young Mallard-kin.

“Ack!” Splats exclaimed excitedly, then realized that his armor had taken the brunt of the bite.  The troll then gurgled and spit up a tooth and some foul liquid that barely missed Splats, but did piss him off a bit.

Splats then took a couple of swings with his broadsword at the monster, connecting both times and visibly causing the creature some harm.

Another couple of sword strikes by Splats, and the monster spit up again, this time the stench of the troll vomit causing Splats to waver a bit.  The troll picked up Splats and hurled him across the cave, his armor once again saving him from serious harm.

Now Splat was really mad.  He picked himself up from the ground where he landed, charged the visibly weakened creature while yelling a battle cry, swung for a killing blow…

… and missed, his sword clattering to the floor between himself and his opponent.

Shit, good thing no one saw that, he thought to himself.

Before he could pick up the sword, the monster clawed at him, troll nails scraping against his armor, which protected him once more.

Splats recovered his sword, slashed at the creature once, then twice, and the troll finally fell.

Breathing heavily, Splats proceeded to check the troll for any treasure that it had, but found nothing but a rusty nail, which did actually poke and hurt him and later required a tetanus shot from the local healer.

***

And thus begins the epic tale with the Dragonbane RPG system.

Don’t touch that dial!

Space Cowboys

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Friday night I came across an RPG website, selling mainstream and independent role playing games.

I found one called Orbital Blues, a space western that I remember from Kickstarter that for some reason I didn’t pledge back in the day.

I discovered that a solo play system was added so I took the plunge and ordered the game, which included digital copies in addition to the physical books.

I skimmed though about 50 pages and found it a pretty straight forward game system, one that could be used in a Firefly or Cowboy Bebop like setting.

Which is when I remembered that I already had a Cowboy Bebop Role Playing Game, which I did get from Kickstarter, delivered about a month before I moved from the house to the apartment.

I rummaged through some of the storage tubs that I had brought from the house last year, and found the main book and other accessories (dice, GM screen, woolong poker chips).

After flipping though the Cowboy Bebop book, I reckon I can eventually play/not play (heh) both, along side every other system that I have sitting around here, awaiting my attention.

Had I not stored it away and out of sight, I probably would have had another solo campaign all set to not play.

To be fair, I’m sure I still have the Serenity Role Playing Game somewhere in my offsite storage.

The Story So Far – D&D

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I decided to think of a quick prompt to kick off my solo Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

The Adventures of Roy Kent (fighter) and Raised by Minotaurs (barbarian)

As with all great adventures, this one starts in a tavern.

The Grumpy Tortoise

Roy and Rai (he hates that name, BTW) are having a meal.

Yeah, that’s all I got.

Don’t touch that dial!

Friday Rumblings

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Bolt Action: so I did end up getting the starter set and a couple of other army boxes:

The main US Army list book has an entry for Philippine Scouts, so guess what I found and ordered online?

—

Meanwhile, I got a notification that a Kickstarter reward was shipping, and this one is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while.

Back in the glory days of FASA Corporation, there was the Renegade Legion series of games, which I never got into because I was already into their Battletech series, and we were still doing RPGs more than tabletop wargaming.

Flashforward to around 2020 or so, when FASA Games (a new company working with the original FASA Corporation) came out with a new iteration of FASA Corp’s Interceptor game, which didn’t catch my eye until a few years later when they had a Kickstarter for their Aetherstream: Leviathan game.

Both Interceptor and Leviathan can find their roots in the old Renegade Legion universe, but this new incarnation of FASA Games doesn’t appear to have full rights to that world, so these are under a sub brand called Aetherstream, which appears to be a continuation/offshoot of the original Renegade Legion source material.

Older fans of these games appeared to dislike the fact that it’s not in the same universe as before, but since I never got into it back then, this new version appears to be fine with me.

So next week I should be getting both the Interceptor core set and the Leviathan Academy starter set.  The Kickstarter itself was for the launch of Leviathan into FASA Games product line, but I decided to finally pick up Interceptor as well, as an add on.

The main difference between the two games (both then and now) is that Interceptor is about fighter combat while Leviathan is about capital ship combat.

So of course I dragged out some other space games to fiddle with and play until the Aetherstream stuff comes in.

Stand by!

Saturday Morning Musings

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I was browsing YouTube and came across videos about Bolt Action v3, a World War II tabletop miniatures wargame, which I’ve seen before, and went into a deep dive on how to play, what you need, and what’s in the starter box.

I eventually found myself searching for the starter set, along with US Marines and Imperial Japanese Army  sets, since my interest lies more in the Pacific than the European front.

As I was searching for those, other products appeared, specifically Firelock Games’ Blood & Plunder.

Which made me stop looking for Bolt Action stuff, since I still hadn’t finished building/painting my various factions for that game.

I then remembered that if I really need to scratch that World War II itch, I do have Firelock Games’ War Stories, which is a WWII RPG, and the Pacific expansion that I pledged on Kickstarter will be coming out at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, I may create a small squad/warband based in post D-Day France, or use the pregenerated characters and try playing solo at some point soon.

I’ll probably spend some time with Blood & Plunder as well, as they’re starting their ‘Summer of Plunder 2025’ event this weekend.

Don’t touch that dial!