Ambush Markers for 28mm Figures

 Introduction

Games such as Paleo Diet: Eat or be Eaten allow models to go into hiding, in order to spring out later and ambush some passing prey.  This supposes that the local geography is sufficiently covered with enough small cover that can be used for such a purpose, but I'm very happy to accept such an assumption.  After all, most real-world landscapes aren't flat and featureless.

If you are anything like me then your default mechanism to mark a figure's status is to place a coloured token beside the model, or perhaps on the model's "character card", if it has one.  This has several issues, though:

1. It's not very pretty.  Tokens like this are completely functional and after all, what is the point of playing games with miniatures unless the visual aspect is a major part?  Otherwise, just use cardboard counters for everything.
2. The token can be confusing if several models are close together (with which figure does this token belong?), or - if placed off-table on some "stat card" - they can be forgotten in the heat of the moment.

An Alternate Ambush Marker

So, at almost no expense, I've been experimenting with a different way of showing that a figure is hiding in cover.  It seems obvious in hindsight: I've created some vegetation-based markers.  You really cannot see Talut the hunter hiding in the picture above, can you?

How To...

How did I create this marvel of illusion?  Well, I started with a 3D-printed "base ring".  I cannot remember for certain, but I might have bought mine here: https://protechmodels.co.uk/products/base-convertor-25mm-to-32mm-gw-sityle .  I'm sure that other makes and models exist, though do remember to check the sizing is suitable for your figures!

Normally these are intended to "enlarge" an existing figure without requiring it to be rebased, though the rings can also be coloured or painted and used to identify different factions.  This latter would be especially useful if you have a civil war going on, or are playing a game with novices who cannot tell that this particular soldier belongs to tribe A whilst that almost-identical figure is loyal to tribe B.

However, here's another way they can be used:

1. Cut the ring in half (i.e. into 2 semicircles).
2. Carve away any "shelf" which would sit under the figure's base (in the photo of the ring above, that's the "hexagon" inner part).
3. Paint in the colour of dirt, then stick a mixture of vegetation on to the top of the half ring (especially tall grasses and small shrubs.

When you wish to show that a figure is lurking, just place one of these semi-circles around the  model's base.

Conclusion

This project may seem blindingly obvious, but I assure you it took me some time to come up with the idea.  Maybe I'm slow or something?  Once conceived, it took very little time or money to build these markers.

I suppose that the same concept could be used to create other status markers as well.  For example, I could imagine how I might design "on fire", "frozen" or "tangled" markers, if I needed them.  Mind you, I don't think these would stack very well; they wouldn't really work if your model was hiding, on fire, tangled and frozen all at the same time!

Paleo Diet: A year in the life of the Stone Finger Tribe

Introduction

A little while ago, I described my first ventures (nay, mishaps!) into the Paleo Diet rules.  You can read the sorry tale here, if you so desire.  Well, last Thursday at the Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association, we tried the game again.  I had been busy painting more figures and effects (fire!) and was keen to see how these would work.

Game 1: the Mammoths

The hunters of the Stone Finger tribe were pleased.  Their group had survived the long, harsh winter without very many deaths and now that the spring was here, mammoths were on the move.  There's a lot of meat on a mammoth and their families were hungry, so if they could bring down one of these behemoths then everyone could feast!

So, here's the plan:

Grod and Vorn would enter from the left, upwind of the mammoths.  They would set fires in the grass to drive the beasts to the right...

...where Droog and Groob, Dorv and Guban would be waiting in ambush.

Ok, it's a very simple plan, but would it work?  Read on...

So far, so good.  The fire has been lit, the mammoths are getting a bit restless and (most of) the ambushers are in hiding.

One beast breaks ranks and runs forwards.  Dorv leaps up and hits it with his club (Really, a club?  Honestly, who brings a club to a mammoth hunt?  This is 50,000BC, after all...).  He does manage to hurt the animal before it tosses him aside.

While Dorv limps away, someone else inflicts another wound on the confused and angry pachyderm (I cannot remember for sure, but this might have been a lucky shot from Groob's sling).  Meanwhile, Vorn continues to light more fires, just in case...

Droog throws a spear at the injured mammoth: it's a critical hit!  The beast falls over, dying.

The rest of the hunters walk forwards slowly, shouting and waving to drive off the other two mammoths (but not getting too close).  They depart and the hunters cheer!  A successful hunt; plenty of meat for everyone, no-one died and only one hunter was injured.

Game 2: The Puppies

In our second game of the evening, the well-fed Neanderthals decided that some hunting dogs would be a nice addition to their tribe.  There weren't any dogs near them, but a wolf pack was breeding nearby.  Could the hunters raid the wolves' den and steal the litter?

So, another simple plan: approach from 3 sides and try to scare the adult wolves away (rather than fighting with them).  If the adult wolves are gone then catching the puppies should be easy...

Initially, things went rather well.  Vorn lit several fires upwind of the den; these caused consternation amongst the wolf pack.  They kept trying to pluck up courage to charge a hunter, only to turn tail and run from the smoke whenever they got close.

One animal broke sideways from the pack, but Groob injured it with a well-placed stone from his sling.

The injured wolf's mournful howls scared the wits out of Droog and Dorv; they emerged from the den each clutching a puppy and ran in the opposite direction...

...and straight into the path of the somewhat out-of-control flames that were burning forwards at an alarming rate.

Meanwhile, Groob finished off the injured wolf with another sling shot and the rest of the men queued up to grab their own puppies.  The remaining wolves were too scared of the fire to do much other than make a few futile dummy charges, so the tribe escaped with most of the litter (and a couple of badly burned hunters).

This probably counts as a successful scenario too 🙂.

Game 3: Who wants to be King?

The old chieftain died later in the year.  As he was dying, he announced that the next chief would be whoever managed to slay a large and dangerous sabretooth cat which had recently moved into the district.  Four hunters didn't even wait for his last gasp but instead gathered up their weapons, called to a couple of dogs and set off to slay the monster.

So, this scenario was co-operative, but only up to a point.  Tribesmen (and their dogs) may not attack each other, but there can only be one winner: whoever delivers the final blow to kill the predator.  There were some herds of small horses around as well, but they played no real part in the game and so I'll not mention them again.

Droog's dog, Scar, was first to attack the sabretooth.  It didn't go very well for the smaller animal; he ran away yelping with a nasty gash on his flank.

Next up was Guban, aided by his dog, Alpha.  The hunter rushed in without waiting for assistance and although he did manage to spear the tiger, he was promptly mauled to death.

Dorv leaped in as well, though too late to aid his friend.  He gave the sabretooth a crack on the head with his club, but it then turned on him and tore him to pieces.

Droog and Groob were trying to catch up, but were still some way off.  Whilst they ran and panted, Alpha and the sabretooth (both injured) snarled and snapped at each other.

Incredibly, the tiger's attacks missed the dog again and again.  Eventually Alpha got a good hold and ripped out the cat's throat to deliver the fatal blow.  And that is why, even to this day, the Stone Finger Tribe worships dogs and holds them supreme over all other spirits and gods.

Conclusion

Paleo Diet is a quick, simple, fun set of rules.  The animal behaviours are unpredictable, but within realistic bounds, so the (player) hunters are never certain of an easy victory.

We were able to fit three very distinct games into a single evening, with a different (but overlapping) set of players in each.  It would have been ideal as a mini-campaign - and there are rules for this, but on this occasion we weren't tracking injuries, successes or failures from one game to the next.

Next time we'll have to do such a campaign properly.  Hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to organise a club league, with people dropping in for the occasional game as & when it suited them?

Paleo Diet: The Hunt Begins

Introduction

I've run games that pit men against ice age mammals before [for example, here, here and here] and my "go to" set of rules was "Adventures in the Lost Lands" by Two Hour Wargaming.  However, despite the number of times that I've tried this game, it didn't quite work for me.  Either a player's choices were too limited or combat outcomes were too one-sided or something; it just wasn't the game I really wanted to play.

I've never given up hope for a hunting game, though.  Now there is a new kid on the block: "Paleo Diet", from Ganesha Games.  In Paleo Diet, one or more players take control of a small number of hunters.  These humans can be equipped with bows, clubs, fire and/or dogs, though the default weapon is a spear which can be thrown a short distance or used close up to stab at things.

The basic mechanism is that a hunter chooses to roll from 1 to 3 dice each turn, with a "success" granting an action and a "failure" alerting a nearby animal.  A fresh, unwounded hunter has a pool of 2 white dice (success on a 2+) and one coloured dice (success on a 4+); an injured man downgrades one of his/her white dice to a coloured one.

Animals never act on their own, but rather they react to various events such as the proximity of a fire, being attacked or a hunter failing an activation roll.  Different classes of creature (from apex predator to small prey animal) will react differently, but on the whole if you're far enough away they will ignore you and if you're very close then their reaction will be more extreme.  Usually the carnivores and large herbivores (mammoths &c) will defend themselves aggressively whilst smaller herbivores will run away - but different reactions such as roaring/trumpeting or stampedes are also possible!

So far, so good; this sounds very much like the sort of game I'd like to try.  Everything in a hunting game depends on the animal behaviour, though: is it believable?  Let's see...

Trial Game 1: The Mammoths

We had 3 players, so we set up 3 groups of hunters.  One group had 2 neanderthals, whilst the other 2 groups each had a neanderthal and his dog.  So, a total of 4 men and 2 dogs.  Let's go mammoth hunting!

After a short conference on tactics, we decided that we needed to split up the pair of mammoths and concentrate all our efforts on just one of the beasts.  Goodness knows, it would be hard enough to face even a single such creature!

To this end, the hunters crept forwards carefully.  Crug sent his dog on a wide, flanking move.  In hindsight, this wasn't a terribly clever idea: if the dog failed any of its activation rolls in the future then it would probably try to rejoin its master, which would result in it sauntering through the mammoth herd.  That's not really what we intended!

Durc stalked right up to within touching distance of the mammoths, planning to hide and ambush the chosen target later.  Unfortunately, something gave him away and both beasts rounded on him

The hunter wasn't badly wounded, but he was pretty shaken up.  It didn't help that one of the mammoths then trumpeted loudly and the other pursued him for a short distance; Durc fled!  Well, at least we had split up the pair of mammoths; there was now a significant gap between them...

Durc spent much of the rest of the game hiding in some foliage.  The player claimed that he was laying a fresh ambush, but personally I reckon he had soiled himself.

Broud's brown dog then decided to have a go at the nearer animal.  It did manage to bite the pachyderm, but the mammoth squashed the dog in return.

Then, Crug's grey dog had a go.  It rushed in and bit the mammoth on the bottom (so that's 2 wounds inflicted; another two will bring it down).

The mammoth reacted with extreme hostility to this assault on its nether portions; it spun around and flattened the dog.  Hmm, both dogs are now out of the game - but that's OK because they don't count against us when determining victory.

The hunters (apart from Durc) moved in and tried to spear the mammoth.  There followed a long and confused sequence of quick assaults, trumpetting, retaliation and so on [far too complex to describe in detail!].  Any notion of a plan had gone out of the window after the beast's first short charge!

The end result was that 3 of the 4 hunters were injured, but the mammoth had taken a 3rd wound out of the 4 hits it could sustain.  Sadly for the hungry tribe, the mammoth ran off the table before it could be finished off.

One player suggested that we had a go at the other, uninjured mammoth that was still grazing peacefully in the middle of the table.  This suggestion was quickly vetoed by the other bruised and battered hunters!

End Result: mammoths are tough to hunt, especially without ranged weapons and/or fire; expect casualties.  Leave the dogs at home; they might be good enough against a deer or a wolf, but they're really outclassed here!

Trial Game 2: Something Smaller

For our next hunt, we decided to try some smaller prey.  This time, there were 5 neanderthals and only 1 dog; we had a small herd of deer as our target.

The hunters stalked carefully around the edges.  Our plan was to surround the herd and then pick off as many as we could from close range.  We needed to kill 3 of the 6 deer to collect enough meat to feed the tribe, so we really didn't want any to escape if we could help it.

Initially, the plan seemed to be going very well.  All the hunters (and the dog) crept closer and closer...

The first hunter to act was Broud.  His thrown spear hit a young buck and wounded it, but the startled and confused animal then ran straight at the hunter and tried to attack him!  Fortunately for the man, the deer then fled in the opposite direction without injuring him.

The panicking, injured buck fled straight towards Goov, who had no difficulty in felling it at close range.  As he did this, the rest of the herd stampeded, running over the unwary Crug and kicking him in passing.

The hunters scrambled to try to head off the small deer before they fled out of reach; it looked as if their prey was about to elude them.

All their efforts achieved was to scatter the herd; deer ran in all directions.  Brun managed to bring down another buck as it raced past him, but no-one else was so lucky.  Despite a brief stalk of the remnants of the herd, all the other deer eluded the hunters and fled to safety.

End Result: we didn't gather enough meat to feed the tribe and one of our hunters got a broken rib!  Not the ideal result, though at least we weren't totally hopeless.

Conclusion

I think that we all enjoyed these games very much.  The players each had plenty of choices each turn and the animals reacted in what seemed like a realistic manner.  I don't think this will be the main event in one of our gaming days, but it's a very pleasant filler (it would work very well as a participation game at a convention, I think).

Clearly, our hunting tactics leave something to be desired - but that could change with practice.  Perhaps we should set more ambushes and then have a few hunters drive the prey into them by shouting and/or throwing stones?  I'm also quite keen to experiment with that new wonder weapon which Ug keeps talking about: fire!  More figures have been ordered...

Afterthought: even the deer are dangerous; they hurt one of our hunters.  Maybe my stone age men should become rabbit hunters instead.  What could go wrong with that?