7th Voyage/8th Voyage: Jason and the Playwright

Introduction

It's been a long time since I played any games based around ancient Greek myth; I think the last such one was in 2016 (here: Jason and Medea).  All my previous outings have used the 7th Voyage rules from Crooked Dice, but despite there being much to admire in these rules, something wasn't quite right for me.  More specifically, the combat felt flat; both sides would simply stand next to each other and hack repeatedly until someone got lucky and hit their opponent enough times to knock them out.  Boring...

Since that last game over 2 years ago, I've been intending to write my own, revised combat rules for 7th Voyage.  This new adaptation would be based loosely on the equivalent combat rules from 7TV (2nd edition), but with inspiration also taken from Song of Blades and Heroes and the existing 7th Voyage.

Well, I finally got round to firming up and writing down my ideas (which I'll call "8th Voyage"; more on those in a future article) and this is a report of the first playtest.

Jason and the Playwright

The story for this game would be very simple: it's the Steal scenario from the 7th Voyage rulebook.  However, instead of an object the Argonauts have been charged with the rescue of a person.  The famed playwright Phineas has fallen in with bad company; he's been taken away by a bunch of hard-partying satyrs!  It's not completely clear whether Phineas has been kidnapped, or whether he has been beguiled and tricked into this wasteful life...

Either way, Jason and his fellow Argonauts have determined to rescue the man.  They have an ulterior motive: Phineas's work is much respected in Agathopolis, their next port of call.  If they can persuade the playwright to put on a show in that town then their passage would no doubt be expedited by the locals!

So, forces are as follows:

• Jason, plus a whole bunch of heavily-armed Argonauts.
• Meleager, plus some very lightly-armed skirmishers/psiloi.
• Antigone.  She doesn't have any followers at all, but has a magic helm which makes her invisible.  The black "7th Voyage" counter denotes when she has activated this item and cannot be seen.  Note that this doesn't make it impossible for opponents to hit or impede her; it's just much more difficult for them!

Antigone with her Helm of Invisibility.  You really cannot see her at all, can you?

On the other side:

• Hylaeus (the satyr leader) plus several spear-armed satyrs (in the background of the picture above).
• A small group of satyr archers, beside the river.
• A larger group of satyrs with a mixture of bows and spears (foreground).
• One cyclops.  Note that this monster is a neighbour of the satyrs and therefore an ally against human intruders.  However, there's not much love lost between him and the satyrs, so the monstrous cyclops causes fear in everyone who comes within 6" - friend as well as foe!

Phineas, the playwright, starts in the middle of the ruined theatre.  He is too befuddled to move on his own, but can move when accompanied by any of the rescuing humans.

The Game

Made invisible by her magic helmet, Antigone stalked forwards towards the amphitheatre and the playwright.  The nearest satyrs sensed her presence (maybe saw dust swirls, or smelled something)  but although they prodded the area with their spears, they failed to make contact with the heroine.

She reached Phineas and was just about to make herself visible and lead the playwright away when the cyclops came lumbering up.  Like the satyrs, it could sense that something wasn't right, but unlike them it had a much longer reach.  One of its flailing limbs caught Antigone with a forceful backhander and threw her across the stage.  She wasn't injured but - at least temporarily - was decidedly out of action.

Help wasn't forthcoming from Meleager and his light infantry.  The young javelineers were ineffective against the tougher satyrs who rushed to intercept them, though one lad caused a lot of frustration to Hylaeos (the satry leader) by simply refusing to die!  Even the hero Meleager was knocked off his feet and wounded; for a few moments he seemed to be in real trouble...

Jason made better progress.  Two satyrs tried to block the river ford, but Jason and his hoplites swept them aside with ease.  Not everything went their way, though: a lucky, long range arrow from a satyr archer felled one of the Argonauts in return.

Now that the way was clear, the Argonauts surged forwards.  The cyclops was reaching about in the dust trying to find the still-invisible Antigone when one of the hoplites ran around and stabbed it from behind.

Remember that the cyclops is fearsome to all other models on the table?  Since it was now pretty much the centre of the action, an increasing number of Argonauts and satyrs had to take fear tests whenever they were activated.  Not all of them passed; indeed later in the game we ran out of my yellow & black "Scared" tokens and had to improvise with other types of counter as well...

Whilst the cyclops roared with pain, Antigone made her move.  She stabbed at the creature (thus becoming visible at least for a while) - but her blow was ineffective.  In return, the cyclops belted her so hard that she landed in the amphitheatre's cheap seats (at the back).  It then turned around and swatted the Argonaut away as well.  Truly it was a very annoyed monster!

The dazed - and now visible - Antigone was promptly showered with arrows from the nearby satyrs.  Although a fair number bounced off her shield, eventually one shaft struck home and took her out of action.

Bellowing loudly, the cyclops rushed at the approaching Argonauts.  Its initial rush left Jason on his back in the dirt, but the hero was soon on his feet again and attacking.  Whilst he and the approaching Meleager distracted the monster, a brave Argonaut sank his spear into its flank [the spearman was considerably aided by a +2 modifier gained from sacrificing an event card.  As it happened, this particular event card was only useful for a spell caster, so "sacrificing" it wasn't much of a loss for the Argonaut player!].

Between them, Meleager and the Argonaut attacked repeatedly and forced the cyclops back all the way across the amphitheatre.  Jason saw his chance, rushed up to Phineas and started to hustle the confused playwright away from the fighting.

Before he could escape cleanly, Jason was shot in the back with an arrow.  Of course, it would take more than a single injury to fell a hero of his standing, but even so it was worrying...

Two Argonauts had been tasked with killing Hylaeus, the satyr leader, or at least with keeping him occupied so that he couldn't do anything especially useful.  After fighting with them inconclusively for much of the game, Hylaeus switched tactics and started to use his hypnotise power instead of his spear.

Almost immediately, he managed to dominate both of the humans; they were at least temporarily under his control.  The wily satyr suggested that they go and take a bath in the river, reasoning that the Argonauts would have to take drowning tests when they were next activated.  In this way there was a good chance that they would be lost to their original side whether or not they regained control of their senses.

As it happens, neither man recovered from the hypnotism by the end of the game; they were never seen again by the other Argonauts...

The cyclops tried to go around the amphitheatre to reach Jason and the escaping playwright, but it hadn't gone very far when it was charged from behind by an exceptionally enthusiastic Argonaut.  The man stabbed the monster fatally and as it writhed around on the ground [courtesy of a "Taking your time" event card], he stabbed it some more until it finally stopped moving.  Thus was Antigone avenged...

The exhausted Meleager was suddenly surrounded by satyrs who bounded into and across the amphitheatre.  He tried to defend himself, but was struck by arrows and fell.

With the loss of this hero and the two hypnotised hoplites, the Argonauts cast was thoroughly shaken.  Jason escorted Phineas off the table and at that point we had to call the game because we ran out of time.

Victory

So, who won?  Scores were as follows:

Hylaeus and the Satyrs

• 2VP for knocking out Antigone
• 2VP for knocking out Meleager
• 1VP for shaking the opposing cast [i.e. reducing them to less than half their number of starting models].

So, a grand total of 5VP.

Jason and the Argonauts

• 3VP for knocking out the cyclops
• 3VP for rescuing Phineas and escorting him off the table.

...for a total of 6VP.  Therefore, it's a marginal Argonaut victory, albeit a somewhat Pyrrhic one.

However, consider this: if the game had gone on for just one more turn, the satyrs would almost certainly have axed the Argonauts [i.e. reduced them to 1/4 of their starting models] and would thus have earned themselves another 2VP, increasing their score by enough to claim themselves a marginal victory.

Conclusion

This was a fun game for me (as umpire) and hopefully for the players as well.  I'm delighted to have re-entered the world of gaming Greek Mythology!

The Argonauts achieved their goal of rescuing Phineas.  In addition, their heroes all acted, well, heroically.  Some hoplites got stuck in enthusiastically to help their leaders, though a few just cowered at the back and refused to engage.  The psiloi/javelinmen were not particularly effective, which is as it should be...

For their opponents, the cyclops did its thing, dominating the centre of the action and terrifying all and sundry.  The satyrs proved to be remarkably resilient; relatively few fell in combat - though this might reflect their tactics rather than any special powers.  I'm still not quite sure how they managed to wipe out so many armoured, veteran warriors!

My revised, "8th Voyage" combat rules seem to have worked very well and I don't see any immediate need to make changes to them.  Some more play-testing would be good before I can declare them to be "finished", of course.  I will publish this set of house rules soon, so if anyone is curious then you can see where my thinking has led.  In the meantime, I think that combat in 7th Voyage has become a whole lot more fluid and interesting...

7th Voyage: The Argonauts go forth!

Introduction

Finally, time for my first game of 7th Voyage!  As all my regular readers will know, I've been preparing a heroic cast based on Jason and the Argonauts and I have various groups of possible opponents available (satyrs, harpies...).  I've got some event cards and I spent part of yesterday making quick-reference cards & status counters and designing the 2 introductory forces.  So...Lights, Camera, Action!

The Scenario

For our first game, we'll use the Skirmish scenario from the 7th Voyage rulebook.  In this case, 2 small bands meet each other; the winner is the first one to slay or drive off the other.  Simples!

So, Jason and a small group of followers are exploring a small, seemingly deserted island.  They're looking for fresh water and supplies for their ship, but maybe the island isn't as deserted as it seems.  Without realising it, Jason's party are trespassing on the meadows and woods of a band of satyrs.  Hylaeos, chief of the satyrs, has followed their progress as they trek inland.  He's not entirely keen on tackling the intruders alone, so he's talked a very large (but somewhat dim) cyclops into helping to chase off the intruders!

The Forces

Argonauts

• Jason, Hero (straight from the 7th Voyage book - he's an average sort of hero with lots of leadership abilities and swimming)
• Meleager, "Also Starring" Veteran, with Swimming skill
• 5 Argonauts, Veterans (4 with spear, 1 with sword)

The Argonauts were the nominal defenders and deployed first.  They set up in the quadrant which contained the woods, as this would protect them somewhat from early archery.

Monsters

• Hylaeos, "Also Starring" Satyr leader.  Importantly, he has the Hypnotise skill as well as the usual satyr's Seduce.
• 6 Satyrs (3 with spear, 3 with bow)
• un-named Cyclops (pumped-up Guardian Beast.  Note that he causes Fear in all models, friendly as well as enemy!)

Hylaeos deployed the satyrs just across the river from the woods, intending (I think) to use the ford as a choke point against the better-armoured Argonauts.  The cyclops was placed in a different table quarter; at least there he wouldn't scare the friendly satyrs!

The Terrain

• The woods were classed as difficult ground which would reduce speed to 1d6 for most models.  The cyclops could just stomp through the trees without slowing down, though!
• We decided that the river would be deep and fast flowing, apart from at the 2 fords (which were easy going).  So, a model who wished to cross at any point other than the fords would either have to swim or would have to leap across.  Once again, the cyclops could ignore such concerns; he was too big to be put out by such a puny stream.

The Game

"Come on, lads!  I can hear running water nearby.  It can't be far now" called Jason in encouragement to his followers.  They were all cursing and grumbling at the thorns in the underbrush - moving in a forest is not easy when you carry a large shield and long spear.  "It's all right for the hero, marching ahead there as if he's the gods' own chosen one", they thought.  "But we didn't sign on to this cruise to trek through mud and branches like this!"

The Argonauts won the initiative for the first turn (and the maximum number of Audience Appreciation tokens as well - not that they were much use at this point in the game),  Jason strode ahead of his men and stepped out from the edge of the trees whilst the other adventurers were struggling with undergrowth.

Immediately, he was set upon by 3 satyrs who ran screaming at him across the ford in the river.  Despite the apparent ferocity of their attack, not one of the creatures managed to land a damaging blow on the startled hero.

Hearing the sounds of fighting, Meleager and Amphion ran up to help.  Meleager arrived just in time to see Jason dispatch one of the fauns and then turn to face a large, ugly satyr who appeared to be their leader.  Amphion came out of the woods onto the river bank, but before he could even get his bearings, a satyr shot him through the neck and he dropped down, dead ('6' to hit, '6' to wound' and '1' for the armour save.  Truly a remarkable shot - not even audience appreciation could save this!)

More Argonauts rushed in to help their leaders.  Even as Meleager slew his opponent, Pheidippides pushed past him to face the next satyr.  The 3 fauns on the far bank of the river were still annoying the men by showering them with arrows, though all of these shots went wide.  More worryingly, the Argonauts could hear something very large crashing through the trees behind them!

Since he was now unengaged, Meleager ran towards the noises to find out what was coming up behind the Argonauts.  He came face to face with the largest, ugliest beast that he had ever seen.  Mastering his fear briefly, he sliced at the monster and missed.  In return, it swatted him aside contemptuously.

The archers continued to shoot at Meleager, though again this was ineffective.

Augeas, another veteran, had been struggling to keep up with the rest of the Argonauts as they made their way through the woods.  He now changed course to head towards the loudest noise of fighting, but instead of finding his comrades he stumbled right into the cyclops.  The bold man stabbed the creature in the thigh and drew blood, but in return it smashed him aside.  Amphion's lifeless body flew through the air, hit a tree trunk and slid to the ground.

The dazed Meleager picked himself up and shook his head to clear it.  More arrows were landing close by him, so he made a quick decision to tackle the archers rather than charge back into combat with the monster.  He crouched and sprang, clearing the river with ease and ran towards the satyr bowmen (I wasn't particularly worried by taking the chance of falling short and landing in the water since Meleager had Swimming as his "Also Starring" skill).

Whilst Jason continued to fence with Hylaeos, the satyr leader wasn't really fighting back.  Instead, he was defending whilst making eyes at Jason's friend Laokoon.  Indeed, various satyrs had been trying their Seduce powers (and Hylaeos's Hypnotise power) throughout the game, but without much luck.  This time was different though and Laokoon became bewildered and confused as to why he was trying to fight the beautiful wild creature that was in front of him.

In the heat of the moment Exion, one of the other Argonauts, followed Meleager's example and attempted to leap across the stream.  He failed with a miserable roll of '2', which would have left him just short of the far bank.  I chose to use one of Jason's "Luck" points to re-roll this - but my son countered with a Hand of Fate event card to reduce my re-roll.  The die came up with a '3' this time, so after taking off the -2 for the event, Exion plunged fully into the deep, cold water!

Suddenly, things were not looking good for the Argonauts.  They only had 4 models still active out of a starting total of 7, so they were perilously to having to take a morale check for 50% losses.  Worse, one of the 4 remaining men was struggling in the water (Exion couldn't swim) and Jason had been trading blows with the satyr leader for what seemed like forever with neither side managing to do any damage.  At least Meleager might cause mayhem amongst the lightly-armed archers, I hoped!

Sadly for me, it seems that Meleager was more shaken from his encounter with the cyclops than I had realised.  The very first archer thumped him so hard that the Argonaut collapsed in a groaning heap.  The giggling satyr then dragged the half-conscious Meleager to the edge of the river and pushed him into a deep pool.  They've got quite a sense of humour, these wild party animals...

As if things couldn't get any worse for the Argonauts, the cyclops chose this moment to come crashing along the bank.  It grabbed Pheidippides from behind, crushed the unfortunate man to death and hurled the corpse over the heads of the other combatants.  One of the satyrs was terrified by the sudden appearance of this fearsome monster, but for most of the humans it was too much.  They took a Shaken test, failed it - and suddenly Jason found himself alone as all the other Argonauts vanished.

Feeling utterly desperate Jason used a "Ropey CSO" event card to disengage from Hylaeos without taking a parting strike.  (Mind you, Jason would probably have been quite safe from Hylaeos' parting blow anyway.  I had considered using this event card to push the cyclops into the river instead, but the big lump wouldn't even have noticed...)

In the manner of true heroes, Jason then attacked the cyclops (before it could attack him in the back!) and stabbed it.  The great beast roared in pain as the sword cut into it, but the monster stayed upright.  With 2 out of its 3 wounds gone, if Jason could topple the beast then that might just turn the tide?

It wasn't to be, however.  The last Argonaut had to take a Wiped Out morale test now that his cast had taken over 75% losses - and he failed.  He also failed the re-roll permitted by his Martial Training special effect.  Ah...

Result: Jason fled from the battlefield as if the hounds of hell were after him!  Cut!

Conclusion

Well, that was fun.  I have a number of issues that came up in our first game of 7th voyage and I'll need to seek clarification on those, but none of them spoiled our enjoyment.  We'll need to play again, of that I am sure!

Observations:

• A small cast is likely to evaporate very quickly when it reaches 50% losses, since a failed Shaken test will remove 1d3 models.  This in turn is quite likely to trigger a 75% loss Wiped Out test the very next turn, which will probably eliminate the survivors!
• I was surprised at how long Hylaeos and Jason traded blows with neither managing to wound the other.  Jason should have had a very decisive advantage here, since his abilities and armour were considerably the better of the pair, but he just wasn't on form today.  Still, kudos to the satyr leader for not chickening out and hiding behind his even lesser followers.
• For me, Meleager stole the scene for the Argonauts; he killed a satyr, tackled the monster, was sent flying, leaped across the river and then...collapsed.
• The cyclops did pretty much as expected, once it finally managed to reach the battle.  It crashed through the undergrowth, throwing adversaries about as if they were nothing and generally scaring the cr*p out of everyone!  It wasn't invulnerable, though; this suggests that a more concentrated attack could have taken it down.
• The monster player split his forces.  I thought that the Argonauts could defeat them in detail, but the satyrs proved surprisingly hard to kill and the cyclops caught up with the fight before any decisive losses had been taken.
• Equally, the satyrs were somewhat frustrated that their archers and their Seduce powers were unlucky.  Although many arrows were expended and many alluring looks given, they only shot one Argonaut and confused another.  Still, that was probably enough...
• The Argonauts won initiative for all the early turns, but the Audience Appreciation tokens that they earned never seemed to be enough to change any of the results.
• In the second half of the game, the initiative rolls were all tied, which meant that there were a lot of turnovers.  It also meant that the monster player never got any Audience Appreciation tokens at all!

That's a wrap!

28mm Greek Mythology: the Satyrs

Introduction

I'm trying to get back on track with my twice-weekly postings; it's been slipping down to once per week recently.  Still, I should have enough time tonight to show some more mythological creatures.  They'll fight against (or perhaps ally with) Jason and the Argonauts, whenever I get round to staging such battles.

I'm wavering between using Song of Blades and Heroes or 7th Voyage as the rules for my mythological games.  I have both rulesets already and have used SoBH very happily for both my Witch Hunter and Robin Hood settings.  Although I still haven't decided for sure, I might give 7th Voyage a go this time.  After all, it's specially designed for exactly this type of game!

The Satyrs

Satyrs are often represented these days as half-man, half goat, though that's more accurately the appearance of the Roman faun.  Still, only a few people would recognise the traditional  horse-tailed Greek version, so I'm happy enough to use these models instead as Greek creatures.

In ancient mythology, the Satyrs have a deep connection with nature.  For the most part, they're the original party animals: carefree, drinking heavily and chasing women!  However, if they feel threatened or get too drunk then they can become wild and really mean.

The Leader

"My, what a big spear you have..."

My figures come from a Fae starter pack for the Fanticide game, though I believe that the models originate from  Eureka Miniatures of Australia.  They're all painted straight out of the packet, apart from Hylaeos, the leader.

As supplied, the head for this model had large, branched antlers on his head.  I didn't like this for 2 reasons:

1. Antlers really don't fit with the goat aspect of the faun, or indeed with the horse features of the classic Greek satyr.
2. On a practical level, the antlers would have stuck out a long way and thus made the model vulnerable to damage and hard to store.

So, I removed the antlers and replaced them with some curled horns from an old Games Workshop skeleton set.  This guy is clearly the boss: he's got bigger horns and a bigger spear than any of the other satyrs!

The Spearmen (spear-satyrs?)

There are 10 fauns with spears in the warband; 2 models each of 5 different poses.  I've used a variety of shades of brown and grey on the goat legs of these figures; there's very little else to differentiate them.

As with many of my figures these days, I've given them appropriate names.  Note that these models are very straightforward to paint; they have very little equipment and so it's just flesh, faces, hair and hooves!

The Archers

The other 8 members in the warband have bows, although 2 of them seem to have picked up rocks to throw.  This might be because they've run out of arrows; their quivers are empty!

Once again, there are 4 distinct sculpts, with 2 copies of each pattern in this group.  The extra equipment means that they took slightly longer to paint than the fauns with spears, but even so these are very straightforward models.

Conclusion

So, now I really have little excuse for not planning at least one game that involves Jason and the Argonauts.  I can see a scenario where the satyrs defend themselves fiercely against an accidental intrusion by the band of human adventurers.  I've also noticed that my Harryhausen-inspired giant cyclops model has some of the goat-like appearance of these guys, so perhaps he might even ally with them.  It's untraditional, but it might just work...

Next in this series inspired by Greek myth will be...harpies!