Red Golem Blog

This tutorial details my second batch of Parchment handouts to be used in my Ptolus D&D Campaign (Thanks to someone in the online community for providing the files - please let me know the author if you know who it is!). The first steps are similar to the previous homemade parchment post. This time, I toned my dipping brew with brown (red, yellow and blue food coloring added to boiling water, instant coffee, and a bag of black tea - because it smells good!). I wanted to have different parchment looks: off-the-press, old/wrinkled (like the one in the picture below), with blood and/or stains, etc. It is better to tear and rip your paper now if you want to have a damaged look to your handouts. The drying process makes these damages appear quite realistic (much better anyway than if you try to do them on dry paper).

Handouts were left to dry on thick cardboard. I added red food coloring drips on a few of them to look as blood. It turned out a bit too clear for dried blood. I tried to fix it with black ink while the paper was drying. It worked okay (see this post for final pictures).

Here’s the second batch drying… More pictures of the ready-to-use handouts in the next post…

A fun and easy-to-learn game (altough I had to flip through the few pages of rules quite often but it was our first game ever). There isn’t a great deal of strategy involved and luck plays an important role, especially when wild animals enter play. We loved the cavemen tribe theme. First boardgame we played with cavemen (and cavewomen!), sabertooth tigers, and mammoths! There was many laughing moments. I remember one when (not to name him) Mace got stuck without any food just before the winter with his large tribe… Most of his cavemen starved to death during that season. He should have taken control of the fire! I was lucky and ended up winning but at one time during the game, a mammoth stomped my camp (and my wheat field!) and killed most of my tribe. Fortunately for me, I had a genetically superior big cavewomen mama that produced a few twins to fill the ranks of my depleted tribe!

I recommend this game. It is light, it is fun, and it is very funny! Only a few more rules than your usual Beer & Pretzel game.

I played my second game of Combat Commander: Europe by GMT Games. I was really looking forward to this second experience. I played Russians in my first game. I won by successfully storming the map (”For the Motherland!”) and keeping control of my objectives against an angry group of Germans. We played Scenario 12 this time: German defenders against attacking Americans on a map with lots of topography, buildings, and woods. I ended up playing Axis side. My forces consisted of:

• 3 leaders (Sgt. Esser, Sgt. Biermann, Sgt. Pfeiffer)
• 9 Volksgrenadier squads
• 2 Weapon teams
• 1 Heavy MG
• 2 Light MG
• 1 Light Mortar
• 1 Bunker and 2 Trenches

American forces were made of:

• 3 leaders (Lt. Blankenship, Cpl. Hubbard, Cpl. Jensen)
• 8 Line squads
• 5 Weapon teams
• 2 Medium MG
• 2 Medium Mortar
• 1 Light Mortar
• Additional Reinforcements coming into play during the game: Sgt. Smith and 8 Green squads

The picture to the left shows the initial setup. It does not take too long to prepare the board for a game: 10 to 15 minutes. That’s if all your chits are well sorted of course but my game partner seems pretty good at keeping his stuff well organized. Two objectives were identified with a value of 4 and 5 victory points. Both were on the large hill making half of the map. Elevation was a new concept for this game that we had to deal with (mostly line of sight questions). Also, we used mortars for the first time. Americans had to setup first. They divided their troops in two.

A small group was placed near an orchard close to the wooded area. The larger part of his initial troops was setup near the building in the other corner of the US side. The board became more crowded when reinforcements arrives (time marker reaching the “7″ space). Unfortunately, the troops were Green and not very effective at changing the outcome of the skirmish. One special rule that really affected game play was the FOG. This hindrance (-3) made all fire attacks really difficult to make all game long. The game would have been more lethal and probably over much sooner too. The CAVES rule allowed German snipers (which represent other events on the battlefield: bad luck, injuries, etc.) to affect enemies two hexes away instead of one. I used this rule quite a few times to break US units!

Being the defender, I got to setup second. I decided to put my bunker on the farthest objective and divide my troops in two groups. A small group was entrenched near an objective, keeping an eye on it. The other group was setup in what would end-up being called the Eagle’s nest. It was a building on the edge of the hill and surrounded by a stone wall. This proved to be a very strong point to lead my fire groups against US troops.

Summary of the game:

I did not move much. I used my orders/actions to Read the rest of this entry »