I removed offending posters and messages. Hopefully things do not get
too bad, otherwise I'll activate the feature where joining is only
possible after moderator's approval.

Hi everyone!!

I finally got around to uploading the 'TW-Squished' stuff I've had on
my  hard drive for ages.

Basically, this is a concept I had ever since I saw Battleground:
Fantasy Warfare by Your Move Games
(http://www.yourmovegames.com/battleground_index.html).

I never bought that game, but I figured that Te Wapen would make an
excellent ruleset for that type of game. i liked the idea of carrying
around a couple of armies in my pocket  :o)

Anyway, before www.paperworlds.com disppeared, one of the designers
there (Tabs-Wargamer) knocked up a set of cards for me, based on LOTR.

I've uploaded the cards (as a powerpoint file), and some thoughts I
had on playing the game. I tried a couple of sample games, played
against myself, and it seemed to work fairly well.

I've also added a set of tentative army lists for LOTR. I've attempted
to tweak the basic troop types in order to give the different races a
bit more character. These lists could be used in the regular game.

Right - there we go. Time for some suggestions and feedback. There
should be enough here for 5 or 6 posts, eh?

DaveA

(grin)

I rarely make a firm decision after just one go at something anyway
(Other than playing WHFB...)

I'll certainly give it another go and see how I feel about it. This
means the most important thing of all happens: I get to play more
games!!

I've got some of my own ideas as well. So I can tinker with it if I
feel like it. I'll probably reduce the size of the forces involved as
well - just to get more games in (HURRAH!) and obtain more of a feel.

Its all good stuff!

Incidentally:

1. I realise that I never uploaded those card versions of the units
back when I was mailing about "Te Wapen (Squished)".

2. I've put together some LOTR army lists - just tweaked the standard
unit stats - in order to introduce some racial flavouring.

3. I've also got the template I used to 'hexify' my gaming cloth.

Would anybody be interested in me uploading these items?

DaveA


--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Dutre" <philip.dutre@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> To be honest, I'm still experimenting with the activation sequence
now and
> then :-), so just to say that we haven't fully converged to a good
solution
> yet.
>
> My approach is to pick something that works well with the scenario
we set
> up. We sort of have a feeling for what works and what doesn't, so
we play
> for intended effect...
>
> Phil
>
>

Hi Phil!

Played my second game on Saturday night with a mate of mine (he missed
the first game over Christmas).

This time we used v24 of the rules, and tried out the multiple
commander style activation. The game took quite a while to play out -
over 3 hours with approximately the same number of units as the first
game. We both really enjoyed it, and the result was even closer than
the third game, with the whole battle going right down to the last two
units of archers.

I personally felt the activation sequence was a bit slow - this could
have been because the jokers kept appearing very quickly (or maybe
that was just rotten card shuffling). After the first 4 or 5 turns we
decided to reshuffle the deck only after the second joker appeared.

As you predicted, we tended to keep units much closer together in
order to keep them within control range of the commanders.

We also added a few more terrain features: a river, a building, a
field surrounded by hedges.

Unfortunately, the batteries ran oyt on the camera pretty early, but
I'll upload the photos I did manage to take.

DaveA

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Phil Dutre" <philip.dutre@...>
wrote:
> Yes, individual units wandering all around the battlefield can be a
> problem. We experienced that too when we using the simple activation
> sequence. That's why in our recent games we usually play with cards
in
> hand, together with each suit attached to a hero through which units
> have to be activated. We use tarot cards for that, since it adds
some
> flavour.
>
> Anyway, the net effect is that troops tend to stick more closer to
> each other, since if the drift too far away from a hero, they won;t
be
> able to activate.
>
> ANother solution might be to take a rule from the new BattleLore
(the
> medieval/fantasy version of Memoir44 and battlecry). Units which
have
> 2 adjacent friendely units are Bold. This means they can ignore one
> flag rolled agains them, but more importantly, they can also fight
> back in melee. Thus, it becomes much more difficult to attack a unit
> that is supported on both flanks, or both rear hexes (any 2 adjacent
> hexes basically).
>
> Phil
>

Yes - I can see how the Hero-based activation would make you keep
your units closer together. I would also expect them to be more
likely to stand ground and fight as well. In which case, maybe they
really WOUND be more likely to take hits.

As far as the suggested rule goes, let me just rephrase it and see if
I got that right:

If I was attacking a unit that had 2 supporting units in hexes
adjacent to it, I would have to roll 2 or more 1's to force a
retreat. Is that correct?

Incidentally, I've never played Memoir44 or Battlecry before, but saw
a copy of M44 in Travelling Man (Manchester, UK) two nights ago.

DaveA

That was the one I was the least comfortable about, and could have
changed the game entirely. Interesting. Well, now we know!  ;o)

Thanks for the answer, Phil.

DaveA

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Phil Dutre" <philip.dutre@...>
wrote:
> Yeah, I should be more clear about that. The intent of individuals
> being attached to a unit is that the unit actually is a rank-and-
file
> unit consisting of several soldiers (represented by 4 or 5 or 6 or
> whatever figures, but 'in reality' a mass of troops of 100 soldiers
or
> even more ...). The individual is then trotting along with the mass
> unit, sometimes leading it, sometimes hiding in it.
>
> So, an individual should not really be able to attach himself to a
> large monster. To be honest, our group still gets confused about it
> (apart from me, of course :-) :-)), but when going back to the
intent,
> it should work out. I'll try to make it more clear when I do the
> following edit of the rules.
>

> Also - neither of us played units with much support. We were far too
> worried about being bracketed and unable to retreat (and therefore
> taking a hit). There seemed to be a lot of single unit moves and
> attacks, and therefore a lot of exchange of wounds. I suppose it would
> be better to gang up when you draw a royal or ace card. That letts you
> get all your attacks in before your opponent can respond.

Yes, individual units wandering all around the battlefield can be a
problem. We experienced that too when we using the simple activation
sequence. That's why in our recent games we usually play with cards in
hand, together with each suit attached to a hero through which units
have to be activated. We use tarot cards for that, since it adds some
flavour.

Anyway, the net effect is that troops tend to stick more closer to
each other, since if the drift too far away from a hero, they won;t be
able to activate.

ANother solution might be to take a rule from the new BattleLore (the
medieval/fantasy version of Memoir44 and battlecry). Units which have
2 adjacent friendely units are Bold. This means they can ignore one
flag rolled agains them, but more importantly, they can also fight
back in melee. Thus, it becomes much more difficult to attack a unit
that is supported on both flanks, or both rear hexes (any 2 adjacent
hexes basically).

Phil

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Ashton" <tonsha@...> wrote:

> 1. When the Gobbo Wizard attempted to Freeze the Human Spear Unit
> (With a Human Wizard 'attached'), there was some discussion about
> whether the wizard was actually 'attached' yet as they had not yet
> activated. The die said it was 'attached' (They were in the same Hex
> anyway) and the Wizard froze them both.

We usually play that spell that everything in the hex is affected, so
if a wizard would be in the same hex as a unit, he's frozen as well.

> 2. Eventually the Gobbo Wizard became attached the the Giant. The
> Giant performed a trample, moving opver a unit of Human Spear. The
> Gobbo Wizard activated with the Giant, so moved over as well ("He was
> in the Giant's Pocket") Was that a legal move? The die said so.

Yeah, I should be more clear about that. The intent of individuals
being attached to a unit is that the unit actually is a rank-and-file
unit consisting of several soldiers (represented by 4 or 5 or 6 or
whatever figures, but 'in reality' a mass of troops of 100 soldiers or
even more ...). The individual is then trotting along with the mass
unit, sometimes leading it, sometimes hiding in it.

So, an individual should not really be able to attach himself to a
large monster. To be honest, our group still gets confused about it
(apart from me, of course :-) :-)), but when going back to the intent,
it should work out. I'll try to make it more clear when I do the
following edit of the rules.

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Apologies for the delay in posting this: Sunday was much busier than I
anticipated, and we had surprise visitors on New Year's Day, so I
didn't manage to write this up until today (And I've only just managed
to do it before bedtime 'cos I was back at work today as well...)

OK - I planned a fairly straight forward battle, just to see how the
rules played. Myself and three of my buddies got together for the
battle, and we played teams on the day. The armies were:

Human Army with a couple of allies (Ent, Giant Bear, Giant Spider).
One general and two Magic Users.

Orc & Goblin Army, again with some allies (Red Dragon, 2 units of
Minotaurs [Ogres], a Giant, and 2 units of Large Boars). Two generals,
one Magic User and an Assasin.

We had a few extra (new) units in each army that are not listed in the
TW basic rules. I've already posted the stats for these in a previous
post.

Magic Users all started with 10MP each as suggested in the rules.

We divvied up teams, and then each team decided how much of each army
they were going to control. I was looking after the Left Flank of the
Orc army, so all descriptions of the battle will be from that perspective.

Finally, we were using version 22 of the rules, and decided to use
alternate activation rather than colour activation.

====================================================================

the Orc Army had the best of the activations at the start of the game,
getting royal cards and Aces very quickly. The Red Dragon drew first
blood, completely wiping out a unit of cavalry that attempted to skirt
the forest over on the left flank.

This victory was short lived, as the humans brought up a unit of Spear
and a unit of Bows (with the sorceress) and killed the Dragon on the
very next activation. The Humans were just too afraid of this powerful
animal and poked, shot and fireballed it to death. It was an excellent
  example of ganging up on a powerful creature, but unfortunately they
didn't seem to carry it over into the rest of the game.

Most of the action developed in the centre and on the right flank.
There were an exchange of hits between the Giant Spider and the Goblin
  archers and Orc cavalry. Eventually the Spider was killed by a unit
of Minotaurs, but it gave a good account of itself.

The human army brought up it's knight units (one of which had the
Human General) and tried to take out the Minotaurs. But they held
firm, and then the Assasin (who was activating with the Minotaurs)
successfully took out the General.

Orc Cavalry attempted to dispose of the Sorceresses Spear unit - in an
attempt to expose her for attack, but a quick heal spell here, or the
activation of another unit to cover her hex kept her going.

Some slight manouvreing in the centre continued, when the Humans
suddenly decided to develop the left flank, and sent the ranger
plunging through the woods on their own. They did a good job at
attacking a unit of boars, but the return fire evened things out quite
nicely. A second unit of boars finished off the Rangers and the action
slowed down a bit over that side for a while.

In the centre, the Humans were being very wary of the Giant, keeping
well away from him and just taking potshots with the Archers. They
occasionally cast a freeze spell on him before his activation, but
they didn't follow this up, so he was available to activate again at
the end of each turn.

Continuous excahnge of  long range bow fire was whittling down units
very nicely. Over on the left flank the Ent charged through the trees
to confront two Orc units - damaging the Archers before the Orc Swords
could wound it and force a retreat. The remaining archers were then
able to finish it off.

The Bear had also nipped through the trees, and was attacking the
remaining boar unit, but the boars and the archers on that flank were
able to kill it.

I was getting worried at around this point though. the Orc army was
looking very weak, and extremely spread out, while the Human Army
still had a good number of units with a full complement of Wounds.

Further exchanges of bowfire forced the sorceress to join with the
Wizards Spear unit (Up til now, the Wizard hadn't done very much). At
around the same time, the Unit covering the Goblin Wizard and Assasin
was wiped out, leaving them dangerously exposed.

Suprisingly, the humans did not capitalise on this opportunity.
Instead, the Giant was frozen again, and a simple bow attack on the
Assasin resulted in a miss. The Assasin then moved up to the bowm unit
and attacked the Sorceress (since she had more MP than the Wizard) and
successfully murdered her (but was caught in the attempt)

The humans now decided it was time to get stuck into the Giant and,
while inflicting a couple of extra wounds, left it standing.This was
all the opportunity needed, and with its next activation, the Giant
trampled a unit of spear, and engaged the unit of bows covering the
Wizard. Both units were destroyed, and the Goblin Wizard then
fireballed the Human Wizard. This effectively one the game, and was a
  surprising turn of events, considering how pessimistic I had been in
the last few moves.

With only two wounds left, the giant wasn't likely to survive and
attack by the remaining Human knights, but with the Baors and Wizard
left to dish out some havoc, it was all over bar the looting
of the bodies.

===================================================================

Well, it played out in just over two hours, and the general feeling
was extremely positive. I really enjoyed myself (winning helped) and
was impressed at just how quickly each activation went once we got the
hang of it. I'm confident that a replay would take under two hours.

I was also pleased that the balance of the game was so good. The
Humans should have had two Ents (But my mate forgot to bring one) so I
whitled the Boars down by a unit  to keep things even. Perhaps another
Ent could have made the difference, I'm not sure.

Individuals really made a difference. Obviously, then Magic users
really packed a punch, but the Assasin did really well - two
Individuals felt the steel of his dagger. I was a bit disappointed
with the Dragon, but that was poor moving on my part, I should have
picked my target more carefully. The Giant more than made up for this
though, although I had to be patient and bide my time to use him. A
timely Heal spell helped to keep him going.

I thought the Human Army made a couple of mistakes - not aggresively
attacking the Giant after freezing him was one. With two magic users
they could have piled two or three activation markers on him and
carved him up with a penknife!

I also felt that sticking the knights on the right flank was a poor
tactic as well. They were the human 'heavy hitters', and I'd have kept
them in the middle to take on the Giant and Minotaurs (if I had been
in charge).

Also - neither of us played units with much support. We were far too
worried about being bracketed and unable to retreat (and therefore
taking a hit). There seemed to be a lot of single unit moves and
attacks, and therefore a lot of exchange of wounds. I suppose it would
be better to gang up when you draw a royal or ace card. That letts you
get all your attacks in before your opponent can respond.

To summarise: It was utterly brilliant, and I plan to play again very
soon!  :o)

DaveA

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Ashton" <tonsha@...> wrote:
>
> Wow - I've just uploaded about thirty photos. I took more... but I
> think thirty tells the story well enough! (Phew!).
>
> I'll do a full battle report tomorrow. Just quickly - The gaming board
> was my regular green cloth. I'm getting a new one, so I decided the
> 'hexify' the old one (This is why I haven't played Te Wapen for two
> years). I made a card template then spent two hours marking the hexes
> on the cloth - the morning of the game! (From 6am until 8am - am I mad
> or what?). I'll try to upload the template to the files section at
> some point, so people can make their own boards if they want to. The
> Kallistra terrain is lovely, but at 40 quid a box is well out of my
> price range (I play with paper figures for goodness sake!)

Dave,

I like your setup. The 2D paper figures look really nice. One of my
plans to set up a game with old-style flat German tinfigures at some
point ;-)

Yeah, the Kallistra terrain is expensive. An alternative might be:
http://www.hotzmats.com/
They sell felt mats with superimposed hexgrids. Green, fields, desert,
... I also discovered this only about a week ago.

I'll answer your rules questions later. I'll just say that indeed some
things are not streamlined very well at this point. I also keep
tinkering with the system every time I play a game, but that's the fun
of home-written rules :-)

Phil

_

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Ashton" <tonsha@...> wrote:
>
> Wow - I've just uploaded about thirty photos. I took more... but I
> think thirty tells the story well enough! (Phew!).
>
> I'll do a full battle report tomorrow. Just quickly - The gaming board
> was my regular green cloth. I'm getting a new one, so I decided the
> 'hexify' the old one (This is why I haven't played Te Wapen for two
> years). I made a card template then spent two hours marking the hexes
> on the cloth - the morning of the game! (From 6am until 8am - am I mad
> or what?). I'll try to upload the template to the files section at
> some point, so people can make their own boards if they want to. The
> Kallistra terrain is lovely, but at 40 quid a box is well out of my
> price range (I play with paper figures for goodness sake!)

Dave,

I like your setup. The 2D paper figures look really nice. One of my
plans to set up a game with old-style flat German tinfigures at some
point ;-)

Yeah, the Kallistra terrain is expensive. An alternative might be:
http://www.hotzmats.com/
They sell felt mats with superimposed hexgrids. Green, fields, desert,
... I also discovered this only about a week ago.

I'll answer your rules questions later. I'll just say that indeed some
things are not streamlined very well at this point. I also keep
tinkering with the system every time I play a game, but that's the fun
of home-written rules :-)

Phil

Wow - I've just uploaded about thirty photos. I took more... but I
think thirty tells the story well enough! (Phew!).

I'll do a full battle report tomorrow. Just quickly - The gaming board
was my regular green cloth. I'm getting a new one, so I decided the
'hexify' the old one (This is why I haven't played Te Wapen for two
years). I made a card template then spent two hours marking the hexes
on the cloth - the morning of the game! (From 6am until 8am - am I mad
or what?). I'll try to upload the template to the files section at
some point, so people can make their own boards if they want to. The
Kallistra terrain is lovely, but at 40 quid a box is well out of my
price range (I play with paper figures for goodness sake!)

Most of the armies were card minis available from www.paperworlds.com
- mainly Shaun Astin's figures. Someone has done a load of Ratmen
figures as well, so I may do a Ratmen army sometime.

I made up stats to some of the units:

Human Rangers - Mv 2, Dice 3-2-1, Hit 4+, Wounds 3, Forest Walk
Giant Bear - Mv 2, Dice 4, Hit 5+, Wounds 3, Forest Walk
Giant Spider - Mv 2, Dice 4, Hit 5+, Wounds 3, Poisoned Attack
Goblin Spear - (same as Orc swords but only 3 wounds)
Boars - (same as bears in standard rules)

Lacking Elemental figures and some way to mark Fog, I limited the
spells available to Fireball, Freeze, Teleport and Heal. No one
attempted Teleport.

The Human Army had a General and two Magic Users. The Goblin army had
two Generals, one Magic User and an Assasin. The Assasin was really
useful, taking out the Human General and the Sorceress before finally
getting caught, but that was poor positioning by the humans towards
the end. He could have been taken out a couple of times, but the
humans decided to worry about the Giant instead.

We had a couple of issues in the game that were resolved by the die
roll ("Evens it is. Odds it's not..."). I'd appreciate your opinions
on them:

1. When the Gobbo Wizard attempted to Freeze the Human Spear Unit
(With a Human Wizard 'attached'), there was some discussion about
whether the wizard was actually 'attached' yet as they had not yet
activated. The die said it was 'attached' (They were in the same Hex
anyway) and the Wizard froze them both.

2. Eventually the Gobbo Wizard became attached the the Giant. The
Giant performed a trample, moving opver a unit of Human Spear. The
Gobbo Wizard activated with the Giant, so moved over as well ("He was
in the Giant's Pocket") Was that a legal move? The die said so.

Thats all for now. Catch you tomorrow!

DaveA

Hi Phil & Everybody. Merry Christmas!

I just thought I'd send a quick message to tell you I've finally got
around to playing my first games of Te Wapen. I've been a member of
this group for quite a while now (2 years? It feels like it) but I've
finally managed to get enough stuff organised to play a game.

I can honestly say it was a real blast. Very enjoyable for everyone
who played, with enough twists and turns to keep us all on the edge of
our seats and biting our nails. A really close game too.

We played the original rules using alternate unit activation. And we
got through the game in just over two hours (That was with around
fifteen units a side).

I'll post a proper battle report - with pictures - over the weekend,
but I just wanted to let you all know what great fun we had playing.

Thanks for posting the rules Phil!

DaveA

Since I didn;t post anything on Te Wapen for a long time, here's a
small update on things:

- Games are still being played by my group, but lately we have
ventured onto WW1, Vietnam, and Old West games, all using the same
style of hex-based rules. When writing hex-based rules for these
games, I usually start from existing rulesets
(http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk is a great resource!) and then
hexify them.

- I recently bought a desert-flocked kallistra terrain set, and we
already played a game on it, using the hex-based rules for colonial
battles, Afriboria (see http://www.tsoa.be/html/fuseliers.html).


Phil

Thank you! They offer very nice hexex and terrain, but their
shipping costs are too high.

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Dutre" <philip.dutre@...>
wrote:
>
> I'm using the hex-based terrain from kallistra:
> http://www.kallistra.co.uk/
>
> The hexes measure approx. 10cm from side to side.
>
> I've also drawn my own hex-based grids. In one of the picture
series you see
> a green cloth on which I've drawn a grid of half-displaced
squares, giving
> the same connectivity as hexes.
>
> I also have made a desert terrain on brown packing paper. For
this, I cut
> out a few hexes out of cardboard and used these as a template to
fill out an
> entire grid of hexes.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> On 7/20/06, kalinin_yuri <kalinin_yuri@...> wrote:
> >
> >   Nice pictures. What kind of Hexes are you using and how big
are they?
> >
> > Best regards
> > Yuri
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Phil Dutre
> philip.dutre@...
>

Nice pictures. What kind of Hexes are you using and how big are they?

Best regards
Yuri

I posted a new version of the Te Wapen rules.

Most of the ideas we have developed and playtested over the past year
or so have been included.

The most notably changes are:
- different activation sequence, now using commanders as the focal
point rather than a random card drawn from the deck.
- clarified the rules for individuals in the context of the new
activation sequence.
- corrected some typos etc.

The list of monsters is still incomplete, that gets only filled in
when the monsters are actually put on my gaming table ;-)


Have fun!

Phil

I added some new photos in the photo Section of a game of TeWapen that
was played this weekend (15 July 2006).

The game was run by a friend of mine, who wanted to run an epic battle
to conclude his D&D roleplaying campaign (I took no part in this
campaign myself). Since the D&D combat rules are a bit unwieldy for
mass battles, I suggested to him to use Te Wapen, and I offered my
wargames room as a venue.

The armies and troop types were completely up to him. That's why you
see some D&D miniatures in the pictures (normally not my cup'o tea
;-)), and even an unpainted white dragon from the Descent game
(somehow the players decided it was exactly the type of miniature they
needed).

The characters in the campaign were translated to TeWapen rules. They
all became commanders (see the Tarot Activation sequence, now standard
in our games), and had some various abilities and spells that tied in
with their D&D counterparts.

There was no effort to make the game balanced, although we ran a quick
sanity check on the 'attacking capabilities' of all troops to make
sure neither side was grossly underpowered.

The battle went pretty smoothly and ran for over 8 hours (including a
lunch break). I was present during the first hours, but feeling no
emotional attachment to this game, I left the players to their own
devices during the second half of the game.

Anyway, the players were prettys atisfied with the results, and it
shows that Te Wapen is a flexible system, able to accomodate any type
of miniatures and troop types, while still producing a tactical
challenging and fun game.

It was a really interesting game. Phil set up a very good scenario which set
plenty of problems for the 'human players' (Eddy and I tried to be human) in
dividing up their forces and manouevring them through difficult mountain
passes. There was a lot to do and many interesting choices to make - I'm not
sure we always got it right though.

The opening move saw our secret weapon, a blunderbuss with strong ranged
fire, ambushed and destroyed by enemy goblins skulking in the mountains -
this was a funny moment I thought. We then spent several turns desperately
trying to feed our powerful but slow infantry into the central plain to
relieve the slaughter of our cavalry on the left flank.

The game system worked very well, I thought, even if Eddy and I got a bit
confused at certain moments. Being able to play a series of cards to
activate different units in the same turn gave a very tactical game, with
the possibility of coordinated attacks and maybe even a breakthrough (it
didn't come).

I look forward to playing again

Alan

Here's a game report of a game we tried last night. Also, we used a
variant of the activation sequence. Details of the scenario can be
found in the files section.


Game report by Eddy:

Just a small AAR on last night's game The Punitive Expedition into the Orc
homelands after the successful raising of the siege of Löwenheim. As fate
would have it Alan and me would be playing the brave humans, Maarten and
Phil playing the ugly, cowardly bad guys so it seemed that the God of Dice
was for once going to play fair tonight.

It would be a classical medieval/fantasy battle and Phil re-assured us
that
"There would be no suprises". At that point in time we should have
realized
anything Phil says has the believability of a press statement by Mohammed
"There are no Americans in Bagdad" Saeed al-Sahaf but that would become
painfully clear in the game ahead.

So we split-up our army into 3 sections to be able to navigate the 3
mountain passes leading up to the Orc plain – and presto, suddenly archers
appeared out of nowhere to pepper our trapped troops with deadly
arrows from
the safety of the mountains. "Well, you can't call that a surprise,
can you
- you're moving through mountain passes, what did you expect ?"  was the
only comment from Phil so we knew that there would be other trouble ahead.

Those archers had cost us two units, both of them ranged units
(blunderbuss
and archers) and managed to delay our approach considerably so while
the Orc
army was happily setting up a battleline only our cavalry had managed to
extricate themselves from the mountain passes and form-up in a line. There
they would wait a couple of turns for the infantry to catch-up and cover
their flank.

As our cavalry was on the left, and the Orc cavalry / wargs was on the
right
a gigantic cavalry clash was clearly going to happen so it would be
important to get the first charge in. Through some cunning play (read :
luck) it were the humans who got to launch their charge first. And what a
charge it was – virtually annihilating the Orc cavalry but then it
dawned on
us that it had all been a gigantic trap as the deadly card of "Judgement
Day" was used on our troops – twice - This had the effect of removing just
as much figures from our units as we had killed in that charge. 2 heavy
cavalry units got wiped-out, with a third just hanging on and our most
powerfull unit – the Red Dragon – frozen in place. It was a disaster from
which the left flank would never recover. Gone was the tactical plan to
occupy the enemy burial mound.

So with our left flank gone, our right flank still hopelessly stuck in the
mountains and out of the game, our only hope lay in the centre where
we had
a local superiority as the Orc army had concentrated too many of their
units
on their right flank to counter our cavalry. But the God of Dice hadn't
abandoned us : Maarten and Phil were getting low dice while even our
long-shot totally-against-the-odds attacks managed to kill some enemy
units
so the unit kill tally was slowly turning into our favour. With one unit
killed equaling 1 VP we were even ahead by 1 point throughout the
middle of
the game though we didn't control any of the victory locations worth 2
VP's.
It was getting late so at that point Phil declared that since neither army
was likely to fulfill their victory conditions a "moral victory" would be
given to the first army to reach 10 VP's. It was 7-6 in our favour at that
moment so a desperate struggle in the center ensued with both sides going
for kills regardless of the consequences. The Orcs were up first killing 3
of our units so it was 7-9 and they were only 1 VP removed from
victory, but
in our next turn the last cavalry unit coupled with a wizard's fireball
attack and even a regular infantry attack (the only one in the game IIRC,
all the rest being ranged, cavalry or magical) managed to kill an orc unit
and in a stroke of genius Alan also managed to occupy the central victory
location stone which netted us an additional 2 VP's : 10-9 – we had "won",
but given the carnage all around us, we would have settled for a draw
anytime.

Aftermath :

As this was a card-driven game with activation, attack bonus and opponent
counter-cards we had to use-up all our cards to get out of those
bloody (in
both senses of the word) mountains and out into the plain while the
Orc army
had had a chance to accumulate some deadly counter-cards which they
used to
good effect. I don't think we ever used either a bonus card or a
counter-card throughout the game which is fine as it means the system is
flexible enough to cope with different situations and strategies.

I should have brought along my digital camera (and I will next time)
as the
table looked spectacular. For those who were there here's what I would
have
taken pictures off : the Orc army lining up beautifully in the center
of the
table, the total confusion in the mountain passes following the
ambush, the
human heavy cavalry drawn up for battle on the hill and the charge
downhill
and the scenes of Armageddon in the centre as both armies just
battered each
other to pulp.

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "ogrefencer" <roguejedi@...> wrote:

> I noticed a picture of a Sci Fi game using
> similar mechanics and I am very interested in that as well. Is it a
> seperate set of rules on another group?

No, same set of rules - sort of. I posted my summary sheet in the
files section.

Phil

Hi,

I'm really glad you liked the rules.
I've been using them myself for more than 2 years now, and have
experimented quite a bit with different options and mechanisms, but
not everything has been written up yet, so the rules as available on
the website are a bit outdated (from my point of view).

Also, please consider TeWapen just an 'engine' that you can play
around with and modify according to your own preferences and tastes.
We use variants for different scenarios anyway. The rules on the site
are only a framework ...

> 1. If a unit is forced to retreat from combat and has yet to be
> activated should it not be then classed as such as an additional
> choice - for each retreat the loser could either 1/retreat, 2/lose a
> figure or 3/go activated. I have not tried this but will do so in
> due course.

Yeah, that might be a good option.

>
> 2. Given the nature of Fantasy armies I wonder if perhaps a unit
> points cost would be appropriate and if so, how would we work it out?

Aaah, the can of worms!!!!! :-)

Short answer: I thought about this, but then, I would not use it. When
I run a TeWapen game, I do it completely scenario-driven: make a
terrain, plop some units on the table, and off we go. I prefer this
approach over elaborate point-lists, which will often not lead to
balanced games anyway ...

> 4. We borrowed a mechanic from DBA - namely the group move. For
> units in base contact a single activation would be sufficient to get
> them moving/fighting. A marker though would be placed against each
> unit in the group. This has its advantages and diadvantages in that
> whilst early in game (and out of reach of the enemy) it is easier to
> control your force but once you get to grips then you want to revert
> to the individual activations to respond to local situations.

This seems to make sense!

>
> All in all it was a great afternoons gaming and I am completely sold
> on this - so much so that I want to explore some more historical
> stuff as well.
>
> I will also sit down and spec out some of the missing
> armies/creature types.

Sounds good.

I've opened up the files and photo section, so you can post your own
stuff there if you want to.

Have fun!
Phil

--
Phil Dutre
philip.dutre@...

--- In Te_Wapen@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Ashton" <tonsha@...> wrote:
>
> (Or should we go for TW-Flat?  :)
>
> Hi Phil!
>
> I've put together some sample cards in Powerpoint, along with my
> thoughts on the game. How can I send these to you?
>
> There is no card art as such - just a green background, stats and a
> marker in the centre of the front edge. Enough to play the game. Would
> anybody else on the list be interested? Maybe we could get them posted
> to the Files ssection.
>
> DaveA
>

Dave,

oops, I realized I never answered this!

Anyway, if you send the files to me, I can put them on the website of
teh group, or you can post them yourself.

Phil

Hi All,

I gave the rules a run out today with my 10 year old daughter. What
a blast! I do not have a hexed set up yet so I was using 4 inches as
being a hex. the figures were from the Hasbro/WOTC game of Dungeons
and Dragons. This meant no mounted figures, nor human armies. the
two forces were Goblins versus Undead. The Goblins comprised 8 x 3
Goblin units, 2 x 2 Troll units and a Zoat to command. The Undead
had 5 x 4 Skeletons, 4 x 2 Zombies, 1 x 3 Wraith (used as undead
cavalry)and a Liche to command. The terrain comprised a selection of
hills, woods and ruined farm. The Skeletons won both time - in
retrospect it may have been better to have classed them as Orcs - 3
figure Goblin units die rather quickly. A couple of points arose.

1. If a unit is forced to retreat from combat and has yet to be
activated should it not be then classed as such as an additional
choice - for each retreat the loser could either 1/retreat, 2/lose a
figure or 3/go activated. I have not tried this but will do so in
due course.

2. Given the nature of Fantasy armies I wonder if perhaps a unit
points cost would be appropriate and if so, how would we work it out?

3. The card system was fine using an ordinary deck - personally I am
not that keen on using the 'flavour' cards from the two games - I
find them to be a little limiting. My own suggestion would be to
allow a person to exchange an activation for a special action -
perhaps from a list; either generic or army specific.

4. We borrowed a mechanic from DBA - namely the group move. For
units in base contact a single activation would be sufficient to get
them moving/fighting. A marker though would be placed against each
unit in the group. This has its advantages and diadvantages in that
whilst early in game (and out of reach of the enemy) it is easier to
control your force but once you get to grips then you want to revert
to the individual activations to respond to local situations.

All in all it was a great afternoons gaming and I am completely sold
on this - so much so that I want to explore some more historical
stuff as well.

I will also sit down and spec out some of the missing
armies/creature types.

All the best,

Ogre and out.

Hi All,

What an inspired set of rules! I am a great Battle Cry and Mem 44
player (and soon to be ancients command and colours as well!) but
really wanted a good fantasy set. These will fir the bill very nicely
but I have a question. I noticed a picture of a Sci Fi game using
similar mechanics and I am very interested in that as well. Is it a
seperate set of rules on another group?

For my hex terrain i am going to use a set of 3inch (75mm) iron on hex
transfers that i acquired from RAFM a number of years ago. i like the
HEXON stuff but it is out of my price bracket.

All the best,

Ogre and out

(Or should we go for TW-Flat?  :)

Hi Phil!

I've put together some sample cards in Powerpoint, along with my
thoughts on the game. How can I send these to you?

There is no card art as such - just a green background, stats and a
marker in the centre of the front edge. Enough to play the game. Would
anybody else on the list be interested? Maybe we could get them posted
to the Files ssection.

DaveA

> Hmm, I don;t even know what 'squished' means ;-) despite living in
the
> US for a few years.
>
> Phil
>

(grin) it means flattened or squashed. Pancaked. I was just thinking
of a flippant way to say we're using cards on the table instead of
miniatures.

I've managed to get a lot of my thoughts down about this. Are you
interested? I'd appreciate someone I could bounce ideas off.

DaveA