Fanticide Nursery Rhyme

Fanticide Monkey Monster Reinforcement

The Flying Monkeys need love too, so they get some in the form of a Monster choice- a Flying Gorilla.
Fresh from Alan Marsh, courtesy of Eureka Miniatures.

Kingdom of Odd

The Kingdom of Odd is a series of extremely mountainous islands of floating rock that drift off the western Edge of Nowhere. Many of the rock islands are now dominated by the endless glass like walls, minarets, and towers of the Bedimm, the strange masters of the Flying Monkeys. These walls and towers are very odd indeed, and appear almost to be grown from the rocks rather than built in any conventional method. Are they made of glass? This most assuredly is unknown as the only way to get to the Kingdom of Odd is by becoming a captive of the Monkeys, and none ever return. They are often described as jeweled because they seem to shimmer in the sun and can at times appear translucent, but no one knows except the Bedimm themselves.  The Islands of the Kingdom of Odd are very far away from Nowhere, but on a clear day and armed with a quality far looker, one could see the smokes billowing from the workshop factories of the Bedimm, practicing no one knows what form of sorcery. Ever swirling about the towers and peaks can be seen strange flying boats with wings, fluttering flying carpets, and the tiny dots of flying monkeys going about their indefinable business.

Fanticide - Some Art from Tony Ackland

A Monkey with a Relic Weapon

Table Fable #2 The River Run

Table Fable # 2- A Gaming Table is 4 x 6 feet.

Or at least rectangular…

Here is our second Table Fable. As a brief reminder from the first go, a fable is defined as:

A short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters; a story not founded on fact, a story about supernatural or extraordinary persons or incidents as in a legend, and finally an untruth or falsehood.

We plan on mixing all those definitions together and stretching the point a bit mind you…

 Gaming tables must be 4 x 6 feet or rectangular is a fable. This myth has been driven by the popularity of certain rule sets that always say you can play on a dining room table. You can play on a dining room table of course, or a 4 x 6 table or 4 x 8 or whatever but do remember there are options. You can play a game on a surface that is any shape and almost any size really. It’s all about what you want to accomplish. We have played some small unit actions (a game of 1930’s “Cuthuluesque” gangsters vs. monsters actually) that was 2 x 2 feet. It was full of buildings and frankly anything bigger would have been hard to work with. That game lasted 2 hours and was loads of fun. In the example below, we wanted to do a game about travelling down a river. Mind you, it works just as well f you are driving a convoy down a road or marching through countryside and avoiding ambushes.

We took two 2 x 5 panels (size doesn’t matter here) and butted them end for end. When we reached one end of the “table” we flipped them around and kept moving. It really did feel like we were travelling a fair distance, and since we were confined to boats, the narrow width was perfect. We moved the panels three times in total, and with our movement rate for the boats, we probably played 15 turns or so. Check out the diagram:

When the boats reached each panel, we drew a chit from a cup that had a number on it like 4r or 3 L. That told us which monsters to attack with and from what side of the river they were attacking. You can easily modify this to suit your game of course.

The Game Particulars

We chose to have one player try to get two boats down a River. One boat had a maiden, her maid, and a court escort. The second boat contained a small guard of 4 men at arms and their Sergeant. In addition, there were four “river men” crew, two to pole each boat. One player had to get the boats down the river from the departure point and safely deliver the princess maiden at the other end.  These models were made up of various Perry miniatures with the guard coming from Gripping Beasts Teutonic range.

Jeff, the other player and being obsessed with the beautiful Otherworld Miniatures line, chose to be the bad guys living along the river bank. He chose 3 Trolls, A swarm of Stirges, and two big old Bug Bears to try to stop the river goers…

No we didn’t worry about points and used a modification of Fanticide  for rules….

Jeff used my own Otherworld Miniatures Trolls against me….

Our back Story:

With the War now in its third year, the King must form new alliances as troop reserves are dwindling quickly. A marriage of his second cousin to the Prince of Apa Thee is the answer but the roads there are all controlled by the enemy. In desperation, he sends her by boat through the Fetid Swamp and the Narrows of Death, assured by the smuggling Boatmen that they can get her there despite the danger. Along with her hand maiden, he sends Old Forloy, his least useful adviser and 4 guards and a sergeant, all the troops he can spare.  They shouldn’t encounter any enemy troops as the river banks from Maydock to Apa Thee are notorious for harboring all matter of terrors and monsters. The boats just have to make it past the natives so to speak… This is the beginning of the first turn, and the boats set off at a good “poling clip” of 6 inches per turn in clear river.

Departure time at Maydock. The river is too narrow, too overgrown in most places and to shallow for the sail to be of any use. The boats will have to be poled all the way.

The first first six turns were uneventful. Jeff drew a blank chit for the board section adjacent to the dock, and all I had to do was move form one end to another. We didn’t bother measuring each turn out with nothing happening, though it did feel like I was getting somewhere when we flipped the boards.

One section down and only four more to go…

In the next section, I could tell Jeff had pulled something out of the cup, as he just kept grinning and getting fidgety. He didn’t have to place his models until he chose to, so all I could do was move, wait for him to say “nothing this turn” and move again. The tension was building. What would I have to face?

About midway into the section section, Jeff placed his figures on the table- A Stirge Swarm! On his turn they promptly attacked.

The Stirges swoop out of the forest and attack the boats. The defenders push the boats together to give them a flexible fighting platform to push off the attackers.

I managed to kill enough Stirges to make them permanently retreat.

Poling on to the next section of the River, the boats were attacked again. This time the attack came from the other bank by loathsome Trolls.

Emerging from the muck of the River bank, three trolls spring to attack…

The Trolls proved nasty indeed. This fight lasted three turns before the Trolls were driven off. With regeneration and powerful attacks, they took out two of the guards and one managed to snatch the maiden’s peasant helper. She was carried off when the trolls fled and no doubt met a horrible end.

While the Maiden and here escort survived that turn, the losses were heavy and I consolidated everything to one boat. Onward to the next river section, number four of six…

It was time to go through the really swampy section again, and neither I nor my little boat full of survivors was keen on it. Movement was slower (just 4 inches per turn) and the various islands were fair game for Jeff to deploy on. Which is just what he did with his bloody Bugbears…

We had these nice Otherworld Bugbears on hand, recently painted by Mike Marchant for his Fanticide war band.

Not looking good. The survivors are down to one boat when the Bugbears come out of the woods of one of the swamps interminable islands…

The Sergeant went down to the Bugbear with the big sword on the first swipe. It seemed all the sergeant did was point at stuff anyway, so I took the loss in stride. The two surviving guardsmen failed to score any wounds. They went down quick to. So, the outcome? With no real combatants left, I gave in. I couldn’t stand to watch the Bugbears have their way with the comely maiden. Let’s hope the King has another scheme to gather allies. This one certainly didn’t work!

This game lasted just over an hour with lots of boat moving . It really did feel like I was going from one place to another. The idea I could get ambushed by who knew what on each river section made for a nice tense game.  We enjoyed it enough we want to do it again. It was a nice change of pace from two armies whacking each other on a regular table top. The swapping river sections worked great.

The Moral of this Table Fable- You don’t have to play on a traditional table to have an enjoyable game. In fact, while we were playing we talked about other moving configurations too.  Games like this are a nice refreshing way to do something different with a minimal amount of effort. The 4 x 6 table is indeed a myth. Give something different a try.

Products used in this game included:

Otherworld Miniatures: http://www.architectsofwar.com/otherworldminiatures.aspx

Perry Medieval from the Foundry Range -look here for figures like them :  http://www.architectsofwar.com/orleanstoagincourt.aspx )

Gripping Beast Men at Arms: http://www.architectsofwar.com/latecrusades-teutonicknights.aspx

Pesky Stirges!

Through the eyes of Skye.....hanging out at Alien Dungeon today doing final edits of the fiction and I snapped this.  Homicidal unicorns and trees, and oh yes- a flying monkey or two.  Just another day in NoWhere.  And er, nevermind the whisky. 

Fanticide in 10mm?!

Some of our Fanticide models are only 10mm, like these Brownie Cavalry:

 

 

To compensate for their short comings this guy has big horns and a mighty big spear...

Fanticide is set in Nowhere

Nowhere is a world with neither time nor place. It has finite edges and an underside, just like a table. No one can tell you how to get there or how to leave. There are no legends about it, it is not part of any mythology, Nowhere doesn’t exist in this universe or any other.  If it lives at all, it lives in the minds of those intellects others would call insane, criminally so, and then only in their dreams. Perhaps those that are despondent can get a fleeting glimpse of it if they close their eyes and concentrate very hard under the influence of powerful narcotics.

Is this the war band structure for Fanticide?

WOW! What a fantastic response we have had to our first official posting on Fanticide and we are very happy it’s stirring up so much interest.

To get some more info to report to you, we sent Jeff down into the Alien Dungeon, well protected by an aluminum foil cone hat to ward off mind control attacks from Rick Priestley and gave him one of those wind up “no batteries needed” flash lights to see what he could find. We heard a lot of screams the first day, and the kind of cackling laughter we have heard before when Andy and Alessio have someone on the rack.  We heard nothing more until yesterday, when we found a few pieces of paper sticking out from under the dungeon door. It looks like a snippet from the rule book and a few pictures. We cleaned off the blood and some unidentifiable brown stuff so we could post them here. Still no sign of Jeff though…

Types of Homicide Squads

To help in organizing the war band, the different sorts of miniatures are split into types depending on their roles. In order to represent the rarity and value of different creatures, there are limitations to how many creatures you can choose in each category as detailed below.

Thumpers, Stickers, and Slashers

Your common everyday warrior type. The name is dependent on weapons carried and reflects that all squads of this type must carry the same weapon and armor. Spears, swords, clubs, maces, axes, are types of weapons these troops carry. Some, like blades, provide a Give bonus, explained later. Your war band may include a maximum of four squads in this category.

Shootists

Troops with missile weapons. These include bows, slings, and even guns in some cases. Like other squads, all miniatures must be armed the same way. Your war band can generally include a maximum of two squads in this category.

Crushers

Heavy shock troops – they come in various sizes from tree monsters to heavily armed Centaurs. Crushers are organized into smaller squads. No war band may have more than one Crusher Squad.

Peeves

These are swarms of small but vicious creatures. Your war band can generally include a maximum of two squads in this category.

Monsters!

Monsters are non-intelligent creatures that respond only to instinctive behavior or complex magical apparatus that are equally unreliable. In some cases monsters can be managed by the Virtue of Command. Monsters are normally a single miniature. War bands may only include one monster.

Leaders

War bands are led by powerful individuals called Legends and Masters. All warbands must include a leader – either a Legend or a Master.

Legends

Legends are mighty beings of great renown among their own kind. There can never be more than one Legend in a war band. Legends are allowed to have Retainers, faithful minions who accompany the Legend into battle, forming a separate squad in your warband. Retainers are unique because they can be equipped with artifacts, as befits their status. Often this means they are equipped with a musical instrument or a standard that can help nearby Homicide Squads that need to take Spirit or Sanity tests.

Masters

Masters are lesser heroes. They can lead a Homicide Squad or operate independently. Your war band can include a maximum of two Masters.

If Jeff reappears, we hope he comes back with more than just this. If for some reason he doesn’t return, we are all just going to have to move on I suppose. You have to anticipate personnel losses on a project like this. In the meantime, here are a few pieces of final art for the book from Tony Ackland and Alyn Spiller:

More about the game and the figure range coming each week. Please set your crystal ball or transmorgafier to http://aliendungeon.blogspot.com/