Fantasy 'Combat Patrol' with the HAWKs

I'm lucky I've gotten to know some of the fellas in the Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers (HAWKs) in the past year. They're great guys to game with, and if I didn't live so far from where they meet on Friday nights, I would be a regular at their gatherings. Regrettably, I have only been able to break free from work early enough to fight my way through rush hour traffic for their games a couple of times in the past year.

Fortunately, when the stars have aligned, it has always been worth the trip (recap of my previous trek). Last night, fellow Scrum Clubber Steve B. and I headed out early and got to Aberdeen, Maryland with enough time to grab some tasty barbecue at Chaps Pit Beef before heading over to a local church rec building where the HAWKs stage their battles.

Last night both games were fantasy themed (my sense is that usually at least one game on club night is a straight up historical battle). The ever-affable Eric Schlegel invited me up to play in his game set in an alternate Middle Earth using Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol WWII mechanics. While I believe Buck's original WWII rules have been around for a couple of years now, he and the HAWKs are still playtesting a fantasy version, and last night's game was part of that process. One of the strengths of the rules is that it has distilled nearly every randomization mechanic down to a single deck of cards that can resolve nearly everything, including movement, combat, wounds, hit location, morale checks, etc.

Given that I was the only player at the table with no experience with these rules, I felt I needed to concentrate most of my energy on just learning the basics so as not to fall behind or drag the game down for everybody else. That said, it didn't take long to learn how to get my orcs (and a troll) marching across the battlefield, fighting villagers and trying to burn down their homes. I have to admit that when I had first heard Combat Patrol relied on cards to resolve all the possible actions in the game, I was a bit dubious that I would find the approach satisfactory. By night's end, though, I was a convert. Buck has thought this through quite well, and though the cards at first appear intimidatingly dense with information, before long they start to make sense. In the final version of the fantasy rules I presume Buck will include a diagram with call-outs that explain all of the variables crammed onto the cards (I'm still not 100% confident regarding a few elements that weren't relevant to my troops).

A few cards from a deck of maybe 50 or so that me and another player on my team shared.

One of the things I really like about this game is the activation mechanic it shares with Buck's earlier rule set Look, Sarge, No Charts, which doesn't usually require players to wait for everybody else in the game to resolve their actions before proceeding with one's own. Two players can move and resolve their battles on one side of the table while somebody on the far side can be taking their own turn. As long as the actions aren't directly competing, it ends up being a fast way of keeping a large game moving and reducing downtime.

I can unequivocally say that I left the evening quite a fan of these rules (though I might refine and simplify morale checks a bit), and am looking forward to both playing it more and eventually owning the set to run for the Scrum Club.

Unfortunately, my camera literally had about a 3% charge left when we sat down to play, so I snapped a few pictures before it completely died on me (apologies for not getting a better variety and more close ups of miniatures in action).

Marching my orcs into battle while trying to quickly absorb the basics of the rules.

My troops: two units of orcs (warriors and ravagers, each with a leader) along with a group leader and a regenerating troll. If I remember correctly, GAMER stands for Guts, Accuracy (ranged attacks), Melee, Endurance (hit points), and Reaction, and these stats are what are cross-referenced against the cards drawn from the deck to resolve any number of actions and situations (getting as detailed as the modifiers for firing a bow at somebody riding a horse, and the like).

My group leader.

Steve Braun on the left and Eric Schlegel, the game master, in the hat to the right.

left to right: Bill Acheson, Roger, and Steve Braun

Some of my orcs running toward the village on the far side of the board. Their mission was to burn it down, but by the time they got close enough to the first building 2.5 hours of game play later, my orcs discover they had somehow forgotten their matches! You'll have to ask Eric to explain that one...it was his game!

Rules author Buck Surdu in the red shirt to the right and Greg Priebe hunched over in the foreground, likely raising our opponents' slain dwarves from the battlefield, enlisting them as fresh zombies in our army. 

Some of Greg's gnolls and a boulder-throwing hill giant we named Chuck (Mr. Charles to the opposition, thank you).

The forces of good arrayed against us...

Bill Acheson...he looks like an evil genius, but his forces of supreme darkness were routed by a bunch of hobbit archers.  

You can tell just by looking at this photo that these guys had little to no idea what they were doing. Yet somehow they still beat us...

Game master Eric, lording it over the rest of us...

Subsequent to my initial posting of this blog, I have been informed that the guy in the yellow shirt is named "Harry." Color me dubious: Sounds like an alias of some sort.

Parting Shots

I had a great time once again playing with these gents, my only regret being that I didn't get to share in a game with Chris, Duncan, or Kurt (who played at the other table), and that I didn't get to provide Don with more target practice. Don't worry, Don, I haven't forgotten the drubbing from our game of Ghost Archipelago earlier this year. Scores will be settled, my friend...

Until then, thanks again for a great evening of gaming. I'm really looking forward to the HAWKs' Barrage Convention, on September 28-29. I had a blast at the last one!