Coffee Break #27

Year of Our Lord 2021. October 17. Morning.

Autumn. Sunday. Coffee. Perfect

Only news on this side of war-gaming is that we are playing the battle of mount Badon, which supposedly happened in 516 AD between a host of Britons and another score of Saxons somewhere in the South relatively close to the valley of the Thames.

It is a very impromptu game proposal and wasn’t even planned, you know how it is. A gathering for dinner and talk flows and given we share common grounds in gaming it did flow back and forth with the new projects and games we playing. He’s more active (again) into RPGs while I am everywhere and nowhere, really – A ton of projects starts and I go with the flow – Exactly how he described his side of the hobby world, several campaigns started, tons of paper work but only one really moving forward – we had a good laugh about it because, we agreed, no matter what the official brand media and “pseudos” try to influence, things are not all freaking green pastures.

We did agree that no matter the Glorious New Age of Information the hobby scene is exactly the same. There’s the need for the physical places for enthusiasts to meet and that is in very very short supply around here. I mean, we could attend board-game cafe meetings but we wouldn’t have fun. Not a single game with clear conflict and violent resolution mechanisms nor proper grim and dark role-play. We can shrugs at the scene as much as we want, we understand a board-game cafe is a business and as such it is in their interest to keep a full house and war-games do not sell. RPGs do but is 5E everywhere and not mine nor my mate’s thing. Anyway…

After the coffee I pulled Battles for Prydain and proposed we had a go at it ( we played 2 turns and will continue the game today during the afternoon ). We both enjoy a lot the arthurian legends and are fans of the Warlord chronicles so our imagination does fill the gaps that a boardgame does not represent well as a miniatures game.

What is interesting is that my mate noted that the game flow isn’t that different from the versions of Warhammer Fantasy we played back in the day. In essence there’s a move, a shoot, a combat and “heroes duel”. Obviously is not the same but the events as they get resolved did remind him of that. We had a good laugh remembering the last version we played and how it all became just about the heroes – HeroHammer ( not to be confused with HeroQuest! ). All in all was a good evening and we will be ending the battle this afternoon. It is not often we come together anymore due to living in different parts of the country but when he comes visit his elders we always get together for some hobby time and I am glad he can spare a few hours in the weekend for a game.

We stopped the game during Turn 2 of Saxons ( me commanding ) Heroic Combat phase. As it is a intricate system ( but really easy and natural once played a few times ) it took a bit of walk through and was getting late ( think 11pm ) and even if his elders are just a few blocks down we are not as young anymore and we need our beauty sleep.

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The table was left as is with the Heroic Combats board being filled. Things not going good for the Britons and Arthur’s cavalry still nowhere to be seen.

It is noteworthy that the dice rolls of my mate were horrendous during the Heroic Combat which obviously made space for some funny comments about breeches and wetness and dying on a hill along with the classic quotations of popular movies, the most epic been when he started using the viking’s prayer ( Lo there do I see my father…. etc ) as my Saxon horde marched toward his lines.

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Note: I am also photoshooting the battle as to be able to make a stop motion sort of thing for an AAR of the battle, and I must say that a remote bluetooh control is an amazing piece of tech. Just place the tripod in the table and click the button as needed – no hands !!!.

Note 2 ( 24-10 ) – the stop motion project did not work as expected so rather I made a Quick Action Report synopsis format.