Last year I was inspired by some one page adventure work going on in one of the OSR fragments. There was much talk about ‘zines, booklets, and pamphlets. One of the best ideas from Cody M. was a single sheet pamphlet folded into thirds, that kind of thing you might find at a county park.
I had been pondering a ‘zine and settled on this 1 page pamphlet format as a focused delivery. My friends Peter & Nils coined this pamphlet an “adventure trail-head”. Perfect! Gather you paper, pencils, and dice – set a course for adventure.
Print run for DunDraCon 2019 – end of an era…
The concept here is to provide a jumping off point for the GM of any table top role-playing game. The setting itself is cribbed from some AD&D 1e adventures notes I compiled in the early 90s – distilled down to a few key ideas, with some loaded questions for the GM or PCs to drive the fiction forward.
One final bit of graphic design shenanigans is a game board for some tavern gambling. A game within a game!
For those not familiar with To the Strongest – it is a British rule set published in 2015 – covering ancient through medieval wargaming. This game is a played on a grid, uses playing cards instead of dice, and very well suited to Table Top Simulator.
I’ve played a bit of To the Strongest on the physical tabletop, struggled with some of the basic concepts, and wrestled with army lists that assume some basic knowledge of the rules. All difficult points when learning a game. Settling into the 1066 tournament with group of seasoned players was a challenge. Falling back on my go to strategy of creating reference materials I refined the quick reference sheet for clarity & made reference materials out of the army lists themselves.
Have pulled together an introduction to virtual wargaming with To the Strongest using Tabletop Simulator: TTS on TTS. Hope it will inspire some to try miniature wargaming in a virtual space.
Update – March 21
Recently I recorded an actual play session. This might be a good way to learn how to play or at least gain an understanding of the game mechanics
Update January 29
Have updated my QRS, cleaning up the evade section and the “advance & throw” along with “fire & retire” being restricted to Light Units.
Update April 9
Have updated my TTS QRS to support Even Stronger v12. Also removes the unit type specific details from the melee and shooting modifiers. Instead those modifiers moved to the Streamline TTS unit summary, preferring that such modifiers be included in an army list rather than QRS.
Top down photo of a Warmaster Empire command stand w/ iOS Prisma Gothic filter
I’ve been chasing the online miniature wargaming dragon for a good while now – have had experience with Cyberboard, Vassal, Full Thrust Java Client, Table Top Simulator (unsucessfully), and now Roll20 (successfully).
For me Roll20 get’s closest to pushing units on the table top realtime with reasonable graphics. My first real implementation here, beyond the standard RPG, has been for Warmaster. This post describes that process of setting up such an environment.
Example of what’s been produced with this method
Tools Used
iPhone – camera & photo edits
Tripod – platform for the top down photograph
Prisma iOS app – photo filter
iPad – tablet based graphical editing
Apple Pencil – fine point stylus
Magic Eraser iOS app – transparency editor
Desktop PC – runs Roll20 in any web browser
MS Paint – creates the basic template
Roll20 – the tabletop platform
Photos
Shoot top down photos of a Warmaster army – 1 photo for each unique base type
Crop all photos to roughly same dimension
Push these photo through a filter – a bit more illustrative than photographic
Export filtered photos to iPad
Remove photo boarders with transparency editor – use Magic Eraser or similar
Import photos to PC
Create a “scaling reference” – 40x20mm = 280x140px – save this as a png – use MS Paint or similar
Roll20 Game
Create new game for Roll20
Configure new “map” – no grid – 5cm = 70px – 6×4 foot table = 37×25
Drag & drop appropriate texture or aerial photo to map, ensure it is on the “map layer”
Go to the “journal” – create a new “character” – edit that character so that Name = Basic Template, In Player’s Journals = All Players, Can be Edited… = All Players – save these changes
Again open & edit the “Basic Template”, click duplicate button x times
Drag & drop stand scaling reference to the table top
Drag & drop appropriate unit photo the table top
Scale the unit photo to the scaling reference
Select the re-scaled
Open one of the “Basic Template” copies and edit – Name = appropriate unit name – click “use selected token” – ensure that “all players” is set for journals & controls – save changes
Repeat
Roll20 Macros
You may wish to create the following macros – ensuring that they are shared with “all players” and marked as “in bar” – these provide a simple button to throw x dice.
#1d6
/r 1d6
#2d6
/r 2d6
#3d6
/r 3d6
#Attack
/em attacks
/r ?{How many attacks}d6s>4
***Note: 5+ vs defended & 6+ vs fortified***
#Save
/em saves
/r ?{How many saves}d6s>?{Armor value}
#Drive-Back
/em checking drive backs
/r ?{How many hits}d6s
***Target confused on any d6 = 6***
***Target driven off if result greater than its movement rate***
Have created Mighty Empires assets and kicked off a 5 player campaign. Mighty Empire tiles are available here. Use them as a deck of cards in Roll20 on a unique map.
Have also posted a new video an actual play from the first battle fought in our Mighty Empires campaign. Empire(1185 pts) vs Empire (1500 pts). This condensed to 30 minutes to provide a good overview of Warmaster game play on the Roll20 interface.
At the beginning of 2020 we rang in the new year with a buddy’s birthday, celebrating as we normally do: friends, food, and games. This is day long affair where we cram as many games as we can into 12 or so hours. This years theme “I Can’t Drive 55”.
First on the docket was the new’ish hot wheels set published by Osprey, Gaslands. There was much kit bashing of $1 hotwheels, though I opted for a simpler approach the overall look of the table was impressive.
We had two single lap races, the first to test-drive the rules & the second to compete for a custom trophy. It was fitting that the youngest amongst us would take home that prize. Fun times. . .
Get your motor running
Fun times for sure! The game scratches that Car Wars to Hotwheels conversion I’ve had for years, but I found the rules needlessly wordy and complex. Trusty iPad to the rescue where I consolidated the rules to a scant 2 pages! Find that summary here, along with a generic vehicle control panel, dice labels / reference charts.
Art by Rolla Nordic (Murielle Berulfsen) – Prisma “We Can Do It” filter
The Thought Eater podcast recently jogged my memory on dice towers. Which I find to be an interesting table top accessory. Probably speaks to my neat’freak ascetic – everything in it’s place. That along with my appreciation for mechanical / tactile tools.
I’ve heard from some who are defiantly anti-dice tower. The basic complaint is they are too big, take up too much space, are noisy, and ugly. I do agree that a dice tower can create these problems. Imagine a table where everyone had their own personal dice tower – maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
A few years back a good friend, Dave S. told me a tale of a fabulous game where the DM had a dice tower – all their rolls done in the open – with the advantage of the being decorated in the the theme of the game. That story sparked a moment of creativity – I made a tower for Dave as a gift.
Dave’s Dungeon Craw Classic Dice Tower (DDDCDT)
I made two more of these with the same collage theme and was always frustrated with the actual construction. Plans sketched on paper – cut lines drawn in pencil on 1/8” press board – hand cut w/ carpet knife and steel ruler – all contributed a good deal of wonky variance that I would try and resolve during construction with predictable results.
Solution – a template – grabbing my trusty iPad I laid out in iDesign a simple pattern template – print without scaling and paste directly to the press board – hand cuts still not 100% but much much better. Download the template here.
Ever wonder what treasures are hidden away in the hoard of the Halfling Master? Dig into this blog for news, ideas, reviews, and other in depth information about anything surrounding the OSR, TTRPGs, and Miniatures hobbies. No piece of loot is too small or insignificant to be explored.
On the Tabletop 