VetMu '23: The Re-Tribaling

On Saturday, I drove 107 miles down to the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, Wa to host a game of Tribal at the VetMu game day event, which Gene Anderson has hosted for several years, with only a brief interruption in 2020 due to The Plague™. Gene is a Chehalien and has volunteered with the museum for a long time. Prior to that, he spent a longer time volunteering to jump out of airplanes for the Army.

One thing about the museum that delights me is that the main road sign features two of the 6-inch/30 Mk III guns that made up the main battery of the USS Concord (PG-3) which participated in the Battle of Manilla Bay in 1898.

The two guns had been in Woodland Park in Seattle since 1915. I'm not sure when they were removed, but the museum acquired them at some point in the near past. When we attended the first VetMu event, they were in a fenced-off area awaiting restoration work. At the time, we weren't sure what they were, but they looked old.

Incidentally, Concord's guns in Chehalis aren't the only Manilla Bay veterans in the Pacific Northwest. Closer to home (for me) are the 8-inch/30 Mk I guns that comprised the main battery of the USS Boston, one of the ABCD ships that formed the beginning of the American steel navy, which are in Hamlin Park in Seattle. 

One of the guns bears a plaque stating that it fired the first shot at the Battle of Manilla Bay. (I believe it was the aft gun, which took a potshot at Corregidor after the squadron had passed it.)

I would love to see VetMu acquire Boston's guns and put them in an appropriate setting. They're just rusting away in Hamlin Park. Ironically, no one knows when they were put there or why.

But I digress. 

The VetMu event was attended by about 20 people, I think, and there were four games in the morning period and three in the afternoon period.

Kevin Smyth and I hosted a four-player game of Tribal in the first period using my beloved 40mm Bronze Age Europe guys. It's funny that figures that languished unused since 2019 (and since 2017 and 2016 before that) have suddenly found a new life with Tribal. I've gamed with them more times in the last two months than in the previous seven years.

I acted as GM, Kevin and Dean Motoyama were on one side; Mark Serafin and Scott Murphy on the other. The warbands were somewhat even, except that Scott had the chariot and two horsemen, and Mark had one fewer character. I just ran out of figures. I have more unpainted minis, which I need to get to, but there's already so much in the queue.

We used the objective system from the rules, each player drawing two objective cards. Mark and Scott drew Jokers, Mark drawing black and Scott drawing red. Those are the wilder objectives. The black Joker required Mark to lose every figure to win and the red one required Scott to exit his warband from the opposite side of the table. Dean had to protect his people marker and destroy his loot marker. Kevin had to hold a position in the center of the table and rescue his people marker. The Joker objectives cancel all other objectives for the players, so Mark and Scott had only one objective.

Scott started off aggressively against Dean charging his chariot-mounted warlord into one of Dean's warrior formations and wiping it out.

Dean and Mark had standard bearers in their warbands, which allowed them to use the Rally Around the Flag rule. It benefited them mostly in depriving Scott and Kevin from getting honor points when they won combat rounds.

Mark came on and moved to isolate the hill where Kevin's people objective sat. Although each was ignorant of the other's objectives, that part of the game became the locus of action for them as Kevin tried to get to the marker and Mark tried to get his wee tin soldiers all dead.

It seemed to me at one point that Mark and Dean were getting clobbered. Scott followed up wiping out one of Dean's warrior units, by moving in to wipe out his marksmen unit. Following up on that victory, Scott continued to circle around and attacked Dean's standard bearer, who'd already suffered a wound from Mark's marksmen unit and was hiding from further attention from Mark.

The standard bearer went the way of Deans other two units before him. Scott was picking up slaughter points (from Dean) for wiping out Dean's units, but not getting victory points for winning combats because the Rally Around the Flag rule.

Meanwhile, Dean attacked and destroyed his loot objective marker and got his three honor points reward. It brought him back from the brink after losses to Scott had reduced him to two. He was also able to wipe out one of Scott's warrior units in a tough fight.

At one point, by some anomaly, Scott managed to have three units left to activate while every other player had none. That was especially dangerous to Dean, whose warlord now came under repeated attacks by Scott's units. However, Dean managed to survive the assaults for a while (it's nice to armor).

He eventually succumbed, but not before he and Dean's remaining heror wiped out both of Scott's warrior formations and inflicted some hurt on his mounted heroes. Dean got no honor points, but if I were Dumbledore, I'd be awarding some to House Motoyama for a heroic stand against the odds.

At his point, Scott started to skedaddle as he assumed the game was nearing an end. We didn't actually have a set game length, but it was nearing noon when the first session ended. I also think he'd started to calculate that trying to stay and kill all of Dean's units might cost him victory points in the end.

Over on the other side, Kevin managed to keep killing Mark's figures while not knowing that it was exactly what Mark wanted. Kevin lost no figures at all in the game, although his warlord and hero got banged up some.

Mark's standard bearer was the last to go down. When he did, Mark shouted "Victory!" and revealed his objective: Getting all his warband killed.

Scott got his four surviving units off the board for eight honor points. His game total was 20. Dean achieved both his objectives and got 6 points for them, but losing four units (one of them his warlord) had cost him five slaughter points. He ended the game with 12 points. Kevin, didn't get either objective and lost six points, winding up with a total of 7 points remaining (I think). There were likely a lot of points he didn't get from winning combat rounds because of Mark's standard bearer inspiring the troops to not lose even when they're beaten. Mark had only three points, but won anyway because getting everyone killed was his sole victory condition and superseded any calculation of honor points. Funnily, Mark having one fewer character than everyone else contributed to his victory.

The game unquestionably went to Mark and Scott. 

It was the first time that Scott, Mark, and Dean played Tribal. I think they enjoyed it. Maybe they'll buy the rules...

Ad prandium et ultra

As we have done at most past VetMu events, Kevin and I went for lunch at the Market Street Pub and Grill in Chehalis.

It's simple fare for simple folk and they draw a good draft. I couldn't help thinking that it was 2019 when we were last there with Dave Schueler.

After lunch, I decided not to stay for the second period. Even though I'd appealed online in the weeks before the event that participants not bail out after the first period, I bailed out. In my defense, I left home at 6:00 am to drive down and figured that if I stayed to then end, I'd get home around 7:00 pm and have to face a very indignant cat, who would have been waiting very impatiently for his dinner.

My bigger fear, apart from facing Tybalt's disapprobation, was that I'd be so tired after being up since 4:00 am, driving for two hours, then setting up and running a game, that I'd fall asleep on the two-hour drive home after playing another game until 5:00. Even leaving when I did, I had to stop at a gas station/quick mart just south of Seattle to stretch my legs, walk a bit, and get an energy drink to be reasonably sure I'd make the remaining 37 miles to home.

I got home a bit after three. After attending to cats, I zonked out for a power nap until 5:00.

Other games

Focused on running my game as I was, I didn't see much of what else was going on, but the gist of the other games for the first session were Lawrence Bateman running a "Hedgerow Hell" Normandy scenario using Chain of Command rules, Greg Moore running a "Rat Patrol" game based on the Mad Maximilien rules by Mana Press (the same people who do Tribal), and Bruce Smith running a "Halloween Rampant" game set in Barbie Town using  Xenos Rampant. 

Second period games were James Sagen running a Napoleonic game using Rebels and Patriots rules, Scott Murphy running a Rangers of Shadowdeep game using Frostgrave rules, and Dean Motoyama running a WW1 game (with tanks!) using Bolt Action rules. All pics here stolen from Dean's FB post.

Swag

As usual, there was a bring 'n' buy at the VetMu. Chris Bauermeister is downsizing his collection of everything and had several books for sale cheap. I walked away with a few treasures.

I'd never heard of Anton Gindely's work before. He was a Bohemian historian in the late 19th c. His two-volume Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges was translated and published in English in 1882. This is a 1972 reprint of that edition. 

When I got to looking at my email yesterday afternoon (after unzonking from my power nap), I found that the Kickstarter I joined for The Tales of Beowulf was nearing fulfillment, i.e., they wanted my credit card info, which I think implies that something's moving.

I ordered enough figures to make a Saga warband or two Tribal warbands. The minis look beautiful. I hope they don't disappoint on size and heft. I like heft and I cannot lie. I'm not sure when they'll show up. I've been thinking it was end of the year, but it may be sooner.

Coming up: The Return of the Son of the Tribaling (or something like that)

Our next NHMGS event will be the game day on November 18 at the Boeing Museum of Flight under the big SR-71 (actually an M-21 variant of the Lockheed A-12). I expect to have the rest of my BoJack cavemen painted by then and I'll put on a four-player Tribal game with them.

Me so lithic, me rock you long time

Well, it's Paleolithic really, not Mesolithic, but I couldn't resist the title. Sue me. My Bobby Jackson cavemen et al. had their first outing in a Tribal game on Sunday. I packed the boys in my car and took them on a ride to Eric's house in charming West Seattle.

I have enough figures painted to make two fairly good-sized warbands with figures to spare. Most are the Bobby Jackson cavemen from North Star; the rest are Lucid Eye Neanderthals and Neolithics from the Savage Core and Beyond the Savage Core ranges. Each side had a warlord, two heroes, three warbands, and one marksmen unit. Because of the mix of figures I have, one side had two spear units and one with clubs, the other had two club units and one with spears.

We played on my 3x3 F.A.T. Mat from TableWar. I was able to use my recently-painted rock terrain. It was appropriately stone-agey.

We drew for two objectives each. Eric drew a heart (people) and a diamond (loot). His objectives were to kill the person marker (death to the betrayer!) and carry away the loot marker. I drew two clubs (territory) and had to both attack and Defend. I needed to have more of my units on my side than Eric did and more of my units on Eric's side than he did, which I thought might be a stretch. As it turns out, because I drew two clubs, I only needed to achieve one of the objectives, not both.

I cleverly deployed my marksmen atop a rock, although it was by no means a place of vantage to dominate the field. Apart from one hit (which was a good one on Eric's warlord), they were either ineffectively lobbing their missiles into the ground or busy dodging Eric's missiles lobbed at them.

The first flashpoint of the game was on my left / Eric's right. I came on strong charging first my spearmen and then my warlord against a unit of Eric's spearmen. I immediately floundered.

I outnumbered Eric by four units to two over there, but I was on the ropes. My combat hands were just crap. He was more aggressive there than I was. Unknown to me at the time, taking out the Neanderthal mother and child people marker in that area was one of his objectives. He kept trying to blitz through to get at her, but kept bumping into my units and wacking them around.

My much-oppressed spearmen, hero, and warlord were soon joined by a unit of clubmen that had been skulking through the woods to get on Eric's flank.

It wasn't exactly Stonewall at Chancellorsville, but it started to turn the tide.

Over on my right, Eric was moving his other hero around the edge of the board. I countered with my other hero—or shero, I should say, since it's one of my female character figures. She's got a club in one hand and a papoose on her back and she looks mean. She's one of the Lucid Eye Neolithics.

She wasn't as mean as Eric's hero, however. He knocked her around good, baby on her back notwithstanding.

Even with the advantage of ground, she took three wounds while giving out just one. I figured my best plan after that was to keep her out of the way. 

I had a unit of club-armed warriors over on that flank, but I'd moved them in toward the center after Eric came on stronger there. That's the flank where we both had our marksmen—and we both bought the Deadly Shot skill for them. It was standoff for several turns. I wasn't about to expose my units to getting hit with flung sticks and stones and neither was Eric. My only target for several turns was Eric's marksmen, though most turns, we just canceled out each other by expending our activation cards to no effect. It's funny how even in paleolithic times, those soldiers knew how to hunker down against the threat of missile fire.

Eric had a unit of spearmen that he charged in against my clubmen. In a terribly lopsided round (for him) he lost the whole unit without inflicting a single hit on the clubmen. I had a good activation card for the clubs (King of clubs, I think) and drew some very nice cards for my combat hand. Eric's draw was less fortuitous.

It was the first unit either of us had lost so far in the game.

Back on my left, my tribe was getting its groove back. It took some effort, Eric's units selfishly refused to just die, I just kept hurting them and forcing them back. Eventually, my 2:1 advantage paid off and I destroyed both his remaining spearmen and his hero. I lost two spearmen myself and got three wounds each on my hero and warlord. If I didn't have twice the men, we may have wound up like the Kilkenny cats and been left with nothing but our tails. As it was, I had a longer tail.

On my right, Eric committed his warlord to the fray with initially good results. Going in, he took a bullet from my otherwise hapless "deadly shot" "marksmen," but he still rocked me back in the initial clash.

By this time, it was looking grim for Eric. He was down by three units, while I was still at seven, even if some of my units were pretty battered. His four remaining units were formidable, but not likely to reverse his fortunes. My victorious troglodytes from my left were slogging across the swamps towards his remnant.

Keeping my objectives in sight, I bided my time knowing that I could outnumber Eric's guys on both sides of the table if I didn't lose any units. My powergrrl earth-mother shero was down to two wounds left as was my other hero. My warlord was down to four. I had a few losses from my other units as well.

Eric's position was a bit more precarious, but he was no more than a few good combat rounds away from evening things up. His big problem was getting to his objectives. His people marker was well out of reach. His loot marker was close, but I was guarding it. In the last turn, he nevertheless poised himself to take on my diminished unit of clubmen guarding the loot marker.

He might have picked up a few points and cost me a few had we played it out a few more turns. All his warlord—reduced to one wound—could do was gesture defiantly.

Post mortem thoughts

I love Tribal more the more I play it. It doesn't reveal its nuance all at once, but you start to see it almost instantly.

This was the first game we played where we bought skills. Up to now, I've just arranged warbands and stuck to the basics. For this game, I created two basic forces of 6 points each, as I described above. I alloted 15 honor points for warbands, which left 9 honor points for each of us to use buying skills and keeping a reserve pool. With the free skills that come with characters, we didn't need to spend much. 

The variable game objectives are very nice. My first impression was that I would do my own scenario making, but we used objectives in our four-player game at the Fix Bayonet! game day at Fort Steilacoom and I thought they worked very well. It changes the nature of the game dramatically without changing the ultimate goal: getting honor points because "Honour is everything!"

Because the objectives rules require markers for people and loot, I'm looking for ways to represent them. For the cavemen, I have the caveman family figures to use as people markers. For the Bronze Age Europeans, I have Stella, Ursula, the shaman, and Mr. Tambourine Man.

For loot, I've been using some plastic skulls that I bought in bulk from a seller on Etsy. I need to pretty them up and put them on bases. However, I'd like to get something more suitable for each period I do. For the cavemen, I'd love to find a 3D printed Venus of Willendorf that stands about 10mm high. I'm not sure about the BAEs, however. I'll know it when I find it. For now, it's skulls.

Mycenaeans looming

Eric has a big collection of Mycenaean/Trojan War minis that he's eager to do Tribal with. He's been rebasing them as single figures and can field six warbands for a big multiplayer game. He even has Olympian gods!

I have my own stash of unpainted Mycenaeans. As the Caveman Project nears a completion point, I'm now motivated to paint them, starting with the Eureka Bronze Age Greeks. With Eric's horde available, my contribution needs only to be small for now.

Misadventures in motoring

It took about a half hour to get down to Eric's in the morning. The trip back was more adventurous.

I-5 runs through downtown Seattle. It's about as badly engineered a road as you can imagine. To alleviate some of the logjam that it creates for itself going through downtown, there are express lanes that alternate running northbound or southbound depending on the time of day. They're open northbound in the afternoons, but I must have hit them just before they opened. Just. Before. Instead of sailing past all the traffic, I was stuck in it. A few minutes after I passed the onramp to the express lanes, I saw cars going northbound in them to my left.  I repeat: I had just missed it.

The only good thing I noticed is that the left lane that becomes a turn-only lane onto the Seneca St. now continues through. That was always a mess of clueless drivers desperately changing lanes to avoid being forced off into downtown. 

After the long slog of getting past the worst of the northbound traffic, I got the idea to stop at Shake Shack and pick up a burger. Shake Shack is a NYC import. There are four in the Puget Sound area and the new one in Lynnwood is the only one with a drive-thru in the state. I've never been there before and am generally skeptical about new sensations; they never live up to their popularity. I tried to go there for lunch a couple weeks back, but the drive-thru line was very long and very, very slow. I bailed out after five minutes because I could see that nothing was moving and I estimated that by the time I got my food, the meeting I had to get back to in 20 minutes would be more than half over, if not entirely over. I figured that I had time to wait—and did I ever.

I never Yelp (I've seen the South Park episode—no specials for me), but I did about this experience. I was generous and gave it three out of five stars. That was maybe too generous. I noticed several Yelpers giving it one. I thought the food was OK, but not for the price. A surprisingly small burger, fries, and drink came to $21.00. On top of that I spent at least 40 minutes in the drive-thru line. By the time I actually got the food, it was lukewarm and the ice in my lemonade had completely melted, making it watery. How is it that a place makes you wait a long time for your food and then serves it to you almost cold? Shake Shack didn't impress me and I won't be back.

I finally got home at about 3:45, having left Eric's at about 1:15.

Oh, then there was an 4.5 magnitude earthquake in the evening and that was my day.

This coming weekend will be a trek down to Chehalis, WA (somewhere closer to the equator than where I live) for the Veteran's Museum event.