Wooden Wars: Kublacon- The Second battle for Quark’s Rivet

 

"Rivethead: Well done, Adendorff, we'll make an Englishman of you yet!
Adendorff: No, thanks. I'm a Cytherian. Bomburst and his robots are the enemies of my blood. What are you doing here? “

~ Captain Rivethead , OSD

The sun was high in the sky (and too bright for a Sunday morning) when the great robot and human army of the evil baron Bomburst was poised to clank menacingly forward. Steeling myself with tea and a bagel, I awaited the 10 players to show up. Luckily for me, the kids were just as sleepy headed as yours truly, so a slow start was the perfect pace. 

This quickly changed to a bit of frenzy as I was informed that 23 people had signed up to play, and hordes of gamers, and parents of young gamer’s descended upon the battlefield to play or spectate or wager (maybe not the last bit…).  Units were adjusted to add a couple more players, some kids “tag teamed” units and off we went.

Young officers review the Automatons users guide before battle

 

Quark’s Rivet Reprise

With the previous day’s game under my belt, I made two adjustments to the set up. I brought the Krall on the British right flank in towards the building by one move distance, and added another Tesla gun to the battery, for a total of 3.  These were done as the Krall was too easily overrun in the first game (it is still set up as a sacrifice) and, while it is active, should have the chance to really thin out the ranks of Bomburst’s troops before they could hit the defenses.

Some officers devised the "foot guard" method of protecting thier units from harm...

Clampers advance on the Krall

Tesla gun battery fires upon the giant clamper robot
 

Direct hit!

 

Revenge on the guns!

 

Game Changing Bits

Usually in Wooden Wars each unit gets one activation per turn, where they can move, fire, or in the case of cavalry, move once and fire or move twice.  Since the British are so outnumbered and activation is based upon what numbered token you got dealt (which I did pad during game play to make things more exciting) I gave the main British infantry unit two activations per turn. The reasoning behind this I told everyone, was that they were crack troops and well trained.  Each turn, I made sure that they were in the first 4 activations, and then would place the next activation for them in the higher numbers.  This worked out rather well, as it allowed for them to fire twice, or fire, reposition, or in the case of this battle, reposition and then charge.  Yay for when things work!

Steel Dragoons once again charge the square of Elite "old Brassers" robots

Only the officer survived the onslaught. Even his dog bot went down

A Heavy Pounding!

The gunners on this go around were older kids and had both better aim, and large enough hands to hold the barrage of Tesla cannon balls. Just as important, they were successful in their die rolls to overcharge the Tesla cannons, and were able to double and even triple up on the balls thrown!  Some of their crew were not successful in making saving throws from the over charged guns, and were crisped up on the spot. What price, wooden glory…

 The invading army had to march through a storm of bouncy balls, which tore through rank after rank! Even the mighty giant clamper robot went down a couple of times.

 

Tesla cannonade rips through two units!

 

Obligatory path of destruction shot!

Movie Quality Ending!!!

The Baron’s troops quickly moved in on each flank as expected, but with heroic results on the British side really stealing the show. The old Brassers” guard robot unit formed square and after a couple of heated dice throws, were completely knocked over (wooden soldiers don’t die, they just get knocked over). In their sacrifice, they also took down the steel dragoons. Only their officer was standing, and he promptly beat feet to the cover of the guns!

Bomburst's troops advance on three fronts

The commander of the giant clamper asked me, " can I bust down the wall?"YES!

British fall back to the hospital for better defense

Eventually the robot army closed in on three different sides, but by this time the British infantry had movex into the hospital building and defended against the clanky assult like true movie heroes. When the steam cleared, the only ones left standing among the heaps of knocked over robots and humans were the Commanding officer, the foot officer of the infantry, and the standard bearer! As I was taking photos of the aftermath, I realized that I couldn’t have posed the shot better than how it all came to pass.  Needless to say, the British commanders were awarded medals, and this time not posthumously.

Brutal melee ensues!

And the giant Clamper falls!

Captain Rivethead still stands.

The Flag still stands!

What’s that you say? There were still lots of units left on Bomburst’s side? True, but the game time was coming to be up, and I just told everyone that they could hear the pipers in the distance of British reinforcements, and that the automatons were running out of steam.  Yay for a quick story ending!

After Action Report!

This time around not only did I have seasoned veterans from the day’s previous battle, but the average age of the kids was about 9 years, which made a great difference in tactics and eye hand coordination.  The changes to the scenario worked out better and, all the kids seemed engaged for the 2 hour battle.

Once again I’d like to thank the Kublacon staff for their support in helping me with my Wooden Wars games. I can’t recommend this convention highly enough, especially as a family friendly con. 

 Until next time, which won't be robots...Cheers!