D&D in Panic Mode

As has been remarked upon by many DMs (that's Dungeon Masters to the uninitiated), the greatest threat to any group engaged in role-playing games is not the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal), but the players' and DM's schedules. Yet another scheduling conflict struck me this very week, a mere three days before our Session Zero for the big Eberron campaign, and my five person group suddenly drops to only three players able to attend. Rather disconcerting, considering my groups are set for monthly meetings to help alleviate such issues, but the best laid plans of blah blah blah.

What did I do? Fold? Call the session off? Surrender and drink away my feelings for the next 24 hours? No. If we can't do the original plan, we change course and drive on. No plan survives contact with the enemy, which is Army-speak for "you better have a backup plan for when the first one fails, bud". Not that I had a backup plan, but us DMs are known for our improv abilities and being able to think quickly on our feet. When first one and then not long after the second player dropped, I contacted the players in my other games (two other RPGs and one tabletop wargame) who aren't in my D&D group, and asked if they were free for a one-shot game. When I had two more, I let all of them know we were still on for the session, we would be switching over to a one-shot adventure, and made sure I would still have at least four show up. Sometimes, being a good storyteller and knowing the RPG's rules is almost secondary to being able to manage all the scheduling conflicts. 

What was the off the cuff backup plan? I'm preparing for a long-term Eberron campaign, so let's stick to Eberron, thought I. I'm hip deep into getting the lore and feel of the world down, and it will be a good sneak peek for the three players that are already in the D&D group and will be playing in Eberron soon. Great idea! But do I want to write out a full adventure? No, let's be lazy about it. They (Wizards of the Coast, current owners of D&D, WotC to most of us) have already done two Adventurers League adventure series in support of Eberron, Oracle of War and Embers of the Last War. Oracle is the more recent of the two, but I plan on stealing parts of it for my upcoming campaign (shhh! don't tell my players!), and I really just needed an afternoon of gaming for low-level PCs, nothing that will be multi-session. So Embers it is, specifically the first adventure, Murder in Skyway. It's just vague enough that i can fill in details as I want them to be, but gives me names and stats on the baddies and other NPCs, plus maps for the big fight scenes. Well, okay, one map, and I had to create the other two i wanted to use, but the one they provided was very nice. Oh, and the adventure is only $5. I really need to go ahead and pick up all the Embers and Oracle adventures, just so I can comb through them for help with future sessions. 

Got my adventure picked and purchased, start going through that material (only a part of a week to game day by this point) to familiarize myself with it, but I am still missing something - characters. Most of the time, I'm pretty open to whatever the players want to bring to the table (yes, I do make some restrictions, as I freely admit there are some races and classes that do not fit well into my games, and some ideas all players get are too crazy for anyone's game, much less mine), but for a one-shot where we are time limited, and especially in a new setting my players are unfamiliar with? Yessiree, we gonna need us sum pre-gens! Pre-generated characters, that is, as I did not want to waste time the day of the game making PCs, as even with experienced players this can take too long. D&D will always be special to me, my first tabletop RPG love, but even in 5th edition, character creation takes too long too often to count on doing it quickly. Plus, you ask any player, experienced or not, to come up with a character now Now NOW, hurryHURRYHURRY! and they will vapor lock with too much to choose from. So I needed to provide some pre-gens. 

Let us set some parameters first. Am I rolling their stats or just using the "standard array" of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8? I wanted this to be easy, and rolling up a bunch of stats sounds like work, plus I also want these PCs to be fairly equal to each other, didn't want anyone to fight over the one PC I rolled well for while everyone ignores the character I rolled subpar on. Standard array it is. I began looking through various manuals when I realized that the internet contains untold thousands of nerds like me, surely someone out there has put up a character generator for free on the World Wide Web that will meet my needs. Yes they have, and don't call me Shirley - after only a small bout of Googling, I discovered Fast Character, a rather robust random character generator that is very configurable and blessedly free of pesky ads. They even cover PC options from obscure books, like Eberron: Rising from the Last War (though thanks to Monsters of the Multiverse, most of the Eberron options now come from there, instead), which is what I wanted as I knew I needed to include at least one warforged and one other Eberron-specific race (kalashtar, changeling, goblinoid/orc, whatever), and Fast Character had the options. It even has where you can set certain things a specific way and randomize the rest, so I quickly generated six PCs. 

I was expecting only five players but hoping for six, so I made six to give a little bit of choice and cover myself in case of good fortune. I generated three basic characters to give my less experienced players something familiar- half-orc barbarian, halfling ranger, human wizard - and then branched out to Eberron new options for the more adventurous players - dwarf artificer, shifter rogue, and warforged fighter. Yes, I leaned away from casters and more towards fighters, but again, this was a one shot, just one session, hopefully never to be repeated (though always an option at need), so I chose the way I did. Thinking back on it, if I do ever run this again, I will probably change either the barbarian or the ranger out for a cleric or a druid (should have gone with a halfling druid from the Talenta Plains, wild shape into various dinosaurs in the middle of Sharn, that would have been a blast). I cannot give enough praise to Fast Character, as I set race, class, background, and chose the standard array ability scores (but not into what abilities each went, their program didn't just assign randomly, it has some thought behind its selection), and it randomized everything else and produced very workable characters everyone enjoyed playing. If I ever run a convention game or set up an Adventurers League locally, I am using Fast Character to make the pre-gens.

Got our adventure, got the pre-gens, and on the day of the game, as I had already been reading through the adventure and readying myself for it, I did not have much set up. Pull out miniatures (yes, 15mm still, I am in love with these tiny little minis), draw up the various maps on my battle board (just a sheet of Plexiglas with poster board under it and a half inch grid because we're using 15mm scale minis, which gives enough room I could draw the three potential combat encounters onto the board at the beginning), and we're good to go. For the characters, I put their one page character sheet in a page protector, along with a blank piece of ruled paper and a piece of graph paper, as a player I always loved having something to take notes on. The adventure itself went well, Murder in Skyway is not the best adventure ever, but as a one shot it was just fine, and it is the intro to a longer series of adventures, so if I ever need an emergency one shot again, I am so running the same pre-gens (leveled up to 2, maybe also do a class switch in there) in the next adventure in the Embers of the Last War series, Boromar Ball. And I'm really liking Eberron, it is not your typical "kill them all for they are all monsters, and care not for life!" classic D&D murderhobo-fest setting. There are so many factions, all vying for power that when I wanted my "bad guys" (who is really bad in Eberron? it's hard to say) to talk instead of just fight, they could. Not liking the odds? Run away, and that applies to both the NPCs/monsters and the party. There was enough story and combat that everyone was satisfied with the adventure and felt like they contributed. Like I said, not the best adventure, but good enough is all I was really looking for.

There you go. When half your group cancels for whatever reason, you just gotta drive on and get some enjoyment out of the situation. Oh, I could have easily pulled a couple of board games out from our voluminous collection and just played those with the remaining members of the D&D 5e group, but I wanted to get some role-playing in. I hope this helps out those of you in similar, unforeseen circumstances. Don't be afraid to change up what you had planned and go in a whole new direction, because your players' and your own schedules are your biggest opponent in this hobby.

TY 6mm Lessons Learned 15

TL;DR: When your tabletop wargame gets boring, because you've been playing the same old lists, over and over again, and everyone knows the ins and outs of the tactics both sides are going to use in pretty much every situation, renew everyone's interest by switching out the army lists. Don't just swap lists, they know your list and you know their list, no, switch to a different list in the same army.

This is going to be a different BatRep this month, faithful readers, because I forgot to take any pictures of the game. It was a great game, I even managed to play with minis that were painted (no "silver surfers" in my Formation, this time), and I was so excited that everyone showed up ready to play something other than a tank-list, taking pics for the BatRep just flew out of my skull. So I'm going to hit the highlights and just roll with whatever I think of. I beg your indulgence, as I am typing this without visual reminders, so I am sure to get some of the details wrong.

Both sides were really solid. Uriah put together a Scorpion Medium Recce Squadron backed up by Marksmen and Challengers. Yes, the vast, VAST majority of his Force, points-wise, was the three track Challenger Troop, but those tanks were a right pain in my 4th point of contact from the start of the game to the end of it. And the Scorpions are not to be discounted, as I spent 5 whole Turns destroying to the last track one Troop of Scorpions, and 7 Turns dealing with the other one. As we have joked in the past, the Brits should have named them "Cockroaches" instead of what they did. For me, I ran an East German BMP-1 Mot-Schutzen Bataillon (mech infantry battalion) - three full companies (each consisting of 4 BMPs, 4 stands of AKs and RPG-18, 3 stands of RPG-7s), 4 Shilkas, 3 Carnations, a 2 track BMP scout element, and 6 T'72s. And a partridge in a pear tree. Why East Germans? I like that they are middle of the road, points and performance wise, of the WarPact choices - not as expensive as the Poles at the expense of not being as skill, but give you better performance than the Czechs at the cost of being more expensive. Yes, it is still kind of the "trash meta", but I didn't take it as far as I could have (T55s as far as the eye can see!), kept it in the realm of the possible, and the sides were really balanced. 

We drew Contact as the Mission, with NATO Attacking and WarPact Defending (Uriah picked Attack, and I picked Maneuver). The board was a mix of hills and trees, with only short lanes of fire at odd angles, a very "close" map that brought on some interesting maneuvers as both sides attempted to stay out of the other's line of sight and avoid as many Cross Checks as possible. Contact has no Turn limit, it is simply drive the enemy from the field, or capture one of the two Objectives. As Contact does not allow a lot of deployment space for the Objectives (due to the size of our play table, we have to divide all distances across the table by 2, as the tables are about 30 inches wide, but 6 feet long), we both had a very shallow area to set up Objectives, so all were fairly close to the table edge. NATO set up their Objectives in the WarPact left and center, while WarPact set their 2 up at NATO's left and right flanks.

Deployments were about what you would expect - NATO had to keep their Challenger Troop in Reserve, as the entire rest of the Formation wasn't a full 20 points to meet the requirement; WarPact kept the Formation command team (a small infantry stand with a rifle team, and one BMP-1) and the 6 T72s in Reserve, and one of the mechanized infantry companies in Ambush. Uriah placed his Scorpions near each flank and kept the command team (2 Spartan IFVs) fairly central to respond in either direction, and the Marksmen closer to the Objective sitting to the NATO right. On my side of the table, I covered both Objectives with infantry backed up by their transporting BMP-1s (which are pretty handy with their cannon and one-shot ATGM), and even used my Scouts to move the one covering the WarPact left Objective up to about the mid-point of the table. Both of these covering companies used terrain to help give them more cover. The Carnations were huddled behind a hill on the WarPact right, almost all the way to the table's edge, while the Shilkas were forward and to the left of the Carnations, up against the edge of the Deployment area.

Uriah's Brits as Attackers enjoyed first turn, and moved aggressively forward. I can't blame him for that, I was set up very defensively, and he knew with Immediate Reserves he would see his Challengers long before I got my T72s from Delayed Scattered Reserves. And he did, immediately rolling them out and heading diagonally across the table to take out half my Shilkas. Both sets of Scorpions and the Marksmen joined in, heading towards my lines to cause trouble, but scoring little this early in the game. Over to me, I responded with fire from the infantry on the far left, killing one Scorpion and one Marksman. On the right, the mech infantry in Ambush appeared and zoomed most of the way to the Objective on that side of the board, suddenly uncovered by the aggressive Scorpion advance. The surviving Shilkas, quoting Admiral Ackbar, yelled "we can't repel firepower of that magnitude!" and yala-yala imshi'd the heck out of there. Hey, the Vietnam War taught us di-di mau, now it's time to update to the Global War on Terror and use yala-yala imshi more often. 

Realizing the danger he was in, Uriah turned the Scorpions and the Challengers around and charged towards the threatened Objective. I don't remember the exact turn of events, but over the next 4 or 5 Turns, the East German mech infantry lost all 4 of its BMPs, losing 2 stands out of 7 on the bailout, the infantry Assaulted the Scorpions, losing stands to attacks before the Assault and during Defensive Fire, but winning through enough to cause the Scorpions to Fall Back. Finally, down to literally one stand of infantry, they Assaulted again, catching 6 hits in Defensive Fire, and this is the exciting part - MAKING ALL SIX INFANTRY SAVES! Still, all that one stand managed to do before getting wiped off the board (they didn't fail Morale, either) was to destroy one of the Scorpions. During all this, the Challengers got caught in a Bombardment from the Carnations and lost one track, but still managed to catch up to the Shilkas and with the help of the Scorpions, finished off the AA tracks. This was, as Uriah put it, Exciting!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the board, the mech infantry on the far WarPact left had been playing peek-a-boo with the Scorpions and Marksmen, killing off the entire AA Troop of Matksmen, but not doing any lasting damage to the Scorpions. That Troop tried to run down the entire length of the table without hugging to cover and started catching hell from the mech infantry company covering the middle of the map, while the other infantry the Scorpions left behind mounted up and gave chase. Finally, at Turn Five, the WarPact forces killed off that Scorpion Troop. Also, Turn Four saw the first WarPact Reserve element (the T72s, naturally) roll onto the field, and the next Turn the WarPact command element joined the game. Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

The T72s charged valiantly onto the field, shot at the Challengers (doing no damage from 6 shots, not even a Bail), failed their Shoot 'n' Scoot and paid for it by losing 3 tracks immediately the next Turn. The T72s did not stick around, going immediately back into cover and started maneuvering around the WarPact extreme right end of the table, angling to force the Challengers to fall back on the Objective on the NATO left or at least move to protect their own flanks from incoming fire. Meanwhile, the Volksarmee mech infantry companies and BMP-1 scout element converge on the Objective on the NATO right, finally clearing out the Scorpions at that end of the battle and forcing the command element Spartans to fall back on that Objective. Likewise, seeing that the T72s were taking the longer road toward the Objective on that end of the table, and the other Objective was under more immediate threat, the Challengers withdrew at speed and dashed back towards the other side of the table, hugging the table edge which had a clear lane of fire down it, in case any of my forces peeked out and offered up a shot. The last remaining Scorpion (this is where not having pictures fails me in this BatRep, I am not 100% sure where 2 of the Scorpions from this Troop perished, but by this point, I know they were down to one and only one track) began high-tailing it towards the Objective in the center of the WarPact table edge. That Scorpion finally met its end when it drove past the Carnations, so close to the SPAAGs that when I rotated turrets to fire on the tiny recon track, the muzzles of the cannons almost touched the Scorpion. One shot out of three hit, and that was all she wrote for the last British Cockroach Scorpion on the table. 

While the last Scorpion was finally succumbing to the same fates as their compatriots, the Challengers had already arrived on the Objective to NATO's right, investing it so the Spartans could move off and not get immediately deleted by BMP cannon fire. Because they had just Dashed to the position on the field - they had to as they would not have been able to block the Capture by the WarPact mech infantry and recon elements - the Challengers could not fire, just sit and wait until next Turn. The recon BMPs moved into side shots, and the closest company of mech infantry dismounted their infantry and then also moved into side shot position (1 or 2 out of 4 tracks). With 3 BMPs in side armor position, they fired their cannons, Destroying but one of the Challengers, and then the infantry Assaulted, bailing the Challenger, which, being the only NATO Team within enough inches, so the remaining infantry Consolidated and captured the Bailed Challenger, wiping the Unit out. This happened in the same Turn the final Scorpion perished under the cannon fire from the Carnations, so whether the Challengers had survived to the next Turn or not, being that they were Divisional Support and the Spartan command team were the only other still extant Unit, so the Formation would have been making Morale Check next Turn anyway. As it was, with only the Spartans left, Uriah admitted that there was no way he could hold off the remaining WarPact Units, much less cover both Objectives, so he was ready to call it. I had him roll the Morale Check, which he failed, so he could blame it on that as opposed to the impossible situation he was in. Still it was a game of ups and downs, excitement and disappointment, and a lot more fun than what we've had in the recent past, so both of us had an enjoyable game.

Okay, time to talk about the tactics - I'm thinking of replacing the Shilka Flak Zug with two 3-vehicle Spandrel Panzerabwehr Zugs. Same points cost and my fellows in the Escalation League don't tend to bring airpower in very often. In fact, I may do a 3-vehicle Spandrel Zug and then a 4-vehicle Gaskin Flak Zug, that way I still have some AA capability in case my opponents bring aircraft to the table, but still get a bit of better ground attack than the Shilkas. I'll have to think on it some more. Otherwise, I was very happy with my list - the infantry had plenty of nastiness for what I faced (and died like the Heroes of the USSR they were), the BMPs are very flexible (compared to US forces, much better than the M113s, and definitely less expensive than Bradley's though still being almost on par with them, firepower wise), and my artillery didn't totally shit the bed. I think for 75, after we have played at 50 for a couple of months, that I may go for some air assets instead of adding in more tanks and infantry. More thoughts for another day. With my BMP-borne mech infantry, I need to be more aggressive with them (Be Aggressive! BE BE AGGRESSIVE!), there are so many stands for so few points, it's better to get them into combat sooner. Also, their AT rockets (RPG-7 and -18) are able to fire on the move and have very decent AT and firepower. 

As for the Brits, the Scorpions, as always, were tenacious little bastards that took me many Turns to finally get rid of. The Challengers were also very tough, even my biggest guns (the T72s) couldn't penetrate them from the front, so they have to be dealt with using different methods - artillery fire, side shots from faster units, infantry assaults, etc. However, at 50 points, the weight of steel WarPact can bring to the table is definitely more "quantity over quality", and I think if I was playing Brits, I'd be looking to save points by using Chieftains instead and bringing more Scorpions, some infantry, some Striker ATGM tracks, maybe some air assets, just more of everything to the fight. The Marksmen are a good AA unit, and when faced with many stands of infantry, I want a good cannon AA track to go give them the bad news. However, I think Uriah got in too close with his Marksmen (partly due to the very close set up and partly due to me pushing that one company out with a Spearhead Deployment) as I was able to retaliate with RPG-7 fire. The Marksmen have really decent range with those 35mm Oerlikons they carry, they could have stood outside my RPG-7 range and peppered me with rounds until I succumbed to Death by a Thousand Cuts. There is a balancing point, where you can be outside the range of the RPG-7s, but still in range of the backstopping BMPs, either their cannon or their Sagger AT missile. It's a bit of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. 

As for tactics, how long do you keep the infantry Dug In on the defensive, and when is the best time to load them back into the IFVs to go on the attack? At what range should I engage that enemy Unit over there, or what is the optimal range to give me the best chance to hit or do damage and they the worst chance to hit or do damage? Is that Unit moving that way to assault my Objective, or to draw my forces away from attacking their Objective? Is it worth the gamble to bring this Unit out of cover if I don't make the Shoot'n'Scoot roll to get them back into cover? I have one stand of infantry left, is it better for them to Dig In on this Objective and try to outlast the enemy, or since I'll be rolling Morale for them anyway next Turn, should I just go ahead and Assault, see if I can take any of the enemy with me? Should I fade back to cover my Objective, or if I advance aggressively, will he chase the "rabbit" and move away from my Objective, anyway? How far apart should I place my Objectives, and should I put them very near to terrain features that provide cover, or should I keep them in the open, as much as that is possible? These are the questions I asked myself during and after the game, and I hope I was explicit enough in the report that you can discern my answers. 

That is all for this report, folks. Hope you can get out there and roll some dice with your friends and push miniatures around a table in the near future.