This was the weekend with the girls, so it was a fine and right time to break out the annual Easter game. I found a perfect scenario to convert from Orcs in the Webbe, and converting Dodos for Marshmallow Peeps seemed easy enough.
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| German peasant infantry feeding the Peeps Easter grass to turn them pink! |
I figured the scenario was pretty simple: Swiss gnomes performing an above-ground raid on a German village and their herd of Peeps. Despite their size, the Peeps were quite light, so the average gnome can move with them normal walking speed.
Both the German and Swiss goals was too get as many of the sugary critters to their "safe" zones.
GAME ONE
Millie, commanding the Swiss, set up her troops/safe zone in the upper right corner and swooped down. Maja's Germans were more centrally set-up along the long table edge opposite, and most of the squad dashed toward the Peep corral. One soldier took a distant (and successful) shot at an exposed Swiss, and the peasant handlers' eyes all went wide. It was common knowledge among the Marshmallow husbandry experts that loud explosions, or even single gunshots, were enough to spook all the critters, and no fence was strong enough to contain them.
The Peeps seemed to divide in half. Half running towards their keepers, the others bounding right into the hands of their would-be kidnappers.
The Swiss began a wild Peep chase, hunting down the animals, only for them to zig when they were expected to zag. Only one Swiss gnome managed to get a good hold of them.
The Germans decided against perusing all but the closest Peeps, picking three up and dashing towards the safe zone.
As luck would have it, the roaming peeps began following the Swiss controlled one, heading closer to their safe zone in the far corner.
But once the Germans secured the first wave of Peeps, they turned around the caught up to the Swiss with a hail of bullets. Only one Peep had been captured, and with two more turns all of the Swiss lay dead on the ground.
Since we were dealing with two six-man squads, I used Gnome Wars weapons stats, and the playing-card based Fistful of Lead initiative system. By the second turn, we were using the special card effects (+1 hand to hand bonus worked towards capturing Peeps/Twos allowed two shots, but not to any other extra actions. We avoided the ammo rules.)
Despite a good five minutes of card shuffling, Maja simply got fantastic cards to seize initiative, and a pair of timely twos to more than just chase off the raiders. Die rolls were equally lopsided, so after swimming birthday party at a local Y, we reset the board, kept the sides, and played a second round.
Using random deployment, the Germans stayed at the same spot with four figures. One German rifleman was deployed for overnight guard duty in the village where the Swiss emerged from.
The Swiss appeared behind the watermelon patch, and a few gnarly fruit trees, quite a distance from that village.
GAME TWO
The Peeps left their sugary residue in the corral, as they scattered. Three almost ended up directly in the arms of the German caretakers.... AGAIN!
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| A Peep Conga Line back to the Safe Zone. |
Overall, like all the Alternative Armies scenarios, it works with little work. I could have used jelly beans as "feathers" or "eggs" , but I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make to the rules. As is, the point total of the second game was determined by the death of the German leader on a lucky shot versus the close-up miss on the Swiss.
Maja and Millie both give the scenario a thumbs up, even if they only ate a handful of the roaming livestock. This was their first foray into Fistful of Lead with Gnome Wars stats, and while six cards per side seemed a bit much (even after the slaughter dropped that down a bit), by the second game, five cards on each side seemed perfect.
I have a few more Orcs in the Webbe Slaughterloo/Flintloque scenarios to try out with Gnome Wars. I'm not afraid to cross companies, systems, or even eras, if the end result is a good game.
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