A fishy tale in Warlord China, Xiao Yú, 192x - 193x

[WarlordFish]

I've got a bunch of photos I need to upload, but for now some White Russians.

I recently finished off this squad, Anton the Iron Cossack, seen far left (he'd no doubt be upset about that) with his men. Two "regulars" junior officers with sword and pistol, a grunt group of 4 conscripts, 2 specialists with lewis guns, and two mounted lancers.

The story goes that Anton marched. He marched his men through Central Asia, across Mongolia, and finally into Xaio Yu. That's the story anyways, and he's sticking to it. He took with him his hardened troops, a hoard of weapons, gold, and valuable documents and entered into China seeking a new future. It's possible he intends to carve out his own little domain, it's probable he's just hiding from the Reds who want his head and his loot. Once in Xaio Yu, he quickly got busy making connections. When not out operating on his own, working towards his own goals, Anton and his men act as rented professional mercenaries for the local Warlord, Marshal Chang. But Chang isn't his only ally or connection, no not at all. Anton has also built a strong relationship with Four Eyes Chin, the leader of the Yellow Locusts. It goes as such, Chang, oblivious to Anton's assets or connections, supplies him with arms and pays him to act as his storm troopers, having them fight against the KMT, the red Chinese, or even the Japanese. Anton then takes these weapons and sells them to Chin and also sells him information in regards to government anti-bandit sweeps. The Whites frequently participate in these sweeps, having honed their skills hunting down Bolshevik partisans and while they crack many other gangs, they surprisingly never find the Yellow Locusts..

[trev]

Great additions, and I'm loving the narrative.

[Mike Blake]

excellent stuff - keep it up!

[marianas_gamer]

Warlord Fish you've surely embraced the spirit of Warlord China as it operates in my AOR 

[WarlordFish]

Thanks all you scruffy warlord hooligans! I appreciate the good words! 

A Fistful of Lead Game.

Missionary Troubles.

The province of Xiao Yu has been experiencing increased instability over the past few weeks, warlord government troops have been busy clashing with the KMT expeditionary force in the region, drawing away much needed soldiers from local anti-bandit patrols. Bandit gangs have quickly taken advantage of this lax security and are making the best of the opportunity presented while it lasts.

The Americans are not oblivious to the instability in the region. Orders have come out from China Station HQ for all American expats to seek refuge in the large, well protected treaty ports and cities. That being said not all American's have willingly agreed to these orders. Several groups of erstwhile missionaries have held up in their mission stations, refusing to budge, believing that their faith in the people will protect them better than any gunboat. As a result US Navy China Station sailors have been dispatched to recover these hold outs and bring them to safety.

Four Eyes Chin the leader of the “Yellow Locust Gang” is in need of paying his men and the unprotected foreign mission stations present a golden opportunity. His spies have informed him that the Americans are coming but the chance of a good haul and maybe even some hostages drives him onward. “China Star” is small and tucked away in the countryside, the missionaries are known to be lightly armed and his gang outnumbers the small detachment of sailors have been dispatched to it. Good odds. Throwing caution to the wind and in need of the loot, Chin has ordered the raid.

The Sailors started deployed in the Mission Station, having arrived there earlier in the morning. They were tasked with convincing the missionaries to leave (an 8+ roll on a d10, going to 6+ once the mission is under attack, and 3+ if the missionaries themselves are under attack) and manage to champ the roll the first time. This no doubt saved their lives.

                       

Machinist's Mate 1st Class 'Spanner' McQueen with a B.A.R takes up position in the house by the south gate, supported by Pharmacist's Mate 'Doc' Middleton with Tommy gun, who plan to act as a rear guard/blocking force to give Yeoman 2nd Class 'Red' Di-Reda armed with a shotgun time to escort the missionaries to the motor-pan and to safety. Meanwhile Boatswain's Mate 'Pops' Jeter with his Lewis Gun sets up to defend the main gate. The plan is for Red to hustle the missionaries to safety, Pops to cover everyone, and for Spanner and Doc to catch up. This plan quickly falls apart.

                       

Chinese bandits boil out of the woods and from the westren road. Chin's force is running a horde squad, which means that 3 of his regulars and his one specialist have been replaced with grunts, there are 3 to 4 grunts per grunt group. Poorly armed, poor quality, and physically weak, they heavily outnumber the Sailor, who by contrast are all specialists.

       
                 
                 

Spanner opens up with his B.A.R at range, to little effect. He manages to put only one bandit out of action, and supresses two others who fall back. However 4 spear men continue to charge forward, and over run the south gate and house. A brutal melee ensues, and those grunts despite being weak and having worse dice than the specialists roll super hot, while their targets in turn roll very poorly. Doc is put out of action instantly with a very hot wound roll, and Spanner is also wounded and knocked down but manages to fight back for a few turns. He fights valiantly but ultimately is put out of action, taking only one bandit with him. Half the sailors are down, while 13 bandits are still up and fighting.

                       

 

At the north gate, by the road, Red hustles the missionaries towards the boat. Pops does his best to put down fire but his shooting is terribly ineffective and he finds himself with an empty Lewis, needing to reload, while a group of screaming cleaver and hatchet wielding chinamen storm him down. He's got to run, but to make it, the Sailor player needs to get a good initiative draw.. Pops fate is with the cards.



..And his best pull is a 7. The Bandits get much better initiative and run him down. The melee is quick and brutal. Pops fights back as best he can but is quickly put out of action. With that, Red launches the motorpan and gets the Missionaries to safety. Despite the fact that the sailors were almost completely wiped out they saved the missionaries, thus completing their objectives.

                   

                           

t the end of the game, which I'm planning as a campaign, I rolled for all minis put out of action to see what became of them. Of the two bandits, they both lived albeit wounded. Amazingly both Doc and Pops also lived, wounded, I imagine that in the chaos of the combat they managed to crawl away to

safety and were later recovered. Unfortunately Machinist's Mate 1st Class 'Spanner' McQueen was killed in action. The irony of his model being based on Jake Holman from the Sand Pebbles is not lost on me.

The bandits failed their primary goal, of capturing some hostages to ransom, but shockingly shattered the Sailors and looted the Mission Station, in the end, both sides technically won, functionally a draw ++

Onto the next game! The Yellow Locust Gang must be punished for their actions!

Two new factions you haven't been formally introduced to were present in this action, I'll get you some profiles and pictures of them up soon!

[WarlordFish]

Some heavy armor support for my White Russians, and finished another cavalry man too.

[has.been]

Now that armoured car IS nice.

[trev]

That is very nice armoured car!  Is it the empress one?

Great report too.  The details and names are excellent.  I love the Yellow Locust Gang.  I like the out of action, rather than dead, result in FFOL.  It's very pulpy and allows for favourite characters to return to fight another day as the narrative requires, rather than as a the dice gods dictate.  That works for heroes and villains alike.

[WarlordFish]

Thank you thank you, I'm very happy with it. I'm an armor painter at heart.. yes it's an Empress Miniatures Beasty, which means if I'm not mistaken (and I might be) it's originally a Mark Copplestone sculpt.

And yes! I love FFoLs out of action and post game rolls. It's probably my favorite system, as I don't have enough minis to play Setting the East Ablaze

..yet. 

[flatpack]

Oh, FFOL and BoB, now you are talking.
We use FFOL Bigger Battles for BoB.
Might be the way to go, as you finish more figures and get them to the table ?

[WarlordFish]

Oh, FFOL and BoB, now you are talking.
We use FFOL Bigger Battles for BoB.
Might be the way to go, as you finish more figures and get them to the table ?

That's the goal for stage 2.

Stage 1, which I'm almost 2/3ed finished with constitutes of: Build all my terrain [done] finish the following factions to FFoL Core skirmish size with some ad ons such as artillery, airplanes, and vehicles (boats, light armor, trucks, etc) via the FFoL Viva Revolution and Galactic Vehicle Manual books.
KMT, Warlord, Chinese Soviet, Bandits, Renegades, Qing Restorationists, Spirit Soldiers, IJA, IJN, USN, USMC, British, Italians, Germans, Red Russian, White Russian, Adventurers, Civilians, etc.

Stage 2 is to expand the primary factions to FFoL BB/Beyond the Empire size.
KMT, Warlord, Chinese Soviet, Bandits, Japanese (Combo IJA/IJN) USA (USN/USMC) and Red Russians. I intend to expand the additional factions into units that can be added as support to those 7 core factions. Such as taking the warlord using White Russian mercenaries or the Japanese using the Renegades as collaborationist troops, and ect.

Stage 3 is to take 7 factions up to a collection size where I can play Setting the East Ablaze. But that's far distant end goal dreams.

I have a lot of the models I need to start ballooning up that core 7 to their BB size, but I don't have the time, and I want to finish up stage 1 first. I have about half the factions for stage 1 painted, and all the terrain I can currently store in a reasonable manner finished.

I'm also actually putting together some custom rules for FFoL which I hope to submit to Wiley Games as part of my home brew "Interwar" splat I'm working on. If your interested in them I'll post them, I'd love some feed back, maybe even some test play from a third party would be helpful in refining them.

[marianas_gamer]

Good sounding gaming strategy.

[flatpack]

I'm also actually putting together some custom rules for FFoL which I hope to submit to Wiley Games as part of my home brew "Interwar" splat I'm working on. If your interested in them I'll post them, I'd love some feed back, maybe even some test play from a third party would be helpful in refining them.

I’m sure we would be able to help there.

[has.been]

As an aside, I pointed Flatpack in the direction of Minifigs inter-war vehicles

http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/images/catalogue/VB01.jpg

only to find out that they are not available. Does anyone have any they don't need,
or know where to get them?

[WarlordFish]

As an aside, I pointed Flatpack in the direction of Minifigs inter-war vehiclesonly to find out that they are not available. Does anyone have any they don't need,
or know where to get them?

I'm familiar with that line of models, but have never seen any in person. I'm also hopeful to find some. However I can tell you that the following websites have some delightful interwar vehicles worth checking out.
https://www.empressminiatures.com/ <<goes with out explanation, very good selection of stuff under their Jazz Age Imperialism tab
https://www.ebay.com/str/minisandcrafts  <<a very nice ebay seller, who has a great selection of WWII armor, some of which fits the interwar period. More specifically some of their japanese tanks. The nicest type 89s and type 92s I've seen, plus a good selection of BoB era artillery.
https://www.ebay.com/str/actualsizeminiatures <<the gentleman I got some of my boats from
https://www.trenchworx.com/pages/historical-1 <<A nice collection of WWI vehicles, although I find their scale, reported to be 1/56, a little bigger than other 1/56 I have. I've got a type 89 from them that dwarfs my type 89s from the aforementioned ebay store. 
https://www.madbobminiatures.co.uk/ <<this guy has some really great and hard to find interwar beasties. It's where my armored train came from, as well as my coveted Vickers Carden Lloyd amphibious tank. 
https://sarissa-precision.com/ <<other boats I've used, the junk and sampans and Japanese landing barge.
https://company-b-models-and-miniatures.myshopify.com/collections/interwar <<I list these with a warning. Your mileage may vary.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for you, and anyone else, as I'm constantly on the hunt for new oddities I could say managed to find their way out back of beyond.

I'm also actually putting together some custom rules for FFoL which I hope to submit to Wiley Games as part of my home brew "Interwar" splat I'm working on. If your interested in them I'll post them, I'd love some feed back, maybe even some test play from a third party would be helpful in refining them.

I’m sure we would be able to help there.

Well alright! The following rules are things I've been working on. They're geared for FFoL core, but might be able to be used in BB with some tweaks.

[Banner] Any proper or improper army needs a flag! Any Specialist or Regular may take a banner into battle. (But a leader may not - it would make them too obvious a target ((and it's function does not stack with the Leader trait))) Confers the bannerman with the same +1 to recovery rolls within 12 inch line of sight that the Leader trait has, while also making the model easier to shoot at, giving shooting attacks against a bannerman +1 to hit. Has no effect good or bad if the model is down.

[Machine Pistol] Regular, specialist or leader. 6" short range, 12" long range. A SMG in the palm of your hand, wildly inaccurate and with a small magazine size it's usefulness as an automatic weapon is suspect. Has Burst, like an SMG, and all the normal rules associated with burst with the following modifications. Instead of using the 3" blast template, use the 6" flame template from the muzzle of the pistol to represent the wild scattered cone of fire. May be paired with a one handed close combat weapon. Good for Dare to Die troops.

[Trench Gun] Specialist only. 6" short range, 12" long range. A shotgun specifically made for combat operations. Has all the normal traits a shotgun has with the following addition. {Slam Fire} Using slam fire removes all the other traits associated with shotguns for that instance and instead functions like burst with all the normal rules associated with burst and with the following modifications. Instead of using the 3" blast template use the entire 12" flame template from the muzzle of the shotgun to represent the withering fire of magazine dumping the entire tube in a matter of seconds. Germans may be offended.

[Anti-Tank Rifle] Specialist, 18" short range 36" long range. Single shot/reload. AP-2, team. A heavy high powered rifle for when you need to reach out and touch someone, even if they're behind a steel plate. Specifically if they're behind a steel plate.

[Poison Gas] Functions like a smoke grenade for artillery, with the following differences. Has the [Deadly] weapon trait, and the [Poison] leader trait. Roll to hit any targets under the 5 in template as you normally would with artillery instantly killing anyone with a roll of a 10+ and treat every other model under the poison gas cloud as if wounded by a poison weapon in close combat. {Poison: If you cause a wound in Close Combat, roll on the Wound chart at the end of every turn for the Wounded model. They can only be “healed” by a Queen of Hearts or Regeneration.} Otherwise does no blast damage. Models within 2" of a poison gas cloud must take 1 shock and fall back away from it 5". Wearing a gasmask fully negates poison gas, a model may don or remove a gasmask as an action. Who gets gas weaponry or a gasmask? That's up to you to decide before the game. As I imagen it only modern westren style armies might have gas weapons and gasmasks, however some exceptionally sinister warlord may have bought some shells on the black market, or may have had enough foresight to equip his troops with gasmasks.

Some traits I'm working on.

Team Trait: Harmonious Fists: Your entire team gets the Pugilist Trait

Artillery only: Quick Fire Gun: This weapon by default has the Deft trait (does not stack with the deft trait)

Vehicle only: Overburdened: This vehicles engine is under powered or otherwise in poor condition (improvised armor, WWI armor, vehicles in poor repair) Before the vehicle may move make a task roll. The vehicle may move on a 3+ and stalls or breaks down if the roll is failed. If the roll is failed, on the next turn the vehicle may move on a 5+ from then on or stalls or breaks down, and if that roll is failed on an 8+. If the 8+ roll is failed the vehicle has broken down for good and is immobilized the rest of the game. 


I have a few other rules I'm still cooking up, but I'm still tweaking them. I'd love some feed back or test play of these from anyone who uses FFoL.