The Warriors at Huzzah 2024

[Cat]

The Warriors games at Huzzah Con — AAR part I, setting up.
 
For those of you who have been following my build thread, I've been working on painting gangs from The Warriors movie for several years since I first got my copy of Mean Streets.  Last summer when Huzzah announce the theme for this year would be Hollywood, I kicked the project into high gear to get the gaming table built.
 
It's kind of a massive project...  There's still more work to do on detailing and dirtying up the actual streets.  I did at least get the concrete areas spray painted on the boards the day before leaving for Maine.  Finished painting final details and gluing signs on the train cars at the hotel by 1am after our arrival on Thursday.  Dullcoted them before breakfast, and finished painting the gloss windows by 12:20pm on Friday.  Then went downstairs to pick up my badge and the con started at 2pm.  That evening, wrote up big index cards with gang stats and done by 11:30pm.  Time for a full night's sleep even before the first game at 9am Saturday.
: 3
 
Each player would have 40 points to pick their gang members.  Each member was statted out for their abilities, weapons, and points.  There is more than enough members painted up for each gang to allow the players some choice in choosing quality/quantity of figures and capabilities.  For the most part, only the Warriors had some special abilities built in to their character choices.  Each gang had to choose their Boss/President figure and had an optional Warchief/Lieutenant for addition command control ability.

Any odd points that were left over could be used to by a Luck re-roll at 1 point each.  Used once per game by any mamber, not assigned to a specific character.
 
Each gang had a varying number of artists (0–3) to choose from.  I did a house rule that the Artist ability cost +1 point.  Artists could put up a gang tag for 2 actions, all others could tag for 4 actions.  (Each figure gets a variable 1–3 actions each turn.)
 
The Orphans gang had the largest pool of 'Wimp' quality members, but that does include (3) Wimp Artists and (3) Wimp Runners.  And their President is not as tough as the other gang leaders, he fights as a Lieutenant but has the full Boss command radius.
 
Normal movement rates are 6" walking / 9" running.  I modified the Runner skill to 8"/12"
 
The Baseball Furies had a unique build option that was all or nothing — they could spend 1 point for each member to give them the Runner skill.  In the movie, there were two different casts of extras playing the Furies.  The number of Furies and face paints don't really line up between the chase scene and the fighting scene.  The stunt crew that was trained and choreographed for the fight scene didn't have the stamina to film the long chase scene.  So they hired a New York running club to play the running Furies.
 
The game is set sometime after the movie.  Cleon is out of the hospital.  Ajax is out of jail.  And the Furies' ribs have healed.  The Warriors have been strutting around saying they are the best, and everyone wants to take them down a peg; they can earn extra victory points for each member that crosses the board from Broadway Junction Station and exits into Rockaway Avenue Station.  The Guardian Angels have announced that they are going to clean up New York and put an end to graffiti; they can earn extra victory points  for each 'citizen's arrest' by knocking out any character they witnessed putting up a gang tag.  No other gang had special victory conditions.  Every gang earns a point for each tag they put up outside of their starting zone (except for the Angels), and for each opposing gang member they KO.
 
The Guardian Angels were not in the movie per se, but they did show up to protest when it opened because it was promoting violence.

Coming in with 5 figures were
*  The Warriors with their 4 heavies Cleon, Swan, Ajax, Snow; and Rembrandt the artist.
 *  The Furies: both Leaders, 3 Punks, all with Runner (no artist available in their full roster, I'll add a waterboy/girl option later).
*  The Mongols: both Leaders, Lieutenant Laofu is buffed slightly with 2 butterfly swords for and extra point of Combat Rating, 2 Punks, a Wimp Artist, and a number of Luck points

Coming in with 6 figures each:
*  Lizzies
*  Riffs

7 figures:
* Guardian Angels

Armying in with 9, quantity is a quality all its own:
The Orphans: both Leaders, 1 Punk, 3 Wimp Artists, 3 Wimp Runners.
 
Using some of the gang tag markers were handing for tracking order of Initiative each turn.  (Note to self, pack D8s or D10s in the box for the Initiative track.)
 
After months of cranking away painting buildings and trains, I finally got to see it all put together and rejoice.  The elevated train didn't play a functional role in this scenario, but wow does it set the mood and catch eyes across the room!
 
And the happy gamers came out to playayyy and we all had a grand time!  Me, I was wearing my Lizzies cosplay, but promised I would not be biased in refereeing.
 
The aerial photos of the board were taken after the first game, and seen is the trophy for Best In Session.  At the end of the con, also got 1st Runner Up for Best In Show (Wars of Ozz won the grand prize).
 

 

[FramFramson]

What a sight! And everyone looking like they had balls of fun!

[Cat]

Thanks Fram, yeah everyone had a blast and was talking about the game a lot throughout the con.  Everyone exclaimed how great these rules are for a convention game — quick to pick up on and lots of action!
 
AAR Part II — Session 1, Initial Engagements.
 
The Warriors deployed at the foot of the stairs coming down from Broadway Junction Station, aside from racking up points for tagging and KOing opponents, they would get bonus points for exiting into Rockaway Avenue Station across the board.
 
The Guardian Angels deployed in front of Rockaway Avenue Station.  They had just come up off the subway on their mission to put a stop to graffiti in New York.
 
The other 5 gangs were deployed roughly equally around the perimeter of the table.  The zig-zag pattern of the streets means they all have to do some maneuvering to get at each other, and everything converges in the center.
 
Had there been an 8th player, on the first turn that gang would have come out of the Granada Theater in the center of the board.
 
No gang would get points for tagging anything in the immediate vicinity of their deployment zone, so everyone had to move out somewhere looking for action.
 
INITIAL MOVES:
 
The Warriors cut through the back alleys of all the automotive places in the wedge between Broadway and Eastern Parkway heading towards Truxton Street and the long run down Fulton to Rockaway.  This turned out to be a great tactical choice — Rembrandt the artist was safely tucked in the backfield to tag away while the front 4 heavy hitters slugged a path open
 
The Riffs had started on Eastern and also headed up to Truxton to head the Warriors off.  The two would throw up some tags when they could and meet in the small vacant lot with parked cars to start rumbling in confined quarters.
 
The Mongols started at the top of Fulton near where the El turns off the edge of the board.  Rather than heading into a three-way fight with the Warriors and Riffs, they bypassed them and continued down Fulton, tagging along the way.
 
At the other end of that long edge of the board, the Furies started at the top of Rockaway Ave.  Instead of heading straight at the Guardian Angels further down the street, they turned up Herkimer into Orphans' turf and started tagging when they could.  The Furies didn't have any designated artist in their pack, so it would take each character 4 actions to complete a tag. 

A die was placed on each tag to show how many actions had been completed, and the die removed when and if the tag was finished.  A gang would only get a victory point for each completed tag, but the Angels could get a bonus VP for taking out anyone they saw in the process of tagging.
 
The Orphans began at the top of Eastern Parkway by the Texaco station.  They turned away from the Mongols coming down Fulton, and headed straight in against the Furies on Herkimer Street.
 
The Lizzies began across the board from the Orphans on Somers Street near Stone Ave.  They headed up Stone towards the middle of Fulton, tagging away on the other side of Stone.
 
The Guardian Angels had no immediate vandals in sight on Rockaway, so they sauntered up Fulton til they caught sight of the Lizzies in action and then cut through the back alleys to engage them.
 
FIRST ROUND OF FIGHTING:
 
Initiative for order of movement was rolled at the start of each turn.  Generally, 2–4 gangs would be moving simultaneously with gangs that weren't going to be directly tangling with each other all going at the same time.
 
The Warriors and Riffs duked it out amongst the parked cars, and eventually the Warriors would blow through them, leaving most of the Riffs on the ground and every Warrior would eventually stride out onto Fulton and beyond.

The Orphans charged down Herkimer, their front line of their better fighters hit the Furies, quickly getting the first KO dropping Sluggo on first contact.  With their mob of Wimps, the Orphan artists were able to spread out into the back alleys behind the shops of Fulton, tagging away while the limited number of Furies were stuck in fighting and couldn't stop them.  They were also safely out of sight from the Angels.
 
But the Furies' response was quick.  Their President, Thurman, climbed atop a VW Rabbit and began laying waste around him.  The Warchief, Cobb, and others came up to join the line, interrupting their tagging activities to do what they do best — go to bat. 
 
Meanwhile, the Mongols continued down Fulton, spreading art, and heading towards the mayhem on Herkimer.
 
The Angels rudely interrupted the Lizzies' art spree and began a drawn out fight slowly pushing them from the back alleys and out onto Stone Ave.
 

[mikedemana]

Cat -- I'm so excited that your two games went great! I'm equally glad your players all had fun (and thanks for relaying their kind words about my rules). I like all your modifications and it sounds like they worked great.

I don't put a number next to the gang marker for initiative. I simply line them up, with the first gang to act being on the left and last on the right. As each gang begins moving, I edge their marker up or down to denote it. Sounds like you did a masterful job managing your gangs moving simultaneously in an essentially sequential system. Bravo! I think the most I've managed is three of my six players moving simultaneously (outside turn 1).

Sounds like you were at it till the last minute preparing, but yet won Best of Session. That is really something to be proud of when you put on a visually appealing and yet fun game.

I do have a question: How modular is your setup? Can you rearrange streets easily? If so, one thing I have done with other games that I wanted 8 players is to divide the table into two four-player sections. In between them, is a central section that some of the players want to get to for their victory conditions. When they leave their own four section and enter the center one they enter a new sequence of play. It's a tiny bit more work, but you can count on your players to run the side sections and as GM have to keep track of only the central one. Maybe that could work with the elevated train as the central objective? Once they enter the platform area they enter a new time zone, so to speak... 

Once again, congrats on a great game and successful running of Mean Streets!!

Mike Demana

[Cat]

Thanks Mike!
 
No this board is not at all modular.  The key design was the irregular zig-zag that allows starting points where the gangs can't just run along the edge of the board, they have to move inland, and it creates the longest run possible crossing from Rockaway subway to Broadway elevated.  The game effect is much more of an open air dungeon than a regular city grid would be.
 
If I ever wanted to split into two separate games, it would be setting up a group of gangs on each half of the board that had rivalries within their group, and then just let each one run on it's own time.  Late in the game, if the last gangs standing are in any shape to fight each other, then they would just synch up at the start of a turn and start their own 'clock'.
 
It's (3) 2'x4' panels that line up in this configuration only.  When I get to the subway platform extension, then these three panels will be able to lift up easily on a framework so the subway mezzanine will be above the tracks, and then the streets up above that.  The subway and Rockaway Avenue could even operate as it's own 3-level dungeon for a group of gangs with rivalries. 

Just the 2-level subway could handle a small 4-player game with 2 gangs entering at either end of the mezzanine and 2 gangs getting off trains on the inbound and outbound platforms.
 
I've run lots of different large convention games.  12 players is about my max before the brain starts frying.

[Andy in Germany]

The pictures were worth the wait, thank you. It's great to see how everything looks when placed together.

[Tom Dulski]

 I dig the Starsky and Hutch car in there!

[Cat]

Tom, the tomato-coloured Gran Torino does indeed have California plates.
 
Andy, thanks!
 
Mike, and oh, putting numbers by the tag markers for initiative is a safety measure.  Helps to insure that I don't accidentally hand one of those to a player when they ask for a marker.
: 3
 
AAR Part III — Session 1, War In A Gang Infested City
 
Note on gangs and weapons: most gangs have members packing an assortment of weapons, and some unarmed, with some flavour variances of the available mix.  The Baseball Furies are of course mon-thematic and all pack baseball bats.  The Orphan leaders and their few punks pack, but all the wimps are unarmed.  The Guardian Angels are all unarmed.
 
Each type of weapon has a different special effect that may be applied when the character beats an opponent's roll by double or more.  In the rules, the special effect of bare-fisted is that you may make a second attack.  The special effect of chains/nunchuks/etc is the same, but the second attack may be against an opponent up to 2" away. 

I changed bare-fisted a bit so that it wasn't the weakest weapon for special effects.  House-ruled that if they double or better, bare fists may make a second attack, and whether they do that or not, may move up to 1" in any direction at the end of the combat rolls if they're still standing.  Dancing and boxing allows a free disengage and/or repositioning.  This worked quite well.
 
Over on Herkimer Street, the Furies laid down a carpet of Orphans.  When the baseball bats hit the wimps, the wimps go down.  A couple of surviving Orphans scattered into the alleys behind Fulton, trying to avoid pursuit and tagging whatever they could.
 
Then the Mongols marched in over the carpet of Orphans and began chopping up the Furies who were already weakened from their first fight.  In the end, the last two Furies standing beat a hasty retreat off the board.  Thurman was up to 6 wound markers at the end, and Darien the punk had 5.  (I'll be re-naming some of the figure bases — 'Darien' is Purple Fury who I now know was played by Rob Ryder who has just written a book; he was the location scout for the movie and got drafted to play a Fury and also a Punk, the one in the red shirt.)

There's no limit to the number of wounds any character can take.  Each one gives a cumulative -1 combat penalty.  If a combat roll is ever tripled by an opponent, you're KOd for the game.
 
The Warriors, who had blown through the Riffs, all advanced unopposed down the middle of Fulton Street.  Rembrandt even started tagging the Granada.  The theater is clearly tagged 'DMZ'.  All the local gangs have agreed that this is neutral territory.  But the Warriors aren't signatories to that treaty.  The Warriors haven't won any love and friendships this day.
 
Masai, the Riffs' Boss had ducked in to Somers Street and began to steal a dusty Volkswagen Thing with Vermont plates.
 
On Stone Ave, the Lizzies and Angels were locked in a brawl of attrition, each giving as good as they got.  The Lizzies had dropped a lot of Angels, but were hurting with lots of wounds.  They finally agreed to disengage and try to stop the Warriors who they could see jogging down Fulton.  Dee Dee, the Lizzies' President, was still standing with 7 wound markers and a lot of blood on her knife.  The Angels had had enough — they live to stomp and handcuff wimps for citizen's arrests, not go toe toe with hardened veterans of the armies of the night.
 
On what would be the final turn and thrilling conclusion, the Warriors won initiative and rolled well for action points.  Their 4 fighters all sprinted down Fulton and into the Rockaway Avenue station.  Rembrandt stayed back and heroically completed his tag on the Granada. 
 
Masai whipped around the corner in the Thing and tried to run Rembrandt down, but he dodged.  Rembrandt would survive to meet up with the rest of the gang at Union Station.
 
The Furies also won initiative over the Mongols and trotted off the board into their dugout.  The Mongols took what solace they could, heading into the alleys hunting a cowering Orphan.
 
Others finished what tags they could, and the Angels KOd a wimp Orphan they spotted tagging on Fulton.  Then the sirens closed in and everyone left standing would scatter.
 
Good news, Boppers — it was a great game!  And the Warriors are still the best... for now.
 
*  Warriors : 10VP — KOd 3 Riffs, put up 3 tags, 4 made it to the subway.
*  Orphans : 9VP — KOd 1 Fury, put up 8 tags.
*  Lizzies : 8VP — KOd 4 Angels, put up 4 tags.
*  Riffs : 8VP — put up 5 tags, and stole 3 things of note (early on, broke into the back of Corvus Auto Supply, also a case of beer from the Ballantine's truck, and the Thing).
*  Furies : 7VP — KOd 5 Orphans and 1 Mongol, put up 1 tag.
*  Mongols : 5VP — KOd 1 Orphan, put up 4 tags.
*  Guardian Angels : 5VP — KOd 2 Lizzies and 1 Orphan, 2 bonus points for taking down taggers (1 Lizzies' artist and 1 Orphans' artist).
 

[CapnJim]

This is so cool!  And you're right - that train really sets the mood...

[Doug ex-em4]

What a great looking board. It’s a proper game board - made for playing on but looks very appealing as well. And so well designed for use at conventions. Just terrific. Congratulations and well done on running the games so well - your players were very lucky.

Doug

[syrinx0]

Really beautiful games.  Congrats on pulling off multiple convention games during the same con! No easy feat.

[OldWest92]

Very impressive table. Very cool figures. I have been reading through the other Warriors thread and taking a closer look at some of the figs you have on display here, as well. Great work on everything! Everybody looks like they are having a wonderful time in the pictures. Looks like an awesome day and an awesome game, to boot. Especially impressive reading that you managed to pull off multiple games in the same convention.

 I often find that it's the larger and more "spectacular" sort of games that initially draw people into the sphere of wargaming. Though, in my observations, it's unique games and concepts like these that always pique the interest of those who have been around the block, so to speak (not to say it wouldn't appeal to new folks either). As I have gotten deeper and deeper into the hobby of wargaming and figure painting over the years, I find that these sort of experiences tend to draw my attention more and more. Very flavorful.

This has been a treat, thank you for sharing.

[Cat]

Thanks folks!
 
Yes everyone did have a really fun time all through the game.
 

[Elk101]

Very impressive stuff.

[mikedemana]

I really enjoyed the blow-by-blow description of the rumble. Absolutely awesome!! I like your modifications, too. I always look at my rules sets as tool kits and players are free to "house rule" to their pleasure.

Thanks for showcasing my rules. It always warms the heart of game designer to see others having fun running your game!! 

Mike Demana