Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 30 October 2017

1st Adventure in Jimland (Part One)

"Off we jolly well go!"
So I managed to finish off my first venture into the wilds of "Jimland" (where anything can happen as their by-line goes). The preparation was not unduly arduous, but definitely needed, a turn sheet (showing the events and results of each turn; an expedition party sheet, showing the expeditions content, members, rations and so on. I also wanted to convert the native encounter cards into an A3 chart and I'll be doing the same for animal encounters too.
Homemade Native encounter chart
The main characters
The first item of business is selecting members of the expedition from an initial budget of $300, with various values for all the personnel, food etc. that you may need.
To make things easier I more or less copied the expedition from the sample game (that can be found here: Sample_Game.pdf

 The European explorers are the mainstay of the group, but cost cash (initially at least) and still need a supporting cast of thousands (or 12 in my case).
In the above photograph from left to right we have Sir Charles Biddlestone (the leader), Henry Wharton (Scout), Frederick Carrington (Hunter) and Joe Bolinbroke (Prospector). In addition there were four Askari guards and 9 bearers with food enough for 9 days (top photo).
The initial map
As I am want to do I've been amending the game's rules to suit my own purposes, the first of which was to get rid of the squares that are used in map movement and replace them with a hex map - easily done. The Expedition's are based at Jim's Landing (a coastal hex - there are no coastlines in the original) . In my first game I wanted to test my rules for coastlines and would follow the coastline east of Jim's landing (and why not?) 
I also amended the terrain table to include an initial terrain type in addition to the four used.
 So the terrain types are Jungle, Mountain, Grassland and Desert, to which I added Swamp. Rivers can be a feature of any of the above and are encountered in-game.
The expedition starts in the hex NW of Jim's Landing
In the words of Sir Charles:
Day One 
Very hot and humid, compasses seem to be filling with water regularly, Henry says he think he's noticed the same Native village three times and Jim's landing at least twice! 
 We make camp a short distance from a Native village (they appear friendly enough) .

Great Start
First event card drawn, great start to the adventure- not.
The presence of a Native village or not is the next item in the turn sequence and of course I threw a six meaning there was one; the natives were Tribals with a 50% chance of being hostile. In addition they had the maximum number of them being 5 Hand to hand Weapons (HW) and 5 with bows (B). Natives can be Friendly, Neutral or Hostile, with Tribals more apt to be Hostile. 1 food down, 8 left and we've gone nowhere!
The Native Village.
Getting to the start
Day One
 Day Two
Everything quite, we head SW trying to keep an eye on the coastline. The six Natives we encounter are friendly enough and we ignore them.
Suited me at the time !
Three with Hand Weapons and three with rifles -gulp!




























"Whoo-hoo we moved" - map end of turn 2
I diced for the continuation of the coastline, on a d6, 1,2 or 3 gives 1 hex side of coast, 45, two sides and a 6 would give three sides. (The coastline was extended by one side.)

I threw a '1' !
Day Three
The incessant drums through the night were  disturbing and we awoke to find one of our Askari missing, strange. We decided to head head South, once more attempting to follow the coastline, encountering no-one, but ending in a very unwelcoming swamp.




The diminished group trudges on through the swamp.
 
End of Turn 3 (and also does four turn 4 too)
Day Four

There goes another Askari
Rather than risk being lost in the swamp I decided to back-track and head North from whence we came! 
The day did not get off well as we lost yet another Askari to an animal snare in the swamp. We arrived at another village (strangely we hadn't notice it before) who seemed to not want anything to do with us (I think they were the ones who had set the snare and were probably feeling guilty). 

Day Five:
And a bearer !
A ferocious  wind caused great anxiety as we headed SW circumnavigating the swamp one of our bearers seemed to have been swept away by it too, luckily he wasn't carrying anything . Frederick and myself were also battered about a bit, but being made of stouter stuff we survived with minor bruising only.
Henry noticed some suspicious looking fellows trying to ambush us and we prepared for an assault.
We saw them off without any loss of life on our part.



Two explorers and an Empty bearer were  the targets of the '3' I threw , Frederick and Sir Charles both made their saving rolls whilst the unfortunate bearer did not.
There were six spear armed (HW) hostile natives who were successfully scouted out giving the Europeans a slight advantage. 
The initial part of any encounter is the Native and Expedition player placing terrain pieces alternatively on pre-designated areas. As the Expedition player I would want clear fields of fire, whereas as the Native player I wanted to be able to use the terrain blocking line of sight to enable me to get closer to the expedition (talk about split personalities!).

I'm very sorry to say that that's where I'll be leaving it for this week' having almost recovered (99%) from the aches and pains I was suffering with, I'm now stricken with a heavy dose of man-flu and once more almost bed-ridden! (You were probably getting bored too I'm guessing). Rather than gunk up my lap-top with the various excretions I am currently emitting I'm resting up.  I may well post part 2 before Monday next, dependent upon how quickly I recover.

Normal services will be resumed asap

Thanks for visiting and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.
 

32 comments:

  1. Well I thoroughly enjoyed that Joe - what a cracking adventure, with plenty of tension and excitement. I wouldn't want to be a native baggage handler on one of your expeditions. Marvellous stuff and I'm very much looking forward to the next instalment - so get better very soon!! :-)

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    1. Thanks Blaxx, the 'lower orders' of the expedition have a much lesser survival rate as the rules favour Europeans.
      I'll get the next instalment out asap,

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  2. Looks like great fun and surprisingly realistic in the getting lost and not much happening line, probably best when you're just starting out, hope you feel better soon.
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Ian on all fronts, with all the paperwork (not too much really) and the tension of the dice rolls it seemed like my expedition was always a die roll away from disaster.

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  3. I like the way this is going and look forward to some more. Neat.

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    1. Thanks Irqan, it;s probably the first solo game that I've truly enjoyed.

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  4. Nice safari start, Zab. And amending is good! IMHO rules are guidelines that when necessary are tweaked or changed to suit my gaming idiosyncrasies at, or during, the time of play.

    Get well quick.

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    1. Yep, Safari, so goody (I'll get my coat).
      Where I haven't written my own rules, I've nearly always tweaked the rules of others to get what I want out of a game. I think these days players want everything laid out for them as "law".

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  5. This is wonderful stuff Joe, great to see the adventure up and running. I love the idea of the map to keep track of the turns.

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    1. Thanks Nchael, I'm a big fan of .games "into the unknown". I have a handy player aid hex-map for each expedition too

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    1. Thanks you Michal, it was great fun to play.

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  7. Cracking blog post Joe. Definitely a very interesting solo game you're playing and its making for a great read. The photos and maps are great added bonuses too!

    Don't let the man-flu grind you down - you'll have to give us a post of all the new dvds and films you've been watching while resting up. Unless you're like me and watch too many weird Japanese films?

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    1. ahem. forgot to click the 'notify me' button last time. corrected.

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    2. Thanks Roy, I did hope the format I eventually took would finf favour. I like maps in general and it was the easiset way I could think of to illustrate what was also happeing "off camera".
      I've been reading a bit, resting mostly and stocking up on lem-sips. My concentration span is about twenty minutes atm.

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  8. Sounds as if this set of rules is inspired by the boardgame "Source of the Nile" (and indeed that's what boardgamegeek.com suggests :-) ). SotN was a favourite of mine many decades ago and is one of the reasons for my current interest in "Congo". Hmm, perhaps "Adventures in Jimland" is worth a look too...

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    1. This game is indeed a spin off of SotN (which I may have mentioned in a previous post). It was born from two other similar variants "Ubonga" and "The Black Amazons in King Solomon's Lost City of the Diamond Mines in The Elephant's Graveyard at The Source of the Nile" both by Chris Ferree using "the Sword and the Flame" rules for the table action. The "Black Amazons etc" were used as a convention participation game and the SotN gae is also given credit for the inspiration.
      I've looked at Congo, but like many things I was put off by the pricey rules, the "shinyness" of the idea and at least one review of saying "So it felt a bit like a card game with toy soldiers, rather than a toy soldier game with cards." I'd certainly give Congo a chance even so.

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  9. This is great. Like how this occurring both on maps and the pics of the events/scenes as the happen. Very Jumanji vybe as well with the cards and theme.

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    1. Thanks Brummie, I really an so pleased with the way this format has worked.

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  10. We play a lot of Congo, what a great game. Have a go I think you would like it.

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    1. Thanks Simon for the input and for visiting my blog (see my comment on Congo in my reply to C6 above). I must say though that throughout my many years at gaming I've never once liked "even sides" i.e. point based games or games aimed at competition/tournament styles. It can tend to lead to the more meta-gaming type of player - less so amongst friend though.
      I'd centainly "have a shot" at Congo, but I reckon you'd definetly need a human opponent - something I sadl lacking (unless I want to play GW fantasy - which I don't !)

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    2. The art is building your Column to the required points using the various unit types available. What Characters and Auxilary figures you choose, what action cards you pick sometimes at random. The same with the Totem cards. The scenarios are well written and backed up with some from Wargames Illustrated. I believe there is a campaign supplement out soon.

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    3. Thanks Simon, it all does sound very attractive and I will keep looking out for reviews and aars of "Congo"

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  11. Certainly not getting bored at all. Fabulous post mate

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    1. Thnks dGG, it was a bit of a bugger to put together, but wellworth it imo.

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  12. This is Brilliant. Makes me want to get the rules and do it for several expeditions at once. I really love the whole concept and setting and an see it working in many different setting. Sahara Desert, South America, Early Colonies in North America as well as south east Asia and Africa.

    Fantastic post Really make me feel I want to get involved.

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    1. Just found the rules online. Most excellent (any who want Do a search for "Adventures in Jimland PDF") CIt would make an excellent play by blog game. (If you abstracted the combat encounters).

      I can see me playing this at the club with each player taking a single turn each meeting. Might work Very well

      Thanks For pointing this game out. I love it.

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    2. I thought this game would be right up your street Clint. According to the rules tugn turns being their own column or the Natives.
      Hope yopu managed top find all the other bits and pieces you need for the game too (charts, cards etc.)

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    3. nO CHARTS, CARDS OR CHITS FOUND YET! happy to look now I think they might be availiable. But I thought the charts/cards/chits would be different for different settings. Arctic Explorers I thought would have different charts from deepest Africa. Like wise South America might also be different. Perhaps my thinking is faulty and maybe I need a re-think. But at least now I know to look.

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    4. I got all the necessary charts and card from the interweb, but the chits are only in the commercial version afaik. If you're having problems feel free to email me. (found on my profile page)

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  13. Excellent post Joe :-)
    It's really great to see the fruits of your labours with the terrain, mini's and rule tweaks (ALL of which look spot on by the way)
    Loving Sir Charles' diary and will be following his exploits avidly!

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    1. Thanks WA, I'm pleased too that it's all coming together nicely.The diary idea isn't unfortuntely an original idea, but well worth copying imo.

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