Burned Beyond Recognition - A Flames of Orion Battle Report

 

 If you have somehow missed the buzz, Flames of Orion is a miniatures agnostic game of apocalyptic mech combat designed by Steve Hupfer, one of the main hosts of the Hive Scum podcast and an organizer of Under The Dice Fest and the zine of the same name. Mechs must balance their heat as is giant robot tradition, there is a cool action/enhanced action system (called Bolstering) and the game seems to aim for a fast-playing feel with a focus on narrative. The PDF of the core rules will always be free, but a Kickstarter campaign is currently raising funds for a print run of the book with new artwork and other extras. I'd been interested in the game for a while but after a lengthy period of time scratch-building some mech miniatures for it I finally played it!

My worthy opponent was Ed Scott (pillar of London gaming community and creator of the Blades of Arozone fantasy comics) and this was the first time for either of us playing the game. Our venue was the London gaming club HATE (Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts), in their perhaps somewhat confusingly not-located-in-Hackney venue the Karamel Klub, a North London bar/arts space. The club is currently here after having to leave the legendary Bethnal Green Working Men's Club and could do with getting the word out after relocating. If you're reading this and are in London, come along for some of the friendliest game club vibes in the city!

Ed's roster consisted of various mechanical freaks he had kitbashed previously, namely:

1. The Void Herald
(Large missile battery, Power weapon, Heatsink, Defense array)
2. The Iron Wyvern
(Medium weapon, Close combat weapon, Counter missiles, Targeting system)
3. The Pain Engine
(Large missile battery, Basic combat weapon, Piston gauntlet, Virus program)
4. The Steel Sentinel
(Large missile battery, Long range systems, Core stabilisers)

The Void Herald. Creepy model, Ed

 

My own was a series of scratch-built models I'd started way back in February and I was only too glad to finally play a game with them:

1. Abusor
(Piston gauntlet, Cable whip, Nuclear core, Targeting system)
2. Vituperator
(Flame Thrower, Heavy Weapon, Armor Mk II)
3. Communications Tower 3 (Final Phase)
(AI missile system, Flamethrower, Virus program, Heatsink)
4. The Shameful One
(Railgun, heavy weapon, light weapon, heavy plating [extra platform])

 

Me and the boys (L-R: Comms Tower, Shameful One, Vituperator, Abusor)

My roughly sketched head canon for my machines was that some space engineers were using age-old "good luck traditions" on a remote tech base to help prevent workplace injuries. Well, turns out some of those traditions were more "grounded" than realised, and unknowing use of occult phrases and charms had eventually fused man with machine with building in a horrible mechanoid flesh embrace. Not exactly original, but sometimes you just need to get your greebly models a little flavour.

Our randomly selected scenario was the fourth in the rulebook,'Burned To A Crisp'. A radiation storm was occurring around the planet, causing potential random spikes in mech heat levels at the end of each turn. Before the storm worsened to unbearable levels, each side had to scramble for resources (5 loot tokens deployed equidistantly on the centre line of the board) and retreat back into bunkers by the end of turn 5. Having the most mechs and loot tokens in bunkers at the end of the game granted victory and extra rolls on the discovery tables. 

TURN 1

From left to right I deployed Vituperator, The Shameful One, Abusor and Comms Tower across the board, hoping to concentrate my long range heavy hitting weapons on my left flank, and to get Abusor in melee as soon as possible. Comms Tower would be charged with collecting loot tokens and opening the bunker door nearest my deployment zone. Terrain was fairly finely grained across the whole board so I didn't see any key lines of fire. I decided instead to focus on getting the terror of Abusor (which due to its nuclear core would always explode at maximum potential) right up in the enemy's face with its double melee attack and remain flexible with everything else.

Steel Sentinel's flurry of fire starts to build up heat (the red tokens)

TURN 2

Abusor was able to move in quickly and grab the centre left loot token, and then, hungry to bludgeon something, set its sights on The Void Herald which had swiftly moved in to collect the far left loot token while trading fire with Vituperator in the distance. Vituperator tried to fire its heavy weapon at Void Herald but the low bluff between the two mechs meant it was unable to land a shot.

On my right flank, the Iron Wyvern grabbed its own token and swiftly turned a 180 and turned back for home. Comms Tower's AI light missiles rained out of the sky but also failed to connect with the metallic burrower. I was tempted to chase after the Wyvern but knew that it was a risk to stray too far away from my nearby bunker. He could have that loot token.

Iron Wyvern and its separately based tail

TURN 3

Lots of misses had taken place so far, without any really significant damage being caused by weapon fire. Abusor and The Void Herald were locked in combat, flurries of blows being traded back and forth between two equally horrific bio-engines. The cable whip of Abusor was merciless, and The Void Herald exploded beautifully (and thankfully without to much shrapnel). Shout out to Flames of Orion for having 'sticky' melee rules, I am always a fan of this in low density miniatures games.

Abusor and Void Herald locked in close combat

The Iron Wyvern cruised back around to its home territory, and I decided to disengage with Comms Tower and just send it back to open the bunker - it felt like a waste of an action, but I knew I'd regret not doing it later. I also nastily decided to block Steel Sentinel's second action with a wave of virus signals from Comms Tower, courtesy of the Virus Programme upgrade. Ed had one of these, but I think he forgot to use it against me, thankfully!

Mid-game state of play

[DUMB GUY NOT READING THE SCENARIO PROPERLY INTERLUDE]

It was at this point in the game that I realised we had the rules for the bunkers wrong. Yes, there were two bunkers, but each could be used by EITHER side to house mechs and thus secure victory conditions. It wasn't a your-base-my-base kind of deal. Presumably they all connect to miles of communal tunnels underground, all of which are also battled for by mechs....anyway, that scenario could've been worded more clearly, but it was on me for skim reading.

This revelation about our VPs come just before some fortifying vegan cuisine (Karamel Kitchens are fantastic if you want vegan diner/junk food and it looks like they do a killer vegan roast on Sundays). Bellies full, we waded into the chaos and destruction of...

TURN 4

I decided I'd need to shoot for the moon and run The Shameful One all the way through the battlefield to the opposite bunker. There was no way it could make it all the way back to where it started. However, I'd have to hope that one of Ed's mechs opened it before I got there as I wouldn't have the spare actions!

Blood fire death

Abusor later fell to a flurry of shots from Pain Engine. Thankfully for my own forces, it did NOT explode, but shut down for the game. If it had blown up I'm pretty sure I would have lost the game then if I had to suffer the 2d3 damage for everything in its blast radius (starting Hull Points for mechs is only 6 in Flames of Orion. At zero it's out of the game one way or another).

Steel Sentinel took the opportunity to get a few shots off at a distance, trying to plug Comms Tower, but it stood undaunted.

The end of this turn (I think) then saw Steel Sentinel get the Big Red Button award, as overzealous use of weapons and Bolstered actions meant it was heated over the threshold by radiation and blew up.

TURN 5

The Comms Tower crawled on its clicking slicing apparatus underground, into the bunker with one loot token. The Shameful One did likewise - luckily Pain Engine (iirc) had opened up the other bunker in the enemy deployment zone. Vituperator was roasted in the radiation storm, unable to get to safety.  Ed managed to get one mech home I believe, which from the pictures I assume was Pain Engine but I can't quite remember! All his other mechs managed to make their Casualty rolls and survive relatively unscathed though. Mechs that reach 0 HP or explode have a 1/3 chance of suffering a Scar, a lasting effect that causes problems in later campaign games, and can be repaired with the right amount of cash. Ed was also fortunate enough to roll a whole new mech chassis on his post-game Discoveries to be used alongside his existing four combatants. Get modelling Ed!

 

WOT I THINK SO FAR

That was our first game of Flames of Orion. Honestly, I was a little uncertain if I needed another mech game, as someone who plays the occasional Battletech match. However, I feel that the strength of Flames is not that it is "A bit like Battletech but rules-like" or "A bit like grimdark Battletech", both niches which have been covered by Catalyst themselves at least to some degree.

Rather, the things that made this game so fun were actually where it diverged from The Big B. It had a speedy feel that was extremely action-packed, and though I love Battletech's granularity, there's no denying that it feels more simulationist than speedy. Even without the radiation storm rules, I can see that heat very quickly rockets up unless you're prepared to be outmaneuvered/outgunned by your opponent and not use the Bolstered actions. Coupling this with the fact that in this game, reaching your heat limit means without exception that your mech is out of the game (even if it doesn't explode, there is no rebooting after shutdowns here), the game seems almost guaranteed to feel hard-hitting and consequential at each play.

Speaking of granularity, I can't pretend I don't miss having more details on hit locations and damage to mech components. The game certainly doesn't need it and I applaud the decision to do without (there is a very good 2d6 Crit table which fills this narrative/mechanical role) but one of the genre tropes I like is the feeling of a clunking great bot ready to fall apart piece by piece, which you won't find here. The mechs are swift combatants that won't need to worry about difficult terrain or damaged servors, but they are easily damaged and explode at the drop of a hat.

Instead of granularity in the damage rules, you have a different kind of depth as you get the joy of trying out different weapon/upgrade combos, either randomly or based on what you currently have in your bits box. Gear and loot has quite an easy-come, easy-go feel, with very generous rolls on tables based on victory and loot recovery.

There's ample support for a mid-length campaign at least in the concise Discovery and Scars systems, though like any of these systems they'll only benefit from expansion, hopefully by the ever growing Flames community. I'm looking forward to playing again soon, and to trying out a few mad scientist builds of mechs, and the rules for air and ground support units too.

Flames of Orion is on Kickstarter until the 5th of June.

Steel Sentinel

Sorcerers and Sellswords Impressions + Actual Play

I'll put the actual play at the end because I know almost no-one reads those.

This week, as part of my continuing efforts to clear out my backlog of independent RPGs that I haven't played, I ran a one-shot of the ultra-rules light Sorcerers & Sellswords by Ray Otus, a hack of the famous Lasers & Feelings game. L&F is a wide open game that makes intriguing use of a single stat related to the titular dichotomy, but it also has the word 'feelings' in the title which of course sends me - being an uptight British man - scurrying to the nearest dark corner. 

Sorcerers & Sellswords on the other hand, has piquant pulp flavour all over it, much more my style! 

I've long been a fan of Ray's open-minded and inquisitive thoughts on gaming via his inspiring Plundergrounds podcast and so I decided to soak this pamphlet sized game in several puddles of delicious porter in a Hackney boozer and run it for a group of four.

You're looking at the entire game

Rules and Characters

The short version of the game (shorter, to be precise - we're talking about a ruleset covering one side of an A4 sheet here) is that characters have just one stat, a Skill number ranging from 2 to 5 that is chosen at character creation. If this is low, you're more likely to succeed at Sorcery tasks (roll over your Skill number), and if it's high, you're more likely to succeed at Swords tasks (roll under your Skill number). The two categories are not as literal as they seem - more on that later.

Players choose keywords for their characters relating to style and calling, with the latter being the closest the game gets to a class (Necromancer, Barbarian etc.). They then select a personal goal from a list, and the party decides on two advantages that will affect them as a whole, and a single problem. None of these are anything but evocative keywords to spur on action and improvisation.

If a player can claim that they are trained by reference to their style and/or calling or prepared by previously stated actions, they get an extra die in each of those cases when making a skill check, and the number of successful rolls determines whether you failed, achieved your goal with a caveat (1 success), did well (2 successes) or did critically well with a bonus effect (3 or more successes).

The simplicity of having a single stat appeals to me, as does using keywords free of mechanics when creating your character or the party. It's not geared towards anything but being able to sink a few beers and make believe. This does shift quite a lot of emphasis onto having engaged players as they are made to create on the fly from some very minimal prompts rather than relying on mechanics.  

Insight

Should you roll equal to your Skill number in any type of skill check, you gain an Insight, and can ask the referee - well, basically anything. Once the answer is received, players are then granted the option to retcon their characters initial action if they wish, and/or re-roll. 

This seems like a very important mechanic, though I'm a little unsure on how exactly it is intended to be used. The rules give examples which clearly point to this being a very powerful device used by the player - not the character - in shaping the fiction. The fact that it can be used to metagame by asking about plot structure, NPC motivation and other hidden information was not as terrifying to GM as it might first appear, and often was actually something that threw me a bone since I could use a player question as a prompt when I was feeling lost. Players directly asking me questions allowed me to hang my ideas on something rather than flailing wildly.

Make no mistake though, I found answering Insight pretty difficult at points. I think to get the best out of this game, a really skilled GM would be able to provide answers that raise yet more questions. If you're not careful, it's easy to just shut down promising opportunities with them. 

For example, at one point in our session I had imposed the condition 'Hungry' on all the players. On the way deep underground to the food source of a fungus forest (yeah I know...) a player used an insight to ask if they would encounter danger should they go there. I just flat out said yes, having already planned for them to be ambushed by some bloodsucking Morlock types down there. In response, the Barbarian character simply asked if they could roll Swords to find some traces of edibles such as lichen in the upper caves - I said yes and they obviously succeeded (Swords of 5). So what happened in the fiction? Some adventurers were on their way to Location X, when for no apparent reason decided not to continue and to forage instead. In retrospect, it was up to me or the players to fill in the blanks - 'Xorcsa is suddenly filled with dread foreboding at the passage which looms before her, and hears odd scurryings in the darkness'. 

If this isn't supplied, all that happens is the GM has warned off the players and the thread they have prepared is abandoned. It's a fine distinction but one which could perhaps be spelled out a bit more in the rules.

Swords vs Sorcery

The rules state that Swords tests are used for mundane tools and weapons, logic, diplomacy and calm precise action while Sorcery tests are used for weird powers, ancient/alien artifacts, intuition, persuasion and passionate action. 

There's some slight fuzziness here, especially with the calm precise vs passionate action stuff, which I think there might even be an arguable case made for swapping! My initial reaction to the two categories would be it's a magical vs mundane split but that clearly isn't the case. It kept tripping me up a little. Often I'd just ask the players to convince me why something should be a Swords roll or Sorcery roll and that felt in keeping with the spirit of the game.

A distinction is also made of True Sorcery, the sorts of supernatural/superhuman stuff that genre protagonists mess with and then wish they hadn't. I don't know if I ever made it clear to players that this was really an option. There was a pivotal moment of magic/super science when they were contacted by the alien emissary's home planet after slaying it and touching its alien brain crystal, but maybe I should have made that more of a 'crossing a line' moment and brought True Sorcery into play.

TOTAL IMPROVISATORY BRUTALITY

I'm not certain but it feels implied that the game is intended to be run from absolute zero prep, since there are four scene setting d6 tables included to be used at commencement of play. I mildly panicked and actually ended up simply making use of the first prompt (starting location) in conjunction with the party's problem (Exiled) and riffed on that with a weird wilderness survival theme. I simply couldn't get my head around combining all four prompts together, particularly not the inclusion of a twist!  

I think this is my own inexperience with this sort of play rearing its head. I've only run totally improv games for one or two players a handful of times in the past, never for a full group. Each time my emotions during the game run a similar course, starting at elation in the new found freedom, followed soon after by an insistent worry that I'm bogging down the pace by focussing on the wrong details. I find it quite tough to consider the big picture without this being sketched out before hand (obviously your hexmap or dungeon map does the job here in a traditional game). As I described on Discord after running the game: someone asks me what an ancient structure looks like and I pointlessly improv "Verdigris, with significant eldritch fluting".

I had brought my copy of Out of The Pit along with me to riff on, as well as asking players to bring a single image to help conjure up their preferred flavour of swords and sorcery, and both of these things did help somewhat. I think in future I'll bring a few more such things to help me.

 

My chosen image (Tsathoggua by Mark E Rogers)

 

I'm a visual maps and notes kind of guy. Doing game prep is often as much fun to me as running games is, and I think my improvisatory skills can sometimes suffer as a result. Dropping all that bedrock and playing this game is probably great training for that, but man is it tough. Both refreshing and exhausting I'd say!

BUT the other factor here is the players, of course. If they don't realise just how much input they have, they won't feel it's part of their role to swing the narrative one way or the other.

Death?

Oh yeah - the part of the rules that marked out just how different of a game we were playing for my long suffering OD&D players is that characters only die when it feels right to the player! That's right, your character can technically be invincible if you so choose. This is something Ray has added to the original L&F mechanics, and I can see why he did so - it feels very genre appropriate as sword and sorcery heroes often go through many painful or humiliating trials, reversals and tribulations, while just managing to escape their doom.

Instead, the GM is encouraged to inflict conditions that have effects in the fiction (the example given is Bleeding, making you easier to track). If I recall correctly I think I handed out Weary, Hungry, Wounded, Scarred and Withered. I really like these conditions, but it's important and difficult to keep track of them across the whole party and make sure they matter, so it might be wise to use them somewhat sparingly.

Conclusions

This is a really fun little game that I'd definitely like to have another crack at in the future! It certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone. I think it supports more playstyles than might first be apparent, but it does need full buy-in and input from the players and the GM. Ray's selected themes (the reverse of the rules contains a S&S Lexicon with clarifying information about the Callings and Styles) are evocative as fuck, especially given the limited space. If I run it again I think I'll pay greater attention to the role of Insight, bring more improvisatory aids and perhaps pay finer attention to the distinctions between Swords/Sorcery. It's free so you should go and check it out!

Sorcerers & Sellswords Actual Play 15/06/22

• Gildrath the feral Pit Fighter (Establish Your Reputation)

• Xorcsa the sexy Alien (Delve Dark Secrets)

• Thrungär the flashy Barbarian (Just Keep Being Awesome)

• Crumb the dauntless Beastmaster (Delve Dark Secrets)

Party Advantages: Bad-Ass Reputation, Connected
Party Problem: Exiled

Exiled from the metropolis Expin-Bashar due to their disgraceful conduct at a diplomatic event, the party were thrown in weights and chains and made to march north to the border under the watchful eyes of the constabulary, flying above them on their leathery winged beasts.

At the border the constabulary wheeled back to the city and the party was abandoned to the wasteland of ice and rock known as Anirozoltar. Their manacles weighed heavy on their limbs and they had became Weary. Crumb used a Beastmaster technique to emit a keening whistle, causing a confused constable's beast to fly back toward the party. Gildrath hurled a sharp rock at the constable's head as his steed flew overhead, knocking him from the saddle and killing him instantly.

Taming the beast (after debating whether or not to Tauntaun it due to the intense cold), Crumb mounted it and carried Xorcsa to the West in its claws, where some plumes of smoke and steam had been sighted. This was soon revealed to be a vast field of cracked lava at the edge of the snow fields, fringed by some ancient structures built into the Northern mountain ranges and with some rather frightening occupants. Innumerable ten foot tall charred skeletons strode to and fro at lonely intervals across the lava, wielding enormous weaponry. 

Crumb flew the beast back to fetch Thrungär and Gildrath. Xorcsa stretched languidly out by the lava fields to ease her weary limbs, which drew the attention of one of the titanic skeletons. Using her pheromone emitting gills, she caused this horror to kneel before her in complete obedience. It was granted the name Jethro Skull.

Up in the sky, Crumb was able to see that the Northern mountain range also had an ancient looking tower embedded in it, made hazy by distance. When he landed to pick up 'the beef' (as the combination of Thrungär and Gildrath had been dubbed), he found the manacled warriors were racing each other across the snow fields, and viewed being given an aerial lift as a sign of weakness. Rolling his eyes, Gildrath relented and was carried aloft, leaving the stubborn Thrungär to continue on foot. 

During his solitary journey, a sinkhole opened up in the snow and he found himself wrapped in the tentacles of an enormous bristly blue pyramidal shaped creature. Slaying the creature with a cutlass purloined from the constable's corpse, he was badly Wounded as its death throes consisted of it shooting out a mass of barbed quills before sinking below the snow. Eventually he rejoined the others by the lava fields.

Xorcsa commanded Jethro Skull to burst the links of the party's manacles using his gigantic mace, and the party made a weary camp, their empty stomachs grumbling. Crumb lost control of the winged beast which wheeled into the sky, and it was decided that the following day's mission was to enter the buildings on the edge of the mountain range in search of food and possibly some of those Dark Secrets.

During the night, Jethro Skull made good, as an attempt by another skeletal warrior to ambush the party was prevented when the loyal servitor reduced his opposing likeness to a pile of bone fragments.

Exploring the bronze buildings clustered at the edge of the lava fields the next day, the party decided to delve within, if only to find some food. The tunnels stretched deep into the darkness, and they navigated by the light of smouldering rags wrapped around bone shards. Some edible lichens were found by Thrungär which took the edge off of their hunger, and yet still they delved deeper.

Eventually they discovered a holy chamber, apparently desecrated, judging by the smashed statue of a holy giantess that lay across their path. At the rear of the chamber squatted a gigantic demon idol, apparently composed of a single piece of ice. Xorcsa investigated the bas-reliefs covering the chamber and everywhere saw the symbol of the holy giantess X'd out and replaced with a crude scrawl depicting some kind of multi-tentacled deity with a faceted head.

Gildrath saw invertebrate squirmings within the ice demon idol moments before it animated and grabbed the unfortunate Crumb by the head, but luckily the Pit Fighter and Thrungär boldly fought the construct before it eventually shattered and fell. Unfortunately for Thrungär his sword stroke punctured something inside the idol, spraying his face with corrosive blood and Scarring him.

Inside the idol lurked the corpse of a bizarre creature, composed of blue filaments with a topaz coloured crystal in its centre, which Xorcsa swiftly removed. Touching it, she was enveloped in a blaze of gleaming light and found herself in contact with this creature's home planet. The chastisement she received from an alien voice gave her reason to believe these beings mistook her for the creature her compatriots had just slain! Berating her for taking so long in sending back a report to home base, they asked if further assistance was needed in conquering this world. Replying in the affirmative, an utterly alien steed was manifested in front of them, before communications ceased in another blaze of light that reduced Jethro Skull to dust.

The gift from another world was a levitating disc-shaped animal with masses of squirming cilia around the edges, multiple eyes, and several loathsome nozzles that spat purple fire. Crumb was able to use his beastmastery despite its horrid alien nature, and the party climbed on top of the world's strangest flying carpet and flew out of the tunnels to investigate the tower in the mountains.   

After Thrungär strained his mighty thews in forcing open the double doors to the structure, they found an ancient warrior's grave site of giant proportions, overhung by a glowing tree bearing gold fruits. Thrungär and Gildrath both plucked some of the fruit and tucked in, but were dismayed to see that it caused them to age preternaturally, their mighty forms becoming bow-backed and bent. Xorcsa approached the grave and was able to commune with the spirit of Olgfar, the sole member of the giants below that had dissented against their ancient society to ally themselves with the Thing From The Stars as a replacement for their goddess, in exchange for dominance in the region. The striding skeletons on the lava fields were all the remained of the ancient noble society, mockeries of once proud warriors.

When told that the party had slain the thing that had enslaved his race, Olgfar agreed to grant the party aid. Would they use it to exact revenge on those that exiled them? Another tale for another time...