Saturday, May 1, 2010

Lost Lands - It's a Rex!

In the last episode our indefatigable natives had defeated the Utah Raptor and recovered the enormous egg it was carrying.  They decided to take it into their cave and see if they could hatch it.  These may not be the smartest natives of all time but they do keep things interesting.
Happy Birthday, it's a Rex!  The Natives decide it would be really cool to have a pet Rex to help them with their hunts.  Especially now that their tribe strength is down due to the encounter with the raptor.  But as of now he's still too young to hunt so they decide to go hunt for him.
On the way out they pay quick homage to the Parrot God.
What luck!  They quickly spot a Boneheadasaurus, and they don't have to go far.  The dino spots them as well but doesn't give them a second thought.
The Natives split into two groups and start to stalk their unsuspecting prey.
They charge from front and rear and try to quickly dispatch the Boneheadasaurus.  In the last encounter with the raptor they learned that it is very important to attack from two sides.
In the initial impact they manage to wound and knock down the dino, but in the process one of the Natives goes OOF.  Even feeders can be dangerous when they are of a certain size.
As the melee continues the dino manages to lock onto another Native, wounding him badly in the process.  The Native making the rear attack is frantically trying to find a way to make a killing blow.
Even knocked down and wounded the dino is a very dangerous proposition.  He has now spun to face the last Native and the grueling melee continues.  The situation is very dangerous now.
It is not long before the hungry little Rex is heading for the "sound of the guns".  He hears the distress cries of the Boneheadasaurus and his killer instincts kick in.
The Native and the Boneheadasaurus keep battling and little Rexie charges in from the rear.  He may be small but he's still a Rex, and that means he's still darned dangerous!
Little Rex has locked on and is starting to dig in.  He's really quite a vicious little brute already.
Little Rex has made his first kill.  He stands on his victim and roars his battle cry to announce there will be a new King soon enough.  The exhausted Native is relieved and amazed at the same time.
The little Rex has a steady food supply for the next few days and the other two Natives will recover from their wounds.  A successful day after all.  I wonder what will happen as little Rexie grows up.

Happy gaming from the Lost Lands!
LTL Dad

9 comments:

  1. I've loved your two battle reports! I think these are a wonderful example of how gaming's really not always about the fine minis and whatnot, but compelling stories and things like that. Not to pimp my own stuff, but check out my post on the subject a while back, your games are a prime example of what I had in mind:

    http://dawnofthelead.com/2009/08/07/warpgs/

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  2. I totally agree with Mikko in his comments above. I sat reading your two prehistoric batreps with a huge smile on my face! Now I'm left wondering if the tribe can train baby rex to fight for them. What an asset he could turn out to be. Keep up with the good work, Willy!

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  3. Mikko, I checked out the link and posted a comment. I've attached it here below also.

    Bryan, A lot of the games we play don't make the blog. My daughter likes to RPG stories into our games and a lot of them are pretty peaceful. But if the kids are having fun I'm all over it. Maggie is really worried that Mommy Rex is going to show up and eat her new friends. You never know what will happen next!

    Here is my reply to Mikkos post:

    “We could just as well be kids playing with toys.”

    Uh oh, you’re on to me!
    Thanks for sharing this post, I think we share a wavelength. When I was about five or six I was already using dice in my toy soldier games. Then by the time I was in my young teens I was playing ASL type stuff, and was becoming a hard core historical gamer. It didn’t take long for me to get back to miniatures also. But what slowly started happening is I played less and less, and painted and collected more and more. Why? Well I now know it was because in this circle people played very competitively, and it was like gaming against a never ending horde of game lawyers. The games rarely ever got finished and I was not having fun. It became so un-fun that I almost quit the hobby forever but my love of minis kept me going in my own little corner. Then a few things happened which turned my gaming world around. I had some kids! These fresh minded little suckers brought back the real pleasure of the hobby with their uncluttered little heads. The second thing is I was finally exposed to other genres and rules. I have found that gamers who play, or are willing to play off beat stuff are simply much more fun. The horror and post apoc players are my favorites as they tend to do whatever the heck they feel like and I feel like they are much more lighthearted. RPG’ers are funner gamers also, but you need some truly talented people to make RPG work well by itself. With a good group RPG is awesome. The other huge turning point was finding rules that worked for me. I talk a lot about Two Hour Wargames but it is for a reason. These rules have given me a flexible framework to do anything I want. Ever since we changed to the chain reaction system, we have been gaming like fiends. We throw up several games a week and always finish. When myself and a friend want to play hard the games are fast and furious, when my daughter just wants to push figs around the table and go on RPG adventures without much bloodshed the rules work for that too. They are the best mix of Minis and RPG I have been able to find.
    And in the end you are right my friend, the happiness is greatest when you simply realize you are just kids playing with toys!
    LTL Dad

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  4. I always hated people looking for "serious simulation", telling that wargaming "is not playing with toy soldiers".

    Miniature Wargaming IS playing with toy soldiers, it is just the complicate way to do that because unfortunately we are not kids and we need rules to play something!

    Without a bit of irony, wargaming is not something that funny... Great work LTL Dad!!

    Just love the lego minifig fighting dinosaurs and the rpg approach!!

    Cheers,
    Andrea

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  5. Thanks Andrea, you bring something interesting to mind.
    While I have always been fascinated with the strategy and tactics of "wargaming" and the history behind it, you are exactly right. There is nothing funny about war whatsoever. It is strange how war has always been a subject of such interest world wide. But I think it is best left as a study of what to avoid and not of what to aspire to! I wish that all people knew their history in order not to repeat it.

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  6. Ahh.... I viddy the ultra-violence. I don't DO the ultra-violence.

    Ask any girl's romance reader if she wants the jilting wife situation or the husband beater. No. But they read Barbara Cartland by the truckload.

    Do the vast horror movie fans really want Godzilla to level Tokyo or really have hordes of zombies eat their relatives? Well, I guess some do. But most don't.

    War and gang violence are a sad indication of normal life (I say that because rare is the elder on his deathbed who's nation hasn't had a single war, pogrom or civil unrest in his lifetime.

    And yet, wargaming even goes on during a war. I bet there are many Army personnel who are wargaming right now in Iraq. Why? Because its a simulation and in the end, you don't pull out a saber and kill your opponent. You can sit down and play again.

    I don't DO the ultra-violence. I play the ultra-violence.

    Now if I could only hatch me a Rex.

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  7. Yep, and lego minifigs have never enough of ultra-violence (have a look to www.brikwars.com ,that's incredibly fun!!)

    cheers,
    Andrea

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  8. That brikwars is a great site, I've never run across it before, thanks.

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  9. Fantasy, you're right. I know a bunch of kids in Iraq who play video game shooters including games about that region on their spare time! Young men have nerves of steel and faith in being bulletproof. Bless them all.

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