"The Sword and the Innsmouth looking good!" Topic

Screwing around with the scenario, and a regular/militia invasion of a coastal town in Florida circa 1888 is gonna work.

Small units, 10 plus an officer for regulars and militia, bigger units of enraged, defending mutant townsfolk with inadequate firearms and melee weapons, and scary, 10 man units of fishmen (the Rebel and Khurasan guys, formidable with spears and shields and claws and teeth.).

Figure the Marines and militia that invade will be crack shots and tough, shooting at 13+ (I don't go low on TSATF dice, 1-8 to hit for me is 13-20), after all, these are Florida Crackers!

The weird, gill slits showing townsfolk will have adequate mmorale and vigor, but lack military discipline.

The fishmen will be fearsome, though, +1 melee no matter what weapons they have, and they will have some weird Cthulhu type spells that will equate to a firing ability.

Should work out great, eh?

Suggestions?

Should that Fishmen firing ability be some sort of fear factor? Like on their first contact with a unit (in firing range, maybe it should be an immediate morale roll?)

Looking forward to hearing more about this :)

Just discovered a bunch of figures on Blue Moon for Chicago Era gangsters and such. So, with Khurasan, Rebel and Splintered Light, could easily make it a Pulp era 20's/30's game.

But why?

I love Victorian era! But I could :)

Nothing changed much in St Lucie Village from late 1800's to the 1930's.

Plus, with TSATF, you may be getting away from the spirit of the game if your militia/marines have Thompsons?

Sounds cool!

Reminds me of the battle reported in the original "The Call of Cthulhu" short story.

Ya know, darth, that has always been at the back of my mind, a late 1800's roust of a Florida (in the story it was Lousiana) coastal community, with ex slaves and such.

If you get one of Reaper's Fishmen, you can have Father Dagon towering over the scene…

Pictures, yes! Please and thank you. Very interested in how this turns out.

Seems to me like it would be a fairly one-sided battle… more like the angry mob chasing Frankenstein's monster up into a burning windmill.
Poor misunderstood fish folk.

Sounds fun. I am a big fan of the well armed, skilled group outnumbered by a savage horde scenario.

Should that Fishmen firing ability be some sort of fear factor? Like on their first contact with a unit (in firing range, maybe it should be an immediate morale roll?)

I have played something like this before as a "nausea wave". It happens to a unit the first time they get unobstructed line of sight to a new fishman unit.

I use puke pool markers to show a unit was under the effect of unearthly unease; people were retching from the stank taking various penalties.

Leave the markers on the board. They provide a visual reminder of the cumulative bonus as the good guys "adjust" to the situation. I usually handle such an effect rolling 2d6 and adding the number of times the effect has been applied (hence the markers left on the board). Putting a critical fail effect over the top is a nice touch:

-3 paroxysm of fear – stunned one round (large multicolor marker)
4-6 heaving – move & combat penalty (large 2 color marker)
7-9 retching – move penalty (large marker)
10-19 mild nausea – no effect (small marker)
20+ overexposure – move & combat penalty + light damage (large marker with blood splatter)

So, as you play the effects get lighter and lighter. But if it takes too long you start to get the possibility of a serious effect rearing it head. It's nice to have a sense of gradually impending doom in a Cthulu game.

… and, except for one dude I know who can't drink as much beer as he thinks he can, vomit is severely underrepresented in tabletop wargames. :)

Sounds like a great game. Another factor you may want to consider is the non-terrestrial substance that forms the Deep One's bodies. In the Call of Cthulhu RPG, it was often slightly difficult to take out the lesser minions with firearms due to the chaotic nature of their physical body- bullets passing through without striking vitals, etc.

Maybe have the full-fledged Deep One unit be considered 1 target level higher when under fire: class I becomes II, II becomes III, etc.

Great stuff, guys. I think Fishman may be able to withstand wounds better too, so maybe thee first wound on one has no effect?

I want it to be Lovecraft tough to win, big numbers of poor quality mutants and civilians, and high quality, probably kill you Deep Ones units.

This is gonna be a taerrain challenge. Lots of crappy buildings built, need more.

Luckilly, have all that 15mm foilage, palmettos and trees for the Seminols Wars that will save much time.

In many of Lovecraft's stories there are tunnels and caves allowing for hidden movment or units disappearing and reappearing elsewhere. It'd be fun to include sewer grates in your roads, with the good guys never suspecting the fish could come out of them…

Oh yes, Murvihill, thought about that on my jog this evening.

There will be tunnels. (in Florida, on the coast :O )

… and sinkholes? :)

Nah! You bring in sinkholes, then you gotta find 19th century 15mm lawyer figures.

Too much of a hassle. :(

Working good so far. A 10 man crack infantry outfit is more than a match for a 20 man mob of inbred townsfolk armed with a few muskets and shotguns and impromptu melee weapons, but they do take losses in melee.

Excellent!

Haven't tried out a unit of fishmen yet (they are en route from Rebel as I speak!, I think they will be in units of 7 or 8 with a leader (that way, the 24 and 12 figure packs from Rebel and Khurasan will fit perfectly). they are gonna be bad ass, in melee, aura and hard to kill with firing, so we will see in test play if this works out.

The Blue moon Angry Villagers packs are working Okay for angry mutant mobs. A bit overdressed for Florida, but I can say since they are mutating, they wear baggy, heavy clothes, and the obvious E European dress on some can be chalked up to…..immigrants? (I can say that, right?)

I guess it will be a pre sunrise strike, as so many of said have torches?

Question: I have a great painted up unit of 10 leftover British naval brigade from the period. Would it be realistic to say a garrison in the Bahamas took the 50 mile jaunt across the gulf stream and helped out?

Smokey it is your game. If you want bloody brits in eat, you can have bloody brits in it :p

I see what I did there. For some reason it seem appropriate

LOL

What to do with the Rebel Cultists?

I figure they are fanatics, but are basically limited in melee weapons (the sculpts have no weapons).

So, they carry daggers (what cultist worth his salt doesn't carry a dagger?), but I'm thinking the two units I have should firstly be attempting to summon the Deep Ones for help. So, a sub game objective for the good guys is get to the temple, and subdue them before they cast the appropriate chants and rites which will literally send in the Marines.

(the Deep Ones, in units of 8, definitely will be so badass that victory against them is unlikely, especially if the good guys take much loss fighting there way through the town against the angry mobs)

I think I need some hot necked girls hanging around the temple as well (see the movie "Dagon"). That one girl with the tentecles for legs was still kinda hot.

Yup.

Thank you, Redmenace! :)

OK, another thought. My angry mob of civilians only has about 3 firearms per unit of ten, if you count figures with guns.

I'm thinking, half of them can fire at any given turn. No matter their losses, half of the remaining will have a gun and can shoot.

Otherwise, in my trials so far, they get bootstomped before any melee is possible, even if hidden.

I have cleverly modified the slingblades (some call it a "bananer knife", I call it a "sling blade", um hmmm) and other weird farm tools of the Blue Moon angry villagers figs into gaffs, harpoons and pothooks, in keeping with a 19th century Florida fishing village.

You could have the summoning running on a graduated scale – the longer they chant (the longer it takes the good guys to get to them and stop them), the more fishmen show up. You could even have a couple low-probabilty levels where the good guys had a slight chance to defeat the fishies, but at great cost in blood.

Is the slingblade a "big-un"??

I use the creature from the black lagoon as Dagon.