"Honor to John Lambshead" Topic

For those who don't follow "Utter Drivel" I recently requested suggestions from TMP for rules suitable for a small playing area, not much time and no opponent. I was stunned at the result. I can't remember the last time most of the comments agreed on anything, but a good half endorsed John Lambshead's One-Hour Skirmish Wargames. I'd like to thank them and him.

My copy arrived yesterday evening. I opted for SF, since I had suitable figures. Inevitably, the necessary terrain for his example scenario involved terrain which had not accompanied me from Indiana, so I fell back on "We Drink Hers, so Bog Off!" from his Sci-Fi Skirmish Scenarios, and mustered Shadowrun Dwarves against GW 2000AD (mostly) clothed, armed apes for the right to patronize a Tenfold Dungeons establishment which must, inevitably, be termed The Monkey Bar.

The rules worked a treat. I stocked a bare 3x3 table at 11:45, mustered the combatants fought the battle to a conclusion and was putting the participants back in their carrier case by 2:00 when the cat jumped on the table--which was the object of the exercise. (It was bound to be either the cat of the grandkids.) Rules are clear, simple, and as credible as one may reasonably ask of SF. I'm sure I'll understand them better and pick up nuance, but even at the "that Dwarf has a flamethrower! Where are the flamethrower rules?" stage of rules comprehension, they worked and the game kept moving.

Did unlikely things happen? Certainly. I couldn't believe it when that little dab of a female Dwarf sniper took out the Gorilla leader with a crowbar in hand to hand combat. I don't think the Gorilla believed it either. But it was a very low probability, and a lot of unlikely things happen at the skirmish level in war.

Anyway, if you're looking for a quick game with individually based miniatures consider this one. The man does good work. I've already ordered the ancients/medieval volume.

This series is a lot of fun.

Wolf in Shadow
by John Lambshead (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (56) 3.6 on Goodreads 129 ratings
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Urban fantasy in one of the world's greatest cities.

Rhian, a girl from the Welsh valleys on the run from tragedy and herself, finds a new home in the modern East End of London, where the world's largest financial center spins a web of money and power from glistening towers of chrome and glass. Beneath the digital façade lurks the old East End where the layers of two thousand years of dramatic and violent history slide over one another like glaciers, spilling out in avalanches that warp the real world.

As bodies begin to litter the East End streets, The Commission dispatches its best enforcers to deal with the situation: Karla is not human, and Jameson left his humanity behind in pieces in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. Rhian makes
new friends, dangerous friends; and where Rhian goes, the wolf is always in her shadow, just a heartbeat away.

Among the bankers and traders of the East End walk demons in human form and who is to say which are the monsters? London is a magical bomb waiting to explode and somewhere a fuse is hissing.