Players, Rules and Scenery for
Skirmish at the
Finolah Minehead

Steve (left) played Capt. Gravehand Powderbourne, and

David (right) played hillchief-to-be Regnad Kcin in this exciting tale of confusion and derring-do.

Rules and Scenario
Confusion was indeed the leitmotif of the battle, as David's and Steve's befuddled middle-aged brains attempted to cope with David's half-baked conversion of a science-fiction ruleset off the Web. Not only were the mechanics all new, requiring more record-keeping and more setup for each turn than usual, but the conversion work was less than thorough, and David had neglected to provide a reference page of Tables; so the enjoyment of the game was hampered considerably by rules problems, uncertainty and long periods of trying to find the relevant paragraph. Skirmish at Finolah reads more enjoyably than it played.

What had attracted David to Nick Lund's Future Warriors:Killzone rules was the order system. The units are small and are given orders which allow them to take particular actions in the coming turn. For example, a Snipe order maximizes shooting accuracy at the expense of movement and number of shots, a Keep Down order makes the figures in the unit hard to hit, but limits their movement and firepower, whereas a Run order allows them long movement at the expense of firepower and exposure. They can try to change orders every turn, but may not be successful, depending on morale, leadership, and so forth. All this adds a more personal and detailed touch to the game, but David and Steve found it slow going, especially given their unfamiliarity and the poor conversion materials. If you find Killzone's novel concepts intriguing, the ruleset can be found here. [Recently, Mark Mintz has published a colonial-era conversion of Killzone on his Sir Rand McNally site.}

Since David's colonial-era rules conversion was not very satisfactory, there will be no detailed description here.

The scenario had the following special rules.

1. The wall around the mining compound is a chest-high wall, in spite of the fact that the double row of Exin blocks makes it look head-high. The gateway is permanently open.

2. Since bandits on looting expeditions are inherently hard to control, the Native player must roll 1D6 three times to see where his units are when the British enter the valley.

1	Gathering lead in the storage area behind the forge at the mine.
2	Near the office at the mine.
3	Spread throughout the town, looting. (This means some figures are in buildings or on roofs, making it a multi-move proposition to come together in a cohesive group).
4	In the ruins near the mine.
5	In the ruins at the mouth of the valley.
6	In the two groves of trees nearest the mouth of the valley.

The Native player can assign any of his units to any area he rolled for, one unit per area.

3. Natives in the mine, ruins or tree areas are invisible until they move or shoot or until a British figure comes within 6".

4. It takes two figures to batter the door to the magazine building and two figures to search the office for valuables. Roll 1D6 per turn for each task.The door is smashed or valuables are found on a roll of 6. The British commander has the key to the magazine and may enter it with no delay.

5. There were experimental rules for throwing dynamite, but since the magazine was never breached, they proved irrelevant.

The ground is a 30" (75cm) square of tan felt that Mister Minimalist uses for his DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) battles. The valley hillsides were cut from scrap cardboard on the spot.

The buildings and ruins are built as described in the Structures section.

The magazine building and the walls are built of Exin Castles building blocks.

The trees are painted palms from the Weapons and Warriors Pirate Playset, which was a wonderful bargain even before it went on final clearance a year or so ago. They were used because they are very sturdy and come apart for easy transport without damage.

RETURN to the Major General's Page
Copyright©1998 David Helber. No commercial distribution of images or text from any page on this site without written permission.