Gobstyk's Gaming Club

After being repetitively whined at by the squig in charge to write this article, I thought I had better before he began bouncing on my head and shouting obscenities at me every time I walked into the club hall, so here it is. (See what abuse I have to put up with? Ed.)

The squig games are, or should I say were, a collection of five events based on the silly antics of what squigs do best. Now they are two of the events with a more action packed game thrown in for good measure. The nature of this game evolved from me wanting to run a suitably silly game, aimed at the younger generation of our humble gaming community. The idea of using squigs came from our club logo – Gobstyk’s stunt squig hopper display team.

The idea of the events involved in this game just jumped to me.  These events were:

• Squig racing
• Squig shooting
• High Jump
• Long Jump
• Squig wrestling

Needless to say writing the rules was slightly more difficult.

Writing rules involves thinking, but six ‘eadbanger tests later my brain hadn’t blown up and I had finally come up with a first draft ready to be play tested

For three weeks the rabble and myself ( the rabble being Tom, John, Colin, Rob and occasionally Azzy.) poured over the rules and played numerous games before settling on the final version, which you will see below.

After the construction of the first board we headed for the citadel open day, which was in March 2000, to put our efforts to the test against the hoards of kids that made their parents part with the six quid that gained them entry to the marvels that awaited them behind the doors of Warhammer world in Lenton, Nottingham.

 The six hours flew by, accompanied by loud orky Waaagh’s. The squig loving youngsters kept coming back for more, and the beauty of using five small games instead of one big one was that the game was quicker to play so you could play one event then attack the mail order stand for cheap stuff, come back and play a different event and then get some lunch. At the end of the day we congratulated ourselves that it went so well, vowed to make a great new board and to come back again in May.

During the process of making the new board the rabble thought of a new event to add to the list - Hounds of Hell. It didn’t involve squigs but a rather hungry pack of chaos hounds and a selection of runners taken from each race in WHFB. Imagination should conjure up a small idea of how this event went, but if you fail to see the picture of a really slow stunty trying to run away from the chaos hound that is contemplating its next snack, you're not thinking like a true Orc!

We employed the idea of putting a few quirks on the board to build its character - small things like the tiny hand written sign telling chariots to park round the back made the chariot on the bridge trying to get through the archway quite funny.

This is Mc Murty’s stand – ‘Get your bat burgers and rat kebabs here.’ Da bog was emitting its foul leakage on to the racing track, causing all manner of havoc.

Other things included the waterfall and pond, the archery competition, which included a bloke with and eye patch over his targeting eye and the ruins where amongst the trees you could see the Olympic flame.

The Rules

1 Squig Shooting

So it’s the 41st Millennium and Robin Hood died over 39 Millennia ago, but still the legend lives on about this wondrous marksman. (No Kelly, if this is WHFB then it's not the 41st Millennium...)

The Event

Players compete as different characters from the WHFB realm as they try to shoot down as many squigs as possible in 10 turns.

The Rules

Each character takes it in turns to try and shoot down a bouncing maniac. Each character has its own target squig which moves around as described below. Each character is deployed 12" away from its target and 6" away from any other character.

Turn 1

Each character gets a straight shot at its target rolling to hit and to wound as in the WHFB rulebook taking character stats as found on the character card and squig stats as shown below:

Turn 2

Disturbed by the shooting the squigs begin to bounce about. This disruption makes it harder to wound the squig so it is –1 to wound for this turn.

Turn 3

Each squig now bounces either backwards or forwards 6". On a 1,2 or a 3 it bounces backwards and on a 4+ it bounces forwards.  If the squig moves forwards it is +1 to hit and it is –1 to hit if the squig moves backwards.

Turn 4

Characters may now move closer to their target to either engage in to hand to hand combat (though to do this you must pass an initiative test) or to just get a better range.

Turn 5+

The squigs and characters both can move from now on.

N.B: If a squig bounces on a character the character misses a turn to recover.

Each character scores a point for each squig it shoots down, when one squig dies it will be replaced with another that acts as if it were turn 1.

2 Squig Racing

The Event

Squigs bounce at speed around a track until three have crossed the finish line after two laps. Each Squig takes it in turns to bounce around the track (movement is as shown on the character cards.)

To jump over hurdles roll 1D6 on this table:

1-2: Failed jump, fall over, miss a turn.
3-5: Cleared jump
6: Super jump, +D6 movement

Special Roolz

Bounce Attack!

You may opt to bounce on an opponent that you land near. Roll to hit - if you fail you fall over, if you hit then roll to wound, if the wound is successful then your opponent falls over.

If you roll a double you get to roll again.

If you roll three consecutive doubles in the same turn you get an extra D6 movement then your turn ends.

3 High Jump

We all know that squigs are known for their ability to bounce, but how high can they go?

The Event:

The pole starts at 6" then is raised 2" every turn.

The winner is the squig that bounces the highest.

How to Bounce

A squigs ‘bounce factor’ and ‘bounce clearance’ works in the same way as ‘to hit’ and ‘to wound’ in the WHFB rulebook.

4 Triple Jump

The Event

Each Squig has three jumps, then an average is worked out, the winner is the squig that jumps the furthest.

Jumping

Firstly you must do the ‘run up’ along the 11" track to do this you roll 2D6, if you roll 12 then that jump is counted as a foul.

Then you roll 3D6 to see how far you jump. Your jump is measured from the 11" mark.

5 Royal Rumble

If you have ever seen the WWF royal rumble you will know what we are talking about.

The Event

Two squigs start in the ring, after two turns another squig enters. Keep fighting till only one squig is left standing.

Turns work as movement and then fighting. You must end your move next to another squig to become engaged in Hand to Hand. If you pass any squigs during your movement you hit them on a D6 roll of 4+. Roll to wound as normal, though if you roll a 6 to wound roll a blood bowl attack dice to see what happens (push backs send opponent back D6".)

Special Roolz

You can attack by bouncing off the ropes this adds +1 strength to your attacks.

If you run into a corner bar you take 1 S3 hit.

The Building of the Squig games Board (A Squig too far)

By Colin J Rigby (aka Slimer) and Sam Hunt.

Earlier on this year Screech approached myself, Tom and Jonathan to play test the rules for the new Squig Games which she had created. We did this on a rather dilapidated board and it was decided that when we went to the Games Workshop open day we would create a scenic board worthy of the Lincoln club.

We commenced building the board by purchasing two pieces of half inch thick fibreboard and a load of polystyrene sheet. The sheet was cut to the contours marked on Screech’s plan and the ground work was laid. At this point the polystyrene was covered with filler and emulsion black. In the centre the polystyrene was covered with static grass sheet and a set of ruins from the 40k boxed game were added. The polystyrene around the outside was now drybrushed with different shades of greys and browns building up the shadows and highlights. At one corner a stream, small waterfall and pond were added. The contours of this were made as previously stated and the stream and water was created by building up layer upon layer of polyurethane varnish with glazes and washes in between each layer which produced quite a realistic water feature. The racing track was now laid using bird grit which was bonded into place with PVA glue thinned down 50%. A splash of washing up liquid was also added and the whole thing was mixed together and then poured over the grit which then turned it into a solid track.

Obstacles were bonded to the track using the same method and a bridge was built over one end of the track using balsa wood. A gothic archway was added at this point.

Finally to complete the board we added archery targets and archers in the centre, a McMurty’s snack bar, with lavatory and surrounded the centre section with trees made from dried flowers. To give the board life a wrestling ring together with visitors signs and other figures were added to complete the board as shown above.

Sorry to say that I’m still waiting for the hounds of hell rules, however they should be here soon so watch this space!

If you have any questions about Kelly's game, the terrain or anything else, please post them to the Forum or email them to Kelly herself.