Another Wargame: The Red Cloud Dawn

(I spent my day working on an art-project/rules-pastiche of a wargame)

The Red Cloud has attacked the south-eastern iqta' al-Zaytun!

Though the dreaded Kzin Hero's raids have been consistently bloody and destructive, this most recent attack against al-Zaytun mustered enough Kzinti and auxiliaries to meet the defenders of the iqta' in open battle, wtsai-to-spear. Entire zayt-orchards burned, acrid smoke smearing the sky even as the blood of men stained the soil, and the Kzinti advanced even against the Tower Qutnai.

Rumors of the depredations of the Red Cloud, a Kzinti Hero of Prophecy waging a renewed war against mankind in the southern iqtas and baldan of Gadeed, have been filtering up to the Dual-Cities for months. His band of Heroes have flouted the old Peace agreed after the last Man-Kzin War; instead of peacefully driving their sthondat and bazhianya herds, hunting vatach and foraging for zheerekti, they have embarked on quite a different ship of destiny--a violent destiny, attempting to realize the prophecy of the Red Cloud's return in an orgy of blood.

Named for the red celestial phenomenon that appears in the sky every other solar cycle--the first appearance of which this cycle was sighted again on the very night of his First Naming--the eponymous Hero took up the Name, redded his sword in the blood of a captive human warrior, and swore that Cothon-Gadeed would at last fall to the Kzinti and the Aegis of the Demon-Queen, ushering in a new age of redolence under himself as the Patriarch-Restored.

Or so say those traders who had traffic with the Kzinti before the outbreak of violence. To those who know their history, this is surely just another outbreak of banditry by the nomadic Kzinti, to be put down in due time by combined might of the Ten Cities League. Since the last peace, every lunar decade or so, some Hero proclaims himself the new Patriarch, sworn to overthrow the human empire, and to reunite Kzin and Mrrshan; but the learnéd know that the Mrrshan will never accept another Patriarch, and even the unlettered masses know that Dalinar al Khalid, victor already in two such Man-Kzin bandit-wars, will surely defy the Souffets' recall and muster troops to crush these insolent Kzinti once again.

And yet ... for those whose history goes deeper, there is always that fear: that this time, some spark will truly light in the spirits of the Kzinti; that the warrior-bands, divided by their petty honor-duels and envies, will actually believe in the Prophecy of this Hero, and follow him to glory; that the decadence of the Decapolis and the jealousies of the Souffets, and all the divisions of modern man, will conspire together to see to it that the hegemony of humankind falters and fails again ...

Ignore the planes--the only playing cards I had were my old "WWII Spotter Cards"

It will take a strong arm and a prudent eye to see Cothon-Gadeed through to victory in this new Red Cloud's War.

(the rules are half-written/composed, and I hope I can cajole one you players out there to play through with me; and with more scenarios as I get ahold of more maps I don't have to draw)