Some gaming updates

So last fall, Bruce suggested we pool a list of games we wanted to play again and then work our way through them. There are about 20 games on the list with the sequence being randomly generated.

First up was Struggle for Europe, a reskinning of Lincoln (which I don't think we've played) by Worthington Games. This game focuses on WW2 in Europe and offers one of the best games at this scale that I have played. There are relatively few counters, only 30-some areas, with point-to-point movement and the game uses cards to drive play. There are three decks (representing the three phases of the war), the game ends when one player has exhausted all of their cards (which creates major opportunity costs plus creates a tactical "attrition" option for players), and you win by controlling key locations. 

The strategy for the Germans is to either win early or try to hold on and preclude an allied victory before the cards runs out. I think this is the third time we've played this and every game is a nail biter. This one ended up in a German victory just as the US was invading France (some luck in the desert and at Leningrad tipped it--otherwise, Germany was spent). 

Next up was Sam Mustafa's Longstreet. Other than the Union won, I don't recall much of the details of this ACW skirmish. This is another card-driven game at the brigade level. A few years ago, we played through the full campaign system (which sees the cards and armies change over the course of the war). This is a good game to be the defender in!

Then we played Sam Mustafa's Nimitz. We've done a couple of WW2 games of this but Bruce had bought some pre-Dreadnaught minis so we refought a break-out action in the Philippines between the US and German fleets (I think). Overall, this is a pretty solid game. Sometimes the amount of effort to resolve shooting seemed tedious but, if that were streamlined, there wouldn't be much left.

We then played the same scenario using the 1980s rules Fire When Ready on a hex grid. It was a messier game (no formations required) with preplotting and (I think) simultaneous movement. Not a bad game. Nimitz feels more modern in terms of gaming conventions and mechanics, though. I think the scenarios split one win for each side.

We continued with the naval theme using Mustafa's Halsey rules (basically a map game) of a British convoy run through the Mediterranean during WW2. This is a very solid game and was, I thought, much more interesting than Nimitz in terms of the decisions (I tend to prefer high-level games, I think). 

Once the fleets come to grips, the game has a small battle board mechanic. In the end, the Germans won on points (I could not roll worth crap that night). Overall, pretty fun and the use of blinds created enough fog of war on a shared board to make decisions tough.

We wrapped up the autumn gaming with Taskforce, a cold-war naval game with double blind movement set in North Atlantic. We played duelling convoy runs with surface and submarines (no fixed wing air to simplify the rules a bit). The author is better known for the Victory Games 6th/7th/2nd Fleet series that came out about 10 years later.

There is a bit of fiddly searching (such is double blind without an umpire) but that got easier after a couple of turns. Once there is contact, you switch to a battle board to resolve air, missile, torpedo and gunnery attacks, which is kind of cool. I don't recall who won (it was close). 

There were some interesting battles: a Soviet convoy getting stalked and repeatedly attacked by NATO frigates using guns (having used their SSMs to take out the escorts) and a NATO convoy being stalked and repeatedly attack by Soviet subs and surface ships. This created quite a lot of tension.

For a 45-year-old game, this was surprisingly good and the multi-step battle board gave an interesting feel. Your SSMs, for example, come in, face area AA, then jamming, then close AA, then they strike (or not...). You can decide how many missile from each volley drop at pickets and how many continue into the main fleet (which means being subjected to a second set of defences).

Longstreet: McFarlane's Haymaker

I dropped over to Bruce's on Tuesday in the hopes of reversing my string of ACW losses. Bruce set up a nice game of Longstreet, with the Southerners on the attack.

Key things tonote in the photo above is the victory marker located just behind the right-most field as well as Bruce's refused right flank (top left of picture). My plan was to hit the right side hard, push him back and grab the objective marker, betting that I would have enough points to win the game.

So I advanced, we traded fire and (on the left) you can see Bruce hurrying his cavalry around into position. I roughly calculated he would not make it in time, but he had a couple of good cards that accelerate his progress.

Above, the lines have connected and Bruce is about to take a pounding. So far, so good.

Then Bruce played a couple of good cards that stalled my advance while his cavalry surged forward. At one point I had to discard 1d6 of cards and, of course, I rolled a 6, thereby forfeiting my turn (no cards). Arrrrgh!

That left me as per above and his cavalry (below) rode down my cannon. The cannon beat off the attack (with great dice--he got spanked) but the damage the cannon took pushed me over the threshold and Bruce won a convincing victory. A great save by Bruce.

I remain winless at Longstreet in a long while but hope for another chance for victory.

Longstreet

Bruce hauled out his lovely 15mm ACW figures and hosted a game of Longstreet on Tuesday night.

The south set up on the left (behind the rail embankment). The north set up on the right. Bruce overloaded his right flank (top of picture), the importance of which somehow escaped me as he was doing it.

Forward came the northerns. Some died under bombardment by southern cannon but the rest lined up to charge.

At the bottom of the table, the union and confederate cavalry feinted and basically rode around with only one short engagement (gloriously won by the south).

The northerners forced their way across the embankment and were in the process of rolling up my line. At this point, I was totally hosed.

Fortunately, my reinforcements arrived at exactly the right time and in exactly the right location to make a game of this. I also got another of my units moving and putting a beating on one of Bruce's laggards.

I failed a roll to win the game based on morale, then Bruce surged forward and pasted my reinforcement something terrible. Then he won the roll to win on morale and the confederates advanced towards the rear at double speed.

A fun game--nice mechanics with the cards. I'd like to play again now that I remember how to play! This week, though, I'll be hosting Bruce for some 54mm AWI (maybe Brandywine) on my new gaming table.

End of the Longstreet Campaign

Bruce and I brought out ACW Longstreet campaign to an end on Tuesday, Bruce drew a meeting engagement and I was the defender. 

Alas, I did not listen to the set-up instructions and, once the terrain was laid, I had to march the length of my baseline to get into position while Bruce rushed to catch me out (with the help of some unexpected bad going)!

Eventually I got into position on the right side of the board and managed to more of less hold Bruce off. I was greatly added by Bruce rolling so badly that I wanted to shout "Great Scott". But that would be a mean thing to remind Scott about...

As things went poorly for Bruce on the right, I pushed forward on the left and bagged three units, which basically won the game.

Bruce then charged on the left and I managed to inflict enough damage that his troops fled the field. It was a glorious victory for the southerners, marred only by discovering that we had lost the war (arse!). Oh well, these things happen. I would certainly play this again!

Up next: More Battlelore.

Longstreet in 15mm

Bruce hosted the sixth (?) game of our ACW Longstreet campaign on Tuesday. The south was tasked with defending a railway embankment and protecting its brass band from the Yankee horde.

This very much felt like an ACW scenario. Bruce did his best to screw up the sight lines with terrain placement but I managed to get space to deploy my cannon (firing to the left of the corn field). The rest of my force was deployed to cover the flanks with a unit in reserve.

The centre was a pointless cannon duel, except Bruce lost a whole battery due to some lucky dice. His main thrust was against the right flank of the southern forces.

I did my best to thwart him with card play and slow him up so my reserves could arrive. I also swung one of my units out to create a kill zone (the only troop movement of the day for the south). At this point, Bruce had burned a lot of cards and then he ran into a streak of bad luck with the dice.

His first attack bounced, I sniped some some and then his second attack bounced. He had the right strategy but the cards and dice thwarted him. I felt kind of bad to see see the flower of Yankee youth dying in such numbers.

Eventually he made a move on the southern left, which also went poorly. To his credit, he clogged up the reserve pathway with bad terrain (jerk!). He eventually knocked the southerners off the rail embankment but then got hit with a cross fire and lost units. Out of cards, he conceded.

It had been awhile since the south won a battle and there was much rejoicing and marrying of cousins. I think the south lost two bases? This should help as the campaign mechanics are now really favouring the north (next battle is in the summer of 1864).

October 6 Club Night

We had 18 guys out at the club on Tuesday night, which was pretty impressive. Craig ran a multi-player game of Songs of Blades and Heroes.

Bruce hosted six of us in a game of Maurice. The evil red coats slowly marched across the table towards the noble French.

Then there was a long period of ineffective small arms fire. Meanwhile, over on the French left, the dashing wing commander sought to spoil things and maybe bag a French gun. Despite a dastardly spoiling attack by the Prussian (?) cavalry, the French managed to inflict slightly worse losses than the took and then advanced to the rear to regroup.

By that point, the British had decided they could not amass enough fire on the French and took to the boats.

There was also a playtest of Guildball (above) and an ACW game using the Altar of Freedom rules.

Up next: I'm currently basing more WW2 paratroops and also working my way through the rules of Wildness Empires. I expect a commission of Star Wars figures to appear in my mailbox tomorrow.

ACW: Battle of Gitmasskicked

I dropped in on Bruce Tuesday to continue our ACW Longstreet campaign. I was the attacker (crap...) and had to seize the two hills the union had occupied.

I should have lined everything up on the right and used my guns to refuse the left to create a five on three attack. Instead, I decided to try a gun duel on the right and storm the left. The gun duel was inconclusive.

My maneuvering on the left was good, but some cagey card play by Bruce and crap dice meant I got thrown back multiple times when I charged the hill.

I simply couldn't get his troops to move off the the crest no matter how many southern son's lives I wasted.

Then he started to tighten the noose!

I managed to get him to come down off the crest with card play and pushed in one last glorious attack, but eventually my morale broke.

Despite my lousy generalship, the campaign phase meant I am still a viable force. But I desperately need to be the defender soon!

July 21 club night

We had 11 guys out at the club last night including newcomer Ian. Dave brought out his recently competed 10mm ACW troops and hosted Phil and Guy in a game, the name of which I can't recall.

It certainly looked pretty. Scott and Jonathan played a game of the new Commands & Colours WW1 (which I did not get a picture of).

I offered a Memoir '40 game but there were no takers so I ended up playing in Terry's Zombicide campaign with Chen, Larry, Bruce and Slippery Ian.

Things started out rough for the survivors (frigging zombie birds...).

Then they got rougher. I think we played the game reasonably well. Obtaining the scenario objectives (basically searching until the right three item cards are drawn) is tough and frustrating. The item deck is huge. The upside is that you get to shoot a lot of damned zombies.

And more zombies (I'm the guy on the right, below).

And more zombies I didn't count search actions but there were a lot and we only found one of the items before sheer zombie numbers forced us to abandon the objectives and just try to exit the board.

Up next: I have a 172-scale Brit artillery piece I've finished up.