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).

Megablox Carrier

Back at the beginning go the pandemic, I picked up an old Megablox aircraft carrier set (the USS Kitty Hawk). It had some 1700 pieces and I finally got around to building it this weekend. The final model is about three-feet long and is maybe 1/450 scale?

This was a bear of a model to put together and Megablox are almost, but not quite, as good as Lego.

There were several places where the instructions included this icon (below). Which appears to be Brick for "this next step looks slick on the CAD rendering, but sucks shit in real life, sorry bro".

I had to call in reinforcements at one point because I was just out of gas and my hands were sore.

The decals on the model had been applied but then pulled loose (instead of being cut cleanly) when the model was disassembled. Some decals were okay (around the edges of the elevators) but the flight deck decals were a mess. I eventually stripped them, masked, and painted replacements.

This kit really took me back to high school gaming with old Tente sets. We'd play 7th fleet confrontations. My teacher had two carriers (which were out of my price range!) so I played the Soviet side. And we lost and lost and lost. The US would always find us first and then pummel us with their air strikes until we'd finally spot them and send a ragged volley of missiles from what was left.

Until I noticed the US plan was always the same and used it to predict their search path and their location. We managed to get off two volleys before they found us. We brought glory to the Soviet empire that day, sinking one carrier while a second and an aegis cruiser had to be towed to port. Hope the flyboys enjoyed ditching their tomcats and hornets! That was also the last time we played, I think.

Anyhow, a fun throw back. Not sure what I'm going to so with this now though.

Up next: More Russians for the Crimea.

Man of War

Bruce graciously put on a game of Man of War, hauling out his lovely collection of GHQ ships. This is a very slick system with movement triggered by one's speed (the faster you go, the more times you move in a turn--akin to the activation system in the old fighter-plane game Mustangs). Movement is interspersed with five shared firing phases. So the challenge is to maneuver so you can take advantage of (and not be screwed by...) the occurrence of the firing opportunity. I imagine Bruce has tweaked the rules some but I can't recall what the tweaks were.

Our scenario was a smaller but better quality French fleet (foreground) having the wind gauge on a British fleet (background). The wind is running left to right across the picture above and is abeam the one French ship that is cutting hard to the right all on its own. In my mind, I call this game "oh shit, the wind shifted" and this was no exception

So we get get moving and the second turn I roll a wind change in direction (it is now coming from the right, angling along the hex grain to the left) and it has dramatically weakened. This is a very unlikely event. Bruce has just turned his fleet to try and take the wind gauge away from me and this change basically catches him in irons, partly becalmed, and creates a major traffic jam (basically, he is now screwed). Despite my sympathy for his situation. I am proceeding to take full advantage.

Picture above of pretty ships with a speed counter on in. Speed ranges 0-7 hexes per turn--speed 4 for a big ship is pretty fast.

I manage to get a group of ships around the end of his line an start doing rear rakes. Some lucky rolls and he has two ships awash. My effort to board isn't successful, however.

Over on the left, I'm trying to get ships around the front for more rakes and put him in a box. The wind has just left him with no good options except to fight it out until he can get turned around and run.

In the end, one of his awash ships strikes it colours and that causes a cascading morale failure (a second seton unlucky dice for Bruce) and his fleet breaks contact. Probably a pretty decisive (and lucky) victory for the French.

Overall, one of the better sets of rules. Maneuver is slow and grinding, wind position and crew quality really matter, unusual things (like boarding actions) are risky and unlikely to occur. The mechanics create command and control limits that seem realistic while still giving players some difficult choices around movement and combat. The firing mechanic (basically, if you fire now, you have to skip the next firing phase to reload that side), in particular, make for tough choices.

Up next: A different era of naval operations.

Fighting Sail

I was out at Bruce's on Tuesday for a second game of Fighting Sail (an Osprey set). I recall quite liking the rules the first time we played. The mechanics are very slick with variable movement, easy combat and simple damage tracking.

Things started out okay, with both fleets running with the wind towards contact.

Then things got really good as my rolls turned hot and one of Bruce's ships took a real pounding. We had a coupe of ships disintegrate after a combination of close-range rakes and hot dice. I wonder if the ships were a bit brittle? But so far so good.

Then we ran into a real mechanical problem. The ability of the ships to fall with the wind means that when the game gets into a knife fight, whichever player rolls lower on initiative (and goes second) has a huge advantage. We had turn after turn of rakes as the "loser" in the initiative roll swung into the best position. While the initiative winner fires first, if you are getting raked, you don't have much of a target!

This seems to be a design error (as one of the "advantages" you can have is a great admiral who can increase your initiative roll--pretty much the last thing you want). We couldn't figure out an easy fix (which was too bad as the rest of the mechanics are awesome. Maybe simultaneous orders? But that is hard to incorporate give the variable move distances each ship gets each turn.

I had fun and all but this seems like a pretty major (and obvious) issue with the rules (unless we were playing them incorrectly--but I don't think that was the case).

July 7 club night

We had about a dozen guys out at the club this week. Larry ran a game of Samurai battles which looked fun.

Taylor hosted a 15mm WW2 game (maybe Crossfire?). The extreme lighting posed some photgraphic challenges!

Bruce hosted game of the new Osprey sailing rules (fighting sail?). The British (foreground) struggled to hold of a gaggle of French ships, despite truly lopsided die rolls.

The French had the wind and used is to close. These was a race to see who could cross whose T but if you can't win an initiative roll, it is pretty hard to win the damned game!

Eventually the lines met and the French crossed the British T, causing untold suffering and declarations of woe.

As night fell, the lines got mixed up and the British bad luck suddenly turned, with a pair of French ships being blown to smitherines. Earlier complaints about the rules being broken were retracted.

Up next: Some 1/72 WW2 Germans and then onto some British desert vehicles.

Federates States of America fleet

Today I finished up a Dystopian Wars fleet. Base don the a planes, I'd guess these are about 1/1200-scale based on the size of the planes. This fleet is from the Federates States of America and their signature is side-wheel propulsion systems.

The carrier is a double decker (the top level comes off) with four paddle wheels and a slew of anti-air weaponry. The planes looks like a steam-punk version of a Corsair.

The fleet came with a battleship. There were a number of weapons options, but I chose the missiles. Escorting the battleship are three Guilford-class destroyers, each with a brace of missiles.

There are three medium cruisers, again modeled with missiles. And (below) nine frigates.

Finally, there are 30 or more bases of tiny fliers. Apologies these are slightly out of focus. Overall, a treat to paint and very cool looking.

Up next: The club is Tuesday and I have to get my game ready. I am also sorting a very generous donation to our convention silent auction (hint: lots of 15mm troops in many periods).

Dystopian Wars Prussian Fleet

I traded some painting for a fleet of 1/1200-scale Prussian ships from Spartan Games' Dystopian Wars line. Over the last few weeks I've painted them up. 

This is the Rhine Class fleet carrier with three Stolz class destroyers. I wasn't sure how to paint these guys up. I wanted a militaristic functionality that I associate with Prussians (hence the blue/grey colour and camo on the sides of the ships). But I also wanted some spit and polish (thus all of the brass and silver).

This is an Emperor Class battleship with four Arminius class frigates. The sheer number of ships also meant that I needed a painting scheme I could replicated across all of these ships without spending a month on it. And all of the lovely detailing meant I wanted to play up the wooden decks.

Here we have three Reiver Class cruisers and another five frigates. I've tried some close-ups to show the detailing. Below are the battleship and the carrier.

There were also two Geier class bombers. These have lovely clear flight stands but I couldn't get the camera to focus on them while on the stands.

And then there were 17 (I think) bases of these tiny fliers. The base is about an inch-square to give you a sense of the size of the planes.

Up next: I have some 1/72-scale Thebians that I'm block painting and a bunch more 1/72s primed. I also have two 15mm sturmtigers to build and paint (wow, a WW2 model I've never painted before!). Then I will move onto a Confederate fleet to match the Prussians above.

EWG Club Night November 5

We had nine guys out at the club last night and three games ran. Dennis joined me in a game of 1775 Rebellion, wherein the British won (first time for a British win!). Below you can see the end game. The British drove down from the north and eventually conquered New England and then landed in Delaware (which they had been kicked out of). No southern campaign to speak of.

Neal and Dan Battlelored it. No idea how this went but they were on their second game when I left.

Bruce hosted Dave, Scott, Kevin and Terry in a naval game, the name of which completely slips my mind at the moment. Lovely ships.

Things were getting heated when I left with ships losing masts and the lines starting to get messy. Shortly after the picture was taken, the left line started to cross over in front of the right line. Flying Colors might have been the name.

Up next: Day three of the WW2 fast build is under way. Decal and detailing bases is nearly complete--just need some time with the glue and flock.