Recon 2023, Day 2

A couple Flames of War tourney tables: 

Commands and Colours again, I think.

ACW Corps-level game (each base reps a brigade,
despite the regimental names).

Hoping to buy a couple of these buildings for Minceheim.

Some Starship Troopers bugs:

In the morning, played in a game of Rebels and Patriots (playing the Brits) in a fun big-toy-soldier version of North Point, a game I am thinking about running for Fourth of July at work.

The table.

Our left flank.

The American center, opposite me.

My small Highlander unit (shock troops).

US light infantry.

Better overview of left and center.

Brit cavalry.

Baltimore Rifles? Who appeared out of the woods
on our left and wreaked some havoc.

Final combat between me and some American horse.

Highlights:

• My shooting was excellent, managing to blast a gun and US infantry regiment even though they were in a revetment.
• I charged another regiment with Highlanders and virtually destroyed them, mostly because a "follow-up" rule meant they could fight twice in CC.
• We rolled a double-one for activation and got friendly fire, so one of our gun captains missed the order to limber up and instead pulled the lanyard on the regiment in front of him...
• But then we rolled a double-six for activation and got reinforcements - a cavalry unit we'd already lost.

Next game, drawn in on the spur of the moment a couple turns in, was an ACW skirmish for Fistful of Lead. I was given command of five Union figures, one of whom hated the Rebels and was quite bloodthirsty - he'd get bonuses to close-combat and victory points for killing Rebs. It turned out this was also a moonshine-hunting expedition, and whenever we found some, the GM actually broke out some moonshine: 

My starting position.

A forest between.

Rebels investigate a picnic table,
and of course Yogi Bear appears.

Whilst I investigate a wagon and find some moonshine.

I rather stupidly fire into the melee, killing the bear
but not any of the Rebs. That'll cost me.

Trying to get into the barn. The smoke puffs are from
the pyromaniac player, who got VPs for setting things afire.

A hidden still we missed.

The barn, packed with whiskey, ultimately exploded, killing the three Rebs inside and wounding five Yankees, including my leader who was trying to drunkenly force his way in.

One of my opponents was fellow SMG member Jeff of the Sgt. Guinness blog. We agreed that Fistful of Lead should work well for my Picacho Pass scenario. It's quick to play but still has some the traits, functions and RPG elements necessary for a gunfight game. The cover made a big difference too, and I'm not sure how I can represent it on a desert board - lots of patches of brush, I suppose. Jeff may be able to get painted metal figures for the game, too, so that I don't have to use the flat Wofuns.

The last game of the day was Cruel Seas, which I have a starter set for so was interested to try.

A German convoy at the back is escorted by 3 S100
torpedo boats under my partner; the minesweeper and
the three S100s at the front are mine.

From the British corner; the ships at top left are left out,
while the ones they actually had are two large Vospers,
corvette and two small craft to left, and four Fairmiless to right.

I also controlled two small barges.
The cargo was not glued on;
when I discovered they were loose
we decided one gun had been thrown
off the bucking deck!

The minimalist, but very effective, harbor.

Crossing a Fairmile's T.
The beads are activation tokens.

While I did my best to concentrate on single targets,
I've got around eight guns firing at me here.

Fish in the water.

Craft afire.

I lost one of my boats by ramming it into the rocks, and had another shot to splinters and zero hit points, but sank two others. By the end the German convoy was getting away, there were sunken craft on all sides, and we'd successfully torpedoed the corvette for lots of damage, but they'd hit one of our transports, so honours were about even.

I like the rules, and will be interested to try the starter set now, with much less complexity. (It has ten MTBs, and my "table" will be a 5x7 storytime rug.) As usual, it takes a playthru or two for me to "grok" them. If you look at the card above, each ship has a number of HP (about 65 for the MTBs), and any hit with a gun does a certain number of D6 damage. This is basically to the hull. Twin and Quad mountings add dice to the damage, but do not help you hit. Any sixes rolled also go to a critical chart which may add more damage or hurt crew, munitions, engines, etc. The crits, however, can be saved. Moving is simple with a marker; the wake denotes your speed bracket.

As an example, I did 51 total hull damage to a Fairmile MTB in my first firing phase, but had two sixes which a) hit the conn and b) blew up a torpedo tube for 8 more dice of damage which we didn't even bother rolling at that point!

To hit is with D10s, and a surprisingly short chart - the standard is five or less to hit with your usual speed, ability and size deductions or bonuses.

I'm still not enamored of the huge scale - in practice, what we played through would have been maybe 30 seconds in real life. But for a game rather than a simulation, I have to say it was pretty good!

It was midnight when we finished; someone from the hotel canteen passed through and gave out some leftover cake.

Also bought too much - that's gonna haveta go in another post. Overall, a good but exhausting day; I am taking it easier for the next.