Mixed progress

No campaign game today, too many players called out and none of the map moves resulted in combat encounters anyway. I missed a Bardia game, worse luck. Work has been tiring (and cold, thanks to the weather) and I failed to pay close attention to my already overwhelming email folder. Also a cat had to visit the vet repeatedly... the discounts due to insurance however provide an excuse to spend the leftover money on more game stuff.d 

The campaign map; I'm on the Spanish team.

Work is inching towards gaming (well, besides the healthy chess club); our new teen librarian is seeing interest and planning a weekly activity that will include something I can help with. He's also a gamer (DnD only, though), and I've spoken with a teenaged volunteer who is interested in 40K but unfortunately will be moving shortly. I did get permission to build a Civil War display for Black History Month which I will try to get his help with - an Olustee diorama.

I finished a medieval murder mystery and am most of the way thru The Illusionist, a biography of pioneer Commando and deception artist Dudley Clarke, who most critically distracted Rommel from the true attack direction at Second Alamein. The book is a bit superficial, but with plenty of anecdotes. It criticizes Operation Mincemeat on the grounds that it nearly gave away the attack on Sicily from which it was supposed to distract, although reportedly Churchill approved it on the grounds that the Germans expected Sicily anyway, so anything was worth the attempt. Next will be a biography of Flora MacDonald, who sheltered Bonnie Prince Charlie after Culloden.

I have not received my order of the Bolt Action starter set, though the shop somehow got a box of metal tools from Warlord Games... Instead I've been messing with Know No Fear, the medium-sized 8th Edition 40K starter set, which I picked up on Ebay.

I still have the Quar to finish, too.

Anyway, that's what little I've done this week. Maybe next will be better. See you then.

The Road to Bastogne

 Pete Panzeri ran another of his operational games for us today, specifically the Bulge. This was sadly delayed from the 80th anniversary of the battle, but today is the day victory was ultimately declared in January 1945. Did we do any better than the 101st Airborne?

Well, we couldn't do any worse than the movie version...

Oriskany Jim livestreamed the game again for Sitrep Podcast, but I have some highlights and a few closeup photos.

The field of operations.

And the field of operations.

The game was run by Pete, who played the Germans on autopilot while the rest of us tried to hold him back. I was voluntold as the overall American commander, with four others as division/corps commanders. The scenario is based on an Axis and Allies variant, and each base represents roughly a battalion, while a single building represents a small town.

A closeup on Bastogne.

Center of the map, under construction with dark sand for the roads.
Note Sam the Eagle in Bastogne, representing the 101st.

American center, with my HQ units (light brown tank
and artillery) at center rear by Clervaux.

Germans pour onto the board.

A typical representation of a "town."

These poor bastards are about to be overwhemed by artillery fire.

The Germans storm onto the table.

The ultimate German objective is the ancient fortress of Namur. On a fifteen-foot table you'd think they'd never make it, but under the rules any vehicle on a road can move as far as it wants - all the way if it likes. The catch is that it can't bypass a defended town on the road. While it can go offroad, it can only move six to twelve inches. This means that the "nodes" - especially the bridges and Bastogne - are critical and even a single base will halt the German advance for a turn. This is why we spread out units and supply markers across the board, although we heavily frontloaded our line. So they got steamrollered, though we bit back here and there (combat and shooting are simultaneous) and blew one bridge.

Example unit of Garritroopers.

American dead pool.

A hapless American glider unit under my command holds
Trois Ponts bridge against a massive horde of tanks for two days.

This massive horde!

On turn 4, they finally get across.

I roll successfully for reinforcements, who come in
on the Nazi left flank.

Air power also turns up.

Intimidating mass of German artillery.

The game ended after turn five (five days) with the Americans having done somewhat better than history - Bastogne was attacked but not surrounded, and I rolled five sixes out of 16 dice for a night raid on the German tank laager... My role was less "leadership" than good rolls for reinforcement, weather, and other force-multipliers. A couple rolls raised cheers from the team. 

Pete's scenarios are excellent participation games. I'm alway happy to join in them.

A couple more photos:

Decoration, and a reenactor in Armored Infantry uniform.

Helmet and M1 carbine.

Next week, the first installment of a 16th century Florida campaign; not sure how much of it I'll post, as there is secret movement andd reinforcement. See you then.

Heffalump Challenge

I've written before about trying - and failing - to win at DBA, mostly because my face-off of choice is Indian elephants versus Alexander.

So I tried again yesterday, during the club's semi-regular "open-gaming" days. Only two of us showed up, but one was Jim, whose enthusiasm for DBA is infectious. (He runs the tournaments at the Orlando conventions.) Fully aware that I'm the worst player I've ever met, I asked him to demonstrate how the hapless Indians could win the matchup, and the obvious place to start was with me as the Greeks.

I have in mind to move thru the forest along the road, then spread out.

But the elephants head straight for where I'll come out.

So I shift my pike phalanx to a position where its flank is protected.

Here, I move my auxilia towards my camp to protect it
against those cav at upper right, while my war machine
moves up the road to target the oncoming elephants.

I'm getting flanked.

I think I can handle those elephants now.

As I move to threaten Jim's flank with my horse,
Jim blocks my artillery's LOS. But that chariot
makes a tempting target...

One chariot is dead, as I start shifting to left to hold off
Jim's light troops.

Jim strongly recommended not isolating my units, as
multiple touching units can be moved with a single order.
So instead of tackling his camp, I'm using my cav as a
mobile reserve and racing them to the left.

First combat, as I stolidly march towards Jim's archers at top.
This will prove to be a mistake.

After three or four turns of trying and getting knocked back
by bowfire, I'm ready to charge, but those elephants are being ominous.

A wider view - my cav are ready to support, but the
elephants are behind them...

At this point the dice gods intervened and Jim rolled ones for his order "pips" for a couple turns - which meant his elephants, which require two pips, couldn't move. This was all that kept me alive for a while, but ultimately I still lost by unit losses (first to take four bases off the board loses). It was fairly close, but I too rolled ones (during combats, not for orders) at critical points and in a couple cases failed to win battles that should have been pushovers. DBA is more tactical than it looks to the newcomer, but it's still complex to my eyes. Perhaps if units were labeled?

I've just realized I was rolling an Indian die the entire game, even though I was playing the Greeks. That might explain our poor luck...

In other hobby news, I've been reading a couple Paddy Griffith books on WWI, I've obtained an 8th-edition 40K Know No Fear starter set to go with my First Strike box, and I picked up some plastic glue to assemble it (like the Fantasy set, it's not snap-tite) and some pastel colors for Quar skin. I should be working on the latter project, but it's a tossup at present between that and 40K.

Finally, I expect to attend Pete Panzeri's Battle of the Bulge operational game next Saturday. Should be a more impressive report. See you then!

Gamer's Resolutions

Painfully, I'm about to repeat some of the resolutions I had for last year. Let's see if I can do any better this year.

Finish painting my Quar. There's only 27 of them, for feth's sake. Then pick another project, like the 40K and Fantasy starters I've got or the Bolt Action starter on the way.

Run a Picacho Pass game at the club, probably using Fistful of Lead. We have the minis and the terrain (though I still want to represent Picacho Peak itself somehow); now we need to put together a scenario and play.

Run a VBCW game at the club. Rather than the proprietary rules or the 28mm Bolt Action or Xenos Rampant I was considering, this will be 15mm Tactical Combat. Might still try some solo or smaller club games with the 28mms, though.

Run something that isn't chess at work. This is tricky at my branch, given that we don't have many teens or any other times set aside for this sort of activity. The teen person at work is planning weekly activities and is an RPG gamer, so I might get something in. I got hold of a copy of Thud!, but I've misplaced my Celtic Knot dice which I'd like to use on St. Patrick's Day. The 80th anniversary of WWII and 160th of the ACW are coming up, so at least I should be able to get away with something Paperboys-related that isn't just for display.

Run my cut-down version of Charge! at the club. Worth a try if I can make the time. I will have to practice it more, though.

Work my way thru either the Programmed Wargame Scenarios or the ECW book. Aspirational!

Go on a freakin' vacation. Other than two conventions and a weekend on Key Largo, I haven't gone anywhere in years and I have lots of vacation hours to use. The easiest target is Nassau in the Bahamas, but Nottingham, southern Ireland and Gibraltar are on my bucket list and all have some history (and in the case of Nottingham, gaming). I may have to board my oldest, crankiest cat, though.

Play in an ongoing campaign now being planned at the club. It's set in Florida, circa 1565. I like to think Over the Hills and Far Away might work, if we do the "monthly" moves over email, and there are a couple other Jim Wallman games I'd like to try too. I might, as there are regular "open gaming" weekends now.

Visit the club more regularly, taking time off if necessary. Already hoping to join in Pete Panzeri's Bulge game on January 18th. I'm helping to pay the (increasing) rent, might as well make use of the space.

Get more bookshelves. Extra to store games - there's actually no room in my closet and most are stacked under or on my 2x4 table - speaking of which, I need another. If I could move house, I'd get a two-bedroom apartment and make the second a game-room that, crucially, I could keep the cats out of!

Overreaching myself? Probably. If I get the first four done, I'll be happy. Here's hoping your plans are more achievable! 

Year's End

 As usual, more reading, and finally some proper painting!

I spent some of today working on some of the Quar. I now have five Coftyrans basecoated, all except skin.

Highlord Blue coats, Hardened Leather straps, stocks and boots,
Averland Sunset collars and cuffs, Sir Coates Silver metal.

Skin will take a little thought, as it's varied, pastel, and often spotted. I think it should contrast a bit with the uniform, too, so I won't use blue or yellow. But I'm pleased I've got this far!

There's also the machinegunner's hat, and the blanket rolls. I need a spot color for those, and I'm leaning towards red.

Reading-wise, I found an excellent new book on the 1216 French invasion of England. I was surprised to find it's published by Osprey.

It's fairly short (which makes sense for Osprey), but is not typical even of the publisher's more "conventional" histories - it's not a summary, guide or overview, but an in-depth coverage of the years immediately following Magna Carta.

The author has nothing good at all to say about King John, except that he died at just the right moment. His son succeeded him as not a tyrant but an innocent, now not about to be overthrown by a savior but by a foreign usurper. He also had the support of the Pope. The struggle is depicted as one that turned England from a cross-channel empire into an individual country independent of France. This started with the loss of Normandy, although nothing is said of Aquitaine.

The battles are Dover (a typical siege), Lincoln (pitched cityfight, relief of siege), and Sandwich (a naval battle). (Hilariously, Sandwich is now landlocked.) Hanley describes these all in a lively style, along with the key characters. Two of the most interesting are the female chatelaine of Lincoln, and a Robin-Hood-esque character who led a savage rebellion on the south coast, forcing the French invaders to go out of their way to avoid him.

The cross-channel relations of the two sides also made for interesting interplay - many of the lords on both sides had holding in both Normandy and England and had been forced to choose a side when Normandy abruptly became French. The King of Scotland held lands in England and swore fealty for them to the pretender from France. 

There are so many interactions between so many characters that I have only really given a taste. But this is quite a good book, and I'm glad I read it.

Happy New Year. I hope your next is full of hobby. (I still have two boxed games on the way myself!)

Waiting, Watching, Reading, and just a bit of Painting

Mostly waiting on a number of holiday orders I've made. Starting with two more game starter sets. These are the Port Royal "Mordheim"-type game for pirates, which is delayed until February, and the new Bolt Action 3rd Edition starter set which I hope to receive next week. I might try and use it during the planned WWII commemorations at work. I've also ordered Thud!, the Discworld version of Tafl, and a few favorite picture books.

I watched War of the Rohirrim yesterday. (I was alone in the theater, but it was a Thursday night.) Not bad, but there is a bit of an uncanny valley both in the designs (classic anime for characters, photorealistic for the terrain) and the plot (built up from a handful of paragraphs in the appendices. As fanfic, it's pretty good. At least one review has compared the protagonist to Studio Ghibli heroines, which I can agree with. It does interest me in the new version of Games Workshop's LOTR games, but they don't have a small starter set for that. Still tempting, but I don't think I can justify dropping 2-300 bucks on their boxes...

I also watched Ender's Game on Netflix. Not very good; I suspect anyone who hadn't read it wouldn't understand at all what was going on. The plot was drastically compressed; for example, there are only two of the iconic zero-G battles, and only one under Ender's command, so his leadership and genius are basically told, not shown. The simulator battle graphics weren't very clear. Though I liked the method of putting the child fleet commanders together, again the lack of time meant that their exhaustion wasn't emphasized as it was in the book. The ships are also described as drones rather than manned, which takes away some of the punch of the ending. While I've read the book, and its sidequel Ender's Shadow, I've always preferred the original short story, and think it would have made a better movie with its more compact plot and lack of sideplots. What we actually get are bits of the novel sideplots, but too brief to have the impact from the book, let alone clarify what's going on.

Touched up the undercoats of 27 Quar, by brushing White Scar paint over the greyish areas partly missed by the spray paint. Next (at some future point) will be using Contrast paints on them. Still missed bits and pieces here and there (don't you always?), but this project's been delayed long enough I really do need to get cracking on it.

Finally, reading.

A good short history of the Australian
involvement in New Guinea and Bougainville.
Lots of quotes and vignettes from
individual soldiers increases the enjoyment.

My third issue from this late '70s magazine series about
Israel's military. A good mix of prose, period photos, and
Osprey/Squadron Signal-like color plates.

I've never been as familiar as I'd like
with classic Greco-Roman myths,
so I snapped this one up. Very well
written, I can see why it's a classic.

Really enjoyed this one. The potted history
is actually good, the battle maps are useful,
and there is lots of inspiration for gaming.
Makes me want to break out my Mutiny collection.

Thanks for reading. Happy holidays, and I'll see you next time! (Hopefully with greater progress.)

The action of ... somewhere, somewhen

Had an excellent annual naval bash with the good old beer'n'pretzels game, Limeys and Slimeys. Unfortunately ... I forgot to take my notes with me when I left. And by the time I remembered, I couldn't even turn around, because whilst we were playing, an accident and attendant police and police tape had blocked the entrance I normally take into and out of the complex where the club is.

So this report will be as incoherent as usual. At least I got plenty of pictures.

The field of battle. One player wears an appropriate shirt for the occasion.

The smallish British flagship Ajax, leading the van towards...

Two Spanish relative heavies (22 guns each).

Our British line jogs to port, intending to get to the side
of the Spanish squadron and fight just half of them
with all of our own. The center ship is a 26-gun frigate.

The Spaniards forge ahead at 12" a turn...

And start angling to take the flagship under fire.

Ajax starts taking hits.

It is at this point that our Commodore reveals the rest of his cunning plan: Cut the Spanish line. 

But the Spanish go next (turn order is random each turn)
and grapple at the bows. Despite a gallant fight, Ajax
is swept and taken by boarding.

Despite this, the following ships - partner Francisco with the big frigate and me with another sloop and a bomb vessel (present for no apparent reason, as there is nothing for it to bom) follow their commander's instructions and continue the "break-in."

Frigate nearly out of view to the left, with my sloop about to turn.
The frigate is about to blast its broadside down the length of the
Spaniard for her temerity.

A bit of a mess as our frigate cuts the Spanish line,
which includes our own flagship which we're trying
to sink by hull hits to prevent them carrying it off.

But what's this on the horizon?

A very short horizon, as I never saw them coming after
my bomb vessel.

I am beleaguered and bracketed!

But, much to their chagrin as they really wanted to board and take me as a prize, instead they rolled eight hull hits for damage and sank me outright! (You get double damage for crossing the T, and at 3" range, you hit on 2+.) So ... no bomb vessel, but surprisingly a little cathartic.

Above, a typical ship card. My HMS Cleopatra has 12 broadside guns, two chasers, ten hull points, eight rigging points, and 36 crew, including four officers and eight Marines. The latter two have double value in boarding actions, while Marines may fire muskets at enemy crew when in close range. While I only had six guns to the broadside, most of my (long-range, 5+ to hit) broadsides got three or four hits - until the very last one which returned the balance by getting zero.

The rest of the Arab squadron enters the board.
Fortuitously, the loss of the bomb ship has
opened up a target for my aft chasers.

Closeup on a Dhow/Xebec/Whatever.

Still exchanging broadsides. There were no alliances
of convenience - the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.

Because the British have cut the Spanish in two,
the forward Spanish inadvertently slam into the
oncoming Arabs, whose smaller but much nimbler
vessels are cutting up the already hurt starboard vessel.

At the other end of the table, the British 26 and smaller
Spaniard are slugging away at each other.

Another good shot of the Arabs. The full rigged ships
have resin hulls, these are wood with sheet metal under
the decks to magnetize the crew to them. Everything has
removable flags to change allegiance according to scenario.

Spaniards entangled.

The smallest Spaniard about to ram a dhow.
Ships must move, and must spend the first half
of their movement going straight ahead,
so even at half move (3") she'll be entangled.

Meanwhile the sluggers hammer away.

While on the far broadside, the frigate indiscriminately
batters both opposing sides.

A closeup of my Cleopatra as she tries to get into
position to support the frigate, unfortunately turning
slightly into the wind in the process and being badly slowed.

Despite the crew figures left aboard, this Spaniard
is basically crewless and gunless.

Several of the Arabs were towing extra fighters who
sadly never got into action.

Unsuccessfully trying to get some of the spoils.

Last turn: I finally cross the Spanish T while the other remaining Spaniard is bracketed. The "dagoes" have had the worst of the battle. 

The Brits have also lost two ships, while the Arabs, concentrating on the Spaniards, failed to get much loot. But as usual, all players (including two newbie guests) had a glorious time. Limeys and Slimeys is one of those games we can all play without thinking, moving ships around and tossing dice while at the same time just having conversation, eating pizza, drinking beer and all around just enjoying ourselves. We made a couple converts into the bargain. This is what gaming should be about.

Pete Panzeri's Bulge game has been postponed, so my next visit to Das Krig Haus will probably be in the New Year. See you then.