Brian has some nice game reports of our recent Check Your Six games up at Repple Depple. My Spitfires flew over Paris with ace Johnnie Johnson, and defended the Nijmegen bridges, escaping by the skin of their teeth. CY6 are some fun rules!
I faced off against Chris's Tyranid's for the first game of our Trucidos 40k Campaign. Here is the tale of my inglorious defeat...
Here's the table. Playing on a 4x4 table turned out to be much smaller than it appeared, especially with objectives that couldn't be closer than 12" from a table edge or 12" from each other. Fortunately, we only rolled three. Two small objectives have been placed, and the third rests on the lower tree stump, and was placed below it. Chris advanced from the bottom right corner, and I advanced from the top right.
My great plan was to steadily advance against the two nearest objectives and try to at least take one and contest the other. My right squad was simply 10 Necrons, which I thought would take their objective, and my left squad was 10 Necrons with the Lord equipped with a Warscythe for close combat and a Phase Shield (I think, 4+ Invulnerable Save). I expected the Left squad to get stuck into combat and contest the second objective. The last picture here shows the Right squad absolutely pasting Chris's Termagants off their intended objective. At this point I'm thinking I have this game in the bag.
Unfortunately, the Left squad just wasn't doing quite as well. Chris's biovore kept up a steady rain of frag spore mines from the corner of the board (until Chris forgot about him starting in turn 4, I think), causing a wound on my Lord in the first turn of the game. He then charged the squad with his hormagaunts. The squad shot the hormagaunts up pretty well, but about four of them managed to get into close combat. My close combat Lord whiffed badly in close combat every turn. They battled the hormagaunts for two or three turns, clearing them out just in time to be charged by a swarm of rippers which tied them up easily for the rest of the game. They might have been able to do something more near the end of the game, but of course their last combat round left a single ripper sward with a single wound.
Then, the squad I had pasted reappeared at Chris's table edge, and at this point I figured there was no way for me to win on objectives with only one squad effective. The Right squad then advanced across the table at his warrior HQ. Again, turn 5, I blasted away, but left one warrior with one wound. Another turn and maybe I could have pulled it out, but with the variable game lengths, the game ended after turn 5.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. The objectives and the random game length rules are very arbitrary and may not seem to match the "fluff" of your army BUT they get you moving and interacting and simply make the game more fun. In a way, they add an amount of tension that I find I greatly enjoy, kind of like my favorite Piquet rules. They do it differently, but the evoke a similar nail-biting suspense and uncertainty that many games lack.
Brian of our historical gaming group ran a Check Your Six Guadalcanal campaign. I had so far missed every single game in this campaign, but managed to make it out for the very fun finale. Two of my three Zeros were shot down, and the third accidentally flew off the board, which is pretty typical of my flying skills; however, in this game I did manage to down Brian's American veteran and run another American off with engine trouble-- three Americans were damaged and two crashed instead of making it back to base. The campaign ending was a razor-thin win for the Japanese. Check out the pictures, Brian runs beautiful CY6 games (well, all his games look great).
Here are some pictures from our latest Piquet: Field of Battle game. It was a rather surprising rout at a river crossing.
Here's the game table with the Austrian deployment. The river sections were kind of rushed. Since the French won our last scenario, I set up something like a French pursuit. This is about half of an Austrian division defending a bridge at a small town. There is a known ford just this side of the village, and two possible fords at either end of the table (troops will have to try to cross before it will be clear if they can be used). A full French division is attempting to cross. On the second turn, the Austrians shuffle in a Game Event card, and three really great Grenadier battalions arrive on the table edge at the road.
The French commander sent his light troops to investigate the ford on his left, which was found to be unusable. However, the cavalry found the ford on his right to be suitable, and crossed over. The Austrians weren't prepared for this, and facing the two Hussar and one Dragoon regiments are three line battalions in march and two Hussars in line.
The French main effort was a direct crossing on the ford by the river. This was congested and effectively contested by the Austrians, though.
The focus of the battle very quickly shifted to the French right, though, as the "diversionary attack," as the French commander called it, of the French cavalry very quickly became the main thrust. The French Hussars each charged and destroyed outright an Austrian battalion on the march.
The battle for the ford continues. The French lack the élan to charge across the bridge-- this is not Lodi!
The Austrian Hussars fail to stop the French cavalry and are destroyed. The entire Austrian left flank has been completely destroyed and the French are moving into the center, taking a battery of guns and forcing the Austrian Commander in Chief to flee before them.
The French cross the ford, but determined Austrian resistance forces them to fall back across the river.
Finally, with the Austrians turn 2 deck very nearly depleted, the grenadiers arrive. The next card for the Austrians, though, was the Army Morale group, with the result that two Command Groups must fall back-- sending them immediately back off the table! The Austrians conceded.
I ran Piquet: Field of Battle games the last two Fridays, 1809 Austrians vs. French. The guys who played in the games were only vaguely familiar with Piquet, I think from the first edition Master Rules, both they seemed to like FoB.
I've been a Piquet fan for years, and I love FoB. Piquet plays nicely, but there are common criticisms: the units take a long time to stat up, you can have very uneven initiative runs, etc... FoB addresses these quite well, as well as dropping many of the rules from regular Piquet that I always wound up forgetting anyway! It quite nicely balances out play (no more uneven initiative runs) while retaining the uncertainty of Piquet. Plus, it is self-contained, no need to buy the Master Rules and fool around with expensive supplements for each period. I highly recommend these rules.
As I mentioned, Mik and I played Necromunda last night. It was a fun game, as always. I managed to pull out two wins last night-- I barely scraped by in a Gang Fight, and then dominated a Shootout, despite losing my nerve.
It was my Hive Lords, a 1951 point Orlock gang, taking on Mik's Soul Crows, a 2355 point Ratskin gang.
Our first fight was a straight up Gang Fight. My main force of close combat guys and short range "combat" shooters tried to move en masse up the right flank of the table, covered by my leader, Gunk, and my backup sniper, Blondie. I threw one semi-chump out to the far left to try and tie some guys up there, but he went down quickly. Outnumbered as I was, I was soon enveloped and started taking some pretty bad casualties, and Mik had only one guy down.
It was indeed looking grim. I was down to three guys-- Hardcore, my chief CC guy, a new 50 point scrub Gunfighter down to one autogun, and Blondie, my backup sniper. However, I did manage to get the Ratskins taking bottle tests, and their Leader was out. That meant they were testing against a 7 and me a 9, so even though I was looking at some, uh, serious Serious Injury rolls, I held out. Plus, I was anxious to get Hardcore in a fight.
It wasn't long before the scrub Gunfighter was down, and soon out. Hardcore got jumped by three Ratskins while Blondie kept Odin, the big Ratskin, pinned. It took two turns and one of his three wounds, but Hardcore stomped the Ratskins with his Power Sword and Chain Sword. Then came Odin, the ST 4 bionic arm massive sword wielding Ratskin, braving Hardcore's Horrible Scars, and-- HE WENT DOWN! The Ratskins soon involuntarily bottled out, leaving me in control of the table with just two guys.
The after party went well. I had one of my mid-tier Gunfighters lose the rest of the fingers on one hand, but with a Medic, I rerolled a full recovery. My Ratskin scout Runs Like A Girl died, coincidentally enough the same day I had finished painting my new Ratskin scout, Rabid Millosaur.
We ran a Gunfight next, and time was short. I didn't pull any of my high end guys, but it worked out. We lost our nerve by one point, but my Gunfighter with the saved hand slapped leather and pinned two of the four opposing Ratskins, and my next guy took another one down. My Frenzied head wound guy, Rico, charged in, and it was soon just coup de grâces on Down Ratskins. Ugly.
Again, the after party went really well. I actually had ganger to work territories and get money, and two to send to the Trading Post. I wound up buying an Infra-Red Scope and TWO, count them, TWO more Power Swords, for a gang total of three!! They are currently sitting in my STASH! until I can figure out how I want to use them.
Here are some pictures from our 5150 Star Wars games last night. We're working on some rules we'll put out soon.
Game one, with the Rebels with just pistols, which I was assured was correct but which left the Rebels hideously outgunned (12" range vs. 24" for the Stormtroopers meant just about any time the Rebels were shot at, they Ducked Back). The Stars, since they couldn't really get any supporting fire, just got creamed in a two way crossfire.
In the second game, we gave the Rebels a 24" range (although I think we'll just do custom weapons and give them an 18" range). It went much better. We also closed down a couple of very open fire lanes. The Rebels were able to keep the Stormtroopers heads down (making a squad run away in the first turn and flee the table on their Recovery attempt!) The stormtroopes just didn't have much luck this game...one tried to throw a thermal detanator around a corner, fumbled it, and Obviously Deaded his squad leader!
A buddy and I had a quick little pick up game last night. We decided to try out Two Hour Wargames new Sci-Fi rules, 5150.
I'm not a THW rules expert, although I've fooled around with some of their older games like Chain Reaction and Muskets & Mohawks in the past. These rules are faily similar to Chain Reaction in their core mechanisms, but include a campaign system (something other THW rulesets have received a lot of praise for).
I am NOT one for lawyerly rules, and can't make it through three pages of most board (or, perhaps, BORED) games rule sets, but in the past, I have found THW rulesets to be too imprecise and poorly worded for me. I've had a hard time figuring out what the real intentions of the rules were, although I kept fooling around with them because there seemed to be some interesting concepts in the rules. 5150 is the best I have seen from them in this regard. They could still use some improvement, but I would call them of average clarity and after one quick read-through, I felt ready to try the rules. There was one subtle wording I found that I missed out on by reading the incredibly active Yahoo group (only inactive players make an In Sight test, a change from CR2).
We ran just two identical squads, a Rep 5 leader and four Rep 4 squaddies, all with Range 48" Targets 1 Impact 3 weapons. He ran figures from his Ratskins Necromunda gang, and I used my Superfigs G.U.A.R.D. Tac Team.
He immediately got three turns of unanswered movement, sending two squaddies up either flank and his leader up the middle. I finally got active, and shot up his left flank, taking one of his guys Out of the Fight, and leaving each of us with one figure Hunkered Down.
My Hunkered Down guy rallied, and I tried to finish his off but only drove him into the central building, where he Rallied and took up position in a high window. In the mean time, the guys on my right flank show up, shooting one of my squaddies out in the open. The Ratskins leader gets Knocked Down a couple of times, but is still okay.
I sprint for the central building and my leader gets Obviously Dead from the Ratskin in the window, and a lot of fire is exchanged, leaving him Hunkered Down.
One of my squaddies gets into the central building and makes it to the Hunkered Down ratskin. Reports differ on what happened next, but he wasn't heard from again. In the meantime, the Ratskin leader is behind the same building, waiting to make his move.
My squaddies have the front door covered, but the sneaky Ratskin leader Fast Moves through the back door and into combat! Unfortunately for him, he gets the worse of it. One of the last braves makes a move on my other squaddie, and goes down, too. The remaining Ratskins (or Ratskin) fail their morale and Go.
Yesterday was Necromundacon 2006! For a buddy's birthday, we got together four guys (three of which still play regularly) from our Necromunda league 10+ years ago, along with two others, and played sixteen games of Necromunda over about thirteen hours yesterday.
We voted for best painted gang and best terrain feature, and I won both. You can see them below, along with trophies the host made. There was also a top gang award, but I was well out of the running for that!
I came in with a Leader, two Heavies, four Gangers and four Juves. My theory was that given we would play all day, the Juves would develop quickly into Gangers and I would be set. However, in reality, two Juves got shot and in at least two games, I had every single Ganger go out of action, leaving me with no income. Plus, I lost two territories early-- one two losing a shootout, and another to a Hivequake. I was pretty much hamstrung then (max 30 credits of income, after taxes), but we all had fun.
A buddy and I ran a decent game of Stargrunt 2 the other night. I was pretty proud of how nicely the table looked. It wasn't high-end, but it was quite a step up from the usual for me. So nice in fact I didn't even mind getting crushed.
We've been building 15mm forces and gearing up for a small campaign. This was another familiarization session for me, and his second game. The first game was a straight-up infantry fight, and this was an attempt to bring some more unsual stuff like artillery, vehicles and aerospace support.
I set myself up as a rear guard defender trying to hold this road junction. I had a four squad platoon, 3x3" company mortars, 4x6" brigade artillery battery with dedicated FO, a two man GMS/L team, an anti-aircraft platoon of two RFAC/2s with a command squad, and a couple of booby-traps.
My opponent came at me with a small company of seven squads, two squads of power armor, two low-mobility wheeled class 2 AFVs with HKP/2s, 3x3" company mortar battery and two fighter/bombers with 2x GMS/L and 5x4" deadfall bombs.
These pictures are fairly early in the game. My two-man GMS/L team was lined up aiming right down the oncoming road, and thus took out one of the AFVs pretty quickly. I underestimated the usefulness of the civilian building on defense and quickly had two of them brought down about my ears.
The second AFV is taking cover from my GMS/L team on one side and my RFAC/2 on the other, on the hill. I had one on each flank, and while they looked good (Peter Pig ZSU-1s from my Modern Africa), they didn't accomplish a whole lot.
My artillery started coming in, with a very good effect. It turns out we were doing casualties wrong, dividing by the defender's result rather than by the die size. I knew it felt really wrong when a few squads rolled ones, but it didn't dawn on me until later what we had been doing wrong.
His Power Armor tries to assault my left in the open, and just got mauled between my RFAC/2 and my squad on that side. I think he was a little intimidated by the hidden markers in the woods, mostly dummies it turned out.
I started off doing these Free-Cal Tex figures as Pan-African Union. I cut this leader's head off, using it as his helmet attached to his waist, and added an Essex married Zulu head with a shield on his back.
The noose is closing. I chewed up another of his squads on the right, but I just couldn't generate enough firepower from the two squads who had fire angles.
His Power Armor, stalled out.
His fighter-bombers got on board without too much trouble. My RFACs couldn't do anything about it, and on turn five one made a bombing run right over my platoon commander's squad. It rolled a one, which, incorrectly, as I noted, caused something like 20 hits in the squad. I had one guy still standing, though! It was dramatic, and late at that point, so we called the game in his favor.
As an aside, a cool thing I did terrain-wise was to rip the trees off those textured bases, reflock the bare spots, and based the trees on 1.25" fender washers. I can now move the trees around when infantry enter the woods, plus I can stack the bases now, shaving my storage space by like a factor of five.
I posted some pictures from a game last night of PKombat, some playtest Sci-Fi rules based on PKowboys.