WEDNESDAY SONGS: AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING.

As part of the post game process of last week's game, David rolled ' a chance encounter' on the exploration table. My Warband was randomly selected as opponents. The scenario is 'accidental meeting', which means that we each set up each other's figures, at least a 'long' away from each other.

                                           The initial set up.
My plan was to exit the table as quickly possible, avoiding unnecessary fights.

 

 David's leader attacked my grunt, expecting easy pickings. Alas! he was undone by David's habit of throwing 1s at the wrong moment and killed. My grunt was grusomely killed by an enraged Dark Elf, in return.

  Meanwhile, I had managed to gather most of my warband in one area.

 

 One of my ogres and my mage are trapped on the far side of the table. After some initial success, the ogre is killed.

              The Dark Elves gather on the far side of the river.

My mage is gruesomely killed.

 The ogre is gruesomely killed. The dark unicorn necromancer prepares to reanimate it.

Another of my isolated grunts is overcome and killed. At this point I managed to get my remaining warband members off the table to end the game, before the unicorn can animate the ogre. 

THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR SQUARE 1984.

Border Reiver Wargames Club presented a game based on an alternative outcome to the Miner's Strike in the 1980s. The scenario was that the Russians had invaded in support of an escalation of the strike to an uprising; and following an escalation of the Cold War.

The Russians had reached London. The final battle was in Trafalgar Square. Regular British forces with support from irregulars were trying to hold back the red hordes.

           Even the Prime Minister was manning the barricades!

Somewhere on the table, Arthur Scargill is inspiring the troops through his loudhailer.

 

I enjoyed seeing the progress of this game throughout the day. The terrain was well done. It looked like it was done in the style of an architect's model. Every time I see an architect's model, I always imagine the wargaming possibilities.

STAR TREK: ATTACK WING. RAID ON DS9.

This Thursday's game was another crack at Star Trek Attack Wing. Following on from our previous game, Gowron is leading an attack on station Deep Space 9 to neutralise members of the Detapa council. 

DS9 is supported by a Galaxy class ship commanded by Captain Ryker. The Defiant is commanded by Captain Sisko.

                    Defiant lays a minefield, vaguely aware of the cloaked Klingon cruiser.

                   The Galaxy class scores three hits on another Klingon cruiser.

The station's tactical weapons systems score three hits on Gowron's cruiser. One is negated by discarding the 'Redshirt' upgrade.

Gowron beams down with an away team to try and capture the station. This disrupts the defence of the station.

Meanwhile, the Federation ships concentrate on the second Klingon cruiser.

The weakened Galaxy class is destroyed by Gowron's cruiser. Ryker, LaForge and Data are presumed lost!

  The third Klingon cruiser has avoided the battle and beams reinforcements aboard DS9.

 The Klingon reinforcements tip the balance and DS9 is captured. Sisko on Defiant bugs out to fight another day.

Rick continued his role as the Klingons from the last game. The fact that we were playing a scenario gave the game a bit more meaning. It allowed Rick to use deception to confuse me as to how he would  carry out his attack. This resulted in my not being able to beam reinforcements onto the station as I was involved in combat.

We played the 'Destroy the space station' scenario. Rick exceeded his objective by capturing it! This was possible because the scenario was from one of the expansion packs and used a smaller station counter, whereas I had managed to obtain the DS9 template from the Dominion organised play programme, which was able to act as a ship and make use of upgrades.

The way the game ended leaves plenty of scenario possibilities for the future.

A SONG ABOUT A FAILED RAID.

The latest battle in our Songs of Blades & Heroes Wednesday night campaign saw Del's Dirz take on David's Dark Elves. Del was the attacker and, for the first time in the campaign, selected a raid special scenario. The aim was to rescue his sorceror, who had 'died' in an earlier battle against the Dark Elves.

The first few rounds saw the Dirz approach, only to be attacked by the lizard rider. The lizard rider made no impression and was attacked and killed by the Tiger of Dirz. Bodies were not removed as there was a necromancer on the table.

Following another individual attack by the Unicorn Necromancer, the Dark Elf hero attacked with support. In the resulting combat, the Unicorn is killed (bodies can be removed).

The Dark Elf hero rampaged through the Dirz; causing two gruesome kills. The morale checks associated with these, so disorganised the Dirz that they gave up on their lost compatriot.

The standings in the campaign are: David 6 campaign points; Derek 3 campaign points and Jeff 1 campaign point. First to 10 wins.

Although the post battle process allows both sides some benefits, it does help if you win consistently.

David rolled  'a chance encounter' on the exploration table. This involves randomly selecting another warband and setting up the 'accidental meeting' scenario. As this battle happens after the post battle process, it means that any casualties will not be coming back and there will be no treasure!

As my warband was selected, this means that I have two battles in a row against David. Interesting!

OPERATION BITING AND MY PART IN IT.

At the recent Targe show, Oldmeldrum Wargames Group ran a participation game based on Operation Biting, The Bruneval raid during WW2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Biting .

The game was spread over two tables. On the first table, the three squads attacking the house and radar were each played by one player. On the other table, three players took the three squads tasked with clearing a path for the exfiltration.  

 

My view of the battlefield. The 'lone house' clearing which was my section's objective.

You can see the divider that split the battlefield. There was one turn's distance between each table. Alistair, resplendent in his Red Beret, umpires the battle to secure the exit point.

My section moves forward to take the house. The supporting section on the right were to provide support and also to suppress the fire coming from La Presbtyre (represented as off table fire)

My section prepared to assault the house, but took fire from the flank from a pill box and failed to act, due to the pin markers.

Here is the offending pillbox. It defends the radar, the crew of which are seen running for cover in response to fire from Rick's section. Not their primary role, bu welcome.

Rick was in charge of the team with the engineers, tasked with getting the parts from the radar. In the background Tony-Peter Carter is part of the team clearing the way for the exfiltration on the other table.

Rick's section managed to reach the radar and, after a turn, successfully recover the radar parts and set explosives to destroy the rest of the installation.

Your humble blogmaster, with a natty titfer, trying his best to emulate the heroics of the real Red Berets.

Finally, my section managed to get moving again. They had failed in their prime objective: the house had been cleared by the support section. They poured fire into the pillbox to suppress it, while the other sections cleared it.

The mission now complete, the three sections make for the exfiltration point. Thankfully Tony-Peter and the others had cleared the Germans from the area and the mission was declared a success.

My section suffered two casualties. I managed to get 5 VP for my actions.

                                    Rick's section was a bit more successful!

This was an enjoyable hour. The rules were stripped down Bolt Action with a dose of common sense. I know that Alistair and the boys put in a lot of hours building the terrain and testing the scenario.

http://oldmeldrumwargamesgroup.com/