THURSDAY GAME: NORMANDY CLASH.

With Aidan still studying and temporarily unavailable to stage FOW games, Rick and I decided to dust off an old friend, in the shape of Blitzkrieg Commander. This is WW2 games system based on Warmaster mechanisms. We haven't played for a year or two. We have played using 10/12mm figures and latterly using Axis & Allies miniatures.  
 
At Rick's suggestion, we played using FOW 15mm figures. We used the BKC 2 rules, which we hadn't used before but we were familiar with the concepts from BKC. We made three changes: Hits were kept at the end of a turn; an HQ or CO could issue a rally order to a unit to remove one hit and, when firing, one unit was nominated as a firing unit, each other unit firing at the same target added one dice rather than all it's dice. These were intended to speed up the game. 


Set during the US advance south, the US troops are mopping up behind the spearhead; the Germans trying to find the US flanks. This was a 2000pt meeting engagement with mobile deployment.



An overhead shot early in the game.

 

 A  US platoon advances. The German advance units are just visible in the background, in the shape of a Stug.
                                          
The Early turns saw the US force, composed entirely of infantry, move swiftly forward along the entire front. The German Kampfgrupe was finding it difficult to coordinate the different units, leading to little or no forward movement (US passed most of their command rolls, the Germans few).

 US move against the German motorised platoon. The Germans managed to get into position, but poor die rolls meant they advanced no further.

The US continued their advance against the disorganised Germans. They had air support in the form of two Mustangs, one of which was driven off as it attacked a Stug. The second attacked the German AA destroying it. This unit was also having an effect on the US centre. It's removal cleared the way for a US advance. The German centre infantry platoon was overrun.

The flanking US infantry with support from the centre, attacked the German motorised platoon. The survivors can be seen disappearing out of harms way. The Germans had reached their break point. Resulting in a US victory.

As well as taking the photos, Rick ran the US forces.

It was a good game. The Germans had poor command rolls, even throwing a blunder at one point, but the poor initial deployment didn't help! The rule changes worked well. Having hits staying meant a bit of thought was required about whether to rally a unit or move it out of the line. Restricting supporting units to one die didn't seem to effect firing effectiveness and casualties.

We will try them out again, no doubt, in the next game.

WEDNESDAY GAME: ORC BLOOD IN THE RIVER.

This Wednesday's game was a continuation of the Song of Blades and Heroes campaign. My orcs were taking on David's Dark Elves. My force consisted of eight figures, five of which were basic grunts. Recent defeats have not been kind to my warband's fortunes!

The scenario was a standard battle 'take the ground' and involved the capturing of three objectives; one in each other's territory and one in no man's land. David has a fine selection of home made terrain and he set up a river down the middle of the board.

Here is a link to his blog for a report http://ironmammoth.blogspot.co.uk/ .

The river slowed his characters, exept for his mounted warrior. That one character was enough to win the game. Two gruesome kills made my warband take morale tests which drove most of them off the board.  I lost two grunts killed (the after game checks show they will return after missing one battle).

The orcs are difficult to get going, as they require higher rolls to activate, even when within range of a leader. They have few beefy special characters. The fact they are constantly losing, increases the quality gap, although the underdog rule means that they benefit financially, allowing replacements to be bought to replace casualties.

I will persevere. New tactics are being worked on as I write!

 

A WHOLE LOT OF SONGS!

I recently celebrated a major mill milestone birthday. One of the gifts I received was a selection of rules and supplements for the 'Songs of' series.

Flying Lead will be a useful set of rules for any firearm heavy period, particularly for 20th century games. Songs of Arthur & Merlin will allow me to make use of my 28mm dark age figures.
The other supplements will be used in our current campaign.
All in all a useful aquisitions.

KICKSTARTER: SPY OR DIE TRYING.

Back in April, I signed up for the Spy or Die Trying Kickstarter http://www.spyordietrying.com/ .
The game itself, and some of the extras, have been delayed till January 2014. Today the postie brought a parcel that contained the first batch of extras.

 These will be useful. I picked up a pile of Hour of Glory and Bunkerstorm miniatures of Ebay a while back. I even managed to paint some sentries! This is probably a project for sometime next year. One can hope!

THURSDAY GAME: LASTNIGHT ON EARTH, TIMBER PEAK.

For our Thursday game this week, we decided to give the first scenario of Timber Peak another go.
Aidan is in the middle of a 14 week course on putting people to sleep. He was studying, so it was just Rick and me. Rick took control of the zombies and I took the four Heroes.

The scenario was simple: Zombies kill 4 heroes or get 4 zombie upgrades (3 wounds on heroes for each upgrade), The heroes needed to get 6 upgrades (3 wounds on zombies for each heroes' first upgrade. 4 for the second and 5 for the third). The zombies also win if the sun goes down (after 12 turns).

The initial board set up with the four starting heroes. Note the cheese nibbles that I was hoping would lure the Zombies!

 All the heroes were able to start from their designated places. To get the required number of upgrades required me to kill loads of zombies. My strategy was to try to get the heroes together as fast as possible and try to have one or two searching to get items to better kill zombies.

A series of poor  combat rolls (only one kill in melee!) plus great use of card combinations from Rick meant that the zombies managed to get to 4 upgrades, I lost three heroes and only managed to get two upgrades. Not a successful night, but a very enjoyable game!

 


Mid game. The hero nearest the camera isn't! He hs become a zombie hero thanks to the combination of an 'infected' card and a rollof '1' following a wound, which resuled in another, fatal, wound.

Apologies for the lack of photos, but I was rather absorbed by the game.

MY FRIENDLY LOCAL GAMING STORE.

                     This is Plan 9 in Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen. It is my FLGS.

 As well as games, there is a large stock of comics and graphic novels as well as busts, statues and other collectables.

 

 This is the section that I always make a beeline for! The well stocked games section.

I have been a customer since the shop opened, in Rosemount Place, over twenty five years ago, before moving to it's present site. I have quite a few standing orders for comics and I also order most of my games here. I think supporting my local shop is the right thing to do even though it might cost a bit more.

 

The staff are fun, friendly and knowledgeable. They always have time for a chat, which mostly results in me spending some cash. Must be using charm spells! Don't get that with a virtual store.

 

Del is on holiday, otherwise I am sure he would have taken delight in showing off his 'noble chin'!

LETTING GO!

Here we are at the end of September. It's October tomorrow and that means less than three weeks to Skelp! 2013, the wargames show at Forfar on the 19th . Targe at Kirriemuir is on the 9th November.

The bring and buys at these shows are an opportunity to move on unused figures, rules and games. I have an idea of what I am moving on, but, as always, knowing you have to get rid of something and actually doing it are very different things.

So far, I have identified some excess 20mm vehicles (you can have too many Tigers!) and I will be selling a few of my DBA armies. There are also one or two boardgames and sets of rules (Tac, anyone?) that are surplus to requirements or not being used enough to justify keeping them. I have already got my sheet number for Kirriemuir and I am off to assess whether I still need all my Wings of War stuff. Watch this space!

                                                                       SKELP 2012.