INVASION FROM OUTER SPACE.

I chose something nice and easy for our Thursday game this week: Invasion From Outer Space The Martian Game. This game uses the same basic rules as Last Night on Earth. The main differences being that the Martians can shoot and there is no fending off in combat, meaning that the martian is killed or the player takes a wound. 

The initial set up. Rick took the Circus performers and I took the Martians. The heroes were: Archibald the Human Cannonball; R.J. Flanaghan the Ringmaster; Hannah the Firebreather and Cassidy the Trickshooter. The scenario called for the Heroes to kill 20 Martians.

The Martians only had to kill two Heroes. In the early turns Hannah and Cassidy took a steady toll of the Martians. The Martians optimum tactcal ploy was the pack of exactly three. They got benefits when in combat and shooting. Sadly the Martians never managed to get that organised.

But they did manage to get a Zard Beast into play.The Zard beast has special powers that make it quite formidable.

The Zard Beast caused consternation in the Heroes. They reorganised in the big top.

Archibald took on the beast. Despite automatically losing a power token just for fighting, he managed to score three hits, which the beast failed to save (needing 4+) and it perished.

The Heroes started to get close to their target, regularly killing Martians in groups of two or three.

The Zard beast made another appearance, too late?

I had managed to build a couple of death rays with Martian tech. and tried to bring them to bear on the Heroes: I only needed to kill two!

Sadly, I only managed to a wound on each Hero.

In the end, the Heroes managed to get to twenty Martians quite comfortably. There was a time when they were stuck on eight and I was managing to play cards that made it difficult for the Heroes. Sadly, the accuracy of the Martian's shooting (my die rolling?) left a lot to be desired.

 

Very easy to pick up the game due to the similar rules to LNOE. I think there will be scope to use both games together. Future project, methinks!

DAY OF GAMES: SAILS OF GLORY AND COMBAT COMMANDER.

In the afternoon, after some lunch, we arrived at Rick's for a try out of Sails of Glory. This game uses the same basic game engine as Wings of War/Glory, Attack Wing and X-Wing, but for sailing ships.

Here is a view of the British vessels: The 3rd Rate Defence and Frigate Terpischore. The French Ships, frigate Courageuse  and ship of the line Genereux.

The wind gauage with a wind direction device, which indicates which direction the wind is hitting a ships sails and what movement rates to use.

This picture shows the ship record cards, which take up space, but are neccessary. We used a 6 x 4 ft table for a 4ft x 4ft playing area. 

 The French are running with the wind from left to right. The British are taken aback whilst manoeuvering into the wind. 

In true British style, I had loaded the ships with double shot. This has a short range compared to normal ball, so I tried to cross the T of the French to rake them and reduce my exposure to long range broadsides. This was partially successful as Terpischore managed to get a broadside off at Le Generaux.

 Defence and Courageuse accidentally become entangled. Defence takes fire from both French ships without being able to respond effectively. Terpischore is too far away to assist.

Defence breaks free and pours a broadside of double shot into Courageuse. This casuses so many casualties that the frigate strikes its colours. The second line down, with the blue, yellow and red counters, shows that all available crew are casualties.

 Le Genereaux and Terpischore exchanged broadsides at long range.

Le Genereaux and Defence become entangled. Despite taking a broadside from Terpischore, the crew of the French ship manage to make the Defence strike her colours with a combination of musketry and a sharp boarding action. Terpischore made her way from the scene, her captain not fancying the odds against a ship of the line.

We decided it was a French marginal victory. The game is quite involved but, I think, after a few games it will become second nature. Movement can be quite complex. The system uses manoevere decks, like the original Wings of War, with cards showing different rates of movement depending on attitude to the wind and damage taken. Getting your manoeuvre right, to do what you wanted to do, was bad enough, let alone trying to guess what your opponent was up to!

It was quite a tense game with the result in the balance till near the end.

 After a takeaway haddock supper, from the Ashvale, to finish the evening, we had a game of Combat Commander. The scenario was set during the Battle of the Bulge, and focussed on a clash between the 101st at Bastogne and a German mixed force over some supply gliders that had been dropped.

Five objective chits, representing the gliders, replaced the numbered objectives on the map. With a bit of random placement, three of the gliders were closer to the Germans albeit in the open and two easily accessible and near cover, closer to the US forces.

The game took longer than we expected and lasted past the scheduled 7 turns before the Germans won. It looked close at the end, but the fact that the Germans held three of the objectives, with much higher VP value than the two held by the 101st.

A whole 14 hours of wargaming. That is the equivalent of 4 weekday games nights! Good job they are so infrequent?!?

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 3.

The final scene, 'We Will Be Waitin' saw the Outlaws confronting the Sheriff and the Marshal with the other Lawmen diverted elsewhere..

 The two Lawmen were automatically activated as if they had drawn Aces ( high in the game).

 The Sheriff made good use of his activation to move behind the jail. The Marshal moved behind the building at the end of the street. The Outlaws followed, concentrating on the Marshal.

 The Sheriff evened the odds by putting a dude out of action.

 The deputies and upstanding citizens react to the gunfire and come to their comrades' aid.

 The Gunslinger takes out a deputy.

 Meanwhile, the Sheriff takes down a varmint. Just visible in the window of the building beside the jail is one of the Lawmen who stayed behind. He will play a big part later in the game!

 A deputy strikes lucky, putting the Gunslinger out of action.

 Two views of the battle. The lower picture showing the gunbattle between two upstanding citizens and the Boss and two dudes. The Outlaws also came under fire from the two buildings on the right where the Lawmen had taken position.

The Lawmen now had the upper hand and closed in on the remaining Outlaws. One citizen paid the price, but two more Outlaws went down. At this point, the Outlaws failed a big nerve test and 'got out of Dodge'.

The three games were completed in a little under four hours. It may be possible to play one or two scenes in a normal games night, but not all three. The rules are fairly straight forward, with the cards driving most things. After the first game, the modifiers for firing had been memorised and play speeded up.

The need to declare all actions when activating a figure was a good touch. Several times threatening situations were avoided by the timely playing of a card interupting and stopping the intended action.

The one downside is that the board can get cluttered with cards when there are more than a few figures per side. One potential solution is to use tiles from the Play 5 game, which are Scrabble sized tiles with card suits and numbers on them.

All in all a good start to the gaming day. Fast and furious with clear results in quite short order. I think we will play this game again.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 2.

The second scene was 'The Town Ain't Big Enough' and saw the Outlaws ambushing the spread out groups of Lawmen and Upstanding Citizens. The Lawmen set up first, splitting into equal groups, one of which had to be in a building. The Outlaw's boss was holed up in another building, waiting for his minions to take down the Lawmen. Hopefully he wouldn't be needed! 

 The first group of Outlaws, The Gunslinger and a varmint, encounter a deputy and two upstanding citizens in the main street. The Outlaws win by putting three Lawmen out of action, the Lawmen win by putting two Outlaws out of action.

 The Outlaws get off to a great start when the varmint rushes forward and fills an upstanding citizen full of lead (rolled a 19, out of action).

 The, now unescorted, Gunslinger is taken down by a deputy, who rushes out of a building and gives him both barrels of a shotgun, putting him out of action.

Further down the street, a dude and a varmint (right) engage two Lawmen. The markers show actions taken by activated figures and the effects of fire taken.

Another view of the action. The Sheriff has emerged from the building and leads the fightback against the

The  replacement Marshal and a deputy (top left) combine to put a dude out of action which brought victory to the Lawmen and a measure of justice (or revenge) for their fallen comrade.

The last scene will be 'We'll Be Waitin' where the Outlaws try to overwhelm the forces of law and take over the town. The Lawmen will have the benfit of an extra card in their hand.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND, PART 1.

Saturday 1st February saw one of our irregular games days. The idea is that we play games that normally would take too long to play in a normal evening. Each participant hosts a game and we move between venues. This time Aidan was otherwise engaged so Rick offered to host two games.

 

I had decided to try out Dead Man's Hand. I had seen it played at shows and had acquired some figures and buildings.

I intended to play a linked series of three  scenes (scenarios) from the book. These would be from The Good, The Lead And The Ugly storyline. The scenes start small and escalate to a final confrontation.

The first scene was 'The Stranger' and saw three Outlaws testing the mettle of a visiting Marshal. The game is driven by the card decks. These show the order that figures activate and also have effects which the player can use on their own or opponents figures. In game terms the three Outlaws were 'drunk and complacent' which meant they could only take two actions per activation rather than the normal three.

The Outlaws activated first and impetuously moved forward and shot at the Marshal, who returned fire. When activated, a figure can take (mostly) three actions. They have to state what actions they are taking, so the opponent has a chance to play a card in response. Despite putting some under fire markers on his assailants, he was driven back. 

Firing is done using a D20, modified by various factors. 11+ gives a varying amount of under fire markers and nerve tests. Failure of a nerve test means another under fire marker. 19 and 20 put the figure out of action. Most figures can take four markers with more experienced characters taking five or six. Here the Outlaws managed to put the marshal out of action, meaning he would not be able to take part in the next scene. The Outlaws would get an extra card in their playing hand.

CARCASSONNE: WINTER EDITION.

This Wednesday we had a go at the latest edition of Carcassonne: Winter Edition. This differs from the original game in that it has 12 extra tiles, and all the tiles are, of course, covered in snow. The River expansion, which became part of the basic game in later editions is dispensed with. Instead there is the Gingerbread Man expansion. 

The Gingerbread Man begins the game in the castle section of the starting tile. When one of the six tiles with a Gingerbread Man icon is laid (all castle tiles) he is moved to that tile. When he leaves an incomplete castle, each player with a meeple in the castle scores 1pt per tile. When a Gingerbread tile completes a castle there is an extra scoring step before the castle is scored.

   Photos from the two games we managed.

The art on the tiles is great. Keep your eyes open for some nice little scenes. If I had a better camera, I would have shown you some.

I managed to win the first game, with a bit of farming nous.

The second game was dominated by lots of castles.

Del won the second game, scoring most of the nice big castles, with assistance from the Gingerbread Man!

All in all this is a bit of a refresh for this great old game.