POCKET BATTLES.

During one of Neil's visits, we managed to fit in a short notice game of Pocket Battles.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/4563/pocket-battles . We used the Celts v Romans edition.

This game is very similar to Dixie/ Last Crusade/ Eagles in that the battlefield is split into 9 areas (the face down cards represent the boundaries). Each army consists of, in this case, a selection of tiles representing each individual troop. These are formed into units. 

For each 10 points, a player gets an activation counter to activate units each turn. Each troop tile has a number of dice symbols (black for combat, white for shooting). When making an attack each tile in the unit that matches the number thrown on the attack dice scores a hit. Most troops can only take one hit. Those that take more than one, get a wound counter, which is the reverse of an activation counter.

The game played well, and Neil won by destroying 50% of my Celts.

FROM THE DESERT TO DEADMAN'S HAND.

A couple of weeks ago, my old friend Neil was back visiting from the UAE. As well as catching up we managed a few games. Three weeks ago we had a Wednesday of games. The first game up was a couple of Scenes from Dead Man's Hand. 

The first scene was 'Ambush'. My Outlaws ambushed some Lawmen. This led to a larger gunfight as other members of both sides rushed to support their comrades.

It took a lot of cat and mouse movement and quite a few missed shots, before the Lawmen managed to win the scenario.

The second scene saw the aftermath of an Outlaw bank job. The Sherriff was in the Barber's, but rushed out to help bring the Outlaws to book, along with some deputies and concerned citizens. To start off with, the Outlaws had the best of it. That was until the gunfighter on the roof was put out of action allowing the Lawmen to catch the Outlaws in a crossfire.

The Outlaw boss resorted to taking a female hostage to use a human shield.

But good use of the cards allowed a concerned citizen to put him out of action with a straight shot with no modifiers (good or bad).

Neil enjoyed his first go at the game. The card driven mechanisms were familiar from our experiences with Piquet.

We later had a game of Star Trek: Attack Wing, which will feature in my next post.

THURSDAY: SAILS OF GLORY, ISLAND HO!

This game was related to the previous two games we have played and follows on from http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2189-After-Action-Report-with-Pics .

 

The French frigates Unite' and Hermione' have been shadowing the Vanguard and Spartiate, the damaged british ships of the line. They lose contact with Vanguard and move closer to try and regain contact. Spartiate turns in an attempt to drive them off.

Two views of the inital set up. The islands are made from Hexon 2.

Spartiate tries to draw the French away from Vanguard which is in the lee of one of the islands deperately trying to make repairs to make her seaworthy and is, as yet undetected. A sudden change of wind scatters the French.

 These pictures show Hermoine' chasing down Spartiate and managing to get a super effective raking shot. Vanguard can now be seen. She managed to make repairs and is now under way. We had to make slight changes to the island at this point. A change of wind meant that my two planned manouvers meant that I was sailing Spartiate directly aground. It did not occur to me to adjust my sails. If I had, the situation would not have arisen.

 Unite' adds to the misery of Spartiate by adding a partial broadside to the accumulated damage. Unite' now tries to outrun the pursuing Spartiate. Hermoine' can be seen managing to avoid a grounding. In the far distance. Vanguard can be seen making her escape.

The pictures above show the closing stages of the engagement. The two French frigates slowly, but surely, close in on Spartiate. Unite' exchanges a broadside with her before Spartiate barges Hermoine' out of the way. Despite taking fire from the heavily damaged Spartiate, the two frigates batter the ship of the line into submission, and she strikes her colours.

 

We played this game using the full rules, as close as possible, as there were only four ships. Rick was the rules guru and handled Vanguard. I took Spartiate. Neil was back from UAE and handled the French.

Using two cards to plan moves was difficult enough without wind changes intervening. That was mostly responsible for the grounding, although I have now learnt the importance of using minimum sail when sailing in the vicinity of islands!

 

More photos and commentray can be found here:

 

http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2235-After-Action-Report-Part2-with-pics

WEDNESDAY GAME: RELIC RUNNERS.

This week's board game was Relic Runners http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144270/relic-runners . Inspired by Tobago, this is another explorer/adventurer themed game.

Each player is an explorer and starts from Base Camp, in the centre. They spend rations to explore the ruins and temples. Ruins allow a player to place one of his ten 'familiar trails' on an adjacent trail. Temples have three levels. The colour and level determines the effect or the amount of gold.. 

Movement is one way and a player can move one trail per turn. Movement along 'familiar trails'is free. So building a network of trails is vital. They also play a major part in the later part of the game.

Once a temple or ruins has been totally explored, an artifact is found. Ruins produce Emerald Frogs, temples produce an artifact of the appropriate colour.

To collect artifacts, a player has to move from the site of an artifact to another artifact of the same colour in one move. This makes placement of pathways vital. There are effects that allow you to shift pathways (seen on the purple temple above).

 Once a set number of artifacts have been found (8 for three players). Victory points are scored by collecting gold and artifacts of different colours.

In our game, David managed to win by a fairly wide margin, with Del third.

Monsterpocalypse next week!

THURSDAY GAME: SERGEANTS: THE MINIATURES GAME

Last Thursday, I hosted a game of Sergeants The Miniatures Game  http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/101929/sergeants-miniatures-game-day-of-days. This was a birthday present to myself from last year. I have had a couple of games previously and like the concept.

Here is the 30in x 20in mapboard for the first scenario : First contact. One of the two 'landmarks', the crossroads, can be seen. The scenario saw the first clashes between US paras and the German defenders. The forces were based on two named soldiers plus 12 victory points. The Germans had 5 troops plus a few extra grenades. The Paras had four figures and a liberal supply of grenades. The orders cards for each side were drawn at random. The Germans were to enter on turn two and capture or kill all Paras encountered. The Paras had to take the two 'landmarks': the crossroads and the area of scrub.

Here there are no figures on the board. The Germans are not due on til turn two and the Paras did not initially draw a move card to move on to the board. The game is driven by the Story Deck. Each turn is divided into three phases, with a card drawn for each phase. These cards show the two types of actions available for each phase (shoot, move, look & hide) . Players then must play cards of the appropriate type for each phase. If you do not have them, then you have to draw from your action deck till you find one. The action deck is made up of the cards that are unique to and come with the individual soldiers (7 per soldier). These cards allow actions and determine combat results.

These two photos show the Paras in the centre of the table. The Germans have just come on at the left. After the game, I realised that I had misread the order card. I thought I had to hold the landmarks at the end of the game. All I had to do was to spend one turn in the landmarks with no German presence to count the extra VPs. I'll remember next time!

This photo gives an idea of the layout of the cards. On the left, I have just turned over a move card for the first phase of the turn. This particular card allows up to 5 paras to move and the named soldier to act on one of the two options on the story card as a free action. The soldier cards can be seen on the right. They show the individual's capabilities and any special effects they have on aspects of the game. 

The Germans are attacking from the left and top now. This is just after one of the Paras bit the dust after attempting a rash run from cover to cover. The counters show which figures have been spotted and can be fired at.

The Germans manage to get round the back of the paras. A short sharp exchange of fire and a grenade or two and the one remaining para surrenders.

 

I enjoyed this game, even though I lost. The game has elements of Combat Commander and a miniatures game. Most of the measuring is done using the squares, apart from close range shooting. Although on the board, it looks like it would be easy to see the soldiers, they actually cannot be seen unless they are spotted by looking for them or they fire. It is also possible to take cover again, using the hide action.

 

 

STILL GAMING!

I have not posted for a week due to an unreliable broadband connection and some real life intrusions.

There was no Wednesday game this week. We are in a transitional phase between figure gaming projects and are playing boardgames to allow for painting and other finishing of our In Her Majesty's Name forces.

Following on from Carcassonne games, we have played Shadows Over Camelot http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot . As there were only three of us, we played without the traitor, but still lost!

We also played Tobago http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42215/tobago . This is a lovely game of exploration and finding treasure by a process elimination and deduction. We played it twice. David wining both games.

This weeks game is undecided. There is a possibility of a couple of weeks of Monsterpocalypse!

SAILS OF GLORY: DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.

For this weeks Thursday game, Rick decided on a Sails Of Glory game.

The scenario was based on our last battle. HMS Defence had struck her colours and was sinking. Before she sank, the French found a chest containing gold and despatches to the Dutch government. The British had to stop the French from getting back to port and making use of the information..

 

The Terpischore, in the van, having rendezvoued with Vanguard, Spartiate and Concorde, tries to intercept Le Genereux (Le G), which has rendezvoued with Commerce de Bourdeax (CdB), Hermoine and Unite.

This shot is from early in the game, the British approaching in line ahead, loaded with double shot, looking to keep the new French arrivals away from Le G. This appears to have unnerved Unite. The frigate almost colliding with CdB. Hermione is advancing on her own.

Hermoine's lone attack continues. The two British frigates are drawn off. Terpishcore takes a broadside, but cannot reply as the range is too great for double shot.

CdB and Unite close on Terpischore.

In this picture, Le G arrives to port of Terpischore. CdB is on the unfortunate frigate's starboard. Will it survive the fire of two ships of the line? The British ships at the bottom are Vanguard, Spartiate with Concorde bringing up the rear. Unite is the French frigate at the top of the picture.

Terpischore and Le G exchange partial broadsides. Terpischore takes proportionately more damage, despite firing double shot at Le G. With a mast destroyed, Terpischore limps away out of the fight..

CdB sails between Vanguard and Concorde, whilst Le G rakes Vanguard with a damaging full broadside. Vanguard also takes a broadside from CdB, the combined effect causing heavy damage. The effect of A full broadside of double ball from Vanguard and a partial broadsde from Concorde was devastating enough for CdB to strike it's colours.

However, with all the British ships now damaged, three seriously, they used a favourable wind to put distance between them and the French. With only Le G damaged, the two frigates would be able to fire from a safe distance and make their objective almost impossible to achieve.

More photos and more info can be foubd here http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2189-After-Action-Report-with-Pics

Rick had streamlined the rules to allow four ships a side. We only used one manouvre card, we had to change the way the counters were used on the ships templates as there are only enough for four ships in the starter set. We were not able to finish the game in an evening. We got far enough to decide an outcome: a marginal French victory, in the context of the scenario.

I have used the same tactics in the first two games playing the British: loading with double shot to get full effect with my broadsides. This leads to close actions and heavily damaged ships. I may experiment with different tactics in the next game.

I enjoyed both games that I have played. I don't feel that the changes to the rules had much effect on the game. The next game will, no doubt, continue the ongoing narrative.