STAR TREK: ATTACK WING: ATTACK ON DERNA.

Not having played Attack Wing for a while, and recently having acquired some Hideki Class and Federation fighters, I decided to put on a game for last Thursday.  

Starting positions from the Bajoran side.

 I used the 'blockade' scenario for inspiration. A Dominion battleship, controlled by Rick, had to deploy marines on the Bajoran moon Derna. It was escorted by three fighter groups. The Bajorans had two interceptors and support from a Federation Nova class science vesel and two fighter groups.

Bajoran interceptor and Federation fighters manage to get the battleship in their sights, but are blocked by Hideki fighters,

 The battleship moved relenlessly forward. The fighters cleared the way by taking out one of the interceptors and the Nova. The battleship had it's shields overwhelmed and some of the Dominion fighters took damage.

The Federation fighters find the battleship effectively screened by Dominion fighters.

 The other Bajoran interceptor was dispatched. The battleship carried on it's inevitable progress, but not without taking hits.

The remaining Federation fighters break through the screen to attack the battleship as it lands the first marines.

The battleship managed to get within range 1 to begin landing troops. By this time only one unit of Fedaration fighters was left. They managed to inflict some hull damage before being wiped out.

Mission accomplished, the battleship limps away after taking considerable damage.

The battleship managed to land three units of marines. It limped away, victorious, escorted by the two remaining groups of fighters.

This was a very attritional, but enjoyable game. I had designed the scenario and chosen the ships without really considering things from a gameplay point of view. This became apparent when the Hideki fighters destroyed the three larger Baj/Fed ships in two turns. Fighters have as much firepower as larger vessels; they have four damage steps, which means no matter how many hits they take from one source, they only lose one step. Of course, they can be countered by taking hits from more than one ship per turn.

The squad building rules restrict fighters to only one per force. We discussed other ways of reducing their power, from using three models to represent each fighter unit, to starting them with reduced damage steps. We may try these out in future games.   

MY GAMING WEEK.

Apologies for the gap in posting. I have been busy. I have built up a backlog of photos and games to blog about. I'll go with the most recent, as I am more likely to remember how the games went! Some of the posts may end up as just acollection of pictures.

 

This past week I managed two nights of Gaming.

 

On Wednesday, I took on Del in our latest game of In Her Majesties Name. We played the 'Bad Jack' scenario, involving an escaped mutated lab experiment, with both factions trying to track it down.  

The opening positions.

Using a bit of narrative gaming, we determined that the monster was being developed by Del's faction and they were determined to destroy it, and any  evidence pointing to them. Scotland Yard were there to protect the populace, destroy the monster: and it's owners!

The Monster.

Del managed to find a suitable figure from his collection.Here it is, on the roof of David's Wulsung building which stood in as the lab.

The monster escapes.

David controlled the monster, it would always attack the nearest figure in sight, until then it moved randomly.

The monster attacks Del's mutants. The Yard moves round the back of the building.

Both sides converged. Del's mutants got in first and attacked the monster

The Yard move in, taking fire from Del's supporting characters.

The Yard firing line moves into close range. The hits, though not killing it, have made the monster go Berserk!

In the last two moves, some characters are knocked down and one wounded, but subsequently saved by the medical skills of the Good Doctor!

The game started off with Del's force attacking the monster, but not making any impression. My Scotland Yard were more cautious. They formed a firing line and used volley fire. This caused some hits on the combatants, but good pluck rolls meant no kills. The rest of the Yard moved round the back of the lab, and engaged the rest of Del's force. The game ended in a draw, with the only loss being one of Del's mutants.

The game was really enjoyable. It ended up in a great mass melee, with no one gaining the upper hand and suffering no casualties. The monster broke free. It will no doubt make an appearance in future scenarios.

I had not expected to be gaming on Thursday, but Rick's business meeting had been cancelled, so he arranged a couple of boardgames at short notice. We had another go at Trenchzone http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68387/trenchzone. Rick had acquired the Tactical Advantage expansion.

We used hidden deployment, masked by the game box.

I set up looking to send an assault down my right flank. I managed to build up my forces and take out Rick's fortifications.



Early stages of the game. Note the Tactical Advantage cards.

My tactical advantage card gave me a melee advantage in one section. The other two cards were decoys. I sent my attack over the top, knowing I had a 'charge' card which would allow me to move two zones at once.  

Later in the game. The attack from my right trenchzone is hit by a gas attack. Rick also played a 'Rain'card, stopping movement by the attack. To make matters worse, he also played an 'engineering' card to add wire to the zone that I had already cleared.

Rick had other ideas! He stopped my attack by playing a 'rain' card, This stopped forward movement as long as the card was in play (stayed for three turns!), He then attacked with gas. This also lasted three turns. This, and artillery bombardment, destroyed my attack, earning 2 VP.

He then launched an attack of his own. His tactical advantage card added extra forces to each attack. As he had destroyed my artillery and most of my pillboxes, he was able to attack my middle trenchzone. He managed to break in, and win the game.

This was more enjoyable than our last attempt, as we had a better understanding of the game. It has a lot or replayability. More importantly, it brings home the futility of this type of warfare.

This game took so long that we were not able to have a go at Manouvre. We did have a go at http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42898/pocket-battles-celts-vs-romans. , but it was just a quick familiarisation.

A busy two nights gaming.

A FEW FRIENDLY GAMES.

Neil was back from UAE for a couple of weeks. We were able to squeeze in a few games over a few  days.

 On the Saturday, as we only had a short time, I introduced Neil to the basics of Heroes of Normandie. We played the first scenario, which involved recovering documents from a dead spy. This ended as an entertaining draw, as neither side was able to get the documents off the table.

 On the Monday morning, we played the first scenario in the Commands & Colors Samurai Battles, which is a straight up battle. I won  a close fought battle. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122913/samurai-battles

In the Afternoon, after a bit of a false start due to a misreading of a crucial rule, we played Conflict of Heroes. The scenario was a recreation of the engagement between Polish Cavalry and German infantry which was halted, historically, by the apperance of German armoured cars. This engagement is the source of the myth of Polish cavalry charging tanks. The back and forth nature of activation in the game system kept it interesting. The Polish Cavalry wiped out the German forces: victory to Neil.  http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/45132/conflict-heroes-price-honour-poland-1939

 On Wednesday, we had a larger game of Heroes of Normandie. This was a cut down version of one of the scenarios in the book. It was a race to have an infantry unit take the objective by being in one of the adjacent squares by the supply phase of turn 6.

Once again, a close run thing, but a draw. The US forces tried an all out attack, but lost their M5 at the last gasp.

An intense but enjoyable few days of gaming. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can do it again.

COMBAT COMMANDER: PONT DU HOC.

A few Thursdays ago, Rick put on a game of Combat Commander. The scenario was the Ranger raid on Point Du Hoc.

The initial German positions. Rick was the Germans.

Early in the game. The Rangers used a random set up and then had to find their way up the cliffs!

The Rangers initially started to take some of the bunkers. They could not make progress due to fierce German resistance and counter attacks, not to mention not always having the right cards!

The final reckoning. The Rangers managed to take two of the five bunkers. So it was a German victory.

 

The game was a fitting tribute to the bravery of all who took part. It demonstrated just how difficult it was to achieve their objectives and puts their success into perspective.

HEROES OF NORMANDY.

This past Thursday our chosen game was a first try of Heroes of Normandie.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/53093/heroes-normandie

Rick had put together a series of scenarios, of which we managed to play two, to introduce us to the rules and gameplay.

 

The first scenario saw my Germans set up as an ambushing force that was itself surprised by a returning US patrol. The above is mid game when the US forces at the top have forced the Germans back from their original line.

Each side has a number of orders, based on unit and character selection, these determine the number of units that can fie or move. Both sides had 3 plus a bluff. Each side has a number of cards that can be played to effect the course of the game. Rick played a card that gave him an extra order.

Units not ordered are allowed to move during the supply phase. That is all they can do. This photo is from the end of the first game. Only three German units surviving (one concealed). US victory. 

The second game brought in vehicles and other upgrades, such as grenades, panzerfausts and panzerschreks. A US column is ambushed by the Germans.

 

After initial German success: destroying the vehicles thus showing the effectiveness of the fausts and schreks, the surviving US infantry counter-attacked , driving the Germans back.

The game plays well. The fact that you may have 10 units but only orders for 3 or 4 of them does focus the mind on having a plan and moving the important units. It also encourages use of supports. The cards add that bit of fog of war that can disrupt the opponent's well laid plans.

The game tends to the cartoony side, a bit like Nuts, and will not be everyone's cup of tea.

We already have two other scenarios planned.

THURSDAY NIGHT: SAMURAI BATTLES.

 

I decided to try out Samurai Battles, which I acquired at the tail end of last year.

The game, from Zvezda, comes in two versions. One with rules similar to Art of Tactic, the other Commands and Colors rules , by Richard Borg.

 

I gave away the Zvezda rules and plastic 20mm figures and used 15mm figures. These were based for DBR, for those interested, but had no effect for game purposes.

 

I decided to play the first, introductory, scenario. This had equal forces.

A shot of the set up from my perspective.

 Each side had ten units: 1 x Cavalry; 2 x Samurai; 2x Ashigaru Bows; 1 x Ashigaru Arquebus and 3 x Ashigaru spearmen, as this side on view of the set shows. Each side also had one mounted and two foot generals.

 The game will be familiar to players of Richard Borg's games. It is probably closer to Battle Cry, but also uses rules from C&C. There are two main changes. As well as the usual play deck, there is a second deck of Dragon Cards. They can effect both your and the enemy's units and are paid for by the second new innovation: Honor & Fortune tokens. Each Dragon card costs H&F tokens to play.

The scenario determines how many H&F tokens each side starts with (5 for this one). They can also be obtained by not drawing a Dragon card and during close combat, when an H&F symbol is rolled. However, when a unit suffers a retreat result, it costs H&F tokens for each hex retreated. This element of resource management adds a new level of complexity to the game and gives a bit of period flavour as it forces players to keep on attacking or lose honour.

The game itself was quite tense as Rick and I got our head around the rules and the new mechanics. It was the first to five banners and I won 5-3. The last pic shows the end state of the game.

MY GAMING WEEK: IN HER MAJESTY'S NAME AND C&C NAPOLEONICS.

I have had a break from blogging for a month or so, for a number of reasons. I am back and looking to post on a reasonably reasonable basis.

This past week has seen me playing a new game and an old favourite. On Wednesday, we had a game of In Her Majesty's Name. This was an all in game just to try out the rules. David set up the scenario, using some of the terrain that he has constructed. The scenario was simple, capture the scientist in the engine house in Kew Gardens and get him off the table!

              The engine house that David constructed with the Airfix beam engine inside.

It ended up being a race between my Scotland Yard company and Derek and David's companies. We managed to give the shooting and combat rules a good test. There were a lot of extreme rolls on the go: about a dozen each of 1s an 10s, which were automatic failures and passes respectively. I was deemed to have won the race, but the result was not the purpose of this game. Here are a few photos from the game.

  On Thursday, Rick & I played a Commands & Colors Napoleonic scenario, using the terrain from the La Platavilla Don Featherstone tribute game from last year. I took the British. I had to set up my forces before Rick deployed the French. This simulated the morning mist screening the French advance. The river was fordable, but was in spate and infantry units ran the risk of losing hits if they crossed the river.

                                                                Starting deployments.
When the French deployment was revealed (Rick had deployed the French, taken a photo, then took then off the table) I found that I had fallen for the ruse and had deployed to defend the bridge, rather than anticipate cavalry attacks over the river.

The game became a race to redistibute my forces to meet the cavalry threat before they got across the river. Here are some photos of the game.

There was an air of inevitability about the French cavalry attack. They brushed aside the only British cavalry unit before falling on the flank. The French attacked across the bridge to keep my forces in place. The cards even added to the narrative: for the first four moves I had no centre section cards. This modeled the confusion that would have been felt in the British centre. In the end, i managed to form a defence with a few units, but ultimately lost seven blocks to nil. A decisive victory for the French.

 

A very enjoyable week of gaming.