Yet another shameless excuse for a post ... we recently played the old 'Descent' boardgame, the DNA of which helped build Imperial Assault in latter years (but without the massive Disney licence issues - and thereby added expense).
An excellent game using superb little floorplans - and Stephen's excellently painted miniatures (we chose these over the plastic figs that come with the game). Dice pools with pre-marked D6, nice initiative sequences and missions whose success (or lack thereof) affects what happens next and on subsequent missions - with recurring campaign enemies - a bit like D&D but without the Ham acting and need for DM caffeine tablets.
I bet he drinks Carling Black Label
...speaking of which...I've also been running a lot of D&D 5e with the younger group - 1st segment of that campaign is finished - it only took 12 months :O - pics at the end.
Lovely floorplans
Character sheets are streamlined to make it play faster - but great components
1960s Woodstock style headband...cue Hendrix
The thief and her dwarf companion - who umm is clearly not to scale
Goblins who are angry about Brexit
A large black monstrosity which only looked scary because it had been undercoated
goblins who are angry about Biden
'the Final Conflict' in the D&D game now - the evil snake god Zargon tries to snack on the magic princess - can the characters save her from stomach acid?
...ok she can't..oops
the Dragonborn barbarian dives inside the snake - knowing that he has to do at least 40 points of damage in turn 1 to get out...ummm which he does
'It's behiiiind youuuu!'
A return to normal transmission should resume soon ... :)
...and no, I am not referring to the online media frenzies over all things related to pandemic relaxing, mid term European War or new excitement over collapsing / resurging / realigning governments and inflationary 'excitement' (delete as applicable - I'm sure there will be media 'reality checks' for us all, so that we don't have to do our own research on such things).
Indeed...I am referring to 'Operation Typhoon' the 1941 German drive on Moscow, which Norm recently played out (in terms of the GDW/Victory Point Games Army level game) over on his excellent blog - Battlefields & Warriors.
Now, since I am always interested in a smallish map that allows me to co-ordinate larger divisional sized campaign fights for 'Field of Battle ww2', I went hunting for the game on Boardgame Geek ...and found this link to a 'play on line' version: https://oberlabs.com/b4m/
The Drive on Moscow - a nice journey through light traffic...?
Each turn is a week - and army units are Corps
Needless to say I was hooked - though of course ended up in defeat - twice!
It does give a great game, and since there are only 7 turns, and there is a bit of 'movement in the rasputitza' issue mid game, it's a tough ask for the Germans. I am now on the search for similar GDW programmed modules. Very impressive stuff here.
the intro screen - I did make the mistake a couple of times of playing against myself rather than selecting the AI - which will from here on be known as SKYNET ...grrr
Rules and turn sequence is solid, like all GDW rules dna ...Soviets can use rail movement as a benefit; Germans get panzer advance as an extra move for armoured units.
Prepping the thrust for armour is actually quite critical in the early turns...as I rapidly learned to my cost.
It's still a long way to Moscow, and the Sovs (the damned SKYNET AI) will get reinforcements.
A breakout, but not as exciting as it seems, as mud will hit soon.
October 10th - Turn 2 - Germans hit and take first line of defences.
Movement Phase on Nov 1st - and the mud hits. Highly mobile Wehrmacht units...not liking the mud.
By November 23rd however, things are looking up - the problem is that it is now turn 6 - and the game ends on turn 7... Sovs (the damned SKYNET AI) still hold Tula and downtown Moscow.
German's last movement phase. It wasn't going to end well at all...
Red Army wins. A tough ask; I'll play the Soviets next time and watch what SKYNET does ;)
A great version of a classic I think - certainly, the gameplay was very tense. Worth a look...
Addendum...Addendum ...Breaking News
I actually caught a break ...and beat the machine ;)
I recently played this boardgame with John, and a great game it was. Originally published by Multi-Man publishing (who also published the excellent 'Force Eagle's War') and I think based on the rules originally appearing in 'Storm Over Arnhem', there are some great mechanics at work here.
A great set of period rules and mechanics for the 1954 siege, with the French on the back foot initially, but able to plug the holes in the line if they act at the right time...while the Viet-Minh have limited resource, but the element of surprise
Actions are alternate
Card activities can help attacks and/or hinder the enemy
The Viet-Minh are trying to do as much damage in early turns, and prevent French holding ground (and thereby reducing their number of action cards), whilst enabling their taking more and more real estate.
A very nice game, and although the rules were very interesting, I am also becoming intrigued in the Indo-China / French period in the 1950s - John is an expert in this regard and knows the details of the siege inside out, together with reference to the more notable books (Street Without Joy) and a collection of the less well known references for the period.
We always consider the 1960s as the Vietnam Wargaming period - the '50s have a lot to offer in terms of gaming too.
Game map at start - with French units about to be surprised.
Cards are an intrinsic part of the game in terms of support/resources/and benefits
Early Viet Minh assaults on the flanks
Damage points are allocated in terms of either retreats, steps lost or units lost. The 'hit' player decides how to allocate - but this resource management type decision can be absolutely pivotal to holding ground or keeping units alive - a very nice mechanic, which should really be hacked for other games.
French reinforcements at 'Opera', which was probably the wrong place to put them :(
Cards can influence attack / defend options
'2' would be a bad roll... it wasn't going well for my French forces at all...
All in all, a great game - and had got me very interested in the period in general.
I've had the Mercury/Market Garden hex'n'chit boardgame for a while, and it in fact was purchased with a view to getting something on the tabletop with miniatures.
Dispositions at the start - watch the 'club route'.
Uncannily, it does have the exact number of hexes, width vs length, that fit both the size of my table and the the number and size of large (120mm) hexes that I own.
That said, we wanted to at least try the game out, before we plunder it for unit counter markers for the miniatures game (Mercury/Crete is also featured and does look very interesting too).
Key things from a game of this size:
Abstraction...Abstraction...Abstraction: Artillery is subsumed; armour benefits control ZOCs rather than promote breakthroughs; supply becomes critical - as well as access to dropzones.
You begin to think about supporting large attacks, while holding off more maneuverable elements. By the same token, your opponent is utilising the advantages of built up real estate and blowing bridges in order to slow your advance with regard to reinforcements.
Airborne forces are fragile if unsupported.
Catered for are areas such as: armour moving around ZOCs unless impinged by other armour; timely reappearance of German Battlegroups; the ability to wear down defensive units in towns - though at cost, and over a period of days.
Nijmegan...it was Nijmegan...
These are obvious points, though this game, and of necessity any miniature version of same, will require the same results and strategic though brought about by the turn mechanism and mechanics, if it is to succeed.
I'm still very keen to look at Bob Cordery's Hexblitz and the Portable Wargame as solutions here - especially so with regard to difficulties in breaking prepared positions, the amount of troops thereby required and the fog of war built into the turn mechanisms.
The British airborne could not make it into Arnhem and sustained considerable losses even trying, then were caught in the open.
The 101st kept the road open. German attentions were focused on the crucible that Nijmegan was fast becoming.
The 82nd are hard pressed, as German Kampfgruppe and reinforcements focus on cutting the road here.
Nijmegan and Arnhem become the focus for bolstering German defences...though XXX Corps is coming.
In the end, Nijmegan became a siege of sorts, until eventually the German position, cracked and was flanked, though the airborne elements had been pounded by then.
A nice game, and gives a decent appreciation of the importance of certain segments and routes on the battlefield...and certainly gives us food for thought for a miniatures version at the same scale.
We have looked at GDW's excellent 'Team Yankee' and the First Battle system before, but Steve's recent replay over at Sound Officers' Call (between bouts of Muskets & Mayhem) gave us the urge try some hex&chit boardgames again.
There are several rules mechanisms in typical boardgames which really lend themselves to miniatures and the table; no accident of course, since one feeds the other, both historically and in the minds of the designers of these classics.
The obligatory 'damaged' box that appears to be the staple of all 2nd hand copies of 'Team Yankee'
Hold the town, Soviet hordes and M1s to the rescue. It's got all the tropes.
Oops. Wrecks are mounting up. We need M1A1s. Damn that 105 !!!
'Troops in the Open!". It's all over for the Soviet side.
That said, Team Yankee has the added advantages of :
An excellent turn sequence incorporating unique (for the time) fire and movement, that allows use of units to fulfill missions without being really tied to a rigid turn sequence as we see in some other games.
A nice scale of one counter=one tank/squad
We replayed scenario one from the game, with a predictable US win - but we need to look at this gem some more (and the First Battle Desert series that I have tucked away somewhere).
***
We then proceeded to set up and play 'Red Tide West' (well, the first turn or so), from a recent Modern War magazine. Still owned by
the Strategy and Tactics people/company, these mags are great - with
game rules, game, commentary and excellent articles in each issue. We
even discussed a potential game/project that we'll talk to the publisher
about on this one.
The game itself is very large and time
intensive, and we quickly realised that it was a game for a free
weekend, rather than a few hours - its focus being that West Germany would be the 'centre of
gravity' for the entire hypothetical war. That said, it does bring in
almost every conceivable point of interest that I'd ever wanted to see
in a WWIII game, including:
Initial force dipositions (for when we do a campaign)
Effect of nuclear release on overall victory condition (i.e. how quickly armageddon comes and ends the game)
Good (and complex) approximation of airpower and its use
Excellent terrain breakdown for the north German plain, for use in campaign and mini-campaign games.
A wonderful (if epic) game. (I won't say we'll go back to this in case we never get time to. But we really should...)
The setup with a large chunk of Northern Europe. Ouch!
These force dispositions are sparks for many..many...mini campaigns.
Closer analysis of the zone and the British sector say, really give us the context and organisation for a mini game. very useful.
