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Nov27

The Third Hundred Yards

by Rindis on November 27, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Jason came over on Sunday for some FtF gaming, and he brought over Last Hundred Yards again. He’d recently been in something of a rules argument that got him fairly heated, so this was a surprise, but he wanted to get back to the system with his better understanding of intent.

We started with the third scenario, “At Least It’s Quiet Here”, with me as the defending Americans. Even with the relatively small space, it is hard to think up a coherent defense with only four units (a platoon plus MG team). I set the MG up on the hill overlooking the church that was the victory goal. My major position was on the forward hill (G8/G9), and it was supported by the third squad in the D8 woods.

Jason came on in the center, and quickly started thinking he’d have done better to do an edge run (both sides have possibilities). But, lots of fire at low odds on both sides did nothing, and I was looking nervously at pulling back while the clock slowly wound down.

And I failed. Jason got up to G10, and I was planning on pulling out the squad, but hesitated, and decided to take the best shot the game had offered so far. And failed to do anything. Jason then got initiative and assaulted the hex, reducing the squad as it retreated out. Then the German mortar section hit my primary position, and I went over the very tight casualty limit and lost right there.

It was a good re-introduction to the system, but I knew the mistake I was making when I fired. In ASL, it would have been a 8 -2 shot that would be hard to pass up, but truly only not as big of a gamble because you almost never have a mere three squads to work with.


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Nov19

Lords of the Realm

by Rindis on November 19, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the eighth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Crusader Kings II. See the previous reviews here:
Crusader Kings II: The Second Crusade
The Old Gods: That Old-Time Religion
Sons of Abraham: A Little of Everything
Rajas of India: My Elephant for a Kingdom
Charlemagne: Back in Time
Way of Life: The Short Way
Horse Lords: For the Horde

Paradox took a while while to announce the another CK II expansion after Horse Lords, but when they did, it turned out to be focused largely on the inner workings of the realm (while most expansions had been focused on expanding the scope of the game), and hoped to increase mid- to late-game challenge.

Conclave came out on January 1, 2016, alongside patch 2.5, which featured the same ability to log into your Paradox account from the launcher that had recently been introduced to EU IV.

Shattered Combat

Combat came in for a round of changes again. In this case, the number of casualties from each day of combat was reduced. This only has a moderate effect in modest realms as a multiplier was taken out that was causing what was considered excessive losses in huge armies. Overall, the plan was to make combat less decisive, so that one battle would not make the main army useless, and not decide a war completely on that basis.

To aid with this, shattered retreat was brought over from EU IV, so that a defeated army will automatically try to retreat some distance to somewhere ‘safe’, where it can regain morale. Also, an army in friendly territory will start regaining a few men every month, instead of them going to the appropriate muster/garrison.

Overall, the differences are somewhat subtle. The ability to rotate armies ‘home’ for some reinforcing is welcome, but outside of large realms (admittedly, this is more aimed at the experience of the Holy Roman Emperor), shattered retreat isn’t accompanied by the ‘blocking’ action of forts in EU IV, so its still not too hard to chase down a defeated army for another defeat, and so just makes the ‘ping ponging’ that Paradox was working to eliminate take longer.

Education

Children got a rework in the expansion. Normally, they had need of a guardian/educator at age 6, and were then with that character until something happens to him or until the child is considered an adult at 16, when he/she gets all their main traits. Along the way, the child had a chance of picking up traits from the guardian, as well as some form of the guardian’s education trait (and… could even pick up that character’s religion and culture).

With Conclave, childhood is in three parts (including the 0-5 pre-education phase which didn’t really change). In childhood (6-11), they get a focus (akin to the ones used in Way of Life), which determines what kind of (new, child-specific) traits they get. At age 12, they switch to an education focus, which will eventually turn into the education trait at 16.

A lot of the effect of the guardian is taken out, and you can’t really drift cultures and religions that way anymore. The childhood focus generally determines what childhood traits are likely, and those determine which educational focus will be the best fit, with poor fits causing lower-level traits, and good fits making high-level ones likely. Similarly, primary attribute growth is more directly tied to the parents’ base attributes, though the educator can intervene, if he has an appropriate trait and direct the child towards a positive, rather than negative trait.

There are ten childhood foci (two per attribute, just like the normal ones in WoL), all with their own likely traits, which then tend to turn into adult traits. So overall, it’s a much more robust and natural system. I’m not sure how much difference in attribute scores there tends to be between the two, but the results certainly feel more natural.

Diplomacy & Favors

The diplomatic system was overhauled, with marriages now creating non-aggression pacts, which can then lead to alliances. This requires good relations with the ally as well as… relations. Close relatives can also become allies, and while they are rarer, alliances can now automatically pull someone into a war, making them a bit more certain than in the past.

A version of EU IV’s coalitions showed up with the patch as well, though they were renamed defensive pacts in a patch to give a better idea of their purpose. Conquering land generates a threat value with everyone around you, and when it gets high they start entering defensive pacts with each other (this is almost a direct return of ‘badboy’ ratings from earlier EU games). If you go to war with one member, all the other members automatically go to war with you.

Threat does decline over time, and members of the pact will drop out again once threat gets low enough. But it’s not too hard for the pact to feel futile, as the defensive pact is still too small to deal with your expanding realm. But of course, taking land from them drives up threat, and the pact gets bigger….

And finally, the expansion introduced favors, akin to what had just appeared in EU IV: The Cossacks. However, there it was just a brake on using an alliance offensively, and here it’s a more full-featured system in keeping with the personal nature of the game. I find the favors are a little rarer in use than I’d like to see, but there are a number of ways to get one (including providing a hefty amount of cash, though that also requires that they like you). Once a character owes you a favor, you can use it to pressure them into certain actions, such as leaving a faction, or joining yours.

Council

The central feature of the expansion however was the council. Along with the original five positions that help with certain ‘realm scores’, and do tasks such as aiding research and diplomacy, the men in those positions are on the council, which can have little, or great effect, depending. Additionally, kings have an extra advisor seat on the council, and emperors have two.

A new faction goal is to increase the council’s power. The first step is to empower it as a potential decision-making body at all, and then there are seven types of things that can be made into a council decision, instead of the ruler’s, including declaring wars, granting titles, and so on. This is a new tab in the laws section, which got a general overhaul as part of this.

Whereas before council positions were generally a matter of appointing the most qualified person who liked you enough not to stab you in the back (quite literally for the spymaster), now your most powerful vassals expect to be on the council, and get very upset (making them more likely to plot against you, or join factions) if they are not. You can still ignore this, but since they are the powerful nobles, it’s not a group you can afford to have angry with you, even if they are all simpletons.

Once on the council, a character has an attitude that determines largely how they will vote. The three general attitudes are pragmatist (opposes challenging wars, and creating other strong vassals), glory hound (favors a strong realm and wars against stronger opponents), and zealot (favors enforcing his religion in the realm). Some may also be loyalists (who will generally follow the liege’s lead) and malcontents (will oppose anything the king wants that doesn’t grant him power).

All of this adds to the power tug-of-war that CK II has built in to its structure for some time. A relatively weak and unpopular king can be bullied into signing away much of his power to the council (largely through faction demands), limiting his (and his heir’s) options. On the other hand a council can be a way of approving a number of centralization options as the council gets a say in it. Not only can a well-respected king swing members of the council around, but favors can be used to get votes.

Conclusion

This is the second time CK II looked more internally than just expanding the scope of the game, and is very successful at it. Way of Life is a ‘take it or leave it’ expansion, that is generally good, but doesn’t necessarily add a lot to the game as a whole. Conclave is a great expansion of one of the core features that is important to every titled character, and does a good job with it.

I’m a little more iffy on the changes to combat in the patch, but it didn’t really break anything either. The overall changes to diplomacy are something of a wash… except that favors are also a big help to the council system. My biggest disappointment is that I feel the rework of childhood should have gone into the main game, rather than splitting it off into the expansion.

If you like CK II as a medieval drama generator (which is the main reason to like it), this expansion delivers more of that. This is the best ‘general use’ expansion, and short of wanting one of the “scope” features of another expansion, this would be a good first expansion to get.

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Nov11

Newfound Memory

by Rindis on November 11, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

So, we’re approaching the halfway point of the patch cycle between FF XIV: Endwalker and the next expansion. 6.25 came out a couple weeks ago, and Smudge and I have been spending a lot of time with the new Variant Dungeons feature, and enjoying it!

Now, there’s a couple of raid options on this called Criterion Dungeons, but we haven’t tried that yet. For one thing, we want to get through the regular part first. For another, it’s much more interesting to us, since it is meant for 1-4 characters, and Smudge and I are going through it together, whereas the rest needs four or eight. The general idea with the Variable Dungeons is that it branches at certain points, and each branch has an ending associated with it; there’s 12 endings, and a lot more than 12 branches. Sadly, we had to give up and look up a guide for the last ending we needed. We generally got the first eleven on our own, which is better than I thought we’d do.

Beyond that, the mechanics of the place are interesting, as you always have two boss encounters, and the first one is always the same, even when on different branches, while the last one depends on the door you went through at the very start. However, the mechanics those bosses present you with depend entirely on the path you’ve taken. There’s common themes and the like, but there’s a lot of variations built into the main fight, and that is a very interesting idea.
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Nov03

1863 Civil War

by Rindis on November 3, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark and I decided to revisit The U.S. Civil War a bit ago, this time trying the 1863 scenario, and using the advanced naval rules. This time I took the Confederates, and was not reassured by what I saw on the board at the start of the year.

Most notably, Grant is already sitting across the river from Vicksburg. But Bragg is facing a slightly superior army in east Tennessee, and Lee is facing a superior Army of the Potomac in Virginia. Many of the coastal forts have already fallen, and the Mississippi is only held between the forts in Vicksburg and Port Hudson. And things can only get worse.

All game, rounds tended to be a bit on the short side (lots of 2 and 3 action point rounds), and Winter 1863 set the tone. I used a card early to build a fort in Petersburg, and secure it against the Federals in Norfolk. Longstreet moved to clear out North Carolina, eliminating the garrison in Plymouth. Mark transported Sigel with a small force to New Bern, which with its existing garrison was more than Longstreet’s small army was going to handle. When Longstreet pulled in the garrison of Goldsboro to help, another 3 SP arrived in New Bern to keep Union local superiority. On to Richmond in the final round (i.e., 4 APs) produced an offensive in the Shenandoah to take Strasburg. This prompted Jackson to detach from the Army of N. Virginia and march into the valley, while I used another card to fortify Goldsboro, NC.

Out west, Taylor crossed the Mississippi twice, picking up Gardner’s force and heading off Bank’s advance into western Louisiana, defeating him and chasing the demoralized army past Thibodaux. It was found that Grant had supply next to the Mississippi, but any further south, or away from the river, supply would rapidly run out, so he headed north to shore up the depot network, and then came back to Vicksburg. Porter ran the guns at Vicksburg to support a landing just south of the city, which Pemberton intercepted to put McPherson in the displaced box. A second attempt landed further south, which Pemberton failed to react to, but then activated to put McClernand into the displaced box before returning to Vicksburg.


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Oct26

Return of the Reptiles

by Rindis on October 26, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had another day of FtF fun back on Sunday. Mark and Jason made it over for a four-player (with me and Dave) game of Dominant Species. It’s been a group favorite since it was introduced, so it’s a bit surprising that it took us until now to get it back on the table after the hiatus. But, we’ve been distracted by a couple of new good games, so that’s fine. (I guessed it had been three years since we last played, turns out be closer to two-and-a-half.)

Random draws picked the top of the food chain, Mammals, Reptiles, Birds, and Amphibians. Jason got off to a good start before giving up first to Mark who consistently scored well all day. Dave struggled, despite generally scoring more often through Dominance actions. I spent the first couple turns trying to position myself for the rest of the game. It partially worked, though I was hampered by choosing late on the second turn for speciation, and picking an element that was gone by the time it came up. I hadn’t done it at all on the first turn, so despite being decent with adaptation and being able to dominate in a lot of places, I only had one piece on the board.

Thankfully, that’s not a great hindrance, and I recovered, and then started using the Bird’s movement advantage to get into good real estate late in the game. But, my score remained locked in the cellar. Mark had started with the Survival card before it passed to Jason later. Neither one got much out of it, only existing on one or two tundra tiles. I took it over for the final two turns and started getting a lot more for it. Dave benefited from all three action-granting cards, but the rest of us got one each.

My positioning paid off at the end as I got up to eight dominances on the board, beating everyone else, especially Mark, as well as the survival card. However, one of the remaining cards during scoring would give Dave and Jason new elements and could easily upset my delicate dominance set… and then I realized I could just take Ice Age myself so that the dominance scoring would happen before that.

However, I was still short of species, so I couldn’t really do much in the final tile scoring, since I had not managed to get the full 45 species out. And Mark did well on that, reestablishing a lead that had narrowed quite a bit with Jason and Dave right before the end of game scoring.

Mark finished up the winner at 185 points (that’s probably a new high score for us) as the Reptiles (black), then Dave at 164 as the Mammals (white), I got to 148 as the Birds (yellow), and Jason barely ended up last with 144 as the Amphibians (blue).

Sadly, it took long enough that there wasn’t quite enough time for anything else, which wasn’t a surprise to me. It was a nearly full game for us to start, and only started turning into more of a half-day game as we got practiced, and we’re well of out practice now.

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Oct18

35 Garibaldi Legion

by Rindis on October 18, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Near the beginning of August, Mark and I returned to Great War Commander, with another scenario from the recent Battle Pack. This one needed a bit of fudging in Vassal, as French Legion platoons don’t exist there yet; however, they’re identical to the Chasseurs platoons except for having one better morale while broken.

It is December 1914, and the scenario uses a no-man’s-land map (#9)… except that everything is destroyed woods instead of shellholes (representing the Argonne Forest). This leads to some interesting line-of-sight questions. Destroyed woods blocks LOS on the second hex, and there are slopes on the board. Generally, in this system, there’s  only ever one blind hex. We worked out that looking down into a broken woods hex would work as normal, and then the next hex in line (also broken woods), being affected by ‘blind’ hex would be the second broken woods hex, which would then create an actual blind hex behind it, and this would continue until the chain of broken woods hexes was interrupted by something (like the stream flowing near the bottom of the map).

The Germans set up along the top edge which is a level 2 ridgeline with a road in front of it, with ten platoons and two MGs and foxholes, while the French are at the bottom with 11 platoons and better leadership. The objective hexes are all in the middle, and the ‘open’ one was L, giving 4VP for objective 4, right below the German ridgeline. Mark had the Germans, and set the MGs up on the ridge, with one on a forward promontory with a platoon and Lt Hertzler to back it up.

I tried starting off with an Artillery Request, but it went off-board. An Offensive let me get everyone moving, but the stream in front of me breaks up the cover, and let that forward MG do a lot of damage, breaking seven platoons and two leaders, and suppressing the unbroken one. With some idea this would happen, I Recovered, which rallied four platoons, leaving two others suppressed (and broken), and suppressing Lt Antoine (after an initiative re-roll).

Mark called in an Artillery Request, which thankfully shifted to just hit one platoon, who was fine. He then forced me to Rout, forcing Lt Antoine, Lt Lebas, and a platoon off-map and onto the casualty track, as well as causing a time trigger. I Recovered the remaining broken platoons, and Advanced into the river on the left, where my only remaining leader was. Mark Denied my artillery, and Moved forward to take all five objectives. This took him off the convenient ridgeline in the back, but he had a small presence at the level 1 slope. At that range, I started Firing on the forward position, with little result.

I Moved mine off board while the intact group pressed onto level 1 to threaten Objective 1. Mark couldn’t do anything about it, but I couldn’t get a card to let me kill to the platoon garrisoning the Objective either, though I did break it. Mark Moved to intercept, and I broke nearly everyone who came in range, but I kept Moving up the board, and exited five platoons and my remaining leader shortly after another time trigger. Worse for Mark, one of his MGs malfunctioned, and was eliminated. This brought VPs down to 3 for the Germans (I think there was a mistake in there, later corrected). And right about this moment, I got two Ligne platoons and Lt Grenier as Reinforcements, these were brought in on the edge of my shattered formation so Grenier could start asserting some control over them.


Remember, shellholes are destroyed woods.

Mark Requested Artillery… which landed a bit short on his own line (I was holding the Under Shoot strategy card to enforce that if it hadn’t happened on its own), breaking two of his own platoons, and turning I6 into actual shellholes. I Moved Grenier forward, with OpFire causing another time trigger, and my exited troops returned, to the left of the stranded ones from early on. Two platoons broke in the stream, but immediately Recovered.

Before much else could happen, an Air Assault caused another time trigger, taking us to the 4 space on the track. Between the re-entry of my troops, and the reinforcements, things were turning around, but time was slipping away. I managed to make a couple German units leave position on a Rout, and then Moved getting across the river with two platoons and Grenier broken to OpFire. Mark Recovered, getting… some of his troops back in order, but failed on two platoons and Waldau. I Recovered my broken troops, but had to give up the initiative again to do it, and Advance got my right onto the level 1 slope. Shortly after, I Moved up to take control of Objective 2, and headed for #4 (accidentally leaving one platoon behind as it was off the bottom of my screen).

Mark Moved to reinforce the area, with my OpFire doing nothing… except setting off my Sniper to break his MG team. I then Advanced onto the forward platoons (J4 & I3) and eliminated the German platoons in both. I also Moved the left flank into the river. Fire then managed to break the German platoon guarding that area, and had another time trigger, taking us to space 6, and passing the first Sudden Death check (at 7 German VPs before the +1/turn).

The close-quarters struggle near #4 continued, with me using multiple Counter Attacks to suppress his troops as he fired (he later cleared that with Recover, and I started the process all over again…). Another time trigger took us to 7, and the game continued. The left Advanced out of the stream, and then into control of Objective 1. I’d been looking to get into Objective 4 and take it in melee, but I had to burn important cards in defense, and then lost the platoon with Grenier, though he was only suppressed.

I got the left back towards the back area again, where Mark had positioned a platoon to OpFire, which ended up Recalling Grenier, and Scrounging his lost MG (this led to an interesting question, if a platoon is already activated, and receives a MG through this event, can he use it; i.e., is it active? Our answer was ‘no’.), and KIA killed a German platoon, while I got two platoons to exit. Offensive got the other three platoons and Fleury to exit. A couple turns after that, I ran out of cards for a time trigger, ending the game with 3 French VPs thanks to those exits.

Afterword

About mid-way through the game, Mark and I found we’d been playing wrong all this time. Someone came by and pointed out that terrain acts as a modifier to most any morale roll, when we had thought it was just a defense bonus. The rules for cover talk about this, but the Recover order rule doesn’t mention it, and when playing Recover, that’s where we looked….

We finished the game as we had started, without cover helping against anything but taking fire, but we will use the correct rule next time. Both of us are concerned about how easy that makes a lot of morale rolls, notably recovery. Since most broken morale is 8 or 9 to begin with, that makes Recover a nearly automatic pass, especially for a defender.

In fact, it would have prevented my early-game disaster, which while it had me down for a bit, was interesting to recover from as I got things together. I think we saw the Reinforcements event in one of our first games, but nothing more until this time, when Mark got it early, but couldn’t take what he got, and then I got mine.

Including all the objective chits, Objective 4 was worth 7 VPs, which is why the fight in the center got so desperate, with neither of us getting enough advantage to clear the other out. Objective 5 was worth 4 VPs, so along with the early casualties, I was fighting an 11-point deficit in control. My ability to exit so many troops really saved me.

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Oct10

AP112 First Ally

by Rindis on October 10, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After demonstrating a Fighting Withdrawal, Mark and I turned AP112 “First Ally” from Action Pack 12 as our next ASL game. Set early in the invasion of Poland it features the rare match up of Allied Minors (Poles) versus Axis Minors (Slovaks). Published in Action Pack 12, it features vertical board 5a, along with half of boards 10 and 50. Though, really, board 10 isn’t here at all, as it’s almost entirely covered by overlay 6. Hi12 adds an extra small hill to board 5a, and X18 adds an extra cluster of buildings to the corner of board 50.

I had the defending Slovak forces, who set up in building hexes, which can let them scattered over a fair amount of terrain, and need to hold at least one multi-hex building at the end of seven turns. They get nine squads, two leaders, a MMG and two LMG. I spent quite a while pondering a defense, as the Poles also have an extensive setup area, and I had no idea what direction they’d come from. I eventually settled on the buildings near the border of boards 50 and 10 as my likely ‘final stand’ area, with both leaders, and three-and-a-half squads scattered about the ‘board 10’ hill, including the MMG, which would be used to slow down attacks into there.

The Poles are counterattacking to keep from being cut off by the Slovak advance, and have thirteen squads, three leaders, two MMG, and a radio for 70mm OBA (part of the point was to get Mark some OBA experience). They get to set up on the hills of boards 5a and 50, giving them a fair number of approaches to this scenario. Mark put five squads and a 8-0 on the south end of board 50, to sweep onto board 10 from that end, and the rest were on board 50, concentrated at the eastern end.

The initial advance was on the 10U9 building, and I had no luck against that (or anything else) at first, with the Poles walking through my fire, and tying up the squad while the leader stack maneuvered around the edge of the hill. However, my HS in T5 got a PTC to pin the 8-1 and one of two squads. After that, another squad broke in U10 to the residual, and another broke as it tried to cross open ground nearby. At the other end of the hill, my first shot at his main stack approaching the hill did nothing, but SFF pinned his leader and a squad, and broke another one.

Advancing fire pinned a couple units, including the HS in 50I8, who then self-broke to get out of the area. I also self-broke 10U9 to avoid the 4:3 CC coming up, but didn’t have any great route paths out of the area.


Situation, Polish turn 1. Note that the lower-right is all overlay 6 on top of board 10.
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Sep24

Two Rounds of Scirthaea

by Rindis on September 24, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After finishing up Bertoldo the Brave, Patch and I went to our between-games round of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Up this time was the Battle of Scirthaea from Expansion #2. The Romans have a compact force with a lot of Mediums, while the slave revolt has a more strung-out line with a lot of Warrior units.

I had Salvius’ slave army first, and had a decent hand despite being down two cards (4 to 6). I Out Flanked to send the MC into flank of the Roman army, trading one block each with a Light. Patch used Line Command to move up, driving off the MC and doing another hit to the weak one. I used my own Line Command to get closer and come into contact on my left, driving off a Light. Patch Counter Attacked to destroy an Aux, while taking to blocks on one of his. Order Mediums let me destroy a Medium, and do two blocks to a Light, but two of my Warriors took hits and retreated.

With both of our lines now fractured, Patch played Order Mediums to pick on the center, picking off a Warrior, forcing another to retreat to the baseline after taking two hits, and destroying a Medium, killing Salvius. However, he lost two blocks each on three mediums and lost one of his leaders. I Ordered Three Center, bringing up the retreated Warrior to destroy two weakened Mediums, and then trading one hit each on our intact Mediums. Patch Ordered Two Center to do one block to a Medium, and I Ordered Three Right, destroying an Aux while taking one block, and forcing a one-block Light back to the baseline. Inspired Center Leadership got about half of Patch’s army moving, and finished off a Warrior and Medium. 5-6

Patch started the second game with Order One (Heavies, and there aren’t any in this scenario) to trade two hits to a Light to one on his MC. I Ordered Three Left to get at his MC but merely lost my MC for my trouble. Patch advanced with Order Four Left, and I Coordinated Attack to take a hit on an Aux after again failing to affect his MC. He advanced some more with Order Two Left, and I issued a Line Command to force an Aux to retreat and finally knocked out his MC.

Patch Counter Attacked, coming into contact on both flanks, forcing back an Aux while doing three hits to another, but took two hits on each of a Warrior and Aux. I Counter Attacked in turn, finishing off the Aux, forcing the Warrior to retreat after another hit, but taking a hit on a Medium in turn, while on the other flank, I reduced an Aux to one block, killing Athenion, taking two blocks on a Medium in turn. Leadership Any Section let Patch get his center into action, finishing off a weak Aux, and doing a block each to four Mediums, but taking two blocks each on three units in turn. Losing the Aux broke my line, but Line Command still covered the majority of my units, closing the gap and finishing off two weak units. 6-2

Afterword

With only four cards, the performance of the slave army is going to depend a lot on what they draw. They’re also a bit more fragile with the reliance on Warriors, which can quickly see them at a dice disadvantage. However, the two-hex move into combat, and especially, momentum combat helps a lot here and helped me make the first game very close.

Both of these were surprisingly fast fights, with three leaders going down, two of them to two-die rolls when a unit merely took a loss. The biggest delay is that both armies set up fairly far back, so coming to grips would have been a lot slower without the multiple Line Commands.

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Sep16

UR1 Y77 Planets of Tripoli Region 8

by Rindis on September 16, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

In mid-July, Mark and I returned to our SFB campaign, dealing with one of the small open-space fights we had generated.

But first, we took care of other business. Mark was not really wanting to fight out the last base battle, but didn’t want to let it go without a fight, either. So, we skipped it. We assumed there would be a fight, and it would go much like the last two had: I win, destroying the base, Mark lost all the armor on his large ship (WCC), and I would take a dozen internals on one random ship selected from the two CLs and two FFs present (this would either cause unreparable damage to a frigate, or knock out the armor on a light cruiser).

The roll selected WAL USS Ferocity (SF-84), which took six armor hits, and then would have no trouble repairing the other six. So, another ship that’s perfectly serviceable next round, but less protected, which will be a continuing theme in the campaign.

After that, I also conceded Region 6, putting my two ships into Reserve next time, rather than risk them being crippled and destroyed against a superior Carnivon force. (A light cruiser, given previous experience, may not be that big a deal. But then, neither are my frigates.)

After that, it was time to set up, starting with the terrain rules for the campaign. All bases are automatically far from any kind of terrain, so this is the first time it’s come up. The general idea is like the advanced ‘local conditions’ rule in (S5.4), but without monsters, pirates, and the like, and an initial 2d6 roll with empty space (no terrain) being a 6-8. Both players choose what terrain they’d like to see, with the defender having a better chance of actually getting it. Mark declared for asteroids, I declared for a gas giant, and then the roll went to the actual asteroid field entry. (Getting it on your choice—instead of the normal entry—can give you a greater say in setting it up, though that doesn’t happen with asteroids.) A secondary roll made it a ‘heavy’ field with more asteroid markers than normal.

Set up areas on the large campaign maps are also random (when not at a base), and while I set up fairly forward in one of my central zones, Mark set up close to one edge of one of his rear zones. This put us about 50 hexes away from each other. Longish closing distance for normal ships on a clear map. A bit more of a challenge with asteroids and these more primitive ships.

Weapon status came up as I for both of us, so we had the added challenge of charging everything up too. I wasn’t going to skip the initial volley of photons, but most of these ships can only do speed 0 if you try charging all the phasers while loading photons. I settled for partial charges and going speed 6 (which takes no damage from asteroids), while the Carnivon ships went 8. I sideslipped to go around the cluster directly ahead of me anyway (I’d just be stuck inside it during a turn break anyway, forcing decisions during EA that I didn’t want forced.)

The Carnivons boosted to speed 10 on turn 2, and near the end turned down to avoid a cluster and a direct path to me. Turn 3 saw Mark stay at the same speed, while I went to speeds 8 (WAC) and 9 and some EW as most of the phasers were charged and the photons were all being held. I turned to thread my way nearer, and midway through the turn Carnivon WDD Vainglory (277) turned away, separating from WCA Wolfclaw (106).

On turn 4, Wolfclaw boosted to speed 13, and Vainglory to 16, while I scattered from speeds 12 to 9. On Impulse 3, WAD USS Demolisher (SF-71) and WVL USS Stalwart (SF-65) had fairly clear shots at Wolfclaw (two asteroid hexes, negated by ECCM), but three phasers at range 22-23 only did 2 damage, which did not register on shields.

Turn 5 saw Wolfclaw go down to speed 10, while Vainglory went 17 (with minimal shields and fire control off), and I tightened up my speeds to 12 and 11. Vainglory had continued turning, and now was headed up, far away from the larger ship, while my slower speeds meant my main advantage was the center position I had taken, but now I was slightly faster than Wolfclaw (if 20 hexes away, with lots of asteroids in between). Vainglory started a turn towards the middle of the map, and right afterwards, I turned in that direction too. Mark assumed I was switching to paying more attention to Vainglory, but it was actually just meant to clear the double-mass of asteroids between me and Wolfclaw. Better yet for me, Wolfclaw then turned to parallel me, instead of turning the other way and ducking behind the asteroids I was maneuvering around.

Turn 6 had Vainglory turn everything back on while going 15, and Wolfclaw got back to speed 12, while I continued at 11 and 12. Wolfclaw turned back down, towards the corner instead of heading towards Vainglory. I finally split up during this turn, with Stalwart going one way around an asteroid cluster, while the other two turned to go on the other side of it. As I did so, Wolfclaw launched two death bolts.


Turns 1-6, showing the full map. Normally, asteroids are in every hex within two hexes of an asteroid counter, here we show them directly.

On turn 7, Wolfbite slowed down to speed 8, while putting up 4 ECM, while Vainglory kept at speed 15. I increased speeds slightly to 12 and 13. The death bolts were forced to move into an asteroid hex on impulse 4, but took no damage. On impulse 8, they were able to slip clear of them, confirming they were targeted on WAC USS Norica (SF-73). Norica kept its distance while the other two moved to chase Wolfbite, which now turned around in the narrow confines between asteroids. On impulse 28, it ended up in the corner cluster, taking 6 damage, none of which registered on the shield (I don’t know if that was all a brick on the #1, or if he blew his four batteries to make up any difference). On 32, Stalwart fired the bearing ph-1 at range 8, but missed Wolfbite.

Wolfbite accelerated to speed 14 on turn 8, while everyone else stayed the same. On impulse 4, the death bolts got to range 1 of Norica, which started downfiring ph-3s at them, finishing the second one off the following impulse. On impulse 10, Wolfbite reached the edge of the map, and launched another pair of death bolts on 11, presumably targeted on Stalwart, along with the bearing ph-2s to do one box to the #1 at range 5. I was waiting for her to turn, and the range to get a bit lower, but instead Wolfbite disengaged, eliminating tracking on the death bolts.


Start of Turn 8, showing movement from 7-24 through 8-11.

Afterword

With a WDD alone, it was obvious I’d force it into a corner and disengage, or it’d get destroyed, and probably do nothing in return.

So, we exchanged a few shots, a few shield boxes were hurt, and nothing else. In a campaign, this is going to be a more common result. Full-on committing to an engagement can lose ships fast, and you’re going to want them later. I would have loved to kill a heavy cruiser, which of course was why Wolfbite was my primary target. I think Mark’s idea on splitting up was to try and get on my rear with one while the other held my attention. Or to get me to split up. I refused to that, and Mark’s split would have worked a lot better if his ships had stayed in supporting range of each other. Instead, the range between them grew too great, and Vainglory couldn’t get close to the action when I finally cornered Wolfbite.

With this little action, there’s no “MVP” for the fight, though the WVL is a nice ship. With 12 warp on move cost 2/3, it is capable of speed 18, which puts in between W- and Y-ships, and with the usual 4 impulse on a Vulcan ship, it is close in power to a 2/3 MC YCL (which would typically have 18 total to the WVL’s 16). It had at least some EW up the entire time

There is now one fight left for the first year of the campaign, and it is something of a repeat of this one in that I have three ships to Mark’s two. Just put in CLs for CAs, DDs for CLs, and FFs for DDs. This was also my fifth win, so it is now certain that I’ll get to defense line 2.

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Sep08

HF2 Bertoldo the Brave

by Rindis on September 8, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing some French Toast and Bacon, Patch and I returned to Hatten, with the second scenario, in March. I continued with the Germans, who are attacking in about the same area this time.

Pre-game rubble took out Eglise Saint-Michel, eliminating a potential early lookout position. The Americans set up behind a road in the area the first scenario covers with eleven squads, MGs, a couple BAZ, one each 60mm and 81mm MTRs, three tank destroyers, a 57mm ATG, and some foxholes to spread around. There was a decent looking line up front, with the TDs further back along with the MTRs, and second line already in place with them, and a bit in front of the victory area.

The Germans get sixteen squads, good leadership, a PSK, a couple DCs, five halftracks (three standard 251s, and two 251/21s with 20mm guns mounted), and two Panthers. They set up on the other side of the road, but can also enter along the east edge (which I did with two loaded 251/1s). They have six and a half turns to go about twelve to eighteen hexes and take nine out of eleven victory hexes. (An extra wrinkle is that shifts one hex against a side that no longer has mobile tanks/TDs with functioning MA left.) I concentrated on the north edge with less cover, and a lot less green in front of me. A middle group was tasked with clearing out the central area with a cautious advance, while another three and a half squads held down the south, waiting to advance when he had to pull out from events elsewhere.

Much of the center OpFired, and I took a MMG shot at E7, sadly getting no result. The first two probing HS drew no fire, but the third one took a 1KIA from N8 (not where I expected…). A squad moved up, survived fire from D17 (barely in long range, but clear thanks to the road), and entered E7 to eliminate a dummy. As I moved into the central area, I took fire from I10 and H7 and C9 finally revealed themselves. Only the latter managed to break anyone, which was a help. At the end of the phase, I tried dashing across in the south again, and he revealed J7 (instead of adjacent J6…), and got a K/2 to break and ELR what was left.

Final fire then broke the initial HS in B8, and malfed an AAMG. My only advancing fire result was malfing the CMG on a Panther, despite two good rolls on C9. Patch did self-break the HS in H7 to get away from a 548.


Situation, German turn 1, showing the full board. This is the entire north edge (towards the left). Victory hexes are marked in red.
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