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Oct24

FB17 Stalingrad Redux

by Rindis on October 24, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After our adventure in the desert, it was time for Patch and I to return to Budapest one last time. (Well, final return to Buda; I hope to talk him into “End Station Budapest”, which takes place in the other half of the city at some point.) It’s taken far too long, but we’ve finally reached the end of this journey.

The last scenario takes place along the southern edge of the map, with the rail line from the rail station in the last two scenarios right at the edge of the map, and the Bloody Meadow just to the north. The Russians are headed for the Krisztina Kürút, and win if there’s less than one unbroken squad-equivalent within three hexes of the Krisztinaváros Parish Church at the end of five and a half turns, with a 32 CVP cap. I eventually decided I wanted the attacking Russians, largely so I could use an OT-34 flamethrower tank.

The Germans get seven and a half squads (mostly a mix of three different kinds of SS squads, but there’s non-SS as well), some mines, three hexes of wire, a roadblock, a 75mm ATG, and a Panther. They’re all at Ammo Shortage 4, suffering from food shortage, and gas shortage. They get most of the available map to set up in, and Patch made the most of it, centered on the two biggest buildings in the victory area (which had a few hexes knocked down by pre-game rubble checks).

The Russians enter on turn 1 with twelve squads (two of which are assault engineers), plus another three squads of BVR (who don’t count for the CVP cap), with good leadership (the Germans only start with two leaders—this would be important), MGs, a DC, a FT, two T34-85s and the aforementioned OT-34.

Initial rubble blocked some paths in the south, and Patch stymied a lot of potential moves by putting the roadblock in DDD8/EEE9. Worse, most of the west entry area for the Soviets is blocked by rail cars, leaving a bridge over the rail line the main legal offboard vehicle setup hex there. I eventually settled on entering one T-34/85 there, and the other two tanks on the south, with one taking up position behind the roadblock, and the other going east through many twisty alleys, all alike. Hopefully not to be eaten by a panzerfaust.

Once again, both sides get to buy reinforcements for the first few turns from a short schedule of available units. I spent the entire first turn’s lot on OBA. It comes with a 7-0 leader, and that was handy, and if I was going to use it, I needed to get it moved into position as soon as possible. He was put in charge of a couple squads meant to be the ‘second wave’ of the main attack.

The BVR entered as far north as they could on the west side, in the face of a German “?” in AAA13. I finally started moving in with the main west force, and the HS there opened fire, with my squad surviving a PTC, and then pinning to 1MC in the next hex. This left the 9-1+MMG squad to armor assault to take up positions looking down the Márvany utca.

The south didn’t go nearly so well, as the limit of the Russian entry area is a street that I wanted to get east of, and Patch had (what turned out to be) a LMG sighted right along the length of it, over the roadblock. The first probing squad ate a 1KIA, and the rest of that platoon armor assaulted into a 2MC from resid to break my 8-0 and reduce a squad to a HS of broken conscripts; at least the elite squad passed.

…And then my sniper went off, killing his 9-1 in ZZ5h1, and the LLMC reduced the 468 SS squad to a broken 237 SS HS. This also took his MMG out of action.

Things got better during AFPh, when I managed to break the HS in AAA13, since the BVR would be asking for trouble taking them on in CC. Of course, Patch pointed out I couldn’t use the tank FT from behind the roadblock, as it’s a bow-mount (I had kind of been thinking that BBB7h2 being a level up from me would do it, but no; finding a way to use the FT was a bit of a challenge with this set up…).


Situation, Russian Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left.
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Oct16

19 Le Boys Haut

by Rindis on October 16, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

After finishing up The Lone Grey Wolf, Mark and I cycled to Great War Commander, picking up with the third Mons scenario from the British expansion. I had the attacking Germans again, as they try to take a hill, and the British are trying to extricate an artillery battery from it. The British have ten platoons of highlanders, four foxholes, and two 18-lbrs with crews, lined up on or behind a road running diagonally across the map (this takes a special rule, as the scenario format is too inflexible to do this normally). They can remove one 18-lbr each time time advances, getting VPs dependent on the current turn for doing so.

The Germans get fifteen platoons (in a mix of fusiliers and landwehr) and a machine gun, with another seven platoons plus a second MG coming in at time index 4. Both sides have pretty good leadership, and the British control four of the objectives at scenario start (with a little farm to one side uncontrolled). One 18-lbr was on top of the hill, while the other was on a lower plateau, with infantry backing both up, and a third group on the east edge, in a larger farm.

The open chit made every objective worth two points, and my secret one was 4 VPs for the main hill. I set up in three general groups with Waldau and the MG set to occupy a small orchard in the center of the map, while the other good leader had the challenge of crossing a stream to get at the larger farmhouse (at least there was a fence to provide some cover if I could get that far), and the smallest group was in front of the uncontrolled farmhouse, with the eventual job of getting on the plateau.

I lead off with a Move for that last group and took objective 2. Fire from the MG prompted the highlanders on a forward spit of the hill to Go To Ground, getting some shellholes as cover. Despite no result (barely), Mark then pulled the platoon back to the main hill. Some more Fire back and forth had no more result, and I ordered an Offensive to bring the center forward. This drew Opportunity Fire from the 18-lbr up top, and nearby platoons, with a final result of three time triggers, the 18-pdr malfunctioned and withdrawn on the first time trigger, three platoons broken, Waldau broken, one platoon dead (double break) and then brought back broken and next to the farmhouse by Walking Wounded, and a British hero created. Once I finally got to fire after my movement, I managed to suppress and break Lt Crawley in the farmhouse.


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Oct08

Knife Fight

by Rindis on October 8, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

A little bit ago, I got onto the Space Empires Discord server. The main person behind it (d_demon) is definitely a fan, and I have no idea just how many games he’s been involved in over Discord. Shortly after my arrival I was in a game with him that was strongly against type: He’d proposed the “Knife Fight” scenario.

I had to look that up; it’s a new scenario in the Close Encounters rulebook. Basically, take the standard 4×5 home area from a four-player game, and then the second player gets the same area directly adjacent to it. There is no deep space, and the area is insanely tiny. I prefer to develop out my economic engine before switching to a military, but it was obvious there’d be no time for that. In fact the scenario also says each player gets four SC and colony ships (instead of three each), and start with ship size 3 (CAs!) and Move 2 technologies. (Because of it saying ‘size 2 and 3’ split across a line, I didn’t realize we had access to CAs until shortly before seeing one….) We stuck with the base set rules through raiders and cloaking (those being new to me though I knew it was unlikely to get used).

The very start was the normal affair of finding out where everything is. I sent out civilians with the SCs on my first move, but then hung back, which was a good thing, as it turned out my home area black hole was two hexes from my homeworld, and I lost a SC to it on the second move. Demon sent his SCs out alone, but his black hole was adjacent to his homeworld and he lost a SC to it (and with only three hexes for four SCs, it was the hex he sent two SCs to, but the other survived). Fun fact, our homeworlds were on the same hexrow… and so were the black holes. By the time of the first economic turn, Demon had found three planets and colonized all three, while I had only found two, and gotten a colony ship to only one. Not a good start for a tiny game….

I built a new SC and colony ship (the planets were certainly out there… somewhere) and a pair of pipelines to connect the first colony. By the second economic turn, most of space was explored, though Demon had been a bit less efficient on his end (and he hadn’t built a new SC). This time I built another colony ship, a DD and two more pipelines, and had settled three more worlds. Demon had settled two more (putting us even in number of colonies), and built a pair of CAs.

Since exploration of my half was winding up, I actually started exploring the last bits of Demon’s half of the board while pressing my SCs towards his colonies and encouraging him to think reactively. In turn three, I used the beginning move 2 tech to get two of my SCs onto one of his groups next to his brand new colony. That of course was one of his SCs, and all three shots missed in the first round, so Demon retreated out of the 2:1 battle. …And immediately came back with a new group that turned out to be 2xCAs. Amazingly, bad rolls continued, so that at the end of round 2, I still had one SC to retreat out.


First contact. That’s the full board. I’m yellow, Demon is green.

Demon, as it turns out, took the opportunity to build infrastructure, building pipelines and shipyards. I built a pair of CAs of my own, and a forward shipyard (that I hoped looked more like a base for the moment…).

So far the action had been along the bottom of the map, and I had my main force (2xSC, 1xDD…) at the top, and Demon fell back in front of my three groups to his 2xCA. Worse, he had another group up there to menace my most recent colony. I headed down to protect the forward shipyard, his CAs went up… and on turn 3, the double-move let my main force attack the collection of groups that his CAs left behind. We had four groups each (my ships from before, plus a third SC), while he had a known SC, plus what turned out to be two more SCs and a decoy (I’d had suspicions, since he’d put out more groups than seemed possible to afford). Poor rolls continued for us both, so that there was only one hit (killing one of his SC) in the first round, and that was his only loss when he retreated on the second round.

The SCs moved back to his latest colony, the group along the north moved back (likely decoy…), and the CAs hit my colony up there, but missed on the bombardment. During the fourth econ he produced a base at his forward colony, 2xDD, and some more pipelines (and some tech?). I produced another pair of CAs, a base at my remaining top-side colony, and a pipeline to finish connecting all my lower-side colonies. Demon also bid on turn order so he could go first. His new ships moved forward… and his bombardment of my colony failed again. I went into his nearby colony, and found that he had indeed built a base there (it seemed likely, but I needed to know). The base killed my DD, and one of my SCs killed one of his, and everything else missed (including the base’s second round shot), so I retreated out.

In the third turn, Demon finally finished off my colony (holding him up for an entire economic cycle was a big win for me), and pursued my retreating fleet. Both of us had new groups present, and mine was my first pair of CAs, while his turned out to be two DDs. (He had obviously hoped for something lesser….) Bad rolls meant one hit per side in the first round, killing one of his DDs and one of my SCs. The second round finally saw good rolls, with the CAs getting the remaining DD, and my SCs getting his SC before it could retreat. The third round double-move got me to the next colony in line, and I traded a SC for a SY, miner, and pipeline, and wiped out the colony with three out of three hits.

With my navy victorious at the bottom, and my second pair of CAs and a base waiting for his CAs ans suspected decoy at the top, I figured he couldn’t get at anything important in a turn, and merely built a second base (at the forward shipyard), two decoys and a pipeline, while purchasing Attack 1. Demon seems to have produced three CAs… and three decoys.

My fleet pressed forward and was intercepted by the new CAs in E2, while the older ones got my two group force that was a decoy and my second pair of CAs in C8. In former battle, I lost my last SC, and retreated to D3 (technically closer to my homeworld…). The other battle went three rounds with all misses for the first two, and then I got lucky to kill a CA with a pair of hits, and Demon (wisely) retreated out.

I chased after the remaining CA, and my other force hit the colony I’d retreated next to, which thankfully had a pair of shipyards instead of a base. I took one hit before knocking out the shipyards and reducing the colony to a 3. My second set of CAs got lucky again (two 1s!) to knock out his CA before it could retreat.

Demon chased down my first CAs, we did a hit each… and then he realized I could retreat out and hit a colony ship that had just moved to settle Kronos/E4. He conceded at that point.

Afterword

For me, the critical point was when Demon pursued my fleet into the 2xCAs coming up behind, hoping the new group wasn’t anything too tough. Not a wise thought simply because I didn’t have much else out there, and nothing more than a single DD had shown up yet. The money had to be going somewhere…

I also knew at the start I was in trouble, as I think more in terms of long games, and I was most of a turn behind on getting the initial colonies set up. The initial battles were bad for both of us with almost all rolls being 8+. I had done some decent maneuvering to pick off ships, and it failed because of the bad dice. However, his two CAs being held up for several turns trying to bombard my colony and failing more than made up for it, as it gave me time. Then, hot dice allowed my two CAs to kill his two without taking damage. The rest fell apart from there; I was expecting it to go longer, and was looking forward to seeing how the +1/0 CAs would do. (With the dice in this game… maybe not so well.)

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Sep30

183 The Pouppeville Exit

by Rindis on September 30, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing up “Stand Fast”, a look for shorter ASL scenarios led me to 183 “The Pouppeville Exit” from the current version of Yanks. It has quite a publishing history, originally presented in the General as ‘quick-play’ SL/COI scenario F, then becoming tournament scenario T5 for ASL about a decade later in the General, reprinted in ASL Classic, and now appearing in Yanks. It would fit in with the Paratrooper scenarios, taking place on June 6th as part of the 101st Airborne secure the town of Pouppeville, which lies at the end of one of the exits to Utah beach.

As a comparatively early scenario, it features a very rare fixed defensive setup (the only other one I can think of offhand is “Buchholz Station”, where both sides have a fixed setup). The Germans have seven squads (mixed conscripts and second line), plus a kubelwagen with AAMG and two 37mm AA guns. The Americans have six 747 squads, a MMG, BAZ, and DC, and need to take two (out of three) of the multi-hex stone buildings on board 3, and knock out the AA Guns (which can’t be moved, and merely breaking crew counts). Play ends at the end of any Player Turn where this is true, and the Americans have eight turns to work with.

All the action in on board 3, but but board 5 is also part of the scenario, and the Americans can either set up on the road leading to town on board three, or on the road on the other side of the gully on board 5. Mark took the board 3 option and headed for the hill overlooking the village.

This meant there was no contact, and I was free to move about to establish a defense on my first turn. It also meant that everyone gained concealment, as there was no LOS.


Situation, American Turn 1, showing the full board, and the American start areas. Also, my turn 1 moves are shown in paler arrows. Note that the east hills are swamps, and the building that would normally be in I10 is removed.
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Sep22

1862 Civil War

by Rindis on September 22, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

A little bit back, Mark and I finally got GMT’s U.S. Civil War to the top of the ‘to try’ list. There’s single-year scenarios, and the rules recommend the 1862 scenario as a better beginner one than 1861, so we went with that. I’ve been impressed by what little I’ve seen since it came out, and reading the rules, and playing the game did not disappoint. Mark didn’t have any preference, so I took the Union, since I had some idea of what I should be doing strategically.

Interesting overall features include variable length turns, and a small deck of cards that are used for occasional extra actions. There’s four action rounds, with an initiative roll at the start of each round, and the difference between the Union and Confederate rolls is the number of actions each side gets, with the exception that a difference of 1 is instead one action each in the three theaters (east, west, trans-Mississippi). And on a tie, you both draw an extra of those cards I mentioned, and roll again. And that’s how the game started, with a tie for us to each get a third card.

We had two rounds (1st and 3rd) where the rolls were off by one, which guaranteed that activity remained spread out. In the Trans-Mississippi, Price moved into southern Missouri, and in two tied battles destroyed Curtis’ army and took Springfield. (This was aided by not seeing that rallying to remove demoralization and moving have to be in two separate rounds).  These caused us to take a real dive into the supply rules, and eventually figuring out just how things are supposed to work, since there’s no way to have Full Supply out there, but the answer is Limited Supply is fairly easy, and the network of objective and resource hexes in the various “backwoods” areas maintains that. (The supply system overall is good, but takes a bit of reading to figure out, and river control is decidedly complicated.) Hallek starts in St Louis, so he took the troops there, gathered the garrison in Ironton, and started moving to intercept.

In the West (Mark had some trouble with that theater label, since he’s not as read up on the ACW as I am), I really wanted to send Grant after the Confederate fort in Columbus, but didn’t have a West card for the combat bonus, and the odds looked bad without that. So, the main action was Buell moving down to Bowling Green and defeating A.S. Johnston’s army with a 1* result (there’s a couple of “this result is better than others with the same number”, which works out well as its all strength point losses), who then fell back on Clarkesville, and then drew troops out of Fts. Henry and Donelson, and I moved Grant south of Columbus to cut off its supply (which caused several different looks at river control, and I don’t remember the logic chain one way or another right now).

In the east, things were more mixed, as Joe Johnston moved into the Shenandoah Valley to attack Banks in Harper’s Ferry, but even with a force twice as large, the fortifications caused another tied battle, though this hurt the Union force more. McClellan moved forward (spending an action point and a card, since I didn’t realize that just an appropriate action card is needed to get a cautious general to move), to take control of Manassas Junction, and attacked Longstreet at Culpepper, forcing him across the Rappahanock before entrenching in his forward position. I then spent another East card to rail reinforcements from Washington to Harper’s Ferry. Johnston then marched up the length of the valley to leave a garrison in Staunton, and cross the mountains into ‘eastern’ Virginia.

At the start of each turn both sides get reinforcing strength points. The Union’s are on a constant schedule scattered about the north, but the Confederates depend on holding resource hexes, and getting extra supplies through blockade running, which is a set of die rolls modified by how many ports (or forts blocking access to them) are still held by them. Even if they do hold everything, the extra points gained that way dry up as the war goes on. And they get further bonuses for holding important parts of the border states, all of which, at this early point in the war gave him 11 SPs, close to the Union 12 SP total reinforcement.

Confederate SPs also have to be scattered about (for instance, no more than two in a state), but this is followed by strategic movement, which lets you get things roughly where you need them. I don’t think either of us ever maxed out rail movement, though river and ‘road’ movement have serious constraints. Of course, we were generally just concentrating forces, and not trying to shift concentrations from one area to another. The Union also gets a free fortress construction every turn, and I placed the Spring 1862 one in Harper’s Ferry. Leaders also change a bit every turn, with some going away, getting promoted or demoted, and new ones arriving. The big news in turn five is of course the replacement of Joe Johnston with Lee, which makes Virginia noticeably trickier for the Union.

Worse, the initial initiative differential was a 5. Both 4 and 5 are “On to Richmond” results for the Union, where they have to do something offensive in Virginia, Maryland, or Pennsylvania. So Sigel marched up the Valley to Strasburg and attacked Jackson, where both sides got good rolls for a tied battle. Then I sent a small force up to McClellan, who crossed the Rappahannock and attacked Longstreet before Lee could move north, and took Fredericksburg. Then I set out on a long-considered expedition (all of the previous turn…), with Freemont moving to cross the Alleghenies. Longstreet fell back, and Lee moved to join him in Richmond, while Stuart moved to garrison Staunton. Sigel made another attempt in the Valley, this time dispersing Jackson, and taking control of Winchester and Strasburg. The next round, he continued south to attack Stuart but was repulsed in a tied battle.

Out west, I sent an SP out from Cairo to cut that side of the Confederate supply lines, and did a naval invasion of Ft. St. Phillip, but I had mismanaged my leaders, and didn’t have one available for the force, and lost even after using a West card for the bonus. Polk left Columbus to enter Missouri from the south-east, while Hindman and Price moved to take Rolla, burning cards for forced marches on both. Hindman then took Ironton, and Polk doubled-back on my garrison in Buffington, capturing it, and headed to New Madrid. Grant advanced on him there (thankfully, that’s a ‘special’ hex where a major crossing point negates many of the problems with the Mississippi River), and defeated him. Van Dorn moved north to take Union City, and Grant re-crossed the Mississippi, and defeated him, while Thomas headed back across the Ohio on his way to Missouri. A.S. Johnston went west and attacked Grant with a force nearly twice as large, and defeated him.

Beyond the Mississippi, Curtis attacked Price in Jefferson City, and lost, then Hindman attacked Halleck and defeated him, taking Waynesville, and went north to attack Curtis, who avoided battle into Jefferson City. This ended the turn with two fairly stable Confederate supply networks into the state, and everything south of the Osage and away from the Mississippi was in Confederate hands.

For turn 6 (Summer, part 1), I put the new fort in Fredericksburg, and Mark was up to 12 SPs in reinforcements (mostly thanks to better blockade rolls). Outside of Virginia, I hadn’t gotten much of anywhere, and was afraid I’d lose at the end of the year without getting anywhere; the Confederates getting as many new men as I did not help the impression. Halleck gets removed on this turn, leaving Curtis in charge of Missouri. Grant gets promoted, and Sherman shows up (who I put in charge of a detachment I’d river moved to Paducah). Hooker also arrives, who was put in charge in the valley, while Banks took command of the defenses in Culpepper. Sigel was sent west to take charge of the recruits in St Louis, and help Curtis. A.S. Johnston dies and was replaced by Bragg (who’d been watching the Gulf coast). Forrest was put in charge of the garrison of Clarksville, and Taylor arrived in Springfield MO (the Confederates have an abundance of leaders in the trans-Mississippi…). Price was shifted to Polk’s command, and Polk was put in charge of the defenses of Mobile.

Mark got the first initiative, and Lee went north before the fort in Petersburg could be finished with our first (only?) army that could roll three dice, but McClellan held on in a tied battle. (There’s actually different combat charts for different size armies, with the bigger ones rolling 2- or 3d6, which means they also tend to be more predictable. Also, the number of leaders who can add modifiers is the same as the number of dice rolled; that’s a neat touch.) Hooker drove into Staunton, and then through the pass towards Charlottesville, with Stuart backing up before him. I transferred troops to the Peninsula, where Burnside had been patiently waiting, which caused Jackson to pull out of Norfolk to defend Richmond. Burnside then advanced to take out Magruder’s small force, and then circled around to take West Point (this… was a mistake; I should have either gone for Richmond [4SP +1 vs 2SP +4], or camped on it’s doorstep with the peninsula to retreat down…). Hooker finally caught up with Stuart and knocked out his force, took control of Charlottesville, and then pulled back to Staunton in case Lee headed west. Lee went after Burnside and defeated him, which forced a surrender of a 4SP force with nowhere to go.

Morgan… was true to form, and headed north into Kentucky, defeated the state militia, and took Henderson. Sherman joined Grant’s army, which then attacked the fort in Columbus, and finally got rid of that thorn in my side. With the big Confederate army still over there, Buell went south and took Nashville, which drew Bragg east to defend Clarksville. Grant headed into Tennessee, defeating Van Dorn at McKensie, and then chased him along the Tennessee River to another defeat, and then turned to take control of Jackson, TN, and Humbolt. Bragg then fought Buell at Nashville, and managed to defeat him (thanks to an action card).

In Missouri, Taylor headed north to Warsaw, while Curtis went south and drove Hindman back. Taylor went east and tried to take Jefferson City, but Curtis managed to intercept him to defeat and displace Taylor (lost the only SP he’d had). Thomas finally crossed into Missouri, and defeated Price, and eliminating that small army.

The Confederates got 12 SP reinforcements in turn 7 (Summer, part 2) as well, but other than losing Burnside’s army, I had made some real progress. Things were going from bad to worse in Missouri, but Tennessee was coming apart for Mark, and I placed the new fort in Humbolt to hold that central rail junction. Price returned to Missouri, Van Dorn took charge in Decatur, Magruder showed up in Weldon, and Burnside was put in charge of the Chesapeake holding box (a generic representation of off-map New England and the Union’s ability to ship troops by sea). Butler is removed on this turn and Banks replaced him on the peninsula (like Joe Johnston, he’ll be back… but not during this scenario). Fremont is replaced with Hunter, and Blunt shows up in St Louis. Annoyingly, Pope gets promoted, so he can no longer be a subordinate for Buell (which had been handy), and he was transferred to the fresh army gathering in Bowling Green (which was the thing to do anyway, but now he couldn’t attach to Buell for one big army to scare Bragg). Rosecrans transferred from Frankfort to hold down the fort (ha ha) in Fredricksburg, and Sumner transferred to Culpepper. The Confederates get Breckinridge, who joined Pemberton in Corinth, and Wheeler, who showed up in Memphis, and Taylor also transferred to there.

Pope marched down to take Clarkesville while Grant set off for Memphis and took it after forcing Taylor to retreat. Burnside made a second try on Ft. St. Phillip and took it. Bragg marched on Clarksville and defeated Pope, and then Van Dorn used rail movement to join Bragg. Buell then moved to take Nashville, and Bragg marched back there to retake it, while Taylor backed off all the way to Jackson, MS. Grant then headed east to Corinth while Pemberton avoided battle. Bragg went between the two demoralized armies to take Bowling Green again, before returning to cover Nashville, and left Bowling Green to Buell. Morgan moved out… at first to cut the Union rail into Kentucky, but Mark got ambitious and took on the garrison in Louisville, and high rolls took out both 1SP armies. Burnside marched up the road to New Orleans, and defeated the militia there, and a second naval move got the forces on Ship Island ashore in Pascagoula.

Hunter continued the West Virginia campaign, taking control of Covington, and heading for Lynchburg. With Lee still a bit east, Rosecrans took the bulk of the Army of the Potomac, and assaulted Jackson in Richmond, but lost on an average roll (he was going to need a good one with all the modifiers, and couldn’t have actually beat Jackson’s roll). Sumner then moved to take actual control of Aquia Station (something I’d been regretting not doing earlier, and moved reinforcements into Fredricksburg, and then Stoneman did the same (as well as give me a cavalry leader with his avoid/intercept bonus there). Lee moved back to Richmond, shuffled the command staff a bit, and chased Rosecrans to Fredericksburg (passing two avoid battle rolls to get there). Lee turned west, and Hooker entrenched in Staunton, so Lee ended up turning back to Richmond after leaving a garrison in Petersburg.

Hindman marched north again, taking Tuscumbia, Warsaw, and Kansas City, while Curtis chased Price out of Rolla and back to Waynesville. However, with the Missouri River completely under Union control, crossing it to get at St. Joseph, and points east started giving Mark trouble. Price slipped around Curtis and took Jefferson City; Curtis followed, but only tied a battle there, ending up the turn stuck on the rail outside.

I upgraded the fort in Fredericksburg to level two for turn 8 (Fall, the final turn for the scenario), and Mark was down to 11 SPs, mostly because of the resource hexes I’d taken over the summer. Morgan joined Pemberton outside of Corinth, and Forrest took command of the garrison in Columbia, MS. I railed a SP into St. Joseph, and used the naval transportation to boost Burside’s army in New Orleans. Of course, Burnside is promoted and replaces McClellan this turn, and Rosecrans is promoted to replace Buell, and Pope is removed, which gave me some sorting out to manage. McPherson took command in New Orleans, and Couch arrived in Fredericksburg, and Sigel transferred to take over Pope’s army, and Blunt moved to St. Joseph to lead the defense of northwest Missouri. For Mark, Holmes arrived to lead the garrison of Arkansas Post, and Pemberton was promoted, and then transferred to Baton Rouge. Van Dorn was removed as a ‘third wheel’ under Bragg to take over the troops occupying Ft. Morgan.

Mark spent two activations getting 2SPs across the Missouri. Curtis made a second attempt on Jefferson City, and this time scattered Price’s small force, leaving Hindman alone in Missouri, and Curtis went on to Tuscumbia, which he took control of, and then went on to Warsaw, cutting all Confederate supply to northern Missouri. Hindman continued on to take St. Joseph, and headed back to the Missouri, crossing it on the next action round (with help from an Any card to activate the second SP separately). Curtis went north to attack the foraging force in Kansas City, and sent it south in an even bigger hurry. Thomas finally got a chance to activate again, and went to Jacksonport.

Hunter did a forced march to get to Lynchburg, taking control of Salem on the way. Jackson took an army twice as big out of Richmond, but even with the use of a card for a bonus, a good roll from Hunter let him stand there on a tied battle. Jackson tried again, and Hunter avoided battle. Jackson left 2SP behind (equal to Hunter’s army at this point) and went north to take Charlottesville. Hooker came over the pass to attack Jackson’s depleted force, and defeated him, and Jackson retired back to Lynchburg.

Morgan split off from Breckinridge to occupy Jackson, TN. Bragg went north to Bowling Green to defeat (now) Rosecrans’ army, which retreated towards Sigel. Grant knocked out Breckenridge’s army, left a garrison in Holly Springs and continued south, eventually taking Oxford, Panola, and Grenada. McPherson left a garrison behind in New Orleans (with some thought to being able to take Bashear City, but that is an annoying place to get to) and Pemberton avoided battle out of Baton Rouge. Rosecrans rallied, and then crossed the Green river, regrouping Sigel to him (you can order a subordinate one hex away to join the active force, another nice rule, and one we didn’t really notice until the end), and retook Bowling Green from the garrison there. Morgan then went to Memphis and managed to defeat the garrison left behind (helped by a card bonus), and Wheeler went to sit on Oxford, potentially causing supply issues for Grant. Sherman detached from Grant with 4SPs and defeated the militia in Vicksburg, while Grant went north to re-take Memphis. Rosecrans then marched on Nashville, defeating Bragg and taking the city.

Afterword

The Union wins this scenario by having a 24 VP lead. By the end, I’d captured 22 points of resource hexes, a 3-point bonus for full control of the Mississippi, and another 4 for the ports I’d closed (well, the bulk of those had been closed before the scenario began), while Mark got 4 VPs for controlling for border state objectives, giving me a fairly close victory.

The first two turns had looked pretty grim, as I hadn’t seemed to get anywhere, and the situation in Missouri not only was fairly dire, but was distracting me from other efforts. However, I sealed up northern Virginia fairly well. Mark could probably have done a lot more than he did, but it would have been an uphill struggle without a forced march, a couple activations in a row, and a plan to keep me out of Richmond. I potentially needed better protection for Washington, but I had fairly decent coverage of the approaches. A decent, earlier, attempt to retake the Valley would have been a good idea.

The West is where things came apart. Once I was going, I had three decent maneuver armies to fork Bragg’s one good one. The expedition into Arkansas was initially meant to help cut supply into Missouri, but it needed someone faster than Thomas’ three movement to make worthwhile.

Both of us are greatly impressed by the game and want to get back to it. The only thing that’ll delay it is the huge backlog of other games to try out. I had some concerns about the ‘action economy’, but as you can see in the above, one year can still be pretty action packed. There’s some little wrinkles in the rules that take getting used to, but they’re worthwhile for a fairly nuanced system. Oh, and if you play it, make sure you have the current rules PDF. Mark tried to use the physical rule book at first and was confused by some of what I was quoting off, because there’s pages of extra material that has been added since publication.

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Sep14

T3 The Lone Gray Wolf Y160 S5-S6

by Rindis on September 14, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

[Scenarios 1 & 2]
[Scenario 3]
[Scenario 4]

Once again, I had hopes of drawing an easy fight as Mark and I got back to “The Lone Gray Wolf” back in May. But, Mark rolled a 1 again, which made me really glad I’d eliminated a CL from it last time, leaving it at a CC, CL, and FF. Even better, that CC was missing most of the padding. However, it’s still not a group to take lightly, especially as that CC has the weaponry to cause some major damage, if it can line up a good shot.

Mark lined up directly astern and went speed 18, while I did my standard speed-20 opening with 1 ECM, while all the Kzintis also put up some ECM. I turned shortly into the turn, while Mark kept his options open by slipping towards me. On impulse 5, I blew batteries to bring my ECCM up and fired phasers at the FF to dent it’s #1 shield, with a mix of rolls doing four damage, three of which registered on the shield. The Kzintis started slipping out, and I continued my turn, bringing disruptors to bear on impulse 24, and I fired two (all I had charged) at the CC’s #2, getting one hit which bounced off of reinforcement, and the turn ended with us back outside the forward arc at about range 22.

I stayed at speed 20 for turn 2, while the Kzintis slowed down to 15 and 14. Mark boosted ECM, while I had a 2/2 split for EW. The Kzinits turned in on impulse 2, and I followed suit on 7. He continued slipping, and I turned towards the Kzinti formation on 18, and the Kzintis launched a full spread of drones on 19, and then turned off. Range was down to 15, so I boosted ECCM to match the FF’s and volleyed the disruptors at it, hitting with three, and then doing one more point with the three bearing ph-1s, doing 9 damage to the #3 shield (after a point of reinforcement). On the next impulse, I tried a couple of ph-2s to do one more point, and exactly collapse the shield. Six impulses later, I turned, bringing more phasers to bear, and was still on the #3 shield, doing three internals with mixed rolls on a ph-1 and 2xph-2, taking out the bridge and a warp box. After that, the FF turned the shield away, and the CC and CL turned the other way.


Beginning of Turn 3, showing movement from Turn 2, Impulse 19.
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Sep10

Death Rewritten

by Rindis on September 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

It’s been a while since I’ve taken time to look over just how Final Fantasy XIV is going these days. Just about nine months in fact. The next expansion, Endwalker, has been announced, and I’m busily avoiding as much spoiler material as I can.

I did, however, get the benchmarker and try it out, along with a bun-boy.

Not that I have time for alts, mind you….

Spoilery discussion of patches 5.4 and 5.5 ahead…

The latest two big content patches of course have set up the plot for the next big story arc, the one that’s apparently going to finish off the main arc of all of this, and then everything after that will effectively be a sequel.

But first, lets talk about Ishgard:
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Sep06

Two Rounds of Raphia

by Rindis on September 6, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After finishing Carrier Hill, Patch and I did our usual between other games set of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Up this time was the Battle of Raphia from Expansion #1. This is a large battle, with armies stretching across the entire board, and going to eight banners. The mix is what you expect to see in an eastern battle, though perhaps with more heavy troops. No terrain, and no special rules at all.

Patch had the Selucids the first round, and started with Two Right, doing a block to my LB with a LC. I Ordered Lights, causing his LC to evade, and his LB to retreat on that flank. Patch Ordered Two Left, chasing off my LC who had advanced there. I Ordered Two Center to bring up some Heavies, and Patch used Inspired Right Leadership to bring up his Elephants, who did nothing even after a rampage on battle back, and his Lights got a ranged hit on my Elephants.

I Ordered Lights again, and killed his LC with a banner when he had nowhere to go. Patch used Leadership on the right again, bringing up his HC (did one block to my Lights), and his Elephants faced my Elephants for no damage. A Coordinated Attack let me deploy a bit more, but did nothing else. Patch then used Mounted Charge, knocking out my weakened elephants, and we both took a block to our Elephants on the other flank, while knocking out a Light, reducing LC to one block, and doing two blocks on a Heavy at a cost of a block to his MC and two to his HC.

Line Command brought up my center, and I finished off his HC as they tried to evade. Coordinated Attack brought in Patch’s Elephants again, and his center leader attached to a Heavy (the HC had been four hexes away from anyone the leader could fall back to). He forced my Elephant and HC back with a loss on one flank, and killed a MC when it had to retreat at the base line. Three Units Right let me get the shattered flank into action, and I got his Elephants in two attacks and forced his MC to retreat on momentum. Patch Ordered Mounted, but his MC did nothing and took two hits from my HC, while his Elephants did two damage to a Medium, and then a block to another on momentum, but the did a block in return. Order Four Left let me pick up the other flank, but completely failed to take out the Elephants in four attacks, taking two hits in the process. Order Heavy got part of Patch’s center in motion, and his Elephants nearly took out a Heavy (three sword hits; thankfully nothing on re-roll), but finally went down themselves.

I Darkened the Sky to do two hits to a LB, one to a Heavy, and one to a Light. Patch used Move-Fire-Move to straighten out his line, and did two blocks to a LB. An Order Two Right forced a Light to evade, and Patch’s Two Left did a block to my HC. Order Two Center brought up a couple units, and Patch Ordered Lights, forcing back the weak LB, reducing a LC to a block with a blocked retreat, and reduced a second Heavy to one block.

The remnants of my cavalry Mounted Charged, losing my LC to do one block each to a Light, Aux and LB. Patch Ordered Four Right, moving up a Heavy as well as a Med and MC, while his LB (thankfully) failed to take out a weak Heavy. Line Command got me closer, but I didn’t dare close with the weak Heavies. Patch closed the gap with Inspired Center Leadership, knocking out an Aux, reducing the good Heavy to two blocks, and finishing off the other two at the cost of one block. I used Clash of Shields, and only got two hits on a seven die roll, with the Heavies going down on Battle Back. 4-8

For the second round, I started with Order Two Left, and managed a banner against an Elephant, but the rampage didn’t do anything. Patch Ordered Four Right and did one hit to my Lights as they evaded. Mounted Charge brought me into contact on both flanks, and on the right, I did a block each to an Elephant and LB, forcing them both back, and rampage did a second hit to the LB. On the left, I killed a HC and his Elephants, but lost a MC in the process. Then Patch Mounted Charged, did a hit to my HC, but lost his remaining Elephants on battle back. Then he knocked out my Elephants and did another block to the HC, but took two hits on an MC in return. On the other flank he forced my Elephants back, but lost a Light block on rampage. Momentum did two more banners to the Elephants, driving them back to my line, but no other damage.

Then I played Clash of Shields (again! I almost never have a chance to play it!) to finish off a MC and force a LC to evade. Patch Ordered Two Left, to drive back my forward HC and LC. I used Line Command to bring the entire center forward, and Patch Ordered Three Left to bring up a LB and Warrior, and attach a leader to the latter (he had been with the HC). Move-Fire-Move let me deploy the flanks and did a hit to a Light and LC, and then left Lights went forward into contact to prevent ranged attacks at the remaining Elephants. Patch used Line Command to bring his center forward, and the LB fell back to take a shot at my Lights. I Counterattacked, bringing our main lines to two hexes away, and drove off a LB with archery. Patch then used another Line Command to get two units into contact, while the rest closed to one hex range, and did a hit to a Medium, and three to an Aux, but took three hits on an Aux himself, and two more on his Warriors.

I announced that I Am Spartacus, activating the Elephants, an Aux, Medium, and LB. Archery drove a Medium back a hex, while driving his Warriors to the baseline; momentum picked off a weak Aux, and then I took a hit and retreated my Mediums after a muffed roll (three triangles… versus a Heavy). Patch Ordered Three Center to drive his Heavies into my line, picked off a weak Aux, did a block and drove back my depleted Mediums, and did three blocks to a Heavy who couldn’t do more than force Patch back a hex.

I Ordered Three Left, forcing back a LC, and doing a single hit and banner to a Heavy with the Elephants, who then knocked them out on momentum. Patch Ordered Two Center to finish off the weak Heavy and Medium. I Ordered Three Center, doing two blocks to his led Heavy, in return for two on a Medium, and finished it off with the Elephants. Patch Out Flanked, knocking out the weakened Medium, and I Counterattacked, bringing the leader for that Medium back to the front, and doing three hits to a Medium who did two back, and did nothing to the Warriors who did two blocks to my Aux. Patch Ordered Mediums, and finished off the Aux, and then did one of two blocks to the weak Heavy who finished the game with a three-hit battle back (on one needed). 8-7

Afterword

This is a big demolition-derby battle, with the elephants and warriors adding just that bit of spice to make it really interesting.

Technically, I came out ahead in the first battle with Patch sacrificing the elephants and losing more than he gained. But actually my army was pretty completely smashed with key units weakened and all formation lost to scattered units. Things went bad in the second game as well when he smashed up my Heavies, and they didn’t do a thing. Patch had three good Heavies still, but that was about all he had, and when I started doing damage to them, the battle slipped out of his control.

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Aug29

Two Versus One

by Rindis on August 29, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Our latest multiplayer-day went through a few revisions on the way to happening. It was going to be five people, but Mark’s work called him off to France for a couple weeks (…there are worse fates), and then Patch’s work called him at 6 AM on a Sunday (…and that’s one of them). So… we ended up with three-player Space Empires 4X again. This time we tried a 2-vs-1 scenario I had noticed in the scenario book after the last session; we actually went with the Close Encounters version where the single player (Dave) drew six empire advantage cards and kept four.

Jason and I of course then made up the team. Thankfully the scenario uses “suspicious allies” rules, because we wouldn’t have a chance at any unified action. By the end of the day we had some limited contact with each other (generally in the middle of the board), while the main strip between us was still mostly intact at the end of the day. I had set up a single shipyard out on that border, and most turns built a new SC to explore the region, but we use heavy terrain, and most of them just died instantly.

We also did two things to get things going faster, which worked. First, we used the 30-point homeworlds, but without much more to spend on, so after the initial hump of not enough shipyard space, things started humming along. The other was a ‘turn 0’ idea I had: everyone flips over three (non-deep space) tiles next to their homeworld, and moves a SC into each; do not bother to roll for any black hole you find (the price is having a black hole to dodge for the rest of the game). Then start the game, with a little knowledge of where your miners and colonies might want to go. It’s minor, but I think it helps, and is very fast.

Dave picked Space Pilgrims, Industrious Race, Fearless Race, and Star Wolves. The first negates terrain (other than pulling Danger! chits), which was certainly handy, the second allows colonization of asteroids, which he revealed mid-game, and did much to accelerate his economy. Star Wolves never came up as he wasn’t facing bigger ships (that the bonus applies to) until late, and he didn’t go the carrier route, and was only building the biggest ships he could. Fearless was handy for a long time, as the free rank “A” firing trumped everything until very late when BBs appeared. There’s a few times when retreating early might have been best, but he wasn’t afraid to throw away mid-game ships, and the big battles later happened over his colonies, which he was loathe to abandon.

His major successes in early exploration were mostly on my side of the map (actually, he got a lot of ‘safe’ deep space tiles early on), including a space wreck back on his edge of the board which got him Move 2. There was a barren planet in the area between him and I, another almost in the middle of the board, and a set of three at the far corner between us. I’m not so sure what was in the area between him and Jason, but it was taking a lot longer to clear out. I had a slow start thanks to most of my planets being in the outer reaches of my home area.

We had also opted to use terraforming 2/nebula mining from Close Encounters, just so miners would have something else to do (we used the base set sheets, but penciled in the extra tech, though I mis-remembered it as 30 instead of 25). Three of the hexes adjacent to my homeworld were a barren planet and two nebulas (and only two planets at range 2 of my homeworld!), so I purchased terraforming 1 during Econ 2, and terraforming 2 during 4. It took a while to get around to mining the second nebula, but the extra income sure helped. My economy was the weakest of all three until econ 5, when I overtook Jason, and I overtook Dave on 6 (though our totals stayed very close; Dave took terraforming 2 in econ 4, but didn’t start mining asteroids until later—I think he was still busy picking up mineral 10s).

I sent in raiding forces as soon as I could get a clear path between us (the first ‘clear’ path had a black hole, unfortunately), and while I established a small shipyard on my outpost out there, it mostly kept busy with colony ships (I got those three planets in the deep corner; it helped my economy keep up). And had enough success to keep Dave trimmed down a little. It helped that another space wreck showed up on my side of the center of the board, and it got me Move 2. (Jason spent on it too at some point, so we were all at Move 2 at the end of the day. I kept remembering that I wanted to spend on Move 3 right after balancing the budget….)

It was right after the first drive petered out and I was trying to face off Dave’s fleet that the asteroid colonies began, and I was seriously worried about the long-term economy building up there. Thankfully, Jason started finding his way to Dave’s empire at that point (aided by a Lost in Space for first contact). He was able to put ever-mounting pressure on from his direction that helped me manage to colonize that far corner without interference. While I was finishing with using destroyer swarms, and moving up to CAs, Dave had been using BCs after extensive construction of bases and shipyards. Jason initially showed up with CAs and moved to BCs, with slightly better tech. He also went his traditional route of taking tactics, which didn’t help in the first round, thanks to the free rank A shot, but helped after that, when when he moved into BBs and DNs, he consistently shot first.

The BC-to-BB period had two or three large fleet battles that tended to go on long, thanks to cold dice, and Dave’s lower technology on his ships vs Jason’s smaller ones. In the end, the first fleet battle went narrowly to Jason, and the second one went to Jason more quickly, but still with considerable losses to Jason.

By that time, my CAs were showing up with increasingly better tech, and I shifted to BCs for the final two rounds. As we were nearing the end of the day, Dave surrendered in frustration, with all his mobile assets gone, and his economy ready to take a big hit as our fleets pressed in. One thing that was a continuing problem for Dave was that with everyone at move-2, the pattern was to wait for round 3 from two hexes away, and hit the least-defended target.


End of the day. Dave = Yellow, I was Red, and Jason Blue.

Afterword

Dave has expressed problems with the game before, and is currently officially “done” with it. Now, right after the session, it turned out that one big problem is really an expectation mismatch. He sees naval designations, and thinks in terms of (WWII wet-)navy realities where cruisers have no right to take on a battleship and win even with higher numbers of cruisers. He has come to a belated realization that technology trumps size to a degree he doesn’t care for (…I pointed out the differences between a pre-dreadnought and the Iowa; we’ll see if that goes anywhere). He also doesn’t have a big background in space 4X games, which regularly just use naval designations as a shorthand for “size”, and is mentally prepared for mission differences. And he finds the tracking onerous enough that he doesn’t care to have different types of ships.

I’d been thinking his combat problems more stemmed from the fact that combat is a nuanced bucket of dice system, since relatively low-odds results were when the frustration was evident. Personally, combat is a place I find a bit weak in the design. Mostly, it’s a very neat, reasonably fast system with the right level of complexity. The trouble is that it’s a little too easy to get into combats where both sides have low odds of hitting, and then the combat drags out (asteroid fields are especially bad at this; thankfully we hardly ever end up with combat in one); the first fleet combat this time dragged out a few extra rounds with only moderately cold dice.

Accelerating growth by using the 30 CP homeworlds definitely helped, and freed up early game budgets a lot. I assume that effect is still true in full Close Encounters as you won’t be buying many of the extras straight off the bat. Since everyone also started building out pipelines early, this also meant a common early purchase was an extra shipyard at the homeworld. I eventually got to a full 6 there, but was stalled at 5 for a long time as it was another place that I kept thinking about after getting my production set.

Since Dave tends to be central to multiplayer days, there’ll probably be noticeably less SE4X in the future, though I’m currently engaged in a game over Discord (actually, my second game). Hopefully, next time we’ll finally have more than three people, and we’ll be doing a long-planned day of shorter games.

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Aug21

Rout of Glory

by Rindis on August 21, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Last Sunday, Jason came over and we continued our series of games of Pursuit of Glory that got interrupted last year. Neither of us had strong inclination either way, so random draw gave Jason the Central Powers. We got through the end of turn 6 before needing to call it a day (not bad, considering the rust), and declared me the winner, as things were sliding decidedly downhill for Jason by that point.

I started out with standard Russo-British Assault opening, taking Fao and Basra, and picking on Turkish cavalry units (one escaped). I had a first turn hand that was a little too good, as it was choked with events that needed playing. This included the Royal Blockade and Kitchner, and Russian Reinforcements helped shore up the line in the Caucasus. That was helped by a particularly devastating Enver Goes East at the start of turn 2, which not only weakened the Turkish troops, but then they rolled poorly versus good Russian rolls, Jason largely recovered using Reserves to the Front. He also got the Jihad ball rolling with Pan-Turkism and Jihad, taking Marsh Arabs and Kurds, the latter of which helped take and hold Urmia for the rest of the game.

Churchill Prevailed, but only about three forts fell to RN guns. Egyptian Coup laid what turned out to be important groundwork. Jason had decided to make sure of Mesopotamia, and sent, or built, a good number of troops in the region, built a TU-A corps there, and even spread out into Ahwaz, cutting off Shushter, and threatening Abadan. I brought in ANZAC Reinforcements there, which halted that, though Jason attacked Abadan three separate times over the next few turns, and always rolled poorly, with two ANZAC divisions handily beating a Turkish corps with divisional support. Jason was also taking a fair number of troops out of Anatolia to do all this, but he did use German Military Mission to build trenches in a few important places, including Adana.

During turn 3, Indian Reinforcements went to their usual place (for me), shoring up Basra, and getting a corps of my own in the area. I got two Invasion cards, and used Kitchner’s to put a beachhead off Adana. The next round I came ashore, and holed up in there and Eregli. Jason used Persian Push and Turkish Reinforcements for the extra divisions, but neither of us entered Persia for another turn or so, when I sent a division down to Qum. (During turn 4/5, he used German Intrigues in Persia for the Jihad and put the irregular in Isfahan.)

During turn 4, Gallipoli Invasion gave me more troops in Cyprus, and the two corps allowed me to move up to Konya and Aleppo. Jason used the big corps assets Turkish Reinforcements to organize another TU-A corps in Mesopotamia. Bull’s Eye Directive didn’t go so well for Jason (more bad rolls), but I felt too short on troops when he played Gorlice-Tarnow shortly afterwords and had to take the 2 VP penalty. On the other hand, I had driven him out of Erzurum and besieged it (I failed the first roll, but got it on the siege phase of turn 5).

Asquith/Lloyd George gave me the only RPs of turn 5, while more Russian Reinforcements poured more troops into that front. Drama was high in Anatolia as the British were beaten in Konya, and the perimeter fell back to Adana. But the ANZAC Corps and cavalry took Alexandretta, and the Corps moved south. There was an round where I thought Jason would cut it off, and was prepared to land the French in Beirut to try and re-establish supply. But he didn’t, and the ANZACs moved south along the coast, ending in Jaffa. I had previously moved a reinforced line of Commonwealth troops up to the Sinai/Palestine border, and during turn 6 hit Gaza from both sides, eliminating the defenders and the fort, but not taking the space.

Turn 6 lead off with Russian Winter Offensive, which again did very well. The Turkish line was in dire straights, though it took me half the turn to really see how many gaps there were, and I moved a Cossack unit through Diyarbekir and Mardin, where he became cut off and died in attrition, but the Turkish efforts to do this were well worth a division, and the Armenian Uprising started locking down the entire area. Meanwhile, the Mesopotamian front collapsed with an AP victory from Shelba to Nasirya, as as turn 6 ended, Jason was trying to find good anchors for a new line.


End of the day/turn 6.

Afterword

By the end of the day, I was moving forward on every front. Jason had skipped play of Bulgaria for the RPs. I know we had both gone through our decks once (I shuffled to get my last three cards for turn 6), but I don’t know what happened to Parvus to Berlin.

Overall, luck certainly favored me. The dice went against Jason more than they went for him. However, there’s a couple other things too. I think he over-committed in Mesopotamia. Now, we both think that putting more in there than usual was an interesting idea, and overall it certainly kept me nicely bottled up for several turns, which was bad when I had a Mesopotamian MO once (rolling that earlier would have probably cost me a VP).

Also, over the last couple turns, he devolved into too many OPS and SR plays. Now, I was giving him good reasons for much of this, but the RPs suffered, and as usual, the Ottoman dead pile grew too large, leading to the turn 5-6 collapse. They turned into too many OPS for me too, as I barely scraped by on the RPs, but I was mostly keeping things going. On the other hand, the Max RP marker was moving down as well.

I had early on been contemplating trying a Gallipoli invasion, but seeing Jason progressively move nearly everyone out of Anatolia diverted my attention back to my favorite landing of Adana. It is a problem location for both sides, since there’s three routes out to cover, and I never quite got to sending a unit or two to Antyla to open that one up. With the breaking of Gaza, I expect the next turn would have seen some real fighting in Palestine as I tried to secure Damascus and Jerusalem and force the defenders south, though that was still going to be tricky. I’d had a couple good combats in/near Azerbaijan as well, so I had hopes of a push at that end of the Russian line as well.

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