Two Rounds of Asculum

by on October 1, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

So after our deep-space excursion, Patch and I were back for the second Pyrrhic battle, Asculum, from Expansion #1 of Commands & Colors: Ancients at the beginning of September It’s about the same mix as last time, but this time, both sides are pretty much back against their base lines, and the Romans only get four cards to Pyrrhus’ six (but they do go first). A unique twist is that while both sides get to leaders, they do not have a fixed set up; instead, you draw your initial hand, and then place them with whatever units you want.

I had Pyrrhus the first time, and put my commanders at the right end of my Heavies, and with my left MC, while Patch put his at either end of his center. Patch started with a Line Command to move up, and I Ordered Two Left to move into skirmish range. Patch moved the flanks up with Out Flanked, and I used Move-Fire-Move, with hot dice to do three blocks to a Light, and forced another one to retreat. Patch mostly stayed in place while Ordering Lights, and caused a LB to retreat after losing a block. I used Move-Fire-Move again to move them back, and did two blocks to a Medium while forcing the wounded Light to retreat. Patch drove a LC with Order Three Left, and then Darken the Sky did a block and a banner to a Light and forced his wounded Medium to retreat. Order Two Left allowed him to engage my LB, who evaded back to the baseline.

I moved up with a Line Command, and Patch used Leadership Any Section to bring his left flank forward. Inspired Left Leadership brought my left up, and my Warriors (first time we’ve seen those in ages) charged in with a MC, knocking out an Aux while taking two blocks on the Warriors. Order Four Center brought most of his Mediums into contact, but only did three blocks across two Heavies while taking seven blocks across three Mediums. Inspired Center Leadership reorganized things a bit, and I finished off all three Mediums for no losses. A Coordinated Attack let him finish off a weak Heavy, and force a LB to evade, while assembling a better line in the center, but momentum advance with his Heavy did a block to me in return for taking two and retreating back to his line.

Order Mediums put our centers into contact, while on my right a pair of MC traded a block each. The center went horrible, doing two blocks to an Aux, who wiped out a MC and did another block to my Warriors. Order Two Center let him wipe out a Medium and finish off the Warriors at no cost. Order Heavies brought up my Elephants, who finished off a MC, while I did three blocks and a banner to an unsupported Heavy. Patch Ordered Three Center to finish off my Heavy and do two blocks and a banner to a Medium. He then used Momentum to chase it down and finish it off. 5-6

For the second go, I had the Romans, with only four cards. But led with one of three Line Commands after putting one leader on the right Heavy and the other near the left end of the main line. Patch put a leader with the Warriors, and the other at the right end of the Heavies, which moved up with an Order Two Center. Out Flanked (my fourth beginning card) got me to skirmish range while the MC moved up. Patch Ordered Three Left for our MC to trade blocks (and his took a banner to retreat to the baseline), and I Ordered Two Right to do a block to a LC while it evaded to the baseline. Patch Ordered Four Left to cut off my MC who died on a banner, while a Light evaded back to my line. A second Line Command got me closer, and ranged fire did a block to his Warriors. Patch Ordered Two Left to reorganize a little, and Inspired Right Leadership moved me up a little and let me do a block to a MC with ranged combat.

Patch Double Timed his heavies into my line, knocking out a Medium (five hits on his third try… a bit late) and doing two blocks to another, but lost a Medium block and three Heavy blocks, and had to retreat three units. My third Line Command let me wrap around his intact Heavy, and I knocked it out with two attacks, taking no damage myself. Patch Rallied, rebuilding two Heavies to full strength, who then came in and knocked out a weak Medium, reduced another to a block, and took no damage himself. I Ordered Three Center, and came up to the end of his line, and moved a leader who had just lost his unit to a new Heavy, and wiped out Patch’s second Heavy.

Patch Out Flanked, but his MC muffed a roll against a 1-block Medium who did two blocks and forced them to retreat back to the baseline. His Warriors did two blocks to an Aux, who did two blocks back, wiping them out, and then Patch lost the leader with them. Leadership Any Section moved my right up, and I forced his LB to evade, and finished off his 1-block MC. Patch Ordered Heavies, finishing off my weak Medium, and doing a block to an evading Light. I Ordered Three Center to move a solid core up and take out a Medium. 6-4

Afterword

The first game started with some punishing hot dice from me, especially on archery, and I dominated the initial exchange of blows. But one bad turn cost me three good units and put Patch into reach of a win, which he got two turns later. However, both sides were completely smashed with no semblance of a line left.

In the second, an amazing initial draw continued with more good cards which kept me in motion, and concentrated on the center. I despaired a bit when Patch pulled out that Rally, as I didn’t want to fight fresh Heavies all over again, but I got lucky with one of them, and advanced past the other.

Both Heraclea and Asculum live up to the promise of ‘Pyrrhic Battles’, as generally speaking even the victor will be fairly smashed up. My win here as the Romans is probably the best shape I was in at the end of any of the four matches. The Romans won both times for Asculum, but they were accompanied by a heavy dose of good luck.

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Tailchaser’s Song

by on September 27, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I have the Kindle version of this, which means there’s a few OCR glitches scattered about. However, unlike most such I’ve seen, they don’t become more prevalent the further through the book you go. Overall, the electronic version is in good shape, with a spate of notable glitches in the middle.

It also means it has the fifteenth anniversary edition’s introduction (from 2000) about Tad Williams’ early writing career. As a dog-person who was suddenly having to deal with a number of cats, this book is partly his exploration of what cats are like, and he does a good job at it. This is an all-animal cast (there are a few M’an present, but they don’t get much past the status of mobile object… which is about right), and is well drawn, without getting in the way of the action, or letting you forget that these are all cats.

Past that, this is a fairly typical epic fantasy plot, with an old evil returning to threaten the current world. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since fantasy has been his preferred genre over the course of his career. He’s also a big fan of extensive world-building, which also shows up everywhere else. Here, it feels a bit more shallow, though it is certainly omnipresent in the book, and some it is also the mainspring of the main plot.

There’s also a secondary plot, as what Tailchaser initially sets off to do isn’t really related to that main plot, and wrapping that up turns into a slightly extended denouement which is also well done.

Overall, it is a bit predictable in many places, and similarly feels like it doesn’t quite live up to its promise. But… there is a lot to like here. Williams’ writing would grow from here, but he had already put in the time and effort to tell a good story with its own world.

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SG33 Treasure Ship

by on September 23, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Looking things over, I had noticed there were a few ‘general’ SFB scenarios that are geared to around the current play date of our group (instead of ~Y175) shortly before Patch suggested a Star Fleet Battles game. I put together a package of possibilities, and we went with “Treasure Ship”, where a freighter on robot controls emerges from the WYN cluster, and two of their neighbors fight over who gets to take the prize home. (One of them paid for the valuable resources on board, but the WYN are not above promoting fights by sending the freighter out in range of two ships.)

Of the options, we kept the scenario as small as possible, with Patch taking a Lyran FF and me taking a Kzinti FF, with a small freighter (F-S) up for grabs. (Patch called it ‘two kids fighting over a candy bar.’) Effectively, it’s a frigate-duel, but the freighter is worth two points per intact cargo box to whoever ends up with control of it. The two ships set up on opposite sides of the board, with the freighter in between, running in a straight line at speed 4.

I decided to make a fast grab for the F-S, and try to steer the fight away from it, and possibly disengage (which it can only do by distance), and went speed 28, while Patch went a more sedate 18. Most of the turn was spent running up, and on Impulse 23 I came adjacent and tractored the freighter, then launched a drone, fired the disruptor at Patch, and fired a phaser-1 at the F-S for five points of damage. Which would be perfect for knocking down the shield, except the robot controls put up one point of general reinforcement, and the battery as a second reinforcement, leaving two boxes of shields up. Patch fired both disruptors back on the next impulse, and hit with both for six points on my #6 before turning off. I turned the opposite direction, and Patch turned back a few impulses later. I then fired a Ph-3 into the freighter for three points to knock down the shield, and do one cargo (doh!) internal, and then transported a boarding party and crew unit (prize crew) aboard the next impulse.

Patch stayed at 18, while I boosted to 30 (halved, since I kept the F-S in tractor). This meant skipping the disruptor, and skimping on battery and phaser charging. I ran for half the turn, while trying to figure out how I wanted to get more boarding parties on to the freighter. On impulse 15 I dropped the tractor, and launched a second drone, and then turned the F-S and sideslipped the FF so that it could drop a shield and beam three more BPs onto the freighter through its down shield, with nothing pointing Patch’s way. (Some of this was delayed because I allocated a box of General Reinforcement on the F-S, which blocked the transport, and/or a shuttle, and landing a shuttle aboard was the original plan. Half a turn gave me some time to look things up and realize I could drop the reinforcement for a bit without having to announce it.) Once that was done, I realized I  only had one boarding party left on the FF. Hopefully, I wouldn’t give Patch any chances to board me….

On impulse 18, I launched another drone, this time going speed 12. Patch continued towards the freighter/me, with range to the drones dropping fast, and on 22 he fired both disruptors and a phaser-2 at range three to the F-S to do 8 points (one disruptor missed), for two internals (the general reinforcement had recently come back up), one of which was a cargo box. Patch turned off to avoid drone #2, and I turned the opposite way (now that the shield was back up). On 32, he turned back towards me, and fired on drone #3, which had closed to one hex… rolling a 6 with a phaser-3 to let it live.

Patch stayed at 18 again, while I dropped to speed 19, which allowed me to charge the disruptor, get the phasers fully charged, and start shield repairs, but only trickle a little power into the batteries. The F-S picked up to speed 5, while it finished charging its battery. Both frigates ran with one point of ECM. Patch finished off drone #3 on impulse 1, and I spent the first few impulses finishing a turn back towards Patch, hoping to keep him distracted from the F-S, and get the ESG to deploy so I wouldn’t be facing it and all the phasers in what I hoped would be a main battle pass later. On 8, he turned in, somewhat to my surprise, given how cautious he’d been earlier.

Sadly, I once again forgot to save a log, so I don’t have a direct record of what happened for the rest of turn 3. However, as ranges came down, and I carefully sideslipped for a slightly off-center run, the ESG was announced on impulse 9, and I had a very tense time of trying to get close while being able to maneuver around it… at whatever range Patch set it at. On 13 it came up at range 2, while I was at 3. I fired my disruptor and turned off, while Patch fired the following impulse. On 17, I dropped a (fake) transporter bomb out the shuttle hatch to discourage him from pursuing me while I got a little distance and turned myself back around. Patch sideslipped the opposite way to keep away from it while the two drones shortcutted near it. Patch turned wide around it (thanks to the ESG), and headed for the F-S, ending the turn with the ESG one hex from it.

The F-S, seeing it coming, dropped to speed 3, and put up three reinforcement on shield #4. After that, and blowing the battery, it lost two hull, the phaser (never charged), two cargo, and three out of four warp (ironically, after losing all but two power, it still doesn’t count as crippled, as that requires only having 10% warp power left, not 25%), on impulse 2, when the ESG hit. Oh, and combined with our earlier shots, it had no rear shields left.

Meanwhile, I’d kept at speed 19, overloading the disruptor and putting a point each into ECM and ECCM (the batteries were still getting a trickle of power, and were finally over 2 energy again). Patch stayed at 18 and also had a point each in ECM and ECCM. He turned away on impulse 6, while I was still turning around (Patch mentioned that he had nearly turned in, which would have been a better decision at this point, though I’m not sure how it would have gone). Patch wondered about the mine, as I went by it while turning after him. I pointed out that I could just set it to explode on size classes that weren’t present (say SC 2 dreadnoughts), so that an ESG collision would be the only thing to set it off (“Evil!”), or it could just be a fake (“Also evil!”).

On impulse 12, I got to range 8 and fired the disruptor, hitting to do five damage to his #4. On impulse 21 I fired the forward phaser to do another 4 points (rolled a 1!), getting through the shield, and doing a single forward hull. Patch started fighting to get me off his #4, which left me with the problem of possibly getting too close to him this turn, as I started cutting inside. Drone #1 quietly ran out of endurance on impulse 23… the first time I’ve seen that happen in quite a while.


Turn 4, Impulse 12, showing movement for the full turn.
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Operation Dauntless T6-T8

by on September 19, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

The second ‘getting started’ card for Operation Dauntless has three scenarios meant to get you up and going on the new armor rules (the card is recommended even for those who have played Red Winter). Mark and I tackled them all in our efforts to get a good handle on the game, and played the variants of T6 and T8, with me in my usual role as the British each time.

T6 is meant to showcase Anti-Tank fire and the Armor Reaction Cycle. Five squadrons of Shermans face off with three companies of Pz IVs, trying to get control of a hex in the middle of an open field. Most of the map is closed off thanks to special rules forbidding entry of non-field hexes, nor crossing slopes.

The matchup is interesting, as the Pz IVs have +6 penetration (vs the Shermans), and a range of 6, while the Shermans have +4 vs the Pz IV and a range of 4. Since there’s a -1 per hex of range, it means both sides are rolling at +0 at their maximum range, though the Shermans are always +2 below the Pz IVs. The only British advantage here is the 5:3 odds, especially as the victory hex begins in German hands.

Well, that and going first. I started out with three squadrons running through open terrain to 1209 (hidden behind light hedgerows), taking fire in three hexes, and the first shot hit and reduced one unit. The last two moved forward one hex to just outside the Pz IV’s range. Mark responded by moving up to just out of the second group’s range, with two companies entering LOS of the first group, who reaction fired, but missed. That led to several rounds of Return Fire until a Pz IV connected and reduced another Sherman squadron. The Combat Phase saw one of the reduced squadrons eliminated, but Return Fire reduced a Pz IV company.

I moved the second group up to the victory hex, taking fire from 1511 and 1611, which reduced one squadron, but 1511 was eliminated by Return Fire from my first group. I skipped the Combat Phase entirely, so as not to let Mark get extra shots off. Mark sent the Pz IV in 1611 to join the one in 1411 (staying out of range as he could), while the other fired on 1509 and knocked out the reduced squadron there. In the Combat Phase, they both fired on 1509, and reduced the remaining squadron, which reduced a Pz IV on Return Fire.

I moved the first group from 1209 to 1509, but lost two steps on the way in, leaving me two reduced squadrons in the victory hex. This left Mark four shots (assuming I didn’t start an ARC) to eliminate two steps (since full elimination of one side is also a win…), and indeed got one in the Action Phase, and the other in the Combat Phase.

We tried the “Fire on Their Flanks!” variant, but either we missed something basic, or it just doesn’t work. The main idea is that the Germans get three Panther platoons instead of Pz IVs, but they must drive into a crossfire, as the victory hex moves to 0807, and starts under British control.

The Shermans also start near the new victory location, and the advice is to move them to 1007 and 0609 to force rear shots from one group as the Panthers move/fire on the other. Mark obligingly didn’t drive into the trap, instead stopping in 1009 on the first turn, eliminating a Sherman squadron in 0609 during the Combat Phase. With no cover near 0609 (all of Fontenay is a level down, so LOS is clear to all those fields) the remaining Sherman unit there didn’t dare do anything that’d provoke a Reaction, and the group in 1007 couldn’t do anything either, and reacting to anything they did wouldn’t turn the Panthers away from 0609 either.

So I basically passed my second turn, and Mark killed the second Sherman on his second turn. I could either occupy the victory hex, receiving two short-range shots on the way in, and then watch the Panthers either shoot up what’s left (at a rough average of two kills per three shots, and 8 shots for 6 steps not bad odds), or more likely, charge in for an Assault that the Shermans would have to be pretty lucky to survive (needing lots of 9s and 10s for the flank shots). Or, stay in the corner, and at least try to get a flank shot as the Panthers go for the victory hex on the last turn.

That last is what I did, and I did reduce a Panther with a flank shot on the way in. But it’s the only positive result I got in the scenario.

Neither Mark nor I see just how this should force any real number of flank shots, and without that, the scenario just can’t work.
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Roman Centurions 753-31 BC

by on September 15, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I was a little skeptical of a Men-at-Arms sub-series dedicated only to the Roman Centurion, but it does make some real sense. Mostly, they’re the lowest rank that is going to regularly come to the attention of prominent people, so we have a few more individuals whose careers are discussed. The introduction points out that as the main bulk of officers, their discipline and example was instrumental in leading Roman armies to victory; I kind of thought that would make a good plug for an Elite series instead of Man-At-Arms, but I assume there’s just not enough content to fill out a longer title.

This first volume covers from founding of Rome through end of the Republic. As usual, there is a good combing of the sources, and lots of pictures of various artifacts and art (in black and white) depicting centurions. The color plates are quite good, and interestingly, while three of plates are traditional no-background military figure art, but the other five are full pieces, and among the best I’ve seen out of the MAA line lately (not that I’ve seen a lot of the more recent books). I think that makes for a good mix, and presumably keeps the art budget under control.

Overall, it’s about as limited a book as I supposed. Within its limits, it is very good however. If you want to get into some of the details of the Roman army, this is a worthwhile addendum, but if you want how it fought… there’s a few interesting tales in here (especially for the earlier period), but this isn’t where to go.

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