The Four Vassal War Coalition Turn 4

by on February 24, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Four Vassal War

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

The beginning of Y159 is when the terms of the Treaty of Smarba kick in, requiring me to start delivering D6s and F5s to the Romulans. Since these are activated out of mothball stores for minimal expense, and then shipped free, this is not a large burden (though delivering a pair of TGBs is a little more problematic).

However, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. I’d been assuming I also got the normal General War mothball activations of 2xD6, 2xF5, 1xE4, but the scenario uses its own OoB, and this does not include any mothball activations for the Klingons unless the capital is attacked.

Oddly, I seem to have caught this on turn 2 (I paid for activations, but didn’t pull the ships), but then missed it and did the activations on turn 3. Thankfully, there’s enough money available to pay for them as overbuilds, though D6s and E4s is not what I’d choose to overbuild….

Straightening that out ended with me skipping some Klingon repairs this time, but the Lyrans are in good shape.

Builds:
Klingons: C6, D7, D6, 2xF5, 3xE4, E3, BS->BATS
Lyrans: DNE, CA, 2xCL, 2xDD, 2xFF

This is also the turn where repair ships and repair pods start becoming available, but I’m not planning on repairing at the expensive rate when the normal repairs have been a major part of the budget.

I sent both raids into Kzinti space this turn. Bel reacted a CS out of a reserve to fight the Lyran CA, and the CA crippled while doing nothing to the CS. The Klingon D6 had no trouble defeating the called up POL and disrupted a province.

With much of the outer defenses out of the way, I targeted a couple of starbases for this turn’s thrusts, sending combined fleets to 1304 and 0716. This did not work out so well.

I had actually meant to re-work some of my last move to 1304 if Bel reacted to protect planet 1202, which he did, but I ended up not bothering. I should have stuck with the plan.


Invasion of Kzinti space.


Invasion of Hydran space.

Combat:
1701: Kzinti: crip CS, CLD, 2xFF; Lyran: crip CA, CL, SC, 2xFF
1202: Retreat after refused approach
1304: Kzinti: crip 2xCL; Klingon: dest 3xE4, E3, crip D7, F5L, F5S
1204: Kzinti: dest FF
1405: Kzinti: dest BATS; Klingon: crip F5
1506: SSC: Kzinti: retreat; Klingon: capture planet
1605: Retreat after refused approach
1504: Kzinti: dest 2xPGB, crip 3xCL, CLG, FF; Klingon: dest E4, crip F5L, 2xF5, E4, capture planet
0714: Hydran: dest BS; Lyran: crip FF
0512: SSC: Hydran: dest CU; Lyran: crip CL
0511: SSC: Hydran: retreat
0211: SSC: Hydran: dest CU
0210: SSC: Hydran: retreat
1116: Hydran: dest BS, LN; Klingon: crip F5L, E4S
0716: Hydran: RN captured; Klingon: crip F5, 2xE4, E3

The first few battles showed how unprepared I was for a general assault. 1701 featured a Kzinti EW advantage thanks to a CD, CLD and SF. SB 1304 had a large Kzinti fleet at it, and generated far more ComPot than I could, and then there was 1-6 die roll split just to make it that much more painful.

My petty revenge was retreating on top of a lone Kzinti FF in 1204 (direct path to nearest supply), which didn’t have a chance.

The flip side of that was that the squadron I sent to take the NZ planet in 1506 caused no damage, and the defending Kzinti squadron was able to retreat onto 1605 next door making the combined defending force+base tougher than the assigned squadron could handle. So they retreated onto 1506.

I had an advantage at 1504, but a bad roll could have reversed things. As it was, the first round was 6-4 my favor, and Bel ended up retreating out with most of his force crippled, but with an intact monitor.

I refused to assault the Hydran SB, but they came out to engage me in an approach battle. I had a heavier line, and got a 6-1 roll to allow me to direct on a RN, which I then captured. I was halfway through typing the normal response when it hit me what had happened. I handed the hull to the Lyrans who will presumably convert it next turn.

Another three bases down means another seven points; capturing 1504 is another two points, and holding 1105 and disrupting two provinces is another 0.6 VP. Along with destroyed ships and enemy repairs (the Kzintis have a lot of crippled ships piling up) gets me up to 82.3 VP. Meanwhile, I’ve upgraded a rear-area BS to BATS and made good on many of my cripples to reduce the Alliance VPs to 72.3. This gives me a Minor Victory, and things will only get better if I can hang onto Kzinti territory.

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Whipless

by on February 20, 2016 at 6:48 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

After a number of delays, partially due to January cold season in the household, we had a few people over for gaming today. Namely, Mark and Patch came over, and Baron joined in with Dave and I for a five-player game of Circus Maximus.

We used the standard 8-chariot field of course, with Mark and Baron being the only ones running single teams. As usual, it’s been been long enough that none of us remembered more than the outline of the rules to start off with. We had a fairly varied field of teams, though no one went for a heavy chariot. My primary team had a good driver at the cost of a light chariot, while my second team had a fast team at the cost of driver skill (I think driver +0 was overall fairly common).

We had a fairly polite start, with no combat until well into the first corner, and even then, there wasn’t much result (a couple of movement penalties).

CM-1-4
At the end of turn four. My secondary team (Black) has a temporary lead.

Things slowly heated up after that, but there still wasn’t lots of combat as people concentrated on maneuver. Dave had had an early lead with Green, but Patch’s Purple team came out of the second corner in good shape, while there was large choke-up with Orange (Baron), Red (Mark), Yellow (Dave), with some late moves from Blue (me) and Green (Dave) not helping matters. I had done strongly for a little bit, but was forced to take some chances with my primary team (Blue), and kept rolling poorly. On the first turn, I had rolled a 17(!) to take damage to a horse while going one over the speed rating (I forgot the driver should have applied to the roll, which would have helped, since I would have had more speed for the rest of the race), and then I got a ‘jostled’ result when trying much the same thing on the same corner on the second lap.

CM-1-8
End of turn eight. Patch really did a good job with tight cornering on White.

The really ironic thing is that three of us had lost our whips to ‘G’ results while trying to whip the other driver. This really hurt some teams with good endurance, such as my Black.

Patch lead the charge on taking chances. With both of his teams in good chances, he started pushing Purple though tight corners at full speed. The main event was a cornering on the 8 column, where he finally rolled non-low to take damage on a horse. Which turned out to be no damage at all….

With few options left, most of us took the last corner or two hard, I managed to get out of the last corner on the 9+ column with only a point of damage to a horse, Baron managed with no more than some slipping out, but Dave’s Yellow team flipped the chariot, and was unable to cut himself free, and didn’t survive the drag down the final stretch.

CM-1-12
End of turn twelve.

The end results:

1 Patch Purple
2 Patch White
3 Rindis Blue
4 Rindis Black
5 Dave Green
6 Baron Orange
7 Mark Red
– Dave Yellow
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F&E Vassal 2.0 Beta 6

by on February 16, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

The beta testing of the new Vassal module for F&E is finally starting to wrap up. Bel and I have been working on doing setups for all the major scenarios, and I’ve found and squashed a number of counter bugs along the way. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer before a completed module is made available.

This has been taking a bit longer than I’d strictly like, but there’s been a number of new additions to the module along the way:

Raid and Battle markers can now be flagged to show which one is currently being resolved. Battle markers flip over to show units are capable of retrograde movement. There’s now a marker for units that are eligible for free strategic movement. And there are larger blank markers that can be labeled for a variety of purposes.

Admirals have been reworked and are now with the other ‘personnel’ counters. These counters will then draw from a hidden store of variable admirals when using that optional rule. (The old ones chose their variable status when originally pulled, meaning that any pre-done set up was always the same unless the players put them all back and re-drew them at the beginning of the game.)

And just recently, I pulled monitors out of the NSU section (…which they don’t belong in anyway; oops) and did separate MON+pallet counters for them. I am now working on combined tug+pod counters. I won’t be doing everything, but I plan to hit all the more likely combinations. I… may have already gone a little overboard on the Federation TUG combinations, but there’s still room for a few more….

I’m still working on this last part, and any suggestions as to useful tug counters will be appreciated.

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The Iron Fist

by on February 12, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Patch and I just finished off another round of Up Front through Vassal on Tuesday (took three weeks, two of which were short sessions). We went for the next scenario in line, F “The Infantry’s Iron Fist”, which features an attack with a squad and light AFV against a squad with LATW. It’s the usual three decks, and the attacker has to get into cover at range 4 with four men to win. I ended up with defending Germans (who get a normal squad, except for using lower-morale leaders, and two panzerfausts), against Patch’s attacking Americans (who have a standard squad with higher-morale leaders, and are supported by an M8 Greyhound AC).

Patch followed my idea from the previous scenario we played, and put his M8 in the middle, so it could provide cover for two infantry groups, with Group A being the ‘strong’ group with six men including the assistant squad leader and BAR, while Group C had four higher morale men (5, 3, 3, 5) led by Sgt. Allen. I split into two even Groups, with A having the assistant squad leader and LMG, while B had two of my best guys with the panzerfausts and a couple of low-morale guys mixed in. We had some initial trouble with the deck shuffling bug, so we just kept individually shuffling it each time.

Patch led off with all three groups Moving up to range 1 at the same time. I responded by pinning two men in A with a Fire 2 (net 2 thanks to that AC…), while Group B also Moved up to 1. Patch moved into Woods with group A, while the other two stopped in open ground. Then his C Fired 1 (net 1 after Concealment) on my B, but only malfunctioned a rifle, while B Fired 2 with the MG on my B (net 3), but only pinned one guy with bad RNC cards (a red 0 was the best he got). I Rallied and A Fired 1 back at the AC for no effect. The AC Fired the main gun at B, and missed only thanks to the fact that B was still moving.

Up Front F1Right after that, Patch’s C Moved up to Range 2 and took cover in some Brush, while my Group B finally found a Wall to hide behind. The AC fired again, hitting (at -1 thanks to the wall) and doing no damage, while C got its rifle repaired. My Group A finally got a chance to Move up to Range 1 and Patch Fired 2 (net 2 after Concealment) to pin the LMG gunner and one other, while Rallying 1 in his Group A. My Group A ducked into some Woods, and then Rallied 2, and then Patch’s A Rallied 1 again for everyone to be in good shape at Range 1, except Patch’s Group C, which was at Range 2.

The AC Fired the main gun at my B again, hitting at a net strength of 1, pinning one man. Group C Moved up to Range 3 and took cover in Woods, while I Rallied my Group B. The AC Fired again (hit: net -1) and pinned a man again. His Group C followed that one up with Fire 3+1 (net 3) routing the pinned man, and pinning two more. I Rallied 1 before the AC Fired its gun again (hit: net -1 again) to re-pin the man who just rallied. This time a Rally 3 took care of the problem, while my Group A Moved up to range 2. The AC fired again, but malfunctioned its gun, as my A moved into Buildings -3 (we’d just burned through four building card removals).

In a better position, my A then Fired 6 at C (net 4) and pinned two men, including the SL, who immediately recovered on Rally 2. My Group B Moved forward to range 2, but got hung up on Wire. Soon after, the AC repaired its gun on the third try, but Group A Fired 4 at it (net 1 after Concealment) to pin it. More Wire was found around my Group A’s position, giving me more trouble with no movement in sight. Group A Fired 2 at C (net 0) anyway, pining one man. C Fired 1 back at my B (net 0 after Concealment) for no effect.

Group B finally got out from under the wire, only to run into a Stream. Patch’s B and C both Rallied 3 to put everyone in good order again. My A Fired 3+2 at C again (net 1 after Concealment) pinning one man, who immediately got a Rally 1. My Group B Forded the stream only to find more Wire waiting for them. The AC Fired at B, which missed, but it was followed up by C Firing 6 at them (net 7 after Concealment…) which killed one (only one!) man outright while pinning two others, including my SL. The last result was a red ‘6’ to malfunction a rifle. Rally All got my two men in good order again, while A Fired 2 (net 0 after Concealment) at the AC for no effect. The AC Fired at Group B again for another miss, followed by my A Firing 1 (net 0) at the AC again for no effect. Patch’s A Fired 1 at my B (net 2 after Concealment) to pin the SL again.

My A Fired 5 at his C (net 2) and pinned his SL and killed the man with the malfunctioned rifle outright with good RNC cards, while Rally 2 took care of my SL. Patch also got his SL in good order with a Rally 1. My A Fired 5 at C again (net 2) and pinned a man while suffering a rifle malfunction. Patch fixed his problem with a Rally 2. Group A Fired 4 at the AC for no effect.

I finally Moved B off of the wire, only to run into a Marsh, and had to fall back to the stream. Patch followed that bit of bad news up with Fire 3 from the AC against B (net 1 after Concealment) for no effect, and a Flanking move from Group C against my B. B then Fired 3 at C (net 1) for no effect. Finally, I Moved the wire off of Group A, shortly afterwards repairing the rifle in that group and getting B to successfully ford the stream again and got them into Buildings this time.

Group A Fired 7(!) at C (net 3 after Concealment) which pinned two men, quickly fixed with a Rally 4. My Group B Moved up to Range 3, and Patch’s A Fired 5 (net 0 after Concealment) for no effect other than malfunctioning a rifle, followed by the AC Firing at B but missing. Group B put themselves on a Hill while Patch repaired his rifle. B then Fired a PF at the AC (RR 4 = 0-1 TH, +1 hill, -2 Concealment), and barely got a hit, and destroyed the armored car!

With the cover from the AC gone, my Group A Fired 1+1 at his A (net 0) to pin two men. Patch Rallied 1, and then B Fired 1+1 at his A (net 0 after Concealment) to pin another man. Patch Rallied 2 to get the entire group back in good order. He then had a Sniper that pinned a man in Group A, but he Rallied on my turn (that was actually about the fifth Sniper of the game, almost all of them Patch’s, but it was the only one that had an effect). B Fired 2 at A again (net 1) and pinned two men, and Patch responded with a Rally 1 before Firing 3+3 at my A (net 0 after Concealment) to pin the LMG gunner.

Group C Moved up to Range 4 and into buildings (Patch later implied this was a mistake when he realized he was going past me and opening the range), while I Rallied my LMG. His A then Fired 4 on B (net 1 after Concealment) for no effect on bad cards (all red). I put some Wire on his Group A, which then Fired 5 at my B (net 3) to pin the entire group. Rally 3 fixed B, while A Fired 2+2 on his A (net 3) to pin two men, kill one outright, and kill the previously pinned man.

Patch decided to preserve his force by putting Smoke on his own Group A, and after a few turns of us cycling cards, I Fired 3+1 with A against his A (net 0 after Concealment) for no effect. Right after that, Patch finally Rallied 1 on his A, and then my B Fired 4 on A (net 1 after Concealment) to rout the remaining pinned man.

Patch managed to remove the wire on his A at that point, but it was also getting late, and Patch decided to concede at this point rather than continue next week. Considering that he was down to six men, and one more loss would be a victory for me, or I would win at the end of the current deck (probably around half of it to go), it was looking very unlikely that he could get me down from eight men to four with his remaining squad. He did have men in cover at Range 4, but there were only three men in the group, and no way to get a fourth in place.

Up Front F2Afterword

Actually, Patch mentioned that he’d forgotten the victory conditions for a bit, and that he’d just realized that he could win by getting C up another 2 Range when my lucky shot reduced the Group to three men.

I had a really bad stretch in the middle where Patch was shutting down all my movement and made Group B very vulnerable. Along with already having lost a man, and the AC burning through every junk Fire card Patch got had me convinced that it was just downhill from there. But I finally cycled Movement cards through to get out of trouble, and then managed to get into position to use PFs. Between woods, and wire, and the cover from the AC, my shots were at -4 against his main group in A for a while, and getting rid of the AC and wire one after another really changed things. After that, it was more a matter of letting the fire bonus from the hill and the LMG in buildings do their thing.

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Peter the Great

by on February 8, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Robert K. Massie’s volume is a massive biography that delivers a good look at its subject. “His Life” is covered in ~850 pages covering from his childhood and the later parts of the reign of his father, Czar Alexis, and the unstable politics that produced the co-reign of his half-brother Fedor and himself in 1682, through his death in 1725 with an epilogue that outlines the politics that produced four reigning empresses, ending with Catherine the Great.

The “and World” part of the title also gets good coverage with various extended asides that help bring the 17th-18th centuries alive, starting with a description of Moscow ca. 1680. Peter is the nominal focus of the entire book, but in true Massie fashion, any subject that catches his eye along the way (such as Charles XI of Sweden) gets an extended treatment in it’s own chapter. Peter, of course, had two extended trips into western Europe, and these also serve as a springboard into a look at the situation there as well, helping provide a wider context to Peter the Great’s life and just what he was trying to emulate in Russia.

As a popular history, it does not delve into historical controversy, and presents Peter solidly in his typical role as the hero of ‘westernizing’ Russia, even while clearly showing the tyrannical side that (for instance) pursued suspicions of a conspiracy against him with relentless torture and executions, and that his reforms almost entirely relied on threats and force from Peter himself. I particularly would have liked a better look at the great families of Russia that were important in the state at this time, though I guess that Massie felt they were only important near the beginning and again at the end of his life, and it would have distracted too much from the core of his book to delve into them in any depth.

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