J45 The Last Roadblock

by on March 10, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch came over today, and we took the chance to use my French and Allied Minor counters in anger for the first time. (I’ve had Croix de Guerre for over 15 years by this point, and I’ve played with both nationalities before, but only on Vassal, so it was the first time using the actual counters.)

We picked out J45 “The Last Roadblock” from Journal 3, an interesting little fight between the Germans and the French Foreign Legion with support from the Norwegian Army. It uses half of boards 18 and 9 (which I don’t see enough of), with Mud and Alpine terrain. The Germans start with six squads (elite and 2nd line) versus twelve French elite squads (with underlined morale and broken morale increased to 8), and eight Allied Minor squads (elite and 1st line). Both sides have one 81mm MTR. Technically, the Allies are attacking, since they need to take half of the level three and four hexes in western hill of board 9 (the one completely on board) in six turns. However, the Germans move first and get eight elite squads on the east edge, and win immediately if they get 25 CVP. Finally, the Allies get some 70+mm OBA and a elite squad on the north edge on turn 3.

I took the Allies, as they set up first, though a lot of the setup is fairly restricted for both sides. The general idea for me was to press forward with the French (who start near the goal, with the Norwegians splitting between moving east to guard the MTR against the German reinforcements, and the rest headed for the hill. Patch effectively split his reinforcements between boards 18 and 9. Things started out poorly for me as I could not roll under an ‘8’ for a Morale Check for… oh, about the first turn and a half. Since Patch kept rolling 1MCs, French troops started breaking fast. However, my MTR got a ROF tear on my turn 1, and really pounded his troops up on the shoulder of the second big hill, breaking a couple units, and killing a squad.

J45 1F
Situation, Allied Turn 1. North is to the left in this shot. Grain is open ground, roads actually exist to negate mud penalties, but do not confer movement bonuses.
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FB5 Siesta Time

by on March 7, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Around the middle of last year, Patch and I played a couple FtF games of “Siesta Time” from Festung Budapest, only to realize late in the day, we had gotten the directions ninety degrees off. So we decided to play a third game purely via email while continuing our regular games, running from November 2012 to February 2013.

I took the defending Hungarians again, and set up specifically to make sure the N31 victory building could hold out the required three turns, while positioning squads to be able to try and break and run for the east edge to claim the exit victory. In the face of Soviet firepower (including a DC and two FTs), I had no confidence in actually holding building N31 for 6.5 turns. Figuring that a fortified location was of no help against a FT, I actually fortified the rear of the building (N30), my one hex of wire went in P32 to keep him from advancing on the south face of the victory building down the road, and set my one hex worth of mines (6 factors) in Q30, as it looked like a likely jumping off point for the Russian pursuit of my forces in the second half of the game. The one hidden squad went in the cellar of N31 with the DC.

Patch entered over half his forces up on the hill, which is slightly surprising given that ground snow demands one extra MF going up or down a slope. He ran into fire from my outpost in O34 on his second move for a 2MC which he passed. Worse, the squad had cowered, undercutting my plans for lots of residual coverage. Another squad moved adjacent, and FPF could only manage a PTC, which he also passed (at least my squad did not break…). My MMG and 7-0 were in L33h1, which opened up when his second FT showed up in K35 with a FFNAM/FFMO shot, which generated a PTC (which he passed) and malfunctioned the MMG (darn ammo shortage).

Patch unloaded on what he could see, starting with the FT in K35 breaking the leader and squad in L33h1. His main line could only get a NMC against O34, which they passed, and then Patch lost his second FT when he turned that on O34. This left O34 to get piled upon by two squads while L33 fled across the way into the victory building (leaving the MMG, sadly). Luckily, Patch rolled a ’12’, allowing me to withdraw out to O33.

FB5-3 1R
Situation, Russian Turn 1. Red hexes are ‘offboard’ Russian entry hexes, or Hungarian exit (depending on the side of the board). Weather is ground snow, with heavy falling snow.
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How Rome Fell

by on March 4, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Posted In: Books

As of about AD 200, the Roman Empire was by far the most powerful state within its known world, and had been for over two hundred years. Three hundred years later, the western half of the Empire had ceased to exist, and the remaining part, while still powerful, no longer held the clear advantage over its neighbors that the earlier empire had. Adrian Goldworthy’s How Rome Fell is technically a re-examination of how this came about.

However, while this thesis is talked about at the beginning of the book, and then discussed at the end of the book, there’s no real reference to it during the book. Instead, it is just a general history of those three hundred plus years. However, it is a very good history of the period, and I think this would be a great place to start for someone wanting to study Late Antiquity. Not only is it generally well-written, but it spends a fair amount of time showing how little we truly know (about the population, economy, actual size of the Roman army in many periods…), and exploding old certainties.

The concluding chapter is also short on certainties, but long on thoughtful commentary about the various ills of the Empire. The main conclusion is that the Empire weakened itself through interminable civil wars. Worse, the reaction to these civil wars was to attempt to remodel the Empire to protect emperors from assassination and rivals, and fail. One of the points that Goldsworthy proposes as key, is the removal of the vestiges of political power and importance from the Senate. When senators stopped being the primary pool to get new emperors from (when the chancy business of dynastic succession fails), the pool of candidates actually became larger, more dispersed, and impossible to control.

His thoughts on the separate fates of the Western and Eastern Empires mostly come down to geography. Among other effects, the various tribal leaders to cross the frontiers had nowhere else to go than the Western Empire. There were no comparable threats to most of the Eastern frontier, and that part that did have power tribal confederations was the Danube. Thrace and Greece were not places they could get very far in, they couldn’t cross the Bosphorus to Asia Minor, and that left… the Western Empire. In addition, most of the rebellions and usurpers came from the western provinces, why is not clear, but it may just be success breeding more attempts.

And then there is the quasi-subtitle (only seen on the title page): Death of a Superpower. Goldsworthy equates Rome as a superpower in that there was no other entity that could come close to matching it’s size, wealth, manpower, or ability to project power. (Well, China would be an exception, but since it had no way of getting at the Empire, or any of its neighbors, it is ignored.) The final epilogue (and much of the introduction) talks about the inevitable parallels people try to draw between the Roman Empire and the United States, and dismisses many of them. But he does meditate a bit on the problems of bureaucracy, and the dangers of any institution forgetting what its primary purpose is.

Circling back to the content of the bulk of the book, it is a well done survey of the period, and an excellent place to start if you are not well aware of the history of those three to four hundred years. It is less useful to those who have studied the period (I found most of the book familiar ground), but it is still a good single reference book, and there will be some new touches for most people.

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Cape Henry

by on March 3, 2013 at 1:39 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark came over yesterday, and we played a game of Flying Colors. Mark had played it once before with Jason, so he picked the second scenario (Cape Henry) to introduce me to the system. I decided to stick Mark with the outrageous French accent, and took the British.

In fact, I’d only managed to read up through the movement section of the rules ahead of time, so the beginning went very slow, as I tried to sort out just how combat worked. Thankfully, the opening is somewhat simple, with the French line reaching (really, broad reach) directly towards the British line, which is beating against the wind toward the French line.

Not liking the idea of cruising my line right down the similarly-equipped French line trading broadsides all the way, nor the fact that I had a mere 2 movement while beating, I started wearing the leading elements of my line to port to rake the French as they approached. However, this left them out of command for a couple turns, as I overestimated my ability to get a commander in range for a group command (especially as the commander with the higher range was in the rear). However, things degenerated into a pretty dense melee with the leading ships, so that my out of command ships were always adjacent to an enemy at the start of their move, and got to fire normally.

Both of us stuck to our national ‘strengths’, with me firing at the hull, and Mark going for the rigging, so that even my ships that were now reaching didn’t have much movement, as their rigging was too damaged. On the other hand, I was taking lots of raking shots, and getting good die rolls, and the leading two French ships were forced to strike their colors rather than sink.

I was just starting to reassert proper command over my leading elements, having driven the Royal Oak into a gap in the French line, and reasserted command, when turn 5 came up, and the wind adjustment check. The roll shifted the wind two points (of a hex map; 120 degrees) clockwise. This meant that suddenly my main line was running with the wind, and the French line was taken aback. This changed the nature of the battle immensely. The rear portion of the French line wore to starboard, and beat against the wind toward the initial, and continuing fighting for the rest of the game. I reached the French flagship with mine on that turn, and the only two 2nd line ships nearly crippled each other with very little input from the rest of the battle.

Mark was finally dismasting my ships while I struggled to get my line re-sorted and effectively fight back. The lower chances of striking the colors from a dismasting helped, as only one of three ships actually did (and that was on the third turn of rolls). Mark’s third ship had been heavily damaged, but managed to get out of the action before I could get its hull points to zero, and the modifiers for that kept it from striking the colors.

The scenario ends at turn 8, and I won on VPs at that point, 10.5 to 8. Mark had been having to roll for his fleet breaking the final three turns, but the odds of that were low. I also had to roll on the last turn, as one ship finally struck the colors. So for the final act of the game, both of us rolled ‘2’s (with the fleet breaking, and granting a decisive victory to the other player on a ‘0’), and Mark had a -1 on his roll…. Very close there.

At any rate, the game was fun, it seems to be a very good system that captures the flavor of Age of Sail naval combat quite well. We used the status markers all day, and didn’t have to write anything down, which was very nice. The markers got a little crowded, but the fact that the ships are 1″x0.5″, giving them room for two stacks of markers makes it work out, at least at this size of battle. It took all day (10 to 5, with lunch), but that was after a very slow start, and the later turns were going very fast as we continued getting used to the modifiers.

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D8 The Schoolhouse

by on February 28, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch and I both like DASL, and always mean to play more of the big hex scenarios than we do. Combined with my efforts to actually play more of the early scenarios, we ended up looking over the set from Streets of Fire. Patch suggested a couple, headlining with D8 “The Schoolhouse”, and I agreed, and ended up with the defending Russians. We got started in October 2012, and didn’t finish until January, so get ready for a long tale….

It’s a big scenario. Set during the Battle of Kursk, it’s about three DASL boards in physical scope (all of b and d, and just under half of a and c), the Germans start with twenty-six squads (mostly 467s, but with some elite 468s and and 838s mixed in), a bunch of toys, and four Elefants (PzJg Tigers). The Russians get twenty-three squads (mostly 447s with some 458s) and four smaller AT Guns. They also get fifteen more squads and six KV-1S tanks as variable-entry reinforcements.

This last is actually a fairly nice touch. The entry is the usual ‘roll a die and get under a target number which gets better each turn’ that shows up in a fair number of scenarios. However, the German VP goal (mostly measured in stone building hexes) is equal to three times the turn the reinforcements enter. Also, the scenario ends five turns after the reinforcements arrive (well, ROAR shows the scenario unbalanced towards the Russians, so we used the German balance, which shortens that to four turns). Tying the victory conditions and game end to the reinforcements is something I haven’t seen elsewhere, and I think it’s a very neat idea and needs to be picked up by other designers.

In addition to 1VP for each stone building hex on boards b and d, building bI3 is the titular Schoolhouse, and is worth another 3VP if the Germans can hold both hexes, building bE2 is the Tractor Station, and is worth an extra 5VP for holding all five hexes, and dF3/G3/G4 is the Crossroads, worth 7VP for holding all the building hexes adjacent to it (only two of which are also stone; they’re outlined in yellow in our maps). This is a maximum of 52VP, if the Germans held everything at the game end, out of a maximum needed 27 VP if the reinforcements enter on the last possible turn (9). The terrain is a little less ‘urban’ than normal, since rowhouses don’t exist (and infantry Bypass is allowed along the black bars), and buildings are restricted to two levels (0 and 1), with inherent stairwells for every multi-hex building. Also, hex dL3 is considered to have a ‘water tower’ inside the roundabout which blocks LOS and causes all movement in the hex to be Bypass only, and all infantry in the hex to be occupying a particular vertex.

I set up hoping to delay Patch for the first couple turns and fall back (of course), with the final line of defense being the various ‘bonus’ buildings, notably the the Schoolhouse itself, which got two of my fortified building locations, and the Crossroads got my last fortified location. With everyone needed to slow the approach to these locations, I only had one unit in the three fortified locations, and I was a bit worried that a disaster could see Patch get into one for free, and then I’d have to dig him out of the fortified location. Two of the AT guns went in the rear where there was plenty of long LOS down the roads, one went on a flank in the hopes that he’d drive by, and one went in the brush in the center, where it could contest his inevitable advance away from the open roads.

Patch’s first shot revealed my 9-1 and a squad in aA1 on a PTC, and he kept firing on them until they both broke. This had been a worry, but I had hoped the nearer stacks would absorb the shots and let me get off a -1 shot during his MPh. Both of our Snipers were active, with mine breaking a squad in the street, and his pinning one of mine. Thanks to some aggressive movement and searching, Patch revealed a couple of Dummies well before I had hoped, and he escaped any harm from Search Casualties on ‘6’s. Much of my defensive fire was ineffective (Cowering abounded), pinning four units, though I got one HS on a K/1 that activated his Sniper and nearly wounded my 8-1, pinning the squad with him instead.

DFPh was better, though Patch passed a couple of 1MCs in aD3, only for one squad there to pin from my Sniper when it activated later in the phase (we were both two-for-tw0 on Sniper activations this turn), and I managed to break the squad and a half that got into cC4. Patch’s AFPh was much more effective, breaking three squads, and reducing two of them, though he could not manage to break the two squads in aC3, and between that and the pin, he had to avoid going into CC there. In fact, the east flank was proceeding substantially more slowly than the center, or especially the west, where he was already racing onto board d.

D8 1G
Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full map and my setup. North is to the left.
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