137 Italian Brothers

by on November 22, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After our previous early-war scenario, Patch and I moved on to something even earlier, the Spanish Civil War, in March 2010…:

As the previous scenario between me and Patch wound down, we had a chance to talk about what we wanted to do next. Patch mentioned that it had been a while since we’d seen the Italians (in fact, since our Primosole Bridge CG, where they didn’t do so well thanks an ELR of 0). Having recently gotten Doomed Battalions, and busy obsessing over that, I immediately mentioned the old A72 “Italian Brothers” which featured two Italian units fighting on opposite sides of the Spanish Civil War using Italian and Allied Minor counters, and which was updated in the new edition of DB. And so here we are.

I can say that the scenario would be a lot easier to set up if it mentioned which side was the Nationalists, and which side was the Republicans somewhere other than the background text. (Okay, the side symbols also are a guide, but both of us missed that.)

As it is, I’m the Nationalist/Black Flame/Italian forces. Technically, I set up first, but all I have on board are three pitiful non-turreted L3/35 AFVs, with fixed positions and CA, and in Motion. The only real choice I see is whether I want to be BU/CE. (BU, thanks.) Patch is the Republican/Garibaldi/Allied Minors, who set up in two groups, one on board 17 near my L3s, and the other on board 6, set to advance on the manor house. If he can take it, he wins immediately. Otherwise one of us has to have 3 out of 4 other stone buildings, mostly concentrated in front of the manor house, at the end of 6 turns. Otherwise, may he with the most CVP win! (Nationalists win ties.)

Patch set up as expected, took a couple MG shots at the L3s, and started moving for victory buildings. (Two hits, but couldn’t manage the 4 TK….) I fired as he moved out, but only managed to malfunction a BMG/MA for my trouble.

Originally, my plan as I entered with the bulk of my forces was to take 6N4 (of course), 17P2 (also of course), and dash across and advance in to 6K4. With only a single squad in position to take it, I should have a decent chance at it, especially as I had the troops holding N4 to back up my move. As I moved, however, I realized I could get into 6K8 without him being able to do anything about it, and I could make his move in much more difficult, so I went for that instead.


Situation, Turn 1, showing both side’s movement.

Patch had to spend quite a while pondering what to do next after that, but he eventually shuffled a big stack into 6J9, obviously preparing to advance into the blind side of the building, J8. All I could do was pin a single squad. Without much going on in the west (top), I just had a single ineffective shot while assembling my MMGs.

He advanced into CC in 6M1, which pointed out just how vulnerable I am, since I am Lax and have lower FP. However, after successfully Ambushing me, he rolled a ’12’, and I thankfully withdrew back to N0.


Fight for 6N4, Republican turn 2.


Fight for 6K8, Republican turn 2.
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Dominant Insects

by on November 20, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Finally had a group day again on Sunday. The best we could manage was three of the regulars (me, Dave and Jason), though my roommate Baron was available and willing to spend part of the day playing games, so we were figuring on doing a bunch of little games.

However, Jason showed off Dominant Species, which he’d gotten recently, and we decided to give that a try. That took up the entire day (with a slightly early end), but was well worth the time.

It’s a fairly interesting game, and probably the best evolution-themed game I’ve heard of. I know just enough of Euro-games to recognize the action selection mechanic, though I assume it’s a bit more involved here. Certainly, the planning stage at the beginning of each turn where the players declare what kind of actions they will take during the turn out of the limited pool available makes for an interesting mini-game. Then the chart guides you through everything in order; very neat.

We drew random animals to start, with me getting the Arachnids. It took a bit for everyone’s ‘super power’ to sink in, but once it did I tried to emphasize it by picking at least one competition action a turn in addition to the freebie I got. Jason got off to an early lead with the Amphibians with me and Baron following a bit behind, and Dave trailing in last. I came up with a long-term plan to try to reduce Jason’s position (since he not only was in the lead but had prior experience) by going for two glaciation actions in a row. Since there’s only one of these actions a turn, and the rest wait in a queue, this left me with fewer actions than normal, but allowed me to direct the expansion of tundra into his high-scoring stronghold.

Dave had the Insects, and by mid-game was using their high initiative to get two of the five domination (scoring) actions each turn, so he caught up, and pulled ahead by the time my plan to contain Jason went off. By the end of the game he had an extremely dominating lead. Meanwhile, my VP collection had just puttered along, and I had fell well behind everyone.

Part of the problem was our inexperience; it was easy during our game to have a high-scoring tile with no one else on it to give points for second to. I’m sure that will change next game. Baron did pretty well for himself as the Mammals, who he shifted up to second in the initiative order, and had a nice little area without the really big (sea) tiles, but not much competition until the last couple turns.

When the Ice Age card (for the end of the game) came up, I had a decent position, even if I had few VPs, and came up with a desperate plan. I would try to hold dominance on as many tiles as possible, to get a lot of bonus points which would turn into a good number of VPs. At the same time, this allowed me to try and get the Survival bonus (which had pretty well migrated around the table every turn). A Cataclysm card seemed to put an end to the latter as Jason used it to clear out a decent stretch of tundra. I got the last ‘special effect’ card, which allowed me to place an extra tile of tundra. For a while, it seemed like there was no way for it to help, but I finally realized I could use it to knock out two water food sources that Jason was relying on, and clear him off the tundra. As it turned out, all four of us tied with three species each on the tundra for the last turn and no Survival bonus to anyone.

My plan to Dominate my way to victory worked out well, with 8 dominated tiles, and 36 VPs. This put me at 101 VP to squeak out a second place above Baron (95), and Jason (90). Dave was nowhere in reach at a final total of 142(!) VPs.

It was a fun and interesting game, and I’d like to see it with six players; I think the extra crowding on the action chart will lead to some very interesting fights.

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New Infantry, New Weapons

by on November 15, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Posted In: Books, History

Part two of Osprey’s survey of European Medieval Tactics is much like the first volume. Unfortunately, while I felt the first volume started strong and finished somewhat weaker, all of this volume is at the level of the later portions of the first.

The main problem is that the first one started with a fairly solid thesis, and then lost its way in the later part of the period. This volume is still useful as a general introduction to a subject that gets too little attention, but it just wanders from place to place, and time to time, without any central ideas stated.

There are another thirteen small battle diagrams included (compared to seven in the first volume), which seem to be more crowded and harder to follow than before. This may indicate the battles are getting more complicated. I don’t know this period as well, so fewer of the battles discussed there or in the eight color plates are familiar to me, though there were still a few I knew.

I’ll also note that Osprey has a volume on Pike and Shot Tactics 1590—1660. I wonder if they have anything planned for 1500—1590?

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J67 The Lawless Roads

by on November 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Journal 4 had an article on the British Universal Carrier, and some scenarios featuring them. I managed to talk Patch into one of them, but I’d still like to try the other scenarios. We got going in January 2010…:

After finishing the Market-Garden set, Patch and I are playing one of the early-war scenarios in Journal 4 featuring Carriers. The British are trying to clear a road through a village (no GO Germans on or adjacent to it), but the Germans are already strongly defending the town. In addition to needing to chase the Germans away from the road, the British will lose if more than four of their AFVs are killed (or if four tanks/tankettes are killed).

Given a choice, and remembering Patch’s problems with a similar set of victory conditions in Khopra’s Crossing, I take the defending Germans. They don’t get any vehicles of their own, and the anti-tank capability isn’t great, but the Brits don’t have anything heavier than an A10. Patch will have to be cautious, especially with two 37mm ‘doorknockers’ hidden somewhere.

Board 12 is an unusual mix of terrain for an early board, and there’s a few of the hedgerow overlays in play (though bocage is not in play—a hedge is a hedge here) and I have to spend some time deciding how to defend. The real target is the road itself, but if I concentrate on that, he could easily bypass part of the defense and strike towards the middle or back end, hoping to leave me without fallback positions. So I opt to defend the entire front with an eye towards hustling towards the road if he attacks down it as expected. The four OB-given ‘?’ are used to conceal where the good leaders, MMGs and ATRs are. The MTR doesn’t have any place with a good LOS and end up on the hill in T1 when I forget that Orchards block non-same level LOS.

Patch setup near the road and got to work clearing it immediately. With some concentrated firepower, and a ROF-tear on his MTR, he broke a leader and LMG squad, and pinned another LMG squad. I was able to do far less to his initial advance than I would have liked. The worst part was that he put three squads past the hedgerow between V and W, and got into the first of the stone buildings. I had figured I’d keep him out of there a while longer.


Situation, British Turn 1 DFPh. The blue ribbon is the victory road, note that an SSR turns a graveyard into an orchard and you can still see pieces of it poking through the overlays.

Even with my broken squad having made it back to my 9-1 leader, I got nothing back on my rally. I wasn’t sure how to reorganize my defense. In general, the plan was to shift for more defense in depth along the road, but he had the two Mk VIs crawling along the south edge of the board, and I didn’t want them getting into my rear unopposed. My opening MTR shot on the lead one hit and got a ‘2’ result on the IFT to kill it with no survivors, that simplified things greatly. A shot from U8 broke W7, taking some more pressure off me, and I decided to gamble with a stone building and a -1 leader and stand up to the rest of his breakthrough in W6. A shot from U6 broke one of the two squads there. Things were looking up.

I pulled out of V2, taking a roundabout route to make sure he couldn’t strip concealment. As I moved other forces around, I came up with a sneaky little plan. First, V4 smoked W5. If that hadn’t worked, I’m not sure I would have gone through with it, but with the smoke (only on a ‘1’!), I put the squad in V4 into X4, where he could cause problems for the broken squad in W6, and was adjacent to the British 7-0 in X5. Sadly, I couldn’t get him in Advancing Fire, and he self-broke to rout away before I could go for CC with him.


Situation, German Turn 1, end of MPh.

Gunner Scott commented:

“Hi-“

“Thats one hell of a scenario. Been a long time since I played it, but I do remember those little carriers giving the Germans grief as they would race to cut rout paths.”

“Scott”
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Bosworth 1485

by on November 12, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Posted In: Books, History

As usual, Osprey’s Campaign series does an excellent job of presenting the background and people involved in the battle in question. In this case, the later stages of the Wars of the Roses, and Richard III’s reign are covered very well. There is a lot that cannot be known through the distorting lens of Tudor propaganda, but some good points are made.

The general course of Henry Tudor’s landing and march into central England are handled well (I like the Campaign series in general because it is as much about the maneuvering to battle as much as the battle itself), with the usual excellent maps. There are also several very nice two-page spread original color paintings by Graham Turner scattered throughout, instead of art borrowed from previous books. There are two problems here: One, they usually have a paragraph or so of the main text over part of the art, and the contrast is often low enough to make reading the text difficult. Two, the people, even when they are supposed to be in motion, look posed. Other than that, they’re fine pieces, but my eyes are trained by an artist also educated as an animator; these people don’t look like they’re moving.

A final problem is that the book was published in 1999, and a couple surveys conducted since then indicate the battle may have been fought about two miles from where it was previously believed to be. It is still worth picking up, especially if found cheap, but I hope that once the resulting arguments start working their way through academia, Osprey will release a new edition of the volume.

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