Two Rounds of Great Plains

by on August 3, 2012 at 11:09 am
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Last week Patch and I had our CC:A the session between ASL games. Got in a set of Grand Plains. Another of the Second Punic War set, the Romans are advantaged with six cards to four and the first move. However, the Carthaginian forces are fairly good, and start in a better formation than the Roman army.

I took Carthage the first time, and had pretty good dice. The cards weren’t bad either. I didn’t get much in the way of ‘special’ cards, but rather lots of Order Two and Order Three, but that meant I kept in motion. Patch pressed in on the right side early on, but I kept the main action of the battle on the left and center most of the time. I managed to get the heavier elements of my line in contact with Scipio and come out ahead on the exchanges, destroying two Roman Med and forcing Scipio to a Hvy (three hexes back…). Scipio got back in action with a Double Time and Line Command.

I was feeling pretty good with a 2-2 score when Patch broke out a Mounted Charge that knocked out three units, and forced Hanno off-board, and completely broke up my right flank, though I did kill a LC on a battle back. His units were still somewhat shredded, and I managed to kill a LC, and then nail Scipio’s Heavy on a First Strike that I had just drawn. He then got a leader on the right to end the game. 5-6

Switching sides, I was less happy with my six-card hand than I had been with the four-card Carthaginian hand. I spent a couple turns deploying the Roman army; thankfully Patch wasn’t nearly as lucky with the Slingers as I had been. An Order Medium (via Counterattack) and a Line Command got our lines into contact on both flanks, and killed a Med on both sides. I played Clash of Shields, and Patch goofed. I hit his HC with a Med, figuring at six dice I’d still have a decent shot when he evaded. Patch forgot about the extra dice, and stayed, and lost the unit and Hanno.

My Med on the other flank muffed its six-die attack, and Patch nailed it the next turn. I decided to stick with bonus die attacks and played Mounted Charge, completely surrounding a Med with my LC, and hitting the right flank with my MC. For once, this worked and I knocked out the Med in exchange for only one block, while I missed on the right. Inspired Right Leadership finished the game when I picked off a one-block unit and and killed an Aux with a combination of archery and a good attack roll. 6-2

Both games just wanted to go very well for me. I was doing pretty well in the first game until that Mounted Charge broke everything open. Patch never really got a chance to get any momentum going in the second game, I was on him pretty fast.

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J88 Escape to Wiltz

by on August 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

By the time we finished off the Primosole Bridge campaign, Valor of the Guards had come out, and we wanted to try our hands at that. But before going into something else complicated, we decided to play a regular scenario in May of 2008…:

With the end of the yearlong campaign in Sicily, Patch and I started a new scenario tonight. At one point the plan had been to go right into VotG, but we agreed that it would be nice to get away from HASL maps for a game and cleanse the palate a bit. We also realized that we had never used American 666’s against each other. There’s been a couple with elites, but not any with 1st line troops.

So we started “Escape to Wiltz” from Journal 3 tonight. The Americans are trying to exit the west side of Board 39 after coming on the north side of Board 17 on turns 1 and 2. The Germans come on the east side on turn 1, and another 3 squads come on the south on turn 2. Both sides have a light amount of toys—the Germans get the usual suspects and two PSK, the Americans get the usual suspects plus a M5 Stuart and a M8 Greyhound AC.

Since neither of us showed a particular preference, I rolled randomly and took the Americans. As ROAR shows it 31 to 23 pro-German… and with my record, I took the balance. So Patch went first:


Initial German movement, the American entry area is marked in blue. Green arrows are movement, blue is advance, red is rout.

I had had just enough time to fiddle with the opening before Patch’s move arrived, and he ended up about where I figured. This made figuring out my first move a bit faster, as I already had some thoughts about what I didn’t like in what I saw.

We thought at first I’d lost my initial HS in the intersection, but Patch realized that he’d forgotten CX, which reduced it from a K/1 to a 1MC—which he promptly failed. But, Patch didn’t realize what my plan was yet, and neglected to put down an FL.


Movement in the first American turn.

Patch reacted to my turn about the way I hoped he would. He looked at the firepower that was facing him and went for cover. Sadly, part of his force is marching down the board 39 road, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Thankfully, that’s true in reverse as well.


German movement with their turn 1 forces. I got my first break of the game in W3. 😀

And the turn 2 platoon took the obvious good routes:


German movement with the turn 2 forces. Exit area is marked for reference.

We finished off the evening partway through my turn 2. Patch is getting very worried that he hasn’t been able to stop my movement yet. It’s pretty obvious that the main fight is going to be over the area just in front of the woods covering the exit area.
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F&E Vassal Module 1.3.1

by on July 30, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Well, this one is a minor update:

Download it here:
http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/F&E 1.3.1.zip

Change log:
-Fixed GCEs (copy and delete commands)
-Added R-NHBH and R-FHBH
-Improved Empire reporting on H- & L-shipyards; F-Fighter chits
-Overlays no longer report in the unit summaries
-Updated (603.U) setup to eliminate some minor errors
-Re-worked Battle Mats to have space for BIR/DRMs for each side
-Added CPF and CPX chits to all empires (except Feds)
-Fixed L-Base Module (not reporting fighter factors correctly)
-Fixed stats on L-PF marker
-Fixed F-, K-, R-, Z-, H-MC (no fighter property)
-Fixed T-Base Module art
-Fixed R-4CNV (bad fighter reporting)

The first item was the reason for the new release. It was found that Independent GCE markers could not be deleted. Along the way, I found a number of minor problems that likely no one else has ever seen.

One of the few feature requests left that I can do was for specific CPF and CPX markers (casual PF flotillas from AO), so they’ve been put in. Also, just about all the saved files have been updated to take advantage of the improvements.

I am hopeful that this is everything. All the bugs worth worrying about squashed, all the features that the current module can handle have been added. No need for a 1.3.2 or especially a 1.4.

(Wait, did he say current module…?)

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J94 Kempf at Melikhovo

by on July 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

When I advertised on GameSquad for a PBEM game of ASL, I ended up taking on two new games. True to my distractible nature, I let the second one get buried under other things at one point, and dropped the game, only to notice it and get it restarted about a year later. We started in June 2007, and didn’t finish up until August 2008…:

This game has been proceeding slowly for a little while. I picked up a second opponent when I advertised for a game a couple months back. We started up as my game of Gavin Take was winding down. I’ve been a bit distracted, and my opponent, John Bock, just moved, so he’s quite naturally distracted too.

Anyway, he took the Russians and I got the Germans in this little 4 1/2 Turn struggle for three buildings on board 3. With two half-boards, I set up half my force with a Flammpanzer III on board 4 and the other half with a Pz IVH enters the first turn. The main fears for the tanks are running out out of fuel for the flamethrower, getting ambushed by a 45mm ATG, getting ambushed by an ATR, and a KV-I that enters randomly.

My main fear is running out of time. Five turns of movement isn’t much, even with not all that far to go.

As would be expected, my first turn was composed of getting up to the Russians. The PzIV got a CH with the MA, driving in the picket on that flank. Sadly, the Flamethrower was unable to do more than Pin the squad in front of it. I considered going into CC with him, but the likely result would be to tie up my MMG squad in Melee, so I passed on it.


Situation at the end of AFPh German Turn 1, showing movement (green), rout (red), and advance (blue). Red stars are the victory buildings.
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Second Wind Alliance Turn 2

by on July 25, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Posted In: Second Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Largely thanks to repairs, the Kzinti are running a bit low on cash already. They built everything, but the ending total was 4.25, which is less than he received in salvage during my Turn 2.

Builds:
Kzintis: CV, 2xMEC, DD, FFK, FKE, FF, 4xPDU, MB->BATS, FF->FKE

With the inclusion of the first three expansions, a lot of new ship types are added to the game, both in new base hulls, and in variants. Most of the base hulls show up mid-war, but the Kzinti get an important one right off the bat: the Killer Frigate (FFK).

Because of the way damage and repairs work, ships with odd numbered factors are considered very important by experienced players. This is because the crippled factor usually rounds up, so a 7-point CW is just as tough when crippled as an 8-point CA. More importantly, repair costs are based on the difference between the uncrippled and crippled values, making a 7-point CW no more expensive to repair than a 6-point CL or DD, even though it absorbed more damage in the process of being crippled.

Most empires have at least one ship type in each slot from 4 to 10 points. The Kzinti were one of the empires missing the efficient 5-point slot (along with the Hydrans and Tholians). Advanced Operations introduces the FFK, the Kzinti’s last attempt at getting better performance out of their frigate. It is actually introduced right before the General War, but it also has a variant of its own, the FKE, or escort version, that gets introduced on turn 2. The FFE is a pre-war design, and is a 2-4 escort, the FKE is a much more effective escort at 4-5.

Production of both versions is extremely limited (two of either type, three total), causing the Kzintis to get a slow trickle of good small escorts and a few of the ‘efficient’ FFKs while managing the shrinking budget. Personally, I think it adds nice little bit of interest in the early Kzinti shipbuilding schedule

I was surprised when both Raids hit Lyran territory. Both disrupted provinces with no loss to the Kzintis.

Belirahc fell afoul of a beginner mistake during movement. He initially just started a bunch of small battles against province raiders, and tried to raid anything I had captured, and I reacted ships out to handle them. When he ended movement without doing anything more, I pointed out that I’d just move my reserve onto any battles that were close and just pound his one- or two-ship forces. He then decided to pick a few larger battles to attract my reserves. This worked, but some of his forces weren’t really in a shape to get into a large battle.

Combats:
0701: SSC; Lyrans: retreat; Kzinti: dest FF
0903: SSC; Lyrans: retreat; Kzinti: crip FF & retreat
1203: SSC; Klingons: crip F5L & retreat
1602: Kzinti: dest FF
0802: Lyrans: crip CW, 2xDD; Kzinti: dest EFF
1305: Klingons: crip F5; Lyrans: crip CW; Kzinti: SF captured
1505: Klingons: crip 2xD5, F5, dest F5L; Kzinti: dest BC, SF

1305 was particularly rough on him. The force was still missing escorts from my turn, so he ended up feeding the fighters forward without the carriers on the line, while I had toys from the starbase assault left over in the hex. He tried to go EW heavy, but I had decided to abuse my D6S and D6Ds, and beat him 8 to 4 on that as well.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with an SF. All my scouts are better than it, and I really don’t have a need for a 1 EW scout. Possibly the best thing to do is to scrap it for the money (1 EP). Though I might convert it to a SDF for DB duty (3+1+2 = 6 EP… oy). At least he isn’t salvaging it.

Overall, the Kzintis are down seven frigates through the course of the full turn, and lost two CVEs and a BC. The lack of SFs and EFFs is going to be felt in my turn 3 attack.

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