HA1 Fire on the Volga

by on May 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

For a long time, I posted session reports of my Vassal ASL games (mostly with Patch) over on the GameSquad forums. These were written while the games were still ongoing, instead of trying to remember just what happened months later as the game finished up, so they were the ‘AAR in Progress’ series. However, I changed domain names recently, and the threads are all old enough that I can’t edit the posts to change the image links, so I’m starting an effort to repost them (with Patch’s comments) with the images intact.

As of 2006, my experience with ASL was still pretty minimal. I’d played a few games against other people over the course of about a decade, and three FtF games with Patch (which I barely remember at all), and then two games with him via VASL, 19 Backs to the Sea and HA2 The Commissar’s House. So in August 2006, we wanted more action on the RB map…:

To give the RB map a bit more of a workout, we’ve decided to try Fire on the Volga from Annual ’91. ROAR reports 10-2 in the Russian’s favor, so I (the less experienced one) get the Russkies, and we used the German balance.

Looking at the forces and the VC, I have to say it sure looks tough on the Germans. They need to either exit a fair amount of their MG firepower or get them into Level 1 Locations within Normal Range of the East side of the board, and are attacking with about an equivalent strength to the defenders.

Once I started setting up, my opinion changed a bit. The nature of the SE corner of the RB map isn’t what I was expecting. There’s a couple of ways the Germans can go about his attack, and an alert German could bull through a defense that leaves one too weak. I think it favors the Russians, just not quite as much as first glance, and ROAR, suggest.

Patch set up his attack to go down the slightly more predictable straight-East route through the densely-packed wooden buildings. The first fire phase didn’t go so well for them. His SR fell short almost on top of his own troops. His first fire attack woke the Sniper, so we both got a broken HS from it, and a HMG broke.

But it certainly isn’t all going my way. The initial perimeter has been overrun (could not hit an adjacent HS…), the HMG is repaired, and my ordnance has yet to do much. Got a rate tear on the 50mm MTR, NE. The 81mm has had one shot (spotted and CA change – miss, forgot to set the CA when I set up). The INF has taken two shots, both on blocked LOS and is broken (I think the crew bent the barrel trying to get it to fire around a corner).

I also probably set up with a little too much on the north side (of course, I wouldn’t think that I he went that way), and am still figuring out how to hustle units back over. My fall back is going the way I’d like [EXC: rolling a ’12’ on a 4MC; break, ELR, CR]. Overall, die luck is probably a little high for both of us at the moment.


Situation at the beginning of the second turn.

New (for me) rules:
Non-small MTR ordnance
Emplaced Guns
Minefields
Roadblocks

Rule lessons (i.e., my mistakes):
B23.912 must Fortify every level of a building below the one you want to fortify.
A4.72 Advance into Difficult Terrain is all MF or >=4
C5.11 Case A TH DRM doubled in rubble
[This was an idea I wish I had managed to continue. Thankfully, the list of mistakes is much shorter these days, though the amount of rule questions might still be just as high….]
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , ,
 Comment 

F&E Vassal Module 1.3

by on April 26, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Posted In: F&E

Again, long after I thought I’d be done and get it out the door, I’ve released the next version of the Federation & Empire Vassal module.

Download it here:
http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/F&E 1.3.zip

The changelog for this version is longest one yet; it’s a pretty massive update. Here’s a quick list of the highlights:

* The ISC extension is updated for the actual published version of ISC War.
* The scenarios are now bundled into the module, so the zip is just the module plus extensions as separate files now.
* The capital charts are completely reworked so that you should be able to run a capital assault just from them.
* The racial charts and battle mats have been updated and look better.
* A lot of markers have been added as memory aids for combat. This includes handling hidden information functions such as which of multiple maulers is actually mauling.
* Added a bunch of carriers with heavy fighters, and separate counters for all the HDW (and similar) modes.
* New squadron counters for the Theater Transports, for when they’re working as a permanent team.
* A new extension (“Extras”) includes just about every unpublished ship that I have official stats for.

So, go download and enjoy! …And tell me what bugs and mistakes remain.

Oh, and I should warn you that the combined module & ISC extension are a pretty huge package. The main ISC scenario (“Driving Winds”) is also pretty massive, so you will need to give Vassal more memory space than the half-gig default. Go into the Vassal module manager, and the the module itself and select “Preferences” from the File menu, and change “JVM max heap” to 1024 (from 512). Otherwise, you’ll probably be able to load, fiddle around, but not save anything big with the ISC….

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Cretin Victory

by on April 24, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Well, okay, yes, it is a Cretan victory. I’m just bitter. 😉

The gang got together for a 5-player session of Advanced Civilization on Sunday. We’re getting more practiced at this, and got things going very smoothly. We drew for order to chose civs in, sat ourselves down, and had a very fast moving morning.

I got first choice, and decided upon Thrace, while Patch took Egypt, Dave took Babylon, Jason took Assyria, and Mark took Crete for lack of any position more enticing.

I did my normal job of abusing Thrace’s generous AST schedule and heading for Greece’s high concentration of city sites. Jason headed directly south with Assyria, while Dave maneuvered around him, leading to Assyria stretching from Lake Van to Palestine, with Babylon stretched 0ut around it from the east, to the north, and around into Anatolia. Mark’s Crete ended up primarily colonizing western Anatolia, jostling with Babylon, and my colony across the Bosphorus, with a small presence in Attica and Morea (we also ended up splitting Euboea).

I ended up with a very solid start as I got lucky in early trade card draws, and with a little dealing, got some solid 4 and 5-card sets, which allowed me to purchase three Civ cards at once, and then two more two turns later.

At this point I had a very solid lead, but as I pointed out at the time, having an obvious lead as we broke for lunch meant I was in for a miserable afternoon with the ‘biggest bulls eye’ award.

Well, it wasn’t miserable, as I never experienced quite as much destruction from disasters as I expected, but I had a hard time getting my feet under me again, and spent several turns stuck at four cities, which largely halted progress. Mark had largely caught up, and kept causing problems, with both of us stuck at the entry to the Early Iron Age (working on all those cards), while the rest of the table spent time stuck at the entry to the Late Bronze Age. We actually had to go back and sort out the AST at one point as we realized we’d been forgetting it after no one had moved for 2-3 turns, and every one was in Late Bronze now.

Mark had had a weak looking start as Crete, but benefited from Civil Wars in Egypt and Babylon, which gave him some foreign city sites that stayed up for a long time. (He got one city in the deep desert of Egypt, and then one near the Nile through Treachery, and Patch didn’t manage to get rid of the Cretan population and then the cities until after Mark got a couple from Babylon.) This did a lot to power him into a very solid second and start passing me by the end of the day.

By the time we had to pack up, I was still only at eight cards, and had muffed my trading on the last round and shut myself out getting any truly good deals. Though I might have been in a good position for the turn after, if there had been one. Mark, however, managed to pick up card 9, and finally passed into the Iron Age before we had to pick up for the day. In addition, I ended up with a Treachery from Patch that I couldn’t get rid of as I had traded myself into a corner.

Final Scores:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Trade Cards Treasury Total Place
Thrace Rindis 1000 300 600 44 4 1948 2
Crete Mark 1100 350 560 5 0 2015 1
Assyria Jason 900 300 480 6 0 1686 4
Babylon Dave 900 150 520 9 10 1589 5
Egypt Patch 900 400 450 12 1 1763 3

So, yet again, I placed second (7 out of 8 times now), though this time I had a fairly clear lead for a while. I do believe this is Mark’s first win in our group.

We’re thinking about trying to arrange a Saturday where we can go much later than the normal 5 PM and try to get to the final end of the game.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Second Wind Coalition Turn 2

by on April 21, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Posted In: Second Wind

And now things begin in earnest. With both the Lyrans and the Klingons having massed everything on the borders, the Kzinti can’t defend everything, and must pick their fights.

My usual plan is to go for the planet in 1001, so as to cut off the starbase in 0902. After a turn as a partial grid, the Kzinti have motivation to let it go. This game is the first time that I’ve had to deal with monitors, and I couldn’t juggle everything to feel like I could take on the planetary defenses, monitor, and likely reaction (or at least, Reserve) forces this time.

Builds:
Lyran: DN, TGC, 3xCW, JGP-V, 2xDW, DWS, 3xFF, FRD, 2xKBP, 4xFF->DW
Klingon: C8, D7, TGA, 7xD5, LTT, D5S, 2xF5L, 4xF5, 2xE4, E4R, FRD, Activate 2xD6, 2xF5, 3xE4, D7->D7A, D6->D6M, D6->D6V

Once again, no ‘true’ heavy cruisers have been built (after conversions). There’s several new hulls, but they’re all on other duty. Worse, the life expectancy of a D7A is not great, but it’s the best stasis ship the Klingons have right now.

Which I suppose brings us to ‘new toy time’. Thanks to an episode of the Animated Series, the Klingons have ships with Stasis Field Generators, a device that can be focused on up to three targets at a time, and stops time for that target. Usually, this is done to an enemy ship, whereupon the rest of the fleet gathers near, drones are launched, and the field is dropped. The ship then explodes in a hail of gunfire and drones that hit seconds later. Or, it can be used to protect friendly ships, since it will be immune to fire while the field is up.

The problem is that the field only works at short range, and the SFG-equipped ship must be at a full stop to use the field. This is not wise when there’s other annoyed enemy ships about.

The rules for all of this in Combined Operations are very long and detailed, since there’s a lot of potential rules interactions. And it’s an interesting study in rules that gives the Klingon player full control over his intent, without letting him get everything he wants. Each (non-friendly) target is rolled for to see if the ship is frozen, nothing happens, a random target is frozen (that procedure causes a lot of the rules), or there is a disaster which leaves the stasis ship vulnerable while nothing gets frozen. The more targets the Klingons try for, the worse the chances.

With the addition of the Klingons, and still only a one-front war, the Kzinti had to suffer five raids this turn, which he called up POLs for on each one. My goal was to cause as many disrupted provinces as possible, mostly aimed at ones I couldn’t get at, and the rest at ones that would be difficult to garrison. The Klingons sent in 3xD5, and couldn’t avoid taking a casualty in each fight, so retreated without disrupting anything, with one of the D5s crippled to boot. The Lyrans sent in a CW and CF, both of which managed to disrupt provinces.

Combats:
1601: Klingon: dest D5
1602: SSC: Kzinti retreat
1605: Kzinti: dest BATS; Klingon: crip 2xF5
1303: SSC: Kzinti: dest POL; Lyran retreat
1506: Neutral: 2xPDU; Klingon: crip E4, capture planet
1405: Kzinti: dest BATS; Klingon: crip SAV
1205: Kzinti: dest BATS; Klingon: crip D6, F5
1105: Kzinti: 2xPDU; Klingon: crip D6, capture planet
1504: Kzinti: dest CVE, EFF, SF; Klingon: crip D7C, D5, F5, dest D5
1004: Kzinti: dest BATS; Lyran: crip DW, DD
1304: Kzinti: 3xSIDS, crip 3xBC, dest CVE, 2xEFF; Klingon: crip D7, D6J, 3xF5, dest D6S, capture DD; Lyran: crip 2xCA, CW, DD, dest DW
0903: Lyran: crip CW
0703: Kzinti: dest BATS; Lyran: crip DW, 2xDD
0701: Kzinti: dest BATS; Lyran: crip CL, 2xFF
0902: Kzinti: 4xSIDS, crip BC, CL; Lyran: crip 5xCW, 2xCL, 2xDW, DD, dest SC, DW, 2xFF

I had thought I had a pretty good chance of taking down the Klingon border SB when I diverted a Lyran force to join in on the assault, however, I just didn’t have what it took there, and he had a pretty good defensive force.

Meanwhile, I actually did have enough ships at 0902 to have a good crack at it, but I had no specialty ships. Most notably, there was only one scout present, which Belirahc wisely took out in the first round, leaving me to fire into a -2 shift most rounds. Even so, there was a chance at it, but the dice were not with me; a final 1-5 split convinced to leave instead of digging even deeper into the fleet.

As usual, all the secondary objectives were met. But I didn’t manage any of my primary objectives (taking out a SB or 1504). I’d say this turn shows that while I’m more experienced with F&E, I’m not that experienced. The easiest thing to fix would have been to remember to put a second scout into 0902. Actually sending the Lyran Red Claw fleet there instead of 1304 would seem to have been best as well.

This is of course no more than a delay, as the Kzinti cannot hold up against this for long (and he can’t really afford to lose ships at this rate for long). But the clock is ticking. There is a lot for the Coalition to do in the early game, and not enough time. Delays like this are something that I can ill afford if there’s going to be a creditable invasion of the Federation on Turn 7.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

A History of Venice

by on April 16, 2012 at 10:56 am
Posted In: Books, History

Norwich’s A History of Venice is a good and thorough work covering from the initial colonization of the islands of the Rialto to the city’s fall to Napoleon (roughly 420 to 1797), but I found it a bit disappointing. However, I spent most of the book wondering why. Partly, I think, it is because there are very few personalities in the book. Norwich himself actually complains of this on two occasions—there’s just very few places in Venetian history where you can say anything about the personality of someone.

However, I think the main problem is I was hoping for a history of the Venetian state, and the book is really a history of the city, though restricted to that period where it was a state. Which is to say that except for those occasions where outside action impinges directly on one of Venice’s holdings, those holdings don’t show in the book. It feels like a stage play with one set—Venice—and news from abroad is sung by the Greek Chorus. There’s no sense of how the overseas empire really worked.

But, Norwich loves the city of Venice, and that love shows through on every page. One thing that is tracked lovingly through the pages are the buildings and monuments of Venice. When a new building goes up, there is a footnote telling what part of it is still visible today. When a Doge dies and is put in a tomb, there is a footnote giving where it was, and where it was moved to if anything happened to it. Visiting Venice with this book in hand would be a real treat.

└ Tags: , ,
1 Comment