Two Rounds of Zama

by on August 21, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Being between ASL games, Patch and I started another round of C&C:A last week, with the last scenario from the original set: Zama 202 BC.

We would have done a pair of games, but the Vassal server crashed shortly after we began the second game.

For the first round, I had the Carthaginians (again). We started with a little bit of cavalry skirmishing that I came out the worst on, and then started deploying my flanks.

The Carthaginian army isn’t too bad in this scenario, though their leaders are tucked out of the way, and the entire formation is crowded against the base line. Moving up is difficult since there’s three elephants in front of the middle, and I wanted to keep them out of action until there were some weakened units to mow down.

However, two Mounted Charge cards changed my mind, especially when Patch moved a couple mediums up ahead of the rest of the line. I picked on one of the two, and got it as well as damaging two other units and being forced back (without any rampage hits—friendly or enemy), while nearly losing one of my own LC. Patch then Ordered Mediums and we exchanged MC, nearly exchanged a Warrior and MC (down to 1 block each), he killed an Elephant and damaged another while taking heavy losses on a Med.

My second Mounted Charge picked off that Med, killed another, and damaged a third, while I lost a LC that was trying to cut off his LC with Masinissa. Patch moved in a heavy to take out the damaged Elephant, but missed and ended up retreating with two losses.

I would have liked to have let the Elephants stand and moved the army up to support them, but I only had one center card, so in they went to cause as much mayhem as they could before his dice finally caught me. I exchanged his damaged heavy for the damaged Elephant, and got a depleted Med before being (thankfully) driven back out of his lines.

We were still mostly out of contact so, there was a pause for maneuver. I got a lucky shot that killed a leader though, and he finally wounded the remaining Elephant and drove it back to my lines. I played a Darken the Skies with only two units in range to pick off a LC and win the game. 8-4

And then we had our second round of Zama, with me as the Romans, tonight.

The beginning of the battle was a bit frustrating for me, as I started with a Mounted Charge card, quickly drew another, but had nothing else that would get the MC on the left into range.

The battle started with lots of activity on the right flank. I moved up the LC there with a Order Light Troops, Patch activated nearly that entire flank with his own Order Light, and then I Counterattacked to keep my LC moving. My first round did nothing (archery), and Patch wiffed on his attacks in his turn (one hit). I nearly eliminated a LC with a banner in the battle back, while getting hits on another LC and Aux. I then cut off the damaged LC and eliminated it, and drove back the Aux with another loss.

About the only other thing I could do was advance the center into elephant range, so kept up hammering with my leader-led LC, eliminating the retreated LC, and doing more damage to the Aux while taking two hits myself before Patch brought up a Med.

Not having much else I could do, I started the center forward. And then the elephants went charging in. The dice still weren’t with him. The first one died, the second one retreated, doing one block damage to each side, and the the third one died after taking out a couple blocks on my Scipio’s Med.

I finally decided that I couldn’t wait for a left flank card to show up and set off my Mounted Charges. The LC managed to pick off an Aux and do a hit on a Med in return for one hit. The second one got the MC into contact, with his MC being sent back to the base line, and trading two block between my MC and a Warrior.

Patch got his remaining elephant back into action, and punched a hole in my line, killing a Med. I finally got a Order Left card and killed his damaged Warrior. Patch hit back with a Line Command that got most everything in archery range, and killed my good MC with three banners. He followed up with a Double Time that knocked out a Med, but not before they nearly got an Aux.

I hit back with Darken the Sky, which started poorly, but ended by weakening a couple units and picking off a one block Med. Patch then Ordered Mediums and got the last of my MC while forcing the rest of my left flank back. Then I Ordered Center, and picked of an Aux with archery for the win. 8-4

MVP award for this game definitely goes to Masinissa and the LC. They were far more effective than I’ve ever seen LC be before. Patch had an absolute awful time at first, but actually pulled it together really well once he got his center in motion, all four banners I lost happened after I was at six banners.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

R vs B Coalition Turn 9 in Review

by on August 17, 2012 at 9:13 am
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG

Turn nine has been a turn of surprises for me. The Klingons actually cancelled a couple ships this turn, so they could support maximum carrier builds (D7V, D5V, F5V).

Meanwhile, the Lyrans are rolling in EPs.

Movement was much shorter than I figured. More cripples pulled out to better repair facilities, and the Coalition went in for the Third Battle of Hydrax.

Meanwhile, he pulled back to defensive positions on the Kzinti front. I’m all too aware that my forces are getting spread out, now that there’s more things to protect, and I refused to take the few reactions I could, since I didn’t know what was coming, and what location he might try to pick off on the cheap.

As it turned out, nothing was coming as movement ended.


All quiet on the Kzinti front…


Hydran theater

Combats:
0119: Hydran: dest RN; Klingons: crip 2xD6D; Lyrans: crip CW
0617: Hydrax I: 3xPDU; Lyrans: crip BC, 3xCW, 3xDW, dest 2xBC
0718: Hydran: dest AH; Klingons: capture planet

If I had examined the forces that went into the Hydran capital, I might have acted differently. The Lyrans had a decent force, and I assumed the Klingons had a fleet just about as big as the Lyrans, but it was only a few small ships.

As it was, he spent one round stripping PDUs over the capital, crippled almost all his big ships and retreated.

However, he has now taken the major planet in 0718, reducing the main grid to the capital and a disrupted province.

I’ve been starting to wonder if I should just abandon the capital shipyard and voluntarily start on a new one in the Old Colonies, but have held off to keep his attention focused down there.

Well, it’s working. The vast majority of his new ships and repairs moved into Hydran space. The Fourth Battle of Hydrax will likely be the last, save any Hydran attempts to take it back.

When I saw ships pulling out of Kzinti space, I was wondering if he was starting preparations for an invasion of the Federation. Not yet. Instead, he used field repair on the new Lyran cripples, moved more ships into Hydran space, and sent money to the Klingons. I’ve been hinting that he should be doing that, but I think watching me do it in Second Wind has brought it to his attention.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

VotG CG I The Central Railway Station — September 15

by on August 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Having familiarized ourselves with the general special rules for VotG, Patch and I started the smallest of the Campaign Games included in August 2008…:

After a week or two off for our respective setups, Patch and I started VotG CGI tonight. (Who says we can’t jump on the bandwagon?) We diced for it, and I got the Russians, so I got to try and figure out my setup first. The map surprised me, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so long and skinny. I could really wish for a bit more backfield.

Anyway, we got through the first German turn, and most of the first Russian Turn tonight.

Patch set up a lot more North-heavy than I was thinking in terms of. I’ve got to stop letting him do that to me. So the initial line of pickets didn’t last long at all (no surprise), and there’s a lot less in front of him than I’d like.

Then again, with these forces, he could attack anywhere, and I would want twice as much in front of him. I’ll admit the idea of defending this area for multiple CG dates has me a bit rattled.


Opening setup, 15th September.

At least he got off to a poor start. Prep broke a conscript, but out of three search attempts, he got 6, 6, 5; and that last was with a CX unit, so he still didn’t manage to search. Also another HS that was about to search got Pinned on a SFF shot. Sadly, that same shot activated his Sniper and he killed one of my only non-Commissar leaders.

Advancing fire revealed dummies in I30 and D34. He also pinned a real conscript in E30, but that activated my Sniper and he managed to fatally wound a 7-0. Sadly, he then performed a successful Sniper Check and reduced my SAN to 4. With the way the Sniper has been for me the past few games, that could be very bad.

He advanced into a couple of close combats, ambushing the conscripts in E30 and revealing another dummy in D31.

On my rally phase, a Commissar promptly reduced my broken conscripts to a HS for abandoning their post. Generally, my turn is just rushing troops up from the extreme south end of the board, where he hasn’t put anyone to create a new second line.

I hope.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , ,
1 Comment

The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751

by on August 14, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Posted In: Books

I’ve been interested in the Merovingian period of (proto-)France for some time. So I was very happy when I finally got Ian Wood’s The Merovingian Kingdoms for my birthday.

It’s not a great book. Though I’d say for the period it is a necessary way-point to better.

Well, better from the viewpoint of the less-dedicated reader. Wood does an excellent job of detective work, comparing various sources and teasing out bias, coming up with ways to re-align sources to explain inconsistencies, and, with the insights thus gained, expose the likely motivations that moved the all too nebulous figures of the Merovingian Dynasty.

I’ve had an interest in the period for some years, but it is very hard to study. There’s not a great deal known, and even less written in English. Wood’s book helped me out a great deal, as he takes a look at several subjects (such as Roman literary continuity) and shows how they tie together across a period of time. This fragments his presentation in other ways, and I don’t think I have any sort of grasp of how any one point in time worked, but the tools are there to reconstruct it from his different chapters.

└ Tags: , ,
 Comment 

VotG3 Khopra’s Crossing

by on August 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Once we both had Valor of the Guards, Patch and I decided to try out the set by playing one of the smaller of the fantastic number of stand-alone scenarios it has. We wanted to try a Stalingrad CG, and would soon enough, but it seemed a good way to get a handle on all the special rules. Starting at the end of June 2008…:

I’m back for more punishment with our latest scenario kicking off tonight on VASL.

Only, Patch is the one getting punished. More on that anon.

Patch got his copy of Valor of the Guards about a week or two before I had to concede the last game. We had already figured that once he had it (I had preordered) we would go on to one of the smaller scenarios to get used to the VotG ruleset before going on to a CG. I probably had thoughts on which ones would be good, but I lost track of that by the time that we actually needed to choose one. So, Patch suggested VotG3, we diced for sides, and I ended up with the defending Russians.

Looking at the situation and the VC, the hardest part was keeping track of who could legally set up where. The Germans can win by exiting a fair chunk of their forces (I note that they have exactly enough squads to win it that way; but they also have two StuGs, a 10/5 and 9 points of leaders), or by clearing the road that goes through the center area. This means I need to defend both flanks and the middle.

The TCs to start the game were okay. I kept concealment on most of the front line, but lost it on 3 out of 4 leaders. The rest of the turn was mostly as expected. He broke the conscripts who’d failed their TC in D44 during Prep and swarmed all over D47. The 447 there put down good fire, despite cowering on the first shot, and Patch’s sniper broke G47 on a FPF (gee, I thought it was the squad doing the firing that was supposed to break). Patch rolled a ’12’ on one of the MCs I generated, reducing the 1st line squad to a broken 2nd line HS. Patch’s sniper: 1 for 2; Mine 0 for 2.


Situation, German Turn 1, AFPh. This is the entire active map.

Given the odds, it wasn’t too surprising that no one rallied for me on my RPh. Patch got his reduced HS back, but also got a ’12’ to CR another squad.

I don’t care to think of the day that karma bill comes due.

My Prep pinned a 9-1, but failed to affect the three squads with him. Movement was accompanied by the realization that conscripts in heavy terrain don’t go far if they want to maintain concealment. Specifically, anyone I wanted to shift out of a foxhole had to exit it in MPh and then move in APh.

The trend towards really low dice I showed during Patch’s turn became more pronounced during this one. I got a 2 on a PTC, but soon followed it up with another on a NMC, turning a 527 into a 628. The real irony there is that the 8-1 there had just failed his, and since the 527 was lower morale at the time, the 628 promptly pinned with a 12 on the 1LLTC. SAN: Russian 0-1, German 0-0.


Situation, Russian Turn 1, after DFPh.

As a preview of turn 2 – I took a shot with an ATR and an interesting question came up: The on-line TK table has a red ATR entry in the ‘6’ column marked, “Russian, Finnish, Japanese, Allied & Axis Minor/Italian (20L only)”, implying that only 20L ATRs get the 6 (instead of the normal 5). However, Patch’s printed copy has a semicolon after “Japanese”, implying that the 20L clause only applies to Allied & Axis Minor & Italian ATRs. My 1st Ed chart just says “Russian, Finnish, Japanese, Italian”, effectively agreeing with Patch’s 2nd Ed chart. It turned out to be a moot point anyway, but I’d like to know for certain, for future shots.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , ,
1 Comment