Central Defense

by on August 17, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had Zjonni over Sunday for some gaming and dinner.

That is, he came over and cooked dinner; he usually stays over for dinner with us on game days. Like my roommate Barron, he enjoys cooking, so this time he returned the favor by fixing us a dinner. As he’s between semesters at school, I’m the limiting factor on available free time right now, and there was a nice long day to spend on both gaming and cooking.

Important things first. It was delicious.

Zjonni decided when he came over that he was in a mood for something that had more than just a couple units on the board, which left out the usual SFB. He was also feeling somewhat out of it, and so didn’t want to go into the brain-burn of ASL. So, we settled on Pursuit of Glory, which I had at least introduced him to before. He decided to take the Allied Powers, which seemed easier to get going with (I agree), and I refreshed him on the basics as we set up.

The day went fairly well, with us getting to about turn 5, which is the most I’ve managed in a single session so far, and with someone who hasn’t really played before, yet.

The opening moves were pretty standard, I ended up with no real Combat Cards on turn 1, so I only spent 6 cards, and missed drawing one on turn 2 (I try to avoid that). Naturally, the missing card was Reserves to the Front and I got clobbered pretty hard by Enver Goes East. I did get the jump on neutral Persia, and it was only towards the end that he started pressing into there. However, I was slow in Palestine, and he occupied the Sinai before I did much there. In fact, I never really paid that front the attention it needed, and spent too much effort with Russia.

The Russians front was reasonably active, with me having to patch several holes. In fact, at the end, I missed one and he started a grand flanking maneuver. While I was preventing that from going any further, Kitchner’s Invasion landed hear Homs.

At the end of things, the numbers looked good for me: 17 VP, 8 Jihad. But I was in deep trouble in Palestine. Elsewhere, things were better, and in fact, I was doing a good job sweeping up in Serbia.

Oh, I should mention that Churchill Prevails hit on turn 2, and the British navy destroyed everything in sight, including the Bosporus forts. First time I’ve seen it get past the second or third fort.

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For the Glory of the Empire!

by on August 10, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Posted In: F&E

Had Mark over yesterday for our sorta-monthly FtF session. It was my choice this time, so the venue was Federation & Empire. We’ve been playing (or failing to) this game for quite some time now, but Mark’s been struggling with a lot of the details, of which there are many, and which are different from pretty much any other game.

So, today was mostly for getting into the flow of the game, with a fair amount of mucking around going on.

We’ve been playing a part (or sector) of a revised version of the third scenario from the original set. Sector C, or the northern Klingon-Federation front. The full scenario is ten turns, starting on turn 10; three turns after the Klingons invade the Federation and at the time the Romulans join in. The major fight is in the southern portion of the front, leaving this as a low-intensity backwater. Mark gets to be the ‘good guys’, while I have the Klingons and a squadron of Lyrans that are on loan to the front.

We’d been halted a bit less than halfway through combat for the first turn. But this time, we got through the rest of that, and through all of Mark’s turn to the beginning of mine. Not at all bad with the number of explanations going on, and a pretty short day. He had to leave at 4, and we had a couple things to talk about outside the game.

My initial strategy for the first turn was a main thrust up the south border of the sector. There’s a couple planets along that line that would be valuable locations to take, or at least devastate. As it was, it was a little too transparent, and I was pinned out for an open space battle. The main fight ended up being just north of there in 2308, where I was able to take out a Battlestation.

After combat, I realized that my own bases to the north were a bit vulnerable, and I had to pull units out to protect the area. Mark was fairly conservative on his turn, preserving EPs and and just pushing my fleets around a little in open space battles. We’re at the start of my second turn, and I need to figure out what my goals are going to be. He’s got everything fairly well protected, but there’s a lot of targets and I should be able to find my way to something he can’t cover.

From the looks of things, next time we get together will be Spartacus.

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The Age of Piracy! (Abridged Version)

by on July 19, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang, or at least some of it over yesterday to try out GMT’s Blackbeard, which Mark got some time ago. Due to schedule constraints there were four of us (the game supports up to five), me, Mark, Jason and Patch.

I’d played the AH Blackbeard a time or two ages ago, and while I remember that I generally liked it, I don’t recall much else. It didn’t take me long however, to realize that while this version is technically related to it, the relationship is quite distant. Offhand, I’d say the new one is much more historical and has a better flow as a game.

However, we stuck with the short game, and there are some definite problems with it. While the playing time is quite good (about 2-3 hours with four of us who weren’t overly familiar with the game), it seems to be way too short to feel like anything much has happened. You basically end up going through the deck of events once (possibly even 20 cards short of that), and it seems to us as if that’s just enough time for a pirate to loot a couple ships, rack up some notoriety, and retire—if he’s lucky. One additional note—a couple of us didn’t notice the lines separating the sea areas until they were forcibly pointed out to them. I don’t understand why, they were instantly obvious to me.

On our first go through both me and Patch took advantage of the second draw of the General Pardon card (the first does nothing, the third ends the game, only the second does the event on the card), to get to an English port and take the pardon and retire (converting all our notoriety and loot into victory points). Neither of us did anything much with the second pirates we activated right afterwards, and Mark and Jason never retired. At first we thought this left them with no VPs, but later review showed that they got a handful from accumulated notoriety. Patch had done better than I and won quite handily.

We went off to lunch at that point, and started a second short game when we got back. I don’t think it took any less time, but we started using parts of the rules to much greater effect. Most notably King’s Commissioners were quite active, and the bane of more than one pirate.

This time, it was more than some of us could do (including me) to retire a pirate before the end of the game. I started out well, picking off Patch’s successful pirate at the beginning of the game with my KC. After that it was all downhill. I took a gamble and started off the Gold Coast of Africa, where it turned out there weren’t any merchants. I moved over to the happy hunting grounds of India (about half the initial merchants were in that area. I took one merchant and got a valuable prisoner, but hardly any loot or notoriety (rolled ‘1’s for both on a +1 ship). The real problem was that my hostage was French, and the only French port with a non-anti-pirate governor was in the Caribbean.

So, I set out for the Caribbean, and that turned out to take longer than the game lasted. This was partially due to delays caused by my speed rating dropping below 0 halfway there from the combined effects of storms and events played on me. This left me at half movement in the middle of the Atlantic (transit box), and by the time I got to a port, got repairs and got close to my goal of a French port, I was drawing the last card of the deck (the General Pardon for the third time). Thanks to the early KC points, I again managed second, but not by a lot, and Patch was well ahead.

It seems like the only workable pattern for the short game is to cycle through pirates as quickly as possible. Catch a merchant ship, get a little loot and notoriety, and retire as soon after that as possible. Then start it again, and gain as much notoriety as possible, since that’ll convert to VPs on game end.

We actually had some time at the end of that, so we went for a round of Plague & Pestilence. Patch (as it turns out) and I have both played it before, but it’s been years…. Due to the Plague Ship showing up a bit late, and time constraints, we actually didn’t quite finish. I think I had the highest population (I’d managed to stay quiet and have good luck on the plague rolls, so I moved from a close third), though Mark had a seemingly endless supply of improvements, which could have kept him afloat. Both Patch and Jason were running pretty thin by the end of it.

Plans for next month are, so far, uncertain.

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In Which I Fail to Find California

by on July 5, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had Mark over today for our monthly wargaming session. It was his turn to pick, and he decided to go with a couple of shorter games to give us some greater variety.

We started off with Winds of War a ‘bonus’ game from Against the Odds, that started on a bet. Namely, a “I can make a game on anything” bet. The eventual result was a game on Japan’s attempt to bomb the US with hydrogen balloons during WWII. It’s… not much of a simulation, but it isn’t bad for a game that takes an hour or so.

I took the Japanese, and got to manage groups of balloons coming in from off the west coast, trying to find randomly distributed targets in the hope of causing some damage (I was more playing the wind than the Japanese). Mark, as the US, got a number of random markers that allowed him to interfere with what I was doing, by pushing around the balloons I was moving some more, or modifying the die rolls when I did find something.

Since the targets are face down and shuffled randomly, there’s not a lot of strategy involved. Most spaces are barren desert, so it takes some luck just to find the targets. What there is involves getting as many balloons onto targets at all, versus getting them off-course or keeping them from having any effect. I developed a strategy of moving most everything into position first, and then ‘landing’ them in clumps at the end of the turn, to minimize Mark’s ability to fiddle with their movement or force them to land in empty spaces (once targeted, a space is then empty for the rest of the turn).

Mark mostly stuck to modifying my die rolls when I did find something. Since the highest VP rolls are the lowest, this is pretty effective. It also didn’t hurt that I generally rolled high. So, I generally had one or two VP events a turn. Out of 50 VP needed to win as the Japanese… I got 14. It did, however, take just under two hours to play, including pre-game rules discussion.

It’s a cute game, but I don’t see how the Japanese can win, unless the US player gets too enamored pushing around the balloons with his modifier markers.

After that, we went to the main event of the day: Red Vengeance, a fairly simple game on the last year of the Eastern Front in WWII. It’s an old-fashioned hex-game with ‘buckets of dice’ combat resolution—a combination I’m not used to.

Mark decided to take the Germans, and lined up on the start line. I started on my start line. I was a little worried at first, since you must set up on these lines, and they’re in contact for almost the whole length. I could move back and out of combat, concentrating force for a few breakthroughs, but that didn’t seem right. So I stayed put and slugged it out.

This was the right decision. The Soviet units generally have higher combat factors (more dice), which gives a good general advantage, and both lines are packed enough that concentrating force at the beginning of the game would be difficult. The real key is that the Soviets go first, and get the first repair and replacements phase on the second turn. So the Wehrmacht has to take a second round of attacks before they can bring any weakened unit up to strength. It is very hard to kill a unit, as most have a second step, and you are only forced to take one casualty in any combat; after that, you can take further hits as hexes of retreats.

I also had some good dice during the first turn. (It seems unwise to play any game against me where I need to count on rolling ‘6’s.) Mark stepped back and repaired his line, but both flanks pretty much dissolved during the second turn. In the north, that’s not too bad, as the Baltic gets in the way, and the length of line needed gets shorter. In the south, things start opening up in Hungary and Romania, and it was causing some trouble.

The game claims a 60-90 minute play time. So far, not so. We did about 4 turns out of 11 in three hours before Mark had to pack it up to go home. I figure we were picking up speed, but you’d have to be pretty darn fast to get to the speed they’re expecting (sounds familiar…). At any rate, I had demolished a fair chunk of his forces, and while that’s not what victory really consists of, I think we agree that I was winning, though the speed I would really make through the winter months could determine a lot in the way of VPs.

Anyway, it was actually a reasonably fun game, and we’d like to give it another workout soon. Next month is my choice, and it’ll either be Metropolis playtest, or Federation & Empire.

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Two For One Starship Sale

by on July 4, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Posted In: SFB

With today (the 4th) being a Saturday, I got yesterday off for the Federal Holiday. Zjonni also had the day off from college, so he came over for some gaming yesterday. As he wasn’t entirely on top of things, he decided to go for Star Fleet Battles over learning any of the other games that I’ve given him some intro to, but he hasn’t played yet.

After a little indecision, he stuck with the D7 as his training vessel, and I decided to take the Hydran Lord Commander command cruiser (without fighters, thank you), as a good way to encourage maneuver. I carefully pointed out the gatlings, and the Fusion beams and made sure he had an understanding of why being overrun with a Hydran is a Bad Idea.

And it worked; the fight went several turns with a good amount of maneuvering for position going on. I eventually got him, but it took a fair amount of work, and I never really got closer than range two. I was helped early on when a volley of disruptors hit 1:4 with odds that should have seen three hit, I really didn’t have the reinforcement to deal with that, and it would have been an extra down shield (we both ended with not much left in that department). However, the dice were pretty cold for both of us early, though I got the advantage of the first shot with good rolls.

That took (including lunch out) until mid-afternoon. For a second game, we went over a couple of rules, went to a two-on-two battle and he wanted to try something different. So, he had a couple of Gorn CAs and I took two D7s.

The initial maneuvering went well, and I started denting one of the CAs at moderate range. Zjonni finally got in close enough with the CA I wasn’t concentrating on to launch it’s pair of torpedoes. At the same time, the one I’d been picking on was trailing behind and to one side, and it launched its facing torpedo. Then it turned in to bring the other to bear and launch it. I could probably have run them out to near their full range, but I went in a bit to volley what I could on the hurt CA, and managed to get one of the torpedo launchers. This meant I wasn’t able to run them out past the mid-range damage brackets. The D7 he was picking on by now had all the rear shields shredded, and now took most of its fluff, but was still a good fighting platform.

The next turn saw both hurt ships doing their best to pull out of combat, with moderate success. That left the two unhurt ships facing off. Since they were already inside of overload range, I went slow and charged everything hoping to get a good shot off as he swept out of range. Instead, he stopped and taced. I was going just fast enough to get to him. Disruptors can fire every turn, so they have a lower one-shot output than other heavy weapons. So it is easy to forget just how much damage a range-0 pass from a D7 can actually put out.

The next turn was spent finishing off wrecking the CA… and about this time it had to be called for dinner (since that was the same table). It was obvious I was going to win, but there was a lot hurting left; it was obvious that I was going to eat a plasma-G at full strength, never mind the phasers.

At any rate, two games, a lot of fun, and Zjonni is getting up to speed very nicely.

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