Marathon Run to Carthage

by on December 21, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Well, thanks to holiday business, the group of players for this month slowly winnowed down, until there were two. Patch made it over yesterday, and we had a day of Commands & Colors: Ancients again.

I may be gamed out on this for a little bit. Certainly, I was feeling that way before hand, now I’m actually a bit jazzed for it again. Go figure. While I was down south, I taught my Dad, and had three games with him. As I expected, he doesn’t consider it a great game, but its shortcomings are made up by its simplicity and speed. I also taught it to Mike, I see him and Elaina every year on the way back from my parents. He keeps looking at the games I bring down for my Dad longingly, but he’s never had a chance to play a wargame. Between the explanations and some analysis paralysis it was a long night, but he had fun and was really getting into the swing of it for the second half.

After the teaching, I was a little burned out, but playing Patch has put me back in form and eager for a bit more. I also noticed that I habitually state which results are needed in an attack now….

Also, all I had down south was the original set. I ordered the first expansion on sale a week or so before, but it didn’t ship ’til the day before I left. I had Expansion 4, but there’s only one battle playable without some of the other expansions, so I didn’t take it with me. So yesterday, Patch and I broke in both sets.

We started with the battle of Marathon, and I found out that Patch’s knowledge of history more or less stops with WWI, and he didn’t know anything about one of the most famous battles of classical history (‘if there’s not tanks involved, I can’t get interested’). Things went somewhat true to life. After some initial skirmishing, I took a wounded Auxilia out of line and replaced it with a Medium, just in time for Patch’s Greek line to come into contact and break against them. The wings went much better for him, and after a protracted struggle, my last desperate attempt to keep the battle going came apart. 5-6

We swapped sides and went at it again. One of the interesting bits about the ‘play, swap sides, play again’ plan is that you can try out the things that you thing your opponent missed. Patch was much more active with the Persian cavalry, and I avoided contact with the Persian center. That didn’t go so well, with the Greek right getting destroyed and the ending fight devolving upon the center. The Persian center was no match for the Greek left and the remaining Heavy from the right, however. 6-5

After that, we looked through the Expansion 4 scenarios, and settled on Hormuz, which features a mixed force of Persians (purple Romans) against an all-cavalry Parthian army (Eastern Kingdoms). Also, both sides have the new Cataphract Cavalry units (heavy cavalry that can ignore a ‘sword’ hit, making them more durable). I had the Parthians first who are mostly Light Bow Cavalry with three units of Cataphracts. I was worried about the highly fragile nature of my army, especially when Patch started getting retreat results on the Light Cavalry that caused losses for not being able to retreat far enough. After that, I got the Cataphracts into action, and with some good cards absolutely smashed the Persian army. 6-0

I then proceeded to show that it was not a horribly unbalanced scenario, as I got the Persian Medium, Heavy and Cataphract Cavalry into action quickly, and smashed the Parthians before they could get going. I don’t think I ever moved the infantry line. 6-1

I seem to do well whenever I’m given a substantial cavalry force. Normally, I just lose my Light Cavalry to little effect. Both playings of Hormuz went very quickly.

We then went to the next scenario in Expansion 4, a fight between the Roman factions of Gordianus (purple Romans) and Capelianus (grey Romans) at Carthage in AD 238. I had Gordianus’ force first, which is almost all Auxilia. Again I had some good cards, but maneuvering my line was a challenge, and the one unit of Medium Cavalry (and leader) ended up across the battlefield, cleaning up stragglers but doing nothing to support the main line. I got lucky and eliminated one of Patch’s Mediums early, and I avoided contact with the remaining Medium and Heavy while routing the rest of the army. 5-2

I like Auxilia units, they’re the lightest of the ‘competent’ units, but they usually aren’t enough to get the job done. Against the mostly lighter troops of Capelianus, they can do well, but I was able to use the heavier units and leader to pick apart the Auxilia, and pulled out a narrow win in the second go round. 5-4.

The unprecedented 33-18 banner total for the day was mostly powered by the Hormuz set, where good card combinations (such as two Mounted Charges in a row) did Patch in quickly. Overall though, it was a fun day with some really tense moments.

I’m basically free all of next week, but it looks like I may not get in any more gaming until late January.

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The Imperial Reviewers Legion

by on December 14, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Posted In: Gaming

As you may remember from a previous post, I went squee over Playmobil Roman Legionaries.

Time for further fun with them. A person on BoardGameGeek has started doing game reviews… using the Playmobil Romans, in the person of Centurion G. Maximus and the Imperial Reviewers Legion. Even if you don’t care about the games, I suggest you check them out, as they’re very clever.

http://boardgame.geekdo.com/geeklist/49516

It’s a pity she doesn’t have any wargamers in her group, but the good Centurion definitely thinks of everything in military terms.

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Endurance Run

by on December 2, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Well, the annual trip south to visit my parents has been going well. Case in point: I finished a game of Pursuit of Glory with my Dad yesterday.

I’ve had it for a year, and have been playing a game (by Vassal/email) for most of that time, but this is the first one I’ve finished. I consider the Central Powers to be slightly tougher to begin with (more things to juggle at once), so I took them.

Play was a little odd. I’ve found some rules I’d missed or forgotten, darn it. More importantly (for how play went), my Dad’s table is meant to hold miniatures games, so it’s too big to be comfortable with a normal-sized game (there is a plan for next time). Anyway, were were playing at a corner, and the Balkans were the far side away from my Dad, so they got less attention than they otherwise would have.

Even without that, that theater was strange. Bulgaria was practically the last card in my Limited War deck, so it didn’t join the war until very late. In fact, the Russian Revolution happened the same turn, so Romania stayed neutral the entire game, and I eventually got Greece in on my side. The game ended with the Allies in Salonika and both sides staring at each other.

The Allied transition to Total War was a bit slow, but not too bad overall. About two turns after that we both had a turn or so of high-powered events that drove the Combined War Status to end-of-game event heights.

Over in the major theaters, I got a pretty potent early force on the Suez Canal, while holding off the Russians and containing the beachhead in Mesopotamia. However, I didn’t react fast enough to a two-beachhead invasion (BR and FR) in Syria. It got off the beaches in force, and I lost eight divisions OoS at Suez. That put me into a panic, and I was only able to stabilize the line north of Damascus. (I did hold Damascus for a while, but couldn’t keep him out.)

The second half of the game had me grimly holding on, bringing in all the reinforcements I could to stabilize things, and then slowly denuding the reserves as the army ground down. I managed a couple counter-thrusts in Mesopotamia, including one that cut off a corps, and an attack that nearly destroyed the French army (and D’Espery’s reputation). I also maintained pressure on the Russian front, partly for MOs, and partly to ensure that the Allies couldn’t put all their actions where they had the advantages.

The war ground down along with my available RPs (had a about a year and a half of Turkish War Weariness). I think the big problem with my Dad’s strategy during the final parts of the war is that he should have done more ‘even’ attacks, that would have ground down both sides, and take a few more RPs. Sooner or later the Turkish Army has to break—which it did anyway, but too late.

I had put a decent cordon into place in Persia, with the Persian Uprising to help slow things down. However, he eventually put more in there than I could afford, and broke through very late in the game, eventually getting all the way to Baku, which I had recently captured. In the main part of the fighting he got to, but could not quite take Mosul, but would soon. Deir es Zor, Aleppo and Mamure Station would probably hold for a while (well, that last was not as secure). I’d been holding the advance-halting cards 2-3 at a time to make sure I could keep defending….

At the end, VPs were at 10, and we split the oil fields. A very close-run CP Victory of Endurance. I totally muffed the LCU limitation at one point (5 LCU in Mesopotamia; I hastily moved them out rather than blow the game with their elimination); I always forget it when in the heat of reorganizing the defenses… Other rules muffs were smaller and probably more evenly split. So an AP victory may be deserved (especially with that score!), though I may have done about as well without that problem.

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I Am Sertorius!

by on November 8, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark came over Saturday for our monthly FtF gaming. This time was his choice, and he went for Spartacus, which he got a couple months ago. No complaints here, didn’t get it only for money reasons, and it looks very good.

The subtitle is more accurate than the main title: Crisis in the Roman Republic 80-71 BC. Spartacus’ slave revolt is the part that’s popularly remembered, but it happened towards the end of an ongoing military crisis where Rome was dealing with a well-lead revolt in Spain and a war in Asia Minor.

I was nowhere near top form for almost the entire day. A bit fuzzy-headed combined with a new game was sadly not a good mix. (I was feeling poorly Sunday too, obviously fighting off something.) Even without that I must say I was having trouble getting a good picture of the game in my head. There are some very fiddly bits with the rolls for interception, avoidance, and withdrawing, which a player aid would be handy for.

Suffice it to say that we didn’t get very far in our game. Definitely want another crack at it, as it is a good system, and ‘is that up or down?’ trouble aside, very interesting.

But for what we did manage: We went for the second scenario, which starts just before Mithradates declares war, and the true crisis starts. I had Sertorius, and the year was a mixed bag. I was able to win against Pompey in western Spain, but the force holding down central Spain against Metellus was defeated and nearly wiped out on a rout. Things slowly went from bad to worse there for the rest of the year.

For the second turn, I lead off with Mithradates declaring war. The way the game works, there’s only limited actions available there the first turn. I advanced out at the end and took over a couple provinces. In Spain, things continued to go poorly, though the threat of Sertorius’s army kept Mark from getting too dangerous, as I shifted back and forth to threaten Metellus, and then Pompey as the two Roman armies shifted close to each other. Raiding allowed me to break his grip on Further Spain as he moved out of the area. The previous turn saw a small erosion of Roman Stability, this turn it took a serious turn for the worse.

For the third turn, things really went my way. Neither of us paid much attention to Asia Minor, but I was able to advance a bit further. In Spain, Sertorius managed to beat off an attack from a heavily reinforced Pompey (‘6′ on the reinforcements roll, which he used to bring all six legions in that army from reduced to full strength), but was wounded in the process. I brought in the second best leader to take over. He beat off another attack, and Mark was forced to join Pompey and Metellus’ armies, which I drove back into Gaul.

We ended the day with Sertorius on the offensive in Gaul and effectively in full control of Spain (there were still a couple major cities in the south, and some ports that needed claiming to make a naval voyage more risky. Stability fell to about -34, and we judged it a Sertorian win.

Further notes: The dice with the game seem to roll sub-par, especially the yellow ones. The Romans being traditionally red, this led to some poor battles for me until I swapped to some dice that we normally use with SFB (which wants low rolls, so it’s not as if these are my ‘roll high dice’. The meat of the battle system itself is good. I like the main results rolls, where casualties and victory are related, but aren’t directly related, though the pursuit can be quite painful (which, alas, is quite historical).

I definitely want to try again with better knowledge of the game, and a clearer head.

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Ancient Battles

by on November 3, 2009 at 11:32 am
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch actually lives some distance away (near Sacramento), but he’s in the area about every other week for an RPG group he’s involved in. This Sunday, I actually got him over on one of those weekends without the rest of the gang.

We had a fun afternoon of breaking in my new set of Commands & Colors: Ancients. He’s played it a time or two before, but not as often as me, and had to spend a while re-familiarizing himself with the rules. Once that was done, he picked things up really quickly.

Since he was still getting up to speed, we started with the first scenario, the Battle of Akragas, which is a good, short, simple, teaching scenario. I took the Syracusans for the first round (before noting that they’re the advantaged side). Don’t remember much about the battle at this point, but after an initial lead it turned into a close affair. 5-4

We switched sides and went at it again. I quickly realized that I was going to be in trouble for the rest of the afternoon as Patch did a better job with the Syracusan army than I had, getting the Heavy Infantry into action much earlier. 3-5

We then went to the second scenario, Crimisos River, another quick 5-banner scenario, but with the added complication of one wing of the Carthaginian army being stuck behind a river. It’s a tough knot for Carthage, crossing the river tends to cause retreat path problems, and they only have one leader (and a special unit that acts like it always has a leader, but that doesn’t apply to adjacent hexes the way a true leader would. I never sorted out my flank, and Patch knocked out the Sacred Band in one or two good attacks. 0-5

Patch again improved on my performance as we switched sides. He sorted out the river crossing much better than I had managed. One gambit was to send the Medium Cavalry down the side to the far crossing. Sadly for him, my slingers got a double retreat result on them that sent them back to their starting hex. They later showed up near the main crossing and were forced to retreat again. Someone didn’t want to risk valuable horseflesh in battle…. The middle game got fairly desperate for me. Syracuse only starts with nine units on the board, so as I started taking losses, I was getting thin without any ability to cycle out units. In the end, I narrowly won a race to pick off wounded units. 5-4

Wanting to stick with a smaller battle that would fit in the time we had left, we went to the Truceless War set of scenarios, and the Battle of Utica. I took the rebel army first, and soon realized I had trouble. I had the lighter army, and a hand of four cards (against six). I’ve found in the past that going below five generally ends up with too little flexibility to be viable. It didn’t help that Patch’s first move sent some of his elephants into my midst, where they promptly annihilated my only heavy unit in one attack. After that, my dice, which had been doing poorly all afternoon, went hot. I counterattacked against the elephants and quickly cleaned up three units in four attacks with a good streak of red square results. After that, I pressed on before Patch could reorganize. It helped that the card shortage never seriously affected me for once. 5-1

Thankfully for me, Patch did not have nearly my luck with the dice after we switched sides. I didn’t have quite the same dramatic opening (in fact, I don’t know if I ever got his heavies, they retreated to the base line early and spent a while getting back into the action). He weakened one, and killed another, but never eliminated my elephants. In fact, my entire line was moving up, and the major problem was not crowding the elephants too much. 5-3

Utica was the only battle that had a split decision, though I’d consider it the most obviously weighted against one side. My double win made up for the earlier shutout, and I carried the day, 23 banners to 22.

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