Certain Destruction Awaits

by on May 24, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had Mark over today to try out Stonewall’s Last Battle. It’s part of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, which has a pretty good reputation. Also, there’s a new game for it due out for the first time in almost a decade, so I’ve been wondering how anxious I really am to get it.

This particular one is on the Chancellorsville campaign, where the Union nearly surprised Lee, and then let him take the initiative (never a wise move in the vicinity of Lee…).

Today’s fight didn’t go nearly so well for the South. I took the Confederates in scenario 5, the first of the advanced scenarios. I’d borrowed Mark’s copy last month so I could familiarize myself with the rules ahead of time, which also put me in the position of teaching the Advanced rules to Mark. (He’s only managed a solo trial session before this point; which I also did before today.) It’s pretty much the full battle, starting with Hooker getting his left flank over the Rapidan on April 30.

Teaching and getting through the first couple turns took us the bulk of the day. The game is not horribly complex (though there’s a passel of game-specific exceptions in each one, that I hope they find a way to tone down at some point). Part of the problem is just a very procedure-heavy approach to the rules, and further familiarity would speed things up quite a bit.

At any rate, the Confederates begin with a bunch of restrictions on the first day that limits their ability to respond. The game started with some cavalry skirmishing as I tried to figure out how to slow down the approaching Union troops. I threw what I did have available in his way, but not with much success (even lost a complete brigade).

The second day presented a lot more action. I pulled out the bulk of Jackson’s Corps from around Fredricksburg and attempted to face off with the three approaching corps. Partially due to poor initiative rolls, this was a lot more piecemeal than it needed to be, and Mark promptly wrecked a couple divisions with combined assaults. Part of this was also due to not being able to figure out what to do to get a good defensive position.

As the turn went on, I pulled parts of my forces out the actual entrenchments around Fredricksburg to shore up the rapidly crumbling west. I hoped that what I left would be enough to prevent a Union breakthrough there. More or less in vain. He then attacked out of Fredricksburg and cleared about half the fortifications. At the end of May 1st, there were a lot of Union troops that were going to be too worn out to get too far (hopefully), but the XII Corps was just getting up, and I was in much the same state.

Obviously, good Confederate play is necessary to get far, and I’m a long ways from figuring that out. Also, there is still a ways to go in the scenario, and it has pretty stringent VP requirements for the Union. However, I don’t know how I could have really patched a line together, and (hopefully) managed a counterattack in the interest of keeping the situation from completely falling apart over the next couple days.

So, a fairly convincing win from Mark, and he’s looking at trying out a couple of different short games next time around.

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A Plague Upon Both Your Parties

by on May 17, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang over again for gaming. With this many people, it’s not really possible to change dates at the last moment. So, of course, today is the high point of a little heat wave going though the area. And we rent a place where we aren’t allowed to have a wall-mounted air-conditioner.

However, we have two decent freestanding ones, and with both of them working together the temperature stayed quite reasonable.

Zjonni has just finished moving, and came down ill during that, and is still recovering from both. So we only had five of the group over today, which was a second playing of Russian Civil War, which we were happy with the last time we played it, so Dave, Patch and I went for it again with Mark and Jason joining in this time.

This time the White Russian forces were pretty evenly split amongst the five of us (as were the Politburo markers). Given that there’d be little chance of multiple people trying for a White win, it looked like the Red Party was the way to go. The problem with that was, that I’d gotten an even split of White and Red leaders, and the only leader I had worth more than a ‘1’ was one of the White leaders (a ‘3’). No one was really wanting to do a pre-game trade, but I eventually talked Dave into giving up the other White ‘3’ for a Politburo marker. Since everyone had 2 or 3, and this just swapped which of the two of us only had two markers, I felt I wasn’t giving up much while gaining something that I might be able to affect the game with.

At first, the game seemed to be going in what should be the typical direction, with power bases consolidating, and many of the peripheral units getting eliminated. This is a process that decidedly favors the Reds. However, the random events were mostly coming up as plagues that did a good job decimating everyone. Jason got control of the Finns early, who promptly came down into Petrograd to limit the Mark’s powerbase… incidentally killing Lenin and preventing Red reinforcements for the turn in the process.

This changed the complexion of the game considerably. I had managed to bag several minor Red leaders in my turn, but it was mostly to try and level the playing field as I didn’t have much to play with on that side of the divide. The second turn was mostly more of the same, with more nasty plagues and the Finnish army continuing to hold Petrograd, and no one willing to try and tackle the juggernaut. I was a little surprised that Jason decided to keep the units there as I didn’t properly realize the score in White VPs he was accumulating by picking off Red leaders with the Finns.

With no Red replacements for two turns, the playing field was becoming much more level, though the attrition of White leaders started insuring that active White forces were shrinking as all the available units could not be controlled. Petrograd finished the third turn with Finnish and Red units present, so they finally got replacements. This, I thought, might doom my chances at engineering a White victory, as my remaining Red units had already been knocked out, without me ever getting VPs out of them. Jason was getting the ‘green meanie’ award, since he’d gotten control of the Finns, Baltic states, and Belorussians.

And I came up with a minor tactical innovation: I moved a White army to a Red stack and attempted an assassination. If it failed, I could sit and allow him to chance the low-odds attack (or just leave…), if it worked I could uncontroll the Red ‘6’ combat unit and attack a much weaker player stack. Thankfully, I rolled high. Assassins had been largely sitting idle, but they became much more popular after that.

Eventually, the game boiled down to just a few leader stacks available, and my remaining White ‘3’ leader gave me a fairly dominant position, even with the high-value Red units that were back in service. Trotsky died during turn four, so the Reds were again without replacements. Both Patch and Jason had pretty much lost they’re Red units, forcing them to try for White VPs and a White win if they wished to continue to influence events. At the very end of turn 5, the last Red leader was eliminated, ending the game with a White Victory immediately thereafter.

Player White Red
Rindis 51 11
Jason 40 21
Dave 33 51
Patch 29 10
Mark 1 10

I hadn’t expected this result, and as can be seen, Mark got stomped on pretty hard early, and I never got anywhere with my Red forces. Jason had actually gotten more Red kills than I had, my lead was from having more White units available, and from getting control of the gold at the end of the game (it changed hands twice on the last turn).

Everyone had a good time, and I can say it looks like the game holds up well to repeated playings. Also, the extra chaos of 5 instead of 4 players was a big help to the game.

Next time, we’re looking at doing a playtest of Metropolis, a game of the rise of the Greek city-states 8th-5th centuries BC.

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Revolting Edessa

by on April 26, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had Mark over today for more gaming (this is three weekends in a row with someone…). Today was his pick, and he had decided he was interested in seeing the Third Crusade scenario from Onward Christian Soldiers, which was more than fine by me, as I think it’s a good scenario.

It was a rough start, as it’s been a bit since either of us has played, and we also had to remember not to confuse the issue with Carthage which can be similar.

One critical bit that didn’t hit me (the Saracens) at first was that Saladin starts under the onus of a rule where he has to have half his available forces with him, which he doesn’t. I could either sit in front of Acre as the Crusaders besieged it, unable to do much, and try to get reinforcements there, or leave and seek out those same reinforcements.

(The first try before we realized just how unbalanced his command structure was, saw Saladin attack the Crusaders twice and drive them away with good die rolls.)

I went seeking reinforcements, and was approaching the 50% mark, when a revolt broke out in Edessa, requiring my immediate attention. (Really immediate—I pick up Saladin and 10 SPs and move him all the way across the map to Edessa.) This pretty well froze me in place for a turn as nothing was set up for this. And two turns later it happened again, when I’d only gotten half way back and was still gathering a new force together.

So, while Saladin was gone, Acre was still besieged. Richard took Cyprus and then landed at Tortosa and quickly took it as well. Acre fell about the fourth turn, after siege attrition had got the garrison where it could be assaulted more easily. (An interesting note, about this time we had a turn where there was only one successful continuation roll. Slowed everybody down.) After this, Crusader attention turned to Jaffa, where Saladin had been gathering his army together. Also around this time, Saldin’s trusted subordinate, Taki ed-Din Omar, was killed by Assassins (further paralyzing my command).

I was actually able to sally during the siege of Jaffa with a minor leader and narrowly win the battle, causing the siege to temporarily end. As winter got closer, I realized the army there was way too vulnerable, and I planned to carry the force out by sea to safety, until something better could be arranged. So, in my biggest mistake of the game, I neglected to have my fleet marker be my automatic first activation after winning the initiative!

Jaffa fell, and with it went about 1/3 of the Saracen forces (and another leader). I managed to take some revenge by driving the Crusader fleet out of Acre Sea Zone, and then Saladin arrived to ravage the countryside around Acre, and retake it at the end of the turn. The Crusader army reconvened at the gates of Jerusalem, where Philip I decided he’d had enough and went home.

During winter 1190, Jerusalem was taken (for the second time) by Crusaders from Europe. Duke Hugh of Burgundy immediately set out to re-establish contact with the coast, as Jaffa had come under siege by Saracens coming up from Egypt. Marching around several strongholds, he took the town of Haifa (exactly 10 attrition points away from Jerusalem). Meanwhile, Saladin fell ill in Acre, not allowing him to isolate the Crusaders in the interior.

So, it was another Crusader auto-victory, though this one was much earlier. At first, Mark was worried about how to deal with Saladin, and the large force he was gathering. The events conspired against me, and he took advantage of every one. I could have done better even so, my play just did not rise up to the challenge presented.

It may be a while before we get together again, Mark has a socially busy month coming up. When we do get together, it will be for some-scenario-or-other of Stonewall Jackson’s Last Battle.

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The Far-flung Babylonian Empire

by on April 19, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had six people over for a game of Advanced Civilization today. New record for attendance (and pushing the limits of what can be hosted)! The setup was interesting as we used my Civilization set for the board and counters, and Jason’s for the cards and AST (which are the parts that get replaced in AdCiv…). Anyway, Patch and Zjonni had never played before, while the rest of us hadn’t played in years… decades even.

No one had any particular preference for a particular power, so we gave Babylon to Patch and Egypt to Zjonni, as they tend to be very forgiving powers, and then we ended up with Jason taking Africa, Dave Assyria, Mark Italy, and I took Thrace.

That last worked out very well for me, as Thrace has a forgiving AST sequence, and there was no Illyria or Crete to butt heads with. I wish the first part was intentional, I honestly hadn’t looked. The placement, of course, was very intentional.

One of the things that makes Civilization such a great game to pick up and play is the fact that despite a fair number of different things going on, the game starts very simply, and you work up to the rest of the rulebook. So you get a chance to get used to different parts of the rules at a time. Everyone had a blast, and is more than up for doing it again, soon.

For most of the game, Asia was fairly quiet with Assyria, Babylon and Egypt coming to good agreements on borders and keeping to them. Since Assyria had something of a slow start, having to muck around with figuring out what to do for city sites, this overall worked out well for Babylon, which eventually even colonized Crete (!).

Africa kept busy poking at both its borders, generally nothing decisive with Egypt, but plenty of fighting over Sicily and south Italy with the Italians, which I was happy to see. A bad combination of disasters caused trouble for the entire area, and Egypt and Africa had a hard time recovering. Italy had never managed to get very far at all.

All of this, and the generous AST gave me a good start. I rapidly moved west and then south, generating a buffer area and then colonizing Greece. The buffer held in the north-west corner for a good half the game, when I had purposely delayed some city building to maximize population. As I got to the point where I was building and supporting a good number of cities, the buffer zone collapsed and Mark was slowly forcing me back along the Danube into my primary coastal areas.

I got to 8 cities at one point (and only Babylon had beaten me to that), but then calamities kept knocking them down faster than I can rebuild them. Patch is very good at trading, and did not take too many calamities (hey, I tried!).

Since we knew we had a time-limit coming up, the last turn got strange. Egypt managed to invade Crete, knock out both Babylonian cities there, and build new Egyptian ones there (aided by the fact that Patch only had two markers in his Stock, and therefore couldn’t fight much once the cities were broken). Egypt shot up to nine cities from about five in one turn. I didn’t think enough about the fact of the last turn, or else I could have built one more city than I did.

Long-term, Babylon was in the best shape, as he had just gotten the nine cards to get into the early Iron Age and was moving forward on the AST again. I needed another turn or two to get there. Egypt had been stuck in the early Bronze Age until the last turn….

Final Scores:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Cards Treasury Total Place
Africa Jason 800 250 175 4 6 1235 5
Italy Mark 700 100 105 18 3 926 6
Thrace Rindis 1000 200 510 0 0 1710 2
Assyria Dave 900 250 220 21 16 1407 4
Babylon Patch 1000 250 700 0 0 1950 1
Egypt Zjonni 600 450 560 0 0 1610 3

We still need to work out the details, but we’re planning on the next session being in a month, and will likely be another go-round with Russian Civil War, this time with six players.

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Starship Nostalgia

by on April 14, 2009 at 11:12 am
Posted In: SFB

As neither of us had anything important going on for the day, Zjonni came over Sunday for some gaming. We’ve been meaning to get together for a while now for something with just the two of us, and we finally used a gaming day delay as an excuse. I ran down the list of games I thought I could teach on short notice, and he hemmed and hawed a bit.

Eventually, nostalgia won out and he expressed a desire to try Star Fleet Battles again. We’ve talked about it a bit in the past, and as he pointed out, he hasn’t really had anyone to talk to it about in the last twenty years. I’m more than happy to oblige. ~_^

So I ran him back through the basics, and it was obvious that once reminded he was remembering at least half of it immediately. We started with a classic Fed-Klingon duel (apropos as the current calendar year the group is working with is the year of the Second Klingon-Federation War), with him taking the Klingon. A bit more challenging at this point, but it emphasizes maneuver, which is something he appreciates.

I went slow and finished loading photons and overloaded one pair, expecting a moderate speed from the Klingon to start sniping at me. Well, no, speed 29, and he was practically in my face at the end of the turn. I sped up a bit, overloaded the other pair, and hoped to get in close. Zjonni misjudged/misremembered the situation, and didn’t realize that photons were auto-hit at range 0 and 1, while disruptors only do that a 0. He went slow, put up 16 reinforcement, and expected a miss or two. Well… there wasn’t much of a ship left.

Still, he had a fun time, and it didn’t take long, so we went again, but this time I switched to a Kzinti CA for a challenge that didn’t have the same kind of crunch power, and would also need to maneuver more. The CA is short of power (33, less than the Fed CA), but has four drone racks, four disruptors and usual Kzinti mix of ph-1s and -3s. I also re-introduced him to HETs (I kept it pretty basic for the first time…).

This went better, with him doing a nice job of eroding my #2 shield to nearly nothing, but then he pushed aggressively into knife-fighting range after unloading part of his weaponry. The maneuvering worked out far better for me than I expected, and I managed a range 1 centerline shot. It didn’t do as much as the Fed could, but the drones were right behind… not something I expected to see happen with speed-8 drones. He shot down two, and the fourth was actually targeted on his drone, but the one drone hit put the damage back in the Fed category. Meanwhile, I’d turned past him and was going to get away clean.

Despite the destructive results, he certainly enjoyed himself, and I’m sure he’ll get up to speed quickly. We took a break to show him around some of my SFB materials, and could have probably fit in a third game, but I figured with my luck, we’d get into a drawn-out maneuvering duel that would run overtime. So, I quickly set up Pursuit of Glory ran through the basics, and the first turn of the sample game, explaining in some detail as we went. It’s not the best intro to the constant tension the game creates, but if I get a chance to put in front of him again, he’ll have a good basis for understanding.

After that it was time for a very good dinner. ~_^

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