Plan Orange

by on September 10, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Minions of the Fickle Muse continues to be busy. I’ll need to write up last weekend’s as well as this weekend’s activities at some point soon.

Yesterday though, I managed some good old fashioned, sit-down-at-the-table wargaming.

I’ve been eyeing various Avalanche Press games, and U. S. Navy Plan Orange in particular, for a while. Plan Orange was the code given to military contingency planning for a war against Japan in the 1920s and ’30s. (We had a whole scheme of colors for various nations.) So this game is based off of the Navy’s planning, and shows what the Pacific War would have looked like if it happened 10 years earlier, which I find to be a fun idea.

Anyway, I got a hold of it for relatively cheap recently and tried out some of the system basics with Dave yesterday. The game is actually operational-level. You send fleets out with mission orders (which may just be ‘find the enemy’) and pre-plot their moves (either two turns worth, or the entire mission, depending). When enemy fleets happen across each other on the map, combat goes to a tactical resolution system that is more complex than, say, War at Sea, but is still pretty light and meant to be fast-moving (though the turn sequence is a little too complex to move as fast as it should).

Anyway, there’s also scenarios that just use the tactical system, and we tried a moderate one of those (about 10 ships per side). It looked a little bad for Dave’s Japanese at first, as I got all of my light cruisers in range (the heavest ships present) and half his force was still out of range yet. Then we had a couple rounds at close range and the US destroyer force disappeared (the same, alas, could not be said of the Japanese DDs). A later look at the victory points showed that while things were not rosy for the Japanese, they were ahead on VPs. His major problem was an inability to get the intiative (determined randomly every turn) kept him from getting away, and the USN’s last functioning CL eventually pounded the IJN into submission—but it was a very close-run thing at the end.

I will say, that had this engagement actually been part of a campaign I would have pulled out myself to save a CL that had had all it’s guns wrecked (and yes, I did lose it in the game).

The main purpose of all this was to see how I like the system. There’s other Plan games, and WWI-era games that all share the same rules, and a related WWII series, and I want to know how interested in them I am. By the reviews, the real meat of the system is the operational part (makes sense), but the tactical system seems good enough that it won’t kill the rest of the game. So, I’m certainly interested in picking up anything that other games don’t cover (The Russo-Japanese War is next on my list), and will probably get the more ‘traditional’ entries in the system as well.

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Always check your ammo before you leave home

by on August 28, 2006 at 11:43 pm
Posted In: MMO

Okay, busy might have underestimated it a little.

Tuesday, we did The Battle of Darrowshire again. It went a little better, we were down to four deaths this time, none of them being Noxlux.

Then, deciding we had plenty of time left, we decided to take another crack at Stratholme. We were still having trouble with it, and when we wiped at fairly close to the same point as last time, that, it being a weekday, was that. talks about it and the third try on Saturday.

Friday night was a BRD run. Unfortunately, we only had four people, and were perhaps not at our all time best. The primary reason to go was for Thermidor to catch up on quests, and we did get two done for him. Also, I encountered my first Blood of the Mountain. I turned it in to boost my reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood. We got through to the back, and with some effort made it through the Lyceum. However, the flamethrowers in the next room got us again (or at least me and Thermidor), so we ended up not getting to the Throne Room to up the Anvilrage Captain count.

Saturday morning I got on early as I could to lend help to a Deadmines run. My poor neglected warrior (Merisan) is 18, which puts her at about the right level for a good group in Deadmines. Turns out the rest of the party was up before me, and a second run fell apart before it began due to real-life issues. But she got through the chains leading up to the main Deadmines quests, and did the two undead ones outside the instance.

Saturday evening was the big attempt on Stratholme. That instance really seems to be cursed for us. We attempted an early start, but word of this was not spread well, and we ended up with half the party showing up at the usual time.

In the meantime, Dunain helped Bolex through Scarlet Monastary for another try at the final piece for his set. It went a lot smoother than the first time. Thankfully, Thermidor showed up to help out at the end, and Bolex accidentally got the boss when there was still a few more people to clear out, but with Thermi’s firepower, we made it alright. Bolex didn’t get what he wanted, but did get a nice blue shield that he’ll be using for a while.

After getting into Stratholme, I realized that somewhere during the last few days I’d used a lot more ammo than I’d bargained for (probably BRD, now that I think of it, I’m not used to running instances two days in a row). Blondie realized that she probably didn’t have enough curative potions to deal with a nasty disease (? – I forget what’s its classed as) that the undead generate. So we popped out to Ironforge and flew back. Or I flew back. Blondiewood succumbed to the damage effects of the disease mid-flight. (150 damage/3 seconds and no health regeneration; and there’s no way to bandage, or cast, or potion while flying.) This ended up with Blondiewood having to run to recover her corpse… which was safely at the feet of the gryphon master – three zones away.

Despite these problems, we did fairly well. It’s still tough for us, but we’re getting a bit better, and it is generating some new equipment. (Ironically, the only Dungeon Set piece we’ve seen is for the pally set. Farmishi has it waiting for her.) But we got to the Archivist and got two quests done. We did Balthazar across the way (will need to do that again…); Blanc was hanging by a thread at the end of the fight, but we managed without anyone actually dieing. Went through the Hoard door and wiped partway through that area. We called it night there, since we’d done the real goal of the run.

Next time, we’re planning on Dire Maul North. Still an end-game instance, but an easier one than Stratholme, so it should be comparatively relaxing.

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Stratholme Live! (?)

by on August 22, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Posted In: MMO

A couple of things lately:

First, we did the Battle of Darrowshire last Tuesday. This is an outdoor Raid event, so we got all available 60s (7), and went in with not a little trepidation. As it turns out, it isn’t so bad. We got through it with five deaths, three by Noxlux, me once, and Lance once. It keeps you running around a bit, but it’s not too hard to keep on top of. Actually it could make good training for handling adds in a fight. Anyway, Noxlux didn’t actually have the quest, so we’re all set to do it again tonight.

A few of us tried a bit of Scholomance for the second time this weekend. The first time we went in with a five-man group and had major problems with the second room. This time, we only had four, but we stuck to the first room (which we skipped the first time).

Mostly we did okay, but there’s a group of four in one corner, and a group of five in another that we couldn’t handle at all. We did get to a quest item and grab that, but for now Scholomance just doesn’t seem to want to happen for us.

This last Sunday marked our first run into Stratholme. We had the the usual team of Blanc, Dunain, Jariedthe, Blondiewood and Brunev. We did ‘live’ side, or part of it. Which was surprising with the amount of undead we saw for most of it. The evening got off to a bad start, with a couple of delays, me dying to a Scarlet Courier ambush (the bridge was clear before I went across – I swear!), and then the Scarlet Courier group spawned on top of us while waiting in front of the instance (safety tip: don’t camp in the middle of the bridge), which netted a couple more deaths (including Brunev, who was rebooting his system).

Once inside, things were much better. Progress was a bit slow, but I’m sure it’ll pick up once we get used to the instance. At the least, we finished off two quests, made some progress on a couple more. We got into the cathedral itself up to where there was a large group to fight at once. They wiped us, we called it an evening. We would have liked to go further, but it was already getting late on a Sunday.

So this next weekend has a BRD run scheduled for Thermidor, and a second try at Stratholme. Busy, busy, busy.

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Why Can’t the Thorium Brotherhood Just Take Food Stamps?

by on August 14, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Posted In: MMO

Reaching back a bit, Farmishi and Shrimpette did a Zul’Ferak run. Part of the grand plan to get set up for Sunken Temple. Farmishi is now 47, slowly inching towards joining in on the high-level runs.

Which would give me a choice between which of two support classes to play. Hmm. Definite pattern there.

Not that playing a Paladin is anything like a Hunter. As a Marksmanship-spec Hunter, Dunain does a lot of damage, and can send Lance off to distract an enemy for a while (particularly mages and elementals, as Lance generally has higher resistances than anyone else). Farmishi is split between Holy and Protection, so her damage is low – even for a Paladin. However, as Brunev found in Zul’Ferak, once she’s got someone locked onto her, it takes quite a lot for her to lose aggro again. So, she’s essentially a combined secondary tank and secondary healer.

Saturday was another Blackrock Depths run. Something of mixed bag of things to do. The primary impetus was that Dunain had inherited a lot of Dark Iron Ore from Jariedthe when she switched from Mining to Enchanting about a month ago. Since I had take it out of the mail system, it was chewing up a lot of inventory space.

We went in with Dunain, Blanc, Blondiewood, Thermidor, and Jariedthe. A little clearing, and I finally did my turn-in for Jail Break. (Anvilrage Captains: 9. Plans: 0) Between this and the last couple runs, the party had a large number Relic Coffer Keys. So we did the Vault. I opened the last door, the golems activated, and… what’s-his-name appeared.

Things didn’t go well. Blondiewood dropped early in what was turning into a confused melee. Lance also dropped, though I managed to get him rezzed again. Blanc and Jariedthe eventually got worn down and died. However, they had done such a collective number to the golems that I was able to finish them all off in pretty quick order at this point. Thermidor dropped about the time I finished off the last golem, and I was in no shape to take on a mage.

Pity, I’d been so close to pulling it off.

Lance was pretty ticked at me when I rezzed him again when I got back to the instance.

By the way, Blanc instituted a system using the new marking symbols from 1.11 when setting up a fight, so most combat was a very by-the-book afair.

After finishing the Vault, we paid the Dark Anvil a visit and got Darkvire for Thermi and Jariedthe to get their Shadowforged Keys. And then on to the bar.

Rather than smelting Dark Iron, my current plans are just turning in the Ore to further my Thorium Brotherhood rep. I’d have to check, but I think turned in 140-160 ore this time. So, do this another 16 times and I’m at Revered! No problem! (oyyyy…)

We then proceeded to the back. The Lyceum was a bit of a problem, since we had a hard time finding Flamebearers again. But we kept it together and pulled it off.

Then both Thermidor and I died to the flamethrowers in the next hall. We took care of the monster easily enough, but those flames are annoyingly hard to avoid properly.

The final hall went very smoothly. There were also five, not the normal three, Anvilrage Captains there. Count: 14. Plans: 0 (darn)

Better yet, the Princess acted correctly when we did the final fight, so three of us have now completed that quest. I need to fill up on Dark Iron Ore and invite Brunev along so he can finish it.

And last night I strolled through Stormwind with Marshal Windsor to confront Onyxia (again). We actually picked up something of a crowd this time. Naturally, now that we had a bunch of spectators, it went wrong.

Marshal Windsor walks up, clad in riteousness (and good Plate), denounces Lady Katrina Prestor before the court of Stormwind, and reads from a pair of tablets – suddenly Katrina Prestor transforms, revealing herself as the black dragon Onyxia!

The Regent runs from the room, Bolvar Foredragon yells for the guards, and Marshal Windsor stands ready to fight his enemy.

…

…

Dunain whispers, “Onyxia, it’s your line!”

The event stalled at this point. I eventually received a ‘fail’ on the quest. According to Blizzard, this is a known problem. But I’m going to have to look up what I can do about my failed quest. (grumble)

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The Commissar Has Left the House

by on August 12, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Posted In: ASL

The Barrikady, Stalingrad, November 9, 1942: the Sixth Army was being bled white admist the ruins. The rifle strength of whole companies was often reduced to little more than a squad in an attempt to take a single house. The battle lines were now drawn through the hallways of individual buildings rather than by streets or city blocks. The Germans decided to bring in fresh specialized units for the final assault: five battalions of elite pioneers specially trained in street fighting and vetrans of the bitter street battles of Voronezh were summoned to take the last stubborn outposts between the machine ships of the Barrikady Gun Factory and the Volga. However, the pioneers of Major Rettenmaier had never seen a battle the equal of that for the “Red House”.

Patch and I just finished playing the ASL scenario “The Commissar’s House” last Wednesday. Or a rewrite of it. The original appeared in the initial ASL module, Beyond Valor; this version appeared in ASL Annual ’92 and uses the historical Red Barricades map, as the action actually happened there.

It’s a relatively big scenario, with about two dozen squads on each side. I had the defending Russians, and Patch the Germans (who are favored). The Germans have 8 1/2 turns to get to and take two large buildings that are a little distance apart from each other.

Setup was something of a disaster. I didn’t think a few things through, and made bad rules assumptions. Then I made bad assumptions about where the attack would come. I was thinking almost purely in terms of a center thrust between the two victory buildings, so I was surprised when Patch set up with heavy concentrations at the North and South extremes. Worse, I suddenly realized my HMG was in a really vulnerable location. Compounding this, German fire broke most of the defenders in the less-important of the two buildings right off the bat. Actually, the Russians spent a fair amount of time breaking all during the first turn.

The first building fell quickly and hard, with me losing a fair number of units to Failure to Rout while trapped in the cellar. The next couple of turns went somewhat better for me. I had a scattered amount of perimeter guards out who did their job fairly well. The noose slowly drew tighter as I kept trying to reshuffle my squads in the Commissar’s House. The problem was that he had a couple of ‘kill stacks’ in the south with two good leaders. Even the +4 fortified building and fanaticism (Russian balance) couldn’t keep him from breaking a decent number of squads. It took quite a while to turn my opening setup into something that could actually manage fair amounts of dispersed firepower.

By turn four, I had two places away from the victory building still resisting, and the bigger kill stack equipped for the assault was starting to move in under cover of the 9-2 and a lot of machine guns. The final pickets were taken care of during turn 5, with almost none of them ever managing to fall back into the Commissar’s House, which left it undermanned from my point of view for the final showdown.

Russian turn 5 Prep Fire wasn’t too bad, breaking some of the Germans, including the 838 holding one of the FT (sadly, I had forgotten about the other one). The other FT managed to cause casualty reduction on two squads, one of which was my last concealed one (a 628 I’d been hoping to have CC fun with); the remaining HSes promptly broke. More annoying is the fact that I should have moved the 628, and didn’t because of a likely FFMO Snap Snot from what I thought was an 838 (nope, only a 338 HS). He then promptly broke a leader and another two squads. DFPh saw me down to three GO squads (one pinned). And more FtR losses.

In German 6 I got a leader back, but not the squad with him. Patch passed over some rally attempts in favor of the 9-1 leader taking over the cursed FT. He promptly showed why as he tosted a 458 with it. The remaining 9-2 kill stack promptly broke another one, and CRed the last GO squad. The HS, looking around, and seeing that there was no one left to keep the Germans out, defiantly brandished their rifles back. So the second FT cooked them. FtR claimed another 2 1/2 squads, while the rest took cover upstairs.

Russian 6 saw the GO leader rally the squad with the MMG. It was tempting to try and skulk. But with the amount of German FP ranged around the building, my only real hope was to try and reduce the amount of incoming lead. And I did, somewhat. Got a leader and a squad. Patch, in turn, re-broke everyone. It was going into the German turn again, with three turns left, and I decided to conceed gracefully at that point. It was *barely* possible that I might do a little more damage, but I was more than likely to lose everything to FtR in the next rout phase.

I can say that my grasp of the main rules is starting to come back to me. The two things that hurt the most were losing the North building so quickly, and the mis-placement of the HMG. If the other building could have held him off for an extra turn, I think it would have really caused Patch some time worries. Actually using the HMG might have helped. With some of my rolling during this game, it’s hard to tell. Next up is another stand-alone scenario on another portion of the same map: “Fire on the Volga”.

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