Battle of Hoth

The new Richard Borg game has recently landed and it seems all the cool kids have a copy (or at least 2 of my friends have and I'm counting them as the cool kids).  Using the very familiar Memoir 44/Command and Colours model this is the Battle of Hoth game, complete with snowtroopers, Speeders, and of course, AT-ATs.

I guess of all the Star Wars settings this is probably the most iconic for a large battle rather than skirmishes, and the game mechanics common to Richard Borg's games are ideal.  I'm guessing just about everyone has played one of the Borg games with cards activating squads or vehicles in the Left, Centre or Right section of the board, and special dice determining casualties or causing units to retreat.  It's one of my favourite game systems and perfect for snowy battles on Hoth.

The game is very quick to pick up and games last about 30 minutes... we managed to squeeze in 3 games comfortably in an evening, in amongst chatting.

Out initial game was the 1st scenario pitting 2 infantry patrols against each other (with a couple of probe droids on the Empire side for good measure).  We then followed this up with a Snowspeeder scenario, where the Empire come tooled up with an AT-AT  as well as infantry squads.  In all the games the Stormtroopers behaved exactly like you'd expect, repeatedly failing to hit anything thanks to some very unlucky dice rolling by Darth Andrew.  

The Snowspeeders proved really effective, zipping around and wiping out multiple Imperial squads.  The AT-AT is a tough beast, slow but powerful and very hard to damage, so I decided to ignore it completely and concentrate on the Stormtroopers.  The final game (a repeat of the Snowspeeder scenario) was very close with the Imperials almost claiming the win, but let down again by some unlucky dice... clearly I was using the Force to influence the dice rolls!

Great fun and I can see this having lots of  replayability.

Star Wars Miniature Starship Battles

A bit of a blast from the past last week with a game of Star Wars Miniatures Starships Battles.  These rules came out way back in 2006 (in my head that's just the other day but of course it's... gulp...17 years ago!).  I think I'd played this when it came out but not since then.

They use a pretty simple grid based system which actually gives a fun, fast moving game.  It's not the most complex game but ideal for an evenings gaming.

We both had one substantial capital ship each backed up by assorted fighters... we used a couple of suggested house rules limiting ranges to 4 squares, otherwise fighters tend to get blown away at long range, and it led to a tense game as the rebels whittled down the Imperial fighters before ganging up on the Destroyer and eventually destroying it.

Star Wars Armada- giant sized!

 My friend Andrew is a keen fan of Armada, the FFG Star Wars, 'big ship' game ( Cruisers and Star Destroyers as opposed to zippy starfighters in X Wing).  We last played this 6 years ago (one of the advantages of having a blog is that I can check things like that) and, although I really wanted to like the game I've always been a bit Armada-phobic.

When the game came out I loved the concept and I'm a big fan of the other FFG Star Wars games (I think the only one I haven't played is Legion).  The thing that put me off is the host of additional cards giving upgrades to ships, special characters, bonus tactics etc.  These end up becoming overwhelming and there a million 'special' rules to try and remember and which inevitably get forgotten  until part-way through the game we realise we've missed something critical.

Andrew has been trying to convince me to give them another go for years and I've always broken out in a cold sweat and run away, but the other week he unveiled a secret weapon to tempt me to the Dark Side... a huge Star Dreadnought (..who says size doesn't matter!!?).  

So we decided to play a stripped back game with no bonus cards, just the ships 'out of the box'.  And it was fun...

The Empire fielded their enormous Dreadnought with an escorting Cruiser and several swarms of TIE fighters.  Against this I was commanding a plucky mix of Corvettes and Cruisers (including the Heavy Armoured Cruiser from Rogue One) backed up by some X Wing and B Wing squadrons.

 

One of the interesting features of Armada is that bigger ships have to pre-plan their orders over several turns so in theory my smaller ships should have been a bit more flexible which would be an advatage against the firepower of the big ship.

Of course that doesn't take account of my inability to manouver without crashing into things and I managed to hit the Dreadnought at least twice... not surprisingly I came off worse!

The fighters that managed to actually get past the TIE fighters did quite a bit damage but the real big hitter was the Armoured Cruiser which caused a lot of damage to the Empire ship (including by crashing into it) before being destroyed.  Eventually the Rebel Fleet was pretty much devastated with the survivors flying off after causing almost (but not quite) enough damage to destroy the Dreadnought.

As always with the FFG games the models were lovely with the Star Destroyer being particularly impressive.  So there we go, I've managed to overcome my Armada-phobia.  I still think it would be too much if we used all the cards but the stripped back version was great fun and we'll definitely have a rematch at some point.

Battle on Endor

 

This week saw the first game with my friend Andrew for about 15 or 16 months.  We decided to go for a Star Wars game and I'd decided Galactic Heroes would be a good rule set and one that Andrew hadn't played before.  It was only on the day of the game that I noticed that we'd actually played GH back in 2019, using the exact same scenario I'd been planning!  Some hasty rethinking was called for so we switched to one from the book with a very familiar plot.

The Rebels, led by Han Solo and Chewbacca are trying to destroy a force field generator on a forest moon to allow the Rebels to destroy the 'Doom Moon' (as it's referred to in the rules, for copyright and comedy reasons).  Opposing them are Boba Fett and IG-88 and a squad of Stormtroopers.

Top Secret Imperial base....

The problem for the Rebels is they have a tight time limit to get the bomb to the generator and 2 figures need to accompany it across the table.  This is where I made my 1st mistake... I'd assumed the table was going to be 3' x 3' but for this scenario it should have been 2' x 2', meaning I was very unlikely to ever get there on time!  I only realised this part way through but never mind!  Han and Chewbacca led the advance, quickly wounding Boba Fett and dodging several shots from the Stormtroopers.  Chewbacca recklessly charged into hand to hand (paw) combat with a Stormtrooper and embarrassingly came of worst, being driven back to the ground and then cruelly shot and killed.

Han continued to trade shots and somehow survived being blasted by Boba's flames which promptly ran out of ammo.  This led to a flurry of 1's on the dice rolling which led to half the figures being out of ammo at one point.  In fact Boba's flames ran out 3 separate times and should probably go back to the shop under warranty.

IG88 hadn't done very much and before he could head off to the battle he suddenly came under now fire from small furry marketing products (note - I didn't have enough Ewoks so had to use Jawas as a less cuddly substitute) 

Jawas Ewoks emerge from
 the undergrowth 

The Ewoks may only have been armed with bows but they were very effective...probably more than the Stormtroopers.  IG88 went down under a hail of arrows and had to crawlmoff into cover to recover.

 Han continued to hold off the Stormtroopers and survive Boba's repeated attempts to toast everyone with his flames.  More Ewoks appeared (these turned up when a Joker was drawn but we decided to limit them to 2 groups as they were proving too powerful).  Andrew then changed tactics and ignored Han, turning his attention to the poor rebels carrying the bomb...if they were despatched the base would be safe.

One Rebel was gunned down and we realised that even if Han and the surviving rebel did nothing but march to the base they would only just get there at the time limit with no time to actually set it off so we called it a night.  The Empires Death Star remained intact and the rebellion was crushed.

Good fun, despite the cock up with the table size... it might have made a difference but I suspect the Heroes would have been gunned down anyway.

You wait 3 months for a game...

...and then 3 come along at once!

Like everyone my Lockdown gaming has been seriously curtailed and it's only been thanks to a friend and I playing some online games of Lock & Load Tactical that there has been any gaming at all.

As things have begun to relax in England (not necessarily wisely) I was invited over for a socially distant game in the garden with Anthony.  We had been going to play Men of Bronze but for technical reasons this had to be changed to something else.  Anthony chose Airfix Battles, the boardgame which came out a few years ago, but using 20mm figures in lieu of the counters.  I'd played this once when it first came out but it's pretty easy to pick up, using cards to activate squads... either to give them a basic action or something a bit more specialised.

The game was a real tussle as both sides came close to defeat and victory but a last ditch charge and assault by one of my sections clinched the victory.  It's a deceptively simple game but great for an afternoon or evening session.

Apologies for the glare on the photos but we were playing on the hottest day of the year and the sun was pretty fierce!

Back at home we played a game of Discworld: Ankh Morpork which is a really fun game...

...and then at the weekend my son and I played the 1st game in the campaign of Imperial Assault, the Star Wars game by Fantasy Flight Games.  As I've played before and he hadn't I took the part of the Imperials which is always fun as it meant I get to throw all sorts of evilness at him.  I  almost managed to take out a couple of his heroes early on with a self-destructing probe droid but he realised what I was up to and managed to get out of the way.

I always find the scenarios in this game are well thought out and although they have tight turn limits and are quite demanding, they are all winnable by either side.  In the introductory scenario our heroes made it by the skin of their teeth, achieving the victory conditions on the last turn and receiving a lot of damage in the process.

Surely even Stormtroopers couldn't miss at this range??!  Of course they did!

Hopefully gaming is beginning to get back to some kind of (relative) normality for everyone and we can all get back to regular games soon.

SELWG 2020 and a bit of telly

SELWG is one of the wargames shows I usually try and get along to...it's the one that's closest to home and usually has a good range of games and traders.  I've probably been going on and off for around the last 30 years.

So it was a shame to see this post on Facebook yesterday (the post is actually from last October so this may be old news to you but thanks to the mysteries of Facebook algorithms it only appeared on my feed yesterday!)...

... to be fair I can see what they mean about the venue.  It has been held at Crystal Palace sports centre since I've been going and split over 2 floors adjacent to the swimming pool.  The facilities all seem a bit tired and the parking seems to have been increasingly 'challenging'.  The location is great for me but I can see that SE London's lack of tubes and Sunday service on the trains could make it tricky for people to get there although attendance always seems good.

I was quite puzzled by the idea of a move to Lea Valley in North London though... it seems a bit out of their patch and would probably mean I wouldn't make the trip but if it makes it more accessible to more people I guess that's a good thing.  [Edit: with a bit thought it might not be any more of a trek than Salute is so we'll see...at least I have till 2021 to think about it!]

In other news...I'm usually way behind the curve when it comes to keeping up with the latest TV series...I still haven't watched The Wire or The Sopranos and only finally got round to Breaking Bad last year... so I'm very much 'on trend' now and saw the 1st episode of Star Trek Picard on Friday.

I have mixed experiences with Star Trek...again  I missed some series completely and when I recently re-watched some of the original series I was surprised with how badly it had aged (and not just the effects).  Picard seemed very good though and I'll stick with it.

I've also seen some of The Mandalorian which was very impressive although I was surprised at how short the episodes were.  For all its Sci-fi appearances it does seem to basically be a Cowboy series (not a bad thing)...you can almost hear the jingling spurs!

Last and first games

My last game of 2019 was a 5 player game of the Game of Thrones boardgame.  I haven't played this for several years so was quite hazy about the rules...all I could remember was it involved a lot of treachery and backstabbing (obviously).  As the Lannisters I found myself slap in the middle of the map and it took a few turns for me to work out what was going on.  The southern half of the board was pretty peaceful as the 3 players here decided to largely ignore each other... the Pykes and Starks to the north had other ideas and I lost quite a lot of ground in a mutually destructive war with the Pykes.  Somehow (and I still don't really know how!)  I managed to sneak into the lead in the last turn and won the game!  I can only think that as everyone was targeting which ever player was in the lead no one noticed me until the end as I'd been pretty weedy for most of the game...a life lesson in there somewhere I think!

2020's gaming started with an outing for Star Wars Rebellion...another game I hadn't played for ages.  It took us ages to set up and remind ourselves of the rules but once we got started it all made sense.

Like a lot of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars games this suffers a little from having too many 'bits'...I got very confused about which was the Action cards, the Tactics cards, the Projects cards, the Mission cards etc.  This wealth of 'stuff' was one of the things that put me off other FFG games such as Armada.  Luckily my son has a much better grasp of this than I do and kept me on track.  The game is a big strategy game set across a map of the Star Wars universe with the Imperials trying to locate and destroy the secret Rebel Base while the Rebels have to hang on and convince systems to join the alliance.

The Imperials not surprisingly dominate militarily with Star Destroyers, ATATs and even a Death Star available to crush resistance.  They can also potentially build the 2nd Death Star later in the game.  The Rebels have some troops but have to rely more on persuasion and sneakiness to survive until the game end.

Having decided  where my secret base was I then started with most forces in Ryloth in the top right corner...big mistake as I was immediately hemmed in and had a Death Star and Star Destroyer bearing down on me.  Luckily the rebels move first so I was able to slip away.

Each player gets to recruit characters from the film's (some are rather obscure) who can move troops or carry out missions.  Very quickly Darth Vader  captured the Rebel leader Mon Mothma who is their best diplomat and really useful for convincing systems to join the rebellion.

I did eventually manage to rescue her and support for the rebels was slowly building across the galaxy.  Unfortunately the Imperials were advancing faster...they can convince systems to join them but can also subjugate them by landing troops on the planet.  This also reveals whether or not the hidden rebel base is present.  My hideout was on the Wookie system of Kashyyk and had 2 Imperial fleets getting closer and closer so I had to abandon it and relocate to one of the few remaining systems that my son hadn't investigated.  Sadly this only bought me a turn or 2 and he quickly invaded with a fleet and ground troops...game over.

I realised part way through the game that I'd made some early blunders with my tactics.  Although the rebels are relatively weak in military terms, they still need to be a bit aggressive and stop the Imperials having free reign to march all over the galaxy gaining resources and sussing out the location of the Rebel Base.  My 'run and hide' tactic was always doomed to failure.

Good fun and a game that gives a very different experience depending which side you play.  Let's hope my success rate improves for the next game in 2020!

Galactic Heroes #2 - Escape from Mos Eisley

So you wait ages for a game of Galactic Heroes and then 2 come along at once!  Since all the figures were still handy after my 1st game last week I re-ran the same scenario again, but this time as a 4 player game (rather than 2) and with a lot of changes to the scenery.   The game was very kindly hosted by Eric the Shed who supplied the fabulous Mos Eisley buildings and scenics... the buildings are actually from his Sudan collection but really look the part, especially when he added in some decorative-only gun turrets and vehicles.

Thanks to a post on the excellent Jim's Wargames Workbench blog, I was also able to use some rather nice Star Wars themed playing cards for the game.  The only confusion came when the rules call for bonuses for One-Eyed Jacks...R2D2 doesn't have eyes!

As before, the scenario ( see my previous post for more info) involves our heroes crossing a desert town to get to a ship with a trusty droid containing half of the vital Death Star plans while also interrogating some random Jawas who have the other half of the plans 

Eric the Shed's fantastic terrain

Since there were 4 players I'd changed the characters round a bit.  We now have a group led by Luke and Princess Leia and a 2nd group of heroes with Han Solo and Chewbacca.  As before the Imperials have Darth Vader and a bunch of stormtroopers but their 2nd squad consisted of some bounty hunters led by Boba Fett and the robot IG-88.

That's a Reek in the background which luckily didn't break loose
(although that was one of the random events)

The city was a suitably complicated maze of alleys and streets and the rebels quickly made their way into town, questioning Jawas as they went.  The Bounty Hunters were doing the same although I get the impression that their techniques were a bit more brutal!  While the stormtroopers cautiously made their way towards the rebels, Darth Vader strode briskly through the streets quickly cutting down 2 of the Rebels and then taking on Chewbacca in a fight.  This was pretty one sided and Chewie was quickly turned into a furry rug...

A running gunfight broke out in the centre of town between Han and the stormtroopers but the Rebels had now secured the 2nd half of the data they required and now needed to get across town to the waiting ship.

Han takes on the Stormtroopers

...while Luke and Leia head for the ship with the droid

Han managed to blast his way past the stormtroopers and Bounty Hunters and made it to the ship (we decided he really ought to be the pilot). The only chance we had of stopping Darth Vader from carving up the rest of the rebels was for Luke to hold him off so, in true Episode 6 style, they faced off with lightsabers.  Luke managed to wound his father (presumably cutting his hand off... DV seems very careless with hands...) and left him in the dust, rushing back to the waiting ship.

Boba Fett had been skulking by the ship but was gunned down in a blaze of surprisingly accurate Blaster fire, leaving IG-88 as the last hope for the Imperials.  Some of the Rebels had boarded the ship but the robot then tried to board too and a point-blank fight took place in the doorway, preventing take off.  He was eventually pushed back, allowing the remaining rebels to board and the ship to blast off from Mos Eisley, with Darth Vader shaking his (remaining) fist in fury, and IG-88 dangling from the undercarriage!

I think with rules like Galactic Heroes/Fistful of Lead, you need to make sure the traits each figure gets are thought out carefully and reflect the setting, otherwise it runs the risk of being a bit generic. The rulebook suggestions (and especially the ones in the GH Codex Galactica supplement help get the traits and design right.

The other really important factor in a setting like Star Wars (or in the Sharpe FFOL games we've played) is that there needs to be a degree of role-playing: everyone plays the characters to suit the story...Luke needs to be heroic, Darth Vader needs to be ruthless etc. Another really fun game with a nail-biting last minute victory for the Rebels... just how it ought to be!

Galactic Heroes: Skirmish on Tatooine

I've played quite a few games of Fistful of Lead although never actually the original Cowboy version...most of my games have been using the Horse and Musket variant for games featuring Sharpe or set in colonial Afghanistan.  It's a great system which is easily adaptable to just about any setting and Wiley Games have produced several supplements including Horror and Post-Apocalypse settings as well as a generic rulebook.  The version which caught my eye was Galactic Heroes which covers everything from Flash Gordon to  Star Trek and, of course, Star Wars...

So last night I dusted off my son's old collection of the Collectible Star Wars Miniatures which were all the rage a few years ago and set up a game for my friend Andrew and I to try out.  The rules are really easy to pick up... proof of this was apparent early on when I realised I'd forgotten to bring a spare QRS for Andrew but we found within a turn or 2 he had a really good grasp of the mechanics.  The game uses a deck of cards to activate characters (usually around 5 or 6 figures per player) with certain cards giving an extra bonus such as  a +1 to shooting or combat, allowing a re-roll  or removing wounds, shock etc.  Each figure has a special trait, usually positive although we each had a figure with a penalty, and the squads are led by a Hero or Villain who has extra traits and sometimes extra actions.

Mos Eisley... a random desert town...

So on to tonight's main feature...  We used one of the scenarios from the book: our heroes, led by Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca have to get a droid containing vital plans across a hive of scum and villainy to a waiting Speeder (I didn't have a large enough space ship).  Unfortunately the droid only has half the vital plans...the rest are in the possession of a Jawa who is hanging around the town. Unfortunately there are several Jawas in town and they all look very similar so some running around questioning them has to take place before our Heroes can leave.

Of course our Heroes don't get it all their own way.  The Imperials have learned about their plans and sent some Stormtroopers to intercept them.   Darth Vader has decided not to leave things to chance and decided to take charge of the operation himself.  Both squads have a Hero/Villain, a 'Specialist' (not quite as good as a Hero) and a couple of Regular figures. A 5th figure on each side has been replaced with a group of 3 Grunts... think Redshirts who are likely to die quickly but at least there are 3 of them.

There were also a selection of random events that may or may not happen.  We did get a 'Disturbance in the Force' result which meant Luke and Vader couldn't use their Force powers for a turn but sadly my rampaging Bantha didn't get to put in an appearance this time,

The waiting Speeder, parked next to a convenient Cantina...

A perfectly innocent Jawa...

Lord Vader gives a pre-match team talk to the Grunts...

The Grunts decide that climbing up onto the gantry is a great tactic... funnily enough they get shot almost immediately, but not before killing Greedo (he didn't get to fire first this time...) 
who had been looking after the important Droid.  Andrew's dice rolling for wounds was quite spectacular and generally resulted in people being immediately Out of Action (ie dead) rather than Wounded or Shocked...

The Rebel Scum huddle behind a building...their blasters weren't proving very effective at hitting the Stormtroopers who had sensibly taken cover behind a wall...

Chewbacca was hit by a blaster bolt and wounded and spent several turns trying to recover

 before Luke ran over and used some of his Jedi mind tricks and healed him

The Stormtroopers are gradually whittled down...

...so Lord Vader cunningly calls for reinforcements and a fresh trio of Grunts arrive...

...but they don't last long.

One of the few remaining Stormtroopers takes refuge in the Cantina and decides that a quiet life farming on Tatooine is definitely preferable  to fighting the Rebellion...and removes his point of Shock by the liberal use of alcohol...

As you'd expect from a game like this, the end result was always going to come down to a fight between Luke and Darth.  Before young Skywalker could take on his dad Chewie decided to get involved.  Not only did Chewbacca manage to wound Darth but I managed to roll a 1 in combat which meant I was disarmed...Chewie's axe had smashed Lord Vader's lightsaber!  As Vader was lying on the ground wounded I'd hoped Andrew would see the opportunity for Luke to reason with his father and turn him back to the Light Side of the Force but no, he ran up and ruthlessly killed his father in a flurry of Sword blows!

A definite victory for the Rebel Scum but I'm taking comfort that in Luke's merciless killing of his father he has taken a step towards the Dark Side...

Great fun and a properly cinematic game.  The rules are well worth looking out for.  They can be bought direct from Wiley Games and in the UK Oshiro Model Terrain stock them.