The obligatory 2019 review post.

So it's the end of 2019 and the dawn of the Roaring 20's...my son's off at a Hogmanay party with a 1920's fancy dress theme to mark the occasion.  I can't help thinking that the last '20s decade brought us financial collapse and the early stirrings of fascism...oh dear...


It's obligatory to post a recap of the year so here goes with a slightly rambling view of 2019.

The blog continues with 45 posts in 2019 (4 more than in 2018) which surprised me...I didn't think I'd posted as much as that.  Views and followers continue to grow although these are modest compared to lots of blogs out there.  To be fair I've never really chased hits so this doesn't worry me too much and I suspect some of the views are randomly generated by bots but that's fine.   By a huge margin the posts that get the most interest are anything to do with boardgames...these seem to attract a much, much larger number of views for some reason

Many thanks to everyone who continues to pop by and to comment. 

Gaming this year has really settled on 3 regular places.   I haven't managed to get to the Guildford club at all this year.  The start times make it a bit of a stressful rush to get there in time to nab a table and get set up.  Instead I am lucky enough to have mix of great friends who host games (including Eric the Shed) and it's great to have a lot of variety in the type of games I get to play.

Games have included a lot of Black Powder at the Shed...despite some flaws it's still (I think) one of the best systems for an evenings gaming: everyone understands the rules, it's easy for newcomers to pick up and games generally come to a sensible conclusion in a reasonable time.

I've also played several games of  Cruel Seas...I got the starter set last xmas and added a few extra boats to the collection. It's an ok system I think...good for a multi-player evenings game but I think for a 2 player game I'd still go with Action Stations by David Manley

I also put together 2 Jacobite period armies from the Peter Dennis Paper Soldier books and these saw quite a bit of action, either using Black Powder or the rules that come with the books.  I'm usually rubbish at seeing a project through to a conclusion so I was pretty chuffed  to have managed to get both the Cruel Seas boats and the Paper Soldiers actually on the table and in action.

In the second half of the year I have been busily painting AWI armies which I think will be used with Rebels and Patriots from Osprey Games.  Again my work rate has been surprisingly high (for me) and it looks like these will see some action in early 2020.

I bought the first of  these back in the summer at the Valhalla show in Surrey/Hants and also bought some Japanese WW2 figures for a Chain of Command project.  These have languished in their box, maturing nicely and hopefully I'll get started on these soon but of course that would distract me from the AWI project!

I've also played a lot of boardgames... some good, some ok and some that really made my brain hurt! I think I've finally realised that my days of playing marathon sessions of games that go on for hours and hours with hundred of counters or tokens to set up (yes GMT games...I'm looking at you!) are over.   I need something that can be fitted into an evening and is relatively easy to pick up.  Without doubt the game I've played most has been Terraforming Mars...and absolutely brilliant game with what seems like an infinite variety of ways to approach the game.  Honourable mentions too for Star Trek Ascendancy, Jaws, Twilight Struggle and Undaunted Normandy which have all seen a lot of play.  I even managed to beat my son at Twilight Struggle for the 1st time!!!

I didn't get to many wargames shows this year...normally I manage to fit in at least 4 shows in and around the South East but this year I only made it to Salute and a brief pop in to Valhalla.  In some cases (like Colours) this was because I was busy but I also couldn't work up the enthusiasm for some of the others.  Perhaps this year I'll be more motivated. 

I also found my online patterns have shifted a bit as well.  I spend a lot less time looking at forums such as TMP and Lead Adventure and more checking out blogs and Facebook groups.  TMP in particular is a real shadow of it's former self with a lot less activity than a couple of years ago and the actual content is of little interest (or just annoys me!).  Facebook is increasingly a really good resource for fans of particular games systems to share photos, information and documents.  FB is by no means perfect...there's a lot of rubbish to wade through to find the odd nugget but it does seem to have taken a place as the successor of things like Yahoo groups

So all in all a good years worth of gaming with lots of variety, fun games and good friends...can't complain!  I'll do another post in a few days with ideas  ( I would call them 'plans' but that makes me sound too organised) for 2020.  I hope everyone has a great Hogmanay and I'll see you on the other side

Twas the night etc

So another year is nearly over and the annual festive blow out is upon us.  As usual I'm spending it back home in Glasgow with the usual family chaos.  

I've already seen a few of the obligatory 'review of the year' posts going up on other people's blogs  but mine will have to wait on my return back down South before Hogmanay.

I hope.you have the Xmas you want and it's a relaxing break...and, of course, filled with new toys! 

More boardgames: Undaunted Normandy and Lock'n'Load

[apologies...the photos in this post are more rubbish than usual...too much glare!]

Oops.... another couple of weeks without a blog post!  If only work wouldn't keep asking me to do stuff life would be so much easier!

I managed to get in another couple of boardgames over the last 2 week's (boardgames seem to be something I play more than ever at the moment)

First up is Undaunted Normandy from Osprey Games.  I picked up a copy of this a month or 2 ago and hadn't had a chance to give it an outing.  It's a small and quite simple card driven WW2 squad level game set, as the title suggests, in Normandy, and features US and German squads fighting it out in the bocage heavy terrain of Normandy.

Incidentally Osprey have just announce the next game in the series which is set in North Africa and features the LRDG and adds vehicles to mix.

Players hold a deck of cards representing their infantry and scouts as well as squad leaders and a platoon leader.  These don't appear on the board but allow you to reinforce or reactivate your troops .

Each turn players draw 4 cards and play these out.  As well as  allowing you to activate your squads or leaders your hand may also include Fog of War cards.  These don't do anything except take up vital space in your hand and can quickly become very annoying.  Your Scout units are also able to add FoW cards into your opponents hand to slow them down.

The catch is that infantry teams need to be able to get to objectives to take control of them (and win the game) but they can only move onto tiles which have already been scouted by Scout team, and each time you scout a tile an extra fog of ward card gets added representing increasingly difficult command and control as the battlefield expands... clever...

The leader cards let you move cards around between your hand, the discard pile and from your supply cards.  As units take casualties cards get removed from your deck although some of these can be replaced by leaders

It's a nifty little system... one of those games which is simple but makes a good job of representing squad level combat.  There are 10 scenarios in the book...later ones introduce MGs, mortars and snipers.  Scenarios take about an hour or so to play through and can be linked as a campaign.  We played #1 which is a straightforward, even match between 2 patrols.  We quickly found that getting caught in the open is painful and that Scouts are really vital to open up paths across the battlefield.

A really neat little game which I'd highly recommend.

I also played another game of Lock'n'Load which I thought I had played recently but when I looked through blog posts I discovered it was almost 2 years ago (doesn't time fly!).  My original post is here.

The game is a relatively simple ASL style game but without too many confusing optional rules...at least in the starter set: I suspect as you play additional modules it could become more complex.  The starter set which can bought at a real bargain price of around £13 online, includes scenarios for WW2 and for Vietnam.  As we'd had a go at the WW2 version I was keen to try the Vietnam scenario.  The rules appear to be the same for both games: again I suspect it gets much more varied in the full game.

In the scenario a US patrol played by Andrew advanced towards a village defended by a few VC troops.  Of course the Vietnamese had a sneaky ambush ready and the first US troops that advanced into the open where quickly hit with MG and small arms fire and driven back to their entry point.

The US forces then took a much more cautious approach although they were under pressure as the scenario has a time limit.  Very unsportingly they called in a couple of artillery strikes which caused a lot of damage and the VC forces were whittled down piece by piece.  I had a pretty powerful VC sniper lurking in the jungle who proved rubbish at actually hitting anything and was eventually wiped out in a US bayonet charge.  On the last turn of the game the last US objective was stubbornly defended by a VC officer manning the remaining MG but a concerted round of fire wiped him out in a heroic last stand and the US were able to liberate the village...I'm not sure there was a lot left to liberate after the artillery fire though!

It's a really nice little system which plays out easily in an evening and I'm looking forward to trying out some more advanced scenarios with vehicles and support weapons etc.

Jaws: the boardgame

So last week I posted about the boardgame Pendragon and how ridiculously complicated it is (or at least it seems that way after a very limited attempt at playing it)

By total contrast, this week we played Eric the Shed's  copy of Jaws: the boardgame.  This really couldn't be more different... the rulebook stretches to a whole 12 pages (including illustrations), there are a handful of wooden counters including a couple of cute little boats for your meeples to sit on, and the whole game is designed to be played in about 1 hour.

Jaws made a big impression on me when I was young, not least because my sister and I watched it the day before we went on a family holiday to Florida.  When we got there one of the 1st things we saw at the beach were warnings about shark attacks and we confined ourselves to the motel pool for the rest of the holiday!!

The game is designed for up to 4 players...3 take the part of the key characters from the film Brody, Quint and Hooper and of course player number 4 gets to be the shark.  The game is played in 2 Acts: the first one takes place around Amity Island with the shark attempting to avoid detection while gobbling up swimmers at the various beaches.  The characters have to try and clear the beeches while locating Bruce and tagging him with 2 barrels

The map with Hooper and Quint in their little boats

We actually played the game twice in one evening so I had a chance to play both sides.  Trying to locate the shark is very frustrating: just when you think you've tracked him down he pops up on the other side of the island and snatches a swimmer or 2!  The humans have some tricks to help them...they have a shark detector, barrels which will show if the shark is in the same zone and Chief Brody can temporarily close beaches to swimmers, but it's a hard job pinning it down.

Playing as the shark is great fun, especially when your human opponents are looking in all the wrong places.  The shark also has a few one-off tricks including a feeding frenzy card which allows you to snatch all the swimmers on a beach in one go!

Hooper in his little boat

Once this phase of the game is over we move to Act 2.  The number of swimmers eaten in Act 1 determines how many bonus cards each side get in this phase.   This part of the game moves to the end of the film and the attack on Quint's boat the Orca.  The boat is made up of tiles which are flipped when the shark damages them and then removed when it has completely wrecked that section.  The shark player has a limited choice of where to pop up so the crew have to try and second guess where he will target and focus their attacks there.  If the humans did well in Act 1 they will have more weapons and tools, while if the shark was successful he will have more powerful attacks

Each crew member gets a range of equipment

The Orca before the shark attacks...

...and after a section has been bitten out of it!

The shark in the photo above isn't from the game... he is a much more dramatic model than the little wooden shark meeple that comes in the box!

I have to say this was one of the best games I have played this year...really simple yet challenging and most of all really great fun.  I've quickly bought a copy as a xmas pressie for a friend.  If you get a chance to play it grab it with both, erm, fins...

Defeated by a boardgame

A while ago I picked up a heavily discounted copy of GMT Games' Pendragon which is a game I've been interested in for some time.  It's one of GMT's COIN games where each faction has very different mechanics and victory conditions and is set at the end of the Roman period in Britain.  It's a period I've always found really interesting and I'd been keen to give this a go.

The game is really nicely produced with a lovely board and lots (...and I mean lots!!) of wooden blocks and counters.  There are 4 factions...the Dux (the remnants of the Roman cavalry, so effectively Arthur), the Civitates (Romanised Britons) and the raiding parties of the Saxons and Scotti.  Each side has a different range of actions that they can complete each turn and the 2 British factions can cooperate until the split from Rome is complete but effectively the Britons are concentrating on building up resources and towns while the raiders want to steal their gold and ultimately settle on the mainland.

On first inspection the rules looked  pretty daunting with a 44 page rulebook and a 72 page Playbook to explain how the rules work in practice...to be fair the Playbook also includes a lot of design notes, history, explanations of the events that drive the game and even a pronunciation guide!  As an example of the complexity here is a flowchart for the solo version of the game...

My son and I tried a play-through at the weekend when he was home for a few days.  Set up took ages...there is a box for just about everything on the board but we had to read both books carefully to make sure we had everything in the right place. It does look very nice once it's all out though...

Each turn a card is drawn which indicates the order each faction acts in and you can also see the next card that is coming up so a decision can be made about whether to play this turn or pass for a better position in the next round.  Turns allow each faction to either play the event on the card or carry out a a number of actions.

In the 1st turn my son's Scotti raiders attacked the Western coast attempting to loot and pillage. My Civitates militia sensibly retreated into their forts where some survived although I did lose one fort completley.  In one region the Dux cavalry were present and I tried fighting the raiders in the open...combat is pretty brutal if you are a raider and you can expect heavy losses  but even so my precious cavalry were wiped out and their fort overrun.  Combat follows a lengthy process which is outlined on another prompt sheet although by the end of the turn we'd sped up a bit in working through this

The Scotti (green) attack the Dux cavalry (red).  The Civitates are in blue

There used to be a Hillfort here...

We drew a halt here for the evening and were planning to resume the next day but when we sat down to start neither of us could summon up the energy or enthusiasm to give it a go and we ended up packing it all away again!  It does feel like there is a good game in here somewhere but it is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff that is going on and that you need to keep track of.  My initial thought was to stick it on eBay but my son has convinced me to hold off and we may give it another go when he's next back home.  To be fair, I've since read a number of reviews saying this really isn't the best place to start the GMT COIN series as it is pretty complex

This was one of a 3 GMT board games I picked up cheaply recently, the others being Blackbeard (Pirates obvously)  and Iron and Oak (ACW Ironclads) and I'm hoping they'll be a bit more lightweight!

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.