Ten Years Ago - November 2015

Deciding on a post to showcase from November 2015 was pretty easy. For a start I didn't make that many posts. And the best one related to our first camping road-trip when we spent two weeks travelling across New South Wales and back again. We went with friends who had a lot more experience of such trips. A good job as a few things went wrong that needed their help. But it was a great adventure, and we've done a couple more such trips since then.

Anyway, in the far west of New South Wales we stayed in Silverton, and in Silverton they have the world's only Mad Max II Museum. So we went there.

A Visit To The Mad Max 2 Museum

We really should head back out that way again.

The Great Northern War In An Evening

Daniel expressed an interest in playing one of the Dominion games last night, so we had a go at my simple campaign system for the War of Spanish Succession, but using Great Northern War armies. The campaign system probably doesn't really replicate the politics of the GNW, but it was good enough to hang a series of games off of it.

I drew up a couple of sets of tables for generating both Swedish armies and their Russian or Saxon opponents. I decided that the campaign would start just after the Battle of Narva, with the Russians temporarily out of the war and with Charles XII attacking Augustus II in Poland/Saxony. There was a mechanism whereby the Saxons would give up the fight after a certain number of Swedish victories, at which point the Swedes would invade Russia and the tables would change accordingly.

To be honest I didn't feel that either the tables or the mechanisms were entirely satisfactory, so whilst I have them written up in a safe place they need a lot more work before I'll be posting them here. However they gave us pairs of armies for an entertaining evening's gaming.

Daniel was brave enough to take the Swedes, whilst I was their opponents - initially Saxon.

I'm afraid that my skills do not stretch to coming up with fictional names for battles in Eastern Europe, so I shan't bother. And you will also be please to know that I won't give you a blow-by-blow account of each battle either. 

The first battle tested the army generation tables thoroughly, giving Daniel but three infantry units, all of them elite and disciplined - a formidable but brittle force. My force was almost entirely infantry, with some supporting artillery. I defended. Indeed the rules weight the onus of attacker towards the Swedes as that's what they tended to be most of the time.

Some field defences in my centre did me no good at all, and in the first few combats the Swedes smashed their way through the Saxons.

However the Saxons came back, rolling a couple of well-times sixes to break the Swedish army and pick up a win, albeit not a decisive one.

Here's the final Swedish charge being broken by musketry.

I didn't try and create backstories for the battles, but we did interpret the various defensive bonuses into terrain for the look of the thing. In the second battle the Saxons were the attackers but still had their centre formed up on a village. In this battle they had help from Polish cavalry.

It didn't last long though. 

However teh Saxons prevailed again, and I started to build a useful hand of cards for the final reckoning.

The Saxons attacked in the third battle, with their wings anchored on rising ground. The Swedes were smashed again, losing their third battle in a row.

But the Swedes came back. In the fourth battle they were the attackers. We had them forcing a river-crossing against a inept Saxon defence ...

... and in a furious engagement ...

... the Swedes swept to a decisive win.

With a win under their belts there was a chance that the Swedes would now switch to Russia. They didn't, and instead continues their attacks, trying to take a fortified town by storm. I broke out one of my redoubts for this battle, which saw a small Saxon force well-entrenched. 

The Swedish assault made no headway and they continued their general trend of losing battles.

The sixth battle saw the Saxons defending behind a marsh and some rising ground.

The Swedes started well, with a epic cavalry charge pushing teh Saxons off the hill. But their cavalry ran in to delayed Saxon reinforcements, and were thrown back in turn.

The Saxon cavalry then proceeded to roll up the Swedish army.

So far we had seem five Saxon victories, three of them decisive, against one Swedish win (also decisive). And yet still the Swedes kept coming. They attacked a Saxon position based on a fortified village.

And it all came together for them; for the second time the Swedes got a decisive win.

The seventh battle saw the end of the campaign, and checked our accumulated cards to see who came out best in the treaty. This is based on making the best possible poker hand from what you had. I'd picked up three kings early on, and had a nice full house off the back of it. However the last battle saw me lose one of the kings, leaving me with a king-high straight instead. Daniel had lost several battles so I reasoned his hand wouldn't be too great. In fact he had three eights and a couple of queens, so had the full house I'd just lost. Essentially the Swedish win in the final battle saw them prevent me from winning the campaign and gave the Swedes and unlikely victory.

And we never even went to Russia.

Thanks to Daniel for a great evening's gaming, and for such a dramatic finish to the campaign.

(Thanks to Caesar for the first photo in the post)

Heat - 1961 Championship - 3

The final race of the 1961 Heat season sees us in Italy on a particularly fast track. Red and black were on the front of the grid with Catherine's yellow car on the second row thanks to her finishing second in the previous race. I brought up the rear.

The Italy track is a fast one, with three just three corners and a lot of straight running. Normally it's a three-lap race, but in the 1961 championship a driver's strike event means that it's a two-lap race, but the winner gets two extra points.

Despite being last on the grid, by the time we hit the corners I'd managed to briefly get into first place and still had heat in my engine. Things were looking good for once!

The bot cars generally do really well on the straight sections though, and the race opened up as we approached the second lap. I dropped into third place. If you look closely at the top right of the picture you can see silver bringing up the rear by a long way.

Into the bends again and I'd pulled into second place again. I also had a decent hand to finish with. So long as there were no disasters I'd be OK.

There was a disaster. The run to the finish line from the last corner on this track take a couple of turns. I managed a great run on the first turn, holding a strong second place (green had already got an unbeatable lead, so a win was out of the question). However my last turn saw me have to drop to third gear as my hand filled up with heat cards. The rest of my hand was stress cards, which mean my moves were based on random draws from my deck. I was being closely pressed by red and black. But for once the bot mechanism saw them also move poorly and I just managed to stay in second place by a whisker.

Green won the race, with me second. Catherine just managed to edge ahead of read over the finish-line to finish fourth. 

The final championship points were:

Green - 21 (Two wins)
Red - 15 (One win)
Black - 14
Blue (Me) - 11
Yellow (Catherine) - 10
Silver - 6

Both Catherine and I managed a second place, so the bots can be pushed hard. Hopefully our positions will improve as we work out to play a bit better.

More Hebridean Piracy

Our club has gone Viking ship crazy at the moment, with lots of them being painted for the game Fjord Serpents. So this kind of influenced my decision as to what Galleys & Galleons game to host last night. Hebridean birlinns are kind of a successor to the classic Viking vessel, so with three of us scheduled to play I went with my three-player scenario in which two Hebridean lairds attempt to get as much loot as possible from three passing merchant ships.

I played the merchants, Caesar took the red-sailed birlinns of Angus Redshanks and Daniel the blue-sailed vessels of the Laird of Skye.

The wind was behind the merchant vessels, which allowed Angus Redshanks to come in from their beam and left Daniel having to use sweeps to intercept them.

An opening shot from one of teh merchants did nothing to deter Redshanks' vessels.

Constant weather changes frustrated Daniel's approach; as he turned onto a faster intercept course, the wind moved with him. Maybe the other laird had employed wizardry.

One of the red-sailed ships swooped in and grappled a merchant.

Soon another merchant was grappled. Both ships put up a surprisingly decent fight ...

... but the first one quickly surrendered and Angus began the process of looting it.

The third merchant ship evaded the ships of Angus Redshanks, but now had to run through the Laird of Skye's line. 

It was grappled (top left of the picture) but before the boarders could swarm over the gunwales the merchant crew cut the grapples and sailed off, making their escape. Once more, ill-fortune dogged poor Daniel. Meanwhile Caesar was whittling down the crew of the second merchant ship.

It struck. 

One of the red-sailed ships made a run through it past Daniel's vessels, and he failed to stop it.

Caesar quickly subdued and looted the second merchant ship, which gave him six pieces of cargo. The other three had escaped on the third ship. One of Daniel's ships pursued a Redshanks ship with a single piece of cargo. There was much exchange of small-arms.

Daniel managed to board ...

... and the Redshanks vessels struck.

So the game ended with six pieces of cargo captured. Caesar got five of them, whilst Daniel got one. The merchants escaped with three.

To be fair Daniel was extremely unlucky with wind-changes, activation rolls and even the initiative order once or twice. It was just one of those games.

Still, it was a fun three-player game; always a difficult setup to cater for.

Heat - 1961 Championship - 2

We played the second of our three Heat championship races the other day. This time it was the USA track. Here's the starting grid setup, in order of  the total points. Catherine's yellow car was right at the back, and I was just in front in 4th place.

Windy weather meant that we couldn't slipstream on the long back-straight, but there were a couple of advantageous track effects in play that would help offset this.

Both Catherine and I started well, and as we came into a pair of tight bends Catherine slipped into the lead.

Coming out of the bends I managed to get an epic lead after I accidentally went round a corner far too fast but had enough heat cards to pay for it. Unfortunately this meant I'd used up all of my heat cards, which wasn't something I'd planned to do. 

On the next bend I misjudged it again and spun out. This allowed everyone else to catch up but also put a lot more stress into my deck, making my car's movement even more unpredictable. I slipped into fourth place whilst the red bot car, who had been well in the rear on the first lap, now took the lead. Catherine was in last place at this stage.

And yet after we passed through the bends, Catherine managed to push ahead and picke dup a photo-finish second-place over black

I was pushed into fifth place. I'd just made up for spinning out on the earlier corner, and was heading for a deft passage of the final corner when having to play stress cards caught up with me and I got an unlucky one in four bad draw caused me to spin out. There's no way of recovering from that on the last corner, and I ended up using all of the heat I'd carefully saved up for my final burst to the finish-line*.

Anyway, the standings are:

1 - Red (bot) - 13 points
2= - Black (bot)- 10 points
2= - Green (bot) - 10 points
4 - Yellow - 7 points
5= - Silver (bot) - 5 points
5= - Blue - 5 points

Looks like I'm set to finish last, whilst Catherine could top the table if Red does badly in the next race and she can pull off a win. The next race is the very fast Italy course.

*My intent for a finish is to take the final corner in second gear with at least two heat cards available to do an acceleration up to fourth and a boost to cross the finish-line. It rarely works out that way.

Dark Ages DBA

After my game of DBA the other week I got to thinking that not only had I not played it in a while, but that it had been a long time since my various Dark Ages armies had seen the light of day.

Yesterday I got them out and had a few games.

First onto the table were my old favourites, the Sub-Roman British against some early Scots-Irish. This is basically cavalry and spears against chariots and auxilia. Against the odds the Irish defended, and set up in some marshy woodland on the coast.

Irish chariots.

British cavalry.

The Irish brought in some auxilia by sea to threaten the British camp. The British had left some pedyts to cover against this possibility and they basically spent the game in a stand-off.

The remaining pedyts spent most of the game watching Irish auxilia in a marsh.

The British did what the British do best; a cavalry charge. with hindsight doing this without bringing up at least a couple of supporting pedyts was a foolish thing. 

The British were thrown back.

And now the Irish responded. Although they were lurking in a marsh the Irish could bring up their fast-moving warriors to support the chariots and that open British flank was quickly exploited.

Amazingly the British cavalry element not only fought off the opposition, but destroyed it, giving the British the first kill of the battle.

Low PIPs meant they couldn't exploit the advantage and the Irish carried on feeding in auxilia and surrounding the British cavalry.

The British held off the attacks and got a stab at killing teh Irish general. They failed. I also sent in some cavalry against chariots that had recoiled into a marsh. In HOTT this chariot would be vulnerable and easy to kill, but in DBA it simply flees if it loses. I found that out when I double-checked the combat results.

A nice shot of the Irish general not dying.

The British general was surrounded and killed.

Some British cavalry broke through and sacked the Irish camp which, it turns out, still wasn't enough for a win.

The Irish got things together and destroyed more British horse, giving them the win.

It was a relatively close game. The Irish lost two chariots and their camp, whilst the British lost two cavalry (one the general) and a light horse. The Irish won 4g-3. The British foot did nothing.

For the second game the Saxons defended against a Pictish attack. The Saxons are nearly all warband, whilst the Picts are a core of fast pike-armed troops supported by light cavalry and psiloi.

Saxon warband in two ranks.

The Picts faced the Saxon foot with their own and put their horse on the flank to try an outflank the Saxon advance.

The Saxons charged with their main line and sent off their right flank to hold up the cavalry.

A brisk skirmish against the Saxon right flank saw the Picts hurled back.

The two infantry lines clashed. The solid Saxon warbands had the advantage here, but the deep Pictish pike-blocks were still dangerous opponents.

Indeed the first casualty was a Saxon warband. The lines shoved back and forth.

But soon the Saxon ferocity began to tell, and the Pictish line crumbled.

And collapsed. Their horse couldn't get over to the fight in time to stave off disaster.

The Saxons won 4-1. This was a second game lost because an army didn't coordinate their cavalry and their infantry. Make a note of that, kids.

The third game saw the Saxons defending against another attack, this time from teh Welsh. The Welsh are another warband army, but their warband are light and fast. They also have more psiloi and a cavalry general.

Although the attacker the Welsh adopted a defensive posture, using a hill and a hamlet to bolster their line.

The Saxons actually have a slight edge in a straight fight because their solid warband in draws against the Welsh equivalents. The Saxons charged ...

... and the Welsh were mostly pushed back. There's one exception in the foreground.

Indeed that was the flank where a Welsh warband destroyed a Saxon counterpart. This gave the Welsh a free element to use. And their advantage was that their warband are more mobile.

So as the Saxon centre drove the Welsh back through the hamlet, their right flank was now very vulnerable. And the Welsh general was leading his cavalry followers in an attack on the Saxon left.

As you'd expect, things were breaking up a fair bit as the various warband fights shoved back and forth.

The Welsh general in action. There's tidy!

The Saxon right was eliminated, but they were scoring kills in the centre.

The Saxon general was doing well, shoving back the opposition with great ferocity.

But the Welsh general got a kill ...

... as did some warband in the centre ...

... and over on the Welsh right their skirmishing archers prevailed over their Saxon opposite numbers.

The Saxon army saw a total collapse - the Welsh won 6-2!

The games were good fun, even if (having not played DBA for a while) I had to look lots of stuff up. It's very different from HOTT in many way.