Mammoth Hunt

I played a quick game of Paleo Diet the other day, just to while away a lunchbreak with something other than a nap.

I set up a couple of mammoths and some horses. One of the mammoths was a juvenile as I'd not really used the juvenile rules that much.

There were five hunters, with a target of six bulk. The adult mammoth is worth 4, the juvenile 3 and the horses are 2 each.

An early shot with an arrow saw the adult mammoth wounded. The archer was really just trying to drive it away from the calf.

A hunter inflicted a hit on the calf, but this brought up the wounded parent who was quite cross. The hunter was wounded in the attack.

Another hunter came up and attacked teh juvenile mammoth. This obviously enraged the parent whose subsequent attack were all ineffective.

The hunters killed the juvenile and the parent ran off.

A spear-armed hunter had attacked one of the horses, and found himself in the path of the bereaved parent.

One of the hunters carried fire, and had been trying to set up a wall of flame to prevent the animals fleeing north. However the fired had kept going out and it was only now, well into the hunt, that he really got things going.

The spearman ducked out of the way of the mammoth and finished off one of the horses.

In panic the other two horses stampeded over him, injuring him.

They also ran towards the fire, panicked again and headed towards teh edge of the table. If they left then the hunters would have to take on the adult mammoth; not an enticing prospect. One of the club-wielding hunters moved to drive them back into the hunt area.

They turned around and he was lucky enough to get a good strike at one, killing it.

And that was it; with two horses and a juvenile mammoth in the bag the hunters had managed a successful hunt, albeit with two injuries.

In fact they were very lucky; the adult mammoth had attacked four times with a 50% chance of scoring a hit and missed each time. At least one hunter would have probably been put out of action if the mammoth's attacks had been better.

Still, juveniles offer an interesting challenge, and I'm going to try another hunt with one for my next game.

Coronel Plus

Last night Caesar put on a game of Broadsides in which we kind of refought the 1914 Battle of Coronel, one day earlier than it's 110th anniversary. I say 'kind of' because in order to even things up for the British, Caesar gave them the battleship Canopus as a late-arriving reinforcement.

Here's the setup, with the Germans in the foreground (Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Dresden, Leipzig and Nurnberg), the British in the far right corner (Glasgow, Monmouth, Good Hope and Otranto) and tucked against the coast the entry-point of Canopus.

The Germans. The two ships in the foreground are the armoured cruisers and the others are light cruisers.

I should point out at this stage that a lot of the ships were depicted by stand-ins, some of which are not even the right nationality. They all had a label and were roughly the right type of ship even if the model wasn't a representation of the actual vessel.

The British are a mixed bag, with a light cruiser, and armed merchantman, and a couple of armoured cruisers.

I played the Germans and Stuart the British. With only two big guns on their side, the British advanced rapidly to close the range for their other armament. I should have hugged the coast and used the advantage the big guns of my armoured cruisers had, but I have no idea what I'm doing in this era and also closed with the British, albeit more cautiously. To be fair the coast was where the battleship was going to appear.

It appeared on turn two. Scharnhorst actually managed to plonk a broadside on it when it did, that took it to half damage straight away.

The German light cruisers were getting close enough to try some gunnery now, and even consider torpedoes.

But the British had torpedoes as well, and Glasgow put a spread into Scharnhorst, sinking it!

The German light cruisers also cam off badly in the fight with the other British ships, and a couple were sunk before I knew what was happening.

Nurnberg survived, and took out Monmouth.

I was down to two ships, but in the last couple of turns managed to finish off Canopus and take out Glasgow as well. Unfortunately Good Hope dealt with Nurnberg, so the battle ended with Gneisenau skulking off into the night. The British only had Good Hope left undamaged along with a badly damaged Otranto.

So we'll call it a draw. Adding in the Canopus was a bit of a game-changer as it prevented  Gneisenau and Scharnhorst from dominating things by keeping them distracted. Up close the four British ships were equal to the German light cruisers. And, of course, letting the Glasgow launch torpedoes at Scharnhorst was a bit of a blunder on my part.

Thanks to Caesar for putting on an entertaining game even if my handling of the Germans was somewhat inept.

Back Into The Skies

I've been away on holiday this past week and managed not to do any gaming of note (aside from the obligatory Love Letter that is). I didn't taken any gaming projects with me and didn't really go anywhere of gaming interest either. Still, I had a nice few days in Hobart (my first visit to Tasmania).

Anyway, whilst we were away I did mull over Spandau & Lewis a little, and my current quest to strike a balance between how many hots a plane should take and how likely critical hits should be. This was something i wanted to explore in my previous game, and something I was looking at when I played it again this morning.

I set out the same scenario as before, but reduced each side's force by one two-seater and one fighter. I randomised how each sides' fighter were split up and where they cam on. The three German planes - two DVIIs and a Dr 1 - came on individually whilst the British Sopwith Camels came on as a pair and a single.

Early stages in the vicinity of the German two-seaters. Two Camels are on the attack, but the DR 1 is coming up behind them. The DVII hasn't spotted anyone yet, but was about to get a rude surprise.

One of the German DVs went down with an engine hit.

On teh other side of the lines a Camel was chasing a DVII, whilst the two FK8s observed their first target.

Long range fire from the triplane took down a Camel with structural hits.

The British had spotted one target, but the FK8s escorting Camel was currently out of contact and a couple of DVIIs were closing in on them.

The Triplane made another kill as a Camel went down with an engine fire.

The third Camel lost contact with the fight and was shot down by ground-fire (left the table and rolled badly to come back on).

The FK8s were now on their own against two Fokker DVIIs and a Triplane. One DVII had a wounded pilot, though, and he struggled to bring the plane into the fight. The other two Germans attacked, putting plenty of holes in the British two-seaters. In return the observer in one of the FK8s scored engine damage on the DVII, forcing it to break off.

The Dr1 was also badly shot up and running low on ammo as well, so did a final pass of the two-seaters (no significant damage) and headed for home. 

The final DVII, with the wounded pilot, now finally came up. Time was running out for him to get home, but if he could down one of the FK8s the points would favour the Germans. It was worth the risk. His shot failed to score a hit on the escaping two-seater

But he British observer was having a good day, and his return fire caused a lucky structural hit on the German plane, that caused its wings to come off. Down it went!

(The British scored a critical that meant that the target rolled 2D6, took the lowest score and inflicted that many hits. They then proceeded to roll a 5 and a 6).

So the British lost three Camels, but got both two-seaters home with a full set of observations. They also shot down two German aircraft. The Germans got their two-seater home as well, and shot down three British planes. However the VPs are weighted towards successfully completing a mission, so the British were the victors despite their losses.

I played with aircraft taking slightly fewer hits than in the previous game, which made things a little more dangerous for them, especially with so many planes having powerful twin-guns. But it seemed to work out OK.

In The Air In 1918

We played some more Spandau & Lewis last night. Firstly I wanted to try a couple of small tweaks to the rules. And, secondly, I wanted to try the rules with late-war aircraft, as my predilection for early war planes has tended to skew my testing in that direction.

There were three of us playing and, with hindsight, I probably had too many aircraft in play. However we had a huge dogfight even if we did have to call it before the end.

So, it's June 1918 over the Western Front, and both the RAF and the German Air Force are sending out reconnaissance patrols. The British were flying a trio of Armstrong-Whitworth FK8s, whilst the Germans had three DFW CVs (although the models were Hannover CL class planes; I just wanted to get the models on the table).

Both sides had fighters in play too. The British had a quartet of Sopwith Camels, whilst the Germans had three Fokker DVIIs and a single Fokker Triplane (which ended up being flown by a novice pilot).

Here's the Germans all set up. We rolled a random entry point for each group of fighters, and the Germans (me) came on on the southern table edge.

The RAF fighters both ended up in close formation with their two-seaters. Two of the Camels had novice pilots, but one of the AW FK8s had an ace crew.

Everyone spotted each other fairly quickly. The two-seaters closed up and headed for their objectives, whilst the fighters split up, some going after enemy fighters and others the enemy two-seaters.

The isolated Triplane found two Camels heading towards it, but quickly turned out of trouble.

The DVIIs heading off into the fight.

Daniel was running the British two-seaters, whilst Stuart had the Camels. One Camel stuck close to the two-seaters, as a single DVII (with an ace pilot) attacked. A lucky shot from the front gun of an FK8 wounded the German pilot.

The Camels attacked the German two-seaters head-on, doing little damage. You can see a DVII and the Triplane moving up to support their reconnaissance planes.

The start of a new turn with initiative rolls against each plane.

The Fokker DVII ace tucked in behind the FK8s, and slowly chipped away at one of them; being wounded reduced his firing capabilities, and that was combined with some terrible shooting die rolls as well.

On the other side of the board saw one of the Camels fall apart under thh guns of a Fokker DVII.

The German DFWs had scouted the first objective and were now heading for the second. But one had a Camel on its tail and was suffering badly. The Dr1 came up in support but not fast enough.

The DVII ace plugged away at his prey, and inflicted an engine hit, which slowed it and reduced it's maneuverability.

A second DVII came in and finished it off.

At the same time one of Stuart's Camels finished off a DFW two-seater. The Triplane was now on his tail though.

At that point we called the game. The British were looking likely to get one of their two-seaters how with a couple of observations. Another - the ace crew - still had to run the gauntlet of a number of German planes and, to make matters worse, had irreparably jammed their rear-gun. There was also a Camel with jammed guns running for home. Two of the German two-seaters looked likely to make it back, with a quartet of observations between them, whilst they also had all four fighters still in play. The ace was likely to head home; wounded and low on ammo it seemed sensible. But the other three could probably have finished off another British plane before the end.

So we called it a marginal win for the Germans, as they'd got more observations home and shot down two British planes as well. To be fair the British were very unlucky with gun-jams, which seriously cut down their useful firepower.

Here's a few shots from Daniel:

A Camel pursues a DFW CV

Armstrong Whitworth FKs flying over the target. OK, the models are actually RE8s, but I fancied using the AW FK8 instead.

The ace approaches the FK8s.

A shot from low down.

The two small changes were to the frequency of criticals and an adjustment to the Power checks.

The first is a compromise where, when checking for criticals, you count any 6s rolled for shooting as before, but can include one 5 as well, so long as it registered as a hit. This slightly increases the chance of a critical without pushing it too far. My previous adjustment was to allow any hit a 1 in 6 chance of a critical, with each 6 increasing the likelihood. I found that made critical hits too likely.

The second change was that there's a modifier to the Power check based on how extreme a maneuver is. So a turn over 45 degrees forces a Power check, and it's at -1 if the turn is over 90 degrees and -2 if it's over 135 degrees.

Oh, and you may notice something different about my aircraft models if you look closely.