Dancing In The Dark

One of my view of simple scenario design is that you simply chuck plenty of troops into the mix, randomise some entry times and entry points and let the situation develop from that. Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it produces entertaining results.

Anyway, that's what I did last night for a club game of Torpedoes & Tides. I played Torpedoes & Tides because (i) Daniel asked for a game (ii) Naval games were the theme for the week and (iii) Yesterday was, by a staggering coincidence, International Naval Wargames Day.

I set up the Grey Christmas scenario from the book. This sees two British steam gunboats (HMS Grey Owl and HMS Grey Wolf) opposed by a air of S-boats. One vessel from each side is elite (the British one is commanded by Peter Scott) and there's a patch of mist to keep things interesting.

But I added more. For a start I added another patch of mist. Then I gave each side reinforcements. The Germans got a minesweeper and a large flak boat with an 88mm gun. The British also got a minesweeper (one of my Halcyon-class models making its debut) and a Round Table class armed trawler. 

If you look at the stats in the rules you'll see that just about everything in the game has 'big' guns. Only the S-boats are relying on smaller weapons. But they are the fastest things on teh table, and not only have torpedoes but have torpedo reloads. And they can't be torpedoed by the British gunboats. 

The gunboats and S-boats start in the centre of opposite edges. From Turn 2 onwards each side rolled a D6 at the start of their turn. On a 5-6 one of their reinforcements would show up. It could appear on their starting edge, or the left edge or the right edge - equal chance of each. I then randomised where on the edge it appeared. 

And that's it. Simple but, hopefully, chaotic. 

Oh, and there's no moon, so visibility is limited. 

I played the British and Daniel took the Germans. 

Here's the position a couple of turns in. One British gunboat has been spotted, whist ahead of it the second (the elite one) is hiding in the mist. The other three markers are the S-boats and the flak boat (the 'Thor')

The elite steam gunboat tore out of the mist, revealing an S-boat that promptly opened fore on it, causing damage and a fire. The British replied to no effect, and then sped into the other patch of mist. 

By now the Germans had both of their reinforcing vessels on and closing in on the fight. Both S-boats and gunboats were revealed. Commander Scott extinguished the fire on HMS Grey Owl, but decided the damage was too great and headed for home. 

The S-boats and the other British gunboat (HMS Grey Wolf) hid in the mist. And that's where they collided. HMS Grey Wolf was undamaged but the elite S-boat took a hit. 

Owing to my inability to roll a 5 or 6 I was now a few turns into the game with no reinforcements. Since Grey Owl had buggered off, this left Grey Wolf facing four German vessels alone. HMS Grey Wolf is marked with a red dice. 

The German minesweeper chased after HMS Grey Wolf, which wisely dodged and hid as much as possible, looking for a chance to torpedo one of the larger ships. 

As the German minesweeper turned past the mist the first British reinforcement arrived - the minesweeper HMS Parthenope. It lasted one turn. It spotted the German vessel who, in turn, shot at it and set it on fire. On the next turn the Parthenope's crew decided to head home. 

It did manage a wild parting shot that damaged the German minesweeper, though. 

HMS Grey Wolf managed to shoot up the flak boat Thor, knocking out some guns. 

But now the sneaky elite S-boat captain saw his chance and launched torpedoes at the Grey Wolf. They missed. The S-boat disappeared into the darkness to reload. 

The other British reinforcement finally turned up - HMT Sir Mordred. It immediately engaged the Thor, damaging it. 

The second S-boat fired torpedoes, but it was a bow shot and teh plodding trawler easily evaded them. 

The trawler took a shot at the S-boat, but couldn't hit the fast-moving German vessel. 

A big aerial view of the action. Some ships have returned to blinds because they were out of sight of enemy ships. Top right you can see HMS Parthenope heading home. 

The Thor fired starshells (the yellow counter) to try and help the the S-boat's gunnery, and the trawler was damaged. 

HMT Sir Mordred kept up the fight, damaging the Thor again. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the board a long-range (at least as far as the darkness allowed) shot from the German minesweeper hit the Grey Wolf and - you've guessed it - set it on fire. Fortunately the British crew extinguished it fairly rapidly. 

Thor and Sir Mordred continued their fight. 

HMS Grey Wolf came up on the Thor and fired torpedoes. Naturally they missed. 

Grey Wolf shot up the Thor some more, knocking out its guns, and the German flak boat broke off the action. 

Meanwhile the German minesweeper had had a strange time of it. It had to roll on the All At Sea table three times in three turns and each time got a turn to either port or to starboard, so had weaved a strange random course across the board. The Sir Mordred came up and put a shot into its bridge, battering it. The minesweeper returned the favour, damaging the trawler's engines. 

The trawler was no battered and it too was steering wildly. It veered across the course of the S-boat, there was a collision and the trawler was sunk. The S-boat escaped without damage. 

And that was it. A final shot from HMS Grey Wolf failed to finish of the Thor and we called the game.

The Germans had a crippled minesweeper, a badly damaged flak boat and a lightly damaged S-boat (the elite one that had, after firing off all its torpedoes and missed with every one, simply given up and gone home). The second S-boat was undamaged and even had a torpedo left. 

The British had had Grey Owl lightly damaged, Grey Wolf damaged, HMS Parthenope damaged and HMT Sir Mordred sunk. We decided that it was nominally a draw but that the sunk British vessel gave the Germans a marginal edge. 

All in all it was a splendid and chaotic game, and a perfect way to celebrate International Naval Wargames Day for 2026. 

Boardgames

I realise it's been a bit quiet here the past week or so. Part of this is that I didn't get a game organised last Thursday, so there was no club game to report. The other part is that I haven't had any regular toy soldiers out at home for a while. But I have been gaming.

Last week Mrs Kobold and I broke out Battle Cry. We played the First Bull Run scenario through a couple of times, swapping sides after the first like you're supposed to. 

The Confederates won both times, but I did better than the Union than Catherine did, so I won overall. 

At the end of the week I found an interesting-looking Memoir '44 scenario for Kasserine. The Germans have to attack US positions through some fairly difficult terrain, but the US defences are fragmented, so if the Germans pick their targets carefully they can pull of a win. I played it twice and the Germans won both times. The first time was a convincing win thanks to two Armour Assault cards coming up  just as all of their tanks were in good positions. The second win was more of a slog, and the Americans came within a medal of winning, so a much closer game. 

And this weekend Catherine and I started another Flamme Rouge tour. This time we're doing the nine stages of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes. 

In fact we started on the same day they did. 

I'm playing red, Catherine is Blue, and we have two bot teams playing Black and White. 

We played the first two stages. I won the first race and picked up second place as well. Catherine didn't place, although we all got a good time.

The second stage. Aloy moved in to help. 

There were some tough sequences of climbs in this one and it split things up a bit at some points. 

Best I could manage in this stage was second place, whilst Catherine came first and third. Again, our times were exceptionally good.

So after two stages I'm ahead on Tour Points, but our overall times are equal. Still everything to play for. 

Ten Years Ago - August 2016

I seemed to have spent most of August 2016 refighting battles of the South American Wars of Liberation. I covered Chacabuco and Laguna Salada, as well as Tucuman, the subject of this month's retrospective post. It's also the first time I tried Neil Thomas's 'Simplicity In Practice' rules, which I still like, even if I haven't played them for a while.

Oh, and August 2016 was when I finally decided that I'd had enough with the cesspit that's The Miniatures Page. I was out of there. 

Anyway, here's a refight of the 1812 Battle of Tucuman, using my Liberated Hordes rules. 

The Battle of Tucuman

And it's also been a year since I started doing my Ten Year retrospective posts. 

A Complicated Man

We went to see 'The Odyssey' this weekend, and enjoyed it. 

And who doesn't go and see a film and feel inspired to put together some kind of game afterwards?

Now I did think that it would be possible to run a solo Galleys & Galleons game where a hero in a ship (or with a squadron of ships) has to cross a table dotted with hazards, and the rules would certainly allow that. It might not be a very interesting game, since the hazards would be static, but it has possibilities. 

However I ended up just setting up a straight galley fight using Galleys & Galleons. 

And then I fiddled with it slightly. Why not add some heroic elements?

So here we are. 

It's the Trojan War, or at least a version of it. The Trojans have sent a squadron of ships to harass the Greek supply lines. Agamemnon send Odysseus with the ships from Ithaca to intercept them.

Both sides had a single command consisting of a trireme flagship, four triremes and four biremes. All pretty standard so far. However I gave the Ithacans Odysseus in command, so his flagship counted as Charismatic, and had Expert Rowers. On the Trojan flagship was a priest of Poseidon, who counted as a Hydromancer. 

I set the terrain randomly (after laying an obligatory coastline), and it ended up with one small offshore island. Random positioning for the squadrons saw them approaching each other diagonally, with the Trojans being inshore. 

The Ithacans (foreground, in red) sent their biremes to the left of the island and the triremes to the right. The Trojans (green) had their triremes in the centre, with a pair of biremes covering each flank. 

Here's the position a couple of turns in. In both cases the flagship is to the rear of the triremes. 

The Trojan centre split, with some triremes going after the Ithacan biremes (top of picture) and others heading for an exposed trireme and bireme on the right. The priest of Poseidon used his power to drive back an Ithacan bireme. 

At the bottom right you can see the first attack of the game - a Trojan trireme rammed an Ithacan bireme scoring light damage.  

The Ithacan response was fast and deadly. Three triremes rowed fast and hard, ramming three enemy triremes. This heavily damaged one and crippled a third. 

Out on the Ithacan left one of their biremes rammed a Trojan bireme and took it after a short boarding action. It was rammed in turn, but survived. 

The Trojans struggled with activations and seemed to be pretty much paralysed. On teh next turn their flagship, now isolated, was rammed by three enemy vessels and reduced to matchwood. 

The Ithacans now began a simple process of mopping up. As with most of my galley fights I set the breakpoint at 50%, with a flagship counting as two ships. The Trojans had already lost four vessels on that basis. 

At the bottom right two Ithacan triremes attack a couple of Trojan counterparts. And to the left an Ithacan bireme finished off a crippled Trojan trireme, ending the action. 

So the Trojans lost four vessels including their flagship, and another was crippled. The Ithacans had a couple of vessels badly damaged, but that was it. Odysseus took no direct part in the battle, although his leadership bonus allowed his ships to do that effective initial strike that effectively saw the beginning of the end for the Trojans. 

It was a quick game, but I played it in bits whilst doing other things, so it filled in some time in a pleasant manner. I need to try more games with magic. 

The HOTT Misfits Tournament - Game 2

For Game 2 in my knockout tournament I went to the bottom of the brackets to select the first army in the second semi-final. So in this game Flash Gordon will take on the Weird WWII Soviets.

I got out the cloth and the armies but then Miller decided that he wanted to inspect the figures and playing area. 

I left him to it until the sun moved far enough that he was no longer interested in sitting on the board, then set up the game. Flash Gordon defended and the Soviet attack was split by an area of ruins. 

The Soviet centre advanced quickly, leaving their hordes to cover the flanks. Flash ordered teh Hawkmen and a rocket-ship forward on his left, whilst Queen Fria led her Frigians on a wide sweep on the right. 

At this point General Winter turned up for the Soviets.

Mongo's aerial force looked like the target to go for, as they rapidly closed on the Soviet right. 

Queen Fria led her riders in an attack on the Soviet left, destroying a horde. 

General Winter blasted the enemy rocket-ship out of the sky. 

But who is this defying the Soviet god? Why it's PRINCE VULTAN!!

He's just a flyer. But he locked General Winter into a frontal zone, making it harder for hm to go after the other, more vulnerable Hawkmen. 

Back to Queen Fria, whose warriors were carving their way through hordes on the Soviet left. 

General Winter attacked Vultan, supported by the Heroes Of Old Russia and, despite the odds (factor of 6 against a factor of 1) only managed to make the wily old bird recoil. 

This seemed to be too much for the icy general, who abandoned the Soviets.  

That was also a single PIP for the Soviet army, and they followed it for another. Meanwhile Flash leapt into action, attacking the ghostly Heroes Of Old Russia, supported by Vultan coming in ON THE FLANK!

The element of Heroes were destroyed. They're actually knights. 

Meanwhile Queen Fria polished off the last of the hordes on her flank.

The HOTT players amongst you will have now done the mats. With four hordes lost, and none returned (through lack of PIPs), a god having deserted them and now a knight destroyed, the Soviets were down 10AP. Their next loss would be fatal. 

Stalin took a desperate gamble. The Hero Of The Soviet Union (also not a hero, but actually a paladin) was sent forward to attack Flash and Barin, whilst the remaining Heroes Of Old Russia went in on teh flank. 

So this was it; a 50/50 combat that would see the Soviets lose if they failed, but see the enemy general lost if they won, buying them some breathing space. 

The Soviets lost. A shame, as Mongo fighting on without Flash would have been interesting, if frustrating, given how many aerials they have and how fragmented the army was. 

Anyway, Flash Gordon won 14-3. So a fairly decisive victory. The Soviets got completely wrong-footed by the fast flank attacks of Flash's army and, when in a position to counter, didn't get the PIPs. 

So the second semi-finalist has been determined.

The next game will be to determine who faces UNIT in the first semi-final. And it's a battle between two thoroughly evil armies as the Daleks take on The Weird Reich.