Blood, Sweat & Cheers

Bailey and I played Blood, Sweat & Cheers last night. Bailey hadn't played before, but he picked it up reasonably quickly and we fitted in four bouts.

Here's Bailey displaying his poker-face.

In the first game he took Alumnus the hoplomachus against Lucius the thraex.

I find the hoplomachus a bit meh in BS&C, partially because all three of their stats are the same, and also because they are the only gladiator whose two Glory special ability is strictly one use only. Whilst the spear-throw can be a game winner, I don't think it's much more of one than some other gladiators' equivalent ability, and once you've used it you're left with a rather bland fighter whose single Glory ability really isn't much help any more since it's geared up for setting up the shot with the spear. Basically you get one shot at doing something interesting, and then you're left slogging it out with a very average fighter. I don't know - maybe the hoplomachus needs a little something extra.

Anyway, I digress. Bailey started slowly as we got used to the card-play.

His spear-throw did knock down Lucius, but the wily thraex has already inflicted a few wounds by that stage, so the hoplomachus was slowed.

That said, Alumnus won the bout; a lucky 6-1 split on the dice saw Lucius run through and defeated, despite being the more popular fighter.

In the second game Bailey took Sylvania the retiarius, whilst I used the dimachaerus Lenia.

Of all of the gladiators in the game, I think the dimachaerus is probably the one that's closest to being over-powered. It has a high attack value, so as long as you keep getting a steady supply of Strike cards you get a chance to inflict damage on your opponent, plus since the attack value counts as your defence as well on that round, you can easily block counter-attacks. Whilst other gladiators often have to choose to attack or defend, the dimachaerus gets to do both at the same time. If they don't get Strike cards then they can be a little vulnerable, but not drastically so. And Strike cards come up fairly frequently. In addition the dimacherius has a powerful defensive Glory ability and a very powerful double Glory attack. I find they win far more bouts than they lose.

And that was the case here. Lenia easily took down Sylvania in a couple of rounds.

We played the bout again, and there was a bit more of a fight, but Lenia still won it eventually, ducking past the retiarius's lasso for the win.

In the final game Bailey took the murmillo Mongo against the unarmoured (and very naked) dimachaerus Vocorix.

Mongo had decent armour, and blocked several attacks, but couldn't get past Vocrix's fighting ability. It was a decent fight, but in the end Vocorix prevailed, slicing off the murmillo's head (or so we like to think).

Here he is in his moment of triumph. Very. Naked.

I'm loathe to tinker with the gladiators too much, but I think I might have a play with the hoplomachus and dimachaerus and see, firstly, if my perceptions of them are borne out in actual play and, secondly, if there's any viable changes I can make to them.

Flamme Rouge Tracks

Since it appears that there are a couole of other Flamme Rouge players reading this blog, I thought I'd share this nifty little page. 

TELE FLAMME ROUGE

Under Track List there is a huge library of single courses and full tours (with up to 22 stages in some cases). It is just the track layouts for the game - there's not the accompanying 'actual' map or cross-section profile - but it's great to have so much stuff in one place. They are uncredited, but are certainly the work of multiple people, since I recognise some from when they were posted on BGG.

For example, here's the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France 2021 for 4players:

Enjoy.

Battle Cry

Playing those ACW Portable Wargames a couple of weeks ago gave me a bit of a yearning to get out Battle Cry again. So over the weekend, when I wasn't photographing the cycling or working my way through the whole of 'Dad's Army', I set up a few games.

I used the solitaire rules I've outlined elsewhere, which allows me to play both sides sensibly and gives a reasonable facsimile of the actual game.

In recent years I've used my 6mm miniatures for Battle Cry, and they look rather splendid, but I fancied the toy soldier look of the original pieces this weekend, so used them instead. In addition I added some terrain; I used cork hexes to raise up the hills, and buildings and trees to represent homesteads and woods.

I started at the beginning, with the First Bull Run scenario.

It seems to have a lot of cavalry. Stuart attacked the Union left.

The Union cavalry was driven off.

The Union advanced whilst the Confederates were slow to take Henry's House Hill.

The surviving Confederate cavalry was stymied by some Union artillery ...

... who took out General Stuart as well.

The Union continued to advance as the Confederates occupied the hill.

The Confederates gave up the high ground at the first assault.

Jackson stood like a stone wall ....

... Briefly.

The Union troops over-ran the Confederate position to pick up a fairly easy victory.

I then set up the Shiloh scenario, which I've not played before. It has a lot of woods.

The Union have a lot of guns covering the few clear areas.

An early Bombard card allowed the boys in blue a chance to seriously maul the advancing Confederates.

The Confederates pushed on through the woods.

Some made it to the guns, but the units were looking very feeble when they got there.

The Confederates also have guns, but they start tucked away in a corner as a reserve. Slowly they brought them up into position and started to batter the Union line.

On their left the Union felt bold enough to take the fight to the Confederates.

General Cheatham was killed.

With the scent of victory in their nostrils the Union troops pushed forward. The Confederates had nothing to seriously oppose them with and collapsed.

As I recall the Confederates didn't destroy a single Union unit.

I don't have suitable terrain to play all of the scenarios like this, but they certainly looked nice with a few trees and buildings on the board. And it was fun to get this old classic game out again.

52 Games - Game 56

Public Holiday Gaslands

Not being the kind of people to let a national day of mourning for our late, foreign, head of state stand in the way of an evening's gaming, four of us got together at the University on Thursday evening to play Gaslands. Actually I think two of us got together to play, whilst the other two played because it was the only game on offer and they were interested in giving it a go anyway.

I'd put together six teams, which we randomly assigned and then we set up a Death Race. Two of the players had never played before.

Bryan got a Highway Patrol team of Farewell To Kings and Miss Murder. Both had a few pursuit abilities and a machine-gun to the front.

Darren had a nice simple Idris team consisting of two black cars, Back in Black (with a mini-gun on the front) and the art-deco racer Black Dog.

Bailey ran a Verney team consisting of a bike (Snakecharmer) and a formidable truck with a digger strapped to the back (Bulls On Parade). The bike existed to generate shift results for the other vehicle via its sat-nav ability.

Finally I had an all-singing, all-dancing Maxxine team, consisting of the bulldozer Natural Born Killer and the ram-car Dreamline.

Here we are on the starting grid (which was perilously close to the edge of the table). Front row, left to right: Snakecharmer, A Farewell To Kings, Black Dog, Dreamline. Rear row, left to right: Miss Murder, Natural Born Killer, Back In Black, Bulls On Parade

And why does the Start say Finish? Because it was. This was the course. The cars had to pass through Gate One (marked by the red container) in either direction, loop round the other two gates (again, in either direction), pass back through Gate One (now masquerading as Gate Four) and then back to the start.

The start was a mess that set the tone for the rest of the race. Since everyone had to go wide and do a turn through the first gate, they all veered off in different directions and, quite naturally, got in each others' way.

There were a couple of chaotic gear phases, but eventually a couple of leaders emerged. Bailey's bike got through Gate One first and started laying caltrops, chased by A Farewell To Kings.

Back In Black was coming the other way. It didn't have armed weapons yet, but Darren discovered that he loved ramming things as much as shooting them, and steered straight for the bike. Snakecharmer evaded the worst of it, however.

Chaos at Gate One. Miss Murder and Dreamline were badly out of position, whilst Darren had both of his black cars through. Bailey took Bulls On Parade through the gate, and had taken Snakecharmer through Gate Two. 

Darren stormed through Gate One, with Back In Black crashing into Dreamline and Black Dog crashing into Back In Black.

Most of the vehicles cleared the gate, but I couldn't resist crossing in style, ramming Black Dog with Natural Born Killer.

Miss Murder and Dreamline were still both trying to get into position to make a run for Gate One, but Darren's cars were very much in the way.

The photographic record petered out at this stage, since there was a lot of racing to keep track of and I was doing a lot of work keeping the players on top of their team abilities whilst consulting the rules. Dreamline managed this rather deft ram, which would have been more spectacular had I rolled any decent damage.

And I slid and spun Natural Born Killer into this delicious ram attack as well.

In the background of that final picture you can see Snakecharmer positioned on the wall near Gate Two. The bike had run foul of Back In Black's guns, and been wrecked, and this would be its potential respawn position. 

So what happened afterwards? Bailey managed a spectacular move with Bulls On Parade, dropping mines and caltrops to the side and then wiping out such that he spun spun into them. That was funny. Darren's reckless, high-speed driving eventually saw both of his vehicles wrecked, although he was well-positioned for a respawn. The various wipe-outs and crashes were giving Bryan's cops plenty of Audience Votes, which would have given him a lot of influence in the end-game. And I was simply trying to pass gates, slowly and steadily.

With time ticking on we called it a night about two-thirds of the way in. I think Darren stood a good chance of a win, since he was well-positioned with his forthcoming respawns. Bailey could have won with his respawned bike, but to do so had to lose his other vehicle first. And it was built to last, so was difficult to kill even if you wanted it taken out. With all of his Audience Votes, and a more cautious approach to driving, Bryan could also have pulled off a surprise win. Anyway, we called it a draw. No-one really cared about the result anyway, because we'd all had a great time playing the game.

Road Race - Wollongong 2022

Here in Wollongong we're currently hosting the biggest sporting event the city has seen, the UCI 2022 Road World Championships. With a ton of the world's top cyclists in town, it seemed wrong not to get out Flamme Rouge for a game.

But which course? Well, why not the one for the elite road races on the last couple of days of the event? Most of the events are using a short circuit around the centre of the city, but this coming Saturday and Sunday will see the Elite Road races, which are much more interesting in game terms.

Here's the map for the womens' race. They run down the coast on the blue route into the centre of Wollongong, do a single anti-clockwise loop of the red section (which is a climb and descent of Mount Keira) back into the city, then do a number of circuits of the green route - six for the women and twelve for the men.

Translated into Flamme Rouge terms this gives a course like this:

The first third is the run along the coast (the blue line on the official map) and the climb and descent of Mount Keira (the red part of the official map). That's up to section H on the game maps. The remainder is the city circuits. These include a small climb and descent. I couldn't replicate the six or twelve iterations of this, so settled for two small hills instead to create the necessary terrain to break up the pack a little. As per the Peloton expansion, the 5-6 player map also includes a supply zone and the extra '9' tile.

It's not a particularly unusual course, but it's as close to the original as I can get.

Last night Catherine, Maya and myself gave it a go. Catherine was pink, Maya green and I was white. We ran a black peleton bot team as well. Maya has only played the game once and (if we're being truthful) is not a big fan of it.

Here's the course, ready to go. I've recently acquired the Meteo weather expansion for the game. This adds the possibility of wind and rain on some of the straight sections; in our game the final climb and the descent of Mount Keira were subject to a crosswind (which prevents slip-streaming) whilst on the run to the finish line the riders would have a helpful tailwind.

The expansion doesn't mess around with subtle markers; this is the crosswind standee next to the relevant straight. As with everything in Flamme Rouge the art-work has a 30s period style and is gorgeous.

I won't bore you with a blow by blow account. Here's the riders on Mount Keira. The bot had a nice lead, with Maya's team in close second. Catherine and I were biding our time at the back.

The positions had changed a little as we went into what was effectively the first of the two trips around the city-centre 'circuit'. Heading into the first run at the small hill I was in the lead with Catherine close behind. However I'd contrived to get both of my riders to the front of the pack.

The first small hill climb broke up the pack, and I took the chance to make a break for it with one of my riders. Catherine was savvy enough to anticipate this and followed me closely. My other rider looks like he's been left behind, but actually had some decent cards left with which to pull off a sprint finish.

Whilst the main pack completed the second small hill section, Catherine and I sprinted for the finish-line, picking up that helpful tail-wind.

And across the line we went. Catherine just managed to pip me to the post on the last turn to pick up the win, but in team terms I managed to do better, getting both second and third place. The black bots finished in the middle, having failed to use their aggressive attack ability at any stage, and Maya had lost it a little on the final hill and got left behind in last place.

So whilst this isn't one of the most exciting circuits I've used for the game, it was fun to simulate (in a way) a local event and play on a course where you could relate to the geography.

I live about 20 minutes walk away from the end of the descent of Mount Keira, so will probably pop down and try and get some photos of one or both of the elite races at the weekend. Maybe.