Fight For The Fjords

Ralph put of a WWII naval game for us on Thursday, which was the last club meet of the year. He aimed for something different and mildly spectacular and it looked great. Three tables in an unusual kinked configuration represented a Norwegian fjord, whilst the ships were 1/700th kits covering destroyers and a single light cruiser. The rules were Nimitz.

A force of twelve allied destroyers in three columns are steaming at full speed into the fjord.

At the other end is a German heavy-water storage facility. The destroyers have to shell it. The Germans has three destroyers and a light cruiser to defend it with.

On the middle table was  fifth German ship, a guardship (also a destroyer). So the whole action would be fought with 4" guns and torpedoes, aside from the mighty 6" guns on the light cruiser.

One of the issues that the British had was that there were a lot of ships in a confined space. Movement became an issue of traffic management. Our plan was to send two columns in at high speed to engage the enemy ships, one at a slower speed to act as a mopping-up reserve and a third to head for the target and bombard it.

I was part of the British force. We onto  the central table virtually unmolested; a couple of minor its from the guardship and nothing more. The guardship took a pasting from concentrated fire though. No surprise there!

The rest of the Germans engaged the lead British vessels.

The light cruise Konigsberg ended up far to close to the cliffs of the fjord, cutting down its manuever options and leaving it shooting effectively but unable to turn into the main British force. Amazingly none of teh British destroyers could get a clear torpedo shot at it!

The German destroyers didn't last long. They sank one British ship, but were quickly wiped out.

With the light cruiser too far out of the fight to be useful the British now had a clear run at the target, and we called the game, claiming a British victory.

Thanks to Ralph for a fun, and surprisingly quick, game. Nimitz really rattles along when you know what you are doing.

With some time to spare I played a quick game of 'Blood, Sweat & Cheers' with Daniel, who hadn't played before. He wanted 'one of those guys with a net' so ended up with the retiarius Cupido. I took a classic opponent, the secutor Astinax.

Daniel controlled the game early on as I couldn't find an opening against the speedy retiarius.. I also got lightly wounded, which slowed me down somewhat.

On the plus side, whilst I couldn't get in a decent attack, Daniel found that I had ways of blocking every effective attack he made against me. To be fair several times that involved throwing sand at my foe (much to the crowd's displeasure), but it got me out of a tight fix a couple of times.

At one stage I got knocked down, but Cupido still couldn't finish me off. I even managed some rolling evades and ended up on the other side of the arena before finally being able to stand up.

And from that point on I found my stride. Astinax started to get some decent attacks together and I whittled down Daniel's gladiator, eventually striking him down for a win. The crowd were in my favour by that stage but he rolled well for missio and Cupido was spared.

So two fun games  to finish my club wargaming year!

Eques

I got my gladiators out the other day (for what I think is the first time this year) so that I could try some ideas I had for running the Eques type in 'Blood, Sweat & Cheers'. I first tried them out last year but wasn't entirely satisfied with how they played.

I'm still looking at the exact nature of their setup but I have abandoned the idea of them throwing their spears (indeed one piece I read suggested that they didn't even have spears if, indeed, they even fought on horseback). I have tried to emphasis the speed and mobility of being on horseback for the mounted phase of the combat, and then run with my idea from the previous post of running the foot version as a more lightly armoured secutor.

So here they are ready to go; Habilis white the red shield and Maternus with the red tunic.

Habilis got in an early attack which missed.

Maternus wheeled and his attack unhorsed Habilis.

I stuck to the rules I'd used before for dealing with the mounted and foot phase of the fight; they would fight on horseback until one was defeated or until one was knocked down. In the event of a knock down the turn ends, the knocked down gladiator stands up in the space he was in and his opponent can be placed in any adjacent space. In addition the opponent gets one point of Crowd Favour. The fight then continues on foot.

Maternus pushed his advantage and wounded Habilis.

There followed a free-wheeling fight around the arena before Habilis managed to get in a powerful blow that took down Maternus in one go!

The secutor stats felt far better and made for a more mobile fight on foot. The mounted phase didn't really last long enough for me to get a feel for whether I liked the new setup, so I will have to try a few more games. One thing I have realised is that so long as I don't make any of the abilities too overpowered I don't have to worry a great deal about balance, since these gladiators will only fight each other.

Christmas Meet-Up

As is now traditional the Wollongong Wargamers skipped one of our December wargames meets in order to get together at the Woonona Bulli RSL for an evening of food, drink, trivia and chat.

Hawaiian shirts were required. Not everyone got the memo.

Ralph did the quiz this year. It was heavily based on the games that have been played at the club over the past twelve months and was written multiple-choice answers. It's all getting a bit sophisticated these days. Peter and I had the joint top scores, but Peter won the tie-break question an so got to take home a big bag of flock and the coveted Golden KV2 trophy. He also has to set next year's quiz. I got a bag of dice as a consolation prize. 

After the quiz, and after we had reviewed our game-planning policy for the year, we played ... Top Trumps! The last time I did that was some 45 years ago. Caesar had bought a new pack just for the evening. It was based on tanks, but we never got to grips with how the ratings worked. Back when I played it you would have stats like Speed, Weight, Armour and so forth. Actual measurable numbers. This deck had ratings (Protection Rating, Firepower Rating and so forth) which just seem to have been pulled out of the designer's bum. 

So, anyway, this is me complaining about how Top Trumps were better when I were a lad.

And here's a picture of me playing a master-stroke!

Thanks to all who came for a great evening. We have one regular club-meet left in the year.

Pictures by Caesar and Ralph.

Flight Of The Clontarf

I played a couple of quick games of Galleys & Galleons on Sunday, running the Blockade Runner scenario and setting it around the post-ECW Isles of Scilly. And Irish privateer, Clontarf, is attempting to escape an anchorage in the Isles, and three government vessels are poised to intercept.

The ship stats:

Clontarf - Q3 C1 - Lateen Rig, Yare, Razee, Shallow Draft, Swashbucklers

Verity, Providence - Q3 C3 - Galleon Rigged
Abigail - Q3 C1 - Lateen Rig, Yare, Razee, Shallow Draft

Here's the Clontarf, ready to make her run for safety.

An early shift of wind disadvantaged the Irish vessel. Here's the line of government ships - Verity, Providence and Abigail

Clontarf tried to dodge past Providence.

Providence opened fire with a steady long-range broadside. Clontarf was damaged and holed. The hole severely restricted the ship's ability to turn.

However Clontarf was past Providence, who would now have to make a slow turn to resume pursuit.

But Abigail was coming up fast and even Verity added in some long-range fire. Clontarf was taking a battering.

Unable to manuever easily Clontarf fell to a stern-rake from Abigail, and sank.

I set it up again. However tis time I increased Clontarf's Q to 2, and dropped the Swashbucklers trait as improved boarding isn't really much use in a scenario that involves trying to run away.

Here's the line of blockaders.

Clontarf made an initial run for some rocks, hoping to cut down the ability of the opposing vessels to manuever.

Abigail cut the Irish vessel off and Providence was coming up rather too fast as well.

Some swift sailing from Clontarf saw it inflict a damaging rake on Abigail, which shot away her tiller.

But a broadside from Providence inflicted the same damage on Clontarf.

Abigail moved to cut Clontarf off from escaping.

Clontarf tried to slip past but was grappled and boarded, losing the first round of combat.

Clontarf cut grapples, but the delay had allowed Providence to turn back into action, and another shot from the larger vessel saw Clontarf holed and seriously damaged.

A final shot from Abigail sank the Irish privateer.

To be honest the low C value of Clontarf meant that it was very vulnerable to being shot at, making it's task fairly difficult. You really do have to avoid the two larger ships and a rake from the nimble Abigail is always a possibility as well. Giving Clontarf a Q of 2 for the second run certainly helped though.

It was good to get toys on the table at home though. It's something I've not, for a variety of reasons, done for a while.

Gaslands!

Gaslands is really a victim of its own success at our club. Whenever we schedule a game it is often well-subscribed with people wanting to play, which means we have potential problems with finishing the game. Really anything over four players is inviting issues for a normal evening's play.

Our usual solution is to play a smaller game; one vehicle and a limited number of points. That's what we did this week when we had seven people wanting to play. We went with sponsors but limited everybody to one vehicle and only 25 cans. To be fair this made some sponsors unviable.

We got a race. Here's everyone on the start-line. Left to right we have:

Graham - Warden car
June - Slime car (first time our group has used Slime in a very long time)
Craig - Scarlett van
Me - Miyazaki performance car
Caesar - Rutherford performance car
Daniel - Rutherford car
Stuart - Verney car

And the course - up the left side, down the middle and then back up the right.

June got out into an early lead thanks to her vehicle's Pinball ability, that gave her an extra move.

Mind you, bouncing off my car gave me an extra move too. Everybody else was moving up to the first gate but things were going to get congested pretty fast.

Some deft driving from Caesar.

Some less deft driving from Craig, who still somehow got away with this (despite a few bumps).

Vehicles were now passing the first gate. I had my car (Red Barchetta) out in front, but had wiped out thanks to taking too many hazards evading the harpoon on June's vehicle.

Graham nearly rammed me. But there's a whisker of daylight there.

I got moving again, and avoided the awesome front-mounted artillery of  Daniel's Clockwork Angel only to fall foul of the crew's accurately applied handguns. Clockwork Angel was wrecked just after that, leaving June and Graham heading through Gate 2 towards a pile of wrecks and obstacles.

June described what happened next:

"I pivoted into Daniel's car with my rear drive, wrecking that car, causing it to skid into another wreck, clearing both. Then I placed some mines and shot Graham with my harpoon, doing 9 hits, reeling him into my side. We both smash attacked and both got brought down to 1 hull point. Then I wiped out and flipped, rammed into the gate, and exploded. The explosion hit Graham and wrecked him, making him skid forward into my mines."

In a couple of moves four of the seven vehicles were wrecked and destroyed.

The green car is Graham's wreck, replaced with a proxy because of the footprint and fragility of the original vehicle.

A new turn and a lot of people got to respawn, creating another traffic jam.

Craig contrived to park his bus across the next gate.

At that stage, with things still an entertainingly chaotic mess, we ran out of time. 

I think some decisions were made as to who was in the best position. I couldn't tell and it certainly wasn't me (I'd wrecked again).

What we did conclude was that seven vehicles with full sponsor rules, was still too much for an evening's play. To be fair we did have one Slime car and two performance cars, both of which get extra moves under certain circumstances. so they tended to add extra time. But a race tends to be one of the longer scenarios anyway, and we simply didn't have enough time for it. We now have at least three people who are confident enough to put on and run a game, though, so I think in future we may consider splitting anything over five players into two smaller games.

Some additional pictures - first from Caesar.

And then from June