Santa Rita vs Maria Teresa

I'd planned a moderate sized game of Galleys & Galleons for yesterday afternoon, but a last minute decision to go to the cinema meant that I had less time to play that I'd set aside. 

So I set up a quick duel. I've run this one a couple of times before and it's an interesting and challenging scenario. Set during the lengthy and complicated conflicts around the Rio de la Plata from 1811 to 1823, it features a privateer, (Santa Rita) at anchor, being attacked in a night action by a smaller Portuguese brig (Maria Teresa). The privateer is larger than the brig - 26 guns to the brig's 14 - but is unaware of the enemy's approach. However the brig is downwind of the privateer, so must creep up in the darkness hoping not to be spotted. 

Both vessels are simple designs:

Santa Rita (26) - Q3 C3 - Square-Rig, Chasers
Maria Teresa (14) - Q2 C2 - Square-Rig, Chasers

The year is 1820. The Santa Rita at anchor. In the distance is the Maria Teresa. 

The dice next to the Santa Rita shows its current alert status. Each turn it gets to roll a number of quality dice depending on how close the Maria Teresa is. Any successes improve its alert status. When it reaches 4 the privateer can begin to act. Until then it sits doing nothing until fired on. At this stage the Maria Teresa is working upwind as far away from the Santa Rita as practical. Even so the crew of the Argentine vessel is suspicious. 

The Maria Teresa has almost got into position for a turn to attack the Santa Rita, but the Argentines are pretty sure something is up. 

The jig is up! Alerted to the presence of an enemy the Argentine vessel ups anchor and clears for action.

As the Maria Teresa approaches Santa Rita fires a raking broadside, causing some damage. 

But their reload time is low, and a chance to get in a second shot is missed ...

... allowing the Maria Teresa to stern-rake the privateer, starting a fire.

The crew of the Santa Rita quickly extinguished the fire, but a second hurried broadside from the Maria Teresa swept the privateer's quarterdeck, killing the captain and throwing the vessel's crew into confusion. 

Several turns of inaction ensued as the two vessels were on opposite tacks. The Maria Teresa turned across the wind, but sluggishly thanks to the damage it had taken. The Santa Rita wore and took the opportunity to perform some repairs.

But the damage it had taken was beginning to tell. As it tried to turn to bring a broadside to bear on the Portuguese brig, the Maria Teresa cut across its stern and raked it once more. 

This started another fire, which quickly spread.

As the Maria Teresa turned to fire another broadside the Santa Rita exploded. 

This is the third time I've played this and the first time the Portuguese have won. The Santa Rita got some bad rolls on  the initial spotting (and I may tweak how many points of alertness they need to get), allowing the Maria Teresa to get in fairly close. But its initial reactions were good. Its activations fell apart once their captain was killed. 

So not the game I planned to play, but a fun game nonetheless. 

Ten Years Ago - June 2016

I think the Forgotten Heroes challenge may still be running, but it certainly was ten years ago when I did this post. The aim of it was to produce a figure for a superhero (or similar character) that was forgotten or obscure and who didn't currently have a suitable miniature. Obviously Heroclix accounted for a lot of characters, but there were gaps. I did one for public domain character Jenny Everywhere and for Captain Britain's arch nemesis Slaymaster. But this post focuses on  my entry from ten years ago - Captain UK. Rather than one link, there are several, as I detailed each step in the processing of converting a spare Catwoman Heroclix figure into the excellent Captain. 

As promised - lots of links:

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 1

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 2

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 3

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 4

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 5

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 6

Forgotten Heroes - Captain UK - Part 7

Updated Solo Rules For 'Flamme Rouge - BMX'

 Last year I posted some rules for adding bot players to the excellent little children's game 'Flamme Rouge - BMX' (which is an excellent quick game for adults as well). 

We had the game out the other day and I took the opportunity to tweak the rules a little, as well as adding in a new track feature. It's a gem hat I feel could be improved by new features and even (possibly) new track sections.

Anyway, the updated bot rules are as follows:

You Will Need: A single D6

Any players select their speed tokens as normal, and then reveal them. Move the bikes in the usual order. When you come to move a bot bike, roll a D6. If the score is 1-5 then the bike moves that many spaces. If the score is 6 then the bike moves 3 (but see below).

Resolve exhaustion as normal. If a bot gets one or more exhaustion tokens then put them next to the bike on the board. When a bike with an exhaustion token moves and rolls a 6 it move 1 instead of 3. 

eg A bot bike has two exhaustion tokens. It rolls a 6. It discards one token and moves 1spaces. On the next turn it has one token left. It rolls a 4, so moves 4 spaces and discards the remaining token.

On the Downhill board a bot rolls the D6 twice and adds the score together, but rolls of 6 still count as a 3. Expend up to two exhaustion tokens if a bot has any. For each token expended a roll of 6 will count as 1.

eg A bot is on the downhill board. They roll a double 6. They have one exhaustion token which is expended. The first roll of 6 counts as a 1. The second roll of 6 counts as a 3. The bot moves 4 spaces. 

eg A bot is on the downhill board. They roll a 6 and a 4. They have no exhaustion tokens. The bot moves 7 spaces. 

An additional rule I've been trying out is for puddles. I've made a couple of markers for them, which you can see above.

If a bike starts their move in a space with a puddle, then regardless of what token they draw their maximum move is 3. If they play a 4 or 5 token, they only move 3 spaces. 

Triple HOTT

We played HOTT at the club last night for the first time in ages. made me realis that I'd only played a couple of games of HOTT all year so far. There were three of us, so that gave us three games over the course of the evening. 

Geoff and I started the ball rolling. He used a version of his Gondorians - knights, riders, shooter spears and a hero general. I used my super-impetuous Squidmen - warband, knights and a behemoth.

The Squidmen have one tactic - charge. The skill is in the timing. 

Geoff pushed forward his cavalry and hero to screen the vulnerable spears from hordes of tentacles horrors with spears. And that was the first fight of the game. 

The fighting soon spread along the whole line as the Gondorians were slowly pushed back. 

Parts of the Gondorian line collapsed under the onslaught. Even the mighty knights of Dol Amroth couldn't hold back the ravening land-sharks. 

But here's the thing with a warband army - it's easy for elements to get cut-off and surrounded. And that's what happened to my general. Somehow he managed to hold of the heroic Imrahil and some flanking cavalry. 

Other Squidmen rushed to his aid, and disaster was not only averted but the table were turned and Imrahil found himself fighting for his life. 

However as is often the way wit these things, the battle was won on one of the flanks, as a breakthrough by the behemoth saw the Knights of Dol Amroth flanked and destroyed to give the squidmen a fairly convincing win. 

Caesar stepped up next. Geoff fielded the Gondorians again, but swapping Imrahil for Gandalf and moving command to one of the spear elements. Caesar fielded an army of horse nomads (Easterlings I guess, if we want to keep this in a Tolkein setting). The main force was a mix of knights and riders, whilst he borrowed some of my lion-centaurs as beasts (representing wargs I guess). 

All fairly tidy at the start. However the gap in the nomads' line is due to Gandalf sorcery. 

Caesar's general got isolated and destroyed. But he'd managed to inflict enough losses on teh Gondorians to be able to keep fighting. 

Nomads with limited command and control are never going to fight well, but somehow Caesar held on, performing bod deeds on his right flank. 

Gandalf rushed over to the rescue but it was too late. Once again Gondor was defeated. 

It was a close result though; at the end both armies were one element from defeat and had viable kills on the last turn. We could have gone into a sudden-death turn.

The final game saw Caesar and I matched up. Caesar used teh nomads again, but swapped the beasts for some warband. This was mostly because I wanted to use my Lion-centaur Knights of Simba, a 50/50 mix of knights and warband. 

I opened the fighting, matching my warband against Caesar's He had the advantage of a hill, whilst I had a slight edge in numbers. 

I attacked with more warband on the other flank. With Caesar occupying two hills I didn't want to commit to a frontal charge at this stage. Win on the flanks, roll up his line and then charge to finish them off was my plan. 

Can you see the weakness in my position here?

That's right - vulnerable flanks. Suddenly Caesar's army sprang into action, threatening my attack on his right. 

And riders and knights swarmed into the gap on my right flank, isolating the original warband fight on the hill (which just became a shoving match for the rest of the battle). 

The Knights of Simba moved to prevent disaster as their general was exposed on the one flank. 

However once again I had an isolated and flanked general hold out for turn after turn until the rest of his army was able to not only stabilise things, but rout the opposing army.

It was a fairly close battle until the end, when the Knights of Simba pulled together and saved the day.

I really enjoyed both of the games I played and especially enjoyed watching Caesar's nomads in action; we don't get enough heavily mounted armies in play and it was fun matching them against another fast-moving army for what was a pretty exciting third game. 

IPMA Annual Show - Alpha Strike

On the Sunday of the IPMA Annual Show we put on two more games. One group ran a two-table Team Yankee game which featured Soviets and East Germans fighting Americans and west Germans. I believe each table was a separate game, but artillery and air assets could be assigned to either and the games were run simultaneously in terms of turns. 

Meanwhile Caesar and I put on a game of Alpha Strike. This was the game we tried out a week or so ago, with two forces of mechs looking to grab energy pods from a power station in the centre of the table and get them to a summoned drop-ship. Here's the power station:

And the overall table set-up. I can't remember how many points we had on each side, but I had around 14 mechs and vehicles, whilst Caesar had 16.

I didn't record a detailed blow-by-blow account of the game because (i) I was trying to remember how to play and (ii) I was very, very tired. However it was an interesting exercise in sending some mechs to grab the objectives (which would then slow them down and which also prevented them from firing whilst they collected the items) and covering them with fire from other mechs. 

Once again Daren acted as our public face, explaining the game to anyone who took an interest. However Sunday is a quieter day at the show, so he had less to do. He's reading here - not asleep. 

You can see plenty of mechs in play if you look closely. At this stage we were just approaching the power station. 

We had a lot of fun setting up the terrain. The loan of a load of small construction vehicles suggested a construction site should be a feature. 

The power station walls and guard towers suffered from the early firing, although one of my mechs simply jumped past them. You can see that we both made plenty of breaches. 

We advanced into the objective, with larger mechs providing fire support. 

The first casualty - I lost a Locust. Not unexpected. 

My right flank - two decent mechs and a heavy tank. They did a grand job whittling down Caesar's forces on that part of the battlefield. 

Later in the game and you can see the smoke and flames of destruction on several mechs. 

At this stage we worked out that the rules for evacuating the objectives via drop-ships weren't entirely all they should be and lacking the time or energy to create some new ones on the fly we called an end to the proceedings. We'd had a good day's fighting at a relaxed pace and with plenty of time to talk to observers, so the game had achieved its objective of providing something for people to look at. Something I learned a long time ago at a UK show is that a demo/display game just has to look like something's being played. If a game really is being played then that's a bonus. 

For the record, Caesar was probably winning. 

There was a lot of lovely plastic modelling on display at the show, and I contrived to photograph very little of it. 

My favourite was this dinosaur with some accompanying tick-birds. I'm a sucker for a nice bit of paleoart.

I also liked this Minmi diorama.

And who wouldn't be thrilled by a 1/35 scale Soviet T35?

I'm also an Eagle Transporter fanboy - it's the best spaceship to appear in film and TV. The perfect balance between looking cool and looking realistically functional in my opinion. 

Finally, I have no idea what was going on here, but it featured a cat, so I had to take a picture. 

Two of our club members had entries in a couple of categories and did OK - no wins but certainly some commendations.

Once again we had a successful couple of days of gaming, introduced the hobby and our club to a load of people  and had a good, if exhausting, time doing it.