Baby Dragon Bedtime

Baby Dragon Bedtime from Tin Star Games*

To be honest this game wouldn't have got a blog post of its own, but it's the first time I've played it this year, so it counts towards my 52 Games project.

It's a light and fast card-game that my wife bought at MOAB for us to take on holiday and which we managed to no play on holiday at all. The premise is that the players are baby dragons and it's bedtime - kind of obvious really. Like any small animals they don't want to sleep, and instead want to play, and what dragons play at is collecting and hoarding gold.

It's basically a very fast memory game. Most of the cards for the game are spread, face down, between the players. Each player gets a deck of cards containing two Peek cards, two Grab cards and one Flip card. 

There are no turns. Once the game starts, each player flips over the top card of their deck and can choose to follow its instructions, or simply flip the next card. Cards then go on your discard pile. A Peek card enables you to look at a card in the middle, a Flip means you turn it over (or put it face down if it's already face-up) and a Grab card means you can take one card from the middle and put it in your discard pile. When you run out of cards then you flip your discard pile, that becomes your deck and you keep going. Obviously cards you've grabbed will form part of your next deck. You do this at whatever speed you like; the other players will be doing the same. 

Grabbed cards can include more action cards, but can also include Gold or Hoard cards, which are worth VPs. You must try and avoid the Dust Bunny and Chewing Gum cards, though, as they are worth negative VPs

If you think you've got enough gold then you can choose to go to sleep, and you stop playing. When either only player is still awake, or if all of the cards on the table are face-up, the game ends, and you count VPs

It's simple, it's fast and it's stupid. And it's fun. It also plays in about five minutes. We enjoyed it with three. It takes up to seven players, which I imagine would be utter chaos.

So that's another 52 Games entry.

*Previous Tin Star Games products on this blog have been Partners, There's Been A Murder and (of course) Elon Musk's iPod Submarine.

52 Games - Game 66

The Battle Of McDowell

As promised we played a McDowell scenario on Thursday night, using Black Powder and Ralph's Epic ACW figures (or whatever Warlord call their little plastic figures).

Here's the main focus of the action - Sitlington's Hill. I was a little late turning up, owing to a cat emergency, and missed the first turn, so I'm not sure what the initial starting positions were, but you can see roughly a brigade each fighting it out over the crest of the hill here. In the centre was an objective marker.

The scenario was designed so that the first half of the action would be fought over the hill and then, as the numbers of arriving Confederates steadily increased, the Union would fall back and contest some roads in their rear. The Union had two smallish brigades (which counted as one for break purposes, but not command), whilst the Confederates had (I think) three - one attacking the hill and two arriving by road from the first turn. Here's the bigger picture, with the Confederates arriving in the distance, and a couple of Union regiments on the road opposing them.

A close-up of the two Union regiments on the road.

The Confederates were marching in nice vulnerable columns, and as they came up took a few hits from the Union artillery that I realise that I didn't get a single picture of.

Confederate numbers build up. 

The Union actually did a great job of holding them off. Deciding that the objectives to the rear were too far back to reach within the time-limit, they simply sat tight. They lost the objective on the hill, but did then break the Confederate brigade contesting it (despite the Confederates getting all kinds of rerolls for 'Stonewall' Jackson being there, as well as for simply being Confederate).

The units on the road came close to breaking the first wave of Confederates attacking them. But not quite.

And, as we reached the time-limit, the Union brigade reached its break-point. In terms of VPs for the game, this gave the Confederates two (breaking a Union brigade, and winning one objective) and the Union one (breaking a single Confederate brigade). But it was a close game.

The scores are important because this was a the first in a series of three Jackson In The Valley games, and the VPs for each scenario will be accumulated to give an overall winner. The plan is for one game at the end of a month, but then next two months are basically holidays at that point, so the next one won't be until February.

And this is my first game of Black Powder this year, so ... 52 Games!

52 Games - Game 65

McDowell 1862 With Battle Cry

On our club night this week we're going to be trying a refight of the 1862 Battle of McDowell. We've been giving some pre-game reading, but I thought I'd brush up on the battle the fun way by playing it out with Battle Cry since (i) the game is on my table and (ii) there's a scenario in the rules.

The McDowell scenario has a relatively low unit count and is almost entirely infantry; nine Confederate vs seven Union. The Union have one general and an artillery, and the Confederates three generals. The Union have more command cards though. The terrain is scattered woods and hills, with Sitlington's Hill as a central feature. Here's the setup:

The Union started with a bold advance on their right flank, using the hills there as cover.

They quickly dealt with the two Confederate units on that flank, and turned on Sitlington's Hill. The Confederates were bringing up reinforcements to cover the hill.

The Union pressed a series of attacks against the left of the position on the hill, and got quite badly cut up. But they were inflicting decent losses on the Confederates too.

Union troops began to move up in the centre to provide limited support.

And that was enough. Although a lot of the Union units were heavily depleted, they were still fighting, whilst with the shooting of General Johnston on the hill the Confederates had suffered the necessary losses to give the Union a 5-2 win.

I set it up and played it again. This time the main Union attack came in the centre, with their left coming up in support. One unit pushed up onto Sitlington's hill and into the Confederate rear. But Taliaferro's Confederates moved in from the Confederate rear, and their counter-attack clinched a narrow 5-4 win for the boys in grey.

The final position. With five medals needed to victory the losing side will be looking very thin on the ground by the end.

Anyway, I'm all set for Thursday now.

More Battle Cry

I notice that I haven't posted in a week, which is pretty bad for me.

The truth is that I haven't really done very much gaming-related stuff in the past week. A lot of time has either been spent catching up with friends, celebrating family birthdays and (the majority) preparing for and performing in burlesque shows covering two consecutive nights. And work, naturally, squeezed in wherever there was time.

I did manage to fit in a few more games of Battle Cry though. This time I played the Ox Hill scenario, and found it to be nicely balanced. Here's a couple of pictures of the setup.

Actually one peripherally game-related thing we've been doing recently is going to a local weekly trivia night. Given that our team consists of myself and Mrs Kobold we've done surprisingly well, finishing in the top three (out of ten to twelve teams) each time we've been. The small prizes we've picked up pay for the food and drink the next time we go.

Anyway, now the burlesque stuff has calmed down until the new year I'll have more time to devote to games I hope.

Battle Cry - Antietam

Having fought the American Civil War twice using 'A House Divided' to give me the bigger picture, I went back to a more focused approach and played some more Battle Cry during the week. 

I set up the Antietam scenario, partially because it's a battle I'd just got to in my reread of Shelby Foote, but mostly because it's a favourite battle of mine. Many, many years ago I spent a ton of time reading up on it in order to put together a Fire & Fury scenario for it (this was before Great Eastern Battles was published), and I still find it one of the more fascinating larger battles.

The game sets it up as you'd expect, as three fights, one in each sector. The numbers of units are actually fairly similar, but this kind of gives the right effect; the Union have enough troops to push the Confederates facing them to the edge but maybe not quite enough oomph to finish them. The Union have fewer command cards than the Confederates. The Confederates start with terrain advantages too. It's a tough one for the Union.

Here's the start. As you can see I added a few bits of terrain.

The Union attack on the cornfield went as well as you'd expect.

Burnside got his troops together to cross the stone bridge. This is an odd part of the scenario, since Burnside acts as the same time as the rest of the Union army, but in fact this flank is so isolated from the rest of the fight that it's almost a game on its own, so could (in theory) be assumed to be happening later.

A.P. Hill's troops came up and stopped the advance over the creek fairly quickly. In the centre the Union went for the sunken road. 

They even occupied the road.

Burnside was shot trying to escape back across the bridge.

And the Confederates turned the sunken road into a killing-ground, in a reversal of history.

That ended the battle; the Confederates won 7-3.

I set it up and played it again. The Union put in a pretty good attack on the cornfield this time, although Stuart's cavalry hit them hard.

Burnside got his troops over the bridge again. The Union were doing OK so far.

The Union troops in the cornfield were decimated by shooting from the Confederates around the church and supporting artillery from near the sunken road.

And, omce again, Hill's troops came up quickly to threaten the Union position by the bridge.

Burnside escaped being shot this time, though.

And Hooker got lucky too. His troops? Less so.

And that was it. The scenario is unforgiving when it comes to casualties and the destruction on the flanks was enough for another Confederate win: 6-2 this time.

I've played the Belmont scenario through a few times since I took these pictures as well, but didn't photograph it. It gives a surprisingly fun and frustrating game, featuring as it does infantry that retreat two spaces instead of one. The Confederates have numbers, but also have terrible command cards, so struggle to bring them to bear. Honours are about even so far.