What A Christmas Tanker

 For this week's club meeting, we did a multi-player game of What A Tanker in 15mm. This had big 'Girls Und Panzer' vibes, in that we cheerfully mixed tanks of different nationalities and periods. Each player was allowed three tanks - one from Level 1 or 2, one from Level 3 or 4 and one from Level 5 and 6. You didn't have to stick to the same nationality in your selection, although some people chose to. You started with your lowers Level tank on the table, at one of the short edges. The aim was to drive off the other end - a distance of 12'. If your tank got destroyed, then you respawned with your next highest level vehicle. Seems simple? It was. Except that to win, each player had to also destroy at least one enemy tank, and also visit the pie-shop in the village in the centre of the table. This meant that you couldn't just do a straight run down the middle without fighting.

Anyway, this was the table - desert terrain close to the camera, a mixed woodland/urban terrain in the middle and some frozen wastes at the far end. We had eight players in total, with Ralph (the scenario designer) keeping things running. A few players hadn't played before.

Everyone selected their three tanks, determined which end they would start from and then Ralph gave us all the briefing.

This was my selection: My lowest level tank was a Panzer II (because I wanted to try the Rapid Fire autocannon), my next level an M5 (using my Haunted Tank element from my HOTT Weird WWII American army) and finally a T34/85 as my top-level tank. The latter was purely because I happened to have a model in my collection of random bits.

My Panzer II got off to a cracking start on the desert board; I rolled a load of Drive or Wild dice, and being fast could convert another dice to a Drive dice too. So I got five movement actions on my first turn, and whizzed down the table. Given the movement-based nature of the mission, fast tanks were popular (all three of my selections rated Fast).

At the other end of the table things started more violently, as the players rolled fewer movement and more shooting actions. Theo started things off with a bang, rotating his Crusader on the baseline to fire a killing shot at a nearby Panzer III.

From that point we got heavily into the game and I stopped taking photos for a while. My Panzer II carried on its fast drive, but was pursued by Caesar's Fiat (not sure what model - it was a small Italian tank, OK?). Needless to say I got shot at, and damaged; damage to my drive gear, specifically, slowing me down. That was pretty much the only shooting at our end of the table - Stuart and Nathan (running a Crusader and a Panzer III respectively) advanced more slowly from the start and stayed hidden from each other, so didn't line up any shots.

My plan was the quickest possible visit to the pie-shop, then a run for the finish, hoping to kill a tank from the frozen end of the table on the way through, maybe via a rear-shot after I'd whizzed past.

So here I am - I've been to the pie-shop and am heading out of the village. At the top right you can see Theo's Crusader coming down the road from the other end of the table.

Things caught up with me. This was the position later in the turn with Stuart and Theo's Crusaders heading for the shop, and Caesar's Fiat still chasing me. It looks more dangerous than you might think; there was a no fire zone within a certain distance of the pie-shop, which meant that none of us could actually shoot at each other. This was to have a major effect on  how the game played out, as you will see.

The frozen end of the table, showing a Hetzer and something Italian. The Hetzer killed the Italian tank, which respawned as a Panzer IV behind the Hetzer - you could respawn within 18" of your previous tank's position, so long as you weren't any further forward.

Caesar rolled a load of Drive dice and got ahead of me whilst we were still in the ceasefire zone. He was engaged by Colin's Crusader, and badly damaged.

More to the point, his gun wasn't pointed at the Crusader; it was still trained on my Panzer II. I came out of the ceasefire zone and also started shooting at him, inflicting some minor damage as well. Caesar shot back, but my Small trait, mixed with some outrageous luck, meant that he kept missing. Caesar was shaping up to be my kill ...

At that point it became academic. Theo had made his kill on the first turn, and had visited the pie-shop as well. Then he simply drove off the table through a desert zone devoid of opposing tanks. The only other tanks he encountered were in the ceasefire zone - so no-one could shoot at him.

So Theo got a good, solid win, with a kill, an escape off the other end and doing it with his lowest level tank. My view was that the ceasefire zone was probably too large (or could have been removed) and led to a situation where, at the point where people had the best chance to start shooting and getting kills, they couldn't do it. I suppose that each group of players could have fought at their own end of the table before coming into the central zone, but that would have led to two four-player games, and less fun.

That aside it was a great scenario, and I hope we get to do it again sometimes. All credit to Ralph for putting it together, to Colin for loaning me a Panzer II and to the other players (including Nathan, who visited the club whilst passing through Wollongong on holiday) for keeping it all entertaining.

52 Games - Game 68

The Portable Ironclad Wargame

Some great news from David at A Wargaming Odyssey - his book 'The Portable Ironclad Wargame' has been published! You can read all about it HERE.

I tell you this partially because I do like a bit of ACW naval action, and mostly because I was, in a small way, involved in helping test this game and develop a couple of ideas in it. I think it's moved on a little from the version I was playing around with, but it's still nice to make a contribution. however small.

Anyway, I look forward to getting my copy.

Atteint! Updated

I spent a lot of my spare moments this weekend trying out new tweaks and ideas for Atteint!; not unsurprisingly whilst I came up with a lot of alterations I ended up simplifying or ditching most of them, and what I've ended up with isn't a lot different from the original. However I believe that it does clarify it and improves the balance a little too.

The new version is available via my Free Stuff page, or you can be lazy and just click HERE.

What I did do is make notes on one of the games, and I thought it was worth running through a single pass in detail so that you can see how the game works.

Here are the knights at the start - Purple and White. Both have one point each in Force, Aim and Balance. Purple has their focus on Balance, whilst White starts focused on Force.

Since neither knight as scored any points, they are tied in terms of who goes first - normally the knight with the lowest accumulated score goes first. I rolled and White went first.

Turn 1 - White

The knight tests against their Force and rolls a 4. Since this is not equal to or less than the Force the knight is only moved one space forward.

The 3D6 roll gives 2,3,4. Dice scoring 4 or more allow the knight to increase an attribute. So in this case the knight has one point available. The first point must be spent on the focus attribute, so White increases their Force from 1 to 2. 

Since there was no double rolled, White cannot do anything else.

White's attributes are Force = 2, Aim = 1, Balance = 1. They are focused on Force.

Turn 1 - Purple

Purple rolls 3 against their Force of 1, so moves 1 space

The 3D6 roll is 3,3,4, so they have one point to spend, and this goes to their focus attribute of Balance, increasing it from 1 to 2.

The double 3 means that Purple could shift their focus, but they want to stay concentrated on Balance at this stage, so instead Purple uses it to gain a Favour from the Ladies' Court. This allows the knight to reroll the 3D6 at some later point in the joust.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 1, Balance = 2. They are focused on Balance.

Turn 2 - White

White rolls a 5 against a Force of 2, so moves one space

The 3D6 roll gives 1,4,5. This gives two points to spend on attributes, but no chance to shift the focus. So White spends the mandatory one point on Force, increasing it from 2 to 3, but puts the other point into Aim, increasing it from 1 to 2.

White's attributes are Force = 3, Aim = 2, Balance = 1. They are focused on Force.

Turn 2 - Purple

Purple rolls a 1 and has a Force of 1, so moves two spaces.

The 3D6 roll is 3,5,6. This gives two points, but again there is no double, so Purple can't shift their focus from Balance. However the knight decides to put both points into Balance. They only had to put in one, and could have applied the other to Force of Aim is they wanted to.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 1, Balance = 4. They are still focused on Balance.

Turn 3 - White

White has a Force of 3, so has a good chance of moving two spaces, but rolls a 6 and only moves 1.

The 3D6 roll gives 1,1,4. This gives one point to spend, which must be applied to Force, but allows the knight to shift their focus. They do so, switching it to Aim.

White's attributes are Force = 4, Aim = 2, Balance = 1. They are focused on Aim.

Turn 3 - Purple

Another roll of 1 sees Purple move forward two spaces again.

The 3D6 roll is a good one: 4,4,4. This allows Purple to apply two points to Aim, increasing it from 1 to 3, add another point to Balance, increasing it to its maximum of 5, and because of the double they can shift focus. Their Aim is looking fairly good now, so they shift their focus to Force.

Purple's attributes are Force = 1, Aim = 3, Balance = 5. They are focused on Force.

This is how the knights are positioned. It is now White's move, so if they move forward two spaces then they will initiate a strike because they will be diagonally adjacent to Purple. If they move one space then they get another 3D6 roll, and Purple will be forced to initiate the strike on their turn.

Turn 4 - White

Despite their Force of 4 White only moves forward one space, rolling a 6.

White gets to roll 3D6. They score 2,2,4. This gives them one point to spend, which they have to put onto Aim, increasing it from 2 to 3. They also have a double. Since there will be no more rolls, there is no point in changing the focus, so White spends the double catching the eye of the Marshal of the Field. This gives him the edge if the final scores are tied at the end of three passes.

White's attributes are Force = 4, Aim = 3, Balance = 1. 

Turn 4 - Purple

Purple rolls a 1 against their Force of 1 and moves forward two spaces. This puts them directly adjacent to White, so the knights immediately resolve a strike.

The current scores are:

Purple: Force = 1, Aim = 3, Balance = 5

White: Force = 4, Aim = 3, Balance = 1

The first stage is to see if the knights get any advantage from their Balance. Because it is Purple's turn, they test first, and because they finished directly adjacent to White they can reroll a fail. Purple's Balance is 5, and they roll a 6, so fail, but the reroll is a 1, so Purple gets a pass. They use their successful Balance check to dodge, reducing White's Aim from 3 to 2.

White tests against their Balance of 1, rolls a 4 and fails.

Both knights roll to hit, needing to score equal to or less than their Aim on a D6. White scores a 6, with an Aim of 2, so misses. Purple scores a 2 against their Aim of 3, so hits! 

Any knight which hits their opponent tests to see if their lance shatters. This is a roll against Force. Purple has a Force of 1, and rolls a 5, so their lance remains intact. 

So Purple has scored a point. However the final test is to see if any knight that hit managed to unhorse their opponent. To do this they add together their Aim and Force and subtract the opponent's Balance. Purple has an Aim of 3 and a Force of 1, which gives a meager 4, but White's Balance is only 1, so the final score is 3. Purple rolls 2D6, looking to get that score or lower ... and rolls a 3! White is unhorsed; they rode fast and accurately but their lack of control was their undoing.

Unhorsing your opponent is worth 3 points, so at the end of the first pass Purple leads 3-0. Purple has a Favour, whilst White has caught the Marshal's eye.

I hope this made some sort of sense and gave an idea of how the game plays. It's a lot quicker to play than read.

In case you were wondering, I did play out the other two passes.

In the second pass Purple rolled badly for attribute increases, despite spending their Favour, and stood virtually no chance of gaining a hit against an aggressive and well-aimed White attack. White not only hit, but also shattered their lance, scoring two points. Purple's focus on Balance prevented them being unhorsed, however. So a the end of the second pass the score was 3-2 to Purple.

It went much the same way in the third pass. Purple only managed to increase their Balance once, but did catch the Marshal's eye a couple of times, negating White's edge in terms of a tie break. This meant the White had to at least shatter their lance to win; the single point for a hit would no longer be enough. White had a moderately good aim, but Purple managed to make their Balance roll, and dodged, so White missed. Purple missed too, so neither knight scored. But this left the aggregate score at 3-2 to Purple.

Atteint!

Inspired by a picture of some jousting knights on a box of colouring crayons, and the memory of a blog post from the other day, I finally got around to getting my Atteint! jousting rules out today for the first time in four years. Actually it's pretty much the first time I've had them out since the week in which I wrote them. 

The blog post about jousting I'd seen drew my attention to some figures for jousting knights on the Junior General site, so I downloaded them and out them together. And here they are:

As you can see, I hadn't got around to painting the bases, but I was keen to get playing, and decided to forego that nicety for now.

I picked four knights - Black, White, Red and Yellow - for a quick mini-tournament. Black and Yellow would joust, then Red and White, and the winner of each one would go through to a final, third, joust.

I'd got a couple of notes for some rules changes. Nothing much though, but I decided to try them. The first was that a strike takes place when the knights are diagonally adjacent (see picture below). This is simply aesthetic, although it does have a small effect on the game since they contact one space earlier. The next change builds on this; if the knight that initiates the strike ends in this position then resolve the strike as normal. But if their move would leave them immediately adjacent to the other knight (because they got to move two spaces) then when rolling against Force to test for a broken lance they get to reroll a fail. I need to word that better. Finally I only allowed a knight to hold one Favour from the Ladies Court at a time. 

The first bout was between the Black Knight and the Yellow Knight.

On the first pass, Black rolled well for Force and advanced quickly down the list, but Yellow got the initiative in the strike. Despite that, it was Black who threw off Yellow's aim, only to then miss with their own attack. Neither knight scored any points.

The second pass saw both knights miss each other again. The approaches were slower, but neither knight build up much in the way of Force or Aim. Yellow was a favourite with the Ladies' Court by this stage, and could count on a reroll in the next pass, but Black's actions had caught the notice of the Marshal of the Field, who would certainly award the joust to Black if the scores were tied at the end,

The third pass started with everything to play for - Yellow had the support of the ladies, whilst Black was currently considered the better knight. Black could afford to play for a tie, but Yellow had to score a point. Yellow managed to catch the Marshal's eye on the approach, negating Black's edge there. Black threw  off Yellow's aim on the strike, but despite that both knights hit each other. All was set for an epic tie-break, except that Black's lance broke, unbalancing Yellow, who was unhorsed (a triple '1' rolled by Black saw to that). This gave Black 3 points and an overall 3-0 win in the first joust of the day.

The second joust of the day was the White Knight against the Red Knight. In the first pass both knights concentrated on their Aim, hoping to get a quick point to start things off. As expected both scored hits but, against the odds, both also broke their lances, starting the joust off at 2-2.

The second pass was steady and saw both knights build up good scores in all three attributes. White threw off Red's aim in the strike, but Red opted to go for a reroll anyway. Both scored a hit, but this time only White's lance broke. So the pass was scored 2-1 and White now led 4-3 on aggregate.

The third and final pass saw both knights roll incredibly well for attributes. White played safe, opting for a high balance to throw off Red's attack. Red naturally opted for a good hard attack. On the strike White was able to blunt the force of Red's attack, making it less likely that he would shatter his lance. Both knights hit, and White's lance broke. The score was 2-1 to White again, and 6-4 on aggregate. So teh White Knight was the winner.

So the final joust of the day would see the White Knight face the Black Knight - a classic pairing.

The first pass saw White score a hit, and shatter his lance, whilst Black missed. This put White 2-0 up.

The second pass saw White play defensively, opting to risk a hit from Black but prevent his lance from breaking. And that's what happened; Black hit but his lance remained intact. Black won 1-0, leaving the aggregate score at 2-1 to White.

All White now had to do in order to win the joust was score at least as well as Black in the third pass. Black caught the Marshal's eye on the approach, though, which meant that if the final score was tied, Black would now win. White got the edge on Balance and threw off Black's aim, but despite that Black hit and White didn't, leaving the scores tied! To add insult to injury Black's lance shattered, giving Black a 2-0 win in the pass and a 3-2 win overall.

So the Black Knight was the champion for the day.

I need to go through these rules again, and tweak sequences and how the attributes work, so that there can be different strategies in how to apply them. To some extent, at present, there is a strong advantage in putting points into Aim, as this ensure a hit. This makes sense, obviously, but there needs to be an incentive to consider Force and Balance as well. Still, overall I'm pleased with how these rules work, given that they were basically written in a day or so.

52 Games - Game 67

Middle Earth HOTT

We played HOTT again at the club this week. Rather than one big game the four of us played two one-on-one games using Geoff's Middle Earth armies.

The idea was to play 36AP on normal-sized board, but I played Lachlan in the first game, who hadn't played HOTT for years (if at all) so stuck to 24AP for what was a kind of learning game.

I took Orcs, and sorted out a kind of Riders of Rohan army for Lachlan, consisting of four knights, six spears and two warband. This was the setup. I had a ton of hordes in the centre, wolf riders on my right and some Uruk Hai blades on the left.

Meanwhile Dave and Geoff were playing a 36AP game with Geoff's Haradrim taking on Dave's Gondorians. 

These are Geoff's wonderful mumakil. Apparently they spent most of the game being forced to flee by Gandalf's magic.

Meanwhile in my game, Lachlan had massed his forces against my left, leaving me in the strange position of being outnumbered at the point of contact. Owing to my stupid general placement (on my far left) I was slow to bring across reinforcements.

I had plenty of troops on the other flank. They were mostly on the wrong side of a hill, and faced a grand total of two enemy elements.

The first combats of the game - Rohan's spears charged my Orc hordes.

In the centre some Rohan warband broke through and made a run for my stronghold. I was able to bring back hordes to stop, and eventually destroy them, but it did slow down my efforts to reinforce my left.

On my left flank my two elements of blades, one of which was my general, had become somewhat isolated.

The one blade fell, but the general fought off every attempt to destroy him. Each turn gave me more chance to bring back hordes and (not depicted) take out the Rohan knights on the other flank.

But eventually the odds caught up with me. I was pushed back into the village and the general was cut-down, losing me the game.

We swapped partners. This time I was facing Dave, who kept his Gondorians. I used the Orcs again, but added more riders, a Nazgul hero and Sauron himself as a hero general*.

Our armies, each at 36AP, made an imposing sight.

The battle opened with the hero Faramir attaching my trolls and being driven back.

Gandalf hit the trolls in the flank, and was promptly killed by them.

In the centre Gondor's blades sliced their way through my hordes.

Faramir charged the trolls again, and they recoiled. Straight into Sauron. This killed the Dark Lord, and that was another lost battle for me.

One week I plan to win a game of HOTT.

*Or maybe a Nazgul pretending to be Sauron.