I haven’t posted a Flames of War report lately, but not because we haven’t been playing, but more because I keep forgeting my camera.  It’s all about the eye candy.   A couple of the guys in our group have recently gotten their North Africa collections to a game ready point, so we’ve been doing some North Africa games set around the time of Operation Crusader.  At some point (probably during the 8 hours driving to and from Fall In!) we were talking about ways to get the feel for the desert war on a game table.  Since wargamers are seldom going to emulate the tactics of the British voluntarily, I decided to try and write a scenario that might  capture some of the feel of the British tanks attacks.  A feature of the British armoured forces during this period was that they tended to operate in tank heavy battlegroups with very little infantry and no artillery.   Another feature was their disturbing tendency to wander into German anti-tank gun traps.  So I set out to put together a scenario to capture the feel of the British tank attacks I’ve read about.

One of the things I like about FOW is that the points system can be used for good as well as evil.  Points systems get bashed for allowing all kinds of ahistorical power gaming, but if the players in your group are willing to work within historical boundries, it can be very helpful in terms of ‘distributed scenario design’.   For this game I asked Bob (who owns the Brits) and Tom (who owns the DAK) to each assemble companies from their collections to fit the scenario criteria.  I don’t have to keep careful track of what everyone in the group owns to make the senario – I simply give them a point value and restrictions and they do the OOB work.  In this case I wanted to have a strong British tank force with armored cars for recon and with one of the little British motor companies following along behind to secure ground seized by the tankers and hold it against counterattacks.  I asked Bob to provide a couple of companies of crusiers tanks (with only organic assets, no divisional support stuff), a company of armored cars, and a motor rifle company.  I asked Tom to provide us with a panzergrenadier company for the initial defense and a fairly hefty panzer company for a counterattacking force.  The Germans would be able to place as many of their panzergrenadier platoons as desired into ambush (although since we were using a 6′ x 10′ table they were required to specify a table section to deploy into).

Both sides had some air assets they could distribute between various missions.  Neither side chose any aerial reconnaissance – both sides would be blind.  The Germans Air Superiority took control of the skies and would be able to intercept many of the British attempts to provide close air support.  The Germans initially chose to place only a platoon in the town (along with some imbedded ATGs).  That allowed the British armored cars to deploy far forward and to swarm ahead across the open ground on the south side of the battlefield.  The two tank companies followed behind the armored cars.

As the game opened, the British armored car platoon decided to aggressively move forward, attempting to block off potential ambush sites and to seize forward objectives.  For this game I made the number of dice rolled to receive reserves dependent on the British VP level.  By storming forward, the armored cars captured a lot of VP, resulting in release of the British motor rifles from reserve very early.  Unfortunately for the British, this also lit a fire under the Germans HQ and their panzer company was quickly marshalled and made ready to advance.

On the north of the battlefield, Andy swarmed his company of Honey Stuarts over the rocky ridge and approached the town.  Undeterred by the Pak36’s, the Lend Lease tanks roared in and opened up with a torrent of machine gun fire pinning down the Germans.  Although the guns unpinned and bagged a tank or two, Andy’s boys were ready for a rumble and with a blast of MG fire, pinned down and assaulted the extended panzergrenadier platoon all along their line.  A couple of the tanks were lost, but the forward Germans positions were smashed with heavy casualties.  As the survivors pulled back into town, Andy attacked any teams unable to reach a building (such as the attached PaKs) and eventually routed the defending platoon and killed the company commander.  The Stuarts rolled seized the objective in town and rolled through to take up new firing positions for their next bound.

The Crusader company rolled in behind the armored cars, looking to move around the town and utilize the open ground to move onto the German positions covering the third pair of objectives.  The motor rifle company with trucked infantry and scout carrier patrols moved in behind them.  As these units rolled forward, they began to come under heavy attack by Stukas of the Luftwaffe and by 105mm artillery fire.  Although these attacks were not devastating, the British forces were picking up the occasional casualty, made worse by the fact that Brett’s troops adamantly refused to recrew their tanks after being bailed out.

The Germans deployed their remaining infantry platoons (with PaK38 support) on the ridge to the rear, protecting the objective there and began rolling on the panzers.   A fortunate strike by Hurribombers destroyed on platoon of panzers, but in the SW corner a juggernaut was approaching in the form of 3 Panzer IV Es and a pair of 88mm FlaK guns.  The recon armored cars there tried to duck into protective cover of some scrub, but that did them no good as the PzIV’s gutted two of them.  The remaining amored cars began to disengage and redirect through the newly captured town to positions where they could provide MG support to the Honeys.

The air forces of both sides finally exhausted themselves with a couple of more destroyed vehicles.  The 88’s posed a significant problem for the British and their Crusader Close Support tanks were not in range yet to bombard the guns, so the Bob’s carrier platoon passed through and charged at the guns, blazing away with 0.30 cal and 0.50 cal machine guns.  One FlaK gun was taken out and the other pinned down.  Unfortunately, the Panzer IV’s were proving to be a real problem for the Crusaders, whose thin armor and 2 pounder gun were no match for the heavier panzers.

Andy made one dash at the German line, but failed to pin down the defending German platoon and lost a couple of Stuarts.  Attrition was starting to wear his tank force down while on the other side the Crusaders had lost much of their strength to continuous artillery, air attacks, and the Panzer IVs.  Unfortunately we ran out of playing time before we ran out of scenario turns, but then end was getting fairly close.  The British players were content to fall back into defensive position to hold the two objectives in the table’s center.  Although the DAK had decent tank strength remaining, they would still be hard pressed to knock the British of of their positions with the time remaining.  I declared it a British victory, although it would have been close in the end.

The game was a blast and achieved the goals.  The British players definitely were in favor of a combined arms approach and missed having some artillery with which to reach out and soften up the Germans.  The early rush by the British combined with Andy’s aggressive use of the Stuarts against the infantry in the town allowed them to seize the center of the table and negate much of the German superiority in terms of anti-tanks capability.  We had quite a bit of maneuver and the large table allowed us to make good use of double moves, trucks, etc. and to have a lot of vehicles (there were 39 British tanks and 13 armored cars) without it looking entirely like a parking lot.  Definitely need to make some sort of dust clouds though to place behind the moving vehicles and complete the desert look.

Last weekend I went up to Gettysburg to host some Roman Seas games at Fall In! in support of Eric’s recent launch of the rule book.   Although the convention staff had a lot of “difficulties” leading up to the event, the con director did a stellar job of pulling it out of the fire.   One of my games got moved from the time slot listed in the preliminary event listr, but since I was running three games, people who wanted to try Eric’s new rules were able to get into one of the games.   I did two sessions of a convoy escort scenario and one of my 289 AD scenario.  The couple of weeks before the convention had been busy ones so I hadn’t had the time to make all of the little improvements on my ship models that I had wanted (such as adding rigging to all of the merchants) and I spent Thursday night at the convention painting bases on the marine stands.  But by the first game on Friday I was satisfied with the look of the game and judging from the many, many positive comments I received, I’d say I achieved a nice level of visual spectacle.

Scenario  One – Even Caesar’s Men Must Eat

The first scenario featured a convoy of supply ships trying to break through a naval blockade to resupply Julius Caesar’s army in Greece during the civil war.  Caesar’s fleet consisted of 3 large merchants and 6 small merchants escorted by a Roman quadreme and six triremes supplied by one of Caesar’s allies.    The Roman ship was fully decked and outfitted in the Roman manner with heavy marines while the allied triremes were semi-cataphract ships with only light marines and light ballista, but veteran rowing crews.  The blockading force of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus consisted of one quniquireme, 2 quadremes, 4 triremes, and 4 liburnians.  The heavier 4’s and 5’s were fully outfitted with legionaire heavy infantry and medium ballista while the lighter ships were mostly manned by light marines.  The convoy set up along the west edge and were tasked with exiting the east edge while the Pompeian forces were to capture or sink Caesar’s ships

The first game began with Caesar’s forces running north in two lines, with a line of escorts screening the merchants.   The commanders of Pompey’s fleet moved straight forward and then sprinted to ram speed, striking several of the escorting ships. One of the triremes was reduced to a floating wreck right away, taking all of it’s marines with it,  and others suffered severe damage.  Caesar’s men also found themselves being handily outdueled by the missile troops aboard Pompey’s ships.  A couple of liburnians from the blockading fleet broke through the escorts and rammed some of the smaller merchants, sinking two.  After a few exchanges of close combat, Pompey’s forces in the south cleared the decks of the opposing triremes, extricated their own ships and gained maneuver space.  These ships then came in behind Caesar’s fleet and grappled the remaining merchants.  At this point Caesar’s captains surrendered the field.  The players all had a great time and I we had lots of passersby stopping to oogle the game.   Two of the players walked away with prizes supplied by Eric and many others left vowing to buy the rules and boats

Game 2 – Rule Britannia!

The second game was Saturday morning and was a repeat of the scenario I ran at Historicon in the summer between forces of the rebellious general Carausius and forces of Emperor Maximian.  As usual, the forces of Carausius approached from the south with his Frankish allies approaching from the north and with the Imperial fleet emerging from the mouth of the Rhenus  River between the two.  The game was placed in the back of the further gaming area, so at the outset we only had three players and I was helping the Imperials.  However, we a couople of additional players wander up and I was able to go back being the referee.

The Imperial players initially deployed with a couple of squadrons to go close inshore and another couple to swing out to sea and form a line of battle.  However the arrival of the Franks drew two squadrons north.  The two squadrons sent south were engaged by three squadrons of rebels.  A couple of ships were grounded on the shoals, and although they were losing ships, the imperials were keeping the better crewed rebels tied up and wearing down their crew levels.

Howver, in the north the situation was definitely going in the Imperial’s favor.  The Frankish squadron carried a lot of marines, but without rams, was dependent on boarding for results.  The Imperial commander played carefully, using his superiority in missile troops to wear down the Franks and cutting away grapples from any boarding actions not likely to be in his favor.  Soon the Frankish flotilla was thinned out considerably and the Imperial commander detached his otther squadron of of liburnians to reinforce in the south.  These ships got up to full maneuver speed and ran past the end of the rebel line, which was tied up in combat with imperial ships.  This fresh influx of troops tilted the balance and the rebels lost a number of ships rapidly.  Since I had been scheduled to run two games on two separate tables only an hour apart, so I called the game 30 minutes early.  Again, everyone had a good time, liked the rules, and the ship models and their Baccus 6mm infantry were the star of the game.  Two more gamers walked away with goodies from Eric.

Game 3 – Even Caesar’s Men Must Eat

After a quick turnaround (the game sets down and packs up quickly except for the step of placing and removing the 300 or so crew stands) I was set for another game of the convoy scenario.  The arrangement of the islands was different than before and I added a ring of shoals around each.   One of the islands was close to the set up area for the convoy and served to divide their forces, with two squadrons going around it to north and south.

This time the escorting forces came out much more aggressively, meeting the blockading ships closer to the center of the table.  In the north, Caesar’s admiral had some initial traffic jams but soon had things sorted out.  One of his triremes made a very effective oar rake on an enemy quadreme and the slowing of that ship rendered it largely unable to affect the outcome.  Other ships in the northern half of the table grappled to Pompey’s ships to keep them busy while the merchants tried to work past.   One of the liburnians from Pompey’s force worked past the escorts to grapple a smaller merchant, but the crew of the merchant was able to keep hacking away the grappling lines and edging toward their goal.   Another small merchant tried to sneak past by crossing the shoals, but grounded and remained stuck for the rest of the game.  Eventually, Caesar’s forces had worked a large and small merchant past the escorts.  One liburnian was able to grapple the large merchant and managed to kill off it’s deck crews, but Caesar’s captain had one of his small merchants tie up alngside and transfer it’s deck crews to the larger ship.  Soon a trireme arrived to chase away the liburnian and the large merchant and one small merchant were positioned to escape

In the south Caesar’s captains played a cagey game, using their veteran crewed triremes to harass the Pompeian ships with oar rakes, hit-and-run rams, and lots of missile fire.  However, they were outnumbered by Pompey’s forces and a couple of Pompey’s ships out flanked them to come in and grapple a large and small merchant.  The marines placed aboard the merchants put up a good struggle, so their capture took valuable time.  During that time, Caesar’s men managed to capture a quadreme and to sweep the decks of the quinquireme with repeated missile attacks so that when she did grapple one of the merchants, she was vulnerable to counterattack.  The Caesarian triremes rushed in and boarded the quinquireme, which brought her rowers to the decks to fight, but not in time to save the ship.

Suddenly the Pompeian players in the south found themselves in possession of two enemy merchants but with no way to hold them against counterattack.  The game was declared a victory for Caesar’s men.  A couple of the players in this game had played in my earlier games as well and so this game really clicked along smoothly.  I gave out the last of my goodies from Eric to a couple of the players.

All in all I had a great time running these games.  Eric’s ships make a great looking game and people are always amazed that they are paper models. Everyone in my games seemed to have a great time and to enjoy the new rules.  These rules definitely passed one of my standard tests for convention suitability in that after a couple of turns the players were able to do all of the game’s mechanics themselves and all I had to do was keep the turns moving along.  This will definitely be a staple of future convention games for me.

Haven’t had a game report up here in a long while, not because we haven’t been playing games, but just a combination of busy, lazy, and constantly forgetting the camera.  Admittedly I could write reports without any pictures, but I like the eye candy.  However last Friday I did remember about halfway through the game, which was a Check Your 6! game based on an attack on Japanese shipping in Wewak harbor by the B-25s of the 38th Bombardment Group.

A Japanese supply convoy had been detected moving into Wewak harbor and on Sept 2, 1943, the 38th Bombardment Group was dispatched to deal with the transports by low altitude attacks.  The B-25s of the 38th BG had been converted into strafers, replacing the bombadier’s position with 4 0.50 cal machine guns and adding 4 more in external blisters.  This gave the B-25s great forward firepower that was used to suppress AAA fire as they came in for masthead height skip bombing attacks.  On this occasion 16 bombers of the 38th Bomb Group attacked the harbor, led by elements of the 405th Bombardment Squadron (the Green Dragons).  The Japanese were ready for them this time and the B-25s were under constant attack from enemy fighters.  Historically the bombers were escorted by ~60 P-38s, but those were engaged with ~80 enemy fighter above the low cloud deck.  However, it’s entirely plausible that a few P-38s could have made it down from the clouds and so I added a few to the scenario.  The 4 B-25s attacked from the SW (coming in from the shore) and immediately lined up on the nearest transport.   Some Tonys were on patrol over the harbor and a couple of shotai of Oscars were chasing the bombers, entering behind them a couple of turns later.

As the B-25s approached the first target at 200 mph and 250′ (the optimal skip bombing profile), the Japanese AAA really started to fire.   One of the strafers poured fire into the decks of the transport ahead and silenced it’s AA guns, but an AA battery on shore (represented in our case by an extra Japanese destroyer) scored a hit on the flight lead’s bomber.  A lucky hit wounded the pilot and forced the crew to abort, but the co-pilot took over and kept the plane out of the drink.  The first bomb was delivered and a hit topside, damaging but not crippling the vessel.  At this point the swarm of faster moving Oscars and Tonys descended on the bombers and I started my string of miserable Robustness rolls.  A ‘4′ and a ‘5′ later (on 2d6) and the flight lead’s aircraft lost an engine and a second aircraft had airframe damage and a fuel leak lucky hit.  All was not totally lost as the turret gunners got a Japanese fighter and the Lightnings were swinging into the fray.  I immediately pickled the bombs on the wounded bird and turned the flight toward the south edge, planning to make a bomb run against the ship anchored there on my way out.

The aircraft that had bombed the ship strafed another transport then turned for home, catching and Oscar in front of his forward guns, but was not able to hit the agile fighter.  I didn’t have long to lament the missed shot as the bomber was promptly shot down.  A couple of more turns saw the lone bomber still carrying ordinance just about to release his bombs when AAA and fire from the surrounding Japanese aircraft downed both that bomber and the one with the fuel leak.   The flight leader’s aircraft caught an Oscar in the sights of his 8 0.50 cals and when it was all said and done, there was not a lot left of that Oscar.  However, the bomber crew had a problem in that they were facing the wrong direction, at TAL 1, running on one engine, and any turn to the south risked a stall.  There was nothing to do but go for it and I made the turn for home… and promptly spun into the water.  The P-38s had licked up another kill along the way, but the Japanese were content with the days work and bugged out, having earned a rather decisive victory.

All in all a very entertaining game.  Flying the bombers was fun as they have a lot more to do than just plod across the table in terms of lining up the skip bombing attack, supressing AA, etc.  In addition, for this scenario, the bombers are allowed to move in the mover group appropriate for their crew skill once they have pickled their bombs.  There were numerous recorded instances of B-25 strafer pilots downing Japanese fighters with their forward guns (including one on this mission).

This game was also a playtest of the scenario in preparation for Fall In!.  I sent the scenario in to be included in the CY6! game area with many others, but apparently that clump of games did not make the Fall In! PEL.  As soon as I have a good idea when the game will be, I’ll post it here.  I also registered the game for 8 players, but will have extra bombers and Oscars so can take a couple of extras.  As is so often the case, the dice tried their best to throw off my playtest.  The robustness of the US bombers was a total non-factor as I rolled at a four and a five early on and added two very damaging lucky hits, essentially crippling my bomber force before I ever got going.  However, even with that, a good hit on the last transport could have at least salvaged the day.

If all goes well, I’m going to make a brand new sea hex mat and produce a nice shore line, etc. so that it really looks like Wewak Harbor.  I’m adding some nice new AAA positions, jetties, and small craft around the harbor to really give it a nice look.  In addition, I’m converting my B-25C models into strafers, adding the nose and side guns and, if I can pull it off, painting the 405th BS’s dragon’s head artwork onto the noses of the bombers.  One of the things that I really like about the scenario is that I’ve been able to find a wealth of information about this mission including details of the make up of the convoy from the Combined Fleet site and a very detailed description  of the raid from the official unit records archived on the 38th Bombardment Group’s website, which is an excellent site for anyone interested in the war over New Guniea.

A recent post on the forums at The Miniatures Page pointed me to the Digitized Monograph Collection held by the Donovon Research Library at the US Army’s Infantry School on Ft. Benning.  This is a great collection of personal accounts and other papers written by US Army officers.  These include WWI through the present.  I’ve so far only explored the WWII section, but that includes accounts at many levels from platoon up through corp as well as specific tactical problems, campaign synopsis, etc.  Many of the monographs I’ve quickly looked at contain maps and should provide a great resource for writing interesting wargame scenarios.

Note that I (and others from what I saw on the TMP forum) had to allow a security exemption for their browser to gain access.

I finished up a few more Roman Seas ships as I gear up to be able to do some convoy escort games.   In addition to builing up the merchant fleet, I am also expanding my collection of ships to offer the players more variety of escorts and raiders than my current giant collection of liburnians allows.

First up are a pair of Small Merchant ships.  Similarly to the Corbita, I have added the same simple rigging to these and I think they look pretty nice.

The first additions to the galley fleet are a trio of Hemoila, monoreme ships often used as raiding or scout vessels.  Although not found in major fleets, it is entirely conceivable that some could have been around for a raiding force, especially given the Roman habit of demanding that their allies provide ships when demanded.  If some city had nothing but a few hemoila around, I doubt the local Roman commander would have turned them down.

Finally, I have the first of my bigger ships, a quadreme.  This ship has been featured on Mik’s blog already, but I thought I’d put up a few more pictures here.  The quadreme was still not considered a front line ship for major battles, but could have definitely been a force in a commerce raiding group.   In Eric’s rules, quadremes and larger are able to carry towers, temporary wooden structures erected on deck to provide a commanding position in a boarding action, in addition to more troops and more artillery.   When I construct the larger ships, I glue a small washer under the deck in the bow and stern, then place a small rare earth magnet in the base of the tower, which allows the towers to be easily added or removed, but holds them firmly in place during a game.

As I stated in the Corbita post, with these latest ships I’ve been taking the time to work on the fit and finish of the models.  When I prepared the 45+ ships for Historicon in 2008 I was craning them out as fast as I could and didn’t have the time to do a lot of stuff like paint the white edges of the paper.  For these latest ships I’ve been doing that and the effect is really nice.  It does involve a little mixing paint to match the print outs.  I’ve got some paints that are “close” to the colors Eric has used for the models, but as I’ve discovered, different print runs can be slightly different shades.  The pictures below show the improvement that the little extra step provides.  I’ve also shown one of the Saxon ships with a sail but no rigging versus one of the Merchant ships with the little bit of simple rigging.  Eventually I’ll go back and touch up the older construction.

After the successful game at Historicon using Eric Hotz soon to be released Roman Seas rules, I’m definitely interested in playing some more games.  My collection is pretty limited at this time, since the scenario I have run before is set in 289 AD, by which time the Roman fleets were almost entirely smaller bireme Liburnians.  So I’ve embarked on a ship building program to expand the repertoire a little for future games.  One of the scenarios in the rulebook is a convoy escort and I’m doing a number of merchant vessels for that game.  The first one out of the shipyards is this Corbita, a Roman grain ship.

The corbita is part of the Roman Seas Merchant Ship set, which also includes some smaller merchant ships, large and small coastal traders, and large and small rowed merchant ships.

The model went together pretty smoothly and I picked up on a few tricks that will make it easier to build other similar merchants in the set.  I also figured out the best way to deal with the white edges that result from cutting out the ship pieces.  I had previously tried markers, pencils, and paint with unsatisfactory results, but this time tried painting the edge with paint thinned down to the stain painting consistency (about 1:1 or 1:2 paint:water).  This allowed the edges to be colored, but was thin enough not to obscure lines and detail if it got over the edge a little.

Since this was a sailing ship, I wanted to add a little simple rigging;  just enough to look good without getting in the way of placing troops on the decks.  After scouring the interwebz, I found a few drawings showing the rigging of Roman era ships.  Assuming the drawings are accurate, little has changed in 2000 years in how you rig a simple mast.  I decided to add forestays, backstays and some shrouds.  I put these in using dark thread, but will try some lighter thread on the next ship.  The finished product looks pretty good and the deck is still accessible for placing deck crews and marines on board.

It was just Ken and I available for the usual Friday night game, so we decided to play Blood Bowl. This time out Ken decided to break in the newly painted Chaos Pact team while I took a break from playing the Dark Elves and field the Orcs

Rather than stick with the stock starting rosters (which are really designed for league play and so can be pretty limiting to start), I churned up yet another idea for starting with some skills.  Basically each player got an extra $100,000 to buy their team (allowing a bit of a bench, etc) and then each of us assigned a number of d8 rolls to the players – 6 to a random player on the team, 4 to a random one of the 6 “playmakers” each coach designated beforehand, and 2 to any player of the coach’s choice.  After all of the dice were assigned, we rolled them to determine the number of Star Player Points for that player and then rolled for additional skills as normal.  The idea of doing this instead of simply assigning extra skills is that this basic system could be used to jump start a league, allowing teams to start with some skills (which IMO makes the game much more interesting).  This seemed to work out pretty well, with a decent mix of randomness and customization, and allowing each of us to customize our teams a bit.  I went with a more pass oriented Orc team than usual, getting a pair of Goblins.  Unortunately, I failed to give either of them the Catch skill, which turned out to be a big mistake.  Ken’s team had a mix of this and that, highlighted by the Minotaur with Juggernaut and Stand Firm.

The Orcs got the ball to open the first half and started their comedy of errors by failing to pick up the ball (despite a Sure Hands thrower back to do the job).  They recovered soonn enough and began to push up field, managing to knock down the Chaos Pact Troll.  Attempts to foul the troll off the field were unfortunately not successful and the Chaos team’s Minotaur was being a real pain.   Eventually enough Orcs were lying stunned on the field that I had to take a chance before the Chaos team was able to break through onto my ball carrier.  I flung an accurate pass down field, but the silly receiver failed to catch the ball, which bounced free.  Ken had given his Renegade dark Elf the Sure Hands skill, and now the agile elf jumped into the tackle zones of a couple of Orcs, scooped up the ball, dodged out, and then rifled a strike to the Skaven waiting in my backfield.  I was unable to do anything about it and the rat scored on the last turn of the first half.

The Orcs were kicking off to the Chaos Pact team to start the second half and set up with the blitzers on the wings to try and break through into the backfield and recover the ball to tie the game.  Unfortunately for the Orcs, this also proved to be a flawed plan, as the Marauders on the flanks held long enough and the Troll and Minotaur tore a great gaping hole through the linemen and couple of Black Orcs in the center.  Soon the Chaos PAct team was scampering in for a commanding 2-0 leand halfway through the second half.

The Orcs now needed two quick scores – a doable feat for elves or some other speedy team, but a tall order or the greenskins.  I set up stacked to my right and rapidly carved out a corridor down the right side.  The Thrower scooped up the ball and advanced as blitzers and goblins spread out downfield.  Ken tried to cover as many players as possible, but a goblin opened up and the ball sailed accurately toward the reciever – only to be dropped again.  The Dark Elf was not in a position to recover immediately, so the ball bouned around for a turn or two before the Blitzers cleared away the surrounding Chaos Marauders, allowing the Thrower to pick it up, pass back to a Goblin, who ran in for a score.  However, it was now Turn 8 and some Kick-Off shennaigans would be required to give the Orcs time for a tying score…  Egged on by the Orc coach, the Orcs fans in attendance complied and started a riot!  Unfortunately for the Orcs, the referees saw fit to simply let the clock run and the game ended at that point.

Another fun game of Blood Bowl with Ken.  I definitely need to consider my Orc tactics, as the ones I used were mostly disasterous.   More importantly, I need to acquire one more Black Orc and then get the other two Black Orcs painted.  I only had two available and they were no match for the Troll and Minotaur on the other side.  The two Chaos Big Guys spent plenty of turns not acting (having failed their Wild Animal/Really Stupid rolls), but with two of them there was usually something big and strong in my way.

In addition to running a few games, I was able to play in a number of events as well.  Here are some short reports and a scad of pictures from those games

The Poilus Come to Schlegehahre, July 1914

The HAWKs always do interesting games and I thought it’d be fun to get into a Blood and Swash game.  I was in College Station with Buck Surdu when he first wrote the rules and we played lots of Blood and Swash, adapting it to virtually every period.  Duncan’s game was set along the French and German border in the tense days right before the outbreak of WWI.  There were many factions in play and everyone had their own secret victory conditions.  I was playing the Town Constable and my goal was to protect my buddies the smugglers (who were giving me kickbacks) from interference from German authorities.  Maybe I was feeling a bit ornry  from the long drive the day before, but I decided to secure my nest egg using a rifle.  I ran my group of three into a house at the cross roads and proceeded to blaze away at anyone threatening the operations of my friends.  In the end, the Smugglers got the goods loaded onto their cart, hauled through town, loaded on their boat, and across the river.  The French spies got their messages shipped out with the smugglers before their leader was arrested by German Military Intelligence.  The French pilots had a rough time of it, getting into a shooting match with the German Intelligence guys and losing.  In the end, the principles probably all end up in the trenches anyway…  It was a great starting game on a really gorgeous table.

A Mixed Bag, March 1945

I had preregistered for this game because the rules listed were I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum by Two Fat Lardies.  I’ve got a copy of these and have read them, but they are very “British” and I was interested in getting in a game with someone who had already worked out all of the kinks.  However, it turned out that the guys running the game had recently switched to new rules and were using the Force on Force rules.  Having recently done the same thing with my Roman naval game, I figurted if they switched it was for a reason and so stayed to play the game.  Besides, it was set on the really pretty table stocked by the Miniature Building Authority.  The Force on Force rules were a lot of fun and have a lot of very interesting mechanics and concepts.  Nothing really earth shattering, but very well done in their integration.  I also liked the fact that the rules did not big down in minutia of weapons stats.  The emphasis was on use of covering fire, fire and movement, and fast play.

I was on the American side as we attempted to clear away German resistance and push past the village to secure a bridge.  We had a rifle platoon supported by a couple of 0.30 cal machine guns, a platoon of Shermans, and an M16 MGMC (a self-propelled AA halftrack mounting quad 0.50 cal MGs).  We decided to push up the more open country on the right and I commanded a rifle squad with an assault team and BAR team.  After clearing out the church dominating our approaches (with a combination of assaults, luck, and 75mm HE shells from the Shermans), my squad carried out it’s mission and raced forward.  I sprinted my assault team across an open courtyard with minial casualties, but the BAR team was pretty well chewed by a German squad covering the ground by fires.  Our following infantry and the Quad 0.50 cleared out the town behind us as my squad and the Shermans kept going forward.  A German tank appeared, which was reported as a King Tiger.  Being an experienced veteran, I doubted that report and figured it was likely a regular panzer when it only damamged one of the Shermans.  The rest moved forward and made short work of the tank as well as a Marder that had poked up over a ridge.  A panzerschreck team ambushed one Sherman and brewed it up, but the pressure from my approaching infantry caused them to displace and the tank guns got them.  Some German infantry had arrived and taken up stations across the bridge, but heavy fire from several tanks and my infantry squad drove them back across.  At game’s end we were almost to the bridge and the German defenders were almost gone (down to about half a squad of regulars and some Volkstrum).  My infantry didn’t do a lot of shooting, but we did a lot of moving and was at the front of the American advance for much of the game.  This one was one of the most entertaining WWII skirmish games I’ve played.

Ste Eugenie, 19 Aug 1944

I continued my WWII skirmish theme on Friday with a game of Disposable Heroes.  I played on the American side commanding elements of the 90th Infantry trying to close the Falaise Gap.  Our mission was to push through an area of orchards to bring at least half of our tanks and guns to the enemy table edge (where they would be able to fire on German units retreating through the gap).  We had a couple of infantry squads, 4 Shermans, and a couple of towed 3″ AT guns, which we chose to leave off table until we had a path cleared to bring them forward.  We pushed forward and forced the Germans  to reveal themselves and engage us.  I moved my forces into an orchard along the right side and immediately began drawing German attention.  A German Panzer IV and one of my Shermans got locked into a battle of futility as I could not make the roll to acquire my target and he could not make the roll to KO the Sherman.  I punched a bazooka round into him, but scored the lowest possible damage result and merely annoyed him.  My forces eventually drew a halftrack mounting a 37mm gun and another tank.  This allowed my remaining Sherman room to outflank the Germans and I destroyed one with an immobilizing shot followed by an assault by my infantry.  However, time was running out on us and we had to commit the halftracks even though the Germans still had a tank and a StuG running around.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep them from getting shots on one of the prime movers and it was destroyed.  We were not able to get enough units into the VP area and so the Germans got a well played victory.  Unfortunately the lighting in this room was bad and I didn’t get many photos.

Operation Catapult, July 1940

I was not playing anything Saturday morning when my buddy Rob called and said that one of the players in his naval game had just walked out early in the game, so I headed over and assumed command of a couple of French battlewagons.  My ships looked to be WWI era vessels – slow, undergunned, and with that short and beamy look.  Our mission as the French was to escaoe the clutches of our so called “allies” the British, who had come to capoture or sink us.  I was at the tail of our battle line, preceded by a destroyer flotilla and a pair of more modern battlecrusiers.  Opposing us were three British capital ships (including HMS Hood), a couple of cruisers, and a squadron of destroyers.  My buddy Rob commanded the British DD’s and in the finest destroyer captain tradition dashed foward intent on launching his fish as a capital ship.  The french destroyer captain launched his fish at Rob’s DD’s, which was a win for the Brits even if they struck home (which they did in one case, sinking a destroyer).  I got into a little action before I had to bolt to set up my Roman Naval game, putting some pretty severe damage on the British cruisers.  Rob later told me that the French were able to get their battlecrusiers to safety.

One Full Day, 19 Apr 1967

One of the things I was most interested trying this year was the Check Your 6! jet rules, so I preregistered for this Vietnam era game.  The scenario centers around the rescue flight sent in to retrieve a down F-105 pilot.  The American players start out with a single Thud (with cannon only, no missiles), a couple of Skyraiders, and a CSAR helo.  The Skyraiders are there to take out the flak sites so that CSAR helicopter can move in to get the flier.  The Vietnamese have four MiG-17s (mostly green pilots though).  My buddy mike was driving a couple of the green MiGs while the other North Vietnamese player and I each had one jet.  I took my jet off to harry the CSAR helo while the other two tried to shoot up the Thud and the Skyraiders.  I soon discovered that the slow moving and agile helo was a tough shot for the jet, especially with my crappy aircrew rating.  The helo was also far from defenseless, mounting a minigun in each door.  So I soon decided to go off in search of other prey.  Meanwhile the other MiGs had managed to shoot down one of the Skyraiders.  However, things went squiffy for the MiGs in a hurry as two more Thuds roared onto the table…and they had missiles.  The first missile fired at me missed.  I continued to swing around and lined up a medium range tail shot on the US Thud that had started on table.  My chance to hit was miserable, but at least it was a shot.  I missed, but the sidewinder fired from the other Thud didn’t.  Over the next couple of turns, the other two green MiGs both got plastered as well, leaving only the lone skilled MiG.  However, engine damage soon ended any chance of escape for him.  Although I didn’t get to light off any missiles, this game and the two other jet games I played in or watched definitely have me eagerly (very eagerly) waiting for Scott and the crew at Skirmish Campaigns to finish up the jet rules and publish them.

There is little doubt that Check Your 6! has become the dominant air combat game at Historicon.  There were many CY6! games covering all kinds of actions, from fighter scrums to 60+ plane B-17 raids on Berlin to jet combat over the Fauklands.  This year I made my contribution with two games, one based in New Guinea using my Come On, Charlie! scenario and a second brand new scenario set during the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union.

Come On, Charlie!

This scenario covers an engagement over New Guinea in which Airacobra pilots get the bounce on a group of Zeros harrying B-26 Marauders flying back from an attack on Lae.  The Zeros are piloted by superior pilots of the Tanain Air Group (including ace Suburo Sakai), but start the game at a disadvantage, being low, slow, and scattered around the retreating bombers.

After setting up the initial bounce, the Airacobra drivers pressed the attack and dove in amongst the Zeros.  The Japanese turned to fight, but quickly lost a plane.  The Marauders raced for saftey at their best speed as the Japanese continued to mix it up with superior numbers of Airacobras.  While one bomber was damaged,  2-3 of the Japanese planes had gotten out of position on the periphery of the fight, including their most experienced pilots, and the Airacobras took advantage of this momentary local superiority to pummel two more Zeros.   When presented with a good shot, the heavy MG and cannon armament of the Airacobras tore the light Japanese aircraft apart.  A couple of  Japanese aircraft mamaged to break away from the escorts and track down the bombers, but could only kill one of them before they reached safety.  With the bombers gone the US escorts could safely dive away from the Japanese.  The US destroyed 3 enemy aircraft with the loss of only a single bomber destroyed a a couple of fighters damaged.  Definitely a good day for the 39th Fighter Squadron.

Finland’s Hawks, Stalin’s Falcons

Last year I picked up the Osprey book “Finnish Aces of WWII” and while reading it came across a paragrpah describing an action involving LeLv 32, then flying Curtis Hawk 75s.  A pair of Finns on patrol sighted a large formation of 35-40 Soviet aircraft.  the called for help and were reinforced by four more Hawks and the six planes attacked the Soviet formation, shooting down 11 planes for no losses.  However, what really caught my eye were the reported Finnish claims, which included I-16s, LaGG-3s, MiG-3s, and Pe-2s.  This action involved 5 different types of aircraft: scenario gold!  So I ordered the aircraft I needed and set to work.  As usual life interrupted my painting schedule and I was putting decals on the Pe-2s the morning we left for Lancaster, but it all got done.  We had done a playtest the week before and the scenario seemed good, so off I went.

The Soviets started deployed in tight vic formations surrounding the bombers.  The Finns had the bounce and could deploy anywhere.  They chose to attack the rear of the Soviet formation, with the four plane formation lining up on a three plane unit of I-16s – unfortunately being piloted by the only beginner in the entire game.  The I-16s took a bit of a beating , losing the two green wingmen right away and suffering engine damage to the leader.  However, the player soldiered on with a grin, despite having a single speed 1 aircraft, and managed to make a pain of himself lurking in the rear with two 20mm cannons firing at anything they could find.

The Soviets brought their aircraft around and began to mix it up with the Finns.  As usual, the expert Finnish pilots easily out fought the individual  Soviets, but 18 enemy fighters, there were always guns pointed their way.  One of the Finns took engine damage from the two 20mm of a I-16 Type 28.  Another Finn ran out of ammo.  To compound the matter, the light 0.30 cal MG armament of the Curtis Hawks was able to damage the Soviets but not to knock them down with one blow.

The Finns continued to mix it up with the Soviet escorts and downed a couple more as well as damaging a number of them.  However, they were not getting many shots in on the rapidly retreating Pe-2s.  The speed of the swift Soviet mediums made it tough for the Soviets to close the range, but they were still able to score some hits on the retreating bombers with medium range fire.   Fire from one of the Finnish fighters set one of the Pe-2s on fire and it was eventually destroyed, but the remainder were able to escape.  With the victory points from the escaped bombers, the Soviets pulled out a win this time.

The scenario was fun and with 24 Soviets against 6 Finns, presented quite a sight.  As usual, I got lots of inquiries about how I do my flight stands and a lot of compliments on the look of the game.

I need to do a little bit of work to convert the scenario briefing from convention style to the  standard CY6! style.  I also want to make a slightly scaled back version good for 5-6 players (versus the 9-1- for the scenario as written).  When I get that done, I’ll post them on the downloads page.

One of the games I had decided to do for Historicon this year was a reprise of my Rule Britannia! scenario featuring the 1/300 paper ship models from Hotz Artworks.

A month or so before the con, Eric posted a note on the Roman Seas Yahoo group that he was finally happy with all of the core mechanics of his Roman Seas rules and hoped to have them available soon.  I had already been in contact with Eric about some prize support, so after a few email exchanges, Eric agreed to get me a copy of the rules as soon as they were back from his editor.  The days until Historicon grew short, but the week before Eric sent me a full set of mounted counters along with the prize package.  Finally, on the Saturday before Historicon, the rules arrived and after a quick read, we did a playtest game on Monday.  The playtest game was a blast, so I hurriedly converted my scenario and set off for the con.  The number of troop stands needed for his rules versus the ones I’d used before was about double and I needed a number of additional stands for deck crews and such.  So there was a good bit of furious basing and snipping of my 4-man Baccus figure strips into 2-man figure strips, but in the end it all came out and I was ready to put on the game at 1 PM Saturday.

The scenario is basically the same as last year, although the total number of boats was reduced a tad.  The Imperial Roman fleet was sallying forth from the Rhenus River to find the fleet of the rebellious general Carausius  and his Frankish Allies.  The Romans were in 4 squadrons, 3 of which had 5 liburnians, while the command squadron consisted of a trireme, 3 liburnians, and a scout ship.  The rebels fleet had two squadrons of 4 liburnians and the admiral’s command squadron of a  trireme, 2 liburnians, and a scout ship.  The Frankish allies arrived in 9 Frankish longships, less refined precursors of the famous Viking longships of the Dark Ages.  The Romans sent one squadron close inshore among the shoals, a second just outside that, with the command group in the center and the last squadron to the north.  The plan was to form a line of battle NW to SE, but the Rebels deployment immediately through them off, as the Franks had appeared to their northwest and Carausius sent a squadron out to flank from seaward (west).

The Rebels command group was close inshore and was almost immediately engaged by the inshore squadron of the Roman fleet.  Upon seeing the enemy, the inexperienced officers of the Roman squadron (they had had to quickly rebuild a new fleet after Carausius appropriated the Classis Britannia, the Roman fleet for Britain and Gaul) pushed forward and attempted to ram the rebel’s ships.  Unfortunately, their poor training meant that most of these attempts caused more damage to themselves than the enemy.  But these attacks served the purpose of slowing down the rebel command squadron, which was soon engaged by elements of the second Romans squadron.  As the grappling hooks started to fly, Carausius found himself heavily outnumbered.

In the center, one squadron of the rebel’s liburnians went after the Roman command group.  The Romans had become a little scattered trying to get out of the river mouth and gaps had appeared on either side of the command trireme.  Two liburnians accelerated to ramming speed and successfully oar raked each side of the ship.  The big ship lost most of her oars in a single pass, leaving here crippled and slow, but still dangerous with a full load of marines and artillery engines aboard.

In the northeast, the seaward squadron of rebels and the northernmost squadron of Romans clashed while the Franks tried to circle around them and get at the Roman command group in the center.  After a number of mostly unsuccessful ramming attempts, the ships became grappled and were in close combat.  At this point, a Roman liburnian dashed in at ramming speed and smashed into a grappled rebel liburnian, crushing her hull and sinking her.  The Romans were able to cut loose the crippled wreck before it went down.

Back in the lower half of the table, most of the moving had dies down as groups of ships became grappled and boarding actions ensued.  The rebels command group and second squadron were each facing a squadron and a half of enemies and so were usually grappled by two or more ships.  A scout ship was taken as a prize first, followed by a liburnian.  In one melee the rebels were gaining the upper hand until a friendly ship tied alongside the Roman vessel and began transfering marines to her decks.

As our time ran out, the rebels had lost one ship sunk and three captured.  A further two ships would likely be captured in the following turn.  Some of the remaining rebels could likely escape as the Romans had many ships with severe movement problems, mostly as a consequence of failed ramming attempts, but the rebel’s flagship was isolated, barely mobile, and surrounded by enemies.  It looks as if Carausius rebellion ended a little early this time out.

The game went really well, especially considering my time to get familiar with the rules.  Everyone had a great time and the game looked great.  I had many people stop to enquire about the boats, so hopefully Eric will get some new business in exchange for his generous prize support.  My only regret was that my pictures didn’t turn out very well…

The Roman Seas rules themselves are IMO great.  They are fun and dynamic, with a great mix of playability and realism.  A lot of people don’t like hex based games (and I profess to have been in this group in the past), but for things like this, they are great because they allow the movement part of the game to go by really quickly, which means you get in lots of action.  The rules for ramming and oar rakes are straight forward and easy to work out and I like that they include potentially unpleasant consequences for attempting these rather dangerous actions and failing.  Missile fire is annoying in small numbers, but a ship surrounded by several enemies with archers aboard can easily find the decks swept clean by enemy fire in short order.  Both melee and archery is resolved with an easy single d10 roll per stand, so it’s fast.  Artillery engines require only a single extra die roll.  Overall, all of the players in the game really seemed to enjoy the rules and after just a couple of turns were running all of the charts themselves.  Hopefully Eric will have them finished up and available soon as I think they are just what owners of his models have been waiting for.