Played Combat Commander at Club Dave last night.
Now for those not in the know, Combat Commander is a popular board game series from GMT Games using card decks to control company sized tactical battles. Everything is driven from the cards. 'Dice' are tested by turning cards, random events come from cards and even the length of the game are driven by the decks.
As was said, a very popular series with regular expansion releases, over a hundred scenarios, infinite ability to mix and match to invent your own games off the cuff and, due to the randomness of the system, lots of replayability.
Having said that, AWB really doesn't like it that much.
So, having taken off in the face of public opinion and streaked naked in front of the partisan fan, why does AWB take this stand?
Randomness and gaming the system.
Each deck is 72 cards. Depending on the situation a player will have a hand of between four and six cards. To do ANYTHING you need to play a card, but what if that card is the 'wrong' one?
Well, too bad.
Each card has an 'Order' type listed on it. Move, Fire, Advance, Recover et al. There is by extension a limited amount of each in each deck. Now because the game engine also means you are turning cards to cover dice rolls and random events, it is possible that the cards you want may not come out into your hand until the next reshuffle, and even then, may not the next time either.
The fans and supporters of the system argue that this represents the eb and flow and confusion of battle. Yes, fair enough, no real world situation has radio controlled troops and for various reason troops often fail to act in manners which would be perfectly obvious to outside observers.
On the counter side, the game encourages you to hog some of the really useful cards. Ambush, a card that allows an instant flip on an enemy unit in melee combat is a prime example. What this means is that rather then being able to have a broad plan and see if come off, you are effectively setting your troops up the best you can and then playing for the moment. Those Ambush cards you have in your hand? Best hang onto them as it looks like my opponent is setting up for something... and since they are now 50% of my hand, guess I wont be doing too much else until one of us actually attempts to go to melee. The player can at times become nothing more then an observer, victim to whatever fate the card deck turns over, playing cards not part of a cunning master plan, but as the appear.
There are other points. Game length is controlled by how many times a card deck is passed through. This means if you are ahead on VP it is in your best interest to burn through the decks as fast as possible and can result in taking actions not because they will do something useful on the game board, but because they burn through a lot of cards. An example? In last night's game, AWB was playing the defender. The attacking side had gained from random events offboard artillery support. In the decks are cards that 'break' offboard support, forcing the owning player to waste cards 'fixing' the support before it can be used. As the defender, AWB decided it was better to not play a card to break the attacking artillery for the reason that while being shelled was clearly a risk, to bring down an attack the owning player was going to be required to play or turn over a minimum of 10 cards.
Card burn kids. The quicker the decks are worked through the quicker the game ends and the quicker the defender gets his shot at winning. Ever so slightly gamey...
Still, the game IS very popular. Inspect the GMT upcoming releases and dare yourself not to find another expansion set on the list. And by what metric are we to judge games anyway? People, flaws or no flaws, enjoy buying, owning and playing Combat Commander, so even if AWB would prefer to game something else, it does show a lot of people are having good fun.
Which, when you think about it, is all really matters.
Showing posts with label GMT Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GMT Games. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Thursday, 30 May 2013
Twilight in the East - Now with pictures
After a week delay due to 'real life' getting in the way, Club Dave was able to continue playing 1914:Twilight in the East with the Tannenberg scenario. This time our brave AWB reporter managed to bring along the awesome might of the Pentax... and promptly screw up all the photos which will have to go down as, quote, 'Not my best work.'
Anyway, to recap, gaming had finished half way through turn 2 with the Germans to move. Let's have a brief look at the front before we begin.
Here on the Second Army front things are developing slowly. The Second Army has only just activated under the scenario rules and not really advanced to any great extent as yet. Of note is the large railway less areas on the Russian side of the boarder and rubbish looking terrain they are being forced to advance and trace supply through. On the German side the 20th Corps looks both powerful and lonely.
North of the army boundary we see the German 3rd Reserve division starting to get monstered. There is no way this unit can stand up to a Russian corps and is soon to withdraw, first to the NW and then onto the fortress under the dark brown objective marker in the lakes area.
A lot more fighting in this area as the Russian 1st Army engages the bulk of the German 8th. Mostly minor results so far with the exception of the Russian 27th division has just been roughly handled by the German 1st Corps and forced to retire.
The game is one of limited intel and stacks are not allowed to be examined. What this means is the white edges of the loss markers can't clearly be read in these picture nor can the 'players eyes only' off map tracks that show the divisions Combat Effectiveness ratings (morale if you like). If we could see the CE track we would note that Russian 27th was forced to drop two CE levels (drop four and you are really in big trouble) which is probably a much more significant lose then the steps or hex retreats.
The Russians at this stage were forced to advance before many of their divisions were fully mobilised, so many of the divisions have already started with a significant amount of hits. Also under scenario rules, the sub standard commander of the Russian Cav Corps has movement restrictions in play, meaning the massive mounted advantage is a lot harder to bring into play then would first appear.
Here we come to the end of the night, which means the Germans have had two full moves plus one reaction (half move) and the Russians one with two reactions as well as six rounds of combat being fought.
(Game turn is A moves, B react moves, A attacks if allowed, B attacks if allowed, swap sides. Attacking is voluntary but can result in what side A hoped was a local attack rapidly escalating.)
Russian 6th Corps has been making heavy weather of forcing the gap between the lakes in the top right of the picture. The Germans have managed to reinforce the original small blocking force but the Russians managed to, at 9:1 odds, to find the extremes of the bell curve during the first assault and are hence rather annoyed not to have cleared that rather useful rail line as yet.
Meanwhile in the middle the Russian 1st Division has just been roughly handled. It had mildly over extended it's advance during the Russian movement phase and the nearby German 20th Corps moved forward to engage it. The first German attack was relatively minor but the second prepared (as part of a players movement (not reaction) they may spend MPs to place 'prepared attack' markers which give column shifts and prevent the enemy from retiring during reaction movement) worked them over, caused significant step losses plus CE drops and a retreat. The Germans, slightly smugly, have taken no loses.
The problems for the Germans here is there are rather a lot of Russians. The Russians are next to move and the only real restriction is the rubbish rail/supply network. Reinforcements dragged from the France are not due for a long time so what the German player (AWB in this game) sees is what he has to play with.
Meanwhile, with the 1st Army we have red font to both hopefully provide better contrast and also reflect the massive mutual thumping that has been going on.
The southern German flank was found a bit hanging and is starting to fold back. Also of note is the formation of level 1 trenches in the German line. The game has four levels of trenches and at this stage of the war, armies are restricted to levels one and two. They are a mixed blessing as the games artillery factors allow for heavy and high angle weapons. Attack with both of them (which most first line divisions come with as standard) and you get to cancel out the column shifts the trenches normally offer. They do however offer some useful DRM for CE checks as well as a minor chance on the CRT to cancel a forced retreat.
There has been some mauling happening on this front. The Russian 20th Corps that at one stage was on the northern flank has come off worse and forced back with some painful combat loses to go with their non mobilised units. They are currently under that largish Russian stack.
The German 1st Corps (red corps marker, top division under the northern most trench with other division directly south) have been handling the combat reasonably well. The 17th Corps however has mildly over extended. Combat pushed back the Russian flank and, in order to put pressure on the Russian 25th division, advanced.
There the combined strength of three Russian divisions struck a counter and the advance now seems a 'bad idea.' Remember the next move is Russian so another assault against the exposed Germans is probably expected.
In the south the 3rd Res has fallen back onto the fortress and feels reasonably safe about being able to block the Russian corps facing it.
As the Germans it is difficult to decide if it time to smile or not. Strengths are 7 divisions to 9 with the German divisions typically being slightly stronger. The Russians have probably had 4 divisions here bloodied to the German 1 and if the Germans remain here then 1st Army are going to find it hard to continue to advance.
However, as mentioned before, until the reinforcements from France arrive, this is it for the Germans and Russian Second Army isn't just going to sit still and smile.
This is a rather good game and one that AWB is mildly annoyed has taken so long to play face to face. Combat and the positioning becomes surprisingly tactical. Withdrawing is worthwhile. Feinting forward is worthwhile. Pressuring a flank is worthwhile, and all are also risky. The combat system has a massive bell curve. A good looking attack can produce no satisfaction while a risky one can suddenly force enemy to retire with loses.
Most enjoyable.
Anyway, to recap, gaming had finished half way through turn 2 with the Germans to move. Let's have a brief look at the front before we begin.
North of the army boundary we see the German 3rd Reserve division starting to get monstered. There is no way this unit can stand up to a Russian corps and is soon to withdraw, first to the NW and then onto the fortress under the dark brown objective marker in the lakes area.
The game is one of limited intel and stacks are not allowed to be examined. What this means is the white edges of the loss markers can't clearly be read in these picture nor can the 'players eyes only' off map tracks that show the divisions Combat Effectiveness ratings (morale if you like). If we could see the CE track we would note that Russian 27th was forced to drop two CE levels (drop four and you are really in big trouble) which is probably a much more significant lose then the steps or hex retreats.
The Russians at this stage were forced to advance before many of their divisions were fully mobilised, so many of the divisions have already started with a significant amount of hits. Also under scenario rules, the sub standard commander of the Russian Cav Corps has movement restrictions in play, meaning the massive mounted advantage is a lot harder to bring into play then would first appear.
(Game turn is A moves, B react moves, A attacks if allowed, B attacks if allowed, swap sides. Attacking is voluntary but can result in what side A hoped was a local attack rapidly escalating.)
Russian 6th Corps has been making heavy weather of forcing the gap between the lakes in the top right of the picture. The Germans have managed to reinforce the original small blocking force but the Russians managed to, at 9:1 odds, to find the extremes of the bell curve during the first assault and are hence rather annoyed not to have cleared that rather useful rail line as yet.
Meanwhile in the middle the Russian 1st Division has just been roughly handled. It had mildly over extended it's advance during the Russian movement phase and the nearby German 20th Corps moved forward to engage it. The first German attack was relatively minor but the second prepared (as part of a players movement (not reaction) they may spend MPs to place 'prepared attack' markers which give column shifts and prevent the enemy from retiring during reaction movement) worked them over, caused significant step losses plus CE drops and a retreat. The Germans, slightly smugly, have taken no loses.
The problems for the Germans here is there are rather a lot of Russians. The Russians are next to move and the only real restriction is the rubbish rail/supply network. Reinforcements dragged from the France are not due for a long time so what the German player (AWB in this game) sees is what he has to play with.
The southern German flank was found a bit hanging and is starting to fold back. Also of note is the formation of level 1 trenches in the German line. The game has four levels of trenches and at this stage of the war, armies are restricted to levels one and two. They are a mixed blessing as the games artillery factors allow for heavy and high angle weapons. Attack with both of them (which most first line divisions come with as standard) and you get to cancel out the column shifts the trenches normally offer. They do however offer some useful DRM for CE checks as well as a minor chance on the CRT to cancel a forced retreat.
There has been some mauling happening on this front. The Russian 20th Corps that at one stage was on the northern flank has come off worse and forced back with some painful combat loses to go with their non mobilised units. They are currently under that largish Russian stack.
The German 1st Corps (red corps marker, top division under the northern most trench with other division directly south) have been handling the combat reasonably well. The 17th Corps however has mildly over extended. Combat pushed back the Russian flank and, in order to put pressure on the Russian 25th division, advanced.
There the combined strength of three Russian divisions struck a counter and the advance now seems a 'bad idea.' Remember the next move is Russian so another assault against the exposed Germans is probably expected.
In the south the 3rd Res has fallen back onto the fortress and feels reasonably safe about being able to block the Russian corps facing it.
As the Germans it is difficult to decide if it time to smile or not. Strengths are 7 divisions to 9 with the German divisions typically being slightly stronger. The Russians have probably had 4 divisions here bloodied to the German 1 and if the Germans remain here then 1st Army are going to find it hard to continue to advance.
However, as mentioned before, until the reinforcements from France arrive, this is it for the Germans and Russian Second Army isn't just going to sit still and smile.
This is a rather good game and one that AWB is mildly annoyed has taken so long to play face to face. Combat and the positioning becomes surprisingly tactical. Withdrawing is worthwhile. Feinting forward is worthwhile. Pressuring a flank is worthwhile, and all are also risky. The combat system has a massive bell curve. A good looking attack can produce no satisfaction while a risky one can suddenly force enemy to retire with loses.
Most enjoyable.
Sunday, 28 April 2013
The Joys and Dangers of Historical Memoirs
While musing over the bookshelf of our good friends The Insouciant Wargamer, AWB had a change to flick through briefly a copy of Erich von Falkenhayn's 'General Headquarters 1914-1916 and It's Critical Decisions'. (English language translation)
Now Falkenhayen, as any good player of GMT Games' Paths of Glory will know, was the man behind the 'Place of Execution' attacks on Verdun. What they may then not realise, and AWB is guilty of this, is once he disappears from the game in PoG, he gets sent off to the Transylvania to command the Ninth Army, capture Bucharest and slay vampires (citation needed), before later commanding forces in Turkish Palestine.
However, we digress as we are here to talk about his book. Now, AWB only had a chance to skim a few pages as this was a gaming night and there were figures to move not books to read, but AWB is pretty sure that somewhere in those pages is the chapter where Erich rescues the kittens from a burning building. The few pages AWB managed to read were literally littered with the word 'brilliant' closely followed by the phrase 'German forces'. Yes, well, Herr Falkenhayn, one knows this is your book and you are entitled to write what you like, but you do remember that Verdun was the campaign that managed to get you sacked as Chief of the General Staff?
There were tit bits of interest in the few pages. Falkenhayen claims that the entry of Italy into the war was treated more or less with apathy by the German public which is an interesting insight, however like all memoirs, the reader needs to be careful to separate the analysis of the situation with the grandstanding of the author.
This is not to say that readers should avoid memoirs. AWB was recently reading James Hamilton-Paterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' (the abridged illustrated version with reduced text but bonus pictures). Here Hamilton-Paterson is describing the glory days of English aviation in the 1950s. He opens with the 1952 crash of the DH .110 at the Farnborough Airshow where the aircraft broke up mid air killing both aircraft and 27 spectators. AWB also had a copy of 'Test Pilot' by Neville Duke; the man who flew the Hawker Hunter on that day immediately after the fatal crash, and it was with interest AWB skipped ahead in that book to see what Mr Duke had to say.
To paraphrase, 'There was a horrible crash and then I got up and put the Hunter through it's paces'.
A best two pages from the entire memoir involved the crash and deaths of 29 people and some of that was covered by mentioning the wonderful flying weather. This is not to imply that Neville Duke was in anyway heartless, but reflects that his is a man who has just come through 6 years of hard warfare and was then currently involved in very risky bleeding edge development, and not a 21st Century Boy concerned about his twitter feed. It was the 1950s. You were a professional. You did what was expected. To cancel the rest of the day's flying was completely unthinkable for all involved. Keep Calm and Carry On wasn't an over flogged cliche poster, it was the public mindset.
And that is why we should never knock back a chance to read a memoir; not for what they might claim, but to understand how they were thinking and why they were claiming it.
(Another Wargame Blog will now go off and do some more brave and manly things to reflect just how brave, manly and fault free they are...)
Now Falkenhayen, as any good player of GMT Games' Paths of Glory will know, was the man behind the 'Place of Execution' attacks on Verdun. What they may then not realise, and AWB is guilty of this, is once he disappears from the game in PoG, he gets sent off to the Transylvania to command the Ninth Army, capture Bucharest and slay vampires (citation needed), before later commanding forces in Turkish Palestine.
However, we digress as we are here to talk about his book. Now, AWB only had a chance to skim a few pages as this was a gaming night and there were figures to move not books to read, but AWB is pretty sure that somewhere in those pages is the chapter where Erich rescues the kittens from a burning building. The few pages AWB managed to read were literally littered with the word 'brilliant' closely followed by the phrase 'German forces'. Yes, well, Herr Falkenhayn, one knows this is your book and you are entitled to write what you like, but you do remember that Verdun was the campaign that managed to get you sacked as Chief of the General Staff?
There were tit bits of interest in the few pages. Falkenhayen claims that the entry of Italy into the war was treated more or less with apathy by the German public which is an interesting insight, however like all memoirs, the reader needs to be careful to separate the analysis of the situation with the grandstanding of the author.
This is not to say that readers should avoid memoirs. AWB was recently reading James Hamilton-Paterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' (the abridged illustrated version with reduced text but bonus pictures). Here Hamilton-Paterson is describing the glory days of English aviation in the 1950s. He opens with the 1952 crash of the DH .110 at the Farnborough Airshow where the aircraft broke up mid air killing both aircraft and 27 spectators. AWB also had a copy of 'Test Pilot' by Neville Duke; the man who flew the Hawker Hunter on that day immediately after the fatal crash, and it was with interest AWB skipped ahead in that book to see what Mr Duke had to say.
To paraphrase, 'There was a horrible crash and then I got up and put the Hunter through it's paces'.
A best two pages from the entire memoir involved the crash and deaths of 29 people and some of that was covered by mentioning the wonderful flying weather. This is not to imply that Neville Duke was in anyway heartless, but reflects that his is a man who has just come through 6 years of hard warfare and was then currently involved in very risky bleeding edge development, and not a 21st Century Boy concerned about his twitter feed. It was the 1950s. You were a professional. You did what was expected. To cancel the rest of the day's flying was completely unthinkable for all involved. Keep Calm and Carry On wasn't an over flogged cliche poster, it was the public mindset.
And that is why we should never knock back a chance to read a memoir; not for what they might claim, but to understand how they were thinking and why they were claiming it.
(Another Wargame Blog will now go off and do some more brave and manly things to reflect just how brave, manly and fault free they are...)
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Monster Boardgames - Twilight in the East
AWB is mildly surprised to discover that the Wednesday night boardgaming group they are connected with has decided to commit some time and table space to Michael Resch's '1914 - Twilight in the East' by GMT Games.
Slightly old now with a 2007 release, TitE covers fighting against Russia by the German and Austria-Hungarian empires for the first year of World War One at 5 miles per hex and 2-3 days per turn. The vast majority of units are divisions, there are eight counter sheets and five maps. So a reasonably big game then.
Although, having sat down during the week to desperately attempt to relearn the rules, AWB was also reminded that TitE isn't as counter dense as one would originally expect.
Three and a half of the counter sheets are dedicated to information counters - attack markers, step loss counters, entrenchments and the like - and of the 'units', a goodly percentage of these are also used off map. TitE is a game of vast armies grinding into each other and the combat system tracks both step losses - most divisions have around 10 - and division 'Combat Effectiveness' (think 'morale' to use generalised terms) and hence each division has it's own Combat Effectiveness marker used to track this value on off map displays.
What this means is that this vast front is often one of great manoeuvre. Both sides lack the manpower to form a continuous front and due to the supply restrictions, advance is more often then not tied to the major rail lines. Large gaps can and will appear and screening using cavalry is highly recommended.
The turn sequence is a case of A Moves, B Reacts, A Fights, B Fights. Attacks are pre declared during movement with a 'Prepared' attack costing MP and locking units into the combat as well as giving the attacker a handy column shift. 'Normal' attacks do not cost MP but can be reacted away from. The reactive player can also place attack markers during his phase meaning that an overly aggressive active player can find himself counter attacked up and down the line during his own turn.
Net result is that everyone gets hurt and cherry picking the weak spot in the enemy line to attack is not as easy as it first appears.
Our Wednesday group will be trialing/learning the game using the small four turn Masurian Lakes scenario these coming weeks.
Slightly old now with a 2007 release, TitE covers fighting against Russia by the German and Austria-Hungarian empires for the first year of World War One at 5 miles per hex and 2-3 days per turn. The vast majority of units are divisions, there are eight counter sheets and five maps. So a reasonably big game then.
Although, having sat down during the week to desperately attempt to relearn the rules, AWB was also reminded that TitE isn't as counter dense as one would originally expect.
Three and a half of the counter sheets are dedicated to information counters - attack markers, step loss counters, entrenchments and the like - and of the 'units', a goodly percentage of these are also used off map. TitE is a game of vast armies grinding into each other and the combat system tracks both step losses - most divisions have around 10 - and division 'Combat Effectiveness' (think 'morale' to use generalised terms) and hence each division has it's own Combat Effectiveness marker used to track this value on off map displays.
What this means is that this vast front is often one of great manoeuvre. Both sides lack the manpower to form a continuous front and due to the supply restrictions, advance is more often then not tied to the major rail lines. Large gaps can and will appear and screening using cavalry is highly recommended.
The turn sequence is a case of A Moves, B Reacts, A Fights, B Fights. Attacks are pre declared during movement with a 'Prepared' attack costing MP and locking units into the combat as well as giving the attacker a handy column shift. 'Normal' attacks do not cost MP but can be reacted away from. The reactive player can also place attack markers during his phase meaning that an overly aggressive active player can find himself counter attacked up and down the line during his own turn.
Net result is that everyone gets hurt and cherry picking the weak spot in the enemy line to attack is not as easy as it first appears.
Our Wednesday group will be trialing/learning the game using the small four turn Masurian Lakes scenario these coming weeks.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Painting Projects from the Bottom of the Figure Pile (2) and the Great Northern War
History is a big place and despite one's best intentions, there are often gaps. AWB had for many years a rather large one between the age of Napoleon and the end of the English Civil War that clearly proceeded it.
A lot of this gap managed to be closed by the computer game Empire-Total War. This now slightly old release from the Total War franchise was the first to bring in a Tech Tree and as a result, it was entertaining to watch your musket armed units evolve over the course of the game. True we had some liberties with reality made in order to make the entire game more playable, but all in all good fun.
Which brings us to the current extended interest AWB has with the 1700's era.
First, in reverse order, AWB has recently received a copy of the game Pax Baltica by GMT Games. This is a 'block' style boardgame covering the extent of the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721. The units, which are square wooden blocks, are for the most part armies and using the standard block gaming mechanism, provide fog of war for their strength and idenitifcation by standing on one edge as they are moved around the area based map of central Europe and Russia.
Not had great amounts of time to discover more about this game (read - actually played it) but it seems to be largely racing around the map snotting each other with buckets of dice in a simple and straight forward game system, which, considering the full campaign runs for some 80 turns, is probably exactly what you want.
So why the Great Northern War?
Well simply answered, because here at AWB we largely knew sod all about it.
Considering this was a confict that ranged from Norway down to the Turkish boarder, involved most of the states of the area we now refer to as Germany and finished with the once powerhouse of Sweden shattered and second tier Russia rising to claim the spoils, it is something that most in the English speaking world seem to have rather casually ignored. AWB now confesses to still know next to nothing about it but at least now owns the boardgame.
Which brings us to miniture gaming and the depths of the AWB unpainted figure pile.
Having been interested as a result of Empire-Total War, some years ago AWB then set out to find some miniture rules for the period and discovered and then purchased GaPo by Thomas Arnfelt (www.arnfelts.com). As described on the cover these are 'Wargames rules for the age of Marlborough, Eugene, and Charles XII - Core Rules for 1700-1739'. Again, mainly due to a lack of suitable figures, AWB have yet to play these rules fully appart from some very small scale minor tests, so the possibility our views may drastically change regarding this system in the future does remain.
At the moment however, AWB is still very interested in these rules and is slowly attempting to paint some 10mm units in order to play them in a reasonable sized game. More on the figures later.
The rules use the battalion of around 600 men as the basic unit and since the 'averaged' sized game is around 400-600 points and a battalion may be costed at 16, you can see you may need to be fielding some large armies. The core system involves making troop quality tests using 2D6 which give four results of success or failure. Achieve Descisive Success when shooting and expect the target to suffer. Roll a Failure when attempting to close for combat and your unit is very unlikely to be going anywhere. Troops are also classed based on what they are trained and expected to do and that effects their actions on many of the sub tables. Assault Infantry for example are trained to close with the enemy and will do so rather willingly, while Line troops will mutter comments about the King giving them these nice muskets for a very good reason and often remain at shooting range.
This class also effects the actions of troops that haven't been given orders during the turn sequence. Sides will have command stands which will attempt to issue order during the turn with various degrees of 1D6 success. Troops that have not been given orders will then start to wander off on their own based on the situation and what class they are.
All in all, despite the fact that AWB has yet to properly play it, these rules do hold great interest and probably the most annoying thing about them would be the lack of sample army lists within the core rules. Extensive notes are provided for converting real world formation types - say a 400 man battalion of musket armed men firing from 3 ranks - into game units, however if your knowledge of exactly how a historical army was organised is lacking, the core rules give rise to a rather confusing sense of 'where do I go from here?'
Fortunately the army list books, of which there are currently two, are very good, with colour (basic) painting guilds, background to the armies and their campaigns plus full lists of the historical commanders and the units themselves.
Which returns us to the figure painting.
Using 10mm Pendraken figures, AWB is attempting to paint and base some 600 men Swedish battalions. GaPo is big on having your units have the correct frontage (unlike one or two other rule sets that AWB find annoying and will discuss in other posts), so the choosen ground scale will be 40mm equals to 50 paces meaning the battalion will be on three 40x20mm bases stolen from the FoG stockpile.
In order to get a bit of visual figure density, unit scale will be one model equals 25 men so the end unit will be some 24 figures of 10mm musket and pike.
At current painting rates you can expect this unit to be finished sometime in 2018 which should then allow AWB to start on the Scotish Jacobite Rebellion army project for this rule set that sounds interesting.
A lot of this gap managed to be closed by the computer game Empire-Total War. This now slightly old release from the Total War franchise was the first to bring in a Tech Tree and as a result, it was entertaining to watch your musket armed units evolve over the course of the game. True we had some liberties with reality made in order to make the entire game more playable, but all in all good fun.
Which brings us to the current extended interest AWB has with the 1700's era.
First, in reverse order, AWB has recently received a copy of the game Pax Baltica by GMT Games. This is a 'block' style boardgame covering the extent of the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721. The units, which are square wooden blocks, are for the most part armies and using the standard block gaming mechanism, provide fog of war for their strength and idenitifcation by standing on one edge as they are moved around the area based map of central Europe and Russia.
Not had great amounts of time to discover more about this game (read - actually played it) but it seems to be largely racing around the map snotting each other with buckets of dice in a simple and straight forward game system, which, considering the full campaign runs for some 80 turns, is probably exactly what you want.
So why the Great Northern War?
Well simply answered, because here at AWB we largely knew sod all about it.
Considering this was a confict that ranged from Norway down to the Turkish boarder, involved most of the states of the area we now refer to as Germany and finished with the once powerhouse of Sweden shattered and second tier Russia rising to claim the spoils, it is something that most in the English speaking world seem to have rather casually ignored. AWB now confesses to still know next to nothing about it but at least now owns the boardgame.
Which brings us to miniture gaming and the depths of the AWB unpainted figure pile.
Having been interested as a result of Empire-Total War, some years ago AWB then set out to find some miniture rules for the period and discovered and then purchased GaPo by Thomas Arnfelt (www.arnfelts.com). As described on the cover these are 'Wargames rules for the age of Marlborough, Eugene, and Charles XII - Core Rules for 1700-1739'. Again, mainly due to a lack of suitable figures, AWB have yet to play these rules fully appart from some very small scale minor tests, so the possibility our views may drastically change regarding this system in the future does remain.
At the moment however, AWB is still very interested in these rules and is slowly attempting to paint some 10mm units in order to play them in a reasonable sized game. More on the figures later.
The rules use the battalion of around 600 men as the basic unit and since the 'averaged' sized game is around 400-600 points and a battalion may be costed at 16, you can see you may need to be fielding some large armies. The core system involves making troop quality tests using 2D6 which give four results of success or failure. Achieve Descisive Success when shooting and expect the target to suffer. Roll a Failure when attempting to close for combat and your unit is very unlikely to be going anywhere. Troops are also classed based on what they are trained and expected to do and that effects their actions on many of the sub tables. Assault Infantry for example are trained to close with the enemy and will do so rather willingly, while Line troops will mutter comments about the King giving them these nice muskets for a very good reason and often remain at shooting range.
This class also effects the actions of troops that haven't been given orders during the turn sequence. Sides will have command stands which will attempt to issue order during the turn with various degrees of 1D6 success. Troops that have not been given orders will then start to wander off on their own based on the situation and what class they are.
All in all, despite the fact that AWB has yet to properly play it, these rules do hold great interest and probably the most annoying thing about them would be the lack of sample army lists within the core rules. Extensive notes are provided for converting real world formation types - say a 400 man battalion of musket armed men firing from 3 ranks - into game units, however if your knowledge of exactly how a historical army was organised is lacking, the core rules give rise to a rather confusing sense of 'where do I go from here?'
Fortunately the army list books, of which there are currently two, are very good, with colour (basic) painting guilds, background to the armies and their campaigns plus full lists of the historical commanders and the units themselves.
Which returns us to the figure painting.
Using 10mm Pendraken figures, AWB is attempting to paint and base some 600 men Swedish battalions. GaPo is big on having your units have the correct frontage (unlike one or two other rule sets that AWB find annoying and will discuss in other posts), so the choosen ground scale will be 40mm equals to 50 paces meaning the battalion will be on three 40x20mm bases stolen from the FoG stockpile.
In order to get a bit of visual figure density, unit scale will be one model equals 25 men so the end unit will be some 24 figures of 10mm musket and pike.
At current painting rates you can expect this unit to be finished sometime in 2018 which should then allow AWB to start on the Scotish Jacobite Rebellion army project for this rule set that sounds interesting.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Case Yellow
In the curtain boardgaming circle that AWB mix with, we have recently been working our way through Ted Racier's 'Case Yellow' by GMT Games.
Yes, it was published some time ago, and yes, cough, we are only playing it for the first time now, but we plead the case of 'real life' interfering with our gaming hours. If you want to spend eight months of Wednesdays playing Battle for Normandy then something has to give after all.
Anyway, so what do we get in the box?
Pretty much a chance to invade German, crush France and force the English to flee across the Channel like the tea drinking swine that they are. Hexes are 7miles, units are mostly Corps and Divsions, stacking is approximately one corps per hex and turns, which include several chit driven sub phases for each side, are a couple of days long. You are given four scenarios to play with, the first being the straight historical, the fourth being a mini map tuturoial game where you attempt to crush Holland and the middle two are 'What If?' variations where the Anglo/French player actually gets allowed something to do. More of that later.
What I do rather like about the game is the engine used. Units are given a combat factor, movement - further divided into 'leg' and 'motorised' - nothing new so far - and a Tactical Rating. This TR factor is possibly the most important and is used within the combat results and for calculating ZOCs.
In this system most units project ZOCs provided they are phyiscally large enough and there are not major terrain features involved. If a motorised unit - in most cases here, the Panzer Division - has a higher TR then an enemy unit, then that ZOC is ignore and the Panzer race off towards the coast.
While no doubt frustrating to be on the receiving end of these breakthroughs, the system neatly captures the realatively static non motorised divisions and corps of this period physically lacked the control and weapons to react in time against aggressively handled motorised units.
The second main thing the TR is used for is in the combat results. Combat is 1D6 with no DRM. Calculate raw odds, column shift back and forward for terrain, air support and tanks and roll the one dice. Where the TR comes in is a sort of tie breaker on many of the results, where if the attacker has a higher TR, the result is shifted up to one better then was actually rolled. The practical effect, and this is something that we here at AWB have always moaned about in other combat systems, is that it means that operationally the attacker has the advantage because he controls the tempo of the combat. Effectively the more skilled units are beginning their attacks, realising things are slightly harder then they expected, and then cancelling the attack before they get drawn into a casuality intensive meat grinder.
Well, AWB likes the system anyway.
So, the rest of the game as a whole? Is that fun?
Ummm... sort of.
The game does play smoothly enough. Each turn is broken into several action phases that are controlled by chit draws. For the Allies in the historical scenerios at least this means either 'Move' or 'Combat' chits which do pretty much what they say on the cover, while the German side, to represent the fact their command staff in this period had a MUCH faster decision cycle, are given a 'wild card' type chit they can, within guildlines, play as either Move or Combat as they choose. Hence the turns have a nice bit of randomness that helps with solo play. Since stacking is generally one Corps per hex there isn't a huge amount of thinking required during movement and it all flows along rather quickly.
However, are we having fun yet? Well as the German player it is rather tricky. Getting Holland to surrender on a decent time frame is slightly tricker then it looks meaning units you would much rather wash down against the Belgium sand castle can be delayed. The random chit draw means your leg units - which the vast majority of the German forces still actually consists of (and rather average some of them are as well thank you very much), may struggle to be brought to bear leaving you to risk your powerful by fragile Panzer divisions for most of the attacking. Making a gap is tricky as is successfully exploiting it to reach the Channel. All and all a rather challenging series of choices to make.
For the German. For the Allied player your milage may vary. In the 'What If?' scens many of the restrictions are lifted, but for the pure historical Scen 1 a lot of the moves are scripted. Not much is allowed to move on turn 1, and that which can is forced to march into Belgium and then stay there for most of turn 2 while watching their flank disappear. Then on turn 3 you get the option to call in the evacuation and try and grab as many VP as you can for getting units out of the ports.
So a chance to do something clever? Not really. After the evacuation and the pause for the Panzer refit you are allowed complete freedom to attempt to defend Paris but by that stage most of your better units are dead and you get the satisfaction of lining up waiting for the German player to punch you again.
We at AWB have not as yet played Scen 2 or 3, which we expect may be a lot more fun for the Allies, but our French victim in our current Scen 1 game has, and witih a lot of justification, expressed a minor lack of satisfaction in his gaming experience so far. Having said that, the challenge for the German player is definately there and with the chit system and largely scripted Allied moves, Scen 1 would most likely play very well solo.
In summary, very good clean game engine, usual high standard GMT build quality, historically sound but probably lacking a bit in replayability.
Yes, it was published some time ago, and yes, cough, we are only playing it for the first time now, but we plead the case of 'real life' interfering with our gaming hours. If you want to spend eight months of Wednesdays playing Battle for Normandy then something has to give after all.
Anyway, so what do we get in the box?
Pretty much a chance to invade German, crush France and force the English to flee across the Channel like the tea drinking swine that they are. Hexes are 7miles, units are mostly Corps and Divsions, stacking is approximately one corps per hex and turns, which include several chit driven sub phases for each side, are a couple of days long. You are given four scenarios to play with, the first being the straight historical, the fourth being a mini map tuturoial game where you attempt to crush Holland and the middle two are 'What If?' variations where the Anglo/French player actually gets allowed something to do. More of that later.
What I do rather like about the game is the engine used. Units are given a combat factor, movement - further divided into 'leg' and 'motorised' - nothing new so far - and a Tactical Rating. This TR factor is possibly the most important and is used within the combat results and for calculating ZOCs.
In this system most units project ZOCs provided they are phyiscally large enough and there are not major terrain features involved. If a motorised unit - in most cases here, the Panzer Division - has a higher TR then an enemy unit, then that ZOC is ignore and the Panzer race off towards the coast.
While no doubt frustrating to be on the receiving end of these breakthroughs, the system neatly captures the realatively static non motorised divisions and corps of this period physically lacked the control and weapons to react in time against aggressively handled motorised units.
The second main thing the TR is used for is in the combat results. Combat is 1D6 with no DRM. Calculate raw odds, column shift back and forward for terrain, air support and tanks and roll the one dice. Where the TR comes in is a sort of tie breaker on many of the results, where if the attacker has a higher TR, the result is shifted up to one better then was actually rolled. The practical effect, and this is something that we here at AWB have always moaned about in other combat systems, is that it means that operationally the attacker has the advantage because he controls the tempo of the combat. Effectively the more skilled units are beginning their attacks, realising things are slightly harder then they expected, and then cancelling the attack before they get drawn into a casuality intensive meat grinder.
Well, AWB likes the system anyway.
So, the rest of the game as a whole? Is that fun?
Ummm... sort of.
The game does play smoothly enough. Each turn is broken into several action phases that are controlled by chit draws. For the Allies in the historical scenerios at least this means either 'Move' or 'Combat' chits which do pretty much what they say on the cover, while the German side, to represent the fact their command staff in this period had a MUCH faster decision cycle, are given a 'wild card' type chit they can, within guildlines, play as either Move or Combat as they choose. Hence the turns have a nice bit of randomness that helps with solo play. Since stacking is generally one Corps per hex there isn't a huge amount of thinking required during movement and it all flows along rather quickly.
However, are we having fun yet? Well as the German player it is rather tricky. Getting Holland to surrender on a decent time frame is slightly tricker then it looks meaning units you would much rather wash down against the Belgium sand castle can be delayed. The random chit draw means your leg units - which the vast majority of the German forces still actually consists of (and rather average some of them are as well thank you very much), may struggle to be brought to bear leaving you to risk your powerful by fragile Panzer divisions for most of the attacking. Making a gap is tricky as is successfully exploiting it to reach the Channel. All and all a rather challenging series of choices to make.
For the German. For the Allied player your milage may vary. In the 'What If?' scens many of the restrictions are lifted, but for the pure historical Scen 1 a lot of the moves are scripted. Not much is allowed to move on turn 1, and that which can is forced to march into Belgium and then stay there for most of turn 2 while watching their flank disappear. Then on turn 3 you get the option to call in the evacuation and try and grab as many VP as you can for getting units out of the ports.
So a chance to do something clever? Not really. After the evacuation and the pause for the Panzer refit you are allowed complete freedom to attempt to defend Paris but by that stage most of your better units are dead and you get the satisfaction of lining up waiting for the German player to punch you again.
We at AWB have not as yet played Scen 2 or 3, which we expect may be a lot more fun for the Allies, but our French victim in our current Scen 1 game has, and witih a lot of justification, expressed a minor lack of satisfaction in his gaming experience so far. Having said that, the challenge for the German player is definately there and with the chit system and largely scripted Allied moves, Scen 1 would most likely play very well solo.
In summary, very good clean game engine, usual high standard GMT build quality, historically sound but probably lacking a bit in replayability.
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