Why Wargame?

Don't worry, this is not a diatribe on existential angst or desire to imitate a smoking French philosopher.

I missed Historicon.  This is all the more disappointing, as it was a mere hour down the road, but there were more important things to deal with, like a drooly now six month old who eats my clock and gives me an adequate excuse not to blog most days.

So I looked at some pictures and remembered my last big east coast gaming convention.  During one of the events I remember seeing a Roman vs. Roman battle, Phillipi I think.  It was pretty impressive, scenery was well done and the figures looked wonderful in 28mm.  Out of all the battles, that one stuck out, as the Cohorts, or Legions, or whatever the force divisions were for this particular rule set, were stacked on a 5'x6' table with no space in between them.

Is this wargaming:  lining up troops, moving them forward, and rolling dice.  One can write a software program to determine the result (not me mind you but someone).  That doesn't seem fun.  Lately I've been fascinated with Check Your 6!, the skirmish game, and DBA.  Why?  They give you decisions to make.  I look at a number of convention games I played, and few of them really give options.  You take your barbarian horde and charge the Roman wall-the table doesn't have room for a left or right-and what?

I have been reading a few documents of late.  There's not a lot of time, but between a doc on the Northern Crusade and anthology of award winning sci-fi, I've been reading about the Soviet Operational Art.  Why?  It's because it's not just about the battle there, it's about preparing to be in the battle at a much higher level that wargaming I see allows.  It's because I was thinking about  the Ulm Campaign as I read about it in the End of the Old Order.  This is a game where armies campaign , and with surprising little in the way of battle, the Austrian Army capitulated.

I've seen boardgames that capture the strategic, and wargames capture the tactical.  However, for you wargamers out there, when have you actually chosen the ground your soldiers fight on?  I think that is the game as much as the actual battle.  That is what gets my juices going, and that is what I'm trying to figure out. There are options I am exploring, and really Battlefinder has the best starting point when combined with a simple game system (read: DBA), with Too Fat Lardies' philosophy on blinds, but, I'm still figuring this out.

The fact is, though I am a fortunate man, I do not have a great wealth of space for gaming nor funds (wargaming library to the contrary).  What this means is me thinking back to that table, way back at the beginning of my monologuing, with Philipi.  It's about the scale.  I can put one 28mm figure on a 1"x1".  Or I could put a cavalry stand in the same space.  How?  This is the point of solution where I am certain someone is going to throw something at me.

Irregular Miniatures puts out a series of 2mm.  I've been looking at a number of 3mm figures, be it Jet Aircraft or Cold War formations.  I realize it's microscopic, and as the poor painter I am, this is just a space saving option to use something just one notch over counters.  For me, it's about the game, not the spectacle, so this will work for me, particularly as we consider what a 4'x3' table could bring, especially when the stands are 1" x 3/4" for infantry.

It's not ideal. No one is pretending that much.  But my fleet of Starblazers ships sits in drydock.  My 15mm Romans and Celts sit only basecoated.  I have either time or energy lately, and that, I hear, for fathers, is not unusual.  So I plan to start a project where an army costs roughly $7, and limit the focus to the 7th Century, with Sassanids, Barbarians Successor States, Byzantines, Arab Conquest, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, Slavs and the rest tumble together in a mess worthy of gaming. Obviously from the list I'm not much on limiting.  It'll shake out, I'm sure.

Will it work?  I'll let you know. I order this weekend.

In the end, if I'm using 2mm Micro Wargaming to wage a war of maneuver as well as the battles as well, then I will be satisfied.  Even if it's just a bunch of glorified counters.

Well, I'm still alive

Couple quick points.

1. MDF buildings are great. Mad Mech Guy has some excellent products.  On the other hand, shipping is not, and I'm going to have to hold off for more until there's a US Distributor.

2. I painted a platoon of Rebel Minis Titan Marines (like everyone else it seems).  I'll post a photo later on these, but the best part was I completed these guys in an afternoon (with some overflow). It feels good to be able to paint fast when there's actually time.

3. I finally got to play Tomorrow's War, a two and a half hour game for the Pilot Rescue Scenario (done in 28mm with the AT-43 figs I have laying around bought when FF stopped carrying them).  I like the theory, but this is a game set that has certain ideal dice pools, and due to a slight change to the group mix, we had fireteams shooting at each other at inches apart from each other. I think it's still a system with potential, ,but as much as we tried we could not actually cause any casualties to each other.
  -Of course we might be missing something in the rules.  I like them, but it's about appropriate dice pools.  I'm still

4.  I'm trying the Guild Challenge.  I've been distracted by my BSOS (Bright Shiny Object Syndrome), but have completed four of the Space Battleship Yamato ships in preparation for my Battle for Planet Earth project.  I'd like to do a 5th, as it's almost done, but between a BC Hockey Game I have to go out to watch and a eight week old, progress is unrealistic to put it mildly.

Cruiser Ceres-Terran ship, good old C4 (Big Mamma Boom) that was on a shakeout cruise with the Mimas (D19) and Deep Fleet Destroyer Pallas (D37) when they encountered a pair of raiders.

Cruiser Mimas (left) and Pallas (right)

One of the two Raiders identified from the incident, Labled as Raider TYR in the encounter Database. (Yes, this is a Earther ship from the series, but I'm not using Star Blazers as a basis for anything).

So, More dust coming

As I've mentioned, it's been a modestly, at best, success as the year closed out, buy now we're well entrenched in 2014.  So what has happened lately?

My current project has been a macro scale space warfare game (as I've explained earlier, Gamer's ADD).  Originally this started as a desire to find some larger scale spaceships to mix in with fighters for some escort/interceptor battles in the deep Black. One of the gentlemen behind Silent Death mentioned a Star Blazer injection kit being available cheap (under $2 a ship, except for a few destroyers which were two to the package).  Oh, and shipping....they did come from Japan.

So if you have a good deal on a ship, the transitive property leaves me thinking that I could have a great deal on a fleet....or three.

Current count is 46 ships on order, many back ordered.

Here's three of the ships, with their rare earth magnet bases sitting on nails in remarkably poor light.  The  Cruiser Ceres (CC-4, Big Mama Boom), sits in the fore, with it's traditional escort (Pallas) and its deep space Picket Fleet escort (Mimas) which joined it right before the Incident.  As you can see on the right the two raiders (Tyr and Freya) still being painted.  It's been slow, but we'll get there.

Why slow?  Well, Chinese New year brought me more than a new year of good luck.

Both he and his mother are healthy.  But needless to say free time is going to be a dear commodity for a little bit.

Back to the trivialities that keep things sane...The ships themselves are not to scale, a common complaint among the wargamer community.  The two "Raiders"-Captain Avatar's Cruiser (Crew ~700) and the Missile Boat (Crew ~20-no I'm not that much of a geek, it's mentioned in the first episode) are both the same size.  And what size?  The smallest ship I've found is 3.5", the largest 5.5".  Many of the ships are still on order, and I'm still a little flummoxed on basing, but once painted they're pretty, and fun to put together.  I'm normally a Fleet Action Scale kind of guy, but for these I'll make an exception.


Incidentally as I write this the original series is sitting on Hulu for the watching here.  I'd never watched the series, and after watching the few episodes I have, I think I would have avoided the ships out of response to the series.  I'm chalking it up to fortuitous timing.

2014...What the?

Seriously, it's 2014?  So... dagnabit.

Ok.  2013 is not one to complain about.  Since last I wrote:

I found out the Fall In the theme was "Armies of the East".  Which was great, except that I didn't have any Asian Armies and it was 30 days out.  Quick trip to Noble Knight games and with a Wester Chao Essex pack on the way I figured, may, just maybe I could get it done in time.

It's not a large army-but it was complete, with enough time to get in an extra camp done for the Successors. It was my first uniformed army, and that doesn't hurt getting figured painted in a hurry.  I liked the way they looked and need to get a photo up soon...but their performance left much to be desired-1 and 3 followed by the 0 and 3 Successor game.

Then there's the side projects, space fighters, superheroes, a pile of 15s, and the occasional organizational project.

All this with work chaos and a Little Donnelly on the way, it's not so bad.

Next thing you know it's End of year and someone mentioned a sale of Star Blazers injection plastic kits that had been rereleased.  So a few minutes here and I found myself with a few fleets.  Really, how bad is forty ships....Let's face it, I have GADD (Gamer's ADD) and bad.

Then a buddy mentioned that there's a group out there, the Guild that's all about having quarterly progress against a single goal.

So now we' have the Invaders, the Raiders, and the Terrans.  My first build will be the incident at 1996 TL66 when two invader craft (designated Arsenic and Fire-Invaders are tagged by Alchemical symbols) encountered a deep space shakeout cruise of the CA Ceres and the DD Mimas.  The rules will be Full Thrust Cross Dimensions-with each posted ship i hope to list the stats.

It's a project. Obviously the kid will take the priority but four ships in three months will be doable.  Hopefully.

Right now Phase 2 looks to be an expanded Earther Fleet, including the BB Uranus, 3rd Destroyer Division, and the CL Triton.

Phase 3 Will be their foes, more details, but likely BB Scorpius, the DHs Antares and Dschubba, GBs Pi and Rho Scorpi.  

Phase 4 Will likely be the fighter augmentations and at least one carrier (the three decker is a nice mini).  Currently my ships are roughly (and I said roughly) 1/1200 (but it varies like a yo yo) but my fighters are 1/300.  I'm not sure I'm ready to do that interaction, but it might work for a scenario where a wounded cruiser is being hunted by a pack of torpedo bombers while a destroyer escort and some interceptor aircraft try to save it.

That's enough for now.  See you space cowboy.

Ballsy Light Horse and Impetuous Auxilia

For those who may have recognized the title of this particular post, rare as most of mine can be of late, this is going to be a discussion of DBA.  De Bellis Antiquitatis (if questions start here or here) has been the game I most often have been able to play, though it's been close to a year since I've been able to crack it out of storage.

So it's time for DBV, the annual regional regional tourney hosted by the nice gentlemen at WADBAG (there's also a separate tourney until recently at Huzzah Hobbies but if it happened (likely) in May I missed it this year. Thankfully DBV was themed as Rome and Its Enemies, so the armies I own fit. I once again broke out my Patrician Romans (if you absolutely need an army on the cusp of extinction, 420AD to the fall), but swapping out the army mix from last time, going Eastern instead of western, Small Knight Core, instead of my past favoring of cavalry, Auxilia instead of Warbands (though I miss the hairy barbarians), and a little extra skirmisher line.

I'd averaged around 6th out of 10 most tourneys I'd participated in throughout the past, with Patricians and Scots-Irish taking the brunt of the punishment.  The way I saw it, it was a day of rolling dice, and with a first child on the way, there wouldn't be many more of these available.  I had low expectations for success, but with the crew I'd encountered in the past, I expected to have fun.

Dave K. was kind enough to host the event and Chris B shepherded us through with his management of the event, with gentlemen from their pre-teens to sixties, from well seasoned to first time players pushing lead under the panoply of the flags of Sienna. I should have kept better notes, but instead I focused on the game, forgetting photos until odd moments, and I'll add those as soon as I can get them transfered over.

As I recall, and writing this after the whirlwind of the last few days, there may be speed blurring:

Round One, Rob and his Goths.  Though a gentleman, loaning me measuring sticks for the day, he didn't mess around and came thundering in.  I spend the entire start trying to coordiate different battle groups in some messed up ballet.  I had forgotten simple is beautiful for DBA, don't be smarter than the dice. While I was trying to find my pips, he was throttling some of my light horse who got a little too close to the action (a theme I found in my play of the day until the end.  I was lucky enough with a few strong rolls to stabilize my line, and while his Knights attempted to break me on my left, my Auxilia charged forward and took the fight to the warbands.  It came to the dice, and the dice favored me on this one and, in the end, I eaked out a 4-3 Win.

Round Two, David K and his Dacians.  Admitedly I was a little apprehensive.  I figured I had the force advantage, Knight and Blade vs. Warband, and the terrain opened up with a couple of lucky dice rolls, giving me a potential valley of death wide enough to run my cavalry through.  However, once more light horse got too ambitious, charged deep into the Dacian rear, and got cut off.  I salvaged a little, but far from enough, and was cut down in detail, never able to maintain concerted pressure and lost 4-2.

Round Three, I met with George, a first time player, who brought forth his Spanish.  This game was more of a teaching game than anything else, and George was crushed on the right wing by a quick charge of the Auxilia to a quick 4-0 resolution.

Last round was Doug and his Nobades (Anti Roman Nubians as far as I can tell, Horse, Aux, Camels, and a bunch of Bow).  I was on the clock (upcoming dinner reservations with the folks) and as a result I played quick.  Before I knew it I had lost the terrain on the left to ambitious auxilia, which a single skirmisher unit struggled to control.  Again though, the auxilia managed to charge forward to victory, encircling the Bow, and allowing enough distraction for my cavalry and some foot to wrap around the flanks of his center.  Admitedly this came to fruition from a bunch of sixes, the strongest of all strategies, and I walked into a 5-1 victory.

It was fun, I'd have done it for twice as long given the chance, which I was not, but maybe come Fall in.  There remains something to be said for a wargame that is setup, played, and broken down in less than an hour.  DBA remains a favorite, and I actually feel like I learned a little this time out (beyond roll sixes).  Thanks again to Team WADBAG.

Beer, Dice, and Friends

Brooks came out, and for that it was an occasion for challenge. it came in three parts, two parts I will recount here, the third I'll do as the next portion.  

Round 1: Dux Bellorum.  Late Romans vs. Sub-Roman British

Late Romans were straight forward an effort to charge through the enemy in a very rough proxy of knights, something they’ve so far been unsuccessful in achieving in their outings (spoiler alert....er, too late). They were a full half Riders with Continental Horses, vs the mere ponies they faced, supported by a line of scrubs posing as a Shieldwall, and a single stand of bow armed light horse (for ease I will refer to as Huns), in Brook's capable hands, on a quest of collection.  Tax Collection that is.  Empires don’t come cheap. 

Facing them were the legion of delinquent taxpayers. The Sub-Romans were built on a core of Shieldwall, half ordinary, half noble, supported by a small contingent of riders, as well as two bands of bow armed skirmishers and a contingent of massed bowmen.  Little bit of everything, and they would need it. 

Clearly the bard broke into the celebratory mead before the battle as early photos were blurry.  By the time he came to there were some photos, but too little too late for the initial setup.  As remembered the invaders occupied the north, Riders to the east, Shieldwall to the west, and Huns in the center, with a clearing between two copses of trees.  Facing them, the shieldwall held the southern center with skirmishers to the west and bows then cavalry to the west with a hill to his rear.  

In the end it was a swirling affair-the Sub-Roman Shieldwall split, half to face the cavalry, half to face the oncoming weak sheildwal while flanked in the woods by skirmishers.  The Roman Cavalry charged forward, losing their Huns to concentrated bowfire.  The Sub Roman Companions and other riders tried to hold the hill against the onslaught, but a poor command roll left the rest of the riders on the hill to be slaughtered. 

Why rolling 11s is bad. Ordinary Riders vs. Imposing Noble Riders and Companions-it lasted about as long as you might imagine. 

Roman Shieldwall marches to face the British Shieldwall, while British Skirmishers maneuver through the forest to make things difficult for them. 

Mid Game, Roman Shieldwall encircled to the left with British Companions desperately trying to hold the hill to the right. 

It ended up a race, but the Roman Shieldwall in the north crumpled before the Brits did in the east.  Somehow the British companions held the hill, off an on, throughout the battle.

Endstate

I’ve played a few games of this now, but this was the first Shieldwall vs. Shieldwall grind out.  I do like the system, but there's quirks and it's not perfect.  It wasn't wargaming Yatzee, but central to winning this as shieldwalls are all about rolling sixes when you get to it, and the dice were with me.  We went with the option to limit wound reduction to one leadership per turn, thank god, otherwise we might still be playing.  

I don’t think Brooks was sold, flank hits on the shield walls weren’t telling, and oddly bowfire, thanks to leadership, was.  

Round 2: Maurice, Blue vs Red 75pts/Side

No pictures of the second game-it's tokens not miniatures, so really not a lot to see.  

It was a quick, which tends to happen when you attempt double cavalry envelopments while on the defense.  I tend to be aggressive on defense, but a 3'x6' table there was little time before impact.  Stupid tactics is its own reward. 

Being aggressive from round one, it meant that I never built a reserve of cards and played most of the game with a single card in my had.  Not complaining, it's how the system works.  We played fast, never getting into the combat modifications, and I think we had one combat that wasn't flanking.

Maurice is a good one.  Needs a big enough playing space which will be a challenge for the future.  

Chance Encounter-Solo Playtest-Samurai Robots Battle Royale

So I have been trying to balance real life and being on the list of playtesters for Samurai Robot Battle Royale soon to be forthcoming from Ganesha Games.   To be fair the real life stuff has been modestly impressive, but causing unacceptable delays.  I finally was able to get a game in with the only person whose schedule I could coordinate with lately, me, and a solo round SRBR commenced.

If you're familiar with the Ganesha suite of games, the theory is the same.  It keeps the quality mechanic where if you are more ambitious you can act more, but there's a greater chance of losing control of initiative.  Unlike most of their other games, where individuals have a single stat line (Quality, Combat, and Special Abilities) each location has this stat line.  If you've familiar with the Mighty Monsters from Ganesha, it's the same theory, in fact they'll integrate to allow for Pacific Rim style action.

While you will see from below, I'm using the rules for more of a Battletech feel, they're written clearly in the vein of Anime inspired conflicts.  Don't let that dissuade you however, as they include enough optional rules to bring them from the Age of Steam to Robotech, as well as Mecha vs. Army options.  Like all of Ganesha Game's products, this has a lot of options and easy to customize to the campaign you feel like, or, if you want, just have a pickup game.

The premise was simple. Two Silverbacks (lower right, poorer quality AI controlled Mechs, all activations on a 4) wandered into Captain-Regent territory while a Freelancer in his Ranger (upper left, all activations on 3s) is stretching his mynomer muscles in preparation for an upcoming challenge. All craft were generated quickly before the battle, and the points on the two sides are equal.   You'll notice three dice between each figure-this is their dice for activation and their health-as they get injured they fade to yellow and then red (except I have no yellow dice, so it's White to Red to Black), which allow for interruption by your foe if those dice fail.  The table's only 30" square, with hills and ruins blocking line of sight.  The ruin in the lower left (rotated 180 in all following photos) would serve as the locus of activity for the conflict. Colored sticks are Short/Medium/Long measuring sticks.

One other note-it's roll then declare, not declare and then hope you roll well enough, I was doing some in reverse in the playtest. 

After rolling for initiative, the victorious Freelancer Made a dash for the cover of the ruins, and promptly failed to activate to fire, passing control over to the AI Legion.

Silverback I charged, moving three times directly to the edge of the ruins.  I then checked to see if it would successfully take a shot, and if it would activate more than one time, which would allow it to make more powerful strikes.  It would need it, for though Silverbacks packed linked lasers, they were short range, and as can barely be made out due to my poor photography, they were three range bands bands away, thus -2 on the roll. So before rolling, I opted for a Surgical Strike (+2 to hit, max one damage).

Again, chalk it up to poor photography, but that's three 6s on activation, allowing for a Very Powerful(tm) shot.  Once the combat roll was complete (1d vs 1d + combat values +/- a few quick modifiers) the Silverback had seriously beaten the Ranger.  However, as it was a surgical strike, it only allowed one point of damage and the Freelancer's roll against Knockdown (the random damage effect) was weathered.

Silverback I being done, it immediately passed the dice over to Silverback II, who promptly did nothing (three failures on three dice).

Payback time.  The Ranger carries on it's Torso a L5 Missile (One Shot), which it immediately fired at close range at SB-I.

Above you can see the range band, and the two dice in the center (SBI's Red 1 and Ranger's Black 3) leave for a poor day for the Silverback.  It promptly took two points of damage, rolled for effect, and had its sensors go blind.  Ranger decided to follow up on its success, took a leg action to close the distance, and then rolled for arm activation to give a flying elbow (or, you know, a punch in the rules).

Problem is, the earlier point of damage resulted in a red die (again, yellow die in the rules, but I have no yellow dice).  It failed, allowing the blind SB-I to attempt to interrupt, and it did, lashing out and making a general fool of itself as most blind boxers might. Crisis averted, the Ranger cracked some knuckle actuators on an exhaust manifold, leaving SB-I with all Red.

By the next photo I have of the battle, SB-II has finally entered the fray, after SB-I, on a very lucky Black damage roll (lucky for the pilot of the Ranger at least) shut down. Ranger's taken a couple of pings to the armor and is starting to have some concerns.  Out of Missiles (when you've fired one of one, it's easy to keep track) he's shooting his regular lasers, with medium range, here two bands out to mediocre results.

With only one Mecha on each side, the quality difference proved telling, allowing the Ranger to maneuver out of SB-II's punishing linked short range lasers, up until the end.

The last bit of damage on SB-II is not shown, but by the end it had achieved all black (er...red in the rules) dice and failed its integrity roll...spectacularly.  Worse for wear, the Freelancer piloted his dented Ranger home, to war of the encroaching AI Legion.

Playing both sides, the game took under an hour-in part due to mulling over sections to see if they could be misinterpreted.  It was quick and easy, but the game needs a bigger table and bigger forces than what I was able to muster.  Definitely one I'm looking forward to more of once I get a chance.