July 18 Gaming at the Boone Casa - Blackbeard and Age of Empires III

Mick Mickelsen, Nevin Ball, and Al Hay came over to play Blackbeard from GMT Games.

Of course if you're going to play a pirate game you must have provisions,

and more provisions,

and grog.

The game ended much too quickly with the pirates doing hardly any piratey deeds.

Mick really kicked our booty in the final scoring.

My useless pirate who stayed in port more than at sea.

Afterwards, we played Age of Empires III. Mick got the pirate building in this game and won this one too.

Happenings for the past 3 months

Not much gaming going on lately, other than some light games with the family. The last face to face wargame I played was a 3-player playtest of Successors III with Nevin Ball and Mark Simonitch back on March 15th. Mark said we would do it again once he has his new map and counters ready. Mark has been posting his map and counter work recently on consimword and it is looking very nice. Prior to that we did a 5-player game of Age of Empires III at Mark Bausman's house,on March 1st, but that is about it for face to face. Oh we did get in two back to back games of Antike back on February 17th. The first one was 5-player and the second 4-player. I enjoyed the game and ended up picking up a copy but haven't played it since.

I did finish off the last novel of the main series of David Weber's Honorverse, At All Costs about a month ago. I didn't know if I wanted to start reading his sub-series works but decided to pickup one of his newer novels, Off Armageddon Reef, the first book in his Safehold series. The next book in the series isn't due out till later this year; I'm looking forward to it.

I then read 1632 by Eric Flint and Von Neumann's War by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor.

Since I didn't have a chance to get to the bookstore my wife brought me a couple of books from her workout place; I guess they have some sort of paperback loan library. I ended up reading one of them, Deep Fire Rising, by Jack Du Brul. I enjoyed it and may look for more of his books in the future but for now I just picked up 1633, the second book in Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series.

North Texas Wargamers Gameday - August 18th, 2007

Another good turn out for the North Texas Wargamers gameday this Saturday. There were thirteen people with about 7 different games played.

First Round of Games

1. Blue vs Gray (GMT Games)

Brian Marrs and Steven Sheasby played a card based game on the American Civil War by GMT Games, Blue vs. Gray. They were still playing it when everyone else left. Not sure if that was one game or multiple plays. Brian Mars gave a description of how both of their games went which I've quoted below.

Steven and I played two games of Blue vs. Gray. I took the CSA in the first game and managed to grab enough northern cities in the west to end the game early (British recognition of the Confederacy).

We switched sides for the second game and it took awhile to get the northern steam roller going. But once I had built up my armies I marched down the Mississippi and also grabbed Atlanta. Steven was almost ready to give up at that point, but decided to stick it out for another turn or two to see what happened.

He built up a pretty good sized army of his own in the west, and with a couple of good die rolls, kicked me out of Atlanta and bloodied my army pretty severely. By this time, the 1864 elections were getting very close and I needed to have 4 VP's to keep Lincoln in office. I had 1 VP for a full blockade, 1 VP for cutting off the Mississippi, and 1 VP for controlling the Shennandoah valley, so I just needed one more VP.

The Western army under Sherman was too far away from Atlanta and facing a rather large army under Hood. I had just put Grant in command of rather sizable Eastern army and was facing a somewhat depleted army under Lee, so the time had come to attack Richmond, which would give me my fourth VP.

Steven played "The Slows" card on me which reduced Grant's initiative from 2 to 1. This meant that Lee would win if the battle result was a "General's Battle". The dice were rolled and sure enough, Lee won the battle (I think it was a 1/3 chance of losing the battle outright or to a General's Battle). The 1864 elections put the Peace Democrats in power and the game ended.

It was a good, close game, and I find that I like the game more each time I play it.

2. Duel in the Dark (Z-Man Games)

Chris Trimmer and Brett Orr played Duel in the Dark. It is a new game by Z-Man games depicting the British night time bombing raids over Germany in World War II. A light wargame with Eurogame components. It looked interesting.

3. Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery (Tropical Games)

I played a 5-player game of Age of Empires III along with Mervyn Dejecacion, Mark Bausman, Mark Simonitch, and Mark Woodson. This was my second time playing this one and I enjoyed it again. Mervyn ended up schooling us all with a commanding first place finish at the end followed by Mark Woodson who made a large leap from the back of the pack in the final round. I finished third with Mark Simonitch and Mark Bausman taking 4th and 5th place.

I had intended to pursue a military strategy in the New World hoping to pick up at least one of the soldier producing buildings. Un-fortunately Mark Woodson managed to pick up both of them during the course of the game. He became the building, money leader, and a five-ship Privateer building owner. I expected him to jump out to first place during the final game scoring but I purchased the Navy building in the last turn stealing 20 VPs from him. I still stayed with my soldier strategy but had to acquire them on the Specialist track. After the Second Age scoring Mervyn was at 30 VP (Missionary Strategy), I was at 27 VP (Soldier Strategy), and the rest of the pack were down in the low teens or less. Mervyn had one of the Missionary buildings which helped him out quite a bit as he pulled away during the final round with a strong scoring for colonists. I just didn't have enough soldiers on the map, and in his areas, to contest his control. I believe I attacked at least one person every turn.

4. Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight Games)
The final group of four of Al Hay, Steve Gallob, Steve's friend (another first timer), and Emily Blanchett tried their hand at Arkham Horror. I believe the group succumbed to the Horrors of Arkham and lost.

Round Two Games
After the Age of Empires game ended we broke up into twos. Greg Blanchett showed Mark Simonitch his playtest game, Fall Blau, he is working on while Mark Woodson and Mark Bausman played EastFront one of their favorites.

Since Mervyn had only about an hour before he had to leave he and I played the Wizards & Lore Aquitaine, 1369 scenario from Battlelore. Each side had a level 1 Wizard in their war council and the sides forces contained only human units. Mervyn was the attacker, Sir Robert Knolles, and I defended, Sire Bertrand Du Guesclin. Both sides required six flags for the win. This was the first time Mervyn played but he owns Command and Colors: Ancients so was familar with the basic system. Sire Bertrand's forces won 6 flags to 2. After Mervyn left, Mark Simonitch and I played the same scenario this time with Mark taking the forces of Sir Robert Knolles. As with all card driven games especially this one you play where you can. Most of my card draws were in the center followed by the left side. Mark smashed my center while I killed his right flank (my left). The game stayed close with the final score 6 flags to 4 in my favor, but it could have gone the other way if I did not get my last flag in the center as I had two single man units on my left that he could have picked off during his follow up turn, if he had the cards to do so.

After the Arkham Horror game ended, Steve and Al played a game of Blue Moon. I just caught this out of the corner of my eye and don't know much about the game myself.

Gameday, Saturday, July 28th

Four friends were able to show up for gameday on Saturday.
Mark Bausman
Mervyn Dejecacion
Al Hay
Mark Simonitch

The following games where played.
1. Imperial - 5 players
Starting with control of the following nations
Mark Bausman - Austria-Hungary
John Boone - Italy
Mervyn Dejecacion - Britain and Russia
Al Hay - France
Mark Simonitch - Germany

Imperial is a game about money. The player with the most money, in bonds and cash, at the end of the game wins. Players represent financial investors that influence the running of the major European countries during the late 19th and early 20th century. Although all players start with a majority interest, in terms of bonds, of at least one country at the beginning of the game control can be taken away from the players during the course of the game.

The Map and Setup
The map is divided into both land and sea areas. Each nation is composed of 5 areas called home provinces. Each home province contains a city color coded to indicate which type of factory, armaments (brown)or shipyard (blue), that may be built in that province. There are an additional 15 land regions that do not belong to any of the player nations at game start and also 9 sea regions. Note the difference in terminology, provinces are land areas originally owned by one of the six nations; regions are land or sea areas that are neutral at game start. I will use area when taking about regions and provinces and region or province when being specific. At game start, players are randomly dealt a starting nation flag. Each nation starts with an armaments factory and a shipyard factory to place within their home provinces. On the back of each flag is listed the bonds a player must purchase to start the game with. All players start with a piece of their color in the center space of the circular track on the map called the Rondel and two additional markers in the lowest starting boxes on the Power Points and Tax Charts tables.

A game turn consists of individual player turns starting first with Austria-Hungary and proceeding in order through, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, and finally Russia. While Austria-Hungary starts first, the player on his/her left starts with possesion of the Investor Card. As mentioned earlier a person can lose control of their starting country and in fact have no country under their control and thus effectively no turn while another person may have two, three, or more countries, ie player turns.

As this is a game about money, control is measured by who has the most money invested in a country through the purchase of the countrys bonds. That player will decide, when it is the country's turn, what action that country will take on the Rondel.

The Rondel
At game start, all players start in the center of the Rondel. On the player's first turn they must decided which field to enter and take that as their first action. There after, on subsequent country turns, the controlling player must move the country piece clockwise around the Rondel from 1 to 6 fields and take that action for the country. A player can move the country's piece 1 to 3 fields for free but moving 4 to 6 fields cost $2 Million each. For example, it would cost $6 Million dollars to move 6 fields. There are six different fields on the Rondel representing the six different actions a player may perform in a turn.

The Maneuver field allows the player to move all of the active country's units. There are only two types of maneuver units in Imperial, Armies, and Fleets. Army units moving on land may move to an adjacent land area. Fleets moving from port or from another sea region may move to an adjacent sea region. Army units may also move by sea (convoy) to a land area if all sea regions along the path taken have a fleet of the same nationality of the army unit. During maneuver all fleets of the active nation are moved first, if desired, and then the armies are moved. Because of this orde,r a fleet may first move into a sea region and then an army may use that fleet for a convoy move. If a fleet moves into a sea region, or an army into a land region, that is not occupied by any other player nation the player may place one of his round tax chips in the sea or land region indicating ownership of that region. Players may never place tax chips in others nation's provinces. If a fleet or land unit enters an area occupied by other players units a battle may take place.

Battles are not mandatory. The active player first states if he wishes to battle one of the other players occupying the area. If the active player does not wish to battle the other inactive nations in the same area may choose to battle. If no battle is desired nothing happens and all units remain in the area. If a battle is chosen units of the two battling nations in the area are removed on a one for one exchange rate until no units of one or both sides remain. If only two nations occupied the area at the start of the battle and one nation has at least one unit remaining while the other nation does not at the end of the battle a tax chip, of the winning nation, is placed in the area. Land units that move into another nation's province, that contains a factory, must state whether they wish to deny use of that factory to the owning nation or remain peaceful. If the use of the factory is denied it may not be used for any action that requires the use or presence of a factory. Another nation's factory may be destroyed by three enemy armies occupying the factory province. An army in another nation's province may also deny use of the rail movement ability through that province. Rail movement is a special move that may be used by land units within it own home provinces. Rail movement allows a land unit to move anywhere within its home provinces. This rail move may be used before or after a normal land or convoy move in the same maneuver action.

The Factory field allows the player to build a factory, armaments or shipyard, in the active country for $5 Million. The correct factory must be built, ie brown city provinces may only have an armaments factory and blue city provinces may only have a shipyard factory. A factory provides two benefits. Each factory is worth $2 Million dollars during a Taxation action and factories are used to build armies and fleets during the Production action.

The Production field allows the player to produce one unit in each unoccupied (by an enemy army) factory space of the active nation. There is no monetary cost for this action. Army factories produce army units and naval factories produce naval units.

The Import field is another action that allows build up of a nations units. A maximum of 3 three units (armies or fleets in any combination) may be purchased and placed in the home province of the active nation. It costs $1 Million dollars per unit to perform this action. The purchased units may not be placed in enemy occupied home provinces and fleets are restricted to provinces with blue cities. The last two actions are probably the two most important ones in Imperial, Taxation and Investor.

The Taxation field allows taxing of the active nation to raise money for the nation, pay for its military, increase the country's value, and possibly pay a bonus to the player controlling it. Taxation is a thee step process. First each unoccupied (by enemy units) factory is worth $2 Million dollars and each tax chip is worth $1 Million dollars. The active nations marker is moved to the appropriate space on the Tax Chart. If the marker position moved up on the Tax Chart this difference is awarded to the controlling player, $1 Million dollars per space moved upward from the previous position, as a success bonus for running the country well. Secondly, all military units of the active unit must be paid, if possible, from the tax revenue raised. Each fleet or army costs $1 Million dollars. Any monies left over is added to the treasury of the active nation. Finally, the marker of the active nation on the Power Points track is moved a number of spaces indicated by the current position of the active nation on the Tax Chart. Movement upward on the Power Points track is very important for two reasons. First, the farther along the track a nation is the more it is worth during the end game scoring and two, the game ends immediately when the first nation occupies the 25 point space of the Power Points track. Maximizing the benefits of taxation requires building factories, increasing land and sea holdings, and having a small military at tax time.

The Investor field action consists of the following steps, paying interest to all bond holders of the active nation, activating the investor card, and activating all players who control no nation for investing. All nations who hold bonds from the active nation are paid interest on those bonds from the treasury of the active nation. If there is not enough money in the treasury the controlling player must make up the difference from his own treasury. If this is not possible the Investor action may not be chosen. After paying out interest, the holder of the Investor card is first paid $2 Million dollars from the bank and then may invest in any one nation by either taking a new bond or upgrading an existing bond by paying the difference in cost between the current bond and the new bond. Once the Investor is finish he passes the Investor card to the player on his left. Finally, each player who does not control a country is allowed to invest once. If during the active player's turn he does not land on the Investor field but passes over it he still triggers the ability of the Investor card and the investor ability of players with no control over a country.

The game continues until one country is advanced to the 25 point space of the Power Points track during a Taxation action. When this occurs the game ends immediately and proceeds to the end game scoring procedure.

End Game Scoring
Each player's victory point score is based on the interest value of each bond he holds multiplied by the country's factor on the Power Points track. To this sum is added the player's cash, in millions of dollars, in his personal treasury. The player with the highest total wins.

Our Game
In the beginning, Mark Bausman, starting with control of Austria, expanded his holdings into the region around the Black Sea. Italy moved into Eastern and Central North Africa with France landing in West North Africa. Mervyn, controlling Russia, expanded into Sweden and Denmark. As a first time player one needs to get over the fact that one might not hold a country for the whole game but one still has an affinity for their starting country and as Italy I felt threatened by Austria and France after they blocked me from expanding any further from my two holdings in North Africa. Austria, as my neighbor seemed to be the immediate threat so I built up units to protect against and later attack Austrian holdings near the Black Sea. Mark Bausman later took control of Russia from Mervyn making Italy more nervous but fortunately Mervyn took it back again . Mark Simonitch later took Austria from Mark Bausman leaving Mark Bausman a man without a country. In the end this seemed to work out as a viable strategy for Mark. I accidentally took control of Russia from Mervyn. Accidental in that I only wanted a large bond from Russia since it was so rich and wanted to cash in on its next payout but not really wanting control since Mervyn was handling it well and from my history with Italy I would probably ruin it. Germany temporarily expanded its control into Western Russia but Russia later re-established its border and took back territory Austria had taken in the Black Sea area. At this point, Mark Simonitch then took Russia from me and Mark Bausman and I controlled no countries while Mark Simonitch controlled three, Germany, Russia, and Austria. On my next chance to buy a bond I took back control of Russia. At some point, feeling Italy was cramped from Austria on one side and France on the other, I decided to attack France's holdings in North Africa with the intent to reduce my armies before taxation. On France's next turn with the Investor card Al stopped Italy's aggression by buying control of it. Italy did not do very well for the rest of the game, as if it was doing great before then under my control, as Al spent all his time trying to improve France's position making France very attractive. Mark Bausman spent a good portion of the game with no controlling interest in a country which allowed him to make frequent small bond purchases. Near the end he took control of Russia. Mervyn ended the game when he took control of France and advanced it to end the game. The final point tally is shown below in descending victory point order.

First off I have to say, html tables are a pain in the arse on Blogger. This is the third time I've tried to post these, finally having converted them to PNG files.







2. Age of Empires III: the Age of Discovery - 4 players
Mark Bausman - Score: 63
John Boone - Score: 105
Al Hay - Score: 59
Mark Simonitch - Score: 92

Between Imperial and Age of Empires III, as a first time player of both games, I felt this one was easier to grasp. Each player represents a group in Europe attempting to discover and explore, first the new world, and later other parts of the world not represented on the board. The game consists of three ages with scoring rounds at the end of each age on turns 3, 6, and 8.

Each turn, all players start with 5 colonists, plus any specialist gained from the previous turn, with which to conduct his actions for the turn. In turn order, each player will assign one unit to one of eight tracks/boxes, Initiative, Colonist Dock, Merchant Shipping, Trade Goods, Capital Buildings, Discovery, or Warfare. As you can see there are more choices than you have units so you have to weigh the benefits of performing some actions while foregoing others. The turn rotates through this stage until all units have been placed; you can't save units for the next turn. After all units have been assigned each box it resolved one at a time.

Initiative
There are 5 spaces on the Initiative track numbered in turn order 1 to 5. Players may chose to place a colonist on the lowest numbered unoccupied space on the initiative track to move up in turn order for the next turn. In addition players receive payment equal to the number of the space they occupy ie, space 1 gets to go 1st next turn and receives $1, space two is second and receives $2, etc.

Colonist Dock
The Colonist Dock contains spaces numbered 1 to 11 in addition to two spaces labeled X and Y. Spaces X and Y are in play when activated with the appropriate Capitial Building (Indentured Servitude and Colonization Laws Capital Buildings) along with numbered spaces up to 2 times the number of players minus 1. For example in a 4-player game, 7 numbered spaces would be available for colonists; spaces 8 to 11 are not in play. When the Colonist Dock is resolved the unit on space 1 is moved to any previously discovered colony, then space 2, and so on until all colonists/specialist have landed. There are 9 Colonies in the New World but at the beginning of the game only the Caribbean is open to colonization. All the other areas must first be "discovered" before colonists can be sent to them. Some specialist units have special abilities when they land. A Missionary generates a bonus colonist in the colony it just landed in. A Merchant generates $5 for its owner when it is placed in a colony. A Soldier can be used during the Warfare event in the colony it occupies. As Age I, II and III score for colonies the Colonist Dock is one of the more important Tracks in the game. This track won me the game as I was able to take an early lead during the Age I and II scoring rounds.

Merchant Shipping
The Merchant Shipping event box contains one ship figure which is replaced every turn. When resolved the player who contains the most points of colonists and specialist in this box wins use of the merchant ship for the rest of the game. Both the Captain and Merchant specialist units count as two colonists when placed in this box. Each Merchant ship that a player owns can be used as a "wild card" when building sets of trade goods for money and scoring in the final round. Some Capital Buildings also confer extra rewards per merchant ship owned. The Navy Capital Building awards 4 victory points per ship owned during final scoring and the Privateers Capital Building awards $1 per ship from the other players. In our game Mark Simonitch managed to collect 4 ships along with the Privateers Capital Building allowing him to gain an extra $12 for his piracy actions during the Income phase of the turn.

Trade Goods
At the start of the game and at the beginning of each new turn 4 Trade Goods are randomly drawn and placed near this track. When the Trade Goods event is resolved each player who has a colonist in a Trade Goods box gets to pick one of the available Trade Goods. The order of choice is from leftmost box to right. Building up sets of Trade Goods is one of the ways players generate income in the game to purchase Capital Buildings or train specialists. For any three Trade Goods a player receives $1. For a set of three matching Trade Goods one receives $3 and for a set of 4 matching Trade Goods one receives $6 dollars. As mentioned previously a merchant ship can be used to complete one set; it acts as a wild card. Having leftover money at the end of the game is usually not worth anything unless you also own the Wealth Capital Building which awards 1 victory point for every $5 you have at the end of the game. Other ways to generate income are by sending merchants to colonies via the Colonist Dock as already mentioned, successful discovery events and by purchase and use of some of the Capital Buildings listed below.

Conquest of the Inca Empire - One time gain of $20
Trading Post - $5 per turn Factory - $30 per turn
Privateers - $1 per ship per player
Taxation - $10 per turn
Rum Distillery - $3 per Sugar per turn

Capital Buildings
In every turn, there are 5 randomly drawn, from the pool for the current age, Capital Buildings chits. These are placed face up near the Capital Buildings track. During resolution of the Capital Buildings phase players who have placed a unit in one of the boxes has the opportunity to purchase one of the displayed Capital Buildings. Order is from left to right on the track. First Age buildings cost $10, Second Age cost $14, and Third Age cost $20.

Capital Buildings confer either some special ability, victory points at the end of the game, or money. Examples of special abilities include gaining an extra specialist type per turn, gaining a random trade good per turn, or moving colonists or soldiers between colonies. Which Capital Buildings you purchase can either help your preconceived game strategy or steer you toward one if you are not sure how to proceed.

I had purchased the Training Grounds Capital Building on the first turn which gives the player an extra soldier every turn. I think this let me gain an advantage early when I sent soldiers to colonies early in the First Age.

Discovery
The Discovery box is important as this is the only way new regions can be opened up for colonization. In turn order, players, if they have units in the Discovery Box, can send a group of units, from their units in the Discovery box, to explore one region that has not been "discovered" on the board. At the beginning of the game, the eight undiscovered regions in the new world have a discovery tile placed randomly on them. When a player choses to resolve a discovery in a region the tile is flipped and the number of natives on the tile is compared to the number of units sent on the discovery mission. If the number of natives (ranging from 1 to 5) is greater then the attempt has failed, the tile is returned face down to the region, and the player loses all units sent on that discovery (returned to the players force pool); otherwise it is successful, the player gets to place one colonist in the region, his units sent on the discovery are returned to his force pool, and the player is awarded money. The money awarded is a random base value on the chit and a bonus amount per soldier included in the discovery party. This is another good use for soldiers besides warfare. Soldiers can greatly increase the monetary value of a discovery. The newly discovered region is now open for colonization on the next turn for all players. Once all regions have been discovered on the board new discovery missions are drawn from the discovery card deck. These discoveries are more difficult as the number of natives range from 3 to 6 on the cards. Successful discovery chits/cards award the owning player victory points during the end of game scoring phase.

I had only attempted three discovery missions, all in the new world, during the game which awarded me 15 VPs at the end of the game.

Warfare
Warfare is the last event resolved. There are 4 boxes in the Warfare section of the board. Starting on the leftmost box and working to the right the player in the box can declare either a battle or a war. Battles, which cost no money, allow the player to attack one other player in a region where the player has at least one soldier. Soldiers kill off the enemy player's units on a one for one basis. If the defender also has soldiers in the region he then kills your units. A War costs $10 to declare but allows one player to attack one other player in all regions that both players occupy which contains soldiers of the attacking player. Since Warfare is resolved before scoring it allows a player to improve his scoring position in that region.

Al and I were the only players who started battles during the game and no one spent money to have a war with another player.

Scoring
In turns 3 and 6, players score for Colonies in the New World. A minimum of one player must have at least 3 colonists in a region to score with first place getting 6 points and second place getting 2 points. Ties for first get 2 points and ties for second score zero points. Three ways ties score zero points.

In the final round scoring, after the Third Age, players score for Colonies, Economy, Discoveries, and Capital Buildings. Colonies score as in the 1st and 2nd scoring rounds. Economy scores 1 point for each dollar gained for Trade Goods. Discovery chits/cards score the victory points listed on the chit/card. Capital Buildings score as stated on the respective Capital Building chit. Mark Simonitch came on strong in the the Third Age Scoring Round due to all his Capital Buildings but my First and Second Age score let me hold out for the win.

3. Mag Blast - 3 players
Cody Boone - Glorp
John Boone - Freep
Mark Simonitch - Alpha Mazons

We finished off the day with a game of Mag Blast. I got revenge on Cody from our first playing by taking out his Glorp Empire and then on the next turn took out the Alpha Mazons with a lucky draw of a direct hit card and catastrophic damage cards which Mark could not negate through his open green zone.

Gaming this weekend

Whew! A lot of gaming this weekend.

On Saturday at the North Texas Wargamers monthly meet for June we had a good group of players show up, sixteen I believe.

The following games were played:
1. EastFront II
2. Twilight Struggle
3. Imperial
4. Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery
5. War of the Ring
6. Command and Colors: Ancients

Greg Blanchett posted a few pictures on ConsimWorld,
Greg's Pictures.

I played a 4-player game of War of the Ring, Random drawing of sides resulted with Alan and Curtis as the Fellowship and Nevin and I as the Shadow.
The nations divided up thus:
Gondor and Elves: Alan Richbourg
Rohan, Northmen, and Dwarves: Curtis Kitchens
Saruman, Easterlings, and Southrons: John Boone
Witch King and Sauron Nation: Nevin Ball

In the multi-player game the players on each side take turns as the first player. In the case of the Fellowship, first player decides if the Fellowship declares. In the case of the Shadow, the first player decides how many die go into the Hunt box. In both cases they get the first action for that side. Musters were few in the initial turns so the Witch King didn't come out until turn 2 and Saruman made his appearance in turn 3. The Fellowship moved pretty well during the first few turns avoiding detection until they hit the 5th position on the Fellowship track. Not wanting to have to draw another hunt tile the Fellowship took the North Pass route. The Fellowship would never move very far from that point on chosing to split the Fellowship leaving Frodo, Sam, and Pippin? as leader.

Minas Tirith came under siege first but put up a good fight against the might of the Witch King and his dark minions. It was actually pretty close after the Grond Event failed to take Minas Tirith and reinforcements had to be called in for the dark lord to continue his siege. The Easterlings reinforced (Horde from the East Event card) their army up North and began their march for the DEW (Dale, Erebor, Woodland Realm) line while down south the Southron armies headed for Umbar planning to sail for Dol Amroth.

After the Southrons voyage from Umbar to siege Dol Amroth left Umbar bare and Moria was still lightly garrisoned the Fellowship, Alan, decided it would be a good idea to go on the offensive and attempt a military victory. Most of the companions separated from the Fellowship and joined the army from Lorien marching on Moria with Gandalf the White leading. About the same time Boromir and Strider made their way into the besieged Minas Tirith with the We Prove the Swifter event card where he was crowned king but his reign would not last long.

In my own attempts toward a Fellowship military victory it usually fails if you can not acheive it in one turn so as not to give the Shadow, who has superior action dice numbers, to react. Such was the case again when Umbar, with one lone besieged Southron survivor was relieved by a Dark Army near Minas Tirith. Moria fell to the Fellowship but it was not enough for victory.

The Shadow then kicked it into gear finishing off Minas Tirith, where Boromir and Aragorn fell, and captured, Dol Amroth, Pelargir, Dale, The Woodland Realm, and Lorien for the Shadow military victory.

Where were the armies of Rohan and Orthanc? They spent the game staring at each other building up forces. Rohan was pinned protecting its own land from an attack from Orthanc and did not help Gondor. If the horse had come to Gondor's aid it could have possibly turned the battle for Gondor during the early stages. The Dwarves too were quiet, never getting to war, while watching their neighbors in the DEW line be conquered.

Nevin then came to my house and we played a 3-player game of Drakon with my son. We made the biggest dungeon map yet in all the games we have played so far. It contained very little gold and a lot of sneaky traps. My Drakon winning streak continued to 5 games.

Lastly, we then played a 3-player scenario I created for Federation Commander: Romulan Border. Taking inspiration from the original series show "Arena", it was two Federation players vs the Gorn player. Nevin commanded the outpost, a Federation Commander Mobile Base, on Cestus III along with an orbiting Fed Frigate.

Cody played Capt. Kirk in the Federation Cruiser coming in to give aid, and I was the Gorn Cruiser protecting Gorn space from the invaders.

Both the Frigate and Outpost started with their shields down and no weapons armed. Nevin could not raise his shields until either I fired on his units or he detected me with his sensors.

Cody was limited to a speed of 8, warp 2, until either of the previous conditions for Nevin were met simulating the distress call. The Gorn cruiser had all plasma torpedoes (4 of them, two S-type and two F-type) fully armed.

On the approach, Nevin picked up my ship before I got to fire on him so his shields were raised when I launched my torpedoes and fired off my 4 phaser salvo at his base at the end of turn 1. The base fired what phasers could be brought to bear on two of my strongest torpedoes in order to lessen their effect when they hit next turn. The frigate moved off and hid on the other side of the planet at this time. At the beginning of turn 2, all players began charging their mult-turn arming weapons (Photons and Plasmas). Impulse one of turn 2 started off with a bang as 4 plasma torpedoes slammed into a single shield of the outpost causing heavy damage.

On turn 2 the Gorn ship turned toward the Fed CA while firing off a phaser barrage from the port side to finish off the outpost. There were no survivors. Nevin's FF vowed revenged and turned back to pursue the Gorn. Turn two ended with some plinking phaser shots between the combatants with no real damage and the launching of missiles against the Gorn ship. Fortunately I had one phaser left to take out the missile from Nevin's frigate. If it has hit I would have taken 12 points of damage to my front shield. The Federation Photon torpedoes would be fully charged at the start of turn 3. Plasmas normally require three turns to charge but the bigger tubes can fast load an F-type torpedo in two turns by paying more energy. I decided to do this with my two S-type torpedo tubes. Otherwise I would have to spend turn three running from two angry Federation ships with possibly overloaded photon torpedoes while my heavy weapons were still charging.

Turn 3 started off with the FF and Gorn CA in close proximity with Cody's cruiser in hot pursuit. Phaser shots were traded at some point and then I managed to get into position where I launched two plasmas at range 1. Since Nevin's phasers on that side had already fired this turn they hit doing a full 40 points of damage. The frigate was gutted. Only his two photon tubes remained for weapons and his power systems were down to around 3 points.He returned fire with both photons, one which was overloaded to +4 level. The overloaded one hit doing 12 points of damage to my shield. At this point I turned and ran as Cody still had all photons ready and some one had launched another drone missile at me. Turn three ended up with both Fed ships and lone drone chasing after the fleeing Gorn ship. At this point we decided to stop the game as the victory conditions I had made it impossible for the Federation to win. I have to do some work on this scenario.

On Sunday, Nevin came over again. We started off with Battlelore, Call to Arms expansion,

and then played an Epic Battlelore game.

Nevin won both of these contests. The first one was close but Nevin's forces really killed me in Epic Battlelore, 7 to 2 flags! Nevin had the Hill Giant but he never was a factor in the battle. One lone red unit on Nevin's side accounted for about 5 of his flags.

He was awesome and I could never kill it causing it to retreat about three times never able to get that last hit needed to finish it off. Finally on the third game we played a single map Battlelore scenario, standard Battlelore with lore using the full war council.

I finally won one.



While Nevin read the rules to Mag Blast, Cody and I played the same Battlelore scenario Nevin and I just finished. This one ended up being a mad melee in the middle section as both forces were mixed up pretty good. A couple of times I moved units and declared combat on my own forces. Dad triumphed over son in this one.

We finish the night with a game of Mag Blast. A game Nevin picked up on his way to my house, along with Epic Battlelore. We really liked this one, especially Cody when he whipped up on us with his Recyclon Empire. Long live the Glorp Empire. We shall rise again from the ashes of our defeat!

North Texas Wargamers Gameday

The North Texas Wargamers had our monthly gameday this Saturday and we had a decent turn out, twelve players by my count. I forgot the camera at home so no pictures this time.

Initial Games Played:
1. Successors III Playtest:
John Boone - Perdicus/Antigonus
Mark Simonitch - Lysimachus/Leonnatus
Nevin Ball - Craterus/Ptolemy
Chris Trimmer - Antipater/Peithon (first time to play)
Another good game. As always turn 1 had all players grabbing up spaces to establish their zones of influence. On my last card play I activated Olympias and moved her down into Crete out of the Chris Trimmer sphere of influence. At the end of turn 1, Nevin was the VP leader and I was the Legitimacy leader.

As is usual in turn 2, the remaining areas are tougher to take; usually being garrisoned by independents, requiring sieges, or fought over by two or three neighboring players. Chris concentrated on trying to add Greece to his holdings but didn't have much success while the other players in Asia tried to position their generals to protect what they got from turn one and threaten to take more from the other players. The north eastern mediterranean coastal provinces changed hands many times in turn 2 between Mark, Nevin, and I. At the end of the turn the VP totals were more even but I ended up being the low man with a good chance to bury Alexander in Pella early in turn 3 if not contested.

This one ended at the beginning of turn 3. I chose myself to go first (lowest VPs) and was two spaces from Pella with Alexander's body guarded by 16CUs (~24 Strength points) and no one with enough strength to oppose my burial for the legitimacy win. Nevin was making a great run for the VP win when he first defeated Lysimachus sending him to the Dispersed box. That enticed me to pounce on Nevin which opened up the way to Pella. Some of the changes we played with this time was 1) Naval interceptions counted as attacks for losing your Champion status and 2) Mark changed the range limit for using CUs in Naval battles. This is a new rule he added since our last game.

In an earlier post on Successors III changes I mentioned a change on the map. Mark was gracious enough to provide a JPEG of the changes for posting.
1. The transit point in Macedonia has been changed to a minor city, Chalcidice.
2. The sea route has been removed from Pella.
3. Aetolia is now part of Greece. There is a new event card for Aetolia also.
4. Greece is now worth 6 victory points because of #3 above.
5. Thessaly is now worth 2 victory points.

2. EastFront:
Mark Woodson
Walter (the new guy)
This was the first time Walter showed up after finding us on Consimworld. Welcome aboard Walter!

3. Blood Bowl:
Troy Adlington
Jim Carrol
I've never played this one, but the board and components looked very nice.

4. Combat Commander, Europe (3x):
Ken Gutermuth
Brian Marrs - Brian's After Action Reports.
This is a game I like playing too but haven't played it in about a month or more. I must remedy this soon.

5. A Victory Lost:
Greg Blanchett - Greg's view of the battle.
Greg's daughter
I wish my daughter would play wargames with me. This was one of the games Nevin, Mervyn, and I played at BGG Con 2006.

Follow up games played:
6. Wings of War with Nevin's Minis:
Team Germany
John Boone - D.Va Albatross
Chris Trimmer - DR-1
Team Allies
Mark Simonitch - Spad XIII
Nevin Ball - Sopwith Camel
Nevin was the first to be shot down and then it took a little while longer for Chris and I to down Mark. Chris did an admirable job keeping on Marks tail toward the end. Mark drew a lot of low damage cards but finally fell prey to an explosion card from a burst from my Albatross. This is a fun little game to finish off a day of gaming.

7. Age of Empires III:
Troy Adlington
Jim Carrol
Chris Trimmer

8. Drakon (3x)
John Boone
Mark Simonitch
Nevin Ball
Brian Marrs
This is a nice little filler game when you want to wind down from playing the heavies. Mark won the first game and then Brian took the last two.