Vikings and Germans and Brits, Oh my!

Nevin came over on Sunday, 5/18, and we played his copy of Fire and Axe: A Viking Saga. Something is just not right with a Viking game when the winner, Nevin, is the Viking player who does more settling and trading than raiding! And you call yourself a Viking!

Nevin came in first with 200+ something points; I squeaked by Cody for second place by 1 point with 184 points to his 183. Both Nevin and Cody did more of the trading/settling actions while I concentrated on trading and raiding. I really thought Cody was doing well as he was the king of completing Sagas. Mid-game it looked like he had 6-7 Sagas to my 2 and Nevin's 2-3. I successfully raided 9 of the 12? towns on the map including both Paris(8VP) and Constantinople(12VP) but Nevin cashed in on Rome for 20VP with a Rune card that doubled its VPs. As far as settling, my son, Cody concentrated on the North West part of the map while Nevin controlled the North East map section. I had a toe hold in South Britain but Nevin eventually stole two of my settlements in England through Rune card play. At game end, I had a mere 3 settlements. In the end, it just didn't seem like it was worth pursuing a raiding heavy strategy but I had fun. Aand it was in true Viking spirit!

As always, after a first playing I like to go through the rulebook and see what we played wrong. Unfortunately, the rulebook is not available for download so I had to settle for the various rules summaries available on Boardgamegeek. Some of the items I noticed are as follows:
1. When you return to the Wintering space, your ship can only keep 1 crewman. All other crewman and goods must be removed from the ship.
2. I'm thinking you may only play Runes during your turn.
3. Plus, Runes may not be played while your ship is in one of the home ports.
4. The Difficult Sailing penalties must be assessed at the end of each days movement, not at the end of the total move.
5. A player may not settle a port in a region until the town in that region has been successfully raided.

On Saturday, 5/17, Mervyn and I played "A Veritable Bloodbath" scenario from Combat Commander: Mediterranean. My Brits were on the attack against Mervyn's Germans (conscripts and Volksgrenadiers with wire and trenches defending a few buildings) It came down to whether or not Merv could make the the Sudden Death die roll, end the scenario and win by VPs. He had two chances (he had the initiative card) but missed both rolls and on my first card play of the next turn my British advanced into melee against a lone German squad and eliminated him for the Surrender win. The only thing that kept me in the game was the damage I was doing with my Heavy Machine Gun on my left flank. I believe it accounted for 5 of the 6 casualties I needed for the Surrender win.

We then played a quick game of Wings of War: Dawn of War. This is the WWII version, with a German and Italian plane (me) against Merv's Spitfire and Hurricane. The Spitfire, especially the naval version can put out some firepower. I decided I was going to keep my planes together and gang up on one of Merv's planes. Merv had the same idea but his formation split after the first pass so I was able to concentrate both planes firepower on one if his and shot it down with 22 damage points.

Combat Commander: Battle Pack 1, Paratrooper, Sunday 1/6/2008

My son and I tried out one of the scenarios from Battle Pack 1: Paratroopers the first scenario pack for Combat Commander: Europe. By the title of the scenario pack you can correctly assume all scenarios have paratroopers on at least one side and some have them on both sides. The pack includes two new double sided maps and 11 new scenarios.

I forget which scenario number it was but its title was "We Go!". It pitted the American 102nd airborne vs the Germans at St. Mere Eglise, France, 6 June 1944. The German forces set up first protecting three victory point objectives on the map. Two objectives were fairly close together, a single-hex (3VPs) and a double-hex building (4VPs) in the middle of the map and then a forest hex (5VPs) that sat along side a road intersection leading into the town. Once the Germans were set up the Americans parachute onto random hexes on the map. If they landed on, adjacent, or within line of sight of any Germans they landed on their broken side. Since the scenarios starts at night both sides were limited to two orders per turn. On time 3 the Americans get to increase their orders/turn to 3. On time 2 the Germans get reinforcements consisting of one squad, a leader, and a light machine gun (LMG). Additionally, at the beginning of the scenario, time 0, the Germans can not move until time 1.

Cody's airborne troops landed all over the map with three squads and a leader landing broken but were rallied on his first turn.

What's all this time 0, time 1, etc stuff? Combat Commander(CC) keeps track of time in a different manner than other tactical wargames or most wargames in general. Usually time is divided up into discrete turns such that one turn representing a discrete interval of time passing in the game world. A turn can be either one side completing its actions or both sides completing their actions according to the sequence of play. In CC the amount of time that has passed between activities (orders/actions) is variable and is controlled by the "Fate" card decks of both players. If a player draws all the cards in his Fate Deck a Time Event occurs. One of the things that happens is the time marker is advanced one space on the Time Track, ie from time 0 to time 1. There are also Time Events associated with some of the Fate Cards. If one of those Fate Cards is drawn while resolving a die roll a Time Event occurs. Each scenario will list when the scenario may end, when and if reinforcements come into play, etc according to the Time Track, ie the Allies get reinforcements on time 3.

Back to the action.
Cody had the first turn and a Recover Order in his hand so all his elite units that landed adjacent to the Germans rallied easily and all were flipped back over to their good order side. Rats! no easy pickings for me on my first turn. In CC units must be effectively broken twice before they are eliminated under normal fire attacks so it requires at least two Fire Orders to eliminate a unit. Cody's best leader Lt Wray was activated for movement and headed in the general direction of building 2J8, map 2 hex J8, in the area where most of his squads had dropped. Cody's other leader was all by himself in the fields of 2B10; he would not activate him for movement until a few turns later. In my first turn the squad/LMG and leader in building 2D3 fired on the squad in 2E4 for no effect. The Time Marker stayed on time 0 for quite a few turns so all the Germans could do was conduct Fire Orders on the Americans, when it was possible, while Cody slowly organized his dispersed squads around Lt Wray.

Once Lt Wray organized his forces the Americans became unstoppable. The US units have great morale even when broken. I ambushed one of Cody's squads and he still managed to kill my guys in Melee. I had one squad left when the Germans finally lost do to reaching their surrender level. The Germans managed to kill three US squads but two of them came back on the board do to the "Walking Wounded" event coming up twice for Cody. The US forces managed to take all of the VP spaces and the lone German took back the Woods VP space before they surrendered.

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.