Saturday, June 15, 2008: Successors III Playtest and a little bit of Fury of Dracula

Mark Simonitch has been putting the final touches on Successors III which is expected to come out this summer (July according to Mark, I think). I hosted the final playtest at my house on Saturday. To feed the brave army commanders, Nevin Ball, Mervyn Dejecacion, Mark Simonitch, and myself we had a Chick-fil-A chicken wrap platter, a chicken nugget platter, M&Ms, Chips, Pretzels, bottled water, sodas, tea, and beer.

We played the first two turns taking notes as this would be the example of play in the Successors III rulebook. Nevin provided some great combat examples illustrating how one's fortune can turn with the roll of a die and the play of an event card in two separate battles! Way to go Nevin!

We then played a few turns of Fury of Dracula. Since I and Mervyn had not played it in a while and Nevin and Mark had not played it at all we stumbled through the turns and decided to quit while we were ahead. I did manage, as Dracula, to move such that I had no legal move at one point! I thought we had broke the game, but later found out, after re-reading the rules, that there is a rule that covers that, the "cheating rule".

What is this cheating rule you ask? In the rulebook on page 13:

Crossing His Own Trail
In the unlikely event that
Dracula maneuvers himself into a position
where he has no legal move, he is punished as
though he were caught cheating (see
“Cheating,” on page 25) and then takes his
turn as normal (assuming he didn’t lose the
game).

And then the cheating rule itself on page 25:

Cheating
Hopefully, the Dracula player will never cheat
on purpose. But if he makes a move and later
finds out that he accidentally moved along a
rail route or made a similarly illegal move, it’s
important to undo the damage and get the
game underway again. However, Dracula also
needs to suffer a penalty to make up for the
Hunters’ lost time. We suggest the following
penalty for a Dracula player who catches himself
(or is caught) cheating. Although it may
seem severe, the hope is that the Dracula player
will quickly learn to be more careful in the
future.
• Dracula immediately clears his Trail down
to one card and reveals his current location.
• Additionally, Dracula loses Blood as
though he had just suffered a “Killed”
result in combat. However, if this would
reduce him to 0 Blood, it only reduces
him to 1 Blood instead.

I would still like to give this game another go in the future.

Antike

Back in April I briefly mentioned we had played a couple of games of Antike. And as always here is my late list of things we played wrong during the game.

It appears that we did not play the movement and combat portion of Antike correctly after reading the rules and looking at some conquest combat examples on BGG. Some of the things I caught:
1. There are two phases to a Maneuver on the Rondel, a Movement Action and a Conquest Action. Each one requires a movement "point" to conduct. During Movement Actions you can move units but then you may also battle enemy units (Legions and Galleys) in the region you just moved into. These movement/battles are not simultaneous so you could clear a region of enemy units first to allow further movement through that region with other units in the same Maneuver action. Secondly you may conduct a Conquest Action following the Movement Action. This is how you convert enemy cities. This is important as in the beginning, before anyone has purchased Wheel, Roads, Sailing, and Navigation, it would take you two Maneuvers to convert an enemy city; the first one to move into it and battle any enemy units and then the second maneuver to conquer the city itself provided you had any survivors and sufficient strength! This makes researching the bonus movement type Know-Hows very important!

2. When not trying to Conquer an enemy city (during the Conquest Action of the Maneuver), ie battles after Movement - Legions only eliminate Legions and Galleys only eliminate Galleys. This is another important subtle distinction especially for coastal cities. For example, if an enemy city is occupied by both Legions and Galleys (only possible in coastal regions) and you move a fleet of Galleys into the region the subsequent battle will only eliminate enemy Galleys and leave all Legions unaffected. Provided you had any Galleys remaining from the battle and suffcient strength you could then conquer the city during a later Maneuver or during this Maneuver provided you had movement points left over for your surviving Galleys. When doing a Conquest Action, the restriction of "Galleys eliminate Galleys" and "Legions eliminate Legions" doesn't apply.

3. I don't think we violated this one but it could have come up. Legions may not be built in regions that are completly bordered in blue, ie Islands. At first thought one may think I would never do that since they would not be able to leave the island (Galleys don't transport Legions in the game) but you may do it to add more defenders to an island especially if all your Galleys have been built and are on the map elsewhere.

That's about it but these little rules discoveries just made the Maneuver portion of the game a little bit more interesting.

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.

Unplayed Games - the Short List

Mervyn had posted on Consimworld the question of how many unplayed games do you have in your collection? Most of the responses were quite a lot some over 100 games. I looked at my games I have registered on Boardgamegeek and my list, not counting old Strategy & Tactics/Ares Magazine games was 30 games. After removing the ones I probably would never play I came up with the short list of ten games I may play separated by how long I've owned them.

Recent to 2yrs:
FAB:Bulge
Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal
Federation Commander: Romulan Border
Sword of Rome: 5th player expansion

2-8yrs:
Savannah(GMT)
Age of Napoleon(Phalanx)
Grant Takes Command(MMP)
Breakout Normandy(AH)
Monty's Gamble: Market Garden(MMP)

8+ yrs:
the Civil War(VG)

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.

Bonaparte at Marengo: Ladder Round 9, 4/21/2008

In Round 9 of the BaM Ladder Nick Avtges accepted my bid for the French at Morale 16. I have played as the Austrians 5 times before on the Ladder but this would be only my third play as the French. The game ended at the end of the French turn 14 with the Austrians resigning after thinking there was not enough time left to either capture two victory locations or demoralize the French.

French At Start:
Ladder Game 9 had me with the French this time at 16 morale. The initial French deployment had two of the French cavalry camped out in the rear areas in locales 23 and 64. The third cavalry unit was in Marengo.



French 6 AM End:
The Austrians need to push hard from the very beginning in order to have a chance to win. Seeing that I had only 1 French cavalry unit up front I figured it would be best to try to delay the Austrian push so I could start moving my other cavalry units forward by attacking into locale 2 with my lone cavalry unit in Marengo.



French 8 AM Start - Pretty Horsies All In a Row:
I didn't delay them much and my straggler cavalry units are still sound asleep. Nick pushed forward with 5 calvary units all along the Fontanone. This was the first time I had seen this and the French were worried about a quick Austrian breakout.



French 9 AM - the Battle of Marengo:
The French pulled back from the Fontanone except in locale 9, while the straggling cavalry began to move forward. The Austrians advanced across the river with 4 of their cavalry units with two going into Marengo. I believe this was one of the most important turns as the French infantry unit cleared the Austrian cavalry from Marengo with an assault. The lone French infantry would hold Marengo for quite some time afterwards.



French Noon Start - Austrian Bulge:
The French cavalry have finally made it to the front lines, or is it that the front lines finally made it to the cavalry. It looks like the cowboys (French cav) are herding the cows (Austrians) down the middle. I like the fact the Austrians are pushing down the middle as it takes up a lot of command points but I don't like the fact that there are only single units forming the line for the French. The saving grace is that they are cavalry.
ps. The Austrian guns have not fired in the game yet.



French 1 PM End - Expanding the Bulge:
I finally had a couple of spare commands to pull the infantry back into reserve in locale 9. Hopefully they can catch up with their bretheren. French fall back slowly, what else can they do?



French 4 PM Start - The Final French Fade Begins:
Up to this point I was trying to hold as much as possible and the line had stabilized by 4 PM. At this time, with reinforcements coming in the next two hours, I think it is time for the French to head for the hills.



French 5 PM Start - Austrian Cavalry Machine:
Down south Nick has set up his Cavalry Steam Roller. In the remaining turns all I can do is block, fallback, and retreat with my cavalry unit down south. I looks like I'll be giving up a blue start location. Hopefully I can hold the other two. It has been quiet up on the North road so far but I can see an end around coming up if I don't get more troops up there. At this point I'm unsure about where I want to send my artillery unit so he camps out in locale 63.



French 6 PM End:
I decide to give up the south end of the map and send all my 3 strength infantry units up North to help cover the green and red stars.



French 7 PM End: - the Austrians Resign:
At this point, Nick resigns seeing that he doesn't have enough commands and time left.



Another enjoyable game for me. As always different from all the other games I've played. The 5 cavalry line was quite a surprise and shock and I look forward to using it myself in the future.

Shifting Sands - Sonnenblume Scenario

Greg Denysenko decided to resign after my first card play of turn 8 in our Shifting Sands, Sonnenblume Scenario cyberboard game. Rommel flank attacked (automatically successful do to the event card) a reduced Common Wealth division and battle group from El Agheila completely eliminating both units and then advanced into an empty Tobruk. Greg then resigned as he didn't think his hand would support gaining enough VPs by the turn end for an Allied victory. Never did I feel, as the Axis, that victory was a sure thing as I felt the Allies had plenty of units to cause grief for the Axis every where. I almost didn't open up the Middle East but was too tempted by the VPs available there and I thought that the Italians would not survive long in East Africa.

More Reading

It was back in August of last year when I started reading the Honor Harrington series of novels by David Weber. Good books if you like military sci-fi. Right now I started reading War of Honor after starting back at the first of the series and reading On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, The Short Victorious War, Field of Dishonor, Flag in Exile, Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory, and Worlds of Honor (three short stories based in the Honorverse).

Wow, I didn't realize how many I've read since August until I wrote them down.

February 2, 2008: 4-player Starcraft: The Boardgame

This saturday, Mark Bausman hosted a 4-player game of StarCraft: The Boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games. A random draw allotted the factions and turn order thus.

Queen of Blades (Zerg) : Tarsonis : Mark Woodson
Arcturus Mengsk (Terran): Antiga Prime : John Boone
Jim Raynor (Terran) : Bhekor Ro : Mervyn Dejecacion
Tassadar (Protoss) : Dylar IV : Mark Bausman

Antiga Prime, Home world of the Terran Arcturus Mengsk Faction:
[Admiral, Naval Intelligence, (ANI)]"What will we do my Lord? The latest intel briefing confirm the Tassadar are on Dylar IV in strength."

Arcturus Mengsk sat in his personal booth at his favorite restaurant. He had finished his meal when the ANI joined him and had just finished reading the fortune in his cookie - You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course. How appropriate Arcturus Mengsk thought but then he realized these things were always written generic enough to apply to anyone and a brief smile crossed his lips at the Admiral's question.

[Arcturus Mengsk, (AM)] "What we have always done - survived. We will prepare our defenses and defend our home world as we always have. What is the latest intel on the Zerg on Tarsonis?"
[ANI] "My Lord, the latest intel confirms the Queen of Blades is expanding toward Helios. Raynor is also on Helios."

[AM] "Raynor! Has that been confirmed?"

[ANI] "Yes my Lord."

[AM] "Good. That may be to our advantage. Let them fight each other for a change. Does the Committee agree with my view of staying out of Helios?"

[ANI] "The Joint Chiefs do but the Production Ministry says we need to expand. If the Tassadar are on Dylar, and it seems that they are, we will need to expand our production for defense but we are limited by the cystal resources we currently have. Gas will not be a problem until we start ramping up production on our heavy units."

[AM] "I realize that but sticking our noses in Helios is asking for too much trouble. I don't want the Zerg and Raynor on our backs along with the Protoss. No, I want to stay out of Helios for now. Besides if Raynor and the Queen of Blades are both on Helios we should be able to go into Braken unopposed."

[ANI] "Yes my Lord, but Helios would definitely help out with our resource shortages and allow us access to Bhekar Ro, Pride Water, and eventually Abaddon."

[AM] "A true statement and the benefits are tempting but just don't outweigh the risks right now. Have patience Admiral. Once Raynor and the Queen have depleted each other's forces on Helios we can "liberate" the system. Besides Tassadar may clean up Helios for us and if he does Dylar IV may open up for our "liberation" forces. I've made my decision. I'll tell the Committee we stay out of Helios - For now. I'll inform the Production Ministry to start transitioning to a war status at the next Committee meeting. I want our Marine and Firebat forces as close to 100% operational as soon as possible."

[ANI] "As you wish my Lord."

Antiga Prime, Palace of the Capital, Committe Meeting Room (Mid-Game):
[AM] "Status of the Fleet deployments?"

[Admiral, Joint Chief of Fleets (JCF)] "My Lord, we have not opened any transport routes to Tarsonis, Helios, or Dylar IV and the enemy has not been detected in any of the routes between those planets and Antiga Prime or Braken for that matter. Fleet transports have been reinforcing Braken routinely and we have enough reserve capacity to bring back ground forces from Braken to the the Capital if the need arises."

[AM] "Secretary of Production, what about our manpower and equipment levels?"

[Secretary of Production, Production Ministry (SPM)] "My Lord, our factories are at 80% production levels but we are limited by our work force and crystal resources. Even so our isolationist policy has given us time to attain and maintain light ground forces readiness levels at 100%. Wraith levels are now at 66% readiness."

[AM] "And status of heavy ground forces?"

[SPM] "With our crystal shortage we are at our limit just keeping the light ground forces at 100%. As you know we still have only one Ghost Battalion. Work on converting the civilian factories to military use has been delayed and the starport is still only able to produce Wraiths. Landing on Dylar would help out a great.."

[AM] "That is enough Production Minister! We are not landing on Dylar! You will have to do the best you can with what we have on Braken and Antiga Prime!

[ANI] "But Lord Mengsk, the latest intel reports confirm the Protoss have only two battalions of Zealots on Dylar IV now. If you strike now the JCF assures us of a victory!"

[AM] "And did they forget about Helios? Didn't the JCF predict Raynor and the Zerg would annihilate each other on Helios 6 months ago? Tell me Admiral the latest intel on Helios?"

[ANI] "Regrettably my Lord the Queen of Blades and Raynor seem to be happy to share the planet. There were a few skirmishes at first but they are both in force on the planet now and seem happy to maintain the status quo. Raynor is also reported to have landed on Pridewater but the initial reports have not yet been confirmed. If he is there then Raynor's economy would be very strong."

[AM] "Isn't Tassadar on Pridewater?" What does this guy have on the Queen and Tassadar that they let him run wild all over this sector? The Zergs and the Protoss should be eating him for lunch!"

[JCF] "It seems he has been very good at the negotiating table my Lord. There have been a few battles between Raynor and the Zerg and Raynor and Protoss but not any full scale war. Regretable indeed my Lord."

At this time the Queen of Blades is leading Arcturus Mengsk by 1VP with Tassadar third and Raynor last. The Zerg have satisfied their special victory conditions as have Arcturus Mengsk. Raynor needs one more territory and the Tassadar are far from satisfying their special conditions.

Antiga Prime, Palace of the Capital, Committe Meeting Room (Near End-Game):
[ANI] "The Zerg and Protoss are fighting on Abaddon and there were reports of fighting on Pridewater but the current troop deployments are uncertain. Raynor has finally been confirmed to be on Dylar IV and I'm afraid that suggests they have some type of alliance. Additionally, space sensor command confirm enemy activity on the space routes from both Helios and Dylar IV"

[AM] "Very well. I hope someone here has good news."

[JCF] "If I may interrupt the ANI, I do have some good news my Lord. The final tests were completed last week and the Admiralty and I both concur that the space defense system is ready to be activated for full operational status."

[AM] "That is good news. I don't like the fact Raynor is still on Helios in force and now on Dylar with the Protoss. Something is cooking and I don't like the smell of it."

[SPM] "My Lord, the Wraith fleet is also at 100% operational status but one of your Wraith battalions is on Braken."

[AM] "JCF I want to be able to recall that Wraith battalion immediately if need be and I want to open up the transport routes to both Helios and Dylar IV just in case we see an opening for attack into those systems."

[JCF] "Yes my Lord."

The End Game
Both Jim Raynor and the Tassadar stacked orders (presumably mobilize) on Antiga Prime so I placed two mobilize and a research order on Antiga Prime waiting for the inevitable attack. Jim Raynor did attack Antiga Prime destroying a Marine and Firebat (with ground splash damage) but the Wraith survived. I had a mobilize order on Antiga Prime but decided to pass and draw an Event card trying to get to the Third Stage and was successful. Tassadar had a mobilize order on Antiga Prime but only two Zealots that could land on the planet so would be unable to defeat my Wraiths. Arcturus Mengsk won the game by completing his special victory conditions at the third stage. The Queen of Blades lost her third VP space during the fighting on Abaddon and Jim Raynor lost resources earlier on Pridewater.

This was the second time in a row Arcturus Mengsk won with its special victory conditions. If the other players are not careful I think this faction has the easiest chance of victory in a multi-player game. I had the rather boring, military wise, strategy of arquiring one more planet adjacent to my starting planet then building up on both of them and not going anywhere else. The last three turns my four orders were a build order and a mobilization order on both connected planets. That allowed me to build then counter attack if one of my planets was invaded.

Incidentally the fortune cookie was real. Mark Woodson was eating Chinese food when I arrived and he gave me his cookie. That was the fortune inside it.

Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 - Battles of the Third Age, Rohan Battle

Before Meryvn came over for our Conquest of Paradise game Nevin and I played the Rohan Battle scenario from War of the Ring: Battles of the Third Age. Nevin took command of Saruman's forces and I took Rohan. The game went to position 12 or 13 of the Fate Track when Saruman cried uncle after his forces attempting to take Helm's Deep were decimated by the Ents storming out of Derndingle (Fangorn) and then regrouping in the Deeping Coomb forming a defensive barrier to future Shadow attacks. Before the Ent attack the Shadow forces were making good progress first eliminating Eomer and his forces on their way to Helm's Deep and overrunning the forces in the Fords of Isen and the East Fords. Theoden appeared in Edoras and Aragorn in the East Entwade both prepared to march to relieve the siege of Helm's Deep before the Ents appeared.

Posts on Boardgamegeek say that the Rohan player has little chance if the Saruman player chooses the third position exclusively, The Pits, on Shadow Box after the first few turns. I'd like to play this one again to test this out.