Meeples & Miniatures Podcast – Episode #31

After what seems like an age, but is only 4 weeks, I’ve finally managed to finish editing the latest episode of the Meeples & Miniatures podcast and it is now available for download.

This show concentrates on Napoleonic gaming, as I review the Polemos Napoleonic rules from Baccus, along with Baccus 6mm figures and 6mm terrain.

You can download the show from the Podcast blog at Libsyn: http://meeplesandminiatures.libsyn.com/

Italy 0 – Rest of the World 7

Last night saw the latest chapters in the continuing Commands & Colors: Ancients Punic War campaign. I fought 2 battles against the mighty forces of Hannibal.

As you might have guessed from the entry title, things didn’t go to plan (my plan, anyway) and I ended up on the losing side twice more. The first game (above) was actually really close – I lost 6-5 – and had a chance to win the game…my inability to roll a single close combat hit on 4-dice meant that the unit survived the combat, and my Cavalry were destroyed the following turn.

The second game (below) was a much more one-sided affair.

Despite drawing first blood by destroying the Carthaginian Elephants, my army quickly succumbed to a concerted attack by warband and heavy infantry, and I lost 6-3.

Afterwards the general consensus was that the only reason my legions hadn’t been recalled to Rome to be decimated in punishment for so many poor results so far was that I was doing a much better job of it in the field!

So, 7 games, 7 losses. What have I learned?

Well, I think more than anything, these two games against a Carthaginian Army has shown me just how powerful a Heavy Infantry unit commanded by a General is. And this brings into question all of my deployments up until now.

I have been deploying in ‘classic’ Roman style, with my Triari behind units of Princeps and Hastati. However, this means that my heavy troops very rarely get into battle until late in the game – possibly when the game is already lost – and in several of my games they have done nothing at all. I need to change my deployment to take advantage of these units – they are the most powerful units in my army, and I should use them accordingly.

So, yet more lessons learned, but not very many battles left to see if the changes make any difference.

 I will post complete photo-battle reports of these two games in the next week or so…

Shogun – First impressions

Last Wednesday night saw the first play of the boardgame ‘Shogun’ (designed by Dirk Henn and published by Queen Games) at Scimitar Wargames Club.

This is a boardgame which is a re-theme of the classic 30 Years War game Wallenstein, and rather than Europe, this game puts the action into Sengoku period Japan. To be honest, if you weren’t aware of it’s previous incarnation, then it would make scant difference to the current game.

I’ve been itching to get this game to the table for a couple of months – it was a Christmas present – and despite interest from several club members in playing the game, we simply haven’t been able to get it to the table until now due to ongoing campaign battles etc (there seems to be much more wargaming than boardgaming going on at the moment…not a bad thing at all!)

So, we sat down – Bob, Tony, Dave, Pete and myself – all newbies to the game. I’d distributed a PDF of the rules the previous week, so hopefully we wouldn’t be starting completely from scratch, but it’s always different reading a rulebook to having the game arrayed in front of you in all it’s glory.

And I do mean glory.

The game production is excellent. To start with, the game board is double-sided, and has very nice artwork of a slightly stylised map of Japan, with the land divided into different regions and provinces. There are a multitude of cards for the game, giving details of provinces, turn actions, special events etc. There is a player board for each player, on which they can plan their actions for the turn – this has artwork on each relating to a different Daiymo of the period. There are over 400 wooden bits, which denote both the armies of each player, plus their money. There are also various card chits representing buildings and indicators of farmer unrest. finally there is the famous cube tower, which is used for battle resolution.

The idea of the game is to gain the most victory points of the course of 8 seasons (2 years) and thus become Shogun. Victory points are gained by controlling provinces and building Castles, Temples and No-Theatres in the provinces that are under your influence.

Whilst doing this, you must also be mindful of trying to keep the population of your provinces fed with rice, but also of gathering enough taxes to accomplish all your goals. Gather too much tax and rice, or do not have enough food in store to feed your provinces in Winter, and you will have a revolt on your hands!

I will not go into anything in depth now – I’m hoping to give a full review of this game in Episode 32 of the Podcast – but suffice it to say that the game play is absorbing. Not complex, but it gives a myriad of options which are all finely balanced.

Given that we were all pretty much novices, by the end of the first year (half way through the game) we’d pretty much got the mechanics sorted out, and after that the game went along at a swift pace – although we just failed to finish. We scored after only 2 turns of the second year, and this definitely showed a slightly skewed result, which shows how finely tuned the game mechanics are.

The verdict? Everyone really enjoyed the game. So much so that we have another session planned in a week or so.

An excellent game, and at £30, its worth every penny. Very highly recommended.

Emperor Penguin

The boardgaming community at the IGUKonline store run periodic tournaments using the various on-line gaming websites. The latest tournament to take place was Hey! That’s My Fish! - a boardgame designed by Günter Cornett & Alvydas Jakeliunas and published by Phalanx Games.

This is a deceptively simple game, were 2-4 players take control of a number of penguins, hunting fish on the Antarctic ice. The board consists of a grid of hexagonal ice floes, each with 1,2 or 3 fish on them. The idea of the game is to gather as many fish as possible by moving your penguins onto ice floes containing fish.

Only three rules

1. You can only move in straight lines
2. You cannot move through penguins or across gaps in the ice
3. When the move, the floe you were standing on is taken off the board and added to your score (thus creating a hole/gap)

The game ends when all the penguins on the board can no longer move. The winner is the player with the most fish.

In the 2-Player game, each player has 4 penguins In a 3-Player game, you have 3 penguin each, whilst in a 4-Player game you have 2 penguins.

It’s listed as a kids game (probably because of the theme) but it’s really a fun, fast paced strategy game that is very confrontational!

I’ve played this game several times previously, but only on-line.

There were 13 players in this tournament. The first round consisted of playing 3 games against 2 different opponents – I had games against Harry the Lime and Steve Wood - you scored 1 point for each game that you won, the highest scoring players progressed into the second round.

I played all of my games at yucata.de

At the end of the two games, I had beaten Harry the Lime 2-1 and Steve Wood 3-0, thus giving me 5 points and a second round draw with Dobbie. This was to be a best-of-three contest, with the winner going through to the final. Dobbie and I played all our games simultaneously on yucata, and so I ended up running out a 3-0 winner.

This put me into the 3-player final with Pikeman and Milarky. This proved to be an extremely close and hard fought game (as to be expected really) and the final score reflected the game (which finished in the earl hours of Thursday morning):

• Milarky – 31
• Pikeman – 33
• Earthquake (me) – 33

In a tie, you count the number of ice floes that you have collected in the game, and I won 21-19.

Which means that I’m the IGUK Hey, That’s My Fish! champion. Woo Hoo!

I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised by this. Many thanks to everyone who took part – it was a great way to spend a few on-line gaming hours.

What’s this? Decent pre-painted models?

Following my recent purchase of the 2nd Edition of AirWar: C21, I have been  looking for some suitable models to game with.

Whilst I’m a big fan of the 1/600th scale aircraft from Tumbling Dice – I own quite a few US Jets and MiGs for Vietnam – (and the new modern jets are very nice) I wanted something with a little more visual impact. I had a look at the 1/300th scale jets from Scotia-Grendel at Hammerhead, and they were still not quite what I was looking for.

The aircraft used in the AirWar rules pictures look very nice, and whilst I was scanning through eBay I came across something similar – though maybe not quite the same – and these are 1/144th modern jets from the JWings range.

These are a set of pre-painted plastic models, which require some assembly (typically the tail-planes, hard-points and weaponry/extra fuel tanks need attaching) but actually look pretty nice.

The above example is an F14-Tomcat.

Whilst the paint job is nothing exceptional, it certainly beats the other pre-paints that I’ve seen from Revell before (their Star Wars and 1/100th Jets ranges) and it’s certainly good enough to game with.

The other thing that’s difficult to beat is the price. These come in at about £4.50 ($9.00) a plane – and that includes shipping from Hong Kong! QQmodels is also an excellent seller to do business with, and I’ve received all my purchases (yes, I’ve made several) with 3 or 4 days.

In comparison, I’ve bought some Academy, Revell and Minicraft 1/144th scale aircraft kits in the last few days, just to fill some gaps in the range, and I’ve paid £1.00 – £3.00 plus postage for these – and I’ve still got to assemble and paint them!

Two slight down points though.

Firstly, the scale. Though the entire range is advertised as 1/144th, it’s not entirely true across the range. Whilst the larger fighters (like the Tomcat above) are probably 1/144th, the rest of the range are more ‘box scale’ – which means that they are designed to fit the packaging, rather than exactly to scale. This means that the Hornet is the same size as the Tomcat, despite being a smaller aircraft in real life. This is especially apparent if you put the JWings aircraft next to a 1/144th model kit. My JWings Hornet is about 2cm longer than an Academy 1/144th Mig-29 Fulcrum, which can’t be right.

Whilst this is slightly troubling, and possibly even a show-stopper for the purist, when playing on the table I can’t see it being a huge problem.

Secondly, the range. They have just released their 3rd range of 12 aircraft for JWings, which focuses on the Vietnam Air War. The previous 2 ranges focus on more modern jets, but tend to be US focused, with F-14s, F-15s, F-18s and F-4s dominating the range. Other aircraft include the MiG-27, MiG-37 and Dassault Rafaele. There are 2-3 variants of all these aircraft, as they have different paint jobs (being pre-painted).

The lack of Russian kits especially is a slight problem. As I mentioned, I’m getting around this by buying some 1/144th plastic kits, but this is not a perfect solution.

 However, as something that is cheap, quick and easy to get on the table, JWings certainly hits the spot.

SoA Battle Day 2008 – Poitiers, 1356 AD

The Scimitar Wargames Club, to which I belong, usually takes a trip down to the Society of Ancients Battle Day – this is being held on April 26th 2008 at Bletchley near Milton Keynes.

The theme of the day this year is the Battle of Poitiers, which took place on 19th September 1356, during the Hundred Years War.

We’ve been chatting about how we are going to approach putting on this battle for several weeks now. The plan was to use the ‘Battlelore’ rules from Days of Wonderas a basis for a large miniatures battle – I have a collection of HYW figures in 28mm. However, once we worked out the forces, it still meant that I had to double the size of my army and get everything painted…so we finally decided against that.

Earlier this week, we were issued with the Battle Pack for the event, and finally decided what we are going to do. Battlelore has a supplement for the Hundred Years War, and in that game there is a scenario for the battle of Poitiers. Whilst the set up for the scenario is slightly stylised, in keeping with the terrain set up for the game, we thought that this would make a suitable ‘quick play’ game to take along with us. We are also puuting on a larger version of the battle using Commands & Colors: Ancients rules and 15mm figures, but with adaptions taken from Battlelore for the use of longbows and crossbows etc.

 

It was at this point that I was struck by a horrible thought. A brief exchange of email confirmed my fears – I was going to have to paint my Battlelore figures for the battle! Arrgh!

Definitely something that I didn’t have planned. I went back to the scenario book and sorted out all the figures that I needed:

• 4 Units of Heavy Cavalry (12 Figures)
• 3 Units of Medium Cavalry (9 Figures)
• 3 Units of Heavy Infantry (12 Figures)
• 1 Unit of Halbadiers (4 figures)
• 11 Units of Medium Infantry (44 Figures)
• 2 Units of Spearmen (8 Figures)
• 3 Units of Crossbows (12 Figures)
• 5 Units of Bowmen (20 Figures)

Which comes to a grand total of 121 figures, which I need to get painted in about 6 weeks – not my strong point, painting fast. So it looks like my Napoleonics are going to be put on hold for a few weeks whilst I get this new project sorted out.

I hate Warband!

I played the latest of our Punic Wars Commands & Colors campaign games last night. It was a return match against the Gauls of Peter Manning – needless to say, it did not go well!

I was deployed on the left of the picture – in front of the river, whilst Peter’s force is on the right.

Initial deployment rules allows the defender to set up first. The attacker sets up and then the defender may redeploy two units – this is why the Roman forces at the bottom of the picture are facing nothing…there was originally two units of Gallic Medium Cavalry opposite them, but they were then redeployed.

And the above picture, in essence, shows the start of my problems. I deployed poorly. There is a large wood in the middle of my deployment area. I should have deployed all my infantry to the left of this wood, and kept only my cavalry on the right. As it was, I split both my cavalry and my infantry on either side of the wood, and in the final event, the infantry on the right flank played no part in the battle whatsoever.

The battle took place in the middle of the table. Although I had a strong hand of cards (I had 3 ‘Order Medium Troops’ cards in my hand!) I simply didn’t use them well enough, and ended up in a situation where I couldn’t move my heavy infantry to support my medium infantry; which were under pressure from early on.

The melee ability of warband to momentum advance and attack again came into it’s own. Peter constantly came up with ‘retreat’ results on the dice, which meant that he was getting at least 1 unit attacking twice in a turn. My own dice luck continued in it’s usual way, with the exception of 1 brief attack on the Barbarian Chariots, which were destroyed in a single turn. For example – rolling 6 dice to attack – each causing a hit or retreat on a 4 in 6 chance, and rolling 1 hit.

I ended up losing 6-2 (again!). The efficiency of Peter’s win was measured in the fact that although I lost 6 units (and therefore the game) the other half of my army, with the exception of 1 stand of Velites, was completely intact.

My cavalry were again destroyed with a couple of turns – again I used them poorly – and I think I have finally twigged where I am going wrong. I am attempting to use them as shock troops – they obviously are not. What I should be doing is keeping them back and then charging them in to administer the ‘coup de grace’ to units that are reduced to 1 or 2 stands.

Maybe by the end of the campaign, I might finally learn how my army actually works…

A hard fought loss…

Last Wednesday saw the latest of my Commands & Colors:Ancients ladder campaign battles, as I faced Andrew Lawrence with his Spanish Army.

Now Andrew and I have a (relatively) long history with C&C:A games, and my record against him is not that great. Plus, his army was now fighting with our new house rules for Auxiliary troops, which gives them no penalties for using terrain. Given the large number of hills and woods in play (see the board above) I knew I had my work cut out for me.

 It turned into one of the bloodiest encounters I’ve ever had in the game. Andrew eventually won 6-5, but by the end we both had several units down to a single stand, and I only had one of my original 12 units still fully intact.

The battle concentrated around 6 or 7 hexes on the left and middle of the board – around the base of a large hill and a wood. I probably ended up playing into Andrew’s hands, as I attacked his troops on his terms, rather than making him attack me on mine. That said, I had an opportunity to win the game, and I did make some mistakes as well.

Some of my frustrations continued – yet again my Cavalry performed poorly, and their commanding general died for the third time in four games! I need to formulate a new strategy for using these – at the moment they are simply providing easy victory points for my opponent – indeed, half of Andrew’s victory points were scored by destroying these units and their general.

And of course, my appalling dice rolling continued.

A very enjoyable game – despite the loss, and I’m looking forward to the rematch. This will be on Roman home soil, and I suspect it will be a very different game.

I’m supposed to be playing Scipio in this campaign. Someone commented that the army was acting as if it was commanded, not by Scipio Africanus, but rather by Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Hmm – looks like a new club legend is born…