Congo in Africa

As part of Graham's recent weekend extravaganza we had two Congo games on Sunday. In attendance was myself, Jean-Jacques and Luis. Graham acted as the gamester for the game he put on. This was the first 3 player game of Congo I played, and when I think about it, I do not believe I have ever played any 3 player war-games.

As usual Graham set up an excellent terrain. Jean-Jaques played the Zanzibari's, Luis the African Kingdoms and I played the White Man's Expeditions. We each had 80 points. Luis was tasked with protecting a Sacred Area in the middle of the table while myself and Jean-Jacques started from opposite corners. I am not sure how many turns were planned, I believe we played 6 or 7. We had to capture the Sacred Place that was worth a set number of points. we also got points for destroying enemy units. I should also note that half of Luis's force also started off table. It was quite a good scenario.

Here is the 3x3' terrain. I started in the bottom left, while Luis had half his force in the  centre  with the other half coming in from the right of the photo. Jean-Jacques started from the top right corner.

I rapidly advanced my archers and my Askaris to cut off Luis force rushing to aid his units in the Sacred Ground. I had some success and was able to take out one of his units but my Askaris took some damage. The Archers were following up to finish the job.

Quite a battle ensued around the Sacred Ground with the Zanzibari's attacking from the right. Significant casualties were taken on both sides. This was my cunning plan, as I was slowing advancing my other units from the right to take the Sacred Ground once Luis's troops were weakened.

Unfortunately, I had to send my Trained Askaris with the Leader to assist  in the fight with Luis's troops who were rushing to aid their allies in the Sacred Ground. They also took quite a pounding. You can see though that the my 3 Explorers have advanced in cover towards the Sacred Ground.

As each turn progressed Graham added dangerous animals moving about the terrain, here we can see a crocodile and above an elephant. they kept me on my toes.

My Askaris, Explorers as well as my Leader with his Trained Askaris moved into position but the game ended, without them able to make an attack! A Victory to Luis for holding onto the Sacred Ground.

This game was a lot of fun, but I was a little slow in getting off the mark and the game ended before I could mount an attack on the Sacred Ground. Thanks Graham for putting on a great game.

SAGA- The Battle of Downrgonna

 

Two days ago, myself and David had a game of SAGA. This is the first time I had a game of SAGA with David and I believe we had a great time. I will look forward to our next encounter, as he is a very talented player.

David has written an excellent report on his blog, and there is no way that I can even come close to it so rather than writing one myself (plus I am behind 3 other reports with another game tomorrow), I will reference it here with a link to his blog The Korrigan's Lair. It is written in French but the translating function worked quite well for those who do not have French.

GdA-Mt St Jean Redux

This past weekend Graham held one of his gaming weekends. Scheduled for Saturday was a GdA game put on by myself; while on Sunday we had 2 Congo games, but more about those two games in my next posts.

Some months ago now, I put on this Napoleonic scenario at the Abyss to introduce the ruleset to some new players. It did not work too well as it was too large a game as an introductory game and it just did not work on a 6x4' table. I also had some a problem with a couple of the players, as they were not just that receptive to a novel ruleset. Three of the 4 players this weekend had played at least 3 games of GdA in the past and all were keen to play. Graham has also set up a 8x4' table which really made an enormous difference. I had travelled out to Beaconsfield on Friday to set up the game so we were all set to go Saturday morning at 1000h.

I used the same process for this 4 player game, with alternating the CiC for both sides. The CiC had to give at least 1 ADC to the other player on his side, unless he had 5 ADC's and then he had to give at least 2 ADC's. This works quite well, as each player gets to be the CiC throughout the game. Here is the OB, I added an ADC to each side and you may note that there is a lot of substitutions in the OB as I put in the actual units that I have.

So after a bit of chit-chat we got the game underway, I will explain the rest with photos.

Here are our players in mid-game. On the left side is Graham and Jean-Jacques playing the Allies and Iannick and David playing the French.

The French starting position with the Grand Battery in the middle. 

They were quite eager to get started.

More keen French.

The British from their left flank, they started most of their troops in line.

The French left flank commanded by Iannick, the multiple red beads indicate that they are charging on Infantry Assault. One of the Allied Objectives was to hold La Hair Sainte.....

.......which came under immediate threat from Donzelot's Brigade withe the famous 13é légére leading the charge......

....and was taken quite quickly, the French left 1 battalion to hold the farm (the maximum allowed by the rules for a strongpoint) and advanced their other 4 veteran battalions to drive the British out of the sandpit.

and that went pretty successfully as well. By now the Allied right flank was  starting to crumble but they now had Lambert's Brigade coming into bolster this flank. As you can see in the far ground two other French brigades were advancing up the centre, one commanded by Iannick and one commanded by David. The fire from Napoleon's Daughter was pretty ineffective, as they were anchored at long range. As you can see the British centre and left decided to hold their positions on the high ground. Also in the far ground you can see the two brigades command by David on the French right flank were advancing, they did need some encouragement as they went Hesitant in the first several turns.

The French centre is starting to take some fire and the appearance of Ponsonby's Heavies caused them to form square. As happened in the actual battle though you can see the French Lanciers coming from right of the photo ready to take advantage of reckless British cavalry charges.

Several charges in the centre resulted in melees.

The French did get beaten back at certain points in the game.

Good use of the Forwards ADC.

The French right flank advance

Lanciers

As usual few photos get taken at the end of the game, but by now Kempt's Brigade was dispersed and the British left flank was also started to crumble with another Faltering Brigade.  The French had suffered minimal casualties with all brigades in good order. Six hours had passed, it was pretty clear that the French were going to prevail so after 11-12 turns the game was called with a French Victory.

Well I had a great time running the game. I am hoping everyone had a good time, certainly I believe that the rules are now firmly entrenched. we had very few questions and we probably went through every possible mechanism the game offers. This will be the last GdA game I will put on until version 2 arrives which sounds like it has some quite substantial simplifications with a focus on increasing command complexity. I  am putting on a GdA game at Huzzah in Portland, Me in May, I will probably go with v1.

Congo- The Treasure of Makoko Mbe

Last Saturday after our CoC game Graham set up a Studio Tomahawk Congo game. This is number 6 scenario from the ruleset.

Premise

Deep in the Congo in the small village of Mbe, near which is supposedly buried the treasure of Makoko Mbe, the last chief of the Teke. Legend says that the treasure is buried beneath an idol guarded by 4 Fanatical Warriors. Professor Gustaaf van den Gheyn has discovered this legend and is leading a column of explorers to discover if the legend is true. Unfortunately the infamous Arabic trader Fayçal al Mutawi has heard word of this expedition and is leading his Zanzibari's there.

The Game

P-Y played the Zanzibari's for the first half of the game, but had to leave so Graham took over. I played the White Man Expeditions. There were 4 totems to pick up on as well as the treasure in the centre of the table guarded by the 4 fanatical warriors. I only took a couple of photos unfortunately.

I send forward my Warriors, to take on the Fanatical Warriors. They had some success.

The Zanzibari's advanced bit I was able to dig up the treasure, and run with it. My Warriors ended up dropping it but my Ruga Ruga were able to pick it up and make it to the table edge.

It was a good game again, the command decisions are certainly challenging and that makes it a good game. I believe I will always enjoy playing this game.

I am on a work week starting tomorrow (I still work one week out of the month), and am in the US for the week following sorting various personal issues (like figuring out my taxes for the year) so no gaming until the beginning of March. The good news is that I already have some games set up.

Chain of Command: Attack and Defend

We had a game of Chain of Command at the Abyss yesterday. It was a one off game, which is always strange to play. Graham has only played one game of Chain of Command in the past but is painting up some 20mm AB Germans and Brits to play the game, he has been researching the ruleset for some time and actually had bought some 28mm figures but after an introductory game at my apartment 3-4 months ago he switch over to 20mm. I believe 20mm is the sweet spot for CoC as you can see what the figures are carrying over 15mm. I would have like to have played in 28mm (my choice for all the other skirmish game I play), but when I saw the size of the vehicles on a 6x4 table, I just felt they were too big. My friend P-Y plays in 28mm but he has a larger table.

As previously noted, the Abyss is a great place but there is very little historical gaming there. We have gathered a lot of interest with our Napoleonic games, and have a handful of dedicated players. Aside from myself and P-Y as far as I know there are no other CoC players here, aside from Graham who is just starting My friend Luis and a few others play Battlegroup which I thought was a pretty good game but CoC will remain my WWII ruleset.

I was joined by Graham and P-Y, so I acted as the games-master with a plan to help Graham. P-Y has played a lot of CoC, but as it turned out Graham needed little help. We did not have a lot of walk by interest, maybe 3-4 people stopped by. I did set up next to a wall which had the only historical war-game figures in the whole place. There were maybe 6-10 boxes of Warlord Games WWII vehicles and figures.

I picked the Attack and Defend scenario from the rulebook, we diced for who would be the Attacker and Defender as well who would play what force. As it ended up Graham played the Attacking Germans while P-Y played the Defending Canadiens. The table is below.

The Germans are attacking from the right, while the Canadiens are defending from the left. 

For the defenders, I made a strong point with two houses enclosed in a stone wall, hard cover as well as a medium obstacle. The forest patches were dense, while the low hedges were soft cover and a minor obstacle. The fields were decoration, all house were hard cover. 

The Patrol Phase

As you can see the flank was completely turned by the Defenders with them  controlling their right side of the table, with attackers pushed to their left flank. I felt there was one tricky bit though and that was the isolated Canadien JOP in the small forest.

The Forces

Canadiens

Standard British 1944 rifle platoon

Sniper

Germans

Standard German Rifle Platoon

Pregame Barrage

IG 18

The Game

So we started the game, and I have to say for the first several and I mean several, Graham had the most incredible luck with multiple double phases with associated excellent Command Dice. As usual I forgot to take photos, but here are 3.

Because of the multiple attacker double phases, the Germans were able to capture the  isolated JOP. They split off one of their LMG teams. The Canadiens were slow to respond because of the Pregame Barrage so really had no way to defend. By now the Germans had another squad on the table as well as their IG. All the Canadiens had on the table  was their 2" Mortar which really did a good job of taking out the IG team. 

The Germans ended the turn capturing the JOP forcing the first morale loss. But now the PGB was over . Because of the threat to the strongpoint, there was no JOP there, P-Y used his first full CoC dice to move one of his JOP's there. I felt this was an excellent move. By now the defenders had got a unit in the house in the right centre of the table and were able to fire at the attackers behind the hedge. But more importantly  they were able to put a sniper in the same house and using the TT Mods, he was able to kill the lone Germ SL. what a turn of events, as the attackers were now leaderless, as they had also lost one of their JL's. FM was dropping on both sides rapidly.

The defenders continued to place smoke but in between turns (there were 4-5 in this short game) the attackers were able to take out another section of Canadiens behind the hedge in front of the house.

I had put a limit of 2.5 hours on the game, we might have been able to get in one more phase but at this point it was clear to the three of us that the Canadien morale was about to drop below 3, thus giving the game to the Germans. It was an excellent game and exciting game and although it looked like the Germans were going to overrun the Canadiens, this did not happen and when I called the game, the FM was 4 for Graham and 3 for P-Y.  So a marginal German victory. 

I will look forward to putting on another CoC game at the Abyss, and hopefully we can draw in more players.

SAGA-AoV

 

I had my first game of SAGA in 18 months last night at the Abyss with my friend Luis. We decided to play Age of Vikings and I knew that Luis expected me to bring my Skraelings. I decided to play the Anglo-Saxons, a warband that I believed I have never played. As usual we went with 6 point war bands.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Uplands

Deployment-Meeting Encounter

Special Rule-A Good day to Die

Victory Conditions-Target

Game Length-Pitched Battle

Anglo-Saxons (6 SAGA Dice)

Alfred

2 Hearthguard

2 Spear-armed Levy 
1 Bow-armed Levy

Vikings (6 SAGA Dice)

Warlord

3 Hearthguard

2 Warriors

1 Bow-armed Levy 

It took a bit of time to set-up, but once we got going the game went quite quickly. There is a few photos below, but generally Luis's initial set up favoured his left flank, so rather than opposing him I decided to set up on my left flank. There was a large central hill, that blocked Line of Sight. As noted above, I never played Anglo-Saxon before and I wanted to get a sense of them before I got too aggressive. I also wanted to get my bowmen into the forest on my left flank. I put another group of Levy there, while keeping Alfred and his Hearthguard behind the hill, with my 3rd group of Levy on my right flank (see first photo). Alfred has a L range "We Obey" ability.

Luis sent his group of 12 Warriors to his right as well as a group of 6 Hearthguard. He had put his Levy bowmen in the rocky ground, while sending his another 6 man Hearthguard to his left with his Warlord. He kept back a small group of 4 Warriors.

Luis then sent in his 12 man Warrior unit, they were taken down by the levy (see photo 2)

I continued to hold back until Luis sent in his Hearthguard to take out my 2 units of levy on my left flank. I carefully prepared my Battleboard at the start of turn 4. I fired with my bowmen and then charged with my levy, and although I ended up with more dice and was able to remove several of Luis's attack dice. I failed to cause significant damage (Luis had some incredible dicing saving almost every hit).

On to turn 4, by now as you can see below (photo 3), Luis was able to crush my left flank my throwing back my levy as well as taking down my bowmen to 2 men after a very successful double set of charges. We now had quite a few loses on each side and it appeared to be quite close in massacre points.

Now on to Turn 5, I had made a mistake in turn 4 by not moving by 8 man Hearthguard to my left flank to take on the the 3 man Viking Hearthguard unit. I was too far away to do even double charge, so I decide to move back my remaining troops, so they were out of range of the Vikings in their last turn.

We tallied up the Victory points and I did manage to eke out a very marginal victory (11 vs 10), but I believe that Luis managed his troops and battleboard better than I did. So a game well played.

Initial Setup with Vikings to the right

The beauty of the Anglo-Saxon warband, here we have a a group of Levy taking on the Viking Warriors and crushing them with their Saga abilities, I had weakened them first with my bowmen.

Around Turn 3, with me having lost the functionality of 2 groups of Levy (but still 5 Saga dice), Luis was also down to 5 Saga dice after his large group of Warriors was taken down.

Awesome Viking painted by Graham.

I have to say that I miss playing SAGA, it is a lot of fun. There are a few SAGA players in Montreal so hopefully more games to get in soon, but Luis is always a challenge! One thing is for sure though, I really enjoyed playing the Anglo-Saxons and I am sure they will see the table again.

Pulp Alley China Station-The House of Lau

This Monday, we had our third game in our China Station campaign. We had one a game each so far, so this was an important game, it was also our real first chance to dice to build up our investigation points so we can discover what is Code 3-2-7. I am not sure if I pointed this out earlier but the campaign is in two phases: The Investigation and The Hunt. To get to The Hunt, you need to accumulate 5 Investigation Points.

As usual PY had set up an excellent table, each gets better than the last. 

The scenario was a bit odd, as there was no shooting or brawling, only really opposed rolls using your Might, Finesse or Cunning dice. Draws did not count and if a character lost they had to roll a simple health check and if failing they took a marker. I am using my Baker Street League in this campaign led by Sherlock Holmes. The rules allow you to recruit different minor characters to your league but you have to keep the same Leader and you can not change the Leader's abilities. I am also presuming once you develop any character you can not change their abilities, so I had to proceed with some caution. As previously mentioned, I am using figure from Westwind's Empire of the Dead line. 

Holmes decided to leave the bumbling Watson home for this scenario and recruit his brother Mycroft. You will also see that he decided to bring the bosses in from the Hell Division rather than the Bobbies. I am sure some of you will recognise the fictional basis for the new characters.

PY kept with his same characters, I suppose he could change to his Sidekicks, but when I look at them they look quite flexible for most types of scenarios.

Here are some photos from the game, I will annotate with what details I remember. 

I believe this is around turn 2-3, PY was almost immediately turn DI  Reid to the Cultists, so that was one of my characters immediately lost. DS Drake went to try to convince Reid to re-join the good guys. As you can see in the fairground, two of the cultists almost immediately encountered two of the minor plot points in order to capture them. Captain Jackson also headed that way, Dr Koo has yet to make an appearance (he shows up on turn 4). In the right middle you can see Holmes heading east to encounter Dr Zhikov who is trying to get a minor plot point.

Turn 5. It looks like Dr Zirkov has been knocked down to the east by Mycroft Holmes. Captain Jackson is now challenging one of the cultists over one of the minor plot points. But most importantly, we can see that Sherlock Holmes has encountered Dr Koo, thus gaining the Major Plot Point, the Baker Street league just has to survive one my turn too win the game.

Turn 6-7. Difficult to see but Holmes has made it past the turncoat DI Reid to the SW corner of the terrain thus winning the game. 

It was a nice victory for me, but I did put some prep time into this scenario before we started. If I remember correctly our dicing was about equal, PY captured 3 minor Plot Points, while I only got one. I was able to get the Major Plot Point which gave me the victory. I think I was a little luckier than PY in drawing the scenario cards when capturing plot points. I have to say it was a little aggravating that the Fortune cards were of little value in this game, but so it goes.

We each got 3 League Rewards in this game. We both roll 3 of our rewards, needing a 4+ to get an investigation point, we get one each. 

Baker Street

6+ Reputation

League rewards: +6 (-3)=3

Investigation Points= 1

Followers of the Eye

3+ Reputation

League Rewards: 3+ (-3)=0

Investigation Points=1

 

GdA Talavera: Battle for the Redoubt

This Saturday we all met at the Abyss in Montreal for another GdA demonstration game. Learning from my experience from the the Mt St Jean scenario, I cut back the size of the game. Having 4 brigades per side worked much better than 6 brigades and with 4 players the turns went much quicker and I believe we got in 10 turns of a 12 player game. This is pretty good as 1 player had played 3 previous games, another 2 previous games, another just 1 previous game and the last had never played before.

I took the scenario from one of the GdB scenarios books which centred on the French left flank of the Battle of Talavera in July of 1809 (as an aside, this battle is featured at the end of Sharpe's Eagle; easily my favourite Sharpe novel). Here we see a French Division (actually almost all Germans) being ordered to take a redoubt occupied by both Spanish and British foot artillery. On the French right flank are the British while the left flank is protected by the Spanish. Note should be made of the fact that this is the first time my Spanish had seen the table!

I felt the scenario worked quite well and in this game we got through all the mechanics in the rulebook. The Spanish cavalry made many charges, albeit unsuccessful. I did screw up a few of the rules as usual, but I believe they had little effect on the game. It was quite a close run thing, I believe the French could have taken the redoubt (the victory condition for the French). 

You will note a lot of substitutions from the historical OB according to what is available in my collection.

Here are some photos I took of the players and the game. I have to say it was really a good natured group and the game ran very smoothly.

French Players to the Left

The French are attacking from the left

View from the other flank

The Spanish were particularly vigorous

The Allied left flank was a little slow to develop

Positions around Turn7-8

A lot of discussion by the French

The allies appear to be more sanguine

The French on their left flank are closing to victory but we called the game was called at turn 12

Next Saturday, I will be hosting a game of Chain of Command at the Abyss, it will probably be just two of us playing but I have never seen a WWII game there, so I am hoping it will generate some interest.