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Have they announced a retail price for Ogre? I'm glad I got in on the kickstarter as after seeing pics I'm not sure how they could sell it for less than $120 or so.
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Aug 13, 2013 05:12
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Pierzak posted:Huh, nothing like seeing random pics of my RL friends playing obscure games on BGG. I'll have to play that one. If you don't care about buying an used game: Starship Troopers, the one published in 1976
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Aug 13, 2013 09:22
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Bonus points for drones and hive races.
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Numlock posted:There's Steve Jackson Presents: A Steve Jackson game by Steven Jackson: Ogre by Steve Jackson Games. People already have their Kickstarter editions of OGRE, I've seen pictures. Some of them have even spent the night in it already.
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Aug 13, 2013 10:31
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Jedit posted:Some of them have even spent the night in it already.  Paper Mac posted:Have they announced a retail price for Ogre? I'm glad I got in on the kickstarter as after seeing pics I'm not sure how they could sell it for less than $120 or so.
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Aug 13, 2013 10:36
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Back before we split this thread from general boardgame talk, I gushed about Red Winter. Frankly, I feel like gushing some more. I've been thinking of making a big effortpost about it, something between an overview, a review and a fast-forwarded session report. Would anyone be interested in reading this, or would I be simply making GBS threads up the thread with my inane rambling?
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Aug 13, 2013 10:54
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Feel free! I'm actually really interested in AARs/Reviews, I'm going to do a few of them myself about GoG/NT/No Retreat/Other stuff I play once I get the chance to get some pics. Would love to see the thread covered with pictures like this one: That fish-hook...
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Aug 13, 2013 11:16
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 Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 1Red Winter: (...), the stunning debut of Mark Mokszycki might be my favourite hex'n'counter wargame to date. While very familiar mechanically to anyone with experience in the genre, thanks to its subject matter, unusual scale - and the few interesting new mechanics - it manages to feel fresh and exciting, conveying a vivid narrative and proper feel of this unique battle without getting bogged down in minutiae. It also has an optional rule about looting sausages from a field kitchen. The game depicts a (relatively) famous battle of the Winter War, where a desperate Finnish defence turned into a counteroffensive that ended shattering the Soviet force five times their size. The unique flow of battle and the situation both sides find themselves in makes for incredibly gameable topic. First, there's the map:  It's both very practical and pretty (at least it was before resizing it down not to break the tables), but most importantly it's crafted very cleverly and elegantly. For example, all terrain is either harsh or a frozen lake. While there are some differences in cost to move through, there's basically no fiddling with terrain modifiers or lines of sights. Speaking of LOS, it's simply blocked by everything that isn't a lake hex, highlighting this unique terrain feature. Mind you, the game is of a grand tactical scale - meaning somewhere between typical tactical and operational, with counters depicting either infantry companies or heavy weapons platoons - and therefore LOS is only ever checked for stuff like self-spotting mortars. The lay of the land is also quite interesting and lends itself to some clever planning:  What further spruces up the already interesting situation is the asymmetry of both forces, who both require different playstyle and tactics. The soviets just keep coming, using their superior numbers to either brute-force through or encircle Finnish defensive positions. They also heavily outgun their opponents with well-supplied heavy artillery and ample LMGs allowing their infantry companies double as a poor mans MGs. If these advantages would turn out insufficient, the Soviet player has the option of calling in armored support, especially harsh considering Finns only get two units capable of AT fire, on third and fifth day of the battle, one of which is an outdated piece of poo poo repurposed infantry gun captured back in 1918  . On the flipside, the Soviets are completely unprepared for the harsh winter conditions, visible from afar in their brown uniforms and freezing to death at nights. You'd think the Russians know a thing or two about winter combat, but there you go.Thankfully, the plucky Finns have a few tricks up their sleeve. First, their units have more movement points and can ski cheaper across the lakes. Second, they enjoy the superior logistics, not requiring roads to trace supply when off raiding. Or skiing. Third, their units are equipped with numerous SMGs, giving them an edge in close assaults (you'll need to bleed the soviets out a bit to make use of it, though). Fourth, their defensive doctrine provides many more dug-in counters to slap down on board to provide tasty boni. Finally, their superior command is represented by Lt. Aaro Pajari counter running around providing buffs as well as providing an opportunity to spring a nasty surprise once they switch into offensive tactics.  This is how the first day of the battle begins (placement of Finns right side of the lake is variable, the rest is set. Soviets outside of map are the first-turn reinforcements). About half of the Finnish forces starts reduced and unprepared, while the other half scrambles to hastily set up defences and delay the enemy until reinforcements arrive. Finnish plan is to fortify along the Kivisalmi bridge - an obvious defensive position - and delay their flanking attempts as long as possible. The first soviet forces push forward confidently, paving the way for an endless stream of reinforcements. Next Time: I play Europa Universalis IV until I go into cardiac arrest and on the way to hospital remember there's actual gameplay to show off.
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Aug 13, 2013 14:44
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The first scenario in Beyond Valor (the base ASL module) does Kuhmo, Finland on 30 Novemeber 1939. Play it right before you play Red Winter 
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Aug 13, 2013 19:10
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That looks cool, how does combat resolution work? Can Soviet armor leave the road at all?Colon V posted:I'm not even sure if buying it would be worth it. Anyone you could convince to play OGRE probably already has it. I don't know anyone who owns it, actually, which is why I went in on the kickstarter. I think it's likely much more common among American grogs than elsewhere. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 19:34
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If you look on BGG, someone is posting their session reports of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1563/rise-and-decline-of-the-third-reich#forums It's a fascinating read! Huge operational game for all of WW2, and they're really playing it out.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:10
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I'd like to take this occasion to remind/enlighten everyone about this... thing on BGG. PS. In comments later on, the author admits to typing this... thing on an iphone.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:14
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silvergoose posted:If you look on BGG, someone is posting their session reports of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1563/rise-and-decline-of-the-third-reich#forums Rise and Decline is an amazing game in many ways. I wish I still had my copy, but the dog pissed on the map and I had to ditch it.
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Aug 13, 2013 23:44
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Tekopo posted:Feel free! I'm actually really interested in AARs/Reviews, I'm going to do a few of them myself about GoG/NT/No Retreat/Other stuff I play once I get the chance to get some pics. Would love to see the thread covered with pictures like this one: You want pictures? Here's one from my latest NT game!  I'm the French (blue). I just fatefully sent Murat into a deathtrap but managed to recover because the Allied player sent two of those three corps on his left around to turn my line, and my reinforcements sent them scattering.
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Aug 13, 2013 23:45
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I just got NT in trade for Commands and Colors Ancients from a guy on BGG and I'm going through the rulebook and some of the videos. Can't wait to try it out.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:09
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silvergoose posted:If you look on BGG, someone is posting their session reports of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1563/rise-and-decline-of-the-third-reich#forums This is a really well done AAR, thanks for linking it! It actually is getting me interested in learning the system sometime if/when I have several weeks free. Lichtenstein posted:I'd like to take this occasion to remind/enlighten everyone about this... thing on BGG. This on the other hand is an abomination unto mankind and I barely even made it to the second bold quote before reflexively closing the browser tab to save my brain.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:11
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silvergoose posted:You want pictures? Here's one from my latest NT game!
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Aug 14, 2013 00:12
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Tekopo posted:The french look to be in a tricky position, although it's impossible to tell without knowing the strengths of the units present. Really want to play more GoG/NT but it's difficult to find people that love it quite as much as me. Definitely was a tricky position. I was constantly worried the Czar was going to smash through my admittedly decently strong lines. Really, it's just Murat that got hurt badly, other than that I was at mostly full strength. Can't get enough of this game. And it's out of print, so getting it in a trade seems...good.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:48
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Crossposting from #Boardgoons: Come play Andean Abyss on Vassal this weekend with me and Tekopo, PM me or hit me on IRC. edit: or just post in the thread I guess. ConorT fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 00:55
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Does anyone have any opinion on BOOTS ON THE GROUND or the WORLD AT WAR series? The latter is a little more appealing to me, since I'm looking for a Cold War-era game - ideally with good solitaire playability since none of my friends are down with the Cold War.
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Aug 14, 2013 04:02
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ConorT posted:Crossposting from #Boardgoons: Come play Andean Abyss on Vassal this weekend with me and Tekopo, PM me or hit me on IRC. I might just have to drop in on this.
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Aug 14, 2013 05:03
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Lichtenstein posted:I'd like to take this occasion to remind/enlighten everyone about this... thing on BGG. This makes me feel a lot less crazy for spending a couple days learning OCS.
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Aug 14, 2013 07:29
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ConorT posted:Crossposting from #Boardgoons: Come play Andean Abyss on Vassal this weekend with me and Tekopo, PM me or hit me on IRC.
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Aug 14, 2013 10:03
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Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 2 10:30 AM  I shifted both MGs to a single battalion for greater mobility. Soviets advance, their spirits high. All that lies before them is another outnumbered group of pushover Finns. An engagement commences. Combat in Red Winter begins with players rolling for ranged support of other units. As long as a unit is not adjacent to an enemy, in range - and in case of direct fire, has a line of sight - it can roll some dice and hope to inflict a suppression marker, and with some stacked modifiers maybe even a step reduction or two. The way it's fine-tuned really reminds me of ranged combat in Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles. Suppression markers either prevent a unit from counter-firing or provide a column shift in the proper combat. As the mentioning of shifts revealed, the combat itself is governed by a typical CRT:  The CRT is actually quite harsh for the attacker - this is because it has a terrain penalty already baked in! Between 2d6 and the way table is calibrated, combat results feel pretty swingy. I'd love to blame failing attacks with 5:1 odds on my dice, but the unlikely results happen consistently enough for me to accept them as a feature. One unintuitive thing about the combat system is that assaults happen during the movement phase, before any ranged support can be commited. Finnish defence is sort of tricky - MG strength is doubled on the defence, but they're less mobile (more on that later) and if they happen to get hurt there's no way to rebuild them. I opted agains pairing them with a meatshield infantrymen, since they increase chance of getting hit by ranged fire (due to difference in scale between a company and a weapons platoon - there's simply a lot more guys to shoot at). Morning mists prevent Soviet indirect fire from achieving anything of note. But the lone Finnish mortar platoon manages to suppress one of the Soviet stacks! After boni of Lt. Pajari command and Soviet high morale cancel each other out, Reds are left with meager 2:1 odds, rolling a result of 2/1. Ouch! The losses are taken as either step reductions or number of hexes all units must retreat, to a maximum of their movement allowance -2. This means a couple of implications: - Unless you manage to encircle the enemy and force retreats into ZOCs, winning engagements is mostly a matter of pushing the enemy around. - Finnish mobility stealthily gives them a resilience buff. - Attackers cannot advance after combat if they chose to retreat at all, forcing choices of either men or territory. After giving it some consideration, I choose to take both losses as step reductions and advance further. Our exceptional morale helps us recover lost steps while it lasts and we have reserves anyway.  The less time Finns have to further fortify that bridge, the better for us. The first thing Finns attempt is to attempt to recover the reduced units. Supplied infantry companies may forfeit their action to roll a die and attempt to flip back to the full strength side on 6. There are precious few modifiers to that roll, with my personal favourite being staying far enough from the enemy - it's a small thing, but it forces the players to rotate troops and keep a de-facto reserve.  It takes two turns of staying in place not adjacent to enemy units to get the dug-in bonus. That's why we stall so much! Road movement far away from enemies grants extra movement point, allowing our off-map reinforcements to get close to defensive positions. 12:00 PM  Soviet battle plan is as straightforward as predictable: front-line battalions push forward, reinforcements try to catch up. After thinking about what to do with the sole non-reduced company of the red battalion (it cannot reinforce the bridge, as the stacking limit is five units of which up to three are infantry companies) I move them in position to secure the little island in the middle of the lake to stretch the Finns thin - if they'd let me secure the island unmolested, it'd enable me to bypass all their defences, safely redeploying via the lake and probably forcing the enemy to abandon the whole area, since they lack manpower to properly secure all of the possible "landing zones". Back on the Kivisalmi bridge, my frontage is reduced, but the situation actually improved. The morning mists are gone, my fire support is in a better position and twenty four 76mm off-map artillery guns report for duty. The 76mm is the bread-and-butter artillery in this game, and the only kind of ranged unit tracking ammo. In addition to ammo count, flippable tokens of particular batteries are an additional restriction of per-turn barrages. While Finns began the game with two 76mm artillery counters, I've opted to limit defensive fire to the on-map mortar platoon. Finnish artillery is not only ammunition-starved, but also severely undergunned (Finnish tokens represent four guns, as opposed to soviets twelve per counter). This makes them both costly and inefficient to use - they're practically only ever useful if soviets stack up infantry companies on lakes, and even then they're just average. Still, it's a nice deterrent if they do. The mist thing is actually slightly annoying - depending on the hour, weather not only gives a negative modifier to ranged support, but also limits the maximum lenght of LOS. It's thankfully 100% uniform across all days and is printed on the turn track, with turns having differing colors to remind you, but it's still the kind of rule you always keep forgetting about.  Fire enough guns, and you're bound to hit something. We end up with 3:1 odds and a result of 1/1. Not the best result, but at least we keep pushing forward.  The single company that recovered last turn was of the sub-par (due to exhaustion from earlier battle) bicycle battalion. Still, for the Finns every man counts! We park them on a critical crossroad, to entrench it. The two reinforcing companies secure the Hernesaari island - I'm afraid sending only one of them wouldn't be enough of a deterrent. Unsure where the soviets will strike, I position mortars and MGs so that they cover as much as they can. Now, I meant fot this part to be one turn longer, but the decision Soviets face is just too tasty not to drop it on you: ) Actually, we're in position to just throw everything at that island, to surround and crush forces on it. Especially considering that along with two fresh battalions, we get more indirect fire support this turn. Even if it works, it may prove costly - but if we pull it off, they'll both suffer considerable losses and will be forced to pull their defences back. ) Dumb poo poo like storming lakes is what lost the battle in real life. We stay on ground, push along the road, perhaps deploy reinforcements in position to cross the big Tolvajärvi lake to stretch the enemy thinner. Take it slow and sensible, with plenty of time to prepare for the night, when we're at our weakest and get aggressive tomorrow, when the heavy artillery arrives.Next time: The sun sets and Finns are up to all kinds of shenanigans. Paper Mac posted:Can Soviet armor leave the road at all? Since it won't come up for a long time, I'll answer it now: they are stuck to roads and village hexes, and even then must pay extra movement points to use secondary (brown) roads. There is an optional what-if rule, though, allowing to deploy tanks cross-country (as soviets did in later stages of the war) for a steep cost in movement points. There's actually quite a few of those optional rules, ranging from balance tweakers (eg. cross-battalion coordination penalties for soviets, possibility of getting lost during Finnish night raids), through grogness-adders (reaction fire, breakdown platoons), to pure chrome (field kitchens, Pajaris heart condition, looting Sovier LMGs). The nicest thing about these is that on player aid, all optional stuff is printed in different color. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 12:49
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Lichtenstein posted:
I love these writeups. Slow and steady loses the race, I vote you take that island. Tekopo posted:Let me know if people are free either on the saturday or sunday: I'd prefer saturday since I can stay on longer but sunday should be fine too if it isn't too late. I don't mind teaching either. Also, who wants to take Government forces? I'm free both days. I think the Government faction should go to the player with the most experience. Of the two of us, that's you, since I've never completed a 4-player game. I'm willing to take it if no one else will.
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Aug 14, 2013 17:06
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Storm that island, don't let them dig in!
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Aug 14, 2013 17:13
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ConorT posted:Crossposting from #Boardgoons: Come play Andean Abyss on Vassal this weekend with me and Tekopo, PM me or hit me on IRC. Any room for newer players? It's a game I've been thinking about buying it and would love to try it before I do 
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Aug 14, 2013 17:15
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Any room for newer players? It's a game I've been thinking about buying and would love to try it before I buy it
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Aug 14, 2013 17:16
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Lichtenstein you are a real motherfucker, I might go out to my FLGS tomorrow and see if I can bag a copy of Red Winter, the game looks nice as hell and I think it might fit well with a friend of mine that really liked No Retreat.
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Aug 14, 2013 22:56
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Cleaned out my dads closet and found some 3M bookshelf games, Feudal in particular. Played with a friend, got interested in the whole genre, went to boardgamegeek. Now, I have Hearts of Iron 3, but it seems inpenetrably complicated, and I want something to ease me in. Would buying a classic like Tactics 2 be a good bet for a beginner? It looks like the most "traditional" wargame possible.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:03
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I'm no expert, but I think wargaming has moved far enough beyond Tactics 2 that it's not really relevant anymore and wouldn't give you a good idea of what the genre has to offer.
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Aug 15, 2013 02:09
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Tekopo posted:Lichtenstein you are a real motherfucker, I might go out to my FLGS tomorrow and see if I can bag a copy of Red Winter, the game looks nice as hell and I think it might fit well with a friend of mine that really liked No Retreat. Consider this revenge for making me buy Pax Porfiriana. It was the end of a month and I had to forfeit eating.  Note, though, that similarly to No Retreat, while individual turns don't take too much time, there's enough of them to make the full game take rear end-long. There's quite a few scenarios for single sitting, covering about a day each. I pretty much never play scenarios in such games, always jumping in full games I probably won't finish, but from what I saw skimming the playbook the proposed set-ups look quite interesting. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 02:23
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Quad posted:Now, I have Hearts of Iron 3, but it seems inpenetrably complicated, and I want something to ease me in. Would buying a classic like Tactics 2 be a good bet for a beginner? It looks like the most "traditional" wargame possible. I don't know that there are too many "beginner" wargames that are going to help you play HoI3, if what you want is something that deals with strategic-scale unit movement, production, research, etc. There are lots of games like that, though, and if you're willing to give something like Europe Engulfed a go, it might make HoI3 a bit easier. Edit: I just remembered Victory in the Pacific.. long ago out of print but if you're into classic wargames anyway, that's a lighter strategic one relevant to HoI3. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 04:02
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Honestly, speaking as someone who's been playing board wargames for a long time, I don't think they will really prepare you for HOI3 because it's a very different paradigm. If you're just interested in learning them for their own sake (hopefully this is true because they're amazing), then my go to intro recommendation is Battle For Moscow: http://victorypointgames.com/details.php?prodId=103. It's a very simple game that still has a good amount of space for strategy and introduces a lot of basic wargame concepts that will come up in other games. There's also a partial LP of it here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3540762 (requires archives).
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Aug 15, 2013 04:29
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 Played this tonight w/ my wife. It's the 2nd volume of the Flying Colors series. The 1st deals with big Age of Sail slugfests (Trafalgar etc), this iteration focuses on frigates and gunboats and some of the more marginal conflicts of the AoS that I frankly find just as interesting- the main campaign is the Great Lakes actions in the war of 1812. I've stayed away from Age of Sail wargames generally because they tend to be extremely detailed and complex (1 player per ship and a few referees to keep things moving is not unheard of). Flying Colors aims to get a big fleet action like Trafalgar playable in a day, with the smaller actions represented in SotS playable in an hour or two (there is even a series of special 1v1 "duel" system in this volume, using special cards to add a bit more detail, that are playable in 15-30 min), so it's right up my alley. Tonight we went for the Battle of Lissa, an action where a mixed French/Venetian frigate squadron jumped a smaller British raiding column in the Adriatic during the Napoleonic wars. The French fleet under Dubordieu attempted to pull a small-scale Nelson-at-Trafalgar on the British squadron under Hoste. Unfortunately for them, Hoste was one of Nelson's boys, and packing a howitzer on his flagship to boot, so things went south pretty quickly for the French, who ended up mostly burning, grounded, or fleeing, having inflicted no meaningful damage on the English at all. I hoped to do a little bit better as the French. Here's the setup:  The four Brit frigates are beating into the wind toward the top right, while the mixed French/Venetian fleet, with the weather gauge and reaching downwind, advance in two columns. Because of the setup, I'm kind of stuck with the general layout of the French plan- usually I prefer as the French to loiter downwind putting holes in English rigging and then running away rather than doing balls-out attacks, mostly because British ships are terrifying in close-in knife fights. The first three ships in that column are absolutely loaded down with these:  Carronades. Those three ships each put out, at close range, triple the carronade firepower of each of my French frigates (easily a third to half the weight of my longgun broadsides), and the Venetians aren't armed with any at all. I have no plan whatsoever for dealing with this, but then, neither did Dubordieu, so I decide to throw caution to the wind and press the attack. Here's where we are after the first turn:  Amphion has fired its grapeshot-filled howitzer across the deck of Favorite, killing all of Dubordieu's marines, preventing him from boarding anyone, and putting some minor damage in the hull. Danae, leading the left French column, takes fire from Volage and Cerberus, resulting in some minor hull and rigging damage. I manage to kill some marines aboard Active, but poor rolls prevent my first, extra-heavy broadsides from doing much anything else. On the start of the 2nd turn, the Brit line sails placidly forward, and the Active gets solid hits on Favorite, starting a fire and putting some serious holes in the hull. Dubordieu is committed at this point, so the Favorite, ablaze, attempts to cross-the-T to Active's stern. Active evades, so Favorite fires her port broadside down Active's rake line, and her starboard at Amphion's stern:  I roll very poorly for damage, merely killing the remainder of Active's marines and putting a few holes in Amphion's rigging, but I get insanely lucky checking for casaulties on Hoste and kill him outright aboard Amphion (you can see him wounded, moments before his death, crushed by a falling rigging spar, above). Dubordieu is in serious trouble if he doesn't get out of carronade range fast, so he sails on, but Amphion's crew takes it's revenge with a port broadside, and the burning Favorite takes massive damage, wrecking it (flipped to its damaged side with the yellow stripe, all damage capacity on that side filled) and putting it in imminent danger of sinking:  At this point I've written off Favorite, but with no commander, the Brits are going to have an extremely difficult time with command- on average only 1 ship will be firing each turn. I figure if I can roll a little bit better with Danae leading the left column, I might be able to put something out despite the loss of Dubordieu's flag:  I told you about those carronades, bro. Danae manages to rake both Cerberus and Volage, but crappy rolls mean this amounts to a few holes in the hull of the former and some dead marines on the latter. Cerberus and Volage, on the other hand, completely ruin Danae, flipping it and ensuring it will soon sink. At the end of the second turn, things are looking pretty grim for me:  The lead ships in both columns are now awash, Dubordieu has gone down with his flag (I forgot to transfer him  ), and I'm now relying on Flore and the lightly armed Venetians to take on the mostly-unscathed British column. They have no commander, however, which makes me hopeful I might pull off a draw after my fleet decides not to break despite the loss of the Fleet admiral and two ships.I get the initiative for the third turn and have the Venetian commodore, Paschaligo, aboard Corona, make the same attack as Danae, and he fares much better:  A bow rake on Cerberus severely damages it's hull and lights up a magazine, while a stern rake on Volage flips her to her damaged side. Neither of these ships will be of much use to the British any longer, but Corona takes hits sailing past the stricken Danae:  Fortunately, the 6th rate frigate Carolina manages to score some lucky hits, finishing off Cerberus and Volage. The Brits make a valiant attempt to tack through the wind to assist the badly mangled rear of their line, and manage to put enough lead on Corona to put her in real danger of sinking. At the end of the third turn, the Cerberus strikes its colours, the decks of the Volage are now awash, and Corona barely manages to keep her decks above water, while the hulks of Danae and Favorite drift off with the wind:  Both the Brits and French/Venetians now fail their break rolls, resulting in a draw- but the marginal victory, 10.5 points for 2 ships sunk, 1 damaged, and 1 fleet admiral killed, goes to the Brits, with the French coming in 2nd with their 7 points for 1 damaged ship (I didn't manage to capture the struck Cerberus before my fleet broke), 1 sunk, and 1 Fleet admiral killed. And yes, counter density 
Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 06:13
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Those AARs are really interesting to read through Paper Mac so thanks for posting them! I've recently bought Iron & Oak and although it uses a simplified system I might make a solitaire run-through of it. I'm actually planning to do a couple of LPs in the future, one based on Guns of Gettysburg and one based on Iron & Oak, but they are still in the planning stage. As for the Andead Abyss people, let me know what times you would be available on the Saturday, so that we can round-about know when everyone should be on IRC to meet up.
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Aug 15, 2013 10:09
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Tekopo posted:Those AARs are really interesting to read through Paper Mac so thanks for posting them! I've recently bought Iron & Oak and although it uses a simplified system I might make a solitaire run-through of it. I'm actually planning to do a couple of LPs in the future, one based on Guns of Gettysburg and one based on Iron & Oak, but they are still in the planning stage. Glad you enjoyed them. SotS is actually usually way more dynamic than the scenario I posted, since fleets usually set up in parallel battle lines rather than already on the attack, but you can see how attacks work from that, anyway. I'm really interested to see both Iron ad Oak and GoG. I&O looks like a really different approach to naval wargaming that I haven't thought about before. Speaking of Bowen games, I got Napoleon's Triumph on the table again recently and I think I'm finally starting to basically get what's going on. I really like the way it takes a few hours/turns to develop an attack properly. Looking forward to seeing how GoG works with many fewer blocks.
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Aug 15, 2013 20:44
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Played a game with another goon of GoG, we are in the middle of the first afternoon and the fighting is already pretty intense. We set up as follows (smaller pictures to follow, but let's have a look at the whole battlefield first):  This is a pretty standard setup for the Union: one of Buford's brigades covers the Chambersburg Road while the other makes sure that Mummasburg/Harrisburg in case any of the 2nd Corps Confederates try to sneak by. Both players draw their hand of battle tokens: I take a peek at the top 3rd Corps Reinforcement and notice that it is Anderson: I have a double Artillery for him so I should be able to do an early attack if he comes up soon. The first turn is rather boring as nothing happens since none of the Confederates turn up. We each keep drawing one token/discard one until 8am-9am arrives, upon which I receive my first reinforcement from the Chambersburg pike: it's Anderson's boys! I use off-road movement: when you move in troops you can either do off-road, in which case the troops come in from near the entry area, or on-road, in which case you can move them up as many spaces as you want up a road (the CSA, however, cannot have that road enter/cross Gettysburg). I set up Anderson as follows:  I then declare an attack for next turn! This means I can't refresh my hand of battle tokens, but it does mean that I will be able to pressure that pesky Union cavalry off Herr's Ridge. There are three general orders in Guns of Gettysburg: Attack, Withdraw and Hold. Since I have on more reinforcements over the Union, the Union player gets to move one objective: he picks the one closest to my troops and moves it South. On the 9am-10am turn, the Union player draws his battle token and then withdraws his cavalry (the order of movements in this game is Withdraw/Attack/Reinforce/March). Cavalry is special in that it can withdraw even if you aren't on withdraw general orders! Every other unit is locked if it it's an enemy Field of Fire: FoF is usually the area in front of a unit and, if the unit is on a ridge, the extended areas next to that area (if not blocked by obstructed terrain/other ridges). After the withdraws, he flips the reinforcement token and gets a Corps coming up from Emmitsburg! It ends up being Sedgewick's Corps, one of the best in the Union army! He uses on-road movement to move all the way up to Seminary Ridge: it's clear that holding the line on McPherson's Ridge would have been hard. During my turn I move Anderson up and after seeing no further reinforcements, I declare another attack: I need to keep the pressure up and at least take a shot at Sedgewick before he can get too entrenched. Yet again, the Union player gets an objective movement, inching the objective closer to Cemetery Ridge south of Gettysburg.  During the next turn, 10am-11am the Union player draws a new token then withdraws his cavalry from McPherson's Ridge to get back to Seminary Ridge. He doesn't get any new Corps in reinforcement, so instead he moves another of Sedgewick's brigades using on-road movement (only one block an hour can move up a road). He calls an hold for next turn. Not being able to attack, I instead go straight to reinforcements, drawing another Chambersburg reinforcement, which ends up being Heth's Division from 3rd Corps. A bit later than history but at least he's there. I use on-road to move him up to a position next to Anderson's, while moving Anderson's Division up for an attack next turn. I declare an attack and the Union player moves his objective yet again closer to Cemetary Ridge. Still, his infantry can't retreat anymore so I'm guaranteed a confrontation next turn.  Next Update: The First Attack!
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Aug 15, 2013 22:07
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Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 3 1:30 PM  It's on. We proceed with the plan. We've encircled the enemy with superior numbers, gathered most of on-map fire support by the lakeside and proceed to pound them with all artillery at our disposal. We amass a total of 5 suppression tokens. It's quite an overkill, since shifts on CRT are capped at three suppression tokens, but it'll allow us to negate some suppression of our own - and with these fat stacks exposed on ice we're definitely gonna get hit. Finns respond with their own two 76mm batteries, leaving them with a single ammunition point. Yet, the attack achieves nothing. Forces by the lakeside manage to land three suppresion tokens, but didn't flip any unit. This leaves us at very favourable 6:1 odds. We roll 0/5 - which is exactly what we needed! We inflict a step loss and a second one for retreating though ZOC - destroying one unit and leaving the other barely alive.  We can't really set our feet on their side of the lake via advance after combat due to ZOCs, but instead we get into position to strike next turn. It's not like these lone mortars can hold off our assault.  As opposed to exemplary recoveries on the Soviet side, Finns only manage to again flip just one company to its full stregth side. I send a nearbycomany to Kotisaari island, predicting future Soviet plans, and then decide to try and hold the lakeside for just one more turn. I really want the crossroads entrenched in time and if we luck out and keep the Reds on the ice until nightfall, they'll be in deep trouble. HQ sends in mere 2 points of 76mm ammunition. 3:00 PM  Our main fighting force is completed by four AT gun counters, which are pretty much the most useless counters in the whole game. The Finns do not have any vehicles at their disposal and the guns utterly suck when fighting anything else. I don't really see any reason for their inclusion other than about OOB. They provide ZOC I guess, but they're single step units and frags provide VPs so one cannot even really use them as dispensable meatshields. I move to force Finns into screening me properly on the Tolvajärvi lake and try to bust my way through the Taivaljärvi.The attack goes smoothly, until heavily modified (again, big stack exposed on the lake) Finnish mortar attack rolls boxcars and takes two steps in addition to suppressing our force! We're left with risky 3:1 odds, but roll high for 0/4 result. Since we fought slow-rear end MG platoons, we manage to reduce both of them.  It's kinda hard to talk about Finnish turn, since it's 100% setting up for the next turn. Though I have to admit it's one of those turns where everything is just a hex too far away. I wanted to set up Lt. Pajari Field Hospital and have the bicycle company guard the little island to the south (I'm uneasy with the weakest link of the defense allowing Soviets to swarm Kotisaari and tackle MGs without lake penalties) as well as making better use of my reinforcements.  Still, I'm pretty happy with that single company to the right: Reds can't really chase them down just yet and will be forced to do some screening. Thankfully, the timing makes it a really rear end in a top hat move. 4:30 PM If Red Winter has any claim to originality (mechanics-wise), it's quite certainly about the night turns. Whole time between 4:30 PM to 7:30 AM is condensed to one supercharged turn, where recovering is easier, units not in ZOCs gain double the movement rate or alternatively dig-in instantly - even in ZOC! So far so good, but... There's some twists. One would think Russians know a thing or two about fighting in winter, but this time their lack of preparation is wehrmacht-grade embarrassing. Their brown uniforms make them even more of sitting ducks when traversing lakes and do not offer nearly enough protection from harsh weather. Therefore each Soviet stack has about 50% chance of losing a step each night due to attrition, desertion and general SNAFU. Thankfully, there's a workaround - units can forfeit their turn to chop down giant gently caress off bonfires to warm the soldiers. On the other hand, these have a habit of making you an extremely conspicuous and easy target for the Finns. It's not easy being a communist. As of writing this, I noticed two big fuckups I made, thankfully spread evenly across the armies: 1) My habit of further fortifying the Hotel is pretty retarded, considering one can simply pop those trenches during the night. 2) Somehow I forgot that the red Soviet companies are as eligible for the doubled move as anyone else and moved them in a really suboptimal way. Let's call that roleplaying, okay?  Instead of chasing down the lone company and locking it in a ZOC, I mistakenly screen it, gnashing my teeth at how scattering the forces will amount to extra attrition rolls. Still, stopping these lone Finns is of utmost importance: if they were to warp speed through those narrow lakes, it'd be really troublesome to chase them down before they reach our supply source and wreck the poo poo out of our artillery park. Since one of the stacks that crossed Taivaljärvi cannot protect itself from the cold due to ZOC anyway, I decide I might as well try to go and kick some Finns around before they inevitably entrench. The attack is unsupported - disappointing accuracy in darkness makes neither wasting ammo nor risking freezing mortars to death worth it. The soldiers are greeted by the tireless Finnish mortars and infantrymen protecting them. Amazingly, both of them manage to land a suppression, leading to unnerving 1:2 odds and a result of 0/2. For some reason I chose to take the second loss as a step hit, probably because I forgot about the possibility of entrenching in ZOC during the night.  The rest of the army gets busy with bonfires. I mathed out that I don't really fear Finnish attempts at attacking these stacks. This leads to a warning: since there's neither any randomness nor hidden information during the movement phase, the enormous flexibility Finns enjoy during nights may lead to severe analysis paralysis during last two turns of each day. Speaking of Finns, they give no fucks about troublesome weather. Proper clothing and portable stoves mean they only ever need to roll for attrition if they initiate combat - and even then they enjoy a better chance to remain unscathed than the Soviets. Aside from spamming trenches and running around in warp speed and generally being assholes, the Finns have yet another trick up their sleeves to strike the enemy at their weakest: the night raids. One stack of full-strength units may forfeit their turn to embark on a daring raid to raise hell behind enemy lines. They may move up to three times their movement allowance (!), launch a brutal, turbocharged, strike and then casually return to where they started from. Exchanging sleep for heroics takes it's toll, though, and participants roll their attrition checks not as a stack, but individually. It's really quite scary to have one of them damaged during the raid itself. Unfortunately for presenting the game, our cutting right into the middle of the Finnish lines resulted in a rather freakish situation where most units are too close to the front to get caught unaware by the enemy and the only eligible target I can actually reach are the loving AT guns. I don't really consider them worth risking the attrition rolls. Still, the fact we're not raiding this time doesn't prevent us from loving up some Soviets the conventional way.  I saw opportunity to encircle one of the breakthrough stacks and attack them at decent enough odds. The idea is that I need to inlict only one step loss on a last full-strength unit so that failed winter attrition will finish somebody off. Finns manage to pull off 1/1 which is good enough, I guess. I choose to lose the step by retreating into a ZOC - if a unit does get eliminated, I don't want it happening out of supply. And so ends the first day of the battle. Soldiers and commanders alike are shocked to have been halted and bloodied by an inferior enemy. The high morale troops enjoyed is long gone, but the resistance only strenghtened the resolve of the higher echelon to take the village of Tolvajärvi. Heavy artillery support is to arrive in the morning and there are talks of another regiment being deployed to the area. The real battle is about to begin.  This is how the situation looks in the morning. Historically (well, according to the scenario book) Soviets should have halted right next to the Hotel while also taking control of the Kotisaari island. This doesn't mean they did badly this time: I am of opinion that simulation-wise the first day of the battle is hosed up and the historical result is impossible to achieve if the Finns offer any resistance. It's hard to say how accurate the other days are, since the initial inaccuracy kind of propagates forward and I don't really play scenarios. However, I think the game conveys the feel of the battle really well and the battle as presented has a distinct flow to it. What I'm saying is if you're not the Tolvajärvi battle biggest fan #1 this is probably just a minor nitpick that won't have impact on your enjoyment of the game. Next time: Honestly, I don't know yet. Probably a big fast-forward. Talk about supply and poo poo. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 01:14
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Those night turn rules are really cool, looking forward to the next update!
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Aug 16, 2013 01:45
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Guns of Gettsysburg Part II Alright, before we talk about the attack, a few things. Unlike in Napoleon's Triumph, blocks in this game take positions rather than areas: in effect, the blocks are always 'on approach'. The position relative to the edge represent their facings and (unlike Napoleon's Triumph), it's the symbol in FRONT of the block that is taken into account when determining if the piece is on a ridge/other piece of terrain (this means that, unlike NT, you don't have to continually pick up pieces to check what terrain they are on). Movement is easy: changing facing costs nothing and you have a minimum movement of 2 positions. Where this becomes difficult is when taking into consideration multi-hour turn, but more on that later. Obstructed terrian takes an additional movement allowance to move through: if you move next to enemy units or on their FoF, you have to stop immediately. So how do attack work? Well, let's get back to the position we left at the other time: During their turn, the union player moved up his last Sedgewick piece using road movement to extend his line and then continued placing his men on McPherson's Ridge. I declared an attack on his position that had two pieces (one of Sedgewick's brigades and the cavalry brigade that had pulled back). The two pieces I select to attack are the two blocks that form Anderson's Division (I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures and the forthcoming wall of text). The union player then plays artillery token, no more than two per position that has a FoF on the attacking pieces. He places two tokens on each of his positions and I begin to get worried: he has more guns available than I thought he would get: this could get ugly fast for Anderson's Division. I then place tokens: my only limitation is that the position I place tokens on has to have at least one piece that's attacking and has to conform to organisational requirements. Organisational requirements basically limit where you can play tokens: *Any* tokens will match any single unit, named division (or corps for the Union player) tokens have to match at least two blocks of the same division/corps, while Corps (Confederate) have to match three units from the same Corps / Reserve (Union) have to match at least three units that are infantry. I need to play at least two tokens (one per piece attacking enemy positions) and I choose a double-cannon Anderson token and a single *Any* token. In artillery combat, multiple of threes are what are important. After I place tokens, we then reveal: the Union player reveals 4 single-cannon *Any* tokens, while I reveal my own tokens. For every multiple of three I get, I can knock out one of his cannons and since there's not much choice, one of the single-cannon *Any* tokens get hit. I placed my artillery on the used pile: it has done its job for now. Next comes defensive fire: the Union player counts how many cannons he has (in this case, three). He then adds the ridge bonus: for every cannon symbol on a ridge, he gets an extra cannon, although the bonus cannot give more than double the amount of cannons on that position. He has one position with one cannon (goes to two with the ridge bonus) and one position with two cannons (goes to four with the ridge bonus) for a total of 6 cannons! Yet again, multiples of three count, but in this case each multiple of three results in a step loss for me. Since all blocks are initially strength two in this game, step losses are taken in a different way than in Napoleon's Triumph. Every single division/corps has a certain number of strength-2 replacements: when you take a hit, the player that's taking a loss selects two blocks (either two strength-2 block, one strength-2, one strength-1 or two strength-1) and then lets the other player choose one. Along with creating a degree of fog of war about losses, this also allows the game to represent the qualitative advantage of Confederate troops. Anderson has two strength-2 blocks, so my first reduction is guaranteed to go to one of those (since I can choose both of them). The second reduction makes my reduced strength-2 go to strength-1. Thus both step losses are fulfilled and the artillery phase of combat is finished. Finally, the defender shows his leading defender in order to determine the winner of the combat. He shows a 2-strength Sedgewick block (of course), so the current result of the combat is -1 (+1 for my piece, -2 for his). Confederates in attacks get +1, making the combat result 0: still not enough to win me the combat and no further modifiers apply. If the result is between -1 to +1, both sides take step loss: in this case, I lose my reduced strength-1 piece, while Sedgewick goes to a guaranteed strength-2 piece. My piece is forced to retreat back to starting line of attack immediately: I've lost half of Anderson's division for very little gain. Finally, I remove the artillery pieces I used for the combat from the game and the union artillery that was hit is also removed. In my reinforcement movement phase, I move up Heth and then call a hold for the general order for my next turn: it's clear that I need to wait for more reinforcements since another frontal attack would be suicide. I also get Pender's Division, but since I moved up Heth using on-road movement, they will have to wait.  Next update, Multi-Hour Turns! Tekopo fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 00:15
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