I pulled out my Mediterranean Expansion for another game of Memoir '44. I played the Sidi Rezegh Airfield scenario and I took control of the British forces.
This scenario is most comprised of armor units and played very quickly. I had a bit of a challenge with this one and was defeated pretty quickly. The great thing with this game is that I can reset the scenario and replay it again.
I'm not sure if I'm making bad plays of if I'm just unlucky. Either way, the games are fun and I will continue to play this game.
I played another game of Kings of War for my 6 x 6 Game Challenge. I used my Epic 40K models again for this game; Dwarves (Imperial Guard) vs Goblins (Orks/Chaos).
Each army was 750 points and I played on my 2' x 2' game board. All measurements are in centimeters for these small scale games.
As I was typing up this blog post and putting together the army lists below, I realized that I shorted the Dwarf army by 90 points. The units in the game only add up to 660 points. So while the dwarven army lost this game, they did pretty good for being 90 points short.
I messed up on the army list and stats for the dwarf army. I feel like though they lost, there is an asterisks next to this game. I will need to replay this and see how it turns out with the correct rules and full points.
I sat down and tried my hand at a solo play through of the Operation Cobra scenario.
I took command of the Allied forces. I made some not so great choice for myself and paid the price for them. The enemy also had some pretty good rolls. I will definitely be playing more scenarios solo.
For solo play, I use a pretty simple process that I've stolen from others.
Remove the Ambush card from the deck.
Chose the side that you will play in the scenario.
Set up the board as normal and deal yourself the appropriate number of command cards.
The enemy doesn't get a hand of cards. Instead, on their turn draw a number of cards based upon the number they would normally have for the scenario (see below) and play the best card.
5 or less command cards - draw 2 cards.
6 or more command cards - draw 3 cards.
If a recon card is used that normally allows you to draw 2 cards and choose one to add to your hand, then I will draw an additional card for the enemy on their next turn.
This isn't a prefect system, but it works well enough and you will find that the enemy is a pretty challenging opponent.
I put together another Kings of War game using my Epic 40k models. This time, I took my Kingdom of Men (Space Marines) and faced them off against a Goblin army (Orcs/Chaos) composed of only trolls.
Both armies were 750 points so I played on a 2' x 2' board. I changed all measurements to centimeters.
Kingdom of Men - 750 Points
Standard Bearer on Horse 65 points
Standard Bearer on Horse 65 points
Charioteers Regiment 115 points
Charioteers Regiment 115 points
Knight Regiment 195 points
Knight Regiment 195 points
I thought I would try something a little different for another game of Kings of War for my 6 x 6 Game Challenge. For this game, I pulled out some of my Epic 40K models and put together a couple of armies; Kingdoms of Men (Space Marines) and Orcs (Orcs).
I scaled down the normal table size to a 3' x 2' table and worked up some 800 point armies. I didn't spend a lot of time on building the armies as I was just checking to see how the game would work in this scale.
Kings of War is pretty abstract so I thought this might let me make use of my collection of Epic 40K models.
The Kingdoms of Men got lucky early and routed the Fight Wagon Regiment after doing some damage via shooting. Once the orcs reached melee range, things started to go down hill for the Kingdom of Men. Though in the end, the Orcs couldn't do enough damage and the Kingdom ended up winning the battle.
It was a fun game and fits well on a small board. I think I will be playing more games in this scale with my Epic 40k models. I have several factions and will be able to try out a variety of lists .
There isn't any hidden info in KoW so it works well as a solo game.
I finally got around to playing another game of Cold War Commander for my 6 x 6 Game Challenge.
It has been a little while since my last game, so I probably got some rules wrong. I added in some artillery for this game so had a few new things to learn as well.
I played the Counter Attack Scenario from the book. The Soviet Union was defending with 1,335 points available and the US was the attacker with 2,000 points available.
Both sides would achieve a minor objective if they caused 25% casualties to the enemy and a major objective if they broke the enemy formation.
It was a fun game and came right down to the wire with the end result being very, very close.
I think I will try to use an forward artillery observer in the next game to make better use of the artillery.
I was able to convince my friend John to join me in a game of The Walking Dead: All Out War. This is my first competitive game. The game mechanics are essentially the same as for a solo game, but there is much more to worry about with the addition of a force or hostile survivors that you must contend with instead of just the undead walkers.
We played the basic scenario out of the core box. There are 9 supply tokens placed on the board and the first side to hold 7 tokens in an end phase is the winner. If the game ends due to threat being too high, then then the player with the most tokens is declared the winner.
We had a good time and I think we got most of the rules correct. I look forward to playing more games and hope they go as well as this game did.
This game completes my plays for this game for my 6 x 6 game challenge. I will continue to work on models for this game and play more games, but I will be shifting gears and working on getting some other games played.
I played my 4th game of The Walking Dead: All Out War for my 6 X 6 Game Challenge. This battle was the first scenario from the Days Gone Bye expansion.
I think I got most of the rules correct this time around, but there is a chance that I missed some. Please let me know if you see anything I missed.
I didn't have the suggested models painted, so I decided to use alternative choices. I went with Sandra and Derek for this game.
In this scenario, the player is trying to cross from one corner of the board to the opposite corner and wants to break into a munitions store.
It started out well, but the threat got a little out of hand fairly quickly.
Amy and I invited several friends over to play a game of Memoir in remembrance of the D-Day Landings 73 years ago.
I wanted to play with 4 maps, but my table isn't big enough for that so we only played 3 of the maps. I set up the American maps; Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, and the American Airborne. We had 3 players per side and had a great time with the game.
It took us about 3.5 hours to complete the game (not counting a break for dinner) so I've set the video to play quickly.
The Axis forces start with some bonus points at the beginning of the game so the Allied players have a bit of challenge ahead of them. However, if the allied player can get a foothold, then they start to take points away from the Axis and the game can swing either way.
In the end, the Axis almost won, but couldn't get the last few victory points before the Allied forces pulled out the 37 points needed for victory.
The final score:
Allies - 37
Axis - 33
I do enjoy the big map games and should try to organize these more often with my gaming group. If you get a chance, I encourage you to play some of these scenarios. They add a new level to your Memoir '44 games and are a great experience.
Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the game in process. I was to busy dealing with the American Airborne troops in my section of the game. Yikes they are scary.
Amy and I played the 3rd scenario in the Flanking Caen Campaign Scenario for Memoir '44.
Withdrawal from Hill 112 Historical Background.
On June 29, Operation Epsom entered its fourth day. The British were holding onto a salient that incorporated high ground known as Hill 112 on the far side of the Odon River, near the village of Baron. The British 11th Armored Division had a tentative hold and the Allies knew, thanks to intelligence reports, that the Germans were amassing armor for a counter-attack.
The German command made a preliminary push, sending the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions and the 2nd SS "Das Reich" into action along both sides of the Odon. Although the 11th Armored Division was abel to hold Hill 112, the British commander, Lietenant-General Dempsey grew concerned about having this lead elements isolated on the far side of the river. He ordered them to withdraw back across the Odon, a decision that came back to haunt him when the Allies paid a heavy toll to reclaim the same fround nine days later.
Although Operation Epsom never quite achieved its original objective of flanking Caen, it did manage to draw the bulk of the German armor into the area which freed up the Americans on the right and opened the door for their break-out into hedgerow country.
The Allied forces are commanded by Amy and the Axis are commanded by me.
You can see the full play through here.
This game went a little more in my favor. It was still close and a win was not assured for me. I was really hoping to capture the temporary medal objective for the extra campaign points, but I couldn't pull it off.
I did fail to record a victory point during the game, that would have had me win sooner and put me in a better position in the overall campaign, but it was my mistake so I'll just eat it.
The campaign points after the third battle (including Objectives);
Allies: 18
Axis: 11
Stay tuned for the final battle in this mini-campaign; Hill 112.
Next up for my 6 x 6 Game Challenge is another play through of The Walking Dead: All Out War. This is the third and final scenario in the Prelude to Woodbury expansion. As I was editing the video, I found a few mistakes that were made during the game. I noted the mistakes in the video.
In this scenario, Brian is now in charge of Woodbury and is out collecting walkers for future arena battles. Brian needs to capture 4 walkers and load them into his vehicle.
The scenarios dictate the equipment you start with in all the scenarios. I think a little different selection of equipment would improve my chances of successfully completing these missions. Maybe when I replay them, I'll mix up the equipment.
I've played another game of The Walking Dead: All Out War for my 6 X 6 Game Challenge. This is the second scenario from the Prelude to Woodbury Expansion. I feel more comfortable with the rules now that I've played a couple of games, but I did forget to roll for panic when the threat got high and I could be missing a few other things.
In this scenario Brian is out collecting supplies and needs to collect all five tokens on the table and then move off the board. I managed to pick up 3 tokens before the threat got so high that I lost the game.
I've not played enough to have any solid tactics, but I've got some ideas to try the next time I play this scenario.
Bill and I played another game of Kings of War for my 6 X 6 Game Challenge. I'm not sure if I'm getting worse at this game or if Bill is getting better, but at least I had a good time playing.
Our 1500 point armies faced of in the Ransack scenario from the Clash of Kings book. In this scenario we had d6+1 objectives that were each worth d3 victory points.
Bill's army was pretty similar to our previous games, but I wanted to try out something a little different. I used more small units (for goblins) but it didn't work out like I had hoped. I think I will be painting up some more trolls and maybe adding back my 2nd giant in our next game.
I failed to take pictures of the game, but I did record video of the battle. This game was played at my FLGS, Gauntlet Games, so I apologize for the noise.
My next battle for the 6 x 6 Challenge was Kings of War. I played my Goblins versus Bill's Dwarf army. We are still new to this game and are learning. I think we generally have the rules down, but there is always the chance we have missed a few things.
We built 1500 point armies for the game and rolled up the Pillage scenario. In this scenario, kills didn't matter, only the number of objectives that you held at the end of the game.
This was Bill's first chance to see War Tombones in action and he was unimpressed. I however, found them to be a good addition to my army. I understand that in the new book scheduled to be out in a few months, there will be some changes to these as they will begin reduce their to-hit rolls because of cover, but for now they hit on a 4+ regardless of any modifiers.
Both sides had some good rolls during the game and some not so good rolls. I enjoyed the game and look forward to the next battle.
Next up in my 6 X 6 Gaming Challenge is another Kings of War Battle. Again I have played my Goblins and played against Bill and his Dwarves. It was a fun game, but I didn't do very well in the battle.
We set up 1500 point armies and rolled for the scenario and got Kill and Pillage. In this scenario, each player is awarded points for killing enemy units as well as holding objectives at the end of the game. Each objective was worth 150 points in this game.
Bill focused on my war trombones and wizards early in the game and managed to take many of them out of the game fairly early on. He also routed my trolls before they could get into combat.
Bill earned about 1000 more points than I did in the battle so we will call it a victory for the dwarves. I might have to adjust my army a little before our next battle.
Next up for my 6 X 6 Game Challenge is The Walking Dead: All Out War. I've played this solo using the Prelude to Woodbury expansion. My first play was fun and it is helpful for learning the rules of the game.
This scenario sees Brian, before he becomes the governor out looking for some supplies. He just needs to search the three supply tokens to win the scenario.
We will be following Brian for the next few games and we will see what his future holds.
Round of Fire is a game that is currently in development. I have been given the opportunity to help a little with play testing the game.
The game does not have a specific period or genre attached to it, so you can play the game with lots of different models: Old West, Pulp, WW2, Sci-Fi, etc. I'm not sure how well it would work with a fantasy setting, but you never know.
After a read through of the rules, I generally like what I see. There are some interesting mechanics and I was very interested in the activation mechanic.
Each unit has a token on the turn wheel. When a unit activates, it progresses on the turn wheel a number of "steps" based upon the action it has taken. A walk (moving 2 grid spaces) costs 3 steps for most units, while a run (moving 3 grid spaces) costs 5 steps for most units. Shooting costs 3 steps for an Elite fireteam, but costs 5 steps for a Regular fireteam.
I like how this sounded and found it to work well in the game as well. I liked the idea that if you are taking quick actions, or are well trained, you can act more often than a team that is doing a more complicated/lengthy action.
The game also allows for use of suppressing fire to push units along the activation wheel. With this action you can delay an enemy unit's activation. This adds some interesting tactical choices and means that sometimes you will be shooting at another unit without the chance of killing anyone, but it still has a useful purpose.
After playing the game, I am not impressed with the combat mechanic. It seems to be more complicated than it needs to be, but this is just my first game. Your fire is based on the weapon you are equipped with the range to the target and if there is any cover. That is straight forward enough, but then target gets a save and that is where the process starts to break down. The target gets to roll 1 die for each hit made on them, but then can add dice for their toughness value as well as dice for their armor, but then the Armor Penetration of the weapon reduced the dice added from the armor. A 5+ on each dice is needed to shrug off the hit. In my game, almost every model had the same weapon (aside from a few machine guns, that didn't get to fired much) so it wasn't that difficult to keep track of this, but if you have a wide variety of equipment (and the game has a pretty wide variety of equipment available) this could become much more cumbersome. If the models doesn't save from the hits, then they are wounded. However, you have to calculate of how wounded they are so you can see their status from the fire. When a model is knocked out, he can be killed, bleeding, or unconcious. So know you take 3 die and add dice based on the models toughness, but you reduce that pool based on any excess wounds received by the model. So if he failed to save 2 wounds and only had 1 wound to start with, he has taken 1 excess wound so reduced his dice pool by one. You roll those dice and based on how many successes you get, you determine the level of injury.
These different levels affect the victory points for different factions (which is interesting and adds some character and variation to the different factions) but adds another level of rolling to each round of combat.
I'm not sure how to simplify the process and I will try to think of something to offer to the designers, but at this point, it just feels cumbersome and I would like to see a more streamlined process.
Overall, I did enjoy the game and think there are some very cool things going on in these rules. I look forward to trying out the different factions to see how they work and using a bigger variety of troops and specialists.
The Reticulans took command of this battle field. They eliminated all but one model of the Earth Alliance forces and managed to take control of most of the objectives. They did all this with only the loss of a few soldiers. The Earth Alliance will need to rethink their troop selection and equipment before the next engagement.
I had the chance to play a few games of a recent addition to my game collection recently, Airfix Battles: An Introductory Game.
As the name says, this is an introductory game and has fairly simple mechanics. However, the game still offers some challenging decisions for the players.
The box comes with rules and scenarios, two double sided grid-based maps, dice, a deck of command cards, a deck of unit cards, and card board tokens to represent your troops. They suggest you replace the tokens with Airfix models, but you can use any models you have, or just use the tokens provided.
I've made use of some Battlefront models that I already have painted for my Americans, and am using some 15mm robotic forces to stand in for the German forces.
This game uses a deck of command cards that offer special actions the players can make use of, interrupts so you can react to the enemies actions, or the cards can be used as a basic move, shoot or reinforce if you don't want to use the special action. These add a degree of "fog of war" in that you don't know what you are going to be able to pull off from turn to turn.
The rule book includes solo rules with an AI that uses the cards drawn to dictate its actions. I have found it enjoyable to play against and look forward to playing more games.
Amy and I played the second scenario in the Flanking Caen Campaign for Memoir '44.
Capturing the Crossing Historical Background
The main thrust of Operation Epsom began at 0700 hrs on June 26th. The British made good progress early on, with solid artillery support that included some naval gunfire. It looked like the path was clear. The forward German positions were lightly manned, however, the British soon discovered the German defense in depth. Capturing the bridge crossing the Odon River just south of Cheux was the first day's goal. This crossing was critical to maintaining the momentum of the operation. The 15th Scottish Division, supported by the 31st Tank Brigade, made its way toward Cheux were it soon was bogged down in hours of bitter hand-to-hand fighting.
The German 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division alongside elements of the 21st Panzer Division launched a counter-attack to protect the bridge and to repel the British. The Germans were beaten back with the aid of the British artillery but succeeded in temporarily halting the allied advance. Using the 11th Armoured Division, the British pressed the attack, but it too stalled out. Without the support of armor, the British infantry soon ran into trouble and opted to dig in for the night well short of its desired crossing. General Dollman, the German Commander, viewed the containment as an outright defensive victory.
Amy is again in command of the Allied Forces and I will be commanding the Axis forces.
The full play-through video can be seen here:
The game was pretty tense at times and the momentum swung back and forth a bit. The allies managed to pull out a victory, but failed to capture the crossing (though they got very close a couple of times). At the end of the game, the Allies had earned 6 medals, but the Axis had 5. A much closer game than the last one.
The campaign points after the second battle (including objectives):
Allies: 13
Axis: 6
Stay tuned for our next battle, Withdrawal from Hill 112.
