Dixit & Ra - 30 March 2011

With Kieron running late, we thought we'd try out Stuart's new-ish game Dixit.  This is last year's Spiel des Jahres winner and isn't immediately obvious as a Rivals game but we really enjoyed it.  Each player has six cards with fairy-tale/surreal images on them.  The active player (the storyteller) says a word or phrase (well-known or made up) and plays face down an image they think represents what they've said. Everyone else plays a card they think matches, and then after a quick shuffle, all cards are turned face up and all but the storyteller vote for which image they think is the one belonging to the storyteller.

The clever bit is that if the storyteller's phrase and image are too obviously connected and everyone selects his image, he gets no points and they all get two.  Similarly, if the phrase was too oblique, and no-one selects his image, he against gets nothing whilst everyone else gets two points.  But if some people select his image and some don't, the storyteller and correct voters get 3 points, and anyone whose image was voted on by another player gets an extra 1 point.  Really good fun.  Kieron turned up after just one round but remained a few points behind, with everyone else pretty close and tussling for first place.  Final scores: Andy 32, James 28, Orhan and Stuart on 27 and Kieron 23.

After that short game, we then played old favourite Ra.  Andy played Russian Roulette in all three epochs, sadly getting the loaded chamber every time, and so struggled to get many points.  Lots of Derren-ing as usual with the game coming down to who had the highest score of Sun tokens at the end, taking James ahead of Stu.  Final scores James 47, Stuart 45, Kieron 33, Orhan 29, Andy 12.

Show and Tell: Field Defences Part 3

More scratchbuilt items from the block of styrofoam - a command bunker and couple of pillboxes.

Show and Tell: Field Defences Part 2

BKC lists Field Defences that make troops and vehicles harder to hit and improve their save values.  For hasty defences, in addition to minefields and barbed wire, players can deploy trenches, gun pits and AFV (Armoured Fighting Vehicle) pits.  Clearly it's difficult to create pits and trenches on your dining room table but they can represented by sloping the ground up.  Several companies sell resin versions but again, I thought I'd make my own.

I bought a couple of sheets of 25mm thick styrofoam from eBay for a few quid.  This is a high-density blue polystyrene which is easily cut and filed, and doesn't break up into little bits like packing polystyrene.

For the gun pits, I cut the foam into blocks, then cut them into two thinner halves.  After marking out where the 40x40mm base would need to go, I cut and filed the edges, and then cut out the pit.

I then rounded off the corners and painted them.  As well as gun pits, I made AFV pits and trenches for the infantry.  Here's what they look like finished.

Each piece ends up costing just a few pence.  And I've plenty of foam left for carving pill boxes and bunkers for scenarios allowing fixed defences (the subject of a future posting...).

Show and Tell: North African village

My Christmas present from Adrian - a set of buildings from Hovel's 10mm Arab range - all now painted, and occupied by the liberators of North Africa who are ready to defend against the evil Boche.

Show and Tell: Field Defences

Preparing for the Siege of Tobruk, I've made some field defences.  BKC rules allows for a range of field defences - from fixed prepared bunkers and command posts to hasty defences like barbed wire and minefields.

Barbed wire comes in 20cm lengths.  I've made a dozen in 10cm lengths so I've got more flexibility in deployment.  The posts are made from 2mm walnut dowel and entwined with scale barbed wire.

Minefields are 20cm by 10cm.  They can be unmarked (apart from on the player's map), marked but dummy, or marked and genuine.

Although they should be hidden, I've made mines visible on the scenery (as I've found others have done) because it looks more interesting.  The mines are made from deadly orange lentils, as you can see from one of the minefields before painting.

Medici & Bang - 17 March 2011

Six of us again tonight so another outing for Reiner Knizia's Medici - winner of Spiel des Jahres in 1995.  As always with bidding games, lots of fun to be had with the Derren-ing and the judgement of whether better cards would turn up later.  In the first round, Adrian failed to secure any cards, saving money and still leaving him ahead of other players but failing to establish any footholds up the pyramids for the second and third rounds.  Kieron, David and Orhan had strong hands each round but Andy's previous natural strength at this game didn't come through tonight.  James started off with an expensive first round and was trailing until the third round when he managed to win a set of cards including the neutral 10 and extra metals to give him the monopoly bonus.  Together these meant he managed to better Kieron's description of "coming from behind to storm into fifth place" to end up just one point behind Kieron's winning position.  Final scores Kieron 80, James 79, David 74, Orhan 70, Andy 65 and Adrian 64.

Hoping for third time lucky, James brought out Bang! again with the desperate wish of lasting longer than one turn.  Drawing the Sheriff meant that at least there were two other players who didn't want to see him dead - at least not straight away.  A slow start as most players equipped themselves with weapons but then Orhan and Andy revealed their true colours by shooting at James.  James managed to kill off Orhan but then Deputy Kieron blew himself up with his own dynamite.  David then softened up James for Andy to finish him off.  A fun short game.

Show and Tell, 6 March: BKC US Army, Tunisia 1943

This weekend I finished all of the Blitzkrieg Commander figures that I've got so far - thus completing a decent sized force to represent the US 1st Armoured Division in Tunisia 1943 (or indeed a force suitable for the invasion of Sicily, 1943). I ended up using decals and matt varnish.

First up (above) is the CinC, complete with comms vehicle.

Two HQs, the first for infantry. Another HQ (in the Command tank) is below.

Next the recon elements. M20 scout car at far right, backed up by the FAO/FAC in the jeep and another recce unit in the M3 White Scout car.

Above are the Stuart M8 Light tanks, with an anti-aircraft Quad 50 M3 half-track on the right.

Onto the heavier armour, there are two troops each of 3 Shermans, the troop above led by another HQ (Command Tank) element.

Above is a troop of the Jumbo 26mm Shermans with a 105mm Priest howitzer attached.

Onto the infantry, the first three companies are in M3 half tracks...

As are the second three companies...

And the infantry support weapons (machine guns and mortars) are in trucks and scout cars. The whole collection is below - with a fair number of unmotorised GIs. Given that Orhan is well on his way to finishing his Eastern Front Russians I think I shall order some Hungarians so as both to be able to give Orhan a game solo, or to be able to team up with Andy's Germans for a larger game. Not least because completing the Americans below didn't take long at all...

Blitzkrieg Commander: second rules test - 1 March 2011

Andy and I had another session testing out the Blitzkreig Commander rules.  We played another Encounter scenario (i.e. two battlegroups bumping into each other) but this time with 2000 points each.  I put together a combined arms battlegroup with infantry, armour, guns and aircraft.  I was up against a dozen German tanks plus a few guns.  Gulp.

Turn 1 is the mobile deployment as the various formations entered the table.  In Turn 2, the plucky Brits damaged a couple of advancing German tanks and were feeling pretty pleased with themselves - until the Germans destroyed 4 of the 6 British tanks in their turn!  In Turn 3, the British Forward Aircraft Controller (FAC) was finally successful in radioing through an order to one of the Hurricanes, who promptly flew over the battlefield and created some new holes in the centre of the table but caused no damage to the Germans.  Another British command blunder (a double-six) led to the suppression of their 2-pounder gun.  The Germans gleefully destroyed the remaining British tanks and overran my Commanding Officer, who raced off the table.

In turn 4, the re-energized 2-pounder took out a Panzer III and the FAC, who had moved closer to his target - thus reducing the inaccuracy rolls, called in two strikes from my Hurricane tankbusters.  Bang on target, the first destroyed two Panzer IVs, and the second destroyed another and forced a suppressed Tiger 1 to fall back so far it was also destroyed.

Shells from about 5 German tanks promptly fell on the FAC obliterating him.

At the beginning of Turn 5, I failed (again) to bring on my third formation.  But since they were all infantry and my tanks were all destroyed, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated my remaining forces, conceding a Minor Defeat, but avoiding an inevitable Major one had I waited for the Germans to finish off my infantry.

I think we've got the hang of the rules now (they are jolly good) but next we need to try a more interesting scenario and break up the line-of-sight with some terrain.

Pandemic, 2 March

James, Orhan, Stu, Adrian and a sick Kieron met for a couple of goes at (appropriately given Kieron's condition and David's absence) Pandemic. This was a purchase from Leisure Games last weekend which had been so entertaining to Fred and Felix that they had bought the expansion. This allows five players as well as introducing new game variants.

We played two games using the basic rules, with four Epidemic cards in the deck and random roles from the full expanded set. The game is fully co-operative and is certainly luck-dependent to quite a degree. In the first play as we got used to the rules, we were struck by a quick succession of Epidemics and Outbreaks and were overwhelmed such that we couldn't make the sets of cards necessary to cure the diseases. In game two, we focused much more on getting the sets of cards and ruthlessly pursuing cures. So we lost the first one and one the second.

The game attracted mixed reactions. I have to say I'm a fan and like the artistry of the game mechanics and the fact that it is touch and go. Orhan didn't like it particularly, other views were mixed. A good evening nonetheless; as ever.