Colours 2013

Andy and I spent a full day at Colours today at Newbury Racecourse.  Always a good show - three floors of traders and both demonstration and participation games, plus an extra building alongside this year.  The Bring & Buy remains a bit of a disappointment (long queue to check in stuff, and not enough tables to show what's for sale) but the rest of the show is great.

Highlights for me included a Battle for Kursk game with superb ruined buildings and this railway shed...

...and locomotive.

There was also a nicely-presented winter game:

A very delicately painted cloth forming the landscape for a 6mm game:

And a big Viking game:

...with a very impressive Viking longhouse:

Andy and I spent a happy hour playing Wings of Glory (the new name for Wings of War) in a participation game using four detailed aerial views.  I think I'd just got two hits on Andy's plane here:

Andy picked up two engine fires (quite impressive with only one engine - and well-represented using pipe cleaners) but we eventually managed to take each others' plane out simultaneously to finish the game.

Village - 11 September 2013

First time with five players on the Village with Village Pub extension.  Lots of different tactics to try with this game.  Orhan headed straight to the pub and recruited lots of useful characters, an approach which Kieron also picked up.  Stuart went to the top of the council chamber and set up a productive cycle of harvesting grain, selling grain for coins, and buying prestige.  James went travelling and half of David's family became vicars.

Before final scoring, Stuart was way ahead, but the rest of the gang collected more points and overtook him, ending up very close together.  Orhan took the lead from James in the last count.  Final scores: Orhan 62, James 60, David 57, Kieron 57, Stuart 49.

Industry - 4 September 2013

First play of James' birthday present from Kieron, Industry.  This is a four player maximum game revolving around bidding for and commissioning factories and technologies.  The bidding is a new system for us: the Auctioneer chooses which factory is up for auction, all other players bid once only, and then the Auctioneer either takes the money and auctions the next item, or matches the best bid and distributes the money across all players (including himself, somewhat peculiarly) but then passes on the Auctioneer role to the next player.

This mechanism leads to some interesting dilemmas, particularly since if you auction something that nobody bids on, you take it yourself - admittedly for free, but you've got no money in and have to pass the role on.  Or else you auction something you want and find yourself tempted to take the money rather than match the bid.  Very clever.

The various factories provide instant victory points or produce resources that can be used to commission future factories.  The added twist is that the final scoring is where most of the points come from - bonuses for factories that are connected by roads, or (if you have the corresponding bonus field - port, railway station, oil refinery or electricity locations) linked by rivers, railways, pipeline or power cables.  It's simpler than it sounds although the board is a bit busy and not always immediately obvious what is connected to what.  But it worked well and we enjoyed it.  It's much more of a Rivals game than the BGG score would suggest.

We were somewhat finding our way this first play - Orhan almost monopolised the port and rivers option early on, James spotted this and invested across the other bonus fields later, Stuart and Kieron were spread across a number of strategies.  Most of the scores were very close but James pulled ahead with the bonus fields really delivering in the final scoring.  James 52, Stuart 37, Kieron 34, Orhan 33.

Show and Tell, 29 August: French 2nd Carabiniers

This August I finished another couple of Shako units.  To add to the French heavy cavalry is another regiment of Carabiniers - the 2nd - painted in 1812 livery.  The figures are Essex and Andy had bequeathed me them ages ago.

Peloponnes - 28 August 2013

Sandwiched between some golf and a fantastic lasagne, and an extended post-summer catch-up anecdote round, we played Peloponnes.  A close battle at the top with the final scores (Population/Prestige) giving David the win with 36/31, followed by James on 30/32, Orhan on 30/29, Adrian 24/28, Kieron 24/21 and Andy 15/33.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter - 14 August 2013

No-one else was around so I played on the Playstation :-(

Shako, Battle of Castiglione - 7 August 2013

Games night during the summer hols meant sufficient time for Adrian to prepare an impromptu Shako scenario from the Fields of Glory book (which had the effect of inadvertently confusing James, Deej and Orhan who turned up clutching copies of FoG).  These scenarios are generally pretty good and can be completed in around 3.5 hours.  We went for the Battle of Castiglione, 1796.  We'd never played this one before because I'd never previously had enough Austrian line infantry units painted up.  As it is, the uniforms of all my figures are for the later period but there you go...

The Scenario map - The French are on the left, attacking the Austrian centre.  Fiorella's flank-marching Division can arrive from Turn 3 if the French gets the die roll; in our game it arrived on Turn 5

The figures at initial set up, the French flank march (Fiorella's Division) and reinforcements not yet on table.

Castiglione saw a grand outflanking manoeuvre by Napoleon to try to turn the Austrians' strong defensive position.  Historically this arrived too early and prematurely sprung the trap, but in our game it worked out about right.  Orhan played Napoleon with me rolling dice for Massena and Leclerc and James the Austrian General Wurmser, supported by Deej.  The scenario is a very tricky one for the Austrians since they are largely fixed in position and can but react to the arrival of the large flank march.  The French needed to break three of the four main Austrian infantry columns to claim victory, with a glorious victory achieved if they also occupied the village of Solferino.  A draw would result if the French failed to do this, and the Austrians would win if they saw off the assaults and break three French divisions.

Napoleon receives word from General Fiorella...

General Wurmser in position behind General Wetzel's Column on the heights of Solferino and General Pittoni's Column in the centre.  The Reserve Column of Grenadiers commanded by General Lipthay waits behind the line.

Napoleon opted to assault the Austrian Redoubt on the hill of Monte Medolano (in reality the 'hill' was only 5m in elevation but the Redoubt made it a formidable enough obstacle for the French to want to amass a grand battery against it) and the village of Solferino, with his combined Grenadier brigade screening the Austrian centre and his cavalry advancing against the Austrian cavalry on the French extreme right.

General Nicoletti's Heavy Battery in the Redoubt of Monte Medolano

Austrian Hussars prepare to go into action...

The assault on Solferino by Massena's and Leclerc's divisions went according to plan with the French grand battery pummelling the Austrian infantry to the right of the advance.  With minimal losses Massena managed to win and hold the village on the last turn of the game.

Massena's Division attack uphill in column, supported by Leclerc's Division.  French light infantry face off the Austrians in the woods.

On the right flank, Augereau's large French infantry Division managed to take and hold the Redoubt, with Kilmaine's cavalry driving off Schubriz's Austrian cavalry - who had to face an attack in the rear by the Dragoons of Fiorella's flank marching mixed French Division.

Croatian Light Infantry battalions assault the Redoubt as Austrian fusiliers of Peist's Centre Column advance against the flank of the main attacking body of French, General Augereau at their head.

The Austrian reserve column redeployed to face Fiorella and the Austrian centre column went into the attack.  It was clear that the last couple of turns would be crucial - would the French, clearly forcing the battle on both flanks, be able to do enough to claim victory?

Augereau takes the Redoubt as General Verdier's combined Grenadiers attack Pittoni's column in the centre (two battalions having just been routed by the leading Grenadier battalion).  At the top left of the picture the Austrian reserve marches in column to intercept Fiorella's flank march.

At the end of the final turn, despite having lost no divisions and seized the redoubt and the village, Napoleon had only broken 2 of the 4 Austrian infantry formations, not enough for victory.  The Austrians had not inflicted enough casualties to claim a win themselves (pretty dire dice-rolling throughout) so the final result was a well-fought draw.