Ambush! Mission 4: D-Day Night Drop to Destiny

With just the two of us for games night, David and I returned to the old-school counters and hex-grid charm of Ambush! which we last played a few weeks before the the first COVID lockdown three and a half years ago.

Our previous squad record was waiting for us as was our recollection of playing this scenario before.  That time, the parachute drops saw our squad so spread out, one drowned in the river and others panicking and being picked off before they had even packed their parachutes away.  Fortunately that was just an exercise...

This time the squad all landed safely.  Still spread out but with some grouping and with two soldiers even landing together.

One squad member landed in the same square as the weapons cache containing our bazooka.  Sadly he was wounded before he was able to open it but he survived the game.  Less fortunate was Ely-St.John who landed on a crossroads surrounded by German-occupied buildings.  He was swiftly incapacitated.

The others fared better with some effective close assaulting by Randleman (soldier H) and Winters (soldier A).  An SS General and his aide-de-camp were encountered but they raced away in their Kubelwagen before they could be captured.  As the Germans were whittled down, the squad proceeded to the road and railway bridges over the river and defused the explosives.  Luz (soldier F) scouted the exfil route and the squad safely exited West off the map.

The squad acquired 10 victory points for securing both bridges, a further seven for the Germans who were activated, and lost two since the incapacitated soldier could not be moved to safety in this scenario.  A grand total of 15 exceeding the 10 required for victory.

Mars Attacks scenario 2: The Front Line

Andy and I played the second scenario in the rulebook yesterday.  "The Front Line" introduces a couple of hero characters with additional abilities.  Two of them start in one corner of the playing area with seven marines in another, and the Human player has to exit one or both from the Martians deployment edge, earning more victory points the further away they exited.

Unfortunately, there were 16 Martian Grunts with disintegration rifles in the way.

This was the first game since I finally got round to painting the scenery.  So much scenery came in the original Kickstarter pack I bought, so I painted around half of the items, following a great YouTube tutorial from Pete The Wargamer.  Here's a before and after shot.

My Humans started ok picking off Martians from range but began to get overwhelmed by Andy's greater numbers.  My card attacks kept just missing the Martian figures although I did successfully vaporise one of the civilians I was trying to rescue - another was captured by Andy, and one managed to escape.

Deciding to leave hero Troy to his fate, I pushed up the board with hero Eva, who encountered some resistance.

Luckily, she managed to make it to the far left of the gaming area as Andy picked off the other hero and most of the marines, leaving just the Sergeant cowering in a ruined building.

I had just one figure left on the board in the final round with Andy having lost half a dozen Martians, with another singed by a herd of flaming cows.

In total, Andy scored 4 points for killing Troy, 3 for collecting 4 critters for experimentation, and 1 for capturing a civilian, reaching the winning target of 8 points.  However, in the same round, Eva escaped getting 8 points plus a further point for collecting 2 alien artefacts, so a very close game won by James with 9 points to 8.

Super Seleucids

Yesterday I finished basing the Seleucid DBA army (Book II, army 19a) that Andy bought me a while back.

The army comprises (right to left) a Knight general, Cavalry companion and Light Horse:

...two Elephants and a Scythed Chariot:

...four Pike:

...and two Psiloi, plus two variants of Auxilia either of which can replace the Scythed Chariot:

I took the army over to Andy's this afternoon where he had identified five historical opponents that were selected in rolling a die.

First up was the very similarly-constituted Ptolemaic (II/20a) army:

My Scythed Chariot successfully mowed down Andy's General and a lucky roll saw my Light Horse take out Andy's.  

Andy's Auxilia killed one of my Psiloi on the hill, but my mounted troops managed to surround Andy's last Knight and kill it for the win.  Final score 4-1.

Next up were the Classical Indians (II/3a).

I tried to close up quickly as Andy had three Bow in this army, and I managed to take out a Bow and Knight on the left flank.  A couple of 6-1 rolls saw Andy kill my Light Horse and one of my Elephants.

After another loss each, I managed to break through and get my General on the rear of a Bow being attacked from the front, to scrape a 4-3 win despite a final roll of snake's eyes.

The final match was against Arabo-Aramaean (II/22f), a very different army with half of it Bow.

This was a surprisingly fluid game.  Andy's Light Horse made a dash for my Elephants but were cut off - and cut up - by my other mounted troops, who were subsequently killed by Andy's bowfire.  My Scythed Chariot made it all the way to other table edge and sacked the camp.  The final kill came by my Pike surrounding a wayward Bow, giving a final score of 4-2 for the Seleucids.

Tempting as it to now retire the Seleucids as Champions of the Ancient World, I am prepared to submit them to a potential reversal of fortune the next time I bring them to the DBA table.

Mars Attacks playtest

Last year I bought the Mars Attacks game and then painted up all the miniatures.  I still haven't got round to painting all the scenery but I thought it was about time I actually tried the game.  An attraction of buying it during lockdown was the Solo Rules (AI cards drive the Martian behaviour) but I wanted to try a proper game with Andy first.

The game is a good blend of simplified wargaming mechanisms with card-driven events.  There is no measuring as the two playing mats are both discretely marked into an 8x8 board.  Figures can position anywhere in a square to get the benefit of cover but moving and shooting is simply between adjacent squares, including diagonals.  The cards provide bonuses to die rolls or moves, or build up into sets of support cards (like artillery attacks) that can be called upon when needed.  The game uses a set of D8s to resolve everything, for example, three dice when shooting with the shooter getting an extra die or two depending on whether they aimed or the target is fully in the open.  The defender gets three dice and typically rolls against a higher "Survive" figure, so shooting proved pretty deadly, especially since there are no wounds to record - a figure either survives or is removed from play.

It has a You Go, I Go turn order but this is split up over a number of rounds with each round providing an opportunity to activate two figures, or one figure and play a card.  Activated figures are marked with yellow counters and the first player to have activated all their figures can still play cards or pass whilst the other player continues using figures, but the former then has the initiative in the next turn.

There are also eight counters randomly distributed which are initially face down and then revealed as either "critters" (which the Martians want to take away to examine) or "alien technology" (benefit for the Humans).

The first scenario has just 8 US marines taking on 5 Martians, with none of the Hero figures and their special abilities taking part.  All scenarios are won by getting to 8 Victory Points and in this game were earned by killing by shooting (1VP), by hand-to-hand (2VP) and discovering critters or tech (1VP each after the first one).

Andy's Martians used a pretty devastating heat ray early on (highlighting the risk of having more than one figure in a square) and then a couple of random attacks that flattened some of the already ruined buildings, significantly opening up lines of sight.  It then became a shooting match until very near the end when we thought Andy had won 8-7, but we then noticed the first critter didn't count for VPs, so the score was really 7-6.  Since we hadn't yet had any close combat and James needed the 2VPs to win, he encouraged a fight which Andy gamely took on.

The final dice roll saw the last Martian bite the dust and give James the victory.

It's a fun, good-looking game.  Certainly not complex and there are random factors but that seems to fit well with the comic book theme.  The second scenario requires many more figures so we thought this should work well with more players at a future games night.

I subsequently rediscovered some fan-made cards I'd downloaded for this game which I've now printed out ready for next time, so the stats are accessible and the Hero special abilities can be more easily used and tracked.

Episode 301: Another Shabby Nazi Trick

Captain Mainwaring of the Local Defence Volunteers rushed out of his office waving a telegram.

"Listen to this, Wilson.  I've just received orders from Colonel Pritchard... An unidentified flying object has crashed just outside Walmington-on-Sea. The top brass think this could this be a new Nazi superweapon.  I'm to take my men and investigate as soon as possible.  There's no time to lose.  Don't worry about uniforms.  Gather the platoon and we'll meet near the woods.  Come with me Pike."

"I say, would you chaps mind awfully coming out for a bit of a manoeuvre?", asked Wilson, as he found Jones, Walker and Frazer sinking a few pints in the Red Lion.

The platoon quickly reached the saucer-shaped object and found a way in.

Mainwaring split the platoon and led (from safely in the middle) Walker and Frazer up the staircase.

Wilson did similarly on the other side through a strange smelling area with Pike leading the way waving his trusty cricket bat, with which he had once scored 23.

Sadly this time he was out for a duck as he encountered a strange grey hairless homunculus with large black eyes at the top of the stairs who promptly incapacitated him, and Pike fell from the stairs calling for his mother.

"Whatever will I tell Mavis", wondered Sergeant Wilson as he swiftly despatched the creature in revenge.

Mainwaring's men encountered similar beings who struck and then ran away into the bowels of the ship.  "They don't like it up 'em", cried Corporal Jones, chasing them down the gantry.

Then Frazer was set upon by a skeleton in a very strange costume.  "It's not like any diving suit I witnessed in the Navy", he exclaimed.

Recalling the tradition of parley, Frazer somehow managed to subdue the skeleton who then started fighting the grey creatures alongside the Home Guard.  Its help was vital as they were beginning to get outnumbered.

Mainwaring punctured a grey with his umbrella before turning to help Walker finish off another.  "Take that, you monochrome marauder!"

One by one the enemies were defeated providing some respite for the Home Guard to search some of the container boxes for technologies to take back to Army Headquarters.  They made their way back to the entrance, fighting off the last stragglers, before emerging blinking back into the sunlight of their seaside town.

After a minute's silence for Private Frank Pike, Captain Mainwaring turned towards his men and the strange skeletal creature who had joined them.  He tucked his thumbs under his lapels, drew himself up to his full 5ft 4 ½ and addressed the group: 

"Let us brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if Walmington-on-Sea last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was our Finest Hour.’"

[James and Andy were playing Perilous Tales, with figures by Bolt Action and Copplestone Castings. Scenery was the Galactic Core System from Battlesystems.  The Perils were Putrid Strench, Utterly Horrible and The Captain.  Villains were a lurking Master with 7 Wounds and 7 Skill, an aggressive Minion with the same, and a group of pack hunters with 5 Wounds and 5 Skill.  10 Victory Points were achieved for a "truly heroic performance".]

BKC Eastern Front

Another in our irregular series of re-booting Blitzkreig Commander.  After the debacle of Pendraken's botched update (version 3) after they bought the series a few years ago, we have decided to stick with version 2 rather than buy their re-worked version 4.

Andy set up an early Eastern Front game with Germans controlled by James attacking Andy's Russians in a defensive position around a factory complex.

Line of sight was broken up by hedges and walls preventing long-range bombardment from the start.  James generalship started well with a Command Blunder (a roll of double six) in the very first turn, depressing the command values of his HQs for that and the second turn.

On the right flank, command struggled and the lorries containing infantry didn't progress very far before being ambushed by Andy's tanks pressing forward, but in the centre the infantry did move up and started to exchange fire (admittedly as machine guns for a couple of turns before we noticed they were actually mortars - and then unfortunately too close to anything to be effectively utilised).

On the left flank, the minefields provided limited routes forwards and once suppressed, the tanks prevented anything else moving up.

As LOS opened up, Andy used his dug-in 75mm to great effect.  After our couple of hours time limit, there wasn't huge progress given our frequent consultation with the rulebook.  We still didn't get into using the Initiative Phase properly and got it wrong by providing Opportunity Fire multiple times within the same turn, but we are continuing to learn and re-learn how this game works best, and it was good to get the tanks out onto the table again.

Old School gaming

Over the last six months, John and I have had three sessions playing vintage board games from the 1960s.  Two of these were childhood games of John's and the third I picked up in a charity shop recently.  You can't really compare them with modern games but there is charm and nostalgia in re-visiting them, and certainly still fun to be had.

The first we played was Go.  Not the thousands of years old game with beads but a travel game from Waddingtons.

In this game, players travel the world by various means (after securing visas and tickets) collecting souvenirs.  A big constraint is only being able to make purchases in local currencies and there are incredibly about a dozen different types of "Monopoly money" to trade during the game.

Like several older games, you can be incredibly reliant on a particular dice roll so we made a house rule that made that easier in successive rolls after each time you failed, or else it is possible just to get stuck.

The game has an equivalent of "Chance" and "Community Chest" cards and the added bonus was that the stacks had been supplemented by extra cards devised by John and his brother back in the 70s!

The second game we played was Trek, an expedition game from Spear's in 1960.

The main attraction was the plastic four-wheel drive vehicles, although we were both disappointed to see these were modelled on Jeeps rather than Land Rovers, but they are nice components and complemented by mules and supplies.

James broke the market mechanism in the first turn by buying up most of the stock at the cheapest price which forced the price up to unrealistic levels for John.  Another rule we modified.  And then enjoyed racing from base camp to the unimaginatively-titled destination of "Camp 12".

Our most recent game was the irresistibly-titled Spy Ring, another Waddington's effort from 1965.

This is quite an unusual game.  Players control a spy and a control man who move around a city of sixteen embassies collecting secrets.  The secret cards have a couple of letters on which can be grouped to form the codeword FISH in different languages, with longer words (like POISSON) earning you more points than FISK.  And it that wasn't peculiar enough, when a player rolls a one, his spy has to contact his control man by sending a radio message.  This is signalled by placing an aerial in the spy's hat(!) making him vulnerable for a whole turn, and if spotted, the opposing player can steal a secret card.

The game ends when a player has completed two codewords but they may not win if one of their codewords is short and worth few points (e.g. single character Japanese) as it is the total score that counts.  A nice theme and a fun game to play.  We controlled two cooperating teams each so it would be good to try it with more players.

I've got another couple of 1960s games in the loft - one we played quite a bit 20 years ago, the other never yet tried - so John and I have more vintage gaming to come.