Saga, Ra - 25 November 2009

We got out a four-player game perhaps only played once before - and certainly not since we started this blog - namely Saga. This short game has the players using knights to conquer kingdoms from each other. Some clever mechanisms but an element of luck in getting the timing right, so you can take a kingdom before someone takes one of yours. Since the bulk of the fame points come from your knights defending a kingdom at the end of the game, and ownership of kingdoms does switch around a lot, the ranking of the players during the game is quite fluid. Final scores: James 40, David 36, Orhan 29, Kieron 26.

Then another outing for regular favourite Ra. The usual (but never boring) banter and Derren-ing ensued. Orhan was unCivilised and suffered the consequent penalties; James played the pharaoh and monument strategy, and secured his second win of the evening with possibly the highest score yet in Ra. Final scores: James 63, Kieron 43, David 33, Orhan 14.

Ticket to Ride - 11 November 2009

A light evening of post-Anderida reminiscing and a short game of Ticket to Ride. We played using James' expansion pack providing larger cards (are we really getting so old as to need large format games now?) and more route tickets.

David and Kieron built long sweeping routes - around the north and south of the board respectively while James and Adrian scrapped in the middle. Andy was squeezed out early on and collected vast numbers of cards before building a decent route in the last few turns. In the meantime the rest of us tried to augment our scores with additional tickets.

For Kieron this worked well, he kept picking up routes he'd already connected. He ended up making 8 routes earning a whopping 204 points. For David it was a mixed blessing. Although earning the reward for longest track, 4 out of the 10 cards he collected were missed. Somehow Adrian had collected a large number of very cheap routes, so despite making them all he failed to earn many points.

Final score: Kieron 204, David 119, Andy 118, James 115, Adrian 104.

Was this Kieron's revenge for Anderida?

Ra - 4 November 2009

A partial break from Field of Glory before the Anderida competition this weekend. We reviewed the opponents' armies to get a feel of what we might be facing. And then relaxed with a game of Ra.

The usual Derren-ing, Russian roulette with the tile track, and mix of good luck and disaster. David came up trumps with a huge collection of monuments and a final score of 39, with Andy 31, Kieron 22 and James languishing on 15.

Verrat! and Ulysses - 30 September 2009

With the welcome return of Stuart to games night, we finally got round to trying a couple of the games I bought at the Bring-and-Buy at Birmingham's Games Expo earlier this year.

The first was Verrat!, a four player palace intrigue game, meaning "Betrayal" in English. Uniquely in all our games nights, here was a game where the reading of the rules lasted longer than the game itself. As we stepped through the rules, we were increasingly excited about the clever game mechanisms but as we played, we very quickly realised that if everyone clubbed together and thought about it, they could make it impossible for the leading player to complete their objectives and win (and so the game would last forever). Alternatively, they might not spot one option, and that leading player could quickly and easily (but unsatisfyingly) achieve victory. So a win for David but a new eBay item for me.

The second game was Ulysses, a 3-5 player exploration/influencing game. Sadly the influencing turned out to be very limited and victory was assured by collecting enough cards to crush your opponents. Again not a very fun game to play - a view shared by the others even though they didn't do as dismally as I did. A win for Stuart and yet another eBay item for me.

Still, it was a much more fun evening than the games reports might suggest!

Battle of Arnhem - 19-20 September 2009

[Click on photos for larger pictures]

Last weekend I met up for two game sessions with Jonathan, who has previously joined us for Shako, to wargame the Battle of Arnhem.  Jonathan originally planned for a larger group of players and had done lots of prep including air recce photos...

...and mailing us updates, but circumstances meant that it was just the two of us in the end.  Jonathan had set up a 10x8 feet table representing Arnhem north of the river, with the railway and road bridges at one edge.  The board was full of buildings and the room full of figures awaiting deployment.

I hadn't played the Rapid Fire ruleset before but it was really quick to pick up, and apart from checking the rulebook every now and then, we were able to play pretty fluidly just using the two page easy reference tables.  The game was a tactical one, essentially trying to make the best of the original British plan.  The paratroopers have to attack and hold Arnhem bridge long enough for the Allied troops to arrive, whilst being counter-attacked by increasing numbers of German infantry, artillery and armour.

I played the Brits and entered my first three battalions along the Western roads, "Leopard" and "Tiger" routes into Oosterbeek, and "Lion" route pass the gasworks along the river bank.

The game played out pretty much like history.  The British made a strong push for the bridge and took many of the buildings around the ramp as they were lightly defended.   They managed to prevent the Germans coming over the bridge from the South but as the German tanks arrived on the second day, the Brits started to get pushed out of the buildings they had occupied, having recognised the power of the flamethrowers too late in the game.

There was a real slog and high casualties in the Oosterbeek pocket, compounded later in the game when the Germans entered the map from the West.  We played 29 turns over the course of a Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday, and concluded that at that point, the tide had turned for the Brits.  They had no more reinforcements, had lost the gasworks, and although they still held the southern "Lion" road, they were under significant pressure around the bridge.  It was time to get out the white handkerchiefs, and let the wounded receive treatment.

It was a great-looking game that was lots of fun to play.  Some of the highlights of the game are illustrated below.

One company made it all the way to the railway station in the North East corner in the first few hours of the battle.  They didn't last long but they slowed Jonathan's advance of troops who had to deal with them before deploying around Oosterbeek.

The early occupation of buildings around the ramp leading up to the bridge.  The bridge was 650m long in reality, so about 9 metres in 20mm scale, so Jonathan had understandably just modelled the Northern ramp!

Jeeps speeding along "Lion" route.

Using handheld anti-tank weapons, a couple of brave chaps managed to take out the lead German armoured vehicles as they came over the bridge - one of the first uses of copious amounts of cotton wool in the game.

Artillery played a big part in the game, and Jonathan's 88 was the most devastating.

I had four figures representing PAN, the Dutch resistance.  One pair were usefully spotting for artillery near the bridge but the other pair had taken up residence in the church tower.  Their single but significant contribution to the battle was the silent throat-slitting of the German observer who later also thought the tower would be a good vantage point.

German tanks approaching from the north whilst the armoured cars burn on the bridge ramp.

The wonders of a double-six!  James' anti-tank crew admire their handiwork whilst a Tiger I burns in the distance.

Arriving from the West, the Germans assault the gasworks...

...where the fight gets up-close and personal.  The British lose an entire battalion in a couple of turns here, marking the beginning of the end for the Battle of Arnhem.

Finally, here's some footage of the battlefield accompanied, of course, by the March from "A Bridge Too Far".

Hamburgum - 16 September 2009

Three of us tackled Hamburgum again this evening. Well Londinium anyway, the English annotated side of the game board. A complex game that feels quite simple when you're playing. Each turn is quick and works with the rondel mechanism from Antike, so the game flows really well. Kieron played well at trading and building but didn't make as many church donations as James and Orhan, who ended the game just one point apart. Final score was Orhan 104, James 103 and Kieron 89 (ish). A really good game we should aim to play relatively soon before we've forgotten the rules again.

Colours - 12 September 2009

Andy and I spent six happy hours at the Colours games show at Newbury Racecourse. There were some nice demo games, notably a big Zulu game (with players wearing pith helmets or fur headbands), a Cops and Robbers game based on The Sweeney, and Ghostbusters UK - complete with amended Ghostbusters logo with top hat and monocle, and an ungrammatical but amusing Anglicised slogan - "Whom is One Going to Call?".

Andy bought terrain and 10mm scale tanks for use with a ruleset called Blitzkreig Commander. I got a chapel and bridge in resin for 25mm skirmish games, and completing my set of Railway Rivals variants, I bought the German version Dampfross. It was only a fiver in the otherwise disappointing Bring & Buy and provides us with 8 new hardboard maps - Eastern USA, Western USA, France and Germany from Dampfross, and Southern Italy, Northern Italy, Switzerland and Austria from Dampfross 2 - the later version which also introduced the leap-frog rule, or "Laubfroschvariante" as I think I may call it from now on!

I also bought a cardboard case containing four pre-cut foam layers for storing my 25mm figures, from a company called KR Multicase. Definitely a good day.