Imperial 2030, 30 June 2010

A first play for Adrian of the modernized Imperial but a second outing of the game for James, David and Kieron. However, this time we played it properly, in particular getting the taxation and victory track points right - which meant that we actually finished the game and enjoyed it too. The initial set up saw David as Brazil and China, Adrian as India, James as Europe and Kieron as Russia. Early military build-ups and expansionism led to some spats in S E Asia and Mongolia, followed by a seemingly unopposed European expansion into Africa and an ongoing Brazilian/US war as James picked up an American ally to guard Europe’s western flank. By the mid stages of the game it appeared that Kieron’s takeover of Europe and the running down of its military power in what looked like suicidal attacks meant that he had peaked too early, but we began to reconsider as we saw that Kieron’s Europe and Russia were able to tax and boost their power ratings, unencumbered by large military forces. China shrank to a shadow of its former self. America didn’t really break out of its home territories. And meanwhile India quietly built up. Being able to launch two fleets each time into the Indian Ocean, Adrian grew a solid force in that region, expanding into Australia and S Africa. As the end game approached it was not at all clear who was in the ascendant. On the last move - Europe taxing to finish the game - it transpired that Adrian’s spread investment approach of being shrewd (or lucky) enough to have reasonable holdings in the 4 top countries and none in the bottom two secured him victory. Final scores: Adrian 103; David 95; Kieron 91; James 90

Vasco Da Gama - 9th June 2010

The depleted rivals settled down to another evening of one of the Christmas games which has proved quite popular. The clever mechanism of pre-selecting your actions ala Agricola/Caylus but with the added complexity of each action having an order of execution, makes for an interesting, if occasionally headache inducing, game! As usual, Deej was able to spot the weaknesses in everyone else's game plan and Kieron made another fatal error in the final round by not placing a token on the expedition slots in time before they were filled up. Final scores Deej 100, Kieron 85, Orhan 74

D-Day: Sword Beach - 6 June 2010

Another trip to Jonathan's games room for a big World War II scenario. Sword Beach was the code name of one of the five main landing beaches in Operation Neptune, which was the initial assault phase of Operation Overlord (the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944). Stretching 8 km from Ouistreham to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer it was the farthest east of the landing points and around 15 km from Caen. The initial landings were achieved with low casualties, but the British forces ran into heavily defended areas behind the beachhead. The British landings were the only Allied sectors that faced attack by German Panzer Divisions on 6 June 1944.

The defending Germans were played by Jonathan and another Jonathan. The invading Brits were Adrian and James. The ruleset was Rapid Fire, which made for a smooth and fluid game, getting through 22 turns over the course of the day.

Jonathan had set up his excellent home-made D-Day tiles covering about 8 by 10 feet, chock-full of scenery.

The British landed between Ouistreham...

 and La Brèche d'Hermanville, both heavily fortified with bunkers and barbed wire.

The British invaded in ten waves, arriving in odd numbered turns and landing in the following turn.

The first turns were spent clearing the beaches of mines whilst trying to avoid German artillery strikes.

There were a few initial losses to mines on the beach and artillery, including destroying one of the British flails.

Adrian successfully repaired one of his tanks...

...and then made great progress against La Brèche...

The beach was soon full of landing craft and advancing infantry and armour...

James took the indirect approach to Ouistreham leading the charge with his fearless bulldozer, which trampled the barbed wire whilst dud panzerfaust shots pinged off its shovel.

The British airborne who dropped in on the Germans holding the Orne bridge put up a valiant effort but were eventually overrun by reinforcing Germans.

British tanks were soon making headway inland...

...but German Panzers were arriving down the Caen road...

Repairing tanks as he went, Adrian pushed on and engaged the Panzers, scoring some good strikes.  On the left, James used his engineers to take out the bunkers in Ouistreham and started taking the bunkers further inland.

At the end of turn 22, the British had taken the two towns and several bunker positions, and were fighting hard for the ridge.  Although there were a further 10 turns remaining in the scenario, the British had achieved a minor victory.

The liberation of  Europe from Nazi occupation had begun.  The forcefield protection provided to the British by Toby's Bionicles may have helped...

Lastly, the now-obligatory video footage...just 1m30s but with a classic comment from Jonathan at the end (although unfortunately MovieMaker insists on saving my widescreen footage as 4:3).

(Embedded YouTube script won't work if you're reading this in e-mail, so click the link at the end to read this in your browser).

Field of Glory, Babylon v Assyria, 2 June 2010

Half-term games saw Adrian and David's Neo-Babylonians take on Orhan and Kieron's Neo-Assyrians in a re-match following an extra Bank Holiday Monday FoG session. In that game Adrian and Deej demonstrated an uncanny ability to throw a '1' for every death roll leading to a pasting at Orhan's hands. So this time the Babylonians sacked their pathetic Median allies and instead hired an Inspirational Commander and more bowmen. They were also bolstered in that, aside from one general (Rameses on loan) and the baggage, the rest of the army was newly painted and ready to go.

Babylon got to invade and opted for hilly territory to try to negate some of the advantage that the Assyrians had with their greater and more powerful mounted wing. Pretty much all the terrain (lots of Brush) fell on the Babylonian side. The middle picture shows the Assyrians after their first move - their medium foot and psiloi advancing against the Archers in the Babylonian centre and their mounted manoeuvring to their right to mass against the Babylonian Guard cavalry and chariots (the third picture shows the Babylonian start position).

The centres clashed first, Orhan seeking to screen his chariots from Babylonian massed bowfire. Whether it was slightly poorer dice rolls, or the effect of the Babylonian IC, or the greater number of bowmen that Adrian could bring to bear, the Assyrian light and medium foot died in droves. A couple of units of Assyrian psiloi were beaten off, another Assyrian archer regiment went fragged and decided to turn 180 degrees to march out of trouble. Alas for them, Adrian passed the CMT to allow his Disrupted medium foot to charge them in the rear, routing them and setting off panic attacks elsewhere in the Assyrian centre. To the left Orhan and Kieron's massed Elite Cavalry and chariots clashed with the Babylonian guards and chariots. Under the massive weight of top quality mounted and three generals one guard unit and the Babylonian chariots broke, but not before the other Guard unit broke an Assyrian chariot unit in return. Accelerating through to the final cohesion tests, other Assyrian units broke to give the Babylonians victory through an army break - 7 out of 14 units Broken and another Fragged v 2 units broken for Babylon. (Final photo is at the top, Nabopolasser the Inspirational leading his archer and hoplite regiments through the broken Assyrian centre, a unit of their heavy chariots fleeing at top left...).

In post-mortem we concluded that the Assyrians probably should have held back a little with their medium foot allowing their well-manoeuvred cavalry to try to gain a victory. That would have forced the Babylonians to get their heavy foot into combat instead of being served up Assyrian archers on a plate. We'll probably stick with the IC and perhaps try to afford another unit of Medium Foot bowmen with front rank spear - since they have performed consistently well in practice games.

Imperial, 26 May 2010

A full house (with Stu but no Andy) round here again for one of our 6-player favourites - Imperial. Starting countries were (I think) Orhan with Germany, Kieron with Russia, James with Austria, Adrian with France, Stu with Britain and Deej with Italy. The game rocketed off as per usual with mass build ups of military forces and expansionism all round. It wasn’t long before there were clashes in the Balkans, North Africa, and the Low Countries. We tried a new house rule in this game - providing anyone without a country with 1 million each time an Investor phase came round to ensure that no one would be kept completely out of the game. As it turned out, Deej, Stu and Kieron found themselves the victims (or possibly beneficiaries) of being taken out and buying back in. Those who retained their original countries ended up with fewer bonds and generally less money. We couldn’t quite work out whether this was a flaw to the game. At any rate it was a fun evening with lots of involvement and a timely finish. The final scores were: Deej 126; Stu 106; Kieron 96; James 85; Orhan 75 and Adrian 60.

Mare Nostrum - May 19th

It felt like a reunion once again this week with 5 making it to Adrian's (Deej lurgified again and Stuart lost in space). Mare Nostrum, a game we hadn't dusted down for a long time was the choice this evening, even though we had some recollections slight failings in the game from a couple of years back. The trading round in this game is clever and rapid with no option for James to squeeze out a good deal ;-) Kieron and Andy were nicely positioned in the wings with plenty of resources. James occupied Egpyt , Adrian Italy and Orhan was in Greece. James and Kieron decided upon a truce from the first round allowing Kieron to have an early dig at Orhan in a fight for one of the only two gold resource regions. However, they soon realised that fighting is for losers in this game and concentrated on expansion. Adrian was quietly building a Roman empire with nobody prepared to take him on and Andy and James decided to spend the evening flexing their muscles and posturing along the north African coast. James enjoyed playing a Kieron/Stuart game style with no hope of a victory. So, it was left to Adrian, Orhan and Kieron to fight it out for the first to gain the pyramids. In the punultimate round, Orhan played a blinder and attacked Alexandria to gain a temporary rise in income allowing him to gain a hero. In the final round, he moved his target to Andy and was bout to claim victory when Kieron launched an attack on the heart of the Greek empire to gain an income of 12 and the pyramids. A fun game, but we've really outgrown these now. Another lucky win for Kieron ;-)

21st April - Ra

Malcolm could not stand the thought of another hour having his shoelaces pulled by the dog so he decided to have an early night. The three remaining rivals pulled out Ra (the newer, slightly smaller version) and as ever, a quick, fun game ensued. Kieron got lucky again and managed to collect a massive number of temples and win.