ASL Scenario BFP-27 Chapei Roadblock

Played this scenario yesterday over vasl, despite some glitches with VASL itself and Skype the game went very quickly.

In this scenario the Japanese have to take 5 victory buildings in 8 turns.  The Japanese get 18 squads, 4 leaders, 4lmg, 2 mmg, and 6 tanks.  Unlike my last game I treated the tanks as nothing more than extras for this scenario - the infantry were going to carry the fight!

The Chinese get 12 squads at start, 2 leaders, 2 HMG, 2 LMG, and 2 75 arty pieces.  In addition they have 2 roadblocks and 6 trenches (that link to buildings like in RB but with no basements).

On turn 5 they get reinforcements of 5 squads, a leader, an lmg, and 2 tanks.

The board at start.  (I accidently setup incorrectly so technically I lost the first game after all my units failed to enter, ahem...)  Circles are the VC buildings.

Off to the Races!  No LOS means run like crazy!

The fighting commences, Tycho loses a dummy stack and moves his troops to counter the threat.

BONSAI!  (once again, no Banzai by SSR)

Unlike my last game where I played my Japanese like other nationalities this time I press the attack hard (I'm a naturally aggressive player to begin with and the Japanese are a dream come true!).  I also get lucky, the gun at the top right fires and misses, my tank enters its hex and then a follow on couple squads fire and DM the crew.  A Chinese squad broke while firing at my guys (FPF and 6 morale don't mix) and was eliminated by massacre.  Another squad is eliminated in CC.

The tank that entered the Gun's location forgot to roll for bog and it ends up bogging on an 11, followed by a nice low roll firing at the DM crew - which eliminates them...  A Japanese Sniper then DMs a Chinese squad crossing the street.

BONSAI!  (yes, again!)

Image at end of Japanese Afph of turn 2).  My Japanese are not going to slow down to cross a street.  2 squads gunned down in the street but the rest make it adjacent to the enemy.  An HS also gets nailed but no resid since shooter rolled snakes and it disappeared in a puff of Cowering (Tycho would do that a LOT!).  He also rolled lousy against the Japanese entering the building, lots of nines, tens, and elevens.  For the guys entering the street he rolled better but with lower fire values.

The CC phase crushes the Chinese resistance (how do you stop the Japanese?)  Highlight of the phase is Tycho rolling an Ambush and then rolling boxcars.  Japanese HS finished off the poor bugger with ease.

The Chinese try to make a new line of defense.

Japanese portion of Turn 4.  The tanks swarm around the rear and the squads move in.  Chinese resistance cracks again.  At this point Tycho called it - although he had a gun in X6 that might have done some real damage the Chinese now had equal numbers (once their reinforcements came on next turn) and the Japanese would almost certainly have taken all the VC buildings by then - forcing the Chinese to take at least one back in order to win.

With both agree that this scenario seems to be unbalanced in favor of the Japanese but I just realized that the Chinese never made mention of Bore Sighted locations.  With the MGs and the Guns that might have made a difference.  Even with that I would recommend this package to anyone wanting to play PTO - the programmed instruction nature of it and the incredible boards and articles in the Blood and Jungle pack are well worth the money.

Skirmish Outbreak played at Nerdvana on Thursday the 14th.

Joseph Johnson run a game of Skirmish Outbreak at Nerdvana Games and Comics on Thursday night, a good solid game and lovely terrain and miniatures...

First a Pic of the Rulebook.  I think he said it is on kickstarter at the moment.  (Oh, same people that do Skirmish Sangin?  I needs to get me a copy of both games)

A shot of the city terrain and a zombie.

Ed, Edd, and Eddy prepare to battle the Zombie hoard.  Three other guys are on the other side, whoever gets off the left side of the board with the most stuff wins!

Brains.....

The other team checks out an ambulance.

Ed finds a Zombie while searching the building!

Ed and Eddy go out in the street to clear a path.

Poor Eddy, he got bit by a zombie and infected, Ed waited for him to turn and blasted him and the zombie that bit him for 50 Points!  (shotguns are fun!)

Zombies come out of hiding to the sound of the guns, the Shotgun blast had 10 of them come out at once...

The "dead" pile (in more ways than one).

Standing room only as the bodies start stacking up!

More zombies = more points!

The other team in a bit of a fix as one of their members gets infected too.

Piling up the body count...

The other team runs out the side of the board Ed, Edd, and Eddy went through (shotgun cleared em out - Assault Rifles should probably be rated more highly in the game)

Team 2 wins by a single Zombie kill (that is their dead pile) after getting more points from supplies found - one car had 10 zombies worth of supplies and 3 zombies to their total.

A fun little game, not too rules heavy and works well.  Although I would tweak the ammo rules for shotguns vs Rifles and pistols.  Shotguns do more damage to groups and don't run out of ammo requiring a reload any quicker.

We are planning on an every other week game on Thursday nights so far, up next I'm running a WW2 game with 6mm miniatures.  Here is what they look like up close, each guy is roughly 1/4 inch tall...

The US Civil War Turn 6

Played turn 6 of The US Civil War by GMT games today.  For some reason this single turn took us 4 hours of game time to play out.  Being the Summer of 1862 it makes sense that it would take longer to play these turns but those four hours flew by.

The Situation at the end of turn 5.  In the East The Army of Northern Virginia is near the north end of the Valley.  In the West both sides have beaten each other up pretty well.  In the Trans(far west)  the union forces are beating up the confederates in the area.

Now on to the results of Turn 6

First in the West.  The blue lines are the campaign of 3 Star General Grant.  He first moves south down the Mississippi to take the confederate fort (bottom star - other one was an oops).  He lost the first battle and had to give it a second try where victory was his.  Bad rolls for my opponent.  This opens up the Mississippi to Northern Aggression and gives him 3 Victory Points.  Grant then moves East (I was afraid he would go south and take Memphis and the 4 juicy VPs there but he was worried about what Bragg would do.  (coming to that last).  In the Far West Curtis goes from Victory to Victory (or at least one draw but no losses).  In the process moving onward to Little Rock - but he runs out of time).   Finally Confederate General Bragg, starting from Nashville he attacks and destroys Sherman's forces Northwest of him then continues on to Bowling Green and destroys the Militia defending there.  He then had a choice to send cavalry up north to take some Union Victory spaces (they were open, no defenders nearby but they would have needed to cross the river - doable but the Union might have been able to ship reinforcements in to take the spaces back).  Bragg then moves south to block Grant and gets stomped in a battle and falls back to just outside Decatur.

 

Next up in the deep south.  The strategy of holding the ports is not working so Jeff Davis asks Lee to send Jackson down to take care of the problem, along with 30 thousand troops (railed in from outposts through the south, a couple from Richmond's newly raised troops and one poached from the far west).  Beast Butler is the first to feel Jackson's wrath when he is attacked and routed (2 losses to 1 for Jackson - leaving Butler with only 1sp left).  Since the battle started at 2 to 1 Jackson continues on and finished Butler's force off.  Next Jackson goes after the garrison at Charleston easily destroying it.  He then starts a march down to Florida to deal with the Northern Aggressors there - time will run out before he gets there.

Finally we come to the North where the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia scares McClellan into total immobility.  First Activation goes to the North who attack a CSA outpost just outside of DC (battle not shown, just southwest of the one shown outside DC).  This ends up a draw but satisfies Lincoln's On to Richmond call.  Robert E Lee then moves the CANV out, heading north in the valley to engage a union force there (battle marker forgotten), after destroying them he moves to Baltimore and attacks - routing the Union forces there as well.  General Stuart moves cavalry from Richmond up to just outside DC (using a special action card to allow him to get there).  Nobody reacted to stop him so he was able to act as a supply source for the CANV in Baltimore.  Next activation the CANV takes Annapolis and moves toward Wilmington to defeat the remains of the Baltimore force that retreated earlier.  The Next Activation Lee takes Wilmington and parks the army in Lancaster.  The DC forces move to retake Baltimore and Annapolis then skedaddle back to DC.  Final activation roll, TIE - so both sides get a special action card, then the US rolls a 6 and the CSA a 1 On To Richmond and 5 activations but the south gets to go last...  The USA takes out Stuart's cavalry (Stuart failed to retreat, tis sad but oh well), the other activations were used for Grant, a naval move and an attack on New Orleans.  The CANV then gets to move.  First a single SP is activated and moves to Philadelphia, Lee then sends Grouchy old Longstreet to Dover and then finally moves the rest of the CANV to Baltimore and then Annapolis (using the Special Action East card the CSA drew from the previous Tie).  Little Mac tried to intercept twice - needing a seven or higher on 2d6 each time but failed both times.  Being out of supply the SPs on their own have to roll for forage and all three make it (anything but a 6).  This give the CSA 12 VPs for holding the 6 vp hexes in the north at turn end and thus a sudden death victory - the victory point mark for turn 6 is 15, the USA had 14 VPs from other spots they had taken, minus the 12 the CSA gets it leaves them with 2vp and they needed at least 4 in order to avoid the Sudden Death Victory).  Abe Lincoln is forced to Sue for peace with the CSA.

Both Lawrence and I like this game a lot.  Despite the blowout at the end of the turn it would have gone much differently if the tie had not occurred (giving Lee the Special Action card that allowed the run to Annapolis), the US had LOST initiative (and thus would have gone last and been able to respond to Lee's VP grab run) or the CSA had rolled a 6 for any of the units that could have died for being OOS.  The Union has to start attacking from the start by amphibious assault and driving down the Mississippi while defending DC.  The CSA has to threaten DC and the cities around it and keep the US from taking other spots in the meantime.  A real balancing act - quite different from For The People where it is pretty much ALL about DC till Grant arrives.

We like it enough that we are going to start it right up again, perhaps playing with the advanced Naval rules or maybe using the basic rules but allowing naval assaults on regular actions playing the basic game.

ASL scenario BFP-26 Armored Samurai

I've been toying with playing the PTO and the Japanese for years, trying a couple scenarios but it never caught on, too much to learn.  Then I purchased Blood and Jungle from Bounding Fire Productions and it has a very nice intro - the first scenario is no Banzai, no Dare Death, no PTO terrain, etc...  The next one simply adds that the Japanese are HTH if they attack, the next one adds one other item, etc...

So BFP26 takes place in Manchuria in 1932 and features a bunch of Japanese AA trucks, "tanks" (they are tracked, have some kind of gun, and are not actually un-armored...) and Japanese first line squads.  They are up against 2 Chinese ARTY pieces of 70mm and some first line and conscript squads.  The Japanese win by controlling two particular buildings and keeping CVP under 34.

The Situation at start.  Japanese come in on the right side on/after turn 1.

End of Japanese turn 1.

End of Chinese Turn 1.

End of Japanese turn 2, the AA trucks come on and I get over enamored with the firepower they bring (16fp after moving...)

End of Chinese turn 2. 

First Melee, A Japanese HS and Squad jump on a Chinese squad and all that happens is the HS gets eliminated.  No HTH and not HTH modified for the Japanese.  At this point I am still playing the Japanese like I would play with other nationalities...

End of Chinese turn 3.

Japanese Arty lands, sometimes you just get lucky...

Japanese turn 4 end.

Situation at the end of Japanese turn 5.  Chinese guns pop up and fire!  The Japanese MG at the top killed a tank as well.

End of Chinese turn 5, the guns shock one tank and when another fires PB it malfs the MA...

At this point something clicked, Japanese do not break they Stripe...

BONSAI!  (Banzai is not allowed by SSR you see).

At the top right a platoon moved directly adjacent to the Chinese LMG, squad, and leader in the building, all the squads stripe and the leader CRs but all is good!  I lose an AA truck however and that brings me close to the CVP cap...

Pretty much the end of the game.  I had to try a bum rush to get to the last Victory building and lose an AA truck in the process which brings me over the CVP cap.  If I were to play this again I would know better  - the Japanese win or lose with their ability to keep going when other nationalities break and run.  The squads on the trucks would have disembarked as soon as getting on board and swarmed the Chinese defenses.  The trucks themselves would be for long range cover fire.

The US Civil War turns 3,4, and 5

Played through turns 3,4, and 5 of The US Civil War yesterday.  The south appeared to be in big trouble at the end of 61 and then the winter of 62 introduces RE Lee and things look up.

End of turn 3 in the East.  Longstreet has been kicked out of his spot in WV, now holding onto one last little town (left side of pic near the center).  J Johnston holds off the union horde with Stuart nearby.  Stuart had gone on a run up north did some damage and after figuring out I messed up and used the 0 column instead of the 1 (and thus he lived rather than died) he skeedadled back in VA.

The situation in the West and far West.  Van Dorn holds Springfield.  AS Johnston holds the Mississippi.

A shot centered on WV, which is about to fall.

End of turn 4.

In the east "whiskers" Burnside takes Norfolk.  J Johnston and Beuregard hold off McClellan and Longstreet falls back into VA.

In the west Grant had taken Nashville, AS Johnston swung around to retake it (Grant had moved back to the spot where the 1SP currently resides) and Grant managed to Intercept but then lost the battle.  Nashville is saved!  The problem is the South had to use up almost all the SP in the area to do it.

End of turn 5.

First in the East.  Longstreet was defeated at Stauton but the the US did not have enough MP to destroy the space and take control.  RE Lee moved near but could not make it that phase (not enough MP).  Next activation roll the south wins and RE Lee attacks - knocking the interlopers down 2so to no loss.  Since it was 2-1 Lee kept going and attacked again finishing off the last US SP.  Next activation round Lee went up to Harpers Ferry (using a Special Action to increase speed by 2) and knocked them back as well (the DM stack above them is where they ended up).  Finally some troops in DC went south and attacked Beuregard and lost (lucky buggar but the entrenchments helped).  I thought I had it on the picture but further south the US landed troops and took a port too, the squeeze is starting...

More fighting between Grant and AS Johnston, with Mcgruder now up as cavalry.  Basically the two are pounding the snot out of each other.

In the Far West Curtis takes Springfield, not looking good for the Rebs, but there is a lot of ground and not much in the way of VP spaces.

Both my opponent and I rate this game highly, now that Lee is on the board he will have to protect the north while making big gains elsewhere - it is close to a southern auto-victory at the moment.  The problem for the south is pushing for that victory means leaving somewhere else uncovered...