Lock N Load Tactical Starter Kit Scenario 1: Assault on Vierville

Played my first Lock N Load Tactical game back on the September 8th but only got round to blogging it till now (lazy and busy, bad combination).  Tomorrow night Bill and I will be playing again.

The setup.  The winner is whichever side controls 4+ buildings at the end of turn 6.  The US starts in control of them.

First Blood!  a US MMG fires on moving Germans shaking them (which in ASL speak - I'm an old ASLer - is equivalent to breaking)

End of turn 1.  The US sniper does very little and then is eliminated in Melee.  I'll know better next time.  Major Tom comes on board (we made a mistake, reinforcements were placed onboard instead of entering - will take care of that next time too)

End of Turn 2.  A little bit of movement and Major Tom fires again.

First Melee!  Although the Germans were eliminated they kept Major Tom occupied.

End of turn 3.  Not much else happening for the turn.  The Germans want to rally before moving forward.

End of Turn 4.  Still not a lot of movement as the Germans are trying to recover and Major Tom did not want to move in the open.

Another Melee!  This time things go Jerry's way.  The victory is now in site for Germany.

End of turn 5.  We called the game after this, both players thinking the other had it won.  The Germans needed one more VP building but had 4 squads left while the US only had 3 left.  The Germans could activate 4 in sequence and the US would have run out of shots.  On the other hand the US could have help off, and reinforced a melee or perhaps retaken a building via melee and won that way.  

Had a lot of fun with the system and the ease of reading the rules.  I've played ASL since it came out and this system captures a lot of the tactical feel that ASL does with much less rules overhead.  There are some things I miss like MG firelanes and Residual Fire but the clean system easily makes up for those items.  Looking forward to tomorrow's game (the 24th as I am writing this on the 23rd) where we add in Artillery.  The game after that is armored combat.

Fireball Forward: Brigade Box Tiger Variant

Fourth time playing or Umpiring this scenario and every time has been a UK win.  Each time the German Tigers were too aggresive and paid the price.

The setup.  All of the chits are hidden UK units, most of them are dummies.  I do this instead of hidden units since hidden units are a pain and the end result is almost exactly the same.  I forgot my orchards so blue tape filled in.  There is also a bit of blue tape for a stream that can be crossed (it is labeled).  the trees denote wooded areas and the brush is hedgerow.  The Germans have to capture the command post (top of map) or get 12vp to win.  The Germans get 1vp for each UK unit destroyed or 2vp for each tank or squad exited off the far side of the map.

End of turn 1!  (out of 8 possible turns)

The highlight is the Tigers moving forward and getting side shotted by the 17lber AT gun.  The first shot was the 17lber reaction fire and the second was when the 17lber activated.  Two Tigers down.  The Morale roll caused the other tigers to become broken and one of them (above) had to run off the board.

And the rest of the table.  Even though there are 6 German squads (or leaders) that broke for awhile it seemed like the German player would never fail a Morale Check.  In response the UK troops failed at a high rate.

End of Turn 2!

Highlights.  Two German 251/9 halftracks (with 75mm guns) tried to rush forward and were destroyed by the Sextons in the back line.  The Tiger had run for the hills and been destroyed by another 17lber hiding on the road.

The end of the Game.  German infantry fire did fairly well up top, forcing two UK squads to fall back but the middle to bottom was mostly a UK shooting gallery.  It had taken a few hours to get to this point so we called it a game since the German player was out of vehicles and his infantry was getting chewed up badly.

Commands and Colors

Played Command and Color Napoleonics.  Sadly I had to leave early due to work the next morning.  I was the center dudes attacking the Brits and Portuguese with my second rate (Napoleon was not there) French.  My guys on the left made a sweep through the British lines while the cavalry and others held back due to cards.  Still iffy at that point but I had to go... 

Stonewall Jackson's Way two scenario 1 (GCACW)

My friend Lawrence was away for 9 months and so I've had no FTF gaming for awhile.  Finally put that to an end today.  Our last game nine months ago was Stonewall Jackson's Way 2 and so was our first first game now that he is back.

The setup for the game.  Stonewall has to take Culpepper and has three days to do it.  The first day no unit can go past 2 fatigue (normally you can go as high as 4) and no force march allowed.

End of turn 1.  The CSA gets the first Victory Point - they need 13+ to win and Culpepper is worth 9 if the CSA owns it, 16 if no US units are adjacent.

The map at the end of turn 1.  Sorry for the glare.  Jackson's forces push aside the US cavalry screen but lose precious time doing so.  Meanwhile the CSA Cavalry kills off the US cavalry.  Other US units move to slow down Jackson's march tomorrow.  The unit just above Culpepper had a special rule - unable to do anything on turn 1.

End of Turn 2.  CSA now has 7VP, the US took a beating this turn.

Jackson Marched into Culpepper on the second activation.  The CSA won the first two so the US did not get to move.  On the first activation the screening forces were destroyed and on the second he marched into Culpepper pushing out the US forces in the city.  With losses as they are the US has to cause CSA losses to bring the VP total back down, if they can win a couple battles they can get a minor victory.

End of the game.  Jackson won the initiative and attacked Banks and failed!  All CSA forces went to fatigue 4 AND the CSA had lost 3VP in the attack.  The USA is in striking distance of winning now.  Pope tries a grand assault twice and fails each time.  Banks tries a Corps assault and also fails.  The game ends with a minor CSA victory.

It was good to get a game back on the game table after 9 months.  Looking forward to the next game in September!

MBT Learning scenario 1

Played a learning scenario of MBT with Charles via Vassal.  Looking forward to more of this and Panzer as well.  A solid game system but when the shooting starts things get ugly quickly.

The setup.  The US at the top and the Soviets at the bottom.  The 4VP hexes (circled) are each worth roughly one tank loss.  So if one side takes them and the other does nothing that side wins.  Normally it boils down to whoever gets the most kills.

End of turn 1, both sides heading for the leftmost two VP hexes.

The US gets off the first shots (they won the initiative roll).  Next game I will suggest using the alternate Initiative procedure where you only activate a platoon at a time - it makes losing that first roll less catastrophic.  In this case 7 US tanks destroy 3 Soviet tanks before the Soviets get a chance to fire.  If I had noticed the LOS to the other Soviet tanks it would have been worse for them.

End of turn 2.  Like I said it is deadly once combat is joined.  The soviets take out 2 US tanks while the US Take out 2 move Soviets and damage a third.

Skipping to the end now.  Things broke the US way the next turn when they won initiative again.  At the end of turn 5 all of the Russian tanks are destroyed with the US losing 4.  

Looking forward to more of this game, adding in the advanced rules for tanks along with Infantry (and AT Missiles of course) which will also make spotting more important (in this one everyone spotted everyone once we were in range).

Panzer Scenario 1

Played Panzer Scenario 1 with Martin Lane from the UK Last Sunday and Saturday June 30th.  We played with all the advanced rules and some of the optional ones as well.

The setup.  The line of counters is the edge of the playable area and the objective locations are listed along with the initial setup of the Russian and German forces.

End of turn 1.  Both sides moving into position.

First shot and first blood to the Germans!  A track hit causes a Russian tank crew to bail out!

End of turn 2 and the Russian return fire destroys 3 German tanks (I missed a fourth one down in the woods too, 4 German tanks destroyed.

End of turn 3.  The Germans take two of the VP locations but their losses mean they will have to kill Russians in order to get the win.  So far it is 1 Russian killed to 4 Germans.

Skipping to end of turn 6, the past few turns consisted of lots of firing back and forth with only 1 more dead German tank to show for it.  

End of turn 8.  The Russians move out of LOS of Germans to the "south".  They were in a disadvantageous position and only luck kept them from more losses.  The woods and Hull Down made the Germans very hard to hit. 

End of turn 11 and the game.  Germans conceded after this.  The last Russian tank made a run for cover after destroying the final German tank up "North".  This still left the Russians with 6 kills to 2 German kills and with the Russians now behind cover the Germans would have to move into LOS to get a shot at the Russians and the Russians would be on overwatch waiting for the chance to take the shots.   

I've not played the game for over a year now and was looking forward to it.  Martin and I plan to play more of the scenarios (I'm hoping to play through all of them and the MBT ones as well).  I like the order plotting step and how it is carried out - we also used the staggered initiative which helps to make the single initiative roll not so critical, losing the first one does not mean possibly losing all your tanks due to a single DR not going well.

Finally a nod to how awesome VASSAL is.  Martin is in the UK and I'm on the East Coast of the USA.  Since I like to play in the morning and early afternoon this works out with Martin's playing later in the day.  It would take some long arms to play with a physical board and counters at that distance!

Fireball Forward! Darkness Before the Dawn

Ran the scenario yesterday for the 3rd or 4th time.  Still managing to mess up some simple rules, Suppression - BAH!, Overruns - BAH!, Close Combat against a single guy - BAH!  (till the last turn that is).  Almost forgot that a 1 on the Malf roll stills need a second roll to confirm it.  It was a fun game the time I forgot that for a few turns, half the guns on the board were malfed.

Table Setup.  Both sides get points for holding buildings, Germans get them for each Panther moved off the board and the US gets them for each Panther Destroyed.

End of Turn 1.  A US Bazooka team takes out a Panther, 1VP for the US!  The square blocks are blinds, the game uses hidden movement but I find it a pain and go with blinds.  Each side gets one dummy blind and one real one for each Platoon.  Works out pretty well but am thinking of going with 2 smaller blinds per unit so they can split up.  I'm also going to be spiffing them up with Allied and Axis symbols on the back sides instead of empty like now.

End of turn 2.  Sorry about the light being bad.  Since this scenario takes place at night perhaps it is appropriate...
Quite a lot going on by the end of this turn.  The Germans are heading off to the northern exit (off to the right) and the middle road is getting congested with dead vehicles.  

End of turn 3.  The Germans take one of the VP buildings!  One VP for them (they get 5 if they capture all three of the buildings off to the right).  The middle road is a death trap for either side.

End of turn 4.  The Germans overrun all the US survivors and the 57mm gun had no luck firing at a Panther.  On the middle road the Germans clear out the remaining US forces

The Germans capture the Farm Complex (off to the right) in a CC with a single US leader (looking through the rules the leader would have to run away even on a draw, oops).  The Panthers on the road hustle off the board, another Panther bogs on the Hedgerow and the last VP building is Close Assaulted by the Germans (US units were pinned after being fired on, another was Broken).  CC ends up as a US win so they hold the final VP building for a DRAW!  US go 6 points for six destroyed Panthers and one VP building while the Germans got 5 VP for the right building complex and 2 VP for the Panthers off the road.