The end is nigh?

Battlestar Galactica
Dave added himself to the recently familiar turnout, making us 5 for Sunday's games. Donald had first choice and he plumped for Battlestar Galactica. I was pleased with this choice despite the anti-climax of our last play. The imminent expansion I wrote about back in June was part of the reason for this: I want to have played the basic set often enough to have gone well beyond first impressions when I get a taste of how the expansion changes the game.

Preliminary testing
Sitting down Monday morning to get to work on the write-up, I decided on pictures of the key cards which'd been part of the Cylons' final onslaught. I set to work with the scanner. The first scan- fullsize at left, was terrible: the pictures were too small and the resolution was terrible. I briefly considered just using them but, remembering recent testing of the ideal setting for scanning miniatures, I decided instead to run a quick settings test. (No prizes to the readers who notice the smidgin of irony here, but cheerful greetings for sure to those who might wish to register their groans at my lame attempt at humour!)

Scantests

You can see above the range of tests (from the left):

• Illustration doctype on screen/web setting.
• Ditto @300dpi.
• Photo doctype @300dpi.
• Magazine doctype @300dpi.

The resolution of the photo doctype scans were good, but the image above shows the problem: the scan automatically cropped the image inconveniently. The magazine doctype proved ideal in the end, which should be hardly surprising I guess: these are full-colour printed images exactly like those in magazines.

What went down
Humanity's last chance on Sunday then rested in the hands of 5 'people':

• Starbuck: Gav, who sought the simplicity of the fighter jock's role- just fly around and shoot things.
• William Adama: Andy, for whom a nuclear arsenal was compensation for the burdens of command.
• Chief Galen Tyrol: Dave, eschewing the complexities of politics in favour of honest sweat and toil.
• Laura Roslin: Donald, because someone has to be President, I guess.
• Helo: me, just looking for something different.

I got that something different immediately: my first experience as an at-start Cylon. For some reason I was marked down from the get-go. At the time I imagined this was sheer arbitrariness based on Helo's Stranded special rule. With hindsight I'm not so sure because, unlike my first game as a Cylon, I fluffed the moment when I looked at my card. I can still remember quietly cursing myself as I over-hastily put down the card only to realise that I'd not even read it properly, and that I dared not pick it up to find out exactly what would happen when I decided to reveal my true colours.

All our best efforts...

My play didn't improve much after this bad start but I'm certainly not going to comment on that in detail because I've no intention of passing on tips that could be used against me by either side in a future game. Sufficeth to say that the humans must've had their god on their side, because they were very lucky in several ways:

• They reached the jump-4 midpoint of their route to Kobol in a mere 2 jumps IIRC.
• Their first jump thereafter was a Cylon Ambush; which may have launched a Cylon attack, but it was a jump 3 which put them just 2 jumps out from home.
• Gav was able to use Starbuck's Secret Destiny to avoid a Cylon Swarm just after they'd made that penultimate jump.

These twists of fate notwithstanding our Cylon god certainly hasn't lost the war: the Centurions landed aboard the Galactica by my Cylon Intruders Super Crisis card might not've been as Donald's Bomb on Colonial 1, but the resource dials were still dangerously low as the humans made their final jump preparations:

• Fuel: 3.
• Food: 2.
• Morale: 1.
• Population: 6.

The pace of the humans' jump preparations told against the Cylons again: Donald's and my options were restricted in those final turns because drawing Crisis cards to attack resources or mobilise the Centurions threatened simultaneously to bring those jump preparations to completion; an eventually we figured was favoured by the odds. Perhaps we should've played aggressively for our own blind luck of the draw, because soon enough our only hope was to buck much worse odds as Dave drew for the Skill card to repair the FTL controls, damage to which was the last thing preventing the last jump out. They made it, naturally enough.

Score
Blind faith and dogma? 1
The appliance of science? 0
:-[

Afterthoughts
This game was more eventful than the last, with a close finish, but we were still left unsatisfied. I think there are 2 possibilities here:

• The potentialities of the procedural gameplay are as limited as I had originally feared because of my experience of Arkham Horror, so that the game has already become stereotyped and dull.
• We simply aren't playing it right; that is to say, we aren't investing enough in our tabletalk as we play, so that experiencing the limitations of bare procedural play in a game of this ilk.

I like the BSG boardgame enough that I hope we can revive our interest by bringing more to the table the next time we play. That game of Gloom Gav and Badger and I played with Keith Baker during his recent visit taught me exactly how much difference you can make with speech play for the simple sake of entering into the spirit of a game. So I'm optimistic I guess.

Settlers of Catan
One good quality of BSG is that it is pretty quick to play, so we had time for something more than just filler to follow. Regular readers will be unsurprised to read that Settlers appeared on the table yet again. The 5/6 player game's expanded map soon appeared, and we were off.

The setup

I was red, and my setup left me feeling uncomfortable as the game began:

• With only 4 different numbers out of 6, I was in a position similar to that from which I'd suffered last month.
• I had no grain, and soon lost all hope of gaining access to it.

A combination of luck and judgement meant that was I feeling better soon enough:

• My first settlement was a 3:1 port.
• I finally remembered to build that quick first city.
• A series of foruitous dice rolls let me build a couple of quick roads and a settlement so that I became a potential ore magnate.
  

The final position

Unfortunately the 10's from which I'd reaped such rich rewards weren't seen again and I stalled on 7 as Gav (white) and I sought to stop Donald's (orange) advance to victory. We couldn't.

Score
Devious Donald 1
Happy humans? 1
Sore loser? 0
X[

Fluxx
We rounded the session off with a few hands of Looney Labs' Fluxx. Dave was new to the game so Gav and I sang its praises to him. One feature we stressed was how tight the rules are. Ironically enough then, one of our games featured a first: a situation in which the interaction of 2 cards was more than not immediately obvious; it even remained open to question after we'd decided what we were going to do.

The 2 cards were:

• Action, Draw 3, play 2 of them.
• New rule, Inflation: X=X+1, where X is any numeral.

The question arose because the action was played, then the new rule; did the Inflation apply to the action? Unable to rule based on the cards' text, we decided to play that it did.

I'm sure that we got it right. The burden of our confusion was that the action had already been played, so we assumed the Inflation was being applied retroactively. The precise wording on the right- first paragraph, corrects our mistake: not discarded until its instructions are completed, the action card was still in play when the new rule was played.

Score
Andy 1
Donald 3
Dave 3
Gav 2
Me 1
:-/
;)

WTF?! WFRP3... & FTW?

An otherwise fruitless trip last week to the big F in Glasgow's FLGS- Static Games, netted me some news which frankly had my mind reeling in horror and tooling me up to join an internet mob of torch-and-pitchfork-wielding heresy hunters. I refer of course, to FFG's announcement on August 12th of the impending Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition (all rumour of which had completely passed me by). My entire vocabulary of superlatives distilled into ichor would barely summon the merest whiff of my rage, instinctive and despairing, at another oh so typical corporate betrayal in the face of which I was already brewing vituperation and vitriol (all sight unseen, naturally enough).

Kenny, Static's proprietor was pretty astonished himself. Telling me of reports from the FFG WFRP3 seminar at Gencon, he explained that this was going to be a completely new system. What? Why? What was wrong with WFRP2 (except that it wasn't FFG's own product, naturally enough)? We both agreed easily that WFRP2 was an exemplar of how to do a new edition well, and that it had been successful and popular. We discussed the issue at length and I left, none the wiser but determined to remain true to the prejudices awakened by my spasm of geek rage.

Ever the intrepid blogger I decided to beard the lion in its den, where I found the videos of those WFRP3 seminars. First impressions threatened to awaken that slumbering daemonigeek:

• It's a big box game- well I guess that's unsurprising from FFG, the master of the big box boardgame in today's adventure games industry.
• As well as 4 rulebooks it's got lots of cards and other 'playaids', making it look immediately like a WFRP version of FFG's Descent, which regular readers will know I like: the obvious idea - "Oh no, it's just a boardgame in disguise!" - passed surprisingly quickly; but inevitable thoughts of previous failures in this regard could only serve to strengthen my attachment to the good old pencil and paper.
• Talk of custom dice by the dozen and an immediate expansion to add more careers to the paltry 30(?!) in the basic set did indeed harden my disdain.
• And on top of all that, it's going to cost a staggering $99.95.

I'm sure dear readers, that with no difficulty at all you can recall moments when your own veins of cynicism were similarly opened up and you could just smell the turds incoming. Of course- as you'll find out if you watch the videos, this thing is just so damn different that it rapidly became irresistible out of sheer geek curiosity. That's not all. The simple fact is that I think this might actually work. If it does, I can see no good reason why it won't be the biggest thing in RPG's since D&D all those years ago. That grandiose statement is nothing more than an echo of the vision presented by Jay Little in that seminar.

Some examples of why I find what FFG is doing is so intriguing:

• As well as each player having their own PC each party has its own 'character' too (cf. video #3)- the players choose these according to the particular mix of PC's in their party; different kinds of parties have different ranges of talents over which the use of the players must negotiate; each party also has a party tension attribute which can be manipulated to dramatic effect.
• Talents and special manoeuvres are handled by what is called the 'stance system' (cf. video #4); this gives each PC a range on the caution/rashness scale; by shifting up and down this scale players gain improved chances of success or enable talents and special manoevures.
• The game uses dicepools based on custom dice; these generate far more information than success/failure or even just degrees of either; they can also generate, eg. delays: that is to say dramatic-narrative content.

And what is it about the apparent functionality of these systems that has made me swallow my ire and prepare to shell out whatever $99.95 will come to once it has crossed the Atlantic at probably the most expensive time for buying imported US product in the history of the adventure gaming industry?

Well for example, it could solve a problem that has perplexed roleplayers for over 20 years: namely how to handle time- eg. deadlines, dramatically. What FFG has done should probably work because they've taken the action out of the old clockwork time sequence which sooner or later enforces an unrealistic micromanagement playstyle; and they've turned the whole thing inside out so that when it counts, time is determined by dice rolls in respect of which players can make real decisions, including resource management, eg. fate points. In other words, they are approaching the problem with a line of methodological abstraction echoing that used by Courtney Allen in Up Front, and by Chad Jensen in Combat Commander and Fighting Formations. Regular readers will understand why this design approach excites me so much.

It's nearly 3 years since I last played WFRP. I've been thinking about getting back to my little Old World ever since, naturally enough. So you can be sure that WFRP3 will be getting a tryout at my table, and that you'll be reading about it here at RD/KA!. All in good time. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- A Rash of Enthusiasm... for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- A parcel of rogues...

The original combat commander

Introduction
Regular readers might remember that the book Infantry Attacks, by the legendary Erwin Rommel, was part of my booty from UK Expo'09. I've finally got round to reading it, finishing it during my journey home from London.

Infantry Attacks (Infanterie greift an) was first published in 1937. It was this book which first brought Rommel to the attention of Adolf Hitler, a fateful moment which was ultimately to prove fatal to Rommel. It was translated into English in 1944 for the US army, one result of which was Patton's memorable remark:

"Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!"

Between the covers
The book details the actions Rommel participated in during WW1. He fought as a junior field officer on many fronts:

• Belgium and N. France, 1914: 6th Württemberg Infantry Regiment- the unit in which Rommel was a platoon commander, was part of the German 5th Army under Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany; 5th Army was part of the Schlieffen plan's 'hinge'; these operations included a crossing of the Meuse river which Rommel famously crossed again with his 7th Panzer Division in 1940, at Dinant some 100km north of his 1914 field of operations. (BTW: I know I misspelt 'Schlieffen' on the map's labels!)

• The Argonne, 1915: a forested region just east of Verdun (you can see its location on the small map- above), the Argonne was where Rommel got his main taste of the trench warfare that was infamously to dominate the Western Front for the next 4 years; the picture- above left, is from the aftermath of the heavy fighting in the Argonne, and shows what has since become an archetypal image of the unprecedented destruction wrought by the massed artillery bombardments of WW1.

• The High Vosges, 1916: in October 1915 Rommel was posted to the Württemberg Mountain Battalion with which he served for the rest of the war; after long training the battalion went into the line in the Higher Vosges- a range of mountains in France close to the Franco-German border.

• Rumania, 1916: Rumania entered the war on the Allied side on August 27th 1916; as a result Rommel's Württemberg Mountain Battalion was transferred to Transylvania (in German: Siebenbürgen); there the battalion took part in several successful mountain attacks.

• Carpathians, 1917: the Württemberg Mountain Battalion was again transferred, to be part of a summer offensive to close down the Russian front after the revolution of February 1917; although still a junior officer, Rommel played a significant role in two weeks' heavy fighting to take and hold Mount Cosna.

• Carinthia, 1917: Rommel's last operation as a field commander in WW1 was the 12th Battle of Isonzo- better known as the Battle of Caporetto, and referred to by Rommel as the Tolmein offensive, for the town near the Württemberg Mountain Battalion's assembly area (this can be seen as 'Tolmino' on the map- above right); the offensive was a huge success for the Central Powers, and a complete vindication of the new stormtrooper and infiltration tactics which Germany had developed.

In each chapter Rommel details his orders; describes the dispositions of his forces and the terrain across which they would be fighting; details and explains the resulting plans; and gives an account of how the action developed and how he responded to events. These technical details are filled out with some anecdotes from the fighting and from frontline life. Most chapters conclude with "Observations", in which Rommel draws conclusions about what happened and why.

There are illustrations in addition to the text. These are not the photographs so familiar from many campaign histories. They are are sketches and maps of the battlefield, of a style which makes them look like they were drawn by Rommel himself. This impression is strengthened by the fact that many of the illustrations aren't maps; rather they are views of the battlefield from vantage points I can only assume Rommel actually occupied at the time.

And?
I must confess that I was a little disappointed with this book at first. It is extremely dry, written in a very curt style which provides little more than the barest account of the matters Rommel covers. This wasn't helped for me by the nationalistic tone of the book: to read Rommel in Nazi Germany singing the praises of German soldiery in what I knew was going to be an account of his role in the slaughter of WW1; a book written as a careerist manoeuvre as he sought advancement for the sake of playing a bigger part in the war he must already've seen on the horizon; well, let me just say that didn't capture my enthusiasm.

Soon enough though the book began to grow on me. The first thing that came to my attention were hints of the character of the man well-known from his exploits in the Western Desert in WW2; namely his penchant for getting into the thick of the action and so losing sight of the overall picture. Something for which he has sometimes been criticised, this was no doubt more forgivable in a junior field officer in any case.

My interest was further piqued by the commonplace references to 'squads'. I've long believed that platoons were the basic low-level tactical units on the WW1 battlefield, and that squads didn't come to fill that role until 1918. Rommel contradicts this with references to squads being given mission objectives essentially from the very start. Wikipedia's coverage of the development of infantry tactics in WW1 breaks the subject down into:

• Stormtroopers: a formation first devised by the Germans in 1915 and first used on a large scale by the Russians (this surprised me: the Russians in WW1 are generally known for their infantry tactics the same way that the British were known for tank design in WW2; ie. not at all!) in 1916.
• Infiltration tactics (or Hutier tactics, for Oskar von Hutier, the German general who devised them).

It is worth noting that neither of these have anything to say about the move to squad-based tactics as such, although a key feature distinguishing infiltration tactics from what had gone before was the use of smaller units.

In any event, once this issue had got me to consider the book more favourably, I soon realised that I had been labouring under the impact of false expectations. I'd unwittingly been expecting a frontline commander's version of a campaign history of the sort I've read so often. Infantry Actions is a very different book. Instead of the campaign overview with telling details and vivid anecdotes to fill out an account of all levels of the action, it is a field commander's account of how he went about the business of commanding his forces in battle.

What Rommel typically gives us therefore is something like this:

• We marched all day, bivouaced late and ate little.
• Orders came through in the dead of night and we set off.
• Reaching our objective we (I) conducted reconnaisance to determine:

1. A breakthrough point for the assault units.
2. Positions for the fire support units.
3. Avenues of approach.

• A plan was formulated, eg.:

1. 1st platoon would be the assault force.
2. A company on the left, and B company with 3rd and 4th HMG platoons on the right would provide fire support.
3. D company plus 5th HMG platoon would be in reserve.

• Orders were given, my units moved into position, and the action began.
• As the action developed:

1. The fire support plan pinned the enemy as expected, the assault forces broke into the enemy position, and I ordered a platoon from D company forward to exploit the breakthrough.
2. A company was pinned down by heavy fire and strong enemy forces appeared, threatening to turn our left flank, so I ordered another platoon from D company plus the 5th HMG platoon up to hold the line.
3. The initial breakthrough secured, I ordered 2 platoons of B company plus 3rd HMG platoon to consolidate on the assault platoon to prepare for further exploitation.

• And so on and so on until the action was concluded.

This isn't an actual example. It's just to give a flavour of Rommel's treatment of his subject matter; namely a technical account of his role in his units' exploits. The book is chock full of this sort of stuff, all written in the professional soldier's clipped jargon to boot. When Rommel does break out of this vein to bring in anecdotes, they are often about the fate of crucial or particularly popular NCO's and officers, or about the situations in which he found himself as he made his way about the battlefield.

Sometimes Rommel is in the thick of the action; other times he is talking about the sound of gunfire and the conduct of squads, platoons or companies from the perspective of a company or a battalion commander who often can't see these units. In all cases he is talking about the tactical situation; the demands it placed on himself and his men; how he organised, commanded and led his men to meet those demands; and whether or not it looked as if those demands could be met in pursuit of the objectives which had to be gained in fulfilment of his orders.

In other words: precisely because it is dry compared to the more familiar campaign histories, Rommel succeeds admirably in putting the reader neatly inside the head of a field officer in command of his units during intense action. Therefore this is a very good book indeed for anyone who has any interest at all in that subject matter. The breakdown of its parts also makes it ideal for dipping into, to read about this or that action. So it's no surprise that Infantry Attacks was recommended reading in the US military for several decades. I expect I'll read it again myself. ;)

Heavy metal highlights

I was down in London for a family wedding last weekend. I had some time on my hands before my return journey on the Monday, so I hooked up with a friend and we paid a visit to the Imperial War Museum. I've only been to the IWM once before, many years ago. I had less time on that visit than the couple of hours at my disposal on Monday and I didn't have a digital camera then either, naturally enough. Here are a few of the pictures from that Monday afternoon.

Me with the famous 15" naval guns in the background

Panzerjäger V Jadgpanther

The information panel at the IWM and the wiki article both note that "many military historians consider the Jagdpanther to be the best tank destroyer" of WW2. This is an opinion I share:

• Its 88mm L/71 main armament was simply the best gun in its class in the entire war, able to destroy any Allied tank at any range (L/71 means that the gun barrel is 71 calibre lengths long, ie. 71x88mm= ~6.25m; the longer a gun in calibre lengths the greater the muzzle velocity its shells achieve; the greater the muzzle velocity of solid AP shot the greater its penetration).
• The thick and well-sloped armour gave the Jagdpanther one of the best defence profiles of any AFV to see action.
• It was also fast, with good cross country performance.

The Jagdtiger was better armoured and had a more powerful gun, but was far less mobile and therefore easier to deal with; and the Tiger is more famous, naturally enough. Still, I would have to say that an encounter with a Jagdpanther would probably've offered the worst chance of survival for Allied tankers, especially in the infamously vulnerable tanks of the Anglo-American armoured divisions in Normandy and beyond during 1944-45.

Given all that, just imagine the bollock-shrinking fear of the Cromwell crew in Normandy whose tank came out from behind cover to find this very specimen right in front of them. Imagine too their sheer relief when their puny OQF 75mm scored several quick penetrations in the weaker side armour- picture above left, to put the Jagdpanther out of action.

Readers the slightest bit familiar with modern ground warfare will know that AFV's are disadvantaged in urban settings because buildings constrain their movement and their fire arcs. AFV's with fixed mount weapons, like the Jagdpanther, are even more hampered because they have no rotating turret. A few shots taken from the 1st floor balcony should give you some sense of this.

Above right you can see a couple of views that any bazooka man or PIAT gunner would've wanted to see: high flank shots with the vehicle's vulnerable rear-decking exposed to fire. Infantry support or sheer dumb luck would be the Jagdpanther's only hope in a situation like this. The picture above left shows though that simple height advantage wouldn't always work. Here a quick pivot is all that would be needed to bring the Jagdpanther's main armament to bear. In this case the poor bloody infantry would've been praying for divine intervention.

Assorted pictures

Daimler armoured car

The British army was apparently much better at making armoured cars in WW2 than it was at making tanks, as exemplified both by the general high opinion of the Daimler armoured car, and by the fact that it outlived its own replacement. Phrases like "it incorporated some of the most advanced design concepts of the time" are simply not commonly associated with British AFV's of the period. I suspect that this might have something to do with the usefulness of armoured cars in colonial policing, which would've given the British army experience of armoured car deployment which could've served to prevent development of these AFV's being stymied by spurious doctrines as was the case with the tank.

Matilda II infantry tank

The Matilda II was a prime example of those spurious doctrines in action. It was an 'infantry tank', ie. a tank whose purpose was to support the infantry, hence eg. it was very slow because it wasn't expected to travel much faster than infantry's walking speed. Yet its main armament- a 40mm gun, wasn't provided with HE, so that the tank couldn't actually effectively support infantry in their main role, namely assaulting enemy infantry to seize ground. Thus it was essentially designed to support infantry against tank attacks, a role which wasn't part of the very doctrine which produced the Matilda itself. With thinking like this behind tank procurement it is hardly surprising that Germany's blitzkrieg of the early war years mesmerised its opponents.

Sherman tank

Ubiquitous and reliable, the US M4 Sherman was the mainstay of Allied armoured forces from 1943 onwards. No match for the superior Panther and Tiger tanks, it was also outclassed by its German opposite number, the Panzer IV.

T34/85 tank

Widely regarded to be the best tank of WW2 (though not by yours truly who reserves that accolade for the Panther), the T34 was probably the most influential design of the period, and certainly the most numerous production tank of the war. Unlike the Matilda, the T34 was able to be upgraded, an 85mm gun replacing its original 76mm main armament in 1944.

25 pounder

Field artillery was another area in which British designs excelled, the 25pdr being perhaps the most famous field gun of WW2. Anglo-American fire control was very advanced and well-trained crews using the 25pdr could bring down a truly astonishing weight of fire. The story goes that captured Germans in Normandy in 1944 asked to see the 'belt-fed field guns' so great was the pounding to which they had been subjected.

That's it for the selection of pictures from my recent visit to the IWM. I'm sure I'll be back, and that it'll be somewhat sooner than the 20-odd years since my last visit. Fingers crossed I guess. ;)

Fighting Formations preview #2: The frakkin' game!

(A quick note: this post was supposed to go up soon after the first part, posted a fortnight ago. Unfortunately the CSW website crashed for more than a week so that I couldn't get the information I needed to complete the article, hence the long delay.)

**********

Fighting Formations went live on the GMT P500 at the end of June. It crossed the 500 preorders line in mid-August (17th AFAIK), meaning that will go into production. An xmas release is possible although I'm not holding my breath on that score to be honest: it's just a bit too much to hope for.

Opening FF@CSW last November, Chad announced:

I'll begin by answering the obvious question first: "No, this is not Combat Commander with tanks."

The most obvious difference was made clear immediately: FF is not card-driven. This should've been obvious to fans of CC who've followed Chad's oft rehearsed explanations of why the inclusion of tanks would quickly overload and crash the CC card engine.

On a grander scale
The maps on which Combat Commander is played are very confined, uniquely so in WW2 tactical gaming AFAIK. At 30m/hex, the 15-hex long-edge represents 450m; so that each CC map is effectively 5 Up Front games side by side. FF's maps are on a grander scale. The scaled down CC map tucked into the corner of the sample preproduction FF map- left, shows how significant is this difference. Also, some scenarios use 2 maps so that FF will see grognards make another return to the sweeping battlefield expanses of the early days of Panzerblitz and Squad Leader.

The scenarios are similarly greater in scope, as can be seen from the sample scenario 2- right. The number of infantry units alone would make this a large game in CC terms. All those AFV's suggest that Chad is aiming high with FF: looking for a game approximating Squad Leader in scale and Panzerblitz in level; and playable enough that a high unit count won't make the game unwieldy in the way that has driven ASL scenario development down the road of smaller engagements. And scenario 2 isn't even one of FF's 'monster scenarios'.

On a finer scale
AFV's are more complex beasts than infantry so the AFV counters in FF are more complex than CC's infantry counters, as you'd expect. A comparison of FF's sample PzIV F2 with similiar counters from other games is above. A quick count shows that there are 12 data on the FF counter (front: left to right, top to bottom):

• AP attack w/range (superscript).
• HE/small arms attack w/range (AP and HE have to be distinguished; this is as about as clean a way of doing this as any).
• Special action 'A'.
• Opportunity fire number.
• Fire arc type (circle- top right); eg. turret versus fixed mount.
• Defence: armoured (black again), front and flank (subscript).

This is an information load comparable with that of most games of this level, meaning that there should be an satisfying degree of resolution.

On a variable scale
More striking at first sight than on subsequent reflection is the variable unit scale: basic units are platoons, but these can be broken down into individual elements. Even so, easy as it might be to see the mechanic's roots in 1979's Cross of Iron, knowing that these variable unit densities are integrated into the spatiotemporal dynamics of FF's C3 system means that what was initially simply startling, on reflection appears pregnant with possibilities.

A greater oddity in a WW2 tacsim is FF's use of polyhedral dice: d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. The basic dice roll is 2d10. Modifiers are expressed in 'dice shifts' so that, eg. a +1 modifier would have you rolling 2d12. I confess that I wasn't too keen on this at first sight, because I really disliked a similar mechanic in the Serenity RPG. A picture of a playtest game at a GMT open day overcame this prejudice, when I realised that players would be able to collect their own sets of FF dice. How could a grognard resist?

FF's polyhedral diceshift mechanic also looks cleaner than that of the Serenity RPG's Cortex System (the system the game shares with other RPG's from Margaret Weis Productions). Compared to FF's base 2d10 shifted up or down, Cortex's dice rolls are based on the use of 2 character attributes, each liable to be different dice- a system the use of which I found intrusive enough to undermine my willing suspension; bonuses are expressed as extra dice- themselves varying in kind; and it uses d2, d4, d6, d10 and d12- those d2's and d4's really bugged me.

Assets
I noted above that FF isn't card-driven. There are cards in the game though. These are Assets. They'll represent various things, from air strikes to wirecutters. Exactly as in CC these will enable players to build a plan around the use of an asset at a key point on the battlefield.

It is interesting to think about how these should reinforce player point-of-view. Ranging from the smallest element right at the sharp end up to operational elements utterly beyond the control of the commanders the players represent, the assets 'bracket' the players as commanders. The net result should be to strengthen the players' identification with their nominal commanders.

Command and control
Exactly as CC fans would expect from a new Chad Jensen design, C3 is the heart of FF. The Orders Matrix shown left is the heart of C3 in FF. These are the key elements in the C3 system:

• Order cubes: wooden cubes determining the command potentialities in a turn.
• Command markers: counters placed on the map to represent the command radius, to determine whether units are in or out of command.
• Mission/Tactical command: command markers start as Mission command when they are placed; they are flipped over to Tactical command at the end of the turn in which they are placed.
  
• Initiative: all orders- active or reactive, cost initiative; the player with the initiative is the active player.

The way the system will work will be something like this:

• The order cubes will be randomly seeded onto the Orders Matrix.
• The player who has the initiative picks one cube from the matrix, pays the initiative cost (the number of the space) and may execute any order in or below that space; eg. a German player picking a cube from space 3 pays 3 initiative to Move, Fire or use an Asset.
• Any number of units may carry out the chosen order; each unit might cost the player extra initiative:

1. Unit(s) under Mission command: 0 extra initiative/unit.
2. Unit(s) under Tactical command: +1 initiative/unit.
3. Unit(s) out of command: +2 initiative/unit.

• The opposing player may react; reactive orders cost initiative, which amounts to giving initiative back to the opposing player.
• The player who now owns the initiative selects another order cube.
• The process is repeated until all 10 order cubes have been selected and the turn is over; Mission command markers are flipped to their Tactical command side for the next turn; Tactical command markers are removed to the ready box for the next turn.

I'll leave it to my readers to work through the nuances of this intriguing multidimensional C3 model. I just want here to note the concepts at play in FF:

• The command cycle and its uncertainties.
• Battlefield friction reducing C3 capacity.
• Proper disposition of forces to maximise command effectiveness so that your units can maintain the momentum of their attack.
• Competition for battlefield initiative to manoeuvre your forces in response to changing battlefield conditions.

I am really looking forward to seeing how Chad has tied all this together with the elements of fire and movement in his new game. Expect to hear more! ;)

Addendum 21/8/09
Just found this post on FF@BGG which has corrected my remark about the timing of the FF's crossing the 500 preorders point: it was the 14th. Good to keep on top of these minor details, eh? ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- Fighting Formations preview #1: Some background

It's for real; it's big; and it's incoming!

The GW company blog yesterday confirmed the rumours that've been floating round the net for some 6 months now: there is to be a new edition of the classic boardgame Space Hulk; and it will be about as spectacular as some were predicting. That this much is true can be seen from the pictures below, which I culled from the GW site. First, a look at the promotional video clip.


Next, a selection of the pictures (you'll find the rest on GW's site, naturally enough).

The box and its contents

The game will be released on September 5th, in what GW is calling "strictly limited numbers". I confess find myself wondering how GW might choose to define the term "strictly limited", if only for the simple reason that I can easily imagine a print run of several tens of thousands selling out via internet preorders in the scant 3 weeks before the new Space Hulk 'hits the shelves' (I preordered 2 myself thanks to Andy's kind offices; I know from the B&C that I'm not the only person in Glasgow to do so; and I'd even think about turning up and queueing on the day to get a 3rd set- yep, it's one of those games dear readers!).

In any event, months of rumour and anticipation coupled with some last minute stoking of the fires with talk of a 40K 'mystery box' means that however large a print run GW have prepared (and the company must've figured on having at least a day or two's stock available for their stores and their distribution chain, surely?), it will sell out in no time at all as fans old and new clamber over each other to get their hands on copies. Assuming this is what happens, will we I wonder see GW resort to this marketing strategy again?

Meanwhile, what about the contents of the box? I won't repeat the list of goodies which you can find on GW's site. Sufficeth to say that 40K fans are only too aware that the samples here are very high quality pieces even by GW's standards. The posing on that Terminator is extremely dynamic and I imagine modellers the world over will be setting to work in the weeks and months to come to make their regular Terminator minis look similiar. This all looks very promising.

Key questions right now for this ardent fan of the previous editions are:

• Will the board pieces be backward compatible with those from the previous editions? There is no reason why they shouldn't be, but you don't have to have been a GW customer all that long to be only too familiar with the built-in obsolescence at the heart of their marketing model. I guess we just have to hope that the design team will have proved every bit as keen to expand on their own existing Space Hulk layouts as are the rest of us.
  
• What will the heavy flamer rules be like with the obvious return to the larger flame templates as used in 1st edition? I confess I'll need something special to persuade me that these rules will be better than the 2nd edition flamer rules, which were one of the better features of the new edition.
  
• How will the extra wargear and characters work? There'll always be the option, as with the flamer rules, of returning to older rules or bringing using homebrews, but your silver tongue might fail you in the face of opponents who prefer the current official version.

But this is mere speculation right now. All these and other mysteries will be revealed very soon. ;)

Addendum, 19/08/09
One of Andy's comments referred to more pictures over at the Warseer forum. For those who are interested, they can be found here. It's also worth keeping a regular check on GW's Space Hulk product page, because it's being updated daily with new pictures until the end of this week.

Related @RD/KA!
- Part 1. In the beginning was the hulk
- Part 2. The timer rule and player point-of-view
- Part 3. Tactics, tactics, tactics!

Happy birthday to RD/KA!

Four years and counting
Today is RD/KA!'s 4th birthday. My gaming blog began life on Saturday 13th August 2005 with the first of a series of reports on the 63rd Worldcon. In those 4 years 350 posts have covered games, comics, movies, books, food, and sundry other topics of interest to gamers; but as the 'Labels' list at the bottom of the page shows, writing about the games I've played has been staple fare. There have been highs and lows as regular readers will know, but you can be sure of one thing: as long as I'm playing games, I'll have something to say about them. Onwards and upwards! :-)

Another Sunday session
We were the four for Sunday games we'd been the last time. Gav was keen for more Risk and Andy was hankering after a game of Roborally, which I fancied too. So that made a plan.

Roborally
Designed by Richard Garfield of Magic: the Gathering fame, and first published by Garfield Games in 1994, Roborally was published in a new edition by Hasbro/Avalon Hill in 2005. I own the original edition and 3 out of 4 of its expansion sets. I've not had a chance to look over the new edition in detail, but I confess I don't like the look of it too much. Or, to be more precise: there are 2 features of the new edition I don't much like the look of.

The first of these is the replacement of the original virtual bots- ie. counters representing each bot, with the docking bay. Virtual bots are a solution to the impossibility of stacking the bot miniatures when the situation demands 2 or more bots occupy the same square, eg. at the start. I'll freely grant that the new rules might be simpler than the originals, but I'm not sure they're more fun. That is to say: I'd like to think there is an extra layer of potential chaos offered by the old virtual bot rules.

One amusing example I can remember involved a bot, a virtual bot and a proximity mine. The 2 bots were adjacent to each other and the real bot dropped a proximity mine. The question arose: would the virtual bot set off the proximity mine? We perused the rules:

• Virtual bots don't interact at all with other bots, virtual or otherwise; they interact normally with everything else.
• Dropped/launched devices are active as soon as they are dropped except to the bot that set them, which has until the end of that register phase to move away.

And so the proximity mine went off under the bot which had dropped it!

The other feature of the new game I'm not keen on is the timer: a 30 second timer is set when the penultimate player has finished programing their bot. I have stoutly resisted suggestions to use time turns in Roborally for years; I'm hardly going to applaud when a new edition makes their use official.

For Sunday's game I canvassed for a board a lot simpler than that we had raced across the last time we played. Winning assent I chose a layout which was fairly open and which used simple board elements, but on which there were still enough different elements for maximum entertainment value. The result was the layout below.

Back Stretch and Pit Row

I cleverly neglected to record the flag locations; but I can remember the start and the 1st flag, because Twonky reached those 2 locations.

The game was entertaining as ever. Highlights among the hijinks were:

• Donald lost his life on the first turn.
• Gav was the first to reach a flag.
• Gav's bot remained virtual for an unprecedented 4 turns.

Most entertaining perhaps were Donald and Andy's encounters with an express conveyor belt. Donald arrived there first. Calculating his move, he figured that he was doomed:

• From the start point (X marks the spot) they were unable to get off the belt.
• Whichever card they played then, the conveyor was going to move them to the edge of the board.
• Once there, they faced 3 equally destructive choices:

1. Let the belt carry them off the edge of the board.
   
2. Move onto the pit.
3. Move onto the oil slick, from where they would slide across to the conveyor, which would carry them off the edge of the board.

Fortunately for Donald, it turned out that he had an option which could save him: Overload Override which allowed him to rotate and move in the same register phase, thus handily escaping the express conveyor before it carried him to his doom. Andy wasn't so fortunate.

The final insult for Andy was that it was Donald's fault that Andy's bot had ended up on the conveyor in the first place. Andy had picked up the Robocopter option. He had finally decided to use it and his bot began to move at a fair clip. Then he was lasered by Donald: his Robocopter was shot off: and his bot was dumped back on the factory floor. His curses were colourful.

Gav was making solid progress while all these hijinks were going on. He won the game with a solid lead:

• Gav: 4 flags.
• Andy: 2 flags.
• Me: 1 flag.
• Donald: 0 flags.

Score
C++ CPU: 1
COBOL CPU's: 0
:-(

Afterthoughts
I really like Roborally, and this game was no exception. I'd like to play more often, to which end I think we'd have to consider how to stage the game as filler. The key to this is single board layouts, and choosing the right number of flags according to the difficulty of the board.

Risk
With time still at our disposal we turned to Risk as Gav had requested. With hindsight Gav might be regretting this because he was the number victim of circumstance in our game: he was playing yellow; eliminating all yellow armies was my mission; so Gav was the consistent target of my unrelenting attacks.

Missions

• Andy: occupy Asia and S. America.
• Donald: occupy Australasia, Europe, and 1 other continent.
• Gav: eliminate all red armies (Andy).
• Me: eliminate all yellow armies (Gav).

The turn order didn't favour Gav because his turn was after mine. I was able to pick 3 or 4 lone yellow armies with some opportunistic attacks in my first turn. After that I quickly took S. America, which gave me a solid base which was never seriously challenged. Nobody had paid any attention to N. America during setup and it was left untouched until the endgame, so I was able to leave a minor frontier force to secure the South and turn my attention to Africa. This too soon fell to my green hordes.

Meanwhile, Andy was trying to secure Asia. Unfortunately for him his efforts were constantly foiled by Donald's and my attacks from Australasia and Africa respectively; neither of us were keen to see 7 armies/turn appear on our borders.

Elsewhere, Gav finally bit the bullet and launched an attack against my strong Icelandic outpost. No one could understand why I was holding Iceland in such strength. The answer was simple: Gav had territories nearby and I was massing for an attack. Gav pre-empted me and broke through Iceland into the virgin lands of N. America, from where he later fought his way through into central Asia in an effort to put as much distance as possible between his armies and mine.

By this time my position was largely unassailable. I was eventually able to seize N. America with the help of a timely set of Risk cards. My mission long since evident to all, Andy tried to stave off my increasingly inevitable victory by finishing Gav off himself. This failed. I won the game next turn, cashing in another set of Risk cards to amass a huge army which I promptly sent through Kamchatka to finish off the handful of yellow units still on the board.

Final position

• Andy: 9 territories (all in Asia).
• Donald: 11 territories (Australasia and Europe).
• Gav: -
• Me: 22 territories (Africa, S. America, N. America, Kamchatka and Japan).

Score
Puny microprocessor 1
Glorious world conqueror 1
Grunts still counting on their fingers 0
:-)

Afterthoughts
I think I was well served by my mission which, barring lucky setups, I feel is a bit easier than one which involves controlling continents. This is because:

• The mission isn't geographically defined so that it is less susceptible to bad setups.
• Other players's attacks on the player you must eliminate contribute directly to your victory.

It'll take a few more games with these missions in play before I can be sure. ;)

Back to the beastly badger baiting!

Memoir'44
Badger's visit for gaming last night saw me still in the mood for light relief so we again eschewed Combat Commander. Left to choose, Badger opted for our old favourite, Memoir'44. We considered playing an Overlord game but we were starting late and Badger wanted to be sure we'd play more than one game. So we decided to start with the first scenario from the Air Pack, and to proceed from there.

Yellow Beach
The first scenario took us to France in August 1942 for the ill-fated Operation Jubilee, the experimental amphibious assault on Dieppe. Operation Jubilee is best known for the heavy casualties suffered by the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in the main assault: a frontal attack on the port itself. The Yellow Beach scenario covers one of the flanking attacks made by British commandos.

No. 3 Commando's 500 men set out in 25 LCP's (Landing Craft Personnel). Their flotilla ran into a German convoy, suffered losses and was scattered. Barely a company reached Yellow Beach. Their advance channelled up ravines in the local cliffs, this puny force had to attack straight up the beaches with none of the heavy support which was to prove so important on the beaches of Normandy nearly 2 years later. You can see exactly how contrained was that beach and those exits in the satellite picture on the left: those are the cliffs at Belleville-Sur-Mer a couple of kilometres west, which you can see are the same feature as those at Yellow Beach.

Why did the operational plan involve landing 500 men in such confined terrain? Because they weren't supposed to be there at all: the flanking attacks were originally going to be airborne; it was only when the plan was revived after a cancellation that amphibious forces were allocated to these missions.

What went down
I played the Allies in our first game. I opened on my left, sending a couple of units up to clear a way through the wire. I was able to press on for another few turns before I bogged down thanks to the ever-familiar lack of cards. IIRC, Badger and I stood at 1 medal each at that point, but my first assault wave was badly depleted and I felt dangerously exposed. Badger was fortunately unable to seize the initiative while I started to develop my right flank.

Tactical genius?

With a Firefight card in my hand I was manoeuvring on each flank to get as many units as possible into position before opening fire. Badger helped me when he sent a lone unit into the attack on my right, which made that Firefight a timely play. Meanwhile I'd advanced on Le Petit Berneval ready a final assault. I eventually retrieved the situation in dramatic fashion, winning 5-1.

We swapped sides. Badger's attack began similarly to mine. He had a hight point when he played Medics and Mechanics to restore to full strength a unit depleted to a single figure, then battling to get a kill. I promptly responded, reducing it to 2 figures again. Badger cleared the wire and established his bridgehead. He even managed to clear the bunker. Unfortunately for him he'd taken too many casualties so that his final attack was weak and unsupported. I was soon able to mop it up, winning 5-3.

Pegasus Bridge
We moved on to Pegasus Bridge for one last game. I drew the Germans, who'd been convincingly thrashed by Donald when I last played this scenario back in February. The difference this time was that we were going to be using the air rules. And what a difference they made!

I got an Me109 on the board in turn 5 and sent it over to support the defenders of Pegasus Bridge. I was able to get in a couple of strafing attacks, which weakened the British attack and gained a KIA. Badger massed units to force an air check and hopefully gain a victory medal, so I decided that discretion was the better part, and the plane withdrew.

Meanwhile I'd pulled a couple of units into a defensive position in the 3-hex wood beside the Caen canal. Badger brought his units into close assault, whereupon I pulled off some fancy manoeuvring with a card combo:

• I played Ambush on his close assault for a free attack, which destroyed an attacking unit.
• Then I used a Centre Probe to move the two units forward into the attack.
• Finally I played Medics and Mechanics so that one unit could recover from the effects of Badger's counterattack.

My plan worked, and I picked up 2 victory medals, winning the game 5-2.

Score
Seasoned commander 3
Impetuous adventurer 0

Afterthoughts
These games were fun and tense, as ever; and playing 3 games in something less than an 3 hours was good too: exactly what you're looking for when you're playing a light wargame for relaxation. I enjoyed playing the air rules again, naturally enough given the results my Me109 delivered. I have shed the reservations I expressed back in March about the need for expanded air rules in M44. Sure, there was no need for them as such, but they are definitely a valuable expansion.

If I'm liking the air power mechanics more, I'm hardening in my dislike of the rules. They are poorly written by any standards IMO, let alone by the high standards of the core M44 rulebook. The Air Sortie cards are the crucial feature of the air rules. These cards differ from normal command cards in certain key ways:

• They never go into your hand should you draw one from the deck; instead they are placed face up on the table, where they remain until you choose actually to play them.

1. Draw a new card immediately.
   

• When played they can be:

1. Played alone to move a plane already on the map or to bring on a new plane if there isn't already a friendly one on the map.
2. Played alongside a command card for the same purposes; in which case they count as one of the orders from that command card.

• Once played Air Sortie cards are discarded as usual.

1. Don't draw a card for the Air Sortie card just played, because it was replaced when it was drawn initially.
   

• All of the above rules apply to Air Sortie cards with which you might start the game according to scenario special rules.

These rules so strongly contradict the familiar rules of cardplay in M44 that they are quite counter intuitive, yet nowhere is there a simple summary of the key points differentiating the play of Air Sortie cards from regular cardplay, not even in the form of a comprehensive example. The mechanics do make sense once you work your way through the rules, but mechanics as simple as these just shouldn't be so difficult to understand.

Ivanhoe
How else could a night of gaming light relief end but with yet more Ivanhoe!

Impetuous young Sir Badger had a point to prove after the walkovers to which he'd just been subjected at M44. Brave Sir John had a score to settle after the beatings he'd taken the last time we'd taken to the tournament field of honour.

We played 4 games in all to round off our evening's gaming. The scores were (Badger-Me):

• 5-4.
• 3-5.
• 5-0.
• 2-5.

Looking at these, we can see that the honours fell as follows:

• Overall games: a tie.
• Total points: 15-14 to Badger, who just squeaks it.
• Ownage: Badger's whitewash gives him that.

As I'm sure gamers everywhere have thought: sometimes raw results can flatter to deceive. ;)

The long road back to the painting table

Gearing up and clearing the decks
It's been three months since I wrote about returning to the miniatures hobby I'd put aside a few years ago. I still haven't picked up a paintbrush in anger in those weeks, but I'm getting close. In the meantime I had to empty a large walk-in cupboard to clear the space to reestablish my painting table. Although everything's packed away again so that I finally have a functional workspace I'm going to have to unpack and reorganise everything again at least once before I'm satisfied.

For the sake of the bloggery I've invested in the finishing touches to my layout for miniatures photography:

• A nifty wee tabletop tripod.
• A quality PVC backdrop.
• And a pair of cheap halogen spots; I'd've thought these would give bad light, but the guy in the camera shop where I bought the backdrop pointed out that digital image manipulation makes it easy to correct the light.

The picture at the top of the article shows the new layout in action this afternoon, when I was taking pictures of my Penumbra's Talons DIY space marines. And the picture above right shows some of the results after the original shots were processed through google's Picasa. I confess I think the pictures aren't bad: the colours are quite true to life, and the yellow glare of the halogen spots is gone; all very easy to achieve using Picasa. I've been using Picasa as my default picture viewer for the best part of a year now and I like it quite a lot. It's the best program for managed images I've used, and it's pretty good for basic retouching work too.

All of these labours, those recent vicissitudes and other diversions notwithstanding, my scanner has been the source of the major problem with which I've had to deal. When I began posting pictures of my miniatures to the web a digital camera was way beyond my means, so that I had to rely on my scanner to take my pictures.

The pictures- above and right, show that this produced surprisingly good results; notice, eg. the depth of field in these 2 samples. So I was disappointed to find that my new scanner was much worse. Why worry you might ask? I've finally got a digicam and a half decent photographic layout after all. It's just that scanning can still be convenient for taking pictures of sprues, parts, and so on; all the sort of stuff that I'll need for blogging in other words.

Rising to the challenge
So, wishing to use the scanner for some miniatures pictures, I set out thoroughly to investigate the parameters of my scanner (an Epson Stylus DX3850 printer/scanner), to find the best settings for my purposes. The figure I used- painted version below, was Bosun Grogspar from Privateer Press' Warmachine. Grogspar was part of the swag from Saturday's Claymore.

I went round all the minis traders twice before I finally chose it: I was looking for a mini for August's painting challenge at the Sheffield Irregulars. The Sheffield Irregulars are a fB group I joined a few months ago in one of those random bouts of networking that you do on a social networking site. They have monthly challenges in which entrants must paint a mini (or minis) of their choice according to an agreed theme; August's theme is 'swashbuckling', and I was girding my loins to join in.

I'd been looking for the inevitable pirates but all I'd been able to find was Grogspar. On my second trip round the traders I saw Grogspar and his piratical mercenary mateys at the Edinburgh League of Gamers' Warmachine particpation game (highly commended), and I knew they would fit the bill. Grogspar it was then.

Testing, testing
1. Background
I'd started doing this with other minis but it had turned out that I wasn't going to be using them for RD/KA! so I decided to start all over again with the Bosun. That first run had at least taught me a few lessons about going about the task systematically, so I was able to work more quickly.

Backgrounds

When I was scanning my first minis pictures back in the 90's I just used a handerchief (clean, naturally enough!) to cover the minis on the flatbed. Later I used a box. So I tried several different backgrounds; box and paper looks to be the best. Notice how poor is the depth of field on these images compared to those from my previous scanner. I wish I knew the technical specifications which are responsible for this.

2. Document type
My background set, I next had to determine the best document type setting: photograph was my instinct but I was being thorough after all.

Document types

The illustration document type aside (a bigger file size and poorer image quality), there was nothing to choose between the remaining 4 document types. No reason then to change from photo I figured.

3. Image type and resolution
Image type was going to be colour or grayscale; resolution (AKA. destination) was screen/web or an 'Other' setting allowing me to choose the image's dpi resolution. Screen/web seemed the obvious choice.

Image types and resolution

There is no appreciable quality lost across the various settings. The greyscale screen/web image is the most compact- 810x1105 pixels and 877Kb; as opposed to 2532x 3456 and 25MB for the colour 300dpi image (the largest). Greyscale screen/web it was then.

4. Brightness
I hadn't noticed the brightness control on the scanner control panel before, so I was quite pleased with myself when I started experimenting with it during my first attempt at this task.

Brightness

These are low quality images so that you can't improve them much by changing the brightness setting. Still, brightness 50 seems not too bad: these images are really only to show off parts; WIP shots will be proper photos. And so the scan settings are:

• Paper background and box cover.
• Photograph document type.
  
• Greyscale screen/web.
• Brightness 50.

I wish I still had that old scanner though. ;)

Fighting Formations preview #1: Some background

Readers who know me from the days of yore will remember the effort I put into designing a viable model of operational command and control for WW2 tabletopping. At the same time, regular readers should be only too aware that I regard Chad Jensen's Combat Commander as second only to Courtney Allen's classic Up Front as an exemplary gaming treatment of these matters, albeit both on a smaller scale (and that's a very close second, which has as much to do with accidents of history and biography as it does with matters of absolute quality).

Just to remind readers:- Chad's Combat Commander has enjoyed remarkable success in the past 2½ years:

• Two boxed core games - CC:E and CC:P (the first already in reprint).
• A boxed system expansion - CC:M.
• Two zip-locked battle pack expansions - BP1: Paratroopers and BP2: Stalingrad.
• The 3rd of the planned battle pack series - BP3: Normandy - sprinted through GMT's P500 system last April in record time.
• A similarly continuous stream of new scenarios, maps and counters appearing in C3i magazine.

Add a fanbase avid to see the CC experience brought to bear on as wide a range of modern ground combat as the system can express and the market can bear, and there is every reason to imagine that Chad's first published design will be as enduring a feature of the gaming scene as its main competitor, Advanced Squad Leader.

Having hit the ground running then with Combat Commander, last November Chad proved himself no man to rest on his laurels when he unveiled Fighting Formations. Excited as other CC fans at this long-trailed news- and following the previews @CSW naturally enough, I came to realise that Fighting Formations: Grossdeutschland Infantry Division, 1942-43 is already a landmark game in the long years of my WW2 gamer geek: it's the first game whose semi-public final development and testing process I've been able to follow right from the start thanks to the wonders of the internet.

Tales of a youthful tinkerer
My own first homebrew aside, the first WW2 ruleset I ever used was the venerable WRG Wargames Rules - Armour and Infantry 1925 - 1950, published in 1973 (cover of the latest edition left). My brother, our friends and I had a lot of fun with these rules. Even so, there were key limitations to these rules which were to set the agenda for my thoughts about WW2 games design for years to come.

Leaving aside technical aspects- eg. the rules for armour and armour penetration, what I liked least about the WRG rules was their treatment of morale and of command and control. The latter was handled simply I'll admit: you gave your units tactical orders, eg. 'Take that hill', and off you went. I remember the problems with this being manifold although precise details are subject to the vagaries of 3 decades' memory. The most important that I can recall are:

• There was no definition of what constituted the fulfillment of any given order; which was important because the degree of that fulfillment was an aspect of morale.
• There were fiddly rules, equally open to interpretation, whose purpose was to make players move their units according to those units' orders, and not according to the players' overview; ie. they were attempting to enforce 'point of view'.
• Enforcing these rules involved more morale penalties, so that the degree of 'wiggle room' was very unsatisfactory.

Morale I found similarly unsatisfactory. Unfortunately the details are vaguer still, but I think I can fairly say that the problem was that the rules were a hodge-podge of unit morale and formation cohesion.

Although I didn't realise it at the time, I was experiencing the limitations of what I can only call 'design for form or cause', as opposed to the 'design for effect' with which I later became familiar through Squad Leader, Up Front and Champions. Thanks to those games I was equipped with both a better working model of battlefield morale- one in which morale was the primary target of enemy fire and not some secondary element with all the appearance of an afterthought; and with a superior design method: design for effect.

My next 'big idea' was inspired by an oft-remembered Western Desert microarmour game I'd witnessed during my school days, on a Sunday outing to what I can only imagine was the same SESWC who run Claymore. What had most impressed me was the sheer dynamism of the game: in which the British armour had surged towards the German lines; been repulsed and fallen back; then regrouped and advanced for a second try. This stood in stark contrast to our games, in which in our units would creep slowly across the tabletop; and in which pulling back (voluntarily or otherwise) then regrouping to try again just never happened.

The final piece of the puzzle was something I picked up from a magazine article about Napoleonic wargaming: the idea of turns of different lengths according to what was actually happening in the turn. I was soon working up a design based on the concept of 'command cycles' exercised through a communications network whose linkages could be open or closed according to fortune: the higher the level of a given HQ, the greater the scope of a bound determined by its command; and the longer it would take for that HQ to reactivate. HQs' command levels were given numerical values to drive the game's clock, and to determine reactions: you could react to enemy action with HQ's whose command levels were less than that of the HQ whose activation opened the bound.

The design suffered from many weaknesses, not the least of which was that it required book-keeping too excessive to be really practical. And it was never completed. Still, it was tested a couple of times, and it worked. More than that, by abandoning any attempt artificially to force players into their POV, it solved the problem (quite neatly IMO):

• If you wanted to make a move in response to enemy forces strictly out of sight of your own units, you could.
• If your move was at a low command level, then it would develop so slowly that your opponent would have plenty of time to react.
• And if your move was at a command level sufficiently high to be carried out in a single bound, then:

1. The higher level formation HQ required to make the move viable made the action quite authentic really.
2. You might have to wait a bit before your formation was ready, so that the situation might've changed by the time you were ready to move.
3. The greater scope of your bound similarly increased the scope of your opponent's reaction(s), so that your move might again be essentially redundant.

Fanatic Up Front player as I then was, it wasn't long before I realised that the book-keeping problem could be solved with the use of cards. And that was where things stood through the 90's and beyond, until I discovered Memoir'44 and Combat Commander, with results that will be well known to regular readers.

That's it for now. More to follow ASAP. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- Fighting Formations preview #2: The frakkin' game!

Claymore 2009: expectations fulfilled but not exceeded

The new home
To cut to the chase: Claymore lived up to the cautious optimism engendered by its long overdue change of venue; and that's the "cautious" as much as the "optimism". The new venue is Telford College's new main campus, opened less than 3 years ago. So, while not pretty outside, the building is spacious, bright and airy inside. A far cry from the cramped and stuffy lodgings from which Claymore suffered at the old Meadowbank venue, this was unanimously praised by everyone to whom I spoke.

Spacious, bright and airy: the main convention hall (the college refectory)

That said, readers will already recognise there were reservations (and I'm here considering the venue not the event):

• The second convention room was in the gym; not quite as nice as the refectory; and a few minutes away - this didn't bother me as much as it did others.
• The bring and buy: the great failure of the new venue this was (again by unanimous opinion) more cramped and poky than it had been at Meadowbank.

Even though the bring-and-buy's room was too small for its purpose, the very fact that it had a room of its own was interesting. The painting demo had its own room too. I wonder how many side rooms like this there are available in the new Telford College campus, and how many of them could feasibly be put to use by Claymore? It'd be nice if there were possibilities like this which the event could use to expand. Time will tell I guess.

The painting demo
The painting demo was my next port of call after the bring-and-buy. This had its own room, showing already the new attractions on offer at the more spacious venue. The demo was quite well laid out, with a webcam, digital projector and screen; all of which showed the potential of the latest technology to make something really interesting of an event like this.

Our painters (in no particular order): Andrew Taylor, Brian Philips and David Imrie

Did our 3 painters make the most of this chance to showcase their skills and pass the fruits of their experience? To be honest I don't know because I didn't return after my brief early visit. Of what I did see I can say:

• Our painters looked as if they'd suffered a few teething problems with the basic logistics of their event, which is hardly surprising for a first go.
• There was no sign of a programme: it strikes me that a schedule structured around the 3 basic experience levels- beginner, intermediate and advanced; that this would've made for an event a more attractive showcase for the painters' skills.

What I do know is that I hope Claymore repeats this in 2010, and that I remember to take names. D'oh!

The tables
I did visit the 3 participation games I'd found listed in the programme. The first I found was the Dingwall Wargames Club's 1/144th scale Dambusters game (not much to see on the website BTW, but there are contact details). The table was full so I booked my seat and headed for the Dundee Skirmishers. When found this proved to be a demonstration game, but I took some pictures of the frankly quite impressive layout.

The Soviets move out from the cover of the treeline

Duncan - "The Little General" - shows off his handiwork

Some nice terrain

"Bombs away!"
It was soon time for my Dambusters game with the Dingwall club. This game was delightfully simple:

• Objective: 4 Lancasters must breach a Ruhr dam in Operation Chastise, as immortalised in the 1955 movie The Dam Busters.
• Gameplay: Make a bombing run lasting 6 turns, taking your luck with the flak and trying to bring your Lancaster to the ideal speed and height before you dropped your famous bouncing bomb.
• Rules:

1. Each turn, you could accelerate/decelerate or climb/dive.
2. Roll 1d6 to determine how many feet or mph you gained or lost.
3. Flak was likewise a simple roll of 1d6 to generate results varying from damage to enforced changes in speed or height.
4. Each player had 3 'jokers'; cards they could use once each, eg. for dice modifiers or rerolls.
5. The final bombing run was a simple percentage dice roll with modifiers for damage, and for degrees of variance from the ideal speed and height.

And that was that, except that, with rules that fit easily on a single sheet of A4 and which could've been squeezed comfortably onto a single sheet of A5, the game was actually simpler even that than summary.

Dambusters in action (note the white tape which marked each turn's movement)

In our game I was Y for 'Yankee', number 3 in line. By the time I'd seen the previous 2 bombers move for a turn or two I had an idea of what I thought would be good tactics: we were coming in hight and fast; and with 6 turns of flying I was going to have to adjust for a few turns before I could hope to pull into straight and level flight. So I opted to climb straight away rather than dive then find myself having to climb again. The reactions of the Dingwall gamers told me that this was quite smart.

Yours truly prepares to brave the flak again

After this promising start it all went pear-shaped with the dice so that I ended up providing some light entertainment for everyone else. The 'high point' was when I needed to roll high; rolled 1; decided to use my 'joker' for a reroll; and rolled the inevitable 1 again. The hilarity of my bombing run notwithstanding I was able finally to hit the dam with a lucky roll of 29%. Three of our four planes hit the dam on that run, for 69% damage. It was the highest score at that time but we were well down the day's rankings in the end, including at least 3 who managed to blow the dam.

Thirty minutes on 'Bloody Omaha'
The tagline for this game staged by Royal Air Force Wargamers Association (Leuchars) was (I paraphrase):

"The average life expectancy of a US Ranger in the first wave at Omaha beach on June 6th 1944 was 30 minutes. Can you survive that long?"

Six hardy volunteers led a squad of 12 US Rangers fully equipped with bangalore torpedoes and satchel charges, led by none other than Captain Tom Hanks (AKA. Captain Miller) himself. Our objective was simple: get up that beach and blow that bunker!

Two of the RAFWA guys beside their lovely table

The picture above shows the details of the table:

• The brewed-up Sherman complete with poor GI who'd lost his legs when the tank ran over them.
• The beach obstacles, including the damn wire.
• The bunker.
• And our landing craft.

You can also see the survivors of the previous attempt huddled by the shingle where they'd failed even to breach the wire.

The rules were simple again:

• We were mortared.
• We were machine-gunned.
• We moved (8" minus wounds).
• Then we fired - 1, 2 or 3d10 depending on weapon, needing a 9+ to hit (pesky bunkers).
• Then we took our actions, eg. doing first aid or setting a bangalore.

So, our 6 brave volunteers had a quick planning session, in which yours truly suggested splitting to go up each flank, meaning that half of us would've had to have run twice as far diagonally across the beach. My 'plan' quickly forgotten, we piled out of our landing craft, spread out, and took the short route - straight ahead.

My BAR man (each of us had 1 character from Saving Private Ryan: I think mine was Pvt. Reiben with the BAR) was in the front, so he was targetted first. He was dead in 2 turns, but not before he'd managed to lay down some effective fire on the bunker. Quickly out of the landing craft and doubling in bounds via the beach obstacles our squad soon managed to reach the shingle bank, led by my #2 character, who proved to be the day's crackshot with 2 KIA's to his credit. We were helped in this dash by the inaccuracy of the German mortars, which constantly missed us, and which finally only hit the landing craft once we'd all made our exit.

Four of our brave team, including (on my right) the hero of the hour: our medic

Safely hunkered by the shingle, we reorganised and waited while a bangalore cleared a weak section of the wire. Then our men were running towards that bunker as fast as their legs could carry them. We'd picked up a flamethrower from a casualty at the shingle, and our flamethrower man proved deadly. One attack disposed of the HMG and a 2nd attack cleared the trench in front of the bunker.

The rest of us sprinted round the back to finish the bunker off with our satchel charges. Of course, in our haste we'd forgotten the 'murder hole' (about which we'd been quietly reminded by one of the RAF guys; I'd actually thought he was just talking 'in character' so to speak). We were lucky: we managed to set our satchel charges before the German in the murder hole opened fire, killing my character with a single shot just before the bunker blew. We'd won, and our casualties had been remarkably light, all things considered.

Afterthoughts
Both of these games were great fun: simple concepts cleanly executed for maximum ease of play on the day; ideal public participation games in other words. The 'Bloody Omaha' game was my personal favourite:

• It was a lovely piece of work, featuring Tamiya models which were a bit of a nostalgia rush for yours truly.
• The combination of simple rules; just enough players to generate command confusion; and the relentless pressure of the GM's made for a tense and dramatic half hour's gaming.
• On top of all that, my hooting and hollering was largely in celebration of success instead of in an ironic response to ever more hilarious failure.

I heard later that this game won a well-deserved Best of Show.

The swag
I bought some stuff as you'd expect, mostly books. Of particular note was a pile of 6 (count them: 6!) Osprey Campaign series paperbacks for a mere £25. You can be sure I availed myself of that offer with enthusiasm dear readers. The same trader had many fascinating books at irresistibly reduced prices, one of which was an odd little volume: Britain, France, and Belgium, 1939-1940, by Brian Bond. I say "odd" because books on this campaign are relatively rare; rarer still are books which deal with the geopolitical background to the Anglo-French strategy instead of merely rehashing the familiar story of the German blitzkrieg. I may have more to say about this book in the future.

And I treated myself to a new game, naturally enough. More about this too in due course no doubt.

The verdict
This year was as much fun as I've had at Claymore in many a year. The sheer pleasantness of the new setting played an important part in that, as did the comforting rituals of catching up with old friends. Most important though was the simple application of the lesson I learned at UK Expo'09: have something to do. You can be sure I'll be applying this to future visits to Claymore. Meanwhile, a big thank you to the guys from Dingwall and Leuchars, as well as to all at SESWC for all their efforts. ;)