DiceConWest 2007 #2- To the victors the spoils

Epic! Truly Epic!
And so we come to what was, for me and Badger at least, the main event of the day: our game of Epic Battlelore. We pulled 2 tables together, Badger chose to revisit Epic BL Scenario #4: Moorish Giant, and we set to setup with a will. It turned out that we were to be playing a team game: Badger and Gav on one side (which turned out to be the pennants with that Hill Giant again); myself and Sean (who made such a good showing in DiceConEast 2005's inaugural Memoir'44 tournament). We decided to ignore the special rules for teamplay in the Epic rules, went with simple joint command, and set to scheming our Lore Councils.

Here (added late I'm afraid) is the map.

My victory in our previous game notwithstanding, I was scared of what that giant could do. So the first decision I made was to take the Earth Elemental, a creature which is every bit as dangerous. Completely new to the game as he was, Sean was happy to go along with this. I then explained the virtues of: Cmdr3/R1/Wiz1- namely a 6-card hand with a Stronghold to anchor our line, and (IMO) the most flexible and powerful pair of Level 1 Lore Masters in the game. Against this, Badger and Gav mustered: Cmdr2/C2/R1.

That done, we waited until everything else was set up before placing our 2 landmarks. The Stronghold went on our left, under the archer unit- which turns out to've been an illegal play (cf. p.66; erm, sorry 'bout that Badger; at least we know it won't happen again). And the Circle of Summoning went on our right, nestled beside that hill and wood. Y'see, we'd drawn the Greater Portal card in our setup. So our plan was this: run medium dwarfs forward to summon the Earth Elemental, then bring it in and hold it ready to Portal it into the middle of our enemies' lines, there to wreak utter havoc should fortune permit. It was a good plan, and we were pleased to be able to play it.

But we had to wait a bit before we could try it out, because by the time we were ready to rumble, it was time for the prizegiving.

Badger, Gav, Sean and myself ready to rumble!

Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!
The Kniziathon prizes were awarded first, and these were extra-special this year, due to the presence of a special guest. But I've forgotten the details, so I'll move on to say that I've forgotten all the details of the Settlers tournament winners too. The results will be up on the SBGA site in due course, and I'll let you all know when that moment arrives.

As was the case at DiceConEast last year, the ticket draw was rewarding for my friends. Antony, Bill, Daniel, and Hugh all picked up 1 or juicy-looking games.

Hugh taking his pick from the pile of prizes; Daniel with his big prize from the draw; and Tony posing with his prize being upstaged by Gordon who just couldn't resist the camera!

This year, yours truly did win out in the prize draw: I got a copy of a kids' Xmas game!

I walk away with my prize to general amusement!

Back to Battlelore
Prizes and votes of thanks duly awarded and according, Badger, Gav, Sean and I got stuck in.

The game started with the usual manoeuvring, and with a minor hail of missile fire from our side which resulted in precisely no effect. The first major engagement was in the centre, as Badger and Gav thrust deep into our battlelines with their cavalry (they were cagily keeping the giant as much out of LOS of our archers as possible- all to the good as far as we were concerned). Committed to our plan as we were, Sean and I agreed to hold at first rather than counterattack immediately. This worked, and we were able to launch a timely counter-attack which repulsed the pennants' onslaught so that our Greater Portalled Elemental, when it finally went in, found itself with a much sparser battlefield to engage with than we had expected to find when we set out with our plan.

The pennants' surviving centre infantry and the giant duly surrounded the Elemental, which dealt mighty damage with battle backs and a trample (another mistake: the Earth Elemental FAQ confirms that the EE never retreats under any circumstances) before the giant finally put paid to it. But we were a banner up, and the pennants' centre had been well and truly shredded. Once Sean and I finished off the hapless goblin archers which had been the target of our Greater Portal, we were chasing 2 quick banners for a 7-point victory.

Our chance game when we drew a Fireball, then the pennants attacked our right wing, which was busy marching at full speed as we sought to swing our entire army left. An exchange of battle dice left the medium cavalry and the heavy goblins each reduced to 2 models. The Fireball put paid to the cavalry, while a card off the Epic rack left us ordering all 5 of our right units to summon up some 10 dice against the hapless hobgoblins, who died quickly. Victory, by the satisfying margin of 7-4!

Mistakes aside, this was a tense and gripping game, with lots of maneouvre. Sean enjoyed it, as did Gav. Badger is clearly looking for a measure of revenge. I, meanwhile, shall enjoy my gloating rights while they last.

Score
3-0
Grins ;)

This game done, Badger, Gav and I headed off for a nice Italian meal. We went our separate ways thereafter. I returned to the con to pack up my games ready to head home. By this time the con was down to diehards few enough to fill only 2 gaming tables.

Five of those diehards setting out to play DoW's Mystery of the Abbey. Check out those cheerful faces, which are a measure of the friendliness of the DiceCon experience.

My own evening was rounded out in the company of Antony, and Helen and Kenneth, a couple of non-gaming friends he'd persuaded to come to the con. It is another mark of the special qualities of DiceCon that both Helen and Kenneth had a good time, and are interested in coming again.

And that was pretty much that. Well, except to note that I was joking with Gordon about my 'booby prize'. Alright then he said, have this, handing me a copy of the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #3- TANKS!!. I had actually already decided to use my Xmas game as a present for a niece, but I was delighted to swap it for this new product from MMP.

So, another fine day at DiceCon, your friendly neighbourhood games convention. I had a good time gaming, and meeting my DiceCon friends and acquaintances. Thanks, as ever, to Gordon, Jeff, and everyone else who put in all the work to make it a success. We'll be back (and I'll be doing something with the C&C system, just y'all wait and see!). Now wait for November. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : DiceConWest 2007 #1. A gathering of friends

It's been a busy week for your humble scribe since I posted my 'Last call for DiceConWest 2007' last Monday. Doing the rounds by phone I managed to get a few friends to attend. Hugh, a gaming buddy from the old Edinburgh crew made the trip for a short weekend; Gav (already known to regular readers) made an appearance; and Donald (best known as the young dwarf Mordrin in my little Old World) turned up with his daughter Natasha, both eager to try their hands in the Settlers tournament. In addition to all this, I arranged to borrow Ros' digicam so's I could take some pictures, so I had to master that too (not difficult really, but you never really know about these things when you find yourself becoming an aging technophobe as contemporary developments increasingly outstrip your capacity to keep up!).

In any event, I dragged myself from my slumbers at the appointed hour of 8am yesterday to get ready to arrive promptly for this, the 5th annual DiceConWest. Donald arrived at the appointed time and drove Hugh and I there with Natasha, which was much appreciated by yours truly, bent as I was under the weight of my big bag of games. We met Badger at the entrance to the venue- the Quality Central Hotel- and we were in! We met Andy (of Berthold, the mincing scribe notoriety) inside. Andy's interest yesterday was to have another game of Descent: Journeys in the Dark, so I claimed a table and got setup underway while he went off to sort out mundane stuff elsewhere.

It was barely 10am by this time; gamers were arriving in steady dribs and drabs; and games were already under way as people took their pick from the wide choice made available by the SBGA.

Just a part of the DiceCon gaming library.

By this time Andy had returned, so I left him to be the Overlord in Descent, which handily freed me from setup chores, and let me wander around, soak up the early-day atmosphere, and look for some suitable targets for the digicam I was so eager to try out.

I couldn't resist taking a pic of this game underway- it just looks so neat. If anyone out there can tell me what it's called and what it's about I'd love to hear from you.

In no time at all, the Settlers tournament was under way.

Donald and Natasha at the outset of their attempts at this year's Scottish Title.

Meanwhile, among the welter of familiar faces I was saying hello to and trying to put names to was Barry, who'd taught me such a harsh lesson in lore management in my first Lore game of BL at DiceConEast 2006. He and another friend of his were interested in joining the Descent game Andy was getting moving, so after a hiccup about keeping places open for other friends whose arrival was expected any time, this pair sat down to set to some serious dungeon-delving.

Swords and sandals once more
And so it was that I finally managed to get into my own first game, which turned out to be introducing Hugh to Commands and Colours: Ancients, which meant yours truly enjoyed another chance to see what can be done with the Carthaginian army at Akragas (the beating of which I'd already undertaken).

Hugh and I getting ready to start play once we'd found a table with suitable lighting.

Here's the setup which will be familiar to anyone who's played this great game even just a few times.

The game started well for Hugh: he grasped the rules quickly and moved his units confidently forward, positioning them well. I helped by making a foolish swing forward and left with Himilco's force. I really don't know what I was thinking- I could do nothing with them except beat a hasty retreat from the heavies who were soon bearing down upon them.

There was nothing for to do but turn this to my advantage. I promptly marched Himilco and his lads right across the gap between the 2 armies. The Syracusans hit them in the centre, naturally enough. All those heavies dished out some serious punishment you can be sure, but they didn't get off scot free. When the dust settled we pursued our plans. Hugh used a Line Command and Leadership cards to close in on my centre-right. I combined Himilco and Mago's best frontline infantry, formed into a column, and tried to punch a hole in the Syracusan line.

The dice flew thick and fast and I was able to win through 5-3 in the end. Hugh was a bit stunned that my crazy manoeuvres had pulled the win out for me after his good start, but I'd managed to achieve my primary tactical aim, which was to achieve a local superiority so that his heavies couldn't just smack me down. It also has to be noted that Hugh suffered from his lack of knowledge of the Command deck, and of the pace of the gameplay. This last point was particularly important with his Line Command, which was under-utilised because he didn't take the time to dress his lines first (he still enjoyed playing it mind you!). There really is no way round this in C&C:A- the only way to learn what your armies are capable of is to send them into the fray as you will and find out the hard way. And then try again.

Score
1-0

Meanwhile, Bill and his family had arrived while Hugh and I were playing C&C:A. Late thanks to the wonders of the railway service and Saturday morning traffic, Bill and Daniel took the places which were being kept for them in the Descent game.

Andy demonstrating the cheerful insouciance typical of all the best Evil Overlords as Barry, Daniel, Radka and Bill look on in... in... well, in what exactly? I think that is best left for you to figure out for yourselves dear readers.

Settlers Cards
Not resting long content with merely sitting as an onlooker to others' gaming, Radka readily agreed to my suggestion to try a game of the Catan Card Game. I was keen to play this yesterday because I'd just upgraded my old set to the new edition, passing my old set on to the King family at Saturday night's family games session (3 games of Bill's newly acquired copy of the nice GW edition of the peerless Cosmic Encounter, a game much enjoyed in days of yore; and much enjoyed by yours truly Saturday, what with 3 wins, 1 of which was all my very own!).

Radka is a fan of the boardgame (regular readers will already be aware of her reputation there), so she was very interested in finding out how the cardgame worked.

Radka and I early in the opening phase of the game.

Radka grasped the rules very quickly and played very well. Just like Hugh in our C&C:A game, she was hampered by her lack of knowledge of the deck. And she did begin to wonder at her fate when her development stalled as we entered the midgame, while mine seemed to be roaring ahead. But as I knew would happen, her strategy paid off eventually, while her play became more assured to boot. She was able to pull back to level-pegging at one point, and was certainly in with a shout as the endgame approached the finale. Most important of all: Radka enjoyed the game, and is already looking forward to trying it again. Job done!

For my part, I like the new edition. The rules tweaks make sense of a few old anomalies, while other upgrades just make the new rules all the more playable. Well worth the £28 price of admission IMO.

Score
2-0 :)

Elsewhere, the Descent game over, Daniel got the chance to play what I'm sure is his favourite game right now: Ivanhoe. Published by GMT, this most excellent Knizia design has sadly been out of print for some time, although a honcho from GMT has announced that it will be reprinted soon, probably this year. I know that I read this on the ConsimWorld forums somewhere- probably on the GMT games forum, but I can't for the life of me find it again. Anyhoo...

Daniel exercising his Ivanhoe skills. Did he win any games I wonder? I never found out (or I did, and forgot).

Elsewhere:

Gordon Lamont enjoying a cardgame (a Knizia I expect) at the registration desk.

It's been a good time for Gordon and his brother Fraser at Fragor Games, with their games being snapped-up by publishers all round the world. The German edition of their last Essen hit Shear Panic was on display yesterday, while Mayfair Games have an English edition in print now. The world is now waiting to see what sort of storm the Lamont brothers' new game- Hameln- will kick up at Essen later this year. Have fun guys!

Elsewhere still:

Two Up Front veterans deep in concentration as they ponder the next moves that their cards offer them.

Meanwhile, I also had the chance to say hello to an old DiceCon acquaintance- John Poulter, webmaster at Web-Grognards, who I'd first met at DiceConWest 2004. He and a friend were playing another GMT hit...

John and Richard with GMT's Twilight Struggle.

This is another card-driven game which is on my 'must-buy' list. I was amazed at how attractive it looked. Antony (yes, that's Antony of librarian-thwacking blunderbuss-toting psycho-dwarf infamy- he'd arrived earlier in the afternoon) was interested in what the game was all about. And John, for his part, was surprised that it wasn't already in my collection! It will be sooner or later John, I can assure you! ;)

Got game!

All Fluxxed up?
Ros and I were supposed to be having a game of the Catan Card Game on Tuesday last, but other things got in the way, and we had to settle for a quick game of EcoFluxx instead. I'd bought this variant on Looney Labs' successful Fluxx card game to replace Ros' copy of that game. It turns out that I needn't've bothered really, since Ros doesn't like Fluxx all that much after all. Ah well.

Meanwhile, I quite liked the theming of the EcoFluxx deck, particularly the small changes to Goals and Keepers which make it a wee bit more than just Fluxx with the serial numbers filed off.

Oh, and I won, with some sneaky cardplay. I still like this game a lot, and the more I play it, the more aware I become of the strategy and tactics of what can otherwise look like pure randomness.

Score
1-0
Hardly makes up for the Carcassonne debacles, but still... ;)

As close as it freakin' gets
Bill was round as usual last night. Tony still laid low with illness, little could stop Bill and I repairing to the Up Front table. Fortunately, Little couldn't make it either, so Up Front it was. We chose to play a German/British Patrol, and random selection gave me the British. Good, I thought- I like the British. (Look here for a report- coauthored by myself and Ellis Simpson- about a small Up Front tournament I ran at DiceConEast 2004. This event featured some of my most memorable recent games with the British.)

Unsurprisingly, Bill went with the utterly orthodox regulation strong firebase German setup as per the old AH General strategy articles. That is to say: Cpl. Hessel and the 3 wimp riflemen (ML1 & 2) at group A; Sgt. Dettinger, the LMG, and the 4 good riflemen (ML3, 4 & 5) at group B. I went for a more viable form of the 3-group setup I've been using for the British for some time: 2 of my wimps at A; Sgt. Vasey and 2 good riflemen (ML3 & 4) at C- for a decent manoeuvre group; and everyone else at B- for a 5-man firebase with a weak ML2 riflemen to worry about a bit.

The 1st deck was quite quiet. I got my manoeuvre group out to D and into terrain (a gully at range chit 2- a good jumping-off point for some serious VP later on), while my firebase jinked sideways into terrain to cover their advance into the teeth of the firepower of that fearsome German firebase. Meanwhile the Germans didn't do much other than face- and survive- a non-trivial fire attack when they made their own advance off their baseline. Oh, and a British rifle had junked thanks to a double malfunction! I'd had to do an individual transfer to bolster my firebase thanks to that.

In any event, by the end of the deck I knew that Bill held a stream, and made my plans accordingly for my firebase's imminent advance. When I made that advance (to a -3 building, naturally enough), I hit the stream, then wire. I had the movement and rally cards needed to cope. What I lacked were the concealment cards to reduce Bill's fire attacks. The killer came when my lads dashed from the open ground they'd gone to under the wire to that building- 3 men died under the deadly hail of fire which'd just popped-up in Bill's hand. OUCH!

To cut a long story short, the rest of the game went something like this:

• I had to regroup.
• So my manoeuvre group retired and moved back adjacent to the remains of the firebase, the surviving members of which then transferred into the manoeuvre group.
• I now had a group which could both lay down decent firepower and advance- both of which I'd need to do to pull back the 9VP deficit I was facing.
• I got my first German KIA.
• Bill noted that his own wimp 'manoeuvre' group could advance without putting themselves into my firebase's killzone- he needed to do something like this to gain VP against the chance that I could start to accumulate them myself.
• That group hit a stream when they made their advance, then another when they immediately forded the first.
• I laterally transferred both my groups so that the Germans in the stream were in my firebase's killzone.
• Three Germans promptly died in the stream.
• I indulged in some premature gloating, and suffered a moment of deja vu (flashing back to similar foolishness in Badger's and my recent M44 games); Bill punished me for this with a fire attack which pinned most of my firebase!
• Cpl. Hessel survived everything I could throw at him in the stream, and the game went right down to the wire: we had to reshuffle the deck to complete Bill's last fire attack against 3 men, with the following possibilities:

1. none of those 3 men pinned- I win by 1VP
2. 1 pinned- draw
3. 2 or 3 pinned- Bill wins by 1 or 2VP

• I lost by 1VP in the event.

OUCH!

During the post-mortem Bill commended my skillful play. Also, having suffered from an inability to generate a decent card cycle because he didn't have enough groups acting, he was interested in my critique of the orthodox tactics from those General strategy articles. As with our recent Japanese v. Russian games, he could see that my defeat in this game didn't refute the basis of my return to the tactics we'd instinctively adopted when we'd first started playing Up Front all those years ago.

Score
0-1
Curse you Cpl. Hessel, curse you! ;)

Got game!

Bitter, bitter battles
Badger came round last Friday and we managed to get in 3 games of M44: 2 more plays of M44:DoW veteran and esteemed scenario designer Brummbär's fine Normandy scenario Operation Charnwood; and 1 of official scenario #35: Nimjegen Bridges.

We chose Operation Charnwood because we'd enjoyed it the last time we'd played, and because we wanted to test out our favoured version of the variant artillery rules which have been the topic of a productive discussion over at M44:DoW.

I chose to play the Germans first; partly because I wanted to try out those variant AT rules (detailed in the M44:DoW thread linked immediately above); partly because I was keen to try out the latest versions of the Kampfgruppe and Saddle Orders rules Badger and I had agreed upon; and partly because I just plain fancied the challenge of trying to win with them.

I started really well, going into an early lead. Soon I was on 4 medals, and I was telling myself victory was assured. I was also telling myself and Badger both that even to think such a thing was to invite doom. How right I was: Badger won 5-4 in the end. I can't remember what went down; well, except for my making poor use of my first Saddle Orders plan; and Badger making equally good use of his Big Push plans to deliver the decisive blow; so we'll have to rely on Badger to come along and fill in the details. Oh, and I seem to remember that I ought to've formed a Kampfgruppe at one point, but missed my chance in the heat of the moment.

We were playing the British with the Marksmanship and Big Push rules which we had settled to our satisfaction last time. I did a routine Big Push early on. Then I came up with what I thought was a bit of a fiendish plan: I'd use a Big Push to hit Badger on my right with an Airstrike (which would target 2 units including his artillery) and a Right 3 in the same turn. This'll be fun I thought. Until, that was, I turned my plan cards over: I'd somehow managed to play a Centre 3 instead of the intended Right 3. Aaarrgh!

Seeing things start to go downhill from there, I hit on the plan of using Behind Enemy Lines to charge forward and grab Western Caen for a precious medal. I had everything I needed in my hand to pull this off and to follow it up to play for victory, including a Dig-In card which would've stopped Badger forcing my audacious infantry to retreat. But I just couldn't coordinate it all properly (ie. my cardplay was poor). In the end Badger mopped me up with a crushing 5-2 victory. Ouch!

By this time we were satisfied with the existing drafts of the Expanded Nationality rules for both the British and the Germans, so we decided to turn to the Americans for our last game.

We were playing rules tweaked from the latest version I put up. As with the British and German rules, I'm not going to go into details here, but I promise to have a version available online just A.S.A.P.

Playing the Americans, I had a tank-heavy army in terrain utterly unsuited for armour, and I was facing those fearsome Big Guns. WTF I thought: there was nothing for it to get stuck in. So I sent my river-crossing infantry across the river as quickly as possible, bringing their accompanying tank units up for fire support. There ensued a vicious firefight, which left me with 1 model from the original 12 at game-end IIRC.

Meanwhile, I was taking some pains to avoid coming under overly destructive attentions from those Big Guns. This led me to fight a holding action on the outskirts of Nimjegen while making a play for the railway bridge with combined infantry and armour. As around the Fort Van Hof Holland, the fighting was bitter on all fronts. At one point I'd quickly grabbed the railway bridge, only to be forced to beat a rapid retreat to save my depleted unit from destruction under heavy German counter-fire. I needed that bridge I realised, but I would have to time very carefully my next rush to seize it.

My chance came with a Their Finest Hour card. I really had no choice but play this: Badger had the upper hand; single-model units of mine were already saving the day by just not dying; and I had nothing else available which could turn the situation around. Plus: under the draft American Expanded Nationality rules, I'd get a mulligan before refilling my 6-card hand.

My Their Finest Hour dice roll was awesome: I got 6 orders from 6 dice! My attack went in, killing 2 German units IIRC, leaving victory actually in sight after all. My beleaguered lads held their breath in anticipation of the inevitable German counter-attack. They held when it came in. Meanwhile, I of course had drawn exactly the card needed to press home my attack, which duly went in, allowing me to sneak to victory on 6-5.

Badger was gutted- I'd escaped a 3-0 whitewash at the last moment; but he also shared my enthusiasm for the way the American rules had worked in that last attack. I was still left with the feeling that those rules need some work, but I actually found myself thinking that there is something there to work with, a feeling I've not had before about those rules.

Score
1-2
Shrugs ;)

Hoist on my own petard
Guess what? Rosy and I got another couple of games of Carcassonne on Saturday night just past. Regular readers might remember my comments about our last games, in which I talked about my efforts to develop the strategies of the farmers' game. You might even remember (and I quote):

"my plaintive cry (after a losing game, natch!) of- how did you get those farms joined up?"

And so there I was on Saturday night, cheerfully explaining to Ros the importance of the farmers' game, and pointing out how the key strategy was related to getting farmers placed and then building the farms to link up your farmers for those valuable points. Ros was clearly taking my little lectures to heart, because that plaintive cry was heard at the end of both our games that night!

I said Ros'd been "taking my little lectures to heart". But could she've been ignoring me utterly, given the mastery of the farmers' game I've so skillfully not been demonstrating? Answers c/o RD/KA!. No spam please.

Score
0-2
Ouch!

Series
1½-2½
Whimper. :(

Down, down, deeper and down!
Readers curious enough to investigate my BGG boardgames collection page (and that'd be curious as both verb and adjective I'd imagine) might already've noticed this, but a couple of weeks ago I finally succumbed and lashed out the cash for a copy of the sister game to Fantasy Flight Games' remarkable Doom: the Boardgame, the dungeon-delving game Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

Holy freakin' heck Batman! Without any shadow of a doubt this is the single most awesome box of gaming goodness I have ever seen. The box is the size of 2 Doom/Battlelore boxes laid side by side. It has the heft of a rucksack packed for a weekend camping in the mountains. Inside is to be found a truly stunning array of cards, die-cut thick card playing pieces, and simply the most beautiful polythene moulded miniatures I've ever seen in a boardgame. The detailing is exquisite, being on a par with hard styrene casts, especially on the 20 hero models. Looking over them brought back to mind the excitement my brother and I shared as kids when we got our hands on the first release of Airfix's (who went bust last year- news to me!) 1/32nd scale polythene range recast in 1/76th- their WW2 German Infantry set. We'd just never seen anything like them.

I simply cannot do this game justice today. I mean to say: I've been so busy lately that I opened it, punched out all the cardboard, drooled over the models, then left it on the shelf for nearly 3 weeks because I was just too busy to find the time and energy to sort through all the bits. So I was well pleased when Andy came round last Sunday and offered to lend a hand. We set to with a will, and we soon had the monster bagged and tagged. Then we had a go.

First impressions? The game absolutely rocks! This is the game we wanted Talisman to be back in the early 80's: an honest-to-god dungeon-bash in a box, a boardgame which delivers all the richness of the D&D experience with all the classic roleplaying elements stripped out. Of course, Andy and I only got halfway through our first game. We had to stop for the latest episode of- yes, you've guessed it- Doctor Who (another superlative story BTW). So I guess these initial impressions could be undone by future experience. But I do doubt it. More soon, I trust.

Meanwhile, if any of my readers out there have the experience to compare Descent with either HeroQuest or Warhammer Quest, I'd be really interested to know how you think the games rate against each other. I've got a feeling that Descent might represent a real breakthrough in dungeon-bash boardgaming, but with a mere single 1-room TPK game of Warhammer Quest under my belt, I'm not really in a position to judge.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Last call for DiceConWest 2007

The Scottish Boardgame Association's latest annual boardgames convention DiceConWest takes place this coming Sunday (full details here). As I noted before, DiceConWest's official Scottish Settlers of Catan tournament will offer you your chance to play for a subsided trip to the world's biggest games fair in Essen, there to compete for the title of Settlers World Champion. There'll also be a Kniziathon, a tournament based on playing as many games as possible by famously prolific games designer Reiner Knizia.

That's what I can assure you will be taking place this Sunday at DiceConWest 2007. What I must sadly tell you won't be taking place is any kind of Commands and Colours tournament (at least, not as organised by yours truly). I've just been unable to put in the preparation needed. But I can assure you that I'll be there with my C&C games and other boardgame goodies to boot. I expect I'll lay on a game of Epic BL to attract some attention to this latest DoW offering. Games of M44, C&C:A, CC:E, and Up Front might also be on the cards... Bwah hah ha ha!

Meanwhile I'm hoping that I'll be able to start to shape up towards making a serious stab at a C&C tournament of some kind at a future DiceCon. Fingers crossed I guess. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : An Anniversary of Note

It's been a long time since I last visited my local GW. Exactly how long I'm not sure, but I'm certain that the last gaming product I bought from my local GW was the new plastic Assault Terminators I reviewed way back in November 2005. In the meantime my miniatures hobby gave way to a revival of my interest in rpg's and boardgaming. A rapid result of this change in habits was that I stopped buying GW's White Dwarf, because it no longer served me any purpose.

Last week though, I paid a quick visit to my local GW to buy a copy of William King's Gotrek and Felix: the First Omnibus as a gift for a friend. On entering the store I was pleasantly surprised to see the friendly face of a familiar old staffer. Hearty greetings out of the way, I made a beeline for the bookshelves and grabbed what I was after. Paying, I saw a copy of the new 30th Anniversary White Dwarf. Picking up a copy of this too was a cinch- I may not be the avid GW hobbyist anymore, but I just had to have this particular issue of the old stunty on my shelves.

Thirty years of White Dwarf? Holy heck, but that makes me feel old, which of course would normally prompt some nostalgia after an Old Fart Alert. Fortunately for my readers, I've already said all I need to say on that subject: here, when I posted a link to this page chez my pal the gnome, where he'd posted a link to a downloadable PDF of White Dwarf #1.

All I need to say? Really? Well OK. I can add that the earliest issue of WD I remember owning was #16. It wasn't the first I bought, nor did I actually buy it on its initial release, but I did buy it from regular shelf stock at my first FLGS in Edinburgh, and this back in the days when WD was still bimonthly. Back then, WD only had one serious competitor for my attention, and that was Steve Jackson's The Space Gamer. The Dragon was easily available and good for D&D gamers too for sure, but that magazine simply never captured my imagination in the way that White Dwarf and The Space Gamer did.

Editorial reorganisations driven by GW's reponse to the profit slump consequent on the tailing-off of their highly lucrative The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game once Jackson's movies had passed through the cinemas; these reorganisations have in the past year led to a clamour from GW fans across the net about the declining quality of White Dwarf. Although no longer a WD reader, I would check these discussions out now and again: eg. on the Warseer and the Bolter and Chainsword forums (you'll have to do forum searches if you're interested); and here (#327) and here (#328), again at the random Gnomes' random Lair. What was most striking to me about these discussions was that- amidst the sadly all-too-familiar internet feeding frenzy- there was an authentic and startling note of anger and despair from the hardest of hardcore fans, a note that was novel to me in my 15 years as a money-spending GW space marine fanboy. That this was taking place among GW's loyal customer base at a time when the company accounts were creating rumbles amongst investors; well, this just gave many of us watching from the sidelines the distinct impression that the GW behemoth was actually teetering...

All of which leads to the point that this 30th Anniversary edition of the magazine (a mere 2 issues- mark you- after the #328 which, according to gnome's review, barely merited a meh); that this commemorative issue would have a lot of hurdles to cross if it was to live up the landmark it would purport to celebrate.

So, how did it do then?

I must be frank here: there is no way I can seriously enter into the debate about the widely recognised decline in WD editorial content which adds to players' games instead of just advertising GW product, because I just haven't seen the issues which provoked the ire of the fans. For similar reasons- but also because of the impact of sheer nostalgia- nor can I pretend that I'm here going to offer a serious review of #330. All I can do is offer a brief overview and point out a few personal highlights.

Looked at as a whole, I would have to say that WD#330 is a dazzling introduction to GW's product lines today. And this is not just the magnificent photographs of beautifully painted miniatures which are so familiar to GW customers that they can become a bit boring when you've seen them for the nth time. It is also the new product lines being advertised. Of particular interest to me was the new wargames terrain, the new Warhammer buildings and the Arcane ruins especially; and also the new dwarf miners. Beautiful to look at as completed by the 'Eavy Metal team, it was the pictures of the parts from these kits' sprues which had me positively drooling.

Y'see, let me explain a pet theory here. I am of the same age as the GW design veterans. I was making the same kits as they were in the same teenage years (or, to be more precise: kits from the same landmark ranges). For me, the sublime joys of modelling and kit-bashing in those teenage tankie days can be summed-up in 2 phrases: Tamiya and Airfix Multipose. Taken together, what these 2 ranges offered was fine detail, easy convertibility, and numerous extras giving modellers an instant spares box. If that's not a definition of the trajectory of GW plastics development since the justly legendary RTB01 beakies, then I don't know what could be.

Believing this, and watching the advances in GW plastics down the years, I have convinced myself of something else, something which is too easily forgotten amidst the- often utterly justified- customer complaints about the company's corporate policies: at its core, GW remains the dream of a bunch of gaming geeks just like any of the rest of us. Their dream was to get paid for playing games. More than that: they wanted to create a company which would more than just pay their wages- if not make them rich; they also wanted the company to provide for them absolutely the best wargames kit in the world; which they would get for free because they would work for (or own) the company. Their chosen route to realising this dream became GW, warts, suppurating buboes, and all.

If WD#330 is proof that this dream is still alive and well and living in Lenton- even if at prices putting the GW experience at the top end of the miniatures gaming hobby market; it also strikes me as proof that the harassed staffers working to respond to customer demands are showing that they can bring- to the ad copy the company's marketing strategy requires- the sort of editorial content which can give players of GW's games the added value they have a right to expect from their £4 investment in a copy of the house magazine of their chosen hobby. What I'm talking about here are the various sidebars and so on appended to the glossy picture spreads. There is no reason why these could not be as informative across any given issue of the magazine as would be full length articles. Will this develop to its fullest potential? I don't know. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I have to continue by saying that the content of the 30th Anniversary issue is often better even than that. Which brings me naturally enough to my personal highlights. These will be presented in reverse order as per tradition.

In third place: 'White Dwarf XXX, 1977-2007', the obligatory history article. I've always enjoyed reading these pieces. And I enjoy them more as I get older (it'll happen to you all, my dear readers if it hasn't started already!). As ever, I read this article with my past looking over my shoulder, whispering to me, every WD landmark a memory of my own.

In second place: 'Sons of Sanguinius', part 1 of the new Blood Angels Codex. Believe it or not, I'll be buying WD#331 to get part 2 of this. Why? Because I just love jump-packers. They're my single most favourite troop type as a diehard space marine player. They just look so cool. And although my very own Penumbra's Talons have always been a Codex chapter, I've long nurtured the idea of fielding them under their 'Blood Angels aspect', so that I could deploy jump-packing Honour Guard, Veterans, and- naturally enough- Death Company (a.k.a. 'the Verifiers' in Penumbra's Talons). And I still hope that one of these days, I will.

In first place: 'Standard Bearer', Jervis' article on the genesis of 'Sons of Sanguinius', complete with his own nostalgic take on his years at GW. There are many things I enjoyed about this article, but one above all won it its place as my ultimate highlight of this issue: the fact that Jervis could include- in the house magazine of the good business sense of chaos, death and spikey bits on a hitherto unimagined scale; that in these pages, Jervis could include a quote from E.F. Schumacher, reknowned as the author of Small is Beautiful among other works. My dad got me into Schmacher as a teenager, one of just many of my old man's deeds for which I am truly grateful. So good on yer Jervis!

And there you have it. I missed the official party, so I had to have a celebration of my own. ;)

Got game!

Once more unto the breach! (Or: Still no room at the inn)

It'd been weeks since Tony and I had last got together for a game of Combat Commander Chad Jensen's recent hit for GMT Games. So I was well pleased when he came round last Sunday for another game. We ended up revisiting Scenario 4: Closed for Renovations, which had previously seen one of our closest games- when Tony had won thanks to my game-winning melee roll being pre-empted by a game-ending sudden death dice roll because my card-draw for that dice roll was the last card of my deck. (Sheesh!) With this history, you can imagine then what was at stake in this replay.

Here's the map.
Here are the forces.

Tony set his Germans up first. He put a squad in the building to the rear of each of his flanks to prevent my going for a quick end-run strategy involving Exit VP. His remaining 4 squads with most of his MG's- the 2 HMG's in particular- went into the chateau. The wire he placed to cover the forward flanks of my lines of advance to the chateau, in the hopes no doubt that I'd be channelled into a killzone on that road in front of the chateau. And that IG? Well he took his chance- as per the scenario special rules- to keep that until after he'd seen my setup.

For my part I decided in the end to grasp the nettle of the gambit represented by Tony's setting-up a lone German squad in the building to his southeast (north to the top as usual). And not wanting to charge up the centre, that set my strategy. My stronger force- best leader, mostly elite squads, satchel charges, most of my MG's- was going to go on my right, starting in those woods to the far northwest. The rest were deployed around their leader along the north edge of the map.

My plan was to advance under cover of smoke to the sheds on my right- ie. those small buildings on the western map edge, then use them as a jumping-off point for an assault on the chateau itself. On the left I was going to deal with Tony's holding force, then split my own force into 2

• an exit force for extra VP and later reinforcements
• a force to bring the chateau under pressure from the southeast to back up my main assault from my other flank.

This plan avoided the deathtrap of the German wire while simultaneously split the German forces. It was a good'un I thought.

Seeing my setup, Tony promptly put his IG in the sheds. Given my plan this worried me a bit. But I knew I'd be advancing under lots of smoke, so I shrugged and carried on.

The game opened perfectly for me: Tony was subject to vicious sniper attacks; I got fistfuls of Artillery Request cards which meant that I'd soon laid all the smoke I needed for my plans; and I got my left-flank force into action quickly for their part of my plan. Something just had to go wrong sooner or later, didn't it? What happened was that I got greedy and stupid (or was that stupid because greedy?). Instead of following my plan to keep my left flank's leader, elite squad and 50-cal safe from Tony's HMG stack, I put my stack in a positon to shoot at his. Of course, that meant they could shoot back. Soon enough I'd lost my entire stack. The consequences of this were to prove more serious than just the immediate cost in troops and VP.

Worse was to come. In the midst of all this action on my left, I decided to play an Artillery request as a FFE on the chateau. The chances of damage were slim, but I needed the card cycle at that point. Of course, that artillery order generated the Breeze event which cleared away all my carefully prepared smoke! I was able to lay more, but it wasn't quite so well-placed and, more importantly- that ate up lots of valuable time.

By this time the loss of that leader on my left was beginning to tell. Y'see: I'd planned on bringing my flamethrower-toting engineers on to reinforce my efforts on my right. But their leader was needed on my left when they arrived- so that was where they had to go. And this adjustment began to tell when I finally got my right moving. To cut a long story short: when I finally got in a position to attack the IG/LMG nest, it turned out to be a Pillbox and not just a building. Thanks to poor hand management and cardplay on my part, I got bogged-down in a bitter battle to clear that position, a battle for which those flamethrowers are tailor-made.

Meanwhile, over on the right, I'd managed to get those engineers with their flamethrowers into position behind the chateau. From there they'd been able to bring down some useful smoke. As the IG/LMG nest began to exact a heavy toll on my forces, I realised that I'd have to assault the chateau soon. When those pesky Pillbox defenders finally finished-off my lads in an oh-so-close melee, I knew it was time. I charged and assault-fired with a flamethrower: result!- I broke an entire HMG stack! A bit more luck like that and I could still put this game back from the brink.

It was not to be. The flamethrowers never delivered anything at all thereafter (mostly they just couldn't see the Germans through the thick smoke swirling through the shattered chateau), and Tony was soon able to rally, then to finish me off in melee. When my last engineer squad died, I conceded (I wanted to watch the Have I Got News for You? rerun on TV).

A crushing defeat- some 24+ VP, but what a great game! And lessons learned?

1. Greedy is stupid. If your plan involves staying out of sight of enemy kill-stacks, STAY out of sight!!. Don't sucker yourself into opportunistic plays for the sake of marginal attacks based on passing hand composition.
2. Don't advance under the barrels of an IG unless you've got the hand needed to destroy it right away; a.k.a. the 'You Won't Win a Firefight with an IG in a Pillbox' rule!

Score
0-1 :(
;)

Related@RD/KA!
- The Claymore mega-session
- Easter extravaganza #3: country-house carnage

On this day...

Today is the 63rd anniversary of D-Day, which signalled the opening of Operation Overlord- the Anglo-American assault on German-occupied France. I'm not going to to review the history of the preparation, launch and development of this crucial military operation of WW2 here (but here is the Battle of Normandy wiki for those of my readers who'd like somewhere to start finding out more for themselves). No, this commemorative post will be about the best of my viewing, reading and gaming on the subject of this massive attack down the years.

From newsprint to the silver screen
Like many of my generation none of whose relatives were actually there in France during those months in 1944, I imagine that my first encounters with the story of D-Day would've been found in the pages of the The Victor, Warlord, and Commando Comics- war comics published by the august D.C. Thomson, a veritable institution of Scottish publishing. In fact, there was a strip in Warlord called 'D-Day Dawson' unless my memory fails me.

Vague recollections of those childhood comics aside, my first real understanding of what D-Day was really all about came from the movie The Longest Day. (It boggles me somewhat to think that this film was made just 16 years after the event itself; I'm not quite sure why this is, but it's true all the same.) I can't remember how old I was when I first saw this film, but I can remember the impact it had on my young mind. The epic sweep of the narrative as it wove all the individual stories together thrilled me to bits even as it gave me a real sense of the sheer mind-bending scale of the forces marshalled to get those few men onto those 5 beaches that day. Individual incidents stick in my mind right up to this very moment:

• the desperation of the US paras as landing right on top of their objective in St. Mere Eglise leaves them utterly vulnerable to the German defenders
• the tragedy of the nameless squaddie who dies when he mistakes the working of the bolt of a German Mauser 98K for the click of the toy cricket handed out to the paras so that they could identify each other in the confusion of the night drop in enemy territory
• and the relief when one of our heroes doesn't suffer the same fate when the click to which he responds turns out to be exactly what he hoped it would be.

Whether or not this film really is as flawed as some of its critics are wont to point out (and it's not my purpose here to enter into that discussion), the simple fact is that it was watching this film that imprinted on my mind forever an indelible impression of the sheer scale of the forces unleashed by Eisenhower on the night of June 5th 1944.

Talking about Operation Overlord in Hollywood brings us, naturally enough, to Saving Private Ryan, undoubtedly one of Spielberg's masterpieces. It is impossible not to compare Saving Private Ryan with The Longest Day- even if only for reasons of personal history- but again, I don't here want to get into that sort of discussion.

Thanks to advances in cinematic techniques, what Saving Private Ryan gave us above all was the sense of actually being there, which was of course the entire purpose of that gruelling opening scene. Moreover absolutely everything about the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan has the ring of utter authenticity to this writer; so much so that it is difficult to select a few definitive examples beyond just reminding you all, my readers, of the sheer irresistible power of the sound and fury of that grim opening 20-or-so minutes as the grunts storm out of their landing craft into the killzone which has gone down in history as Bloody Omaha.

But I'll try:

• the bullets ripping into the men of the first wave as the bow-ramp of their landing craft opens- a moment which immediately takes us straight back to 'going over the top' at the Somme in 1916
• the guy whose helmet deflects a round, only for him to die moments later as he and his buddy celebrate such luck- because he'd taken the helmet off for said celebration
• the tone and the style of the language the grunts use to comprehend their battle situations and to develop their tactics in response thereto- whether on Omaha or in the later sequences of the film: these strike me as the unvarnished voices of the American squaddies and their leaders.

These are just a few examples I could've chosen from many, but they exemplify for me the unalloyed merits of Saving Private Ryan, a film whose strengths are those of Spielberg himself, most notable of which is a genuine grasp of the sheer power of cinema as spectacle in an age of spectacle.

Through books
Always an avid reader, you can be sure that my diet of WW2 soon expanded beyond war comics and Hollywood movies. The first book I can remember reading of relevance here today was Kenneth Macksey's Tank!, which I recall was a semi-fictional study of the actions of one British tank unit in the Normandy bocage on one day in 1944. A book I got out of the local library, the only other thing which comes to mind about Tank! is that I was really just a bit too young for it, because I was still looking for tales of thrilling wartime adventure, and not serious studies of the grim realities of tank combat in the worst terrain possible for your force-type, against troops unmatched in their abilities to exploit that terrain.

Since then I don't know how many books I've read on the subject of Operation Overlord. It's not really that many to be honest, with much of my reading on the subject being from books which encompassed the Second Front or the entire war as a whole. The last book I read on the subject of Overlord per se was Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, by Max Hastings, surely a better military historian than he is a journalist- but then readers who know me would expect me to say that about someone who writes for the Daily Mail (pauses to spit).

Not really that bad a history at all actually, Hastings' book is in any case utterly overshadowed by John Keegan's masterly Six Armies in Normandy. This book... Hmm, this book. You know what it's like dear readers; what it's like on those great moments when- amidst all the richness of our modern culture; when you see, hear, read, watch or play something which is just so good that it becomes part of you forever. You know what I mean: the sort of thing the mere memory of which summons up to you the time, the place, and the very texture of the minutest moments of your life when this novelty came down upon you with such unexpected force.

Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy (there's the link again in case you want to go and take a look at what's inside its covers) was a book like that for me. I was lent it by one of my buddies from the Edinburgh mob back in the halycon days, and I devoured it. There is another book which was my bible as a WW2 wargamer at the time which relegated Keegan's masterwork into the 2nd rank, but no matter: Six Armies in Normandy is the greatest book on the topic of Overlord and its immediate aftermath I have ever read. If any of my readers who has read it knows of a better one, please do let me know- that's a book I want to read A.S.A.P.

To the gaming table
Unsurprisingly then, I was a teenage tankie. My brother and I started to invent rules to run the games we were playing with our toy soldiers. Then the teacher who ran the school modelling and wargaming club I was instrumental in getting started introduced us to the world of official wargames rules- in the form of the Wargames Research Group's WW2 microarmour rules (actually their 1973 vintage War Games Rules Armour & Infantry 1925 - 1950). I never looked back.

Regular readers will already be quite, quite familar with my enthusiasm for Days of Wonder's superlative Memoir'44- a game which was actually released to commemorate D-Day's 60th anniversary. Good as M44 is though- and the horrors of that first assault on Omaha Beach after the easy streets of 'Pegasus Bridge', 'Sainte Mère-Eglise', 'Sword Beach' and 'Pointe-du-Hoc' are an abiding memory which remain for me testament to the genius of Borg's design; all that notwithstanding I must confess that M44 doesn't in the end represent the summit of my experience of Overlord gaming. Unsurprisingly enough, that accolade belongs to the monumental Squad Leader/Advanced Squad Leader system.

Two stories spring to mind. The first is from a (perhaps the sole?) solo play of (the first?- I presume so) scenario from Hedgerow Hell - ASL Deluxe Module 2. What was so great about the Deluxe version of ASL were the large hexes (the same size as those in CC:E and in C&C games funnily enough), which served to save us players from the 'towering counter-stacks' syndrome. More important though was the way in which the special rules for the larger hexes gave a real feel for the hellish maze of the bocage. It really was a rendition I have never seen matched.

In my game, I remember I had this Sherman tank, which was sitting safely out of sight in a sunken road, waiting to move out to deliver its attacks when the supporting US infantry had cleared the immediate area. The thing was, the fecking infantry just couldn't do their job- the Germans were just so well dug-in, and so well positioned in that feckin' bocage. In the end, I decided that I just had to send that Sherman out in the hope that it could beat the German AT-gun to the draw. It lost. It brewed. Game over. A bit of a shocker, and an object lesson in the nightmares of positional warfare in the bocage.

But my finest hour in Operation Overlord gaming came in a scenario I played against Mark- without a doubt one of the tactical masters amongst my buddies from the Edinburgh days. I can't remember whether it was under SL or ASL, although I have a feeling it was the former. My memory is also telling me that the scenario was called 'Pouppeville Exit', but googling this gives me an ASL scenario which bears little resemblance to the game I played that day more than 20 years ago.

I was the Americans, playing a small force from the 101st Airborne who'd assembled and were moving up on the morning of the 6th June to secure exits from Utah beach for the US forces who were to land there any time now. I was facing dispersed German garrison troops- who had some decent AA guns for fire-support, and reinforcements to boot. I duly got my lads on the move, and got stuck in.

As the game developed something began to nag away at the back of my mind: the Germans weren't responding as I'd've expected to my attempts to grab the 2 roads both of which were specified as satisfying the scenario victory conditions. Still, I pursued my plan. It was only when Mark's reinforcements arrived (a depleted infantry company with some more AA- truck-mounted this time; and armoured support) that I finally twigged. Instead of splitting across the 2 fronts my forces presented, these reinforcements were immediately concentrated by Mark on just one of the roads. WTF? A quick reread of the scenario victory conditions later and sure enough: the Germans didn't need to prevent me from controlling 2 roads; I effectively had to prevent them from controlling just 1. WTF! I'd been playing according to a bum plan for the entire game so far, leaving my forces split just at the point when Mark was concentrating his for the kill! Again- WTF?!

I used every trick in the Squad Leader playbook to try to pull my fat out of the fire that night. My lads were double-timing like crazy through woods to get them from the road Mark wasn't contesting across to the one he was (and it took me a wee while to get them all moving, because I just really couldn't believe that he didn't have some kind of trick up his sleeve to make a grab for that other road once I'd left it open!). And I was using the Move/Advance shuffle tactic to get my lads out of LOS in my own turn for the purposes of reducing the Germans' opportunities to bring their overwhelming firepower to bear on my ever more grim defenders.

In the end it came down to (IIRC) some 3 squads, hunkered down in the woods beside that road, surrounded by Germans who mustered a fearful amount of firepower (including a StuG III for feck's sake!) for their last fusilade. My lads held. Just. Only just- I had barely 20 men left keeping the exit open for the troops coming off the beach. It was a truly great game.

And back to reality
The Anglo-American air forces waged a strategic interdiction campaign across northern France in the months of 1944 preceding the launch of Overlord on 6th June. Its purpose was to destroy the French rail network to prevent German reinforcement of the Normandy front after the landings. It was aimed at the whole of northern France as part of the deception plan whose purpose was to convince the Germans that the much anticipated invasion would cross the Channel via the Pas de Calais. Upwards of 8000 French civilians died in this phase of the operation.

To this already widely available information, recent TV documentaries have added 2 further facts:

• at least 20,000 more French civilians died in Normandy under Allied guns on D-Day itself
• the fires of that hellish maelstrom were visible across the Channel on the night of June 6th.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : M44 playtest update

So, I've posted the results of Badger's and my recent M44 games to the Expanded Nationality rules threads I started on the M44:DoW and M44:BGG forums. Interested readers could do worse than head across and join in the discussion.

So, having commented on the games themselves, it's time to reflect upon the new rules.

The British rules
As things stand at the moment, these rules are looking pretty good to me.

The Marksmanship rule is having exactly the effect it should: ie. in a straight infantry-v-infantry exchange, the British can stand-off in cover at a 3-hex range and plink away at the enemy with 1 dice. Hardly overpowering, this is profoundly irritating nonetheless, and it could prove decisive in some situations, eg. picking off weakened units. Moreover, this minor advantage forces opponents of the British to close to bring the exchange under the parameters of a normal exchange of infantry firepower. In other words, this rule would seem to be working to change the dynamics of fire and movement in an interesting and appropriate way.

Meanwhile, I would have to say, however pleased I am with the Marksmanship rule (and that is quite pleased indeed really), that it is the Big Push rules which have been the real star so far. In fact, I don't think it is at all hyperbolic to say that these have exceeded our most optimistic expectations. So, before commenting further, I really must restate my thanks to neil1967 over at M44:DoW for bringing forward the basic idea back in March. Thanks Neil, your ideas would seem to have become the key to getting the Expanded Nationality rules project ship-shape.

So, the net effect of the Big Push rule is that the British can play 2 Command Cards in the same turn, and that it will take them a minimum of 3 turns so to do:

• plan 1
• plan 2
• execute

Badger and I are finding that the ability to play 2 cards simultaneously is a treasured resource, to be exploited at every opportunity (this stands in stark contrast to both the Kampfgruppe and the Saddle Orders rules, neither of which have been seeing much use at all so far). The effect of the planning prerequisite is that the British tend to use Big Push as much as possible early in the game, when their opponents' reaction to their own inaction poses less risk. Later in the game, when units are engaged across the battlefield, the pause to plan- not to mention the commitment of resources to plan, which are therefore not available for immediate reactions to events; these features of putting Big Push into practice make using the rule a much riskier affair. In other words: the Big Push rule works to make the British in M44 behave exactly as they should; and that this is so in both historical terms; and- perhaps more importantly- in terms of making this work in a way which enriches rather than encumbers the uniquely satisfying gameplay of M44.

The German rules
The first point to note is that, following on from comments posted to the M44:DoW and M44:BGG threads, Badger and I concurred that the hand-reduction rule in the Kampfgruppe rule is wrong. What had persuaded me in the end was that this clause- designed to restrict the formation of Kampfgruppe to a reasonable and balanced degree- ended up being just silly really. Why? Because it penalised the Germans in exactly the area whose strengths the Kampfgruppe rule is intended to represent- namely their superior operational doctrines. Becoming aware of this stupid self-contradiction, I soon realised that paying the price of losing a VP for the unit removed in the formation of a Kampfgruppe was the correct way to go.

With that fixed, I'm satisfied that the Kampfgruppe rule is satisfactory as it stands... well, perhaps the Kampfgruppe so formed should be allowed to battle as normal? I don't see why not really. It'd be more fun, and the Germans really were that good. Hmm. I like that myself. Anyhoo, the Kampfgruppe rule has yet to be tested in practice, although we did get close in one of our games. But Badger had Medics and Mechanics, so he didn't need to form a Kampfgruppe after all!

Meanwhile, I have to say that the Saddle Orders rule is looking a bit ropey. The rule is looking in the right place for a specifically German national rule, but the effect- a free Recon-type draw on a discard- has proved to be of little use. More often than not, actual play is proving that playing a Command card is a better choice than doing nothing to get this chance of marginal improvement in your hand. But the Big Push rule is coming to the rescue: Badger and I are thinking of how to adapt this rule so that Saddle Orders allows the Germans also to play 2 cards in 1 turn, albeit with more flexibility than the British.

Badger and I had a long discussion about the implications of a wider development of the plan-card concept introduced by neil1967. We still have many details to pin down before we have a testable version of a new Saddle Orders rule according to these ideas. But I was able to satisfy myself that this method is in keeping with the spirit of the C&C system. Why? Because playing 2 cards in a single turn is one of the key features which makes Epic BL more than just basic BL on a bigger board. So using plan cards to enable this in M44 seems apt.

And that's it for now. Badger and I will be returning to this project just as soon as we can. I'll keep you all posted. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Meanwhile...

Unable to rest satisfied with a pile of kitchen appliances during Saturday's jaunt into town- however lovely these much-needed and highly useful items actually are- I hied me to Waterstones, there to find books. I can still remember the thrill of discovering my first Waterstone's in Edinburgh back in the mid-80's. Appearing to my eyes as less a bookstore than a library, this new style of bookselling filled me with wonder so great I was unable to go properly beyond that condition to the stage of simple delight. Unless my memory fails me I was at least able to buy myself a couple of books:

• Roger Scruton's (wiki) A Short History of Modern Philosophy: from Descartes to Wittgenstein
• Marshal McLuhan's (wiki) seminal Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Both of these books blew my mind. Sold off in a later bout of poverty, these books have been missed often, when I've wanted to return to them to check what the authors had said. I bought the new edition of Scruton a couple of years ago only to find to my disappointment that it had dispensed with the Preface which had had such an impact all those years ago (or maybe my memory was failing me?).

Meanwhile, Saturday's trip to Waterstone's netted me the following 3 volumes:

• Of Fire and Night, Book 5 of Kevin J. Anderson The Saga of Seven Suns
• Edward Marston The Excursion Train, in his Detective Inspector Colbeck series
• After the Armistice Ball, a Dandy Gilver murder mystery by Scots writer Catriona McPherson

Of these I'm familiar only with Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns. I picked up a free copy of the TPB of book 1 at the 2004 Blackpool Eastercon. It is classic space opera, with all the parts of the curate's egg so entailed, but I'm happily snapping up each new volume as they appear because it's a rattling good read. And the other 2? Well, murder mysteries set in the Victorian era and in the Roaring 20's? For this fan of crime fiction, what's to loose? ;)

Just another Saturday night

The Carcassonne bug having bitten, and deep, Ros was eager for another session last night. Before that there was trip into town, where I got myself a brand new chopping board (it's a real monster, and a total bargain at a mere £20- heh!), a shiny new non-stick pan for cooking the porridge which I'm told is a useful way to reduce the cholesterol levels my doctors are warning me about, and sundry other kitchen items.

Down with the Doctor
As ever, gaming had to wait for the latest Doctor Who episode. WOW! What a freakin' episode! Easily one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever told, which is saying a lot given the superb stories we've enjoyed in previous 2 seasons alone. In terms of the currents season's plot arc, it was really good to see how Martha is being developed. How to follow Rose was of course the question. Well that question has now been definitively answered: Martha won't be the carbon copy of Rose which'd've devalued both characters; but she will be the same kind of modern (post-Buffy if you will) companion the successful delivery of which was a secret of the success of this most stupendous revival of our childhood favourite.

The more than satisfactory development of the Martha character is one thing- one very important thing, but it was just one strand of a multi-layered 2-parter pregnant with meaning and reference. And all this presented in the form of a ripping yarn featuring murderous body-snatching aliens toting rayguns, with hordes of scarecrow zombie minions. I mean: could you ask for more? But so to encapsulate the plot is insufficient to convey the power of a story which made me cheer, bounce up and down with glee, shiver with horror, and- yes dear reader- which even left me with 'a bit of grit in my eye'.

Here I am left grasping for words. In the end, if I had to pick out one moment- just one- which epitomised the qualities of this story, I'd have to go for the sight of the Doctor, weeping like a baby, pleading to be allowed to remain just simple John Smith, and so to enjoy the life he had found for himself as the result of the machinations of an identity of which he knew nothing, and about which he cared even less. Monumental stuff.

Got game!
On to the Carcassonne which followed. Ros and I got 4 games in in the end. I can report that 16 games into my experience of Carcassonne, I continue to be highly impressed with this game. Ros is emerging as a player who likes to go for a good long road as well as the cities and monasteries which are more or less mandatory. Myself, I am focussing very much on the farmers' game. We are both fighting tooth and nail for every point, each small positional advantage, and for ultimate victory. And make no mistake: for all its placid appearance- which includes the absence of the destructive play of familiar wargames, and which goes right down to the suggestion about cooperative tile-placement in the rules- Carcassonne is still a highly competitive game whose basic gameplay is a finkers' delight.

Memorable moments from last night's games include:

• my plaintive cry (after a losing game, natch!) of- how did you get those farms joined up?
• the horror of seeing Ros set up to steal a great city I was aiming to develop with some smart tile placement
• the satisfaction of thwarting Ros' evil scheme with a spoiling play which prevented her from completing the city, with the result that I was able to score my uncompleted section at the end of the game.

And those are just a small selection I can assure you. Good times!

Score
2-2
An honourable draw. :)

Got game!

Outrageous misfortune!
Bill was round last night, but Tony couldn't make it. What else was there to then do but turn to the ever-fresh Up Front? We decided to play a random 'Patrol' scenario, which set my Japanese against Bill's Russians, a choice which immediately perked our interest: one of our most memorable games ever featured this match-up. That day, the game opened with 5 Movement cards played in as many turns, leaving the 2 assault groups immediately at RR5 while the rest of their squads looked on in wonderment. I lost that one because I was afraid to Banzai at RR3 to a full-strength Russian firebase, so that the Russians won the battle of infiltration and close combat; but oh, how we laughed!

I immediately surprised Bill with my Japanese set-up: the 2 wimps at A; Togo with the ML3 rifles at B; and Okimoto with everyone else at C- a variant I have developed from Martin, an acknowledged master of the Japanese. This moment of surprise was the last advantage I enjoyed in our 2 games, both of which followed the same painful pattern against Bill's classic 4-group Russian set-up, a deployment which will be familiar to any reader who's read the original Up Front strategy articles published in the old AH General.

So what happened? My group B was eliminated /reduced, then the game was won when Bill finished-off/picked-off my group C. I made absolutely no headway whatsoever in either game. Game 1 was noteworthy for my drawing a single Rally 1 through the whole of deck 1 (I had men pinned for most of the deck in both Togo's and Okimoto's groups). I think I increased that to about 6 points of rally in deck 2. As if that wasn't bad enough, in game 2, Okimoto and Yoruba (MG)- all that then remained of that original 5-man group- got caught in a stream at RR3 to the 16FP of the Russian firebase. Amazingly, they survived hails of fire (I was getting the Rally cards this time). Unfortunately I managed to fail 13 (yes, 13!) attempts to ford the stream, so that when Okimoto (Yoruba long gone) finally managed to get the Ford card, he was immediately cut down in a hail of fire. I conceded, which is rare indeed.

Bill insisted I blog those games, because he reckons that that run of failed ford attempts stands as a record. He conceded too that I had enjoyed appalling luck more generally in both games. This is important not so much as a consolation- especially since I know I played the Japanese hand badly at crucial periods; rather it means that Bill can still see that the variant deployment he faced last night is not invalid simply because it fared so poorly in those 2 games. You can be sure then that we'll be seeing this approach to the Japanese again in the future.

Oh, and while on the topic of runs of bad luck of epic proportions, it has to be noted that Bill's own last play of the Japanese included a classic Yoruba performance unmatched in memory. (For the uninitiated: PFC Yoruba ports the unreliable Japanese MG; so a 'classic Yoruba' is when you open fire with your firebase, the MG malfunctions, and then junks on your first repair attempt- so commonplace is this, some players prefer to assume it as part of their strategy!) Then, as last night: oh, how we laughed! ;)