Another bloody Sunday?

From the skies and the forests they came!
It was just Donald and me for games on Sunday, so we decided to begin our first campaign from DoW's Memoir '44 Campaign Book, Volume 1, which this M44 completist had treated himself to with the hoary old "it's my birthday" excuse.

The quick play and simple unit representations make M44 an ideal game for a system linking a series of scenarios into a campaign, and M44:CB1 was eagerly awaited by the game's many fans. After just 2 games it is impossible to have a sense of the full scope of what the DoW team have added to M44 with CB1, but I can report that I like the look of what I have seen so far (surprised, dear readers?):

• A nice hardback book, with full colour art throughout: it's expensive to go hardback, but the book's more durable, and I think kids'd be extra proud of one.
• A punchboard of counters stuck in the back of the book (keeping these in good nick is another good reason for a hardback book).
• 51 new scenarios, many drawing on underused expansion sets.
• 3 grand campaigns; each comprising several mini-campaigns, themselves played out across 3 or more scenarios (as many as 8 in the really big ones):

1. Unternehmen Fall Gelb: France 1940.
2. Operation Barbarossa: Soviet Union 1941.
3. Normandy: France 1944.

The core campaign rules themselves are simple but effective:

• Reserves: each player has a reserve pool; reserve rolls at the start of each scenario govern access to your reserve units.
• Objective VP: many scenarios contain various objectives other than just destruction of the enemy; these provide bonus Campaign VP as well as victory medals in the given scenarios.
• Victory events: dice rolls made before each new scenario begins, these provide another layer of variation by enforcing small changes to each side's deployments.

All told, these rules will add a few minutes to each scenario's setup time, which I would expect to see become increasingly insignificant as players gain experience of the campaign game.

Unternehmen Fall Gelb: Airborne Operation
#16. Fort Eben Amaël
Starting at the beginning, as you do, and with some random selection, I found myself the Belgian defenders of fortress Eben Amaël on the Meuse near Maastricht, under attack from German glider-borne combat engineers. The original action there was one of WW2's first and most famous coup de main operations.

Historical revisionism took root right at the start of our new campaign: the Belgians held the fort against the German attack so that the panzers were unable to cross the Meuse as quickly as had been planned. There was a minor rules hitch which might've contributed to my 5-4 victory, but I reckon more significant was the excellent shooting of my units, which was some 1 pip above the mean on the day as a whole.

#17. Unternehmen Niwi
Another interesting scenario showcasing the new depths brought to this old favourite with the expansions, Unternehmen Niwi features the operation in which the Germans used Fieseler Fi 156 Storch light utility aircraft to seize crossroads vital to the planned panzer 'infiltration' through the Ardennes. Among the new rules in play were:

• Depleted units: units starting at less than full strength.
• Armour Breakthrough: armour reinforcements which can enter on your opponent's side of the map.

History was again rewritten, despite Donald's canny use of an Armoured Assault card to mobilise his Armour Breakthrough. I had kept my own armour units safe, ready, and waiting, and so was able to mount a decisive armoured counterstrike which won me the game.

So, with 2 scenarios to go, the Unternehmen Fall Gelb: Airborne Operation minicampaign stands at 10-7 to the Allies. All to play for then!

Score
Grizzled veteran 0
Stubborn defenders 2
:-)

Attack Sub
I've recorded a game or two of Courtney F. Allen's Attack Sub with Andy in the past, but none with Donald. We'd played it several times before, although sufficiently long ago that we decided to stick to the introductory scenario.

I drew the Russians. The game started well for me, as I was able to build up contact sufficient to take the first shot (IIRC), which missed. All told I think Donald and I each fired 3 times; mine all missed; 2 of Donald's were the 1-shot kills that won him the game. I will have my revenge.

Score
Old seadog 1
Not quite got his sealegs 0
:-\

PS. I don't know why the scans for the M44 maps turned out so scabby. I'll look into it. ;)

A Sunday sessions roundup

So, I've got 3 sessions' worth of games unreported. The Combat Commander games played with Mark and Badger are going to have to wait a bit. Meanwhile, I'll do a quick run through our last 2 Sunday sessions.

#1. Triumphs: complete, petty, or otherwise
Ivanhoe

Elsewhere on Saturday after showing what he's made of across the Combat Commander table, Mark was able to join us Sunday. I was keen to play Judge Dredd, so that I could return to my rightful place in the Chief Judge's chair, there mercilessly to lord it over Mark as befits ancient rivalries we share with our old Edinburgh mob.

Gav's impending late arrival meant that we had to turn to filler, so that Knizia's old favourite Ivanhoe appeared on the table as if by a law of nature. We fitted in 3 games while waiting for Gav. Andy particularly enjoyed the first: he won, which is rare. The next 2 games went to me.

Score
Andy 1
Donald 0
Mark 0
Me 2 (that's the "complete"...)
:-)

Oooh! Shiny! (AKA floating like a butterfly)

It seems like an age since last I posted, but it was actually only last Tuesday. Stage 1 is ongoing. I take comfort from the fact that I seem to be levelling out, but am only too well aware of how easily this might change. I've done some proper shopping and cooking this week, which is about all that's gone to plan. I'm just a bit frazzled.

CC@UK Games Expo'09
I've made some decent progress in my preparations for this tournament, but less than I'd've wished. Still, with a tad less than 3 weeks to the due departure date, I remain confident that I'll manage to do all I'm planning for the event.

Meanwhile, look at the lovely piece of kit I was able to pick up the other day at the local Ryman stationers (formerly known as Stationery Box): my very own LOS checker! (AKA: Retractable chrome badge reel.) Dirt cheap at £1.99. So you where to go fellow CC fans.

#Grins#

Adjusting the throttle

Bloody hell! No sooner had I survived the mayday gaming bash with Mark, Badger and the lads, than I found myself snapping awake and bouncing out of bed in the instant; a sure sign of my Stage 1 Hypomania. Oh dear, I thought, and I'd just got used to the unanticipated mood downswing.

Faced with this wakeup call, and after a frazzled week at the end of which I was pretty weary, I've decided that RD/KA! will be taking 2nd place in my gaming priorities until June. Or, to be more precise: Mark's, Badger's and my mayday weekend's games of Combat Commander and Up Front will be the last full-length game report I post before I return from CC@UK Games Expo'09.

CC@UK Games Expo'09
The event now has 4 players booked (myself excluded), plus 6 CC sets available. This means that we can already accomodate up to 12 players. Such a turnout would push the event up to the limits of this year's space, which would just prove my point about the demand for a WW2 tacsim tournament circuit in Britain. Fingers crossed I guess.

Meanwhile, I've made a start on the task of clipping, bagging, tagging and inventorying all the games I'm taking with me (CC aside, I'm taking my Memoir'44 and my Commands & Colours: Ancients to lend to Barry Ingram for his main-event tournaments (Saturday and Sunday, respectively). Hardly a thrill a minute (task and entry both), I'm going to get the latter done so's I can make headway on getting the former dusted. I've got two Sundays' games results to post, which I should get done before the week is out. ;)

Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

A definite hankering...

It's been a long time since I did any roleplaying, and longer still since I've GM'ed. There are various reasons for this, but they all boil down to two in the end: dissatisfaction and weariness.

My WFRP campaign ran for about 30 sessions over a period of some 16 months, ie. roughly every other week on average. I wasn't a seasoned GM, and I'm not really the seat of the pants type either, which meant that I put a lot of work into those games, not including the write ups here at RD/KA! (Keynote was a godsend!). In the end it was all too much for me. I was worn out.

What was more, I wasn't getting the satisfaction I wanted from the game. As I explained to the lads one night while we were eating dinner before a game with Bill: playing boardgames with Badger is a simple matter of opening the box and off we go; a 100% successful recipie for enjoyment, which couldn't be said of the roleplaying, even when it was going well; which wasn't all the time, naturally enough. This was my motivation to turn the Sunday sessions into a regular boardgaming bash.

Even when Bill became the GM, the group dynamic changed because the midweek date ultimately reduced us to just 2 PCs: Tony and me. I think this just wasn't enough to give the games real momentum. Quite why the 3 of us failed to reach critical mass escapes me, although I do know of some contributory factors. I now believe that primary among them was Katana.

Readers who've known me since bygone days might be shocked by that admission, since they'll be all too aware that Katana is one of my all-time favourite PC's, so close to my heart that I coined the phrase 'primary projection' to express what he meant to me. That is to say: he was a creative expression of some of the deepest wellsprings of my subconscious strivings. Well known primary projections include Conan and Philip Marlowe.

At first sight you'd think that I'd've been delighted to return to a PC like that; in the hands of the GM who presided over his creation and the first phase of his adventures; and with the player - Tony, natch - who, as GM, gave Katana the second phase of his adventures, when we first roleplayed together back in the late 1990's. And I was. It's a nice experience to pick up an old PC and 'put him on' like you would a well worn coat. And that blog I wrote upon his return weighed heavily in the balance which eventually tipped in favour of my acceptance that rpg's are art.

Even so, with the benefit of hindsight after the roleplaying had unravelled, Bill mused that going back to Katana might've been a futile attempt to relive old glories. He was right, of course. Precisely because Katana is that primary projection, he is too deeply embedded in pasts that can't be revisited. Sure Bill and I could do Katana easily and well, but it was, as Bill said about Frank Miller's Sin City, a five-finger exercise.

Worse still, with the benefit of lengthy reflection on Bill's offhand remark, I have come to the conclusion that not only was Katana too easy to play for the pair of us; he was also an unfair obstacle we unwittingly threw in Tony's path. I mean to say, teaming up Tony's Witchblade with Katana effectively reduced her to a guest star in Katana's continuity, instead of being a co-star in her own. This is OK for one-offs or short mini-campaigns based on player transience, but not if you want a proper ongoing series. Each and every player should enjoy equal billing after all.

All of this is by way of looking back at some of the mistakes made in past roleplaying in the hopes of avoiding them in the future because, yes, we're talking about doing some roleplaying. In the end Donald's wish to roleplay again was just too keen to ignore.

I'd already suggested to Donald that he try the HERO system, and was pleased he was agreeable. On that basis, Donald is talking about a couple of ideas. It's likely that we'll begin with his first: an outlaw mini-campaign using Iron Crown Enterprise's highly esteemed 1987 Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign. I am already looking forward to this. I'm thinking of a character who is a master of the quarterstaff. Whatever complaints people might have about HERO, it cannot be gainsaid that its skills list and combat system renders weapon mastery in rich detail, and with mechanics that reward real tactics and actual practice as opposed to just dishing out stat upgrades.

For my part, I have two ideas for mini-campaigns of my own. One is HERO too: a return to my take on TSR's 1993 Bughunters. One of two books I've got from the late, unlamented Amazing Engine system, I liked Bughunters' concept: clone troopers in space fighting the bugs? What's not to like? I immediately realised though that I would run this game with HERO instead of the dumbass TSR AE.

I ran this with Tony and other friends back in the late 1990's. I've still got all the material I worked up for the game and the setting (a piece of background work was posted to the Trollslayer forums a few years ago). It just needs to be updated, and I'd be ready to run it again. This is something I'd like to do, because I liked the kinds of stories I was aiming at in the setting; and I had a few surprises in store for my shell-shocked players. Unfortunately we moved on to other games, and never went back to my Bughunter.

My other idea is to go back to WFRP, naturally enough. I'd like to run a more hi-octane game in a classic D&D style, albeit with a bit more than just dungeon bashing; a game in which I'd unleash without let or hindrance the full power of the game's hideous antagonists and its deadly combat system. Of course, I plan on making the potential rewards commensurate with the risk.

We still don't know quite how, when and with whom our return to roleplaying is going to pan out, but we'll be getting something going for sure. Expect to hear more. ;)

Blogging through the slog

"Incoming!"
The slog? Yep. Not just the mood swing - which had already slowed down the lickety-spit with which RD/KA! began 2009; but also a flash of déjà vu when three out of four of the easter extravaganza reports (count them: #1, #3, #4) were marathon sessions at the GIMP, working on yet more "ever thinner Combat Commander battle reports... become uninspiring drudgery to this blogger", to remind readers what I wrote last September. This time, the drudgery was at least productive (all hail the GIMP!); not just nineteen new maps, but a new avenue in fleshing out battle reports with real history and geography.

Even so, that game of Rogue Trooper came along in the nick of time. All the more so since there's shedloads more Combat Commander on the way.

A parcel of rogues...

Rogue Trooper
Donald, Gav, Tony and I made 4 for boardgames on Sunday. Casting around for the main event as you do I spied, tucked away almost out of reach on a high shelf, my as yet unplayed second hand copy of GW's Rogue Trooper boardgame from 1987.

I confess I was never a big fan of the Rogue Trooper story, which made its debut in the galaxy's greatest comic - 2000 AD, in 1981. To paraphrase a friend at the time, there are only so many ways to ring the changes with "Eat chemcloud Norter scum!" The story was very popular though, so it was hardly surprising that a Rogue Trooper game was added to the series of licenced 2000 AD products which came out of the young design studio's halycon days.

For the record

Ivanhoe
No sooner had I returned from sunny Anstruther in Fife than I got a call from Antony (a.k.a. the mighty Grundi), who was at a loose end. His visit concluded with an outing to the tournament field in Ivanhoe, which I suspect is Antony's favourite game.

Long story short: Antony had skillfully fought his way to 3-2 up. It was late and time was getting on, but I psyched him into another game, which I won, thus forcing the inevitable tiebreaker (Antony no more wanted to surrender the night's knightly honours than did I). I won that too.

Score
Headstrong youth 3
Wily old dog 4
:)

History of the World
Tony's absence gave us 5 the following Sunday. There was a great appetite for giving History of the World another try after Easter Sunday's first play. Andy was content to go along with this.

Notes were taken of the scores at the end of each epoch, but again the intervening week has cleared the interesting little details from my mind. What I can report is that the Romans did make their appearance this time- in Dave's hands, and they were truly mighty, especially with the addition of weaponry; that I held the lead until epoch 5, when it was stolen from me by Dave; and that my best efforts with the British empire in epoch 7 (and they were a lot better than last time too) weren't enough to prevent Dave sneaking past me in the last turn of the game to win by a mere 6VP (216 to my 210).

Score
A man who needs no introduction
(Because he's not getting invited back) 1
The civilised world 0
:-\
;)

Easter extravaganza #4: Rumble in the jungle

Our trip to the chateau of doom done, we proceeded to what, for Martin, was the main event: a trip to the PTO and Martin's first taste of Combat Commander: Pacific. A noted player of the Japanese in Up Front, Martin was looking forward to seeing how they shaped up in Combat Commander, a game to which he rapidly took, pronouncing it the most exciting WW2 tacsim he'd seen since Up Front.




Send out the scouts!
We started at the beginning, as you do, with Scenario A. Grassy Knoll, which Badger and I had played in our first CC session of the year back in January. Since then, the scenario has acquired a reputation as being too tough on the Americans, as witness this thread on CC:P@BGG.

Slaving away again at the GIMP (where do you think I've been all week?!), I went first to Wikipedia in search of the Battle of Mindanao to see if I could find any information that'd clue me in about the map's orientation. That search proving fruitless, google followed, which led me to HyperWar: a hypertext history of the Second World War.

Easter extravaganza #3: Country-house carnage

Preliminary reconnaisance

After a short night's sleep and a journey across the country to the east coast Martin and I sat down to the main event: Combat Commander. We decided to start with Scenario 4. Closed for Renovation. Could one of us gain the American victory which has eluded everyone so far?

Working at the GIMP to get files ready for RD/KA!, I searched for Humaine, Belgium on googlemaps, as I'd done with Scenario A. Ichiki Attacks from CC:P. I was able to find the town, but neither googlemaps nor google earth are detailed enough for me to pick out the chateau itself, so north is purely conventional on the maps for this scenario. Still, I found some pictures which show the piece of real estate to which those Germans clung so stubbornly back in December 1944.

Easter extravaganza #2: Limbering up

The Easter holidays brought a visit from 'Uncle' Martin for a WW2 tactical megasession.

Up Front
Beginning in the wee small hours, we opted for a couple of quick games of Up Front. We managed 2 games. Turning to Scenario A. Patrol as ever, random generation pitted my British against Martin's Germans, then I took the Americans in against Martin's Germans.

The details of the games escape me at week and a half's remove, and I wasn't taking notes. What I can remember is that, continuing my setup experiments, I decided to give my Germans a chance to gain a manoeuvre victory with a strong 4-man assault group on my open flank. I managed to pull this off.

I tried something similarly unusual with my Americans, setting up:

• The 2 ML1 wimps with Cpl. Moores at group A.
• A 6-man firebase at group B.
• Sgt. Burnett with Myers and a ML3/Panic 5 rifleman at C.

Sgt. Burnett and his lads got into close combat, and amongst the game's high jinks were:

• I took a prisoner.
• Burnett junked a tommy gun (what?!), then picked up the dead Bernhoff's rifle from the German group he was infiltrating.

In the end, Martin's assault group died in a hail on fire and on the points of my bayonets, and I won again.

Score
Aging reservist 0
Combat-ready veteran 2
:)

Afterthoughts
These games were part of my ongoing consideration of Up Front tactics, naturally enough. Isolated data insufficient for the drawing of conclusions, the results are grist to my mill nonetheless.

Key for the Germans was the decision to keep open the option of the manoeuvre victory with 4 men at range chit 4. Historically authentic for the Germans, this aggressive strategy is also eminently playable with their hand in Up Front. Going with a strong 4-man assault group raises the question of how to build your firebase. I opted to put the ML1 Beck and the ML2/Panic 2 Wollack at group A, and to transfer Wollack into the firebase at the first opportunity:

• The firebase has to have at least 5 men.
• ML1 wimps shouldn't be in your firebase.

In addition, I would consider pulling Beck back to range chit -1 to keep him out of range of the enemy. That way, he'd be able to run around for the sake of card cycle without coming under too much fire.

Unlike the Germans, neither the American hand nor their firebase favours the manoeuvre strategy. So I prefer to go with a 3-man assault group whose role is to hold out against their German opposite numbers. The novelty in this game was to put Cpl. Moores with the wimps in group A instead of with the firebase in B:

• Moore's tommy gun makes him largely superfluous in the firebase.
• His smoke capacity is likewise mostly redundant.

So, putting Moores in group A with the wimps means that:

• The wimp group can lay smoke to enhance their own survivability and to increase card cycle.
• Group A will be more durable because of Moores' higher morale.

These strategies worked against Martin on Easter Monday. Even so, the vivid memory of the utter tankings back in 2007 which refuted my alternative Japanese strategy means that I'm not leaping to any conclusions about these setups, all the more so given my concerns about the scaling of Up Front's firepower engine. Still, I know I'm going to try them both out again the next chance I get. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
Easter extravaganza
- #1: The long weekend
- #3: Country-house carnage
- #4: Rumble in the jungle

Easter extravaganza #1: The long weekend

Diversions, dinner, then duel in the depths

The long weekend brought Badger round on Thursday night. Events elsewhere diverted us unexpectedly for a few hours, so that our anticipated WW2 tactical megasession turned into a single visit to Stalingrad in Combat Commander, but not before dinner, naturally enough. Dinner was another new recipie from Nick Nairn's Top 100 Chicken Recipes: chicken with butternut squash and bacon.

I like cooking chicken. It ticks a lot of healthy eating boxes; is available prejointed in portions ideal for freezing, and easy to apportion to appetites; it cooks quickly and easily; and is adaptable to any and all culinary styles. Truly, the pack of chicken portions is a boon to the busy modern cook. Butternut squash was new to me, even though they've been around for ages.

The recipie was a success, just like all the others I've taken from this book by Nick Nairn. It'll be revisited, and I'll be looking for other ways to use butternut squash just as soon as I can.

Doom, despair, devestation, dastardliness and dinner

Andy, Donald and Gav turned up for last week's Sunday session. Dinner was going to be a French classic: chicken cassoulet. The recipie was a quick and easy modern version from Nick Nairn's Top 100 Chicken Recipes, suitable as ever for advanced preparation and last-minute finishing.

The dish was a great success, which was nice. I took special pleasure in the lip-smacking appreciation of my favourite spicy Italian bangers, which I believe were new to everyone else.

Doom

I was keen to have another go at the final Doom mission Donald and I had lost so pitifully last month. We were humped, again, even with 3 marines and a reduced difficulty level. Our humpage was of a degree less severe than the last time - we did get out of the first room, though only as far as the second area; but it was humpage in the extreme nonetheless.

A night on the Russian front

Up Front

Badger and I began last Friday's session with a game of Up Front, another Patrol because Badger's still green despite his excellent record. Random selection gave him the Germans against my Russians. He chose to go with a variant of his winning setup from 4 weeks ago. I went with my now standard 3-group Russian setup.

Routine trash talking aside, I was quietly confident as this game started. The Russians are probably the best force with which to take on the Germans. Sheer weight of numbers, a capacity for insane charges, and the best discard in the game are strengths which I reckon give them the edge over the British or the Americans. Plus, Badger's run of luck surely couldn't continue?

"We go!"

The unstoppable charge of Chad Jensen's Combat Commander continues with the addition of Battle Pack #3: Normandy to GMT's P500. Scheduled to include 17 new scenarios (1 a campaign), 8 new maps, extra counters, and a host of new rules to cover the terrain, units and operations in the Normandy bridgehead in the summer of 1944, BP#3 looks set to provide hours of fun for CC fans everywhere.

There is no release date as yet, as you would expect from the nature of the P500 system, but there is every reason to expect the pack to appear this year: at the time of writing there are 320 preorders, and that's within 24 hours of the announcement of BP#3's addition to the P500 list. I imagine a fair proportion of them are automatic preorders. Even so, I'll be surprised if the crucial 500 preorders hurdle hasn't been crossed before the month is out.

In other news

Badger's coming round soon for another session of WW2 gaming, so I've just got time for a couple of quickies.

Space Hulk rumour mongering
A recent visit to the Bell of Lost Souls GW fansite and a quick search for 'Space Hulk' has updated the rumours about the rerelease of this classic boardgame. The talk at Bell of Lost Souls is of "a full bore rework with all the bells and whistles you could ever want." You can find the full story here.

With as many as 6 months before the much-touted Q3 2009 release date, there is plenty of time for GW to do some serious viral marketing by drip-feeding rumours into the online GW community. As the comments at Bell of Lost Souls and elsewhere demonstrate, this could bring the Space Hulk fanbase to a pitch of excitement perhaps exceeding even that of playing the game itself! Myself, I want pictures.

Now that was a bughunt!
Google have finally got round to fixing a bug with the user stats for blogger, one I seem to recall arriving when they upgraded the system back in 2005.

The 'Profile Views' stat is the only counter of any sort I use here at RD/KA!. That upgrade all those years ago had the unexpected consequence of making the counter increment whenever I looked at my own profile, so I'd half the number and round down conservatively to get any idea of how many visitors had clicked through to check my profile. I actually sent google a bug report on this back when the issue arose. Is the delay in fixing this an indication of how backlogged their inbox is, I wonder? ;)

This and that

Something fishy going on
Alert readers might've noticed a recent weekend passed without a Sunday session. This was because that weekend saw a night out in celebration of my 46th birthday. I had decided weeks ago that I wanted to make the occasion the excuse for my eagerly awaited second visit to the delightful Two Fat Ladies West End.

Snappy dressers set their own style!

Andy, Badger, Donald and Gav had all heard me sing the restaurant's praises more than once, so it had quite a reputation to live up to. For my part I was wondering how my second visit would go after the first had been such a landmark in my fine dining experience. Opinions were a bit mixed in the end.

Andy, Badger and me in the Three Judges

Several people had the Cullen Skink, which was unanimously highly praised. Andy and I started with a squid salad. I found this quite delicious, the tenderest and most flavourful squid I've ever eaten. My main - scallops with Stornoway black pudding - slightly let down my high expectations. Stornoway black pudding is a modern food legend, and justly so. Perhaps Two Fat Ladies sources its supply from a butcher other than that whose pudding I've enjoyed so much in the past. I don't know for sure, but I have to say that it lacked the pepperiness which to me characterises Stornoway black pudding.

The lads were mostly happy elsewhere around the table, although Donald was a bit disappointed with his first taste of fresh tuna, which was too mild in flavour for his liking. A wee taste and subsequent pondering has left me thinking that this was mostly bad luck: Donald's a confirmed lover of red meat, and the idea of fresh tuna steaks probably conjures up certain expectations of strong, meaty flavours. Maybe he should try the meat dish on a future occasion.

Badger, me and Gav in Two Fat Ladies

Andy, Gav and I were on our third bottle of a sluggable fresh and fruity white wine by the time the desserts came round, so my memories of that course are vague. I'm pretty sure Donald was pleased with his pudding though (and so the day was saved for him: puddings are second only to red meat as essential components of Donald's ideal meal); I certainly enjoyed my chocolate pot.

The matter of the black pudding notwithstanding, my second visit to Two Fat Ladies lived up to the promise of the first. And, although perhaps not sharing the degree of my enthusiasm (Badger took to accusing me of turning into John Torode of BBC TV's Masterchef), I think everyone agreed that we'd been served top-quality food at fair prices.

Cheers!

I don't know about the others then, but I know I'll be making another visit just as soon as I can find the flimsiest of excuses.

My life in the mob
In the months since I became an active facebooker, I've been invited to join and otherwise taken a look at many of the little games people play there. Of all of those, only one has managed to hold my interest: Zynga Inc's game of gangland empire-building Mafia Wars.

I'm really not sure what it is about this game that appeals to me so much. I mean, I'm a fan of The Sopranos, a big enough fan that I still expect to hear the Alabama 3 signature tune kick in every time I hear the chords and static hiss that are HBO's station credit. And I like resource management in games in general. But that doesn't really explain why Mafia Wars is the facebook game which first successfully lured me into this genre.

No, really: this doesn't explain my fondness for Mafia Wars; and I really don't know why I like it so much. What I can say for sure is that I'll be playing this one out as far as I can take it. Oh, and I won't be paying for it either. ;)

PS. I just want to add a note of thanks to Donald and Gav who took the photos of my birthday night out. Cheers lads.

Related@RD/KA!
- Sweat the small things?

A world at war

The history
Lugged home 5 weeks ago amid much grump and bitching, and having started to lurk on the sidelines just a bit too long, my shiny new Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition finally hit the table yesterday; and in a full 6-player game to boot. This was a landmark Sunday session for more than one reason:

• We hadn't been 6 on a Sunday since the first session of my WFRP campaign (back in the days before RD/KA! believe it or not!).
• This was the WW2 strategy game I'd waited all my life to play.

The setup
Saturday night gave the first hint of what the A&A:AE experience was going to be about. I'd read somewhere that setting up in advance was advisable to speed play, and I could easily see the point:

• There are a lot of pieces to set up.
• I wanted everything to go off as smoothly as possible so that everyone would like the game.

The subsequent hour and some spent sorting out and deploying pieces across the expansive board gave me a foretaste of what turned out to be Sunday's key experience, that of a game strangely compelling despite being uncommonly gruelling.

The choice of sides thrown open as we awaited Dave and Tony, Donald chose the Japanese, and Andy plumped for the Italians because he thought that their tiny forces would enable him quickly to cut his losses should his worst fears about the game be realised. My suggestion of smokers versus non-smokers lined us up thus:

Axis

• Germans: Me.
• Italians: Andy.
• Japanese: Donald.

Allies

• Americans: Dave.
• British: Tony.
• Russians: Gav.

We played the 1942 scenario because I assumed that starting later in the war would shorten the game (an unfounded assumption it now seems); and I'd figured we should play the short 13VP game, because I thought that'd give us our best chance of getting finished (another unfounded assumption it turned out).

The game
We started at 2pm and played until about 7. It was taking us an hour per game turn, which meant that we each played 5 turns in 5 hours. That was a bit of a shocker. I mean to say, we've all become used to playing games in which you get a turn every few minutes or less, and in which you might well be engaged during other players' turns in any case. This is very much the cutting edge, be it Euro, Ameritrash, or just plain wargame.

By contrast, 45-50 minutes downtime per 5-10 minute turn is about as 'old-school' as it gets, and it certainly proved distracting, if not outright burdensome. Turn structures of this ilk are not to everyone's taste, and it has to be said that some were heard yesterday to wonder why they were bothering at all. The turkey's clucks were almost audible.

Yet, the game's qualities rode out our frustrations so that we're all looking forward to the next time despite yesterday's inconclusive outcome after all that effort. We realised that it wasn't just a matter of the first-game learning curve; A&A:AE just isn't a game for a Sunday afternoon with a Monday morning to follow.

I certainly enjoyed my first taste of the A&A economics engine and combat system: attacking with the Wermacht at the height of its powers; capturing Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow by early 1943; Russia was mine as the game came to its inconclusive end. Andy - a possible sceptic because of his professed lack of interest in WW2 boardgaming - was pleasantly surprised by how much he enjoyed his ramage through the Mediterranean and into Africa. Tony's highlight was surely his 2-phase 2nd front which captured France while I was preoccupied with conquering Russia.

These and other events in the game were really exciting. As the battles unfolded round by round we often found ourselves stood around the table, cheering our sides on. And I relished the groans of dismay (echoed even by my allies) as Germany's resource base and income burgeoned thanks to my exploits on the Russian front.

Teething troubles aside then, Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition was a success, if not an instant hit. As Gav said, it's "advanced Risk". This mechanical simplicity makes the game accessible and quick to master, while the wider range of units and the expanded economic system give it real depth. The secret of the game's success yesterday, I expect these qualities will be put to the test again just as soon as enough of us can find the time. ;)

Addendum
For those who might want to take a look at the rules before their next game, look here: A&A:AE rules.PDF.

Will I? Won't I?

HERO Games have confirmed a release date for the first products of the new 6th edition of the classic rpg, formerly known as Champions. These products are:

• HERO System 6th Edition.
• HERO System 6th Edition: Combat and Adventuring.

They will be released at the Origins game fair in the US in late June.

I love the HERO system. It's still the strongest and most flexible rpg reality engine out there, and certainly my go-to game for flashing blades or gunplay. But I barely used my 5th edition HERO rules in 7 years (those few games with Katana back in 2007 are all, IIRC). Also, I thought that HERO5 was something of a bloated monstrosity compared to the sleek 4th edition, and I fear that the 6th edition will turn out grosser even than the infamous HERO 5th edition revised.

One thing I think I can say for sure: I won't be loading up on 6th edition product the same way I did with 5th edition, which occupies shelf width surpassed only by my WFRP2 collection. ;)

[From Purple Pawn]

A small but satisfying landmark

This is my 300th post, a landmark I at first would've hoped to have reached long before this, year 5 of RD/KA!. After all, I managed 99 posts in the 5 months of 2005 after I launched this blog with my impressions of the Glasgow Worldcon, a 20/month posting rate which'd've put my postcount in the region of 2000 if I'd kept it up in subsequent years. Ah well, such are the vicissitudes of the bipolar blogger's life.

Still, 300 posts is quite respectable for a hobby blog, representing:

• 1½ posts/week for 186 weeks.
• Remainder 21.

Or, in the form of a viable publishing schedule:

• 1 post/week.
• 2/posts/month for 44 months.
• Remainder 26.

Everything else aside for the moment, my biggest hope for the future of RD/KA! is that the 7-month bloglag of 2007-08 will be the last such massive writer's block I have to endure. Time will tell. Fingers crossed! ;)

A moment to marvel at...

As regular readers might already've guessed, and as my facebook friends will already know, the old mood swing kicked in recently, slowing down to a near trickle the flood of articles which already promise to make 2009 RD/KA!'s best year since 2005. I first noticed this a couple of weeks ago in the form of a change in my sleep cycle which signalled my mood swinging below the median.

The inevitable next phase began just this week, with decreased energy levels, poor motivation and attendant psychological disturbances. The upshot of all this is that the various activities I've been enjoying for the past few months start to become painful to contemplate, let alone engage in.

I actually have a better plan than ever to deal with this: exercise. I'm going to have to start to make good on last year's idea of regular gym attendance and swimming. I'll keep you informed.

Meanwhile: onwards, to bigger and better treasure!

Cards, command and combat #2. Fun in Stalingrad!

And so Combat Commander hove to on the table late last Thursday.

Offered his choice of revisiting the 2 already played CC:P scenarios (we couldn't play any more because I've not yet got round to clipping the rest of the CC:P counters); playing some of the new C3i scenarios; or trying out the new Battlepack, Badger plumped for the latter. I confess I was a bit surprised, knowing how much Badger hates cityfights. All the better for me then. Off to Stalingrad it was.

Scenario 35. Spartakovka Salient
Actually we began in the small town of Spartakovka on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad itself. Set in late August, Spartakovka Salient features the early phase of the battle, as German units raced for the Volga, and a city whose name they'd've recognised, but which would otherwise have looked as if it was going to be just another landmark in what was turning out to be a glorious summer for the German army on the Russian front.

It's official, and now public!

Yesterday was my birthday, and it came with an unusual present. Regular readers will remember my posting, only last January, about my intention to GM a Combat Commander tournament at UK Games Expo 2009. A recent flurry of activity saw the official tournament page uploaded to the UK Expo site yesterday by event organiser Richard Denning.

Thanks to Richard for his efforts getting my stuff sorted. Thanks are also due to Rob Bottos from CC@CSW, whose advice helped me decide the event's format.

Andy and I have got our hotel booked, and we're now just waiting for tickets to be available. After that, well, I guess I'll just have to make sure that everyone has a good time. And there will be an 'everyone'! The tournament already has 5 confirmed entrants, and 2 or 3 times that many possibles. So, dear readers, wish your humble scribe good fortune if you will, and see if you can't make it to Birmingham for the 5th, 6th and 7th of June 2009.

Cards, commands and combat #1. Golden Oldies

Badger and I enjoyed something of a WW2 tactical megasession last Thursday as I'd said.

Up Front

As brilliant as is Combat Commander, 2 years solid play had left both me and Badger looking to ring the changes a bit in our gaming sessions. And as much as I want to see Conflict of Heroes in action again, there really was nowhere else to go to reopen our gaming horizons than back to the great grandaddy of CDG's, Up Front.

Badger was quite happy to have a go. He'd won his 1st and 2nd games against me after all, way back in 2005 (although I must point out, for Badger's benefit, that our Up Front score stood at 2-1 in his favour on Thursday night, not 2-0 as he'd imagined). I gave Badger the standard scenario I offer to players new to Up Front: Germans against my Americans in Patrol.

Appetisers...

Badger's been on holiday from work lately, so we sat down yesterday to a long-awaited WW2 tactical session. The evening also saw me cooking the first of several seafood dishes I'll be doing over the next few days. Something I've hankered after for a while, I think I've indulged the whim now to cheer myself up a bit in the face of my mood's recent slide below the median.

Last night's recipie was Oven-roasted Fish with Potatoes and Salsa Verde. This is another Delia, originally from her How to Cook Book Two, the white series infamous for teaching such things as how to boil an egg. At least she wasn't suggesting people go out and buy pre-fried onions as in How to Cheat at Cooking (sheesh).

This recipie has all the hallmarks of a classic Delia:

• Simple ingredients list (don't be fooled by the long list for the salsa verde - you can pick it all up at a half-decent supermarket).
• Easy preparation using basic techniques and few processes.
• Ideal for preparing in advance for last minute heating in the oven, this dish could even be kept in the fridge overnight.

It was a success, although I did overdo the pepper just a bit (Badger didn't have to order pizza though!).

Tonight's menu...
...is Fennel and mascarpone risotto with scallops and prosciutto.

I'm busy working on the report of our games from last night. In the meantime here is the 2nd of those 3 seafood recipies. I've never tried this before, although I've been cooking risottos for years, and I like fennel - as regular readers might remember. So I'm looking forward to trying out something new; just what I need to cheer me up, like I said. ;)

Toasters, toasters, everywhere!

Battlestar Galactica

An unexpected visit from Gav (last seen at G3's 10th anniversary bash) plus Dave's presence ensured our first long-awaited 5-player game of Battlestar Galactica: the Board Game last Sunday.

The initial dice-off gave us the following cast of characters upon whom would depend the fate of humanity:

• Gav: Starbuck.
• Dave: Saul Tigh.
• Me: Laura Roslin (I'd enjoyed the Presidency before!).
• Andy: William Adama (he wanted those nukes obviously!).
• Donald: "Chief" Galen Tyrol (Donald reluctantly succumbed to our collective insistence that we couldn't do without a 'Support' character).

The 1st thing we noticed was that there is no Cylon Sympathiser in the 5-player game, so that we knew precisely the threat we would face, if not exactly when it would appear.

Doomed, we're all Doomed!

Doom
So, Andy got his chance to lay down some smack as the Invader in Doom on Sunday. Donald and I took our 2 marines into the final scenario. It wasn't pretty. We only managed to get through 1 door, after which we just got bogged down by wave after wave of spawns.

We weren't helped by our luck: the number of attacks we missed was just painful, driving our results at least 1 point below the mean. Andy, on the other hand, enjoyed average luck, our constant dodging notwithstanding. On top of that, whenever Donald and I did pull something useful together, Andy'd have an Invader card in his hand to screw us over!

My marine wasn't much help either. My skills were Tough, Medic and Sniper. Tough gives you +1 armour, which was fair enough. Medic proved useless. I'm sure the ability to play the Ready action and use an order to heal 1 wound is something that'll've made the difference to winning or losing a game of Doom, somewhere, sometime; but on Sunday I just couldn't afford to spend an order on it when I had constantly to dodge while surrounded by Andy's Invader hordes. Sniper wasn't much better. What I really needed were skills which made my marine much more aggressive.

Our tactics let us down too, our respawning tactics in particular. Doom is a game in which the marine players can expect to get killed. So the trick is not so much avoiding getting killed as making sure that you can use getting fragged to respawn somewhere useful, ie. forward. Unfortunately Donald and I kept putting ourselves in positions from which we could only respawn backwards, so that we had to fight our way back to where we'd been. And when I did eventually spawn forwards, the Hell Knight guarding the door was more than a match for me.

We met our end shortly thereafter.

Score
Evil Andy 1
Puny humans 0
:-(

Afterthoughts
I enjoy Doom now as much as when I originally played it 3 years ago. I like the core system and the viewpoint it creates; I like the challenge of the scenarios; and, as fond as I am of the extra richness of Doom's sister game Descent, I still enjoy the more pared-down feel of Doom.

Also: I checked the FAQ; we missed a couple of things in our game:

• Blowthrough requires you to roll for the extra attack(s) after you've subtracted the dice.
• You do get an attack for Watchful when a figure is moved adjacent with Knockback, but only 1.

Munchkin
I said last week that I expected Munchkin would "take its due place at the table as entertaining filler in the future". I confess I didn't expect that to be quite so soon, but Andy and Donald seemed keen, so off we went for a couple of games.

Routine finkage, general screwage and other high jinks aside, the details of the games are hazy now. All I can really report is that:

• Andy won the 1st game.
• I played a really neat trick in 1 game, looking for trouble with a Bullrog, Mate and Friendly in my hand, which netted me 10 treasures!
• I won the 2nd game.
• I'm still enjoying my return to Munchkin madness!

Score
Evil Andy 2
Donald 0
Me 1
:-/

Memoir'44
Andy had to leave early, so Donald suggeseted a game of Memoir'44 after dinner. I was keen for some vengance after our last game, so I readily agreed.

Dinner was Simple Stroganoff from Delia's Complete Cookery Course (online variants here). With just 7 ingredients and no processes more complicated than browning meat, this really is simple cooking, but it's always been a hit when I've cooked it. It's also another good recipie for getting most of the work done the day before.

We wanted to try out the new air rules, so we plumped for the 1st scenario featuring them in the Air Pack's compiled scenario book. That turned out to be Utah beach, a scenario originally published on the Days of Wonder M44 site. The revised version features 2 changes:

• Landing craft.
• Air rules.

The landing craft are handy in beach landings (no!), enabling units in the sea to reach the beach in a single move.

The air rules are more complicated. There are 2 new command cards added to the game: the Air Sortie cards. These are used to bring 1 of the 8 airplanes into play. Once in play an airplane can be ordered using section cards just like any other unit. In fact, they must be ordered or you'll lose them. Airplanes can move 4 spaces, and can move through any terrain and/or units.

Airplanes often have to make Air Checks at the start of their turn. An Air Check is a dice roll based on the kind of terrain in which the airplane begins its turn and the number of adjacent enemy units and/or airplanes; eg. towns have an Air Check value of 2, which would be 2 dice. If any of the dice are grenades, then the airplane is lost, and it'll be worth a victory medal to the opposing player if any of their units were adjacent to the airplane.

Each aircraft can also carry out 1 or more different special actions. These include the obvious strafing - a more flexible but less powerful version of the Air Power card in the command deck; as well as useful tricks like ground support - negates the terrain protection against close assault of hexes adjacent to the airplane; or ground interdiction - units adjacent to the airplane at the start of their turn can't move. Oh yes, and the Japanese Zero has kamikaze.

The air rules proved decisive in our game, which was largely down to my good luck in drawing an immediate Air Sortie card. I picked a P38 Lightning for the sake of the aforementioned ground support. I then promptly played an Assault, and my entire centre rolled into action. With the help of the Lightning, I was able to clear the 1st bunker without too much difficulty, although Donald's fightback meant that I was actually behind for most of the game.

My momentum in the centre exhausted, I had some some units getting shot up on my right, and my left was still to be committed. Making the most of my P38, I sent it after Donald's unit dug in on the hill on the left. I got lucky with a flag, which meant that I could move up to seize the hill with ease. Shortly after this Donald used his airplane - a Fieseler Storch - on a rescue mission, which enabled him to save a 1-model infantry unit from destruction. It was too late for Donald though. His covering forces were broken and I had a simple run through the left flank exit point for my game-winning victory medal.

Score
Andy 2
Donald 0
Me 2
;-\

Afterthoughts
After 1 play I have mixed feelings about the air rules. The way in which air power appears and disappears is pretty decent, giving a good impression of how little control battlefield commanders had over air power in WW2. And the rules are pretty straightforward and simple to use, although I did find confusing some of what the rules say about the play of Air Sortie cards. So the air rules work OK. I have to confess I'm just not yet sure if Memoir'44 needed them in the first place. ;)

Javascript japes

Ground Zero
Checking out an alert from a facebook friend Friday night I was led here:

Ground Zero: Google Maps and Nuclear Weapons
This mapplet shows the thermal damage caused by a nuclear explosion. Search for a place, pick a suitable weapon and press "Nuke It!"

How could this avid fan of Nuclear War resist?

Unfortunately, as ever this blogger template is cutting off the side of the active google maps, so I'm just posting a screenshot of a strike on my home town, Dundee. I found Ground Zero simultaneously fascinating and disturbing in that way which will doubtless be only too familiar to my readers. Most strange for me perhaps was the reaction of my inner GM, which was to wish that I'd had access to this device back in the early 80's.

I used to play Aftermath regularly back then with 'Uncle' Martin GM'ing. Seeking to run my own post-nuclear game set in Britain (Martin's was set in Canada), I decided to try to make the dimensions of the thermonuclear holocaust as authentic as possible. So I started searching for information on the subject of presumed Soviet strike plans and their projected consequences. In the end I gave up. This was back when the Reagan and Thatcher's 2nd Cold War against the Soviet 'Evil Empire' was in its first full-throated cry, and I just found too horrible to contemplate the future I was seeking to make into my roleplaying campaign.

So I felt strangely ambivalent when, toying with Ground Zero, I found myself thinking how useful it would've been back when I was trying to set up that post-nuclear Aftermath campaign. I mean, you could just pick all the locations, make the strikes, save the maps, and then you could no doubt save them all to a single map, perhaps even to Google Earth. Fascinating and a touch disturbing like I said, not least because of that taste of GM's glee.

On a lighter note
Poking around Carlos Labs, the creators of Ground Zero I also found their online Spyrograph toy (this one does paste nicely into RD/KA!, but check out the link for an explanation of how it works):

I had one of these when I was kid, so playing around with it again online was fun.

Afterthoughts
Carlos Labs are clearly big fans of Google:

"At the moment, Google represents one of the strongest forces in the creation and distribution of Open Source software, and we want to apply this knowledge and code to solve practical problems for our customers."

I really don't know how Google's activities are advancing the Open Source movement, but I do like a lot of their applications and gadgets. Picassa is a current favourite of mine. It's the best photo album software I've ever used. ;)