A Sunday celebration

Last week's Sunday session turned into a bit of an event: Glasgow Games Group (G3) were holding a games day to mark the 10^th anniversary- to the day!- of the club's first ever meeting. As a veteran of founding night I went along, naturally enough. Andy and Donald were both going anyway, so I'd've had to go to get any gaming in any event! Gav and Tony are both founding night veterans too, so they came along as well. Badger, Bill and family all decided to join us.

Ivanhoe
It seems we just can't stop ourselves starting with this neat cardgame these days, although this time we had to play something quick because Tony could only pop in to say hello, having a party to go to (again!). So Badger joined us for a 3-hander.

Got game!

Bank holiday boardgames bonanza!
A busy weekend last week plus a cold I picked up sometime has left me unable to write much. I had Badger round last Friday for Combat Commander, then the usual Sunday session turned into a mass invasion as my old buddy Martin turned up for the bank holiday, prompting Bill to pay a visit to catch up with him. This led to a late night Combat Commander session with Martin on top of the usual Sunday boardgames. With the Monday off work thanks to the bank holiday Badger turned up for yet another Combat Commander session. Truly did my cup runneth over!

Friday night firefight
Pursuing our goal of playing all the official scenarios, Badger and I got in 4 games on Friday.

#29 'Operation Repulse'
Featuring the 101st Airborne scrounging for supplies from a glider drop, this scenario replaces the 5 mapboard objectives with secret objective chits randomly-drawn, then scattered from 5 starting hexes. Worth 5VP plus their hidden value, these 'gliders' are going to be a main source of VP for the US player- who turned out to be Badger- because they are prohibited from gaining exit VP.

My plan involved a base of fire behind the hedge for maximum arc of fire (there were no hills on the map), which I would develop up the right and/or left flanks towards the F1 & F8 objectives. Meanwhile I would be sending an assault force of fallschirmjager to grab the E5 objective, and enter the woods to threaten the J4 objective.

My plan went as smooth as these things can, and I won with 26VP and 5 kills on time 7, the first sudden death check.

#30 'Red Skies at Night'
I drew the Germans in this 1943 encounter between Russian paratroopers and a strong German platoon. The postures are an odd feature here: the supposed attackers- the Russian paratroopers fighting to establish their bridgehead, are in Recon; and the 'defending' Germans are actually in Attack. The most important effects of this are to deny the VP clock and defender-only actions, so no wire, minefields, and other unspeakable fortifications.

My plan was simple. My secret objective was S- all 5 objectives worth 1VP. I could hold 3 objectives easily, and make 1 too hot for the Russians to hold. To this end I placed my foxholes in forward positions and set up to make a quick dash into them: a squad on the left behind the crestline, an HMG nest with the leader in the middle, and another HMG on the right. I put the team ready to make a run for the objective on the eastern map edge.

With his units strung out on the map edge, just 1 leader and only 2 orders, Badger found it difficult to get any momentum behind his attack. My units took their positions comfortably and began laying down defensive fire, forcing a surrender on time 5 with 10VP.

#31 'Blizzard Baptism'
Drawing the Germans again, I drew my secret objective, H- #4= 2VP, for a total of 5. With the close terrain and the blizzard I could expect the US paras to close in. I planned on holding 2 objectives and putting up a fight/delaying action for another- the one out on the east. I laid my wire to make the western approaches look as unappetising as possible and occupied the building with Sgt. Ganz, 2 rifle squads w/LMG's and a line team. I put a foxhole in B8 to deepen the blocking position.

My base of fire was in the other main objective building: v. Karsties, 2 rifle squads w/HMG & LMG, line team w/LMG. A rifle squad in foxholes in H7 gave some cover in the centre and another went in N5, the forlorn hope in objective #5.

My plan worked in a closely fought and very eventful game- as can be seen from all the blazes and other fortifications added to the map during play. Event followed event as Badger's units fought their way through hidden wire after hidden in his main thrust for exit VP over on the east.

I was forced to move v. Karsties' platoon eastwards to the woods as Badger threatened to turn my flank for a free run at the map edge, where they were broken by an airstrike, though they survived in the end. We both got reinforcements of one sort or another aplenty: I got a team w/HMG and pioner w/flamethrower, which I threw into holding back Badger's assault down the eastern flank; Badger got a 203mm radio, which proved more frightening than effective, although it was fun to see it scatter and hit one of his own units, wired in hex O10! My own flamethrower proved a bit of a disappointment, thanks to the smoke that Badger was throwing around liberally to screen his units strung out in the wire.

The game lasted 3 additional time periods, only ending on time 10, leaving me the winner with a slim 10VP.

#32 ' Look Mom, No Tanks!'
I finally drew the Americans, and it had to be this scenario of all scenarios! I'd played this one as the Germans when Martin and I played it just after I'd got hold of Battle Pack: Paratroopers, and I'd seen the deadly efficiency of the SS close combat stacks- Sgt. Ganz, SS squad and line team for a total of 16FP in melee. Truly fearsome!

I decided that I had to have my own killer assault team: Sgt. Smith, para squad and elite team, for a melee total of 18FP. My plan involved trying to hold the Germans with defensive fire from Sgt. White, 2 para squads/MMG in the building in the east, and from 2 para squads in foxholes around the wooded road in the west. Meanwhile Sgt. Smith and his lads would be stalking SS squads, ratcheting-up double elimination VP's.

My plan began to unravel immediately. I'd put Sgt. Smith's team front and centre, which drew Badger's killer stack in, whereupon I promptly lost the close combat, leaving my plan in tatters. Then the rampage began. Sgt. Ganz and his men simply chewed-up my units as they swept across the board, exiting for double exit VP multiple times. It's a measure of how desperate my situation was that it took me until time 7 to get my first kill.

Badger won on time 8 with 35VP and 6 kills (1 short of surrender). A thrashing.

Score
3-1 :)

The Sunday session
Ivanhoe
With 6 players due at the table on Sunday, a fast pick-up game like this Knizia gem was an ideal way to get started while we waited. Martin won.

Score
Martin 1
Everyone else 0





Judge Dredd
The ancient rivalries of Mega-City 1 don't get much exercise these days, so it was easy for us to agree to move on to this classic GW boardgame. I was hoping that the extra new players would give me a chance to wreak my revenge for previous humiliations (A month in the games of, The Claymore mega-session). It was not to be. In a game of surpassing finkery I ended up just one lost arrest shy of victory. At least I had the satisfaction of foiling Martin's midgame rush to the winning post, which left Donald the winner in the end.

Score
Donald 1
Martin 1
Everyone else 0

Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun! Card Game
Fired up for some serious finking, and faced with my frankly rather limited choice of decent multi-player conflict games, we decided to have another try at this game, which some of us had played once before. We had more players this time than that first time, which was all to the good.

The Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun! Card Game involves clones of various security clearances playing missions defined by cards. The players play action cards to perform the missions, or to help or fink on other players. There are bonuses and penalties for success and failure in missions, plus the penalty of execution for Traitors. Play continues, mission after mission, until 1 player loses their 6th clone, either due to wounds, or to execution. At that point, the clone with the highest security clearance wins.

The mechanics delivering this gameplay are pretty simple. Fulfilling missions in particular is typically done by placing wound or treason tokens (also used for the clones) on the mission card. This is very abstract, but the true fun of this game is in the backstabbing cardplay in any case, so that doesn't really matter. There are a few questions of interpretation opened up by the interaction of certain cards, but once they're attended to, the Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun! Card Game is a game which should play fast, furious, and most of all, fun!

I took an early lead in our game by the simple device of using my ownership of the game to appoint myself team leader. This couldn't last, as the other players eventually gangned up on me to make sure I died so that they could elect a new team leader. This passed on again to Martin and he caught up with me. The final mission plus the cards in hand left him in an unassailable position to win. Curses!

Score
Donald 1
Martin 2
Everyone else 0

Roborally
I was a bit reluctant to play Roborally when it was suggested, forseeing a long drawn out game leading to my inevitable defeat. So I insisted on a simple board with easy flags for an open race. Did I get it? Did I heck! Instead I got one of the worst, a hideous array of twisting conveyor belts and pits, alongside the radioactive core. And sure enough, while Martin took an early lead thanks to his robocopter, closely followed by Andy, I ended up footling around stuck on the conveyor loops for turn after turn.

I was eventually able to get into a position to start collecting options in the hope of doing something dangerous to Martin's bot as he headed for the last flag, but the map offered few useful vantage points for these interception tactics, and Martin cruised to an easy victory.

Score
Donald 1
Martin 3
Everyone else 0 :(

More Combat Commander
When everyone else went home after the Roborally, Martin and I sat down to the reason for his visit, some Combat Commander. I gave him the Playbook from Combat Commander: Mediterranean and left him to find something he liked the look of. His first choice took us to the western desert.

#24 'Six Hills'
I'd played this before with Badger, so was pleased when I drew the British- the other side, and they'd been the winners last time. My plan was simple: defensive fire! So I set up Lt. Lyndhurst with the HMG and 2" mortar in foxholes on the eastern end of the high ridge. I put another squad in foxholes beside them, and the corporal with an LMG at the western end of the high ridge to forestall an Italian end run. The rest of my forces were disposed in support of this plan.

In setting up, Martin immdiately showed he wouldn't have to play 2 games to learn the lessons I'd learnt from my losing game as the Italians- he set up a platoon in the SE corner ready to make an end run for exit VP. Next he promptly set up his MG platoons using the lie of the land to break up my lines of fire exactly as I had done. Then he called down artillery on my position, which had the immediate effect of destroying my HMG nest's foxholes, so that they broke, and were eliminated to a man by the following MG fire.

In my shock I surrendered on the spot. I just couldn't help myself. It was only when it was too late to go back that we realised that it was still the first turn. What a shocker! I should've fought on. The position probably was unwinnable- 5 territorial squads with a weak leader against a full strength Italian company with artillery support? Almost impossible, especially with the way the Italians would be ratcheting up exit VP against such weak opposition. In any event, I should've fought on, if only to avoid having a first turn surrender on my Combat Commander record. Anyway, it all just goes to show how important player morale really is in the game.

#19 'Metaxas Season'
Leafing through the Combat Commander: Mediterranean Playbook looking for our next scenario Martin hit upon this one. He plumped for random selection and drew the Germans. I went for the same setup as I'd used against Badger: Sgt. Delvoie, the HMG and the cannon in the bunker on the heights with 2 squads in trenches covering the cliffs; Levasseur and a squad in trenches covering the approaches to the farmstead; the rest in the farmstead; and waited to see what Martin would do.

Martin's setup showed his ability to assess a position and his keen tactical awareness- he split his forces, putting his pioners with their assault weapons in position for an assault up the cliffs in the west.

Coming up with the right plan was one thing, executing it turned out to be another. Getting up those cliffs is a difficult and dangerous manoeuvre: the only cover from which to advance (and note that units advancing across cliffs can't carry weapons) is in view of the bunker. So the manoeuvre as a whole calls for the best available combination of move, advance and smoke grenade cards, and a lot of patience! Martin tried his best- twice- but it was to no avail. His assault troops did get close once, and their close combat ability showed its worth too, but they were destroyed by fire from the bunker each time. The assault on the bunker broken, I was free to mop up his other units.

Score
2-1 :)

In our post-game discussion, Martin felt that this scenario is unbalanced. He might be right, although our 3-game sample proves nothing, even though it is 100% in favour of the Greeks. And the whole point of scenario-driven WW2 tactical wargaming is more-or-less unbalanced scenarios in any case, because these were the most interesting original battles. This scenario is definitely a tough nut for the Germans to crack. I'm looking forward to giving it a try, and I wonder what the statistics will look like when we finally see a German victory.

And yet more Combat Commander!
Badger left his ipod behind on Friday, and he just can't live without it. That was all the excuse he needed to come round for another session on Monday. We got 3 games in.

#33 'We Go!'
I'd played this as the Germans with Martin in our original Battle Pack: Paratroopers session last April. So my setup was easy: an HMG nest to protect the building objectives, and an LMG nest in the woods objective, then hope for the best with the random US setup. Badger and I weren't keeping notes during this session, so I can't remember much of what happened. Sufficeth to say that I won on time 7 with 4VP, a very close run thing!


#34 'Encircled at Hill 30'
I'd played the Germans too with Martin last April and had won a narrow victory in a memorable game. So I was looking forward to having another go when I drew the Germans for Badger and my last game from BP#1.

My basic idea was to develop from a base of fire to my east, using the mortar as much for smoke as anything else. Seeing Badger set up behind the crestline and in the buildings so that he could bring no effective defensive fire into the large field immediately in front of my deployment zone, I set up with a simple line abreast of 3 platoons: Sgt. Bierman on the right, Lt. Leuerbach plus an LMG in the centre, and Lt. Schrader with the HMG and the other LMG on the right. My plan was to take the buildings in the centre first, then send Leuerbach's platoon off in search of exit VP while Schrader's platoon joined Bierman to assault the objectives.

Everything went smoothly at first. I got smoke where I wanted it, and my platoons moved up promptly. Then I got bogged down in the centre. I wasn't helped by the appearance of blazes right beside the action, which seriously hindered my LOS in the big firefight. Badger recieved a pack howitzer as a hidden unit, which I killed and promptly received thanks to scrounging. I put it over on my right, and it helped me clear objective 1. It wasn't enough though. The game ended on time 7, Badger winning by 6VP. A close run thing!

#101 'Rubble-Rousers'
This little slice of Stalingrad was next. It promised to be a titanic struggle: apart from the strong OB's, each side also has a bunker complex- 3 bunkers (6 cover), 3 trenches (4 cover), 3 wire, and 3 8FP mines. Plus each side sets up simultaneously in zones defined by a diagonal line running SW/NE, so we'd be close, and in heavy cover.

My plan involved 3 forces: in the centre- a strong HMG nest to hold the main objective, which I fortified with bunkers and wire; to the west- Cpt. Egorov with all my SMG squads and satchel charges- to assault the church; and to the east- a force to work down that flank. My plan changed immediately when Badger promptly started exiting his own forward units in the NE corner. Exit VP! I'd plain forgot about those, and was much relieved- Badger had strongly reinforced the orchards so that Egorov's assault had been looking much less appealing. So he led his men off the map instead.

The result of this was that the game turned into an HMG slugathon in the centre with skirmishing in the east as I mopped-up the few units Badger had left there after making his exits. Badger pressed hard, and enjoyed some of the luck which we both needed to break the stalemate in the centre, but I held on to win with 4VP- as close as we've got this time.

Score
2-1 :)

Combat Commander score
7-3 ;)

Friday Extra! Which Gears of War will those be then?

A busy week for yours truly, including trips to the pictures to see the Iron Man movie (IMDb), and Doomsday (IMDb); a Combat Commander session with Badger on Saturday; and Descent with Andy, Donald and Tony on Sunday. I've started learning my way around the Linux Ubuntu OS which I installed on my external hard drive not long after my recent rant about Windows Vista. I'm too low on the learning curve to be getting much use out of Ubuntu yet, but I really like the look of it. On top of all that, the housing association sent a workman round with remarkable prompitude so that I've finally got a working shower. Yay!

Meanwhile, here's a story which came to my attention last month. Commenting a while back on this story from ICv2, Yehuda over at Purple Pawn asked "Just how many six hour space themed galactic conflict games does one need?". But are FFG really likely to dish out another Twilight Imperium or Starcraft: the Boardgame with this licence? Gears of War is a 3rd-person squad combat shooter set on an Earth beleaguered by alien Locust horde. Here is a a short sample of the gameplay.



This video gives a deeper sense of the background, shows the richness of the settings across which the battles are fought, and demonstrates the vast scale of the war for which the PC game's protags are the pointmen.



And IGN Gears of War has a rich resource of screenshots and video clips for readers who'd like a little more detail.

Reading this page on the official site gives the impression of a game of tactical combat across an incredibly deadly post-apocalyptic earth battlefield, as human soldiers and their monstrous alien foes lay waste to their surroundings with weapons of extreme destructiveness. Looking at this, I'm more worried that FFG might plump for a cheap Doom clone than anything else.

There is definitely a great board wargame in Gears of War. The question is whether FFG will deliver it. If we're not going to see a Doom clone- which would be a sadly obvious way to represent Gears of War's gameplay, then exactly what kind of game are we going to see? Here is where I think we're more likely to see a dull retread. FFG's whole 'box-full-of-toys' production approach makes me fear that the subject of Gears of War- grunts in combat against waves of monstous aliens- will mean that the new game will be a Doom-clone.

I really hope not. I'm hoping that FFG are following the approach taken with Starcraft, refocussing the gameplay at a higher level of the battle. It is being embedded in this bigger battle which distinguishes the action in Gears of War from that in Doom; and it is this bigger battle which is represented too in the wide and rich variety of settings in Gears of War; so we really have to hope I think that FFG choose to open the game up in this direction somehow or other.

Sleek, intuitive rules for the effects of fear and confusion on the battlefield, the deadly combat environment, the destruction of cover, and hidden aliens strike me as other features of the computer game which would be nice to see in the boardgame. They'd give it its identity and could prove interesting. To be true to its original the game will have to represent a wide variety of terrain features on several different battlefields; and a good system for generating scenarios will be needed to give it strong replay value. Regular readers will need no reminding where I'd suggest the designers look for mechanics to handle some of these systems!

The Gears of War boardgame could prove interesting then, depending on what FFG make of it. I'm going to be keeping an eye on this one. ;)

Meanwhile... Last week's Sunday session

My week started with a hangover after a lovely Thai meal Andy, Donald and I shared on our regular post-session dine-out last Sunday, a little 'adventure' which included my losing my glasses... Erm. Fortunately, just like the last time, I had a spare pair waiting.

As site visitors might've noticed- via the recently-added handy BBG widget which shows the last 5 games entered into my games played database, the last Sunday session saw Attack Sub, Ivanhoe, Nexus Ops, Nuclear War and Settlers hit the table.

Attack Sub
The old Avalon Hill cardgame of Cold War submarine warfare in which designer Courtney F. Allen explored the potentialities of his revolutionary Up Front (BGG) CDG engine, Attack Sub (BGG) is a game that Andy and I had played before, so I was confident that it'd prove suitable as quick filler while we awaited Donald's arrival. Picking up from where we'd left off we played scenario B, 'Search and Destroy', featuring 2 US surface vessels- the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Virginia and the helicopter-carrying guided missile frigate the USS Simpson; versus 2 Soviet fast attack submarines, the Molniya and the Skvortsov.

Friday Extra! Combat Commander Battle Pack #2: Stalingrad- preview

I commented in my recent review that BP#1 had merely scratched the surface of what the Battle Pack expansions to Combat Commander might offer. So I thought I'd take a look at the Battle Pack #2: Stalingrad previews available on the GMT site to show readers what I mean.

Reading the BP#2 product page the first thing to strike you is that this will be a significantly bigger pack than BP#1, with twice as many new maps, a rulebook, and counters too. Looking at the sample rules and counters shows some of the new units, weapons and special rules that will ensure that Battle Pack: Stalingrad will give CC fans a whole new urban warfare experience. Obvious features like factories and sewers are present, but I'm particularly keen on the new 'Urban Snipers' and 'Ampulomets', which should bring whole new levels of danger and chaos to the battlefield. Meanwhile the 'Melee' and 'Battle' counters among the samples suggest intriguing new variants to existing rules.

There isn't as much detail available in the preview about the new maps and scenarios. But that sample OB is from a single scenario featuring 1 day's attack on the Barrikady’s Great Assembly Hall, which makes it noteworthy if only because of the sheer number of units involved, although those references to 'Group 1' and so on suggest a sequential setup which should prove intriguing.

Most interesting in the scenario stakes in BP#2 is the reference to the special multi-scenario campaign game. Without any more information all that can be said about this is that this sounds very interesting. Will it just be a system for stringing scenarios together one after the other? Or will it offer real campaign choices and consequences? The CC RSG makes me hope very much for the latter.

And there you have it. Battle Pack: Stalingrad is going to define an already familiar battlefield environment in a whole new level of detail, and will also provide an entirely new way to play your Combat Commander. Like I said, this is more than the extra maps and scenarios offered in Battle Pack: Paratroopers, and it also looks to show how easily CC can be expanded into new areas without overloading the system. Where will Chad Jensen and John Foley be taking the game next I wonder? ;)

Meanwhile... Up Front rerelease finally just over the horizon?

A family visit in the heart of rural England left me offline on Monday, and so unable to start your week dear readers. I'll do better next time. I'll take a camera too. The countryside down there is beautiful and I'm going to show it off. Meanwhile, here's the story which had already been pushed down the schedule by my last-straw rant at the steam-driven OS that is Windows. This one will run and run I can promise you!

Browsing the forums over at Fortress: Ameritrash, I found this post about the long awaited rerelease of the legendary Up Front. Sure enough, one of the staff at MultiManPublishing posted details at CSW, including the suggestion that UF might reach preorder in July. Given the infamous history of delays of the so-called 'Up Front 2000' project gamers are justified in taking this with a pinch of salt until something concrete is seen, although I would imagine that the requisite pre-orders will be filled very rapidly once MMP add UF to the pre-order list.

Regular readers will know that UF is one of my favourite games of all time. All the same this news leaves me with mixed feelings for reasons which have little to do with the caveats above. Part of this might be due to my newfound fondness for Combat Commander, and I'm certainly not keen on the increased cost the packaging of the new edition will bear, but I think it's mostly due to some of what I've read about the new edition in recent years.

In that respect though this is a good announcement from Perry Cocke at MMP. Talk of replacing all of UF's counters has been dropped. And the touted gameboard turns out to be just a learning tool rather than a necessary feature of play. So the last major discussed change which has been bugging me is the idea that the Relative Range values will be reversed in the new edition. I won't go into details of what this entails, but this struck me as an unnecessary fix of a key feature of UF which isn't really broken IMO.

Ah well, this might be a trivial revision given that we've been reassured that the core design will remain unchanged, and of course, it's not my money that's at stake in this project. MMP are going to have to do something really stupid to spoil my interest in the long-awaited new edition of this classic game. I'll be watching this one all the way. ;)

Got game!

Back to Catan
The regular Sunday gaming session resumed last week. Andy and I had time to sit down to a game before Donald arrived; he fancied Crimson Skies, while I was convinced it was my turn to choose a game of Commands and Colours: Ancients; so we compromised with a game of The Settlers of Catan Card Game.

Settlers cards is a game I really like (as regular readers will will be aware), and I've been pleased recently to have introduced it to Andy to find him take to the game quite strongly. In our last game back in February we'd tried out the Wizards and Dragons theme deck from the expansion (the first time I'd used this most colourful of the expansion theme decks, both literally and figuratively), so this time we went for the Science and Progress deck (Andy's a physics graduate and fancied his chances with it!).

The Science and Progress deck is themed around city expansions, including the University which is essential to using many of the other cards in the deck. Among the various cards, a particular favourite of mine is Land Reform, which allows you to swap 2 different regions, a card which can be very useful if your early expansions haven't gone according to plan. I also just like the way the card takes a very simple action- swapping 2 cards in your display- and gives it a role in the game.

Andy got off to a good start, gaining an early lead. But I had a Scout, and the Grain Mill and Foundry cards. Soon enough I was able to get a settlement built, leaving me in a strong position for building cities. This I soon did, giving me a hold of the Windmill token which I never lost, and with which I was able to irritate Andy with the constant drip-drip of the theft of his resources when the Commerce event turned up. Andy wasn't giving up easily though, sneaking the last settlement off me, and putting up a good fight for the Knight token. In the end though my superior resource base told, and I won by some 13VP to 10.

Score
1-0 :)

Setting out on the Road to Legend
Donald arrived as we were putting the game away. There was no need for a debate about what we would play this time: I had just completed my Descent set with the recent Descent: Road to Legend. The 3 of us had completed the first dungeon of the basic set a couple of months back. We had all enjoyed the game enough to want to play it more often, but I was interested in Road to Legend because it offered a proper campaign structure built on the premise of the shorter playing sessions which we had taken 3 of to complete that lone dungeon.

I'd read the RtL rules, but hadn't fully digested them, so setup and introduction was fairly lengthy. Andy and Donald had to choose and select 2 heroes each to create the party; I had to choose my avatar- I went for the Beastman Lord with extra wounds and speed, and my plot- I chose Ascension, because it was described as the simplest of the plots which give the Overlord player an alternative victory condition (alternative to crushing the foolish heroes when they finally confront me in my keep that is!). The avatar and the plot are features new to RtL. The avatar is the Overlord in person, while the plots define the Overlord's goals in a given campaign (details here). Getting all of these decisions made took time, including the task of adjusting the various card decks which have been modified in RtL. Still, we got a lot of stuff sorted to which we won't have to return, so that's good.

Once we were ready, Andy and Donald's heroes set out to explore the land of Terrinoth, heading out of the fabled city of Tamalir to the nearest dungeon, which they promptly began to explore. Clearing the first level went relatively smoothly thanks to a combination of the mini-dungeon-level format new to RtL and our existing experience of the game, only costing the heroes 3 lives. Packing up at this point we were all pretty satisfied with how things had gone. We'd managed to complete a session in some 3 hours. Mind you, we calculated that we'd need some 40 sessions at that game's rate of progress before the heroes finally encounter my Beastman Lord... That'll be sometime next year then! ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... new TV treats?

I finally got round to watching the opening episode of the troubled season 2 of NBC's Heroes on BBC2 last night. I say 'eventually' because I missed both the original broadcast and the first repeat, only finding out at the last moment that there was a 2nd repeat to catch.

Heroes was one of my favourite TV series last year, being the only one apart from Doctor Who that I made an effort to catch each week. The idea of the series appealed to me, and I liked the low-key way that it handled the emergence of superpowers in our own world. And yet at the same time I found the series deeply frustrating, mostly because it was so damn slow. The sprawling narrative with its wide cast plodded on becoming ever more convoluted as it developed and undermining the series' essential premise as it was revealed.

This is something that really bugs me about a lot of modern SF TV. There used to be a time when series like Star Trek (classic and next gen.) were written with no overarching plotlines or continuity so that episodes didn't need to be broadcast in a given order to make sense to viewers. This changed with the success of Babylon 5 (unless my memory fails me), the impact of which can be seen with the adoption of a megaplot in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and in the plethora of more-or-less vaguely SF action/mystery series which have become staple viewing fodder today, eg. Lost, to name the best known.

All of which would be to the good if it wasn't for the lamentable approach to TV storytelling inaugurated by Star Trek: the Next Generation, with its flabby scripts and time-wasting camera work, all of which contrasted poorly with the dynamic pacing of classic Trek. Layer this approach to creating episodes on top of the sprawling multithreaded narrative now favoured and you have the recipie for the frustration I noted.

Compare Heroes with Doctor Who or The Wire to see how limiting this approach is. Whether it is the sheer amount of story in a 45-minute Doctor Who episode, or the richness created by The Wire's multilayered narrative, it is hard to deny that these series demonstrate qualities precisely the opposite of those I find so unappealing.

Ah well, I guess every TV series can't be the best of the best. Heroes will just have to settle for being the best of the rest. Last night's episode was enjoyable enough. I expect I'll be watching as much of season 2 as I can get myself in front of. But it's got some way to go to become 'must-see-TV' like our good Doctor.

Speaking of our good Doctor, Saturday's episode went down a treat. An nice little prologue, then straight into the action, including a dramatic return of Martha from last season. By the end of the episode the Doctor was facing not just armageddon at the hands of an old enemy, but Donna's grandad was about to become a victim of the first wave, and all in less than 45 minutes. Now that's storytelling! ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Microsoft Vista? Gah!

When my old computer was dying on me last year, I decided to hold off buying a new one until the new Windows OS was out. Don't ask me why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh how I wish I hadn't! Microsoft Vista is quite simply the biggest crock of shit Microsoft has ever sold me.

Off-the-shelf hardware ingenue that I am, I went online and chose a Dell Dimension DM061, powered by a Intel Pentium Duo 2.8GHz, 1014MB RAM chip. I've had no problems with Dell as Dell (expect perhaps they gave me that irritating update checker which reguarly pops up not to allow me to install upgrades?). No, my problems have all been with Windows Vista.

As ever with a Windows OS 'upgrade', the new chrome is nice, eg. the new 'View' and 'Sort' settings in Explorer offer genuine utility in accessing folders full of a large number of different file types, or would if their coding hasn't rendered the entire OS utterly unstable. (And I'm betting that the idea was probably lifted from the Mac in any case, just like so much else of the Vista chrome appears to be.) Here are some of the more minor bugs my Explorer demonstrates:

• Folders in Explorer reset to random view and sort settings each time I enter them, so I have to click about to get the desired view setting I want over and over again.
• The shift- and ctrl- multiselect options have stopped working except in my Open/Save dialogue boxes.

The upshot of this is to make file management incredibly frustrating, and, in the case of the malfunctioning multishift, so laborious that I feel as if my machine has regressed to pre-GUI days.

Serious as these glitches in Explorer are, they are minor compared to the extreme bloat that is Vista's main crippling flaw. The 'blue screen of death' used to be the hallmark of the horror that was an unstable Windows OS, now it's the 'Not Responding' message which appears with depressing frequency and usually for no apparent reason. Defragmenting and virus scans take forever too, sometimes literally 6 or more hours, as if the disc hadn't been defragged or checked in weeks.

So as if Explorer wasn't already bad enough, it can lock up and freeze the whole machine trying to move 2 or 3 PDF's from one folder to another, and it will stay locked for minutes before it clears. That's 1 Meg RAM @ 2.8GHz, freezing over a few Meg's of PDF? WTF?! I've learned, when organising files in Explorer, to hit cancel and try again when this dread box turns up. It's usually quicker than waiting for the box to freeze and lock up explorer.

And on top of all that, Badger told me about a story going round that the latest Vista patches- which naturally enough I've downloaded automatically, as you do- have actually made a bad situation worse. I can vouch for that, particularly over the freezes, which definitely seem to me to be getting worse.

So I've had enough of this shit. I'm fed up spending money on a fancy new computer only to find it performing increasingly below specification. I'm no computer whizz, but I know these machines should be working better than this. I'm moving to a Linux OS as soon as I can. Badger tells me that it's easy to test Ubuntu without making installation decisions which might cause problems. I'm going to investigate this soon. ;)

Monthly Review @ RD/KA!: Combat Commander: Mediterranean and Battle Pack #1: Paratroopers

Contents
Combat Commander: Mediterranean
Highly anticipated, and delivered by GMT's P500 system with the minimum of fuss and a bare year's wait, Combat Commander: Mediterranean is not so much an expansion of CC:E as the completion of the system, which was released in 2 parts because GMT didn't want to stake their capital on a game that would've cost well over $100 otherwise. Packed in one of GMT's deep boxes, CC:M contains:

• British, French (Allied Minor) and Italian (Axis Minor) Fate decks, including 3 cheat cards and an Initiative card.
• British, French and Italian OB sheets.
• 352 large counters.
• 140 small counters.
• 2 booklets.
• 6 double-sided mapsheets, maps #13-24.

Lacking only the track display and the player aid cards to be a fully playable game, CC:M is therefore a box filled to match that of Combat Commander: Europe, which to this reviewer represents quality, value and bumper fun.

The three fate decks are what you'd expect: good graphic design, not best playing card quality, but durable enough to survive the play they'll surely see. The real value of these decks will be in how they'll fill out the range of cardplay methods to master, bringing Jensen's full design into relief. The additional initiative card is handy, giving one for each Axis faction. Keep them with the Axis decks and you won't have to rummage about looking for an initiative card when you're setting up.

The 3 OB sheets include allied nationalites, so you'll find the expected ANZAC's and Finns, and minors such as Belgians, Bulgarians and Poles. The range of Allied and Axis minors looks to be pretty comprehensive- 12 different nationalities out of 18 in all. This limits the range of available French and Italian OB's naturally enough, but these nations lacked the elite and special forces formations which fill out other nations' OB's. So that makes sense I guess.

The 352 large and 140 small (regulation wargame 5/8" and 1/2") counters provide the three new factions' OB's as per the original. Which means that the faction counters are in attractive and appropriate base colours, contrasting nicely without clashing horribly for the purposes of easy identification during play. The unit and weapon stats are clearly displayed, and typography is intelligently used to highlight important information.

Filling out the 3 OB's left space on the counter sheets. Some of this is logically given over to objective control and OB stats markers, the latter a full new set now showing posture too. The rest of the room provides extra smoke markers-handy, and large objective chits- surprisingly welcome improved readability!

Six double-sided mapsheets provide 12 new maps, the same standard of well designed and printed paper maps set in CC:E. The arrival of the British, French and the Italians brings us to the Western Desert, so 2 maps- #23 & #24- are completely open ground. These'll be fun. There is 1 urban map- #17, a real doozy of densely-packed large buildings skirted by built-up hills with none of the open areas of maps #6 & #10, the urban maps in CC:E. There is likewise a new wooded map- #20, which features a road, low hills, and a lot of water. Another notable is #18, the river map, featuring a 2-hex wide river crossing corner-to-corner, bisected in the centre by a road at a major bridge. The remaining 7 maps provide a crossroads rural settlement- #15, and various farmsteads in farming or hill countries. 'A postive wealth of new material' is the phrase that springs to mind.

The first booklet is the CC:M Playbook containing scenarios #13-24, updated RSG, and full counter and card manifests for all the factions, DYO points values and designers' notes.

All the new nationalities are properly introduced in the 12 new scenarios, the British featuring in 5, the French/Allied Minor in 4, and the Italian/Axis Minor in 5. The original Germans, Russians and US feature in 7, 2 and 1, respectively. Standing out for this reviewer are #14 'At the Crossroads', in which your Poles can try rushing the Germans to overwhelm them with speed and numbers as you take on the 1-discard attacking hand for the first time; and #17 'Little Stalingrad', #18 'Bridge Hunt', and #23 'No-Man's Land', on those maps, naturally enough.

The RSG needed a tweak due to the increasing number of maps, but it was also changed after discussion with fans, so that rolling for support is now slightly different. Artillery is no longer available as a routine support option, but you may take as many support items as you wish, to the extent that your opponent might end up with VP to spend on support rolls of their own, and might even end up forcing you to be the attacker. Artillery support is now an attacker-only option, with the added bonus that you decide this Asset Request once you've seen the defender's setup. All of this is a significant improvement, since it introduces more decisions which can influence the shape of the scenario. It is this feature of the RSG which makes it so much fun IMO, so these changes are only to the good.

The manifests are handy, offering a convenient overview of the different factions. Alongside the DYO points values, they should prove a boon to CC scenario designers. Chad and John's designers' notes are excellent. Short and to the point, they introduce the key features of the three new factions and the updated RSG.

The other booklet is v1.1 of the rules, updated from the FAQ meticulously maintained by designer Chad Jensen and series developer John Foley. As an expansion dependent upon ownership of the series original game CC:M didn't strictly need the updated core rules at all, so it's a nice touch on the part of GMT to include this.

There are some typos in CC:M: wrong numbers on the broken side of a British weapon or two, and the missing hex-centre dots on map 18. But these are not serious enough to merit marking down the product overall, because they are so easy to address. And GMT plan to release corrected parts at some point in any case.

Combat Commander Battle Pack #1: Paratroopers
The first genuine expansion for CC, Combat Commander Battle Pack #1: Paratroopers begins GMT's planned series of packs themed by troop types, theatres of operation, or other features, and containing new maps, scenarios, counters, cards and anything else the designers can dream up. Sideways expansion through special rules packs instead of ASL's vertical model of massive new nationality boxed sets is a model which appeals to me. I'm interested in seeing where Chad and GMT can take this. So buying BP#1 was a cinch, but I didn't expect to find it in a FLGS, which to good fortune I did just in time for Martin to get a chance to try out his beloved US paras in new scenarios. Shrink-wrapped in a cardboard sleeve, BP#1 contains:

• 2 double-sided mapsheets, #25-28.
• 6 double-sided scenario cards featuring 10 scenarios, #25-34.

That's one-third the number of mapsheets, and the same amount of cardboard as in CC:E- a small fraction of the components and for a quarter of the price. It cannot be said that this is the best value for money, so how does what BP#1 adds to CC make this high price worth paying?

The 4 new maps are farmstead variations in farming countries, the most notable of which is #27, featuring a lot of marsh. The maps bring added variety to the already wide range of maps available for the RSG.




With 2 exceptions the scenarios feature US paras in Normandy or the Bulge. Those exceptions are #25 'Fields of Fire', featuring a desperate 2-part holding action against German fallschirmjaeger on the opening day the Bulge, and #30 'Red Skies at Night', featuring a strong platoon of Russian paras well-matched by 2 German rifle platoons. Of the remaining 8, 5 scenarios are set in Normandy, 3 the Bulge. These include landing on St. Mere Eglise in #33 'We Go!', and a glider resupply operation at Bastogne in #29 'Operation Repulse'.

Analysis
Gamers who are fresh to board wargames coming to either game in the Combat Commander series might experience a sense of disappointment on opening the deceptively deep box. This is no box of toys after the fashion of DoW or FFG. The maps, counters and cards aren't produced to the same high standards as these companies'. They will certainly endure casual play with average care, but you might want to consider card protectors or a spare set if the game becomes a serious habit.

That minor consequence of the economics of scale aside, the quality graphic design makes the all components- maps, counters, cards, reference sheets and rulebooks a pleasure to use. These combine with the logical and well-written rules to help the game run very smoothly, so that with a bit of practice players really can reach the 90 minutes per game average playing time claimed by Chad Jensen, the designer. This makes Combat Commander simple to teach and quick to grasp, making it easy to get on the table even in a short evening's gaming, and so a game of wide potential appeal despite its unassuming appearance.

Of course the big news in CC:M is the new nationalities. Each has its OB and fate deck adding their own tactical challenges.

The British engineers and airborne are as good as any, matching the best of the Germans or the Americans. These offer the British secret weapon, a mighty force of irresistible attraction which you can be sure will be deployed as soon as RSG conditions permit, namely the Commandos. Going all-out for the full 3 troops, the lucky British player will be fielding 6 each of airborne and guards squads, with 6 weapon teams, 6 LMGs, 6 light mortars, and 3 satchel charges, all complete with 6 (count them... 6!) leaders and 6(!) orders. What a force! And costing 50 points as it does you can be sure you'll be attacking, albeit through some more or less serious fortifications.

The rest of the British OB is steady and reliable. With no boxed firepower or range stats the squads and teams get only smoke and no assault or spray fire actions. The British LMG is 3FP just like every other non-German LMG, although it has the longest range of these. And only the French don't have MG's heavier than the 7FP British Vickers. If the British have a trick that is all their own it is the 2" mortar. Although one of the weakest in the game it's also one of the most portable, and the only one with smoke. This is neat.

Most of these stats seem to me to make sense relative to each other, but I have to query 2 British weapon stats, namely 7FP and 10FP for the 3" mortar and the 25pdr respectively. Making the mortar weaker than everyone else's 81mm models is fine, but -2FP for the sake of a difference of some 5-6mm? Making the British 3" mortar the same as everyone else's 60mm? That seems excessive. Unless perhaps the British round's charge was disproportionately light for its calibre? And the 25pdr was an 88mm weapon, a full 13mm greater than the 75mm guns with which it shares 10FP. Maybe there's something I'm missing again, but I wonder if there's scope for tweaks if the real-world data add up- 11FP instead of 10 in the case of the 25pdr.

With no special forces and just 1 Elite squad, the French and Allied Minor OB is a match for its British equivalent in all respects except range. French weapons are on a par with the Italians' and the Russians'- ie. largely weaker and/or shorter-ranged than their British and German equivalents, but without the Italian and the Russian OBs' heavier MG's. One unique French feature is the Maginot Garrison formation, which is the only RSG formation to start with IG, the French 75mm- as many as 3 with 3 HMG's in the full company. This is another force I expect to be fielding as soon as RSG conditions permit.

The Italian and Axis Minor OB is the weakest and most fragile of all, with either firepower, range and/or broken morale- and sometimes all 3- lower than almost any equivalent units'. Notable exceptions are the short-ranged Russian squads, which the Italians and Axis Minor are liable to face. The Guastatori are respectable special forces, and the Finnish Sissi are elite troops unique to the Axis Minors. The most significant feature of the Italian OB which will counteract this poor troop quality is sheer numbers. The Italian RSG OB's give them between 1½ to 2 times as many squads as any opponent, and this is typically reflected in the official scenarios. The downside of this is that this also gives the Italians the worst leader/squad ratio of the game.

The Italian/Axis Minors have a range of weapons matched only by the Russians, with 7 assorted MG, mortars, and their mountain gun. The MG's are in the 3rd class with the French and the Russians, while the mortars and the mountain gun are on a par with their various equivalents.

While the OB help define the different national characteristics, the key source of national character in Combat Commander is discard capacity. Already known to CC players- being printed on one the reference sheets- the new discard capacites are: British- 4 cards, French- 1, Italian-2.

The British discard is the 'best of the rest' after the Americans and the Germans. With a 4-card discard the net effect for the British is that they are as good in defence as anyone and better than most, but will be less flexible in more aggressive postures than the Americans or Germans. This is a perfectly reasonable estimation of relative ablities IMO, and is a good example of how CC:M highlights features of the Combat Commander design which were always present, but not so easy to perceive with a half-complete game.

It is the Italian and the French which are the most interesting here. The Italians have just 2 discards, the French a puny 1. This is so bad as to provoke some players to fear that the French especially are virtually unplayable, all the more so for a game where the designer and developer's crucial tactical advice is about discarding as often and as in as great numbers as possible. These fears are unfounded. I've seen the French in play 5 times so far, the Italians the same. The French have won 4 games, including once on the attack against the Germans; the Italians likewise, including once on the attack against the Russians. Clearly then the minor nationalites are eminently playable despite the apparently extreme handicap of their discard capacities.

The main problem I have noticed for the minors so far with these limited capacities is that they find it harder than anyone else to find that card they really must have. This tends to apply most of all to that crucial recover, but it also means that sometimes the minor player simply must plan on having all cards needed already in hand before embarking on a risky manoeuvre, eg. 2 moves and 1 or more recovers if you're planning a rapid dash through enemy LOS.

I noted above that the "real value of these [new] decks will be in how they'll fill out the range of cardplay methods to master, bringing Jensen's full design into relief". I hope readers will be beginning to see what I meant by now. It was easy to look at a CDG where national characterstics are determined by card discard and see a difference between 6-card and 1-card discard capacities as excessive. I'm sure that the design of the decks helped here, but I'm coming to the conclusion that separating hand size from nationality by allocating it according to posture plays a significant role in making the discard-based nationality rules workable.

If the fate decks of the 3 new nationalities in CC:M finally display Chad Jensen's essential CDG mechanic in all its glory, the new maps and scenarios included in both CC:M and BP#1 highlight the other merits of Jensen's design.

It'll come as no surprise to readers to hear that 2 key features of good scenarios are interesting situations and replay value. Having played nearly all of the official scenarios by now (7 unplayed out of 36 available to me) I can vouch for both of these. Every single game has been exciting, and each scenario is one I would happily revisit more than once on either side. Clearly the scenario designers- Chad and others (in BP#1) deserve credit for for their research and development efforts.

Conclusions
Combat Commander: Mediterranean and Battle Pack #1: Paratroopers aren't for every gamer. If you're new to board wargames or only have a casual interest in WW2 tactical gaming you clearly want to try Combat Commander: Europe before investigating any expansions of the system. If on the other hand you're a WW2 grognard, or if you've tried CC:E and want more, then take a look at CC:M. It completes the CC system with useful tweaks to the already valuable RSG. In other words: if you liked CC:E, whether you expected to or not, and expect to play it regularly, then CC:M is definitely for you.

BP#1 is only for the afficionado to a greater degree. As I suggested above, scenario packs like BP#1 are no-brainer expansions for a game like Combat Commander. Containing 'just' new maps with new scenarios BP#1 just scratches the surface of what can be done with this format and CC. The full scope will be seen in the future. In the meantime, BP#1 is definitely a worthwhile purchase for lovers of Combat Commander.

Ratings
Combat Commander: Mediterranean: 10/10
Battle Pack #1: Paratroopers: 9/10

Got game!

Once more the din of combat
As I said on Monday, Badger came round last week and we sat down to a Combat Commander megasession. We weren't taking notes this time, so all details below are purely from memory.

Metaxas Season
We picked up where we'd left off, with scenario 19 'Metaxas Season', featuring a German assault on a section of the Greek defensive line in 1941. My immediate thought was that my 75, my HMG and my best leader should go on the highpoint, for lines of fire and to hold a valuable objective. Quickly checking the position I could see no reason not to do this. I put a couple of squads in trenches by the cliffs to stop Badger sneaking his Germans up that way. I put a squad with the other leader in the remaining trenches, and the last squad went in one of the buildings.

My thinking behind my fortifications was that Badger was most likely to make a move on the buildings rather than the bunker, so I used the wire to do 2 things:

• Preclude an easy flanking maneouvre on Badger's part- if he wanted to avoid the wire he'd have to go really deep, costing him time and putting his units under more OpFire.
• Deny the use of flamethrowers and satchel charges to units assaulting the buildings from the flank.

The mines were an added layer of defence to the easy approaches to the bunker, which would have to be secure because I'd be unlikely to be able to reinforce it. I was really hoping to discourage Badger from even thinking of trying to get up that hill!

I made a small mistake at this point, setting up my fortifications with everything else, before Badger had set up his units. We said at the time that this had been to Badger's benefit if anything. Looking back as I write this I'm no longer so sure. Badger might've been more willing to consider an attempt on the hill if he hadn't seen my fortifications set up with the precise intention of driving the very notion from his mind. This might've been to his benefit.

In the event, Badger set up his entire force on the hill to the NE. He was clearly planning to try to smoke or suppress the bunker then advance on the buildings in the centre. The problem he had with his deployment that this was exactly what I wanted him to do. Badger's entire advance was down 1 axis, which left my bunker unmolested. To make matters worse for Badger, he'd strangely decided to equip an elite rifle squad with his IG, which promptly began pushing thing around the map instead of engaging its fire mission against the bunker.

The result was satisfying: the Germans never reached the road, let alone penetrated my defences. I won on a surrender.

A March in December
Scenario 20 'A March in December', features Finns ambushing a Russian column in Finland in 1939. Online discussion has already given the Finnish Sissi a fearsome reputation despite their puny 1-card discard, so I was looking forward to this one.

My Russians started strung out along the road, which effectively left me the choice of 2 hexes to leave empty. This done I attended to my leaders and weapons. The 'Raid' special rule put an absolute priority on my weapons' survival to prevent the Finns from gaining heaps of exit VP. Spreading the weapons out among my units would just let Badger pick them off 1 by 1, so I decided to mass them. I went for the centre in the end, because it gave me a hilltop firing position with the best lines of fire I was going to get. In line with this plan I put 2 leaders with this group, including my best. My other leader went in the south. I'm not sure why really. Maybe I had a sense of what Badger was about to do. I dunno. It proved a wise decision in any event.

Badger looked surprised to see that I'd left pretty much the entire northern half of my force out of command. Whether this suited his plans or induced him to change them he didn't say, but he proceeded to set up fully half of his squads, with most of his molotovs, flanking my isolated northern column on both sides of the road. They were all neatly within the command of his best leader. The bulk of what remained of Badger's force was concentrated in the SW.

The carnage as the Finns to the north opened fire with waves of molotovs was bad, but I was at least left with stragglers. Perhaps Badger was regretting his decision to add 2 molotovs to his southern force- these could perhaps've had more effect in the north in that first onslaught than they eventually had elsewhere. Meanwhile I got on with my plan, building my fire position in the centre with a move here and there to get units into place. I made what attacks I could in the south, pulled some northern stragglers into the centre, and ran a couple more off the map for exit VP.

Badger had got a bit bogged down by this point. He was engaged in a firefight against what remained of my southern units, which I meantime began to move east through the treeline to keep them safe from advancing Sissi squads. Elsewhere he was moving on my centre, but wasn't pressing hard enough. Eventually I was able to sneak in front. Unable to gain the quick and easy exit VP's which would otherwise've been available, Badger didn't regain the lead. I won with 12VP on time 8. I had pulled off a win as the Russians, but it'd been close.

Saint Agatha
It was off to Sicily in 1943 next for the interesting match-up of the Italians against the Americans in #21 'Saint Agatha'.

Drawing the Italians, Badger set up first. He put the expected HMG nest with support on and around the high spur near the centre, a platoon with a leader to cover the objective to the NE, and a couple of squads in foxholes in the woods to the SE. Two of his 3 precious foxholes for an outflung picket? This surprised me. Badger's response was to gloat about his tactical acumen.

IIRC, my plan was to make a main drive up the right with a diversionary attack up the centre. My good leader with 5 squads and all the MG's went on the right, what remained in the centre. My plan started to unravel quite soon, as Badger's picket held me up long enough for Badger to accumulate a hidden mines or 2 to drop on me as I began to push forward after clearing the picket. Elsewhere, my diversion was proving to be exactly that, as I was unable to bring worthwhile attacks to bear on Badger's hilltop units without any decent heavy weapons.

Hidden mines continued to appear willy-nilly as I struggled to make headway. I kept the game going for an extra time period, but it was all to no avail. My big push on the right had barely made the first crestline of their line of advance when it was all over. Badger won with a healthy 23VP.

A Veritable Bloodbath
The British made a welcome appearance in #22 'A Veritable Bloodbath', fighting against stubborn German resistance on the road through Holland to the Rhine in February 1945.

Playing the Germans I had to set up my fortifications first. I expected to be facing a main thrust down my left towards the large cluster of buildings. So I laid the wire to give Badger the choice between going through and getting caught, or running further through the open to outflank it. The trenches on the left were an obvious choice for this position. Those on the right were placed to enable me to station my puny conscripts a hex further forward so they might open fire sooner.

Setting up as the British, Badger was just a tad put out by the vast expanse of no cover at all which his men had to cross to close with me and make an attempt at the objectives. He chose to make his major push in the west as I'd expected, putting his HMG and mortar in the woods. A few units with an LMG or 2 started in the field in the centre.

My better leader and the 2 volksgrenadier squads with the HMG and a LMG were the base of my defence, going into the trenches on the left (the rightmost 2, to widen their lines of fire against Badger's units in the woods). The other leader went on the right, with some conscript squads, the mortar and the last LMG. What remained was put in reserve in or around the rear objectives.

Badger shared my still fresh experience of watching your plan unravel straight away. Both my mortar and HMG were able to fire on his main force from the get-go, and the quick advance up the woods Badger had been hoping for didn't happen. His attempts to use the mortar to lay smoke to block the fire failing, Badger's efforts otherwise to relieve the pressure on his main force included charging a squad to within shouting distance of my mortar position before it was finally eliminated, an exercise in heroic futility if ever I saw one.

The hindrance of the gathering dusk didn't enable Badger's tattered force to regroup, and my defensive fire forced a surrender during time 4. A crushing victory!

Six Hills
We'd played scenario 23 before, so we moved straight on to #24 'Six Hills', pitting the Indian Army against the Italians in Somaliland in August 1940. Map 24 is another of the 2 desert maps, this one featuring a central hillock dominating the otherwise completely open terrain. Not really the sort of terrain in which you fancy conducting small unit actions without some armour support in other words. Just my luck then to be forced on the attack with the Italians.

Badger set up the HMG and mortar nest you might expect (good leader, squad, team, HMG, mortar) in the foxholes to the east. He put an LMG nest next door, and a squad with the other leader in the last foxholes. The remaining units were split in support of the 2 main positions.

Facing this, I hit upon what I thought was a neat trick. I split my force into 2. The junior leader and 3 or 4 squads deployed for a diversionary attack in the centre. Everybody else deployed on the right, set up to bring heavy fire down on the HMG while using the crestlines to hide some of my units from Badger's on the hill. I hoped that this might buy me enough time to win the firefight which ensued, naturally enough.

The best-laid plans rapidly unravelling was clearly in the air that night. Badger drew an almost immediate time trigger which would've brought on my reinforcements, so giving me access to artillery smoke. Before this implication had struck me though I'd cleverly used initiative to force a reroll, according to the usually smart rule of knocking back early triggers when attacking. My early artillery therefore resulted in strikes which ultimately had no worthwhile effect. Smoke, when it did arrive, proved to be of mixed value at best.

My diversionary manoeuvre did little more than give Badger some elimination VP as my units floundered in the open without a proper mission. I eventually rallied the survivors and made a play for exit VP up the left. Over on the right I was never able to crack the HMG nest, although I was holding in the open with line Italians, which I thought wasn't too bad. It couldn't last though as long as the HMG survived. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it did, helped along the way by, among other things, my losing all my MG's.

The game went the distance, leaving me with my left flank essentially gone, and my right stalled on its start line and withering. Badger won with a decisive 40VP.

Fields of Fire and Blood
The previous game concluded the scenarios from Combat Commander: Mediterranean. Badger was keen to play a scenario from Battle Pack: Paratroopers before we stopped. We had a break, and set to.

Scenario 25 is a 2-part scenario: 25a 'Fields of Fire' and 25b 'Fields of Blood'. The paratroopers in question are German fallschirmjaeger, leading an otherwise ragtag bag of volksgrenadiers and conscripts across the snowy fields of Germany in the opening day of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

This is a scenario I've pored over several times since I bought it. It's a fascinating setup, which basically tests MGs' pure defensive firepower against infantry assault. The twist is that the American 'defenders' are actually in recon posture, thus denying them the the 'Defender Only' actions and the VP benefits of the clock, although they get an extra card in their hand. On the other side, the fallschirmjaeger notwithstanding, I'd much rather attack here with a regular German rifle company, even against such a small defending force. Those volksgrenadiers and conscripts are just a bit too weak and fragile. And where's the HMG? On top of all that, the 2-part nature of the scenario promised to be entertaining.

I played the Americans. Putting the best leader with the .50 cal in the bunker in the centre with clear fields of fire was an easy decision to make. Double-checking the position I realised I had to hold 3 objectives at all costs, to keep Badger from ratcheting up exit VP. The 3 objectives to hold were obvious, and it didn't take me long to add the junior leader to the left flank position. This MMG team was going to have to hold by itself, and so needed to be as strong as possible. Another MMG went in foxholes on the right flank objective, and the last went in trenches beside the bunker, from where it enjoyed the same wide lines of fire for the purpose of firegrouping with the .50 cal.

Badger set up, at which point we realised that we had incorrectly conducted the 'Morning Barrage' special rule the implications of which had much exercised me during my setup, and the results of which had fortunately proved quite harmless. Correcting ourselves, we redrew our random hexes. Tragedy! I drew my bunker, which was promptly replaced with foxholes, halving the .50 cal's cover. Significant gaps were likewise made in my last of line of booby-trap defences.

Badger set up again, repeating his plan of driving down each flank, with his main force working through the woods to the east. He was able to push me quite hard, bringing units down the right flank, and onto my positions at one point. Deprived of its bunker, my centre just had to give at some point. When it did I had to run units back and forth a bit to stop Badger exploiting his advance into a game-winning breakthrough. I held on, for an extra time period, winning with a scant 6VP. Whew!

'Fields of Blood' began with my setup-as before, and another barrage- I lost maybe a couple of booby traps, not much in any case. We then set up the remnants of the morning's attack, a random process the outcome of which was that Badger's units were as widely scattered, in as poor cover, and as open to as many of my lines of fire as I could contrive. Some had gone into the casualty track and a fair smattering of them were broken or suppressed to boot. I then took my first turn.

With all those units of Badger's in poor cover and broken or suppressed, I just needed to start with a rout and a fire card or two to face the chance of driving a significant proportion of his units off the board immediately. I got what I needed, but in the event I was only able to eliminate a couple of units before Badger played the recover he needed. The prompt arrival of the German reinforcements put paid to any idea of a quick mop-up for a comfy VP cushion.

Badger's plan was pretty much as before. Remembering that the booby-traps were special '1-shots' he was much less leery of entering them. He brought my left flank MMG position under heavy pressure, while repeating his manoeuvre of bringing units all the way down the right flank. In fact, I think 1 of the 3 key objectives must've fallen to Badger at one point, because I'm sure he exited at least 1 unit. It was my hero who saved the day IIRC, grabbing the NW objective to seal the breakthrough again.

In the end though, with the bunker in play my centre held, and I won through to an 11VP victory.

Score
5-2
Grins :)

Afterthoughts
The first thing that Badger and I noted after our last game was that blazes had played no appreciable role in any game. A few had appeared here and there, but they'd never spread into anything significant.

Also notable was a pattern in how we went down to most of our defeats, a pattern revealing a combination of poor force division, mission definition and axes of advance. In #19, Badger didn't divide his force at all, and packed them tight to move down the flank; in #21 my centre force wasn't epuipped to do anything other than loiter as targets, while my (thus overstrong) right force went for an easily-blocked advance up a narrow board-edge terrain feature; in #22 Badger repeated the above feat; in #24 my centre force was poorly chosen and had no clear mission; in #25 Badger's advance down the right was easy to stall as above.

No matter how uninviting the terrain then, you're going to have to have at least 2 taskforces in your plan, each with a well-defined mission and the equipment to carry it out. Opting not to divide your force leaves you open to your entire plan stalling in the face of enemy action. And when the terrain is that uninviting, it might be better to avoid the temptation to try to sneak your main taskforce up one of those narrow terrain features running up a map edge. Sure, you'll have to move out in the open. But otherwise you risk getting stalled behind a point unit, unable to bring your firepower to bear. And you concede the centre. And if you're going to bite the bullet, you might as well bite it properly.

Looking back at those scenarios above, that amounts to: going up the cliffs with the Germans against the bunker in #19; bringing the American main force up through the woods and buildings in the west half of the map in #21; taking the British main force right up the centre in the fields in #22; a proper end-run platoon out on the Italian left in #24; and in #25? Well I guess that comes down to which objective you decide to go for first, left or right, and which units you want then to make the break for exit VP, and from where. I mean to say: a good basic plan is to use fallschirmjaeger to storm the western objective, but I wouldn't want to exit them if I could avoid it. I'd rather keep them in action. So I'd need other units backing them up to make the exit once the objective is secured. This would weaken the first wave over on the right, which would have to rely on reinforcements from units exited to make a major push, and so on.

Most of the remaining scenarios in BP#1 feature open maps, ideal for applying lessons learned. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- A Winter War. Unbalanced but not broken?: we have another go.
- Combat Commander scenario 20: a viable Russian strategy and its opacity