Gaming in a broken month

I didn't blog last week... because I didn't play. My family and I were busy with a Society for Creative Anachronism event. This week Martin and I gamed a Thirty Years War battle using Warlord Games' "Pike & Shotte" rules. Next Saturday, my wife and I intend to head off to Kalamazoo, Michigan for a huge historical reenacting gathering. The week after that is the local gaming con, Hot Lead, in Stratford, ON. The week after that is Holy Week and Easter Saturday; I probably won't play anything that weekend because there's a good chance I'll be exhausted and will still have two large services to celebrate.

In any event, last Saturday at the Games Group, Martin fielded a German Imperial/Catholic army under Wallenstein while I set out an army of Swedes under Gustav Adolph defending the Protestant cause in that war. (I do understand the real reasons involved.) The game proved interesting. No one else played with us as the rest of the guys were either involved in a game of SAGA at the other table or were kibittzing at both tables.

Martin's infantry of the centre battaglia

His left flank cavalry including Wallenstein's bodyguard with lances.
These proved to be tough customers.

The right-centre battaglia

His right flank cavalry including his Croats

My right flank cavalry and the reserve brigade - almost all harquebusiers

The infanry brigade -right centre- including the elite Yellow and Green regiments
Not that it mattered.

the left centre infantry - including a Scots regiment

The far left flank including dragoons, light horse, and Finnish Hackapells.
There's some "commanded shot" from the other brigade out front of the cavalry.

Martin got the first move and came on quick. I have to admit that he knows his troops better than I and he wished to come to grips with the Swedes as quickly as possible. The Germans are better in hand-to-hand while the Swedes can out-shoot the Imperialists and have more cannon. He want to absorb as few salvos a possible. He refused his right and set the two infantry regiments into hedgehog as soon as he could. This tied up my left wing cavalry and dragoons. The fact that my dice rolling was abysmal didn't help. I failed a number of command rolls and the units stalled where they were.

The Tape Measure of Doom brings the Imperialist forward.

Martin's infantry around the rubber roads.

The Yellow Regiment takes on Martin's one elite unit.
The Blue Regiment moves up in support.

A Scots mercenary infantry regiment and a light gun.

The Imperial Cuirassiers clobber the Swedish harquibusiers on my right flank.
My brigade was torn apart and reduced to two regiments who had to flee.

Wallenstein's lance-armed bodyguards destroyed one of my two Cuirassier regiments.
They also smashed two Harquibusier regiments soon after.
This is one nasty unit.

Our infantry in the centre went toe-to-toe and I had the worst of it. I couldn't throw dice to save my life - which is messy when you're trying to make saving throws for your troops. I would lose the pikes in a regiment while the sleeves of shot stayed of vice-versa.
On my left. Martin tied up my Finns, light horse, and dragoons by doing NOTHING. Martin does love his "tar babies."
Finally two of my five brigades were shattered and we called it quits. His bodyguard lancers were a very tough crowd and since my dice were cold and since I fell for his trap, I had no legs to stand on.

An "after" photo of my hammered right wing cavalry. The lancers are disordered so we turn a stand side-ways.

Lots of action "at push of pike" on the left centre.

The Scots await the Imperialist charge. They've been reinforced by two stands of pike that had retreated earlier.

Imperial Infantry, even though they have French flags.
It's okay; most of my flags are Irish from Owen Roe O'Neill's army in the English Civil War.

Imperial guns. I had more guns on the Swedish side but they tended to be lighter.

The supreme command stand. It's supposed to be Wallenstein, although the flag says Turenne.

My stunned left flank cavalry and dragoons amidst the cardboard houses.

Martin's two hedgehogs and a command stand. I like the idea of round command stands.
They can't be mistaken for a regular unit and I'm going to rebase my commands.

Meanwhile at the other table, two games of SAGA were played. I don't know much about this system yet, but I imagine I'll play it soon enough. I watched a bit of the second game which appeared to be Crusaders vs. Saracens.

Bear's Saracen force.

A close-up of the Crusader force (Andy's photo)

Andy's photo of Saracen cavalry rounding the forest.
The Mentula Mustalae award in gold is seen here. This was not awarded by the official electors,
but by popular demand and might not be considered proper and of eternal memory.
The move must still have been nasty to receive such folk status.

Kevin's Crusaders

Another long view of the Saracens.

On Sunday, my family hosted a D&D 5th edition game for some friends. Two young fellows were to take part as their first out-of-the-house D&D experience. Sad to say, one young guy could not show up because of a scheduling problem. Still we had fun.

Katie (in the captain's chair), Tyler's son, Tyler, myself, and Greg (who is obscuring me in the photo)
sit around the dining room table. Beth took these photos.
Characters: a Tiefling cleric, a gnome rogue, a dwarf rogue, and a dragonborne barbarian.
I, of course, play the rest of the world.

Beth - who ran an elf ranger - took a few moments out to put the mac-and-cheese in the oven
and stir the sausage and sauerkraut.

Tyler makes his point... somehow.
("No, you have to roll for yourself!")

Tyler's son performs some higher math to add up his experience points.
Yes, he's wearing a "Minion" touque.

I don't know what happened here. I'm engaged in giving the "hairy eyeball" for some reason or another.

The game was fun and everybody succeeded although they took damage and got dirty. As a first outing, not bad. Next time, Greg's son will make it, I'm sure.

As an author's note, I like the 5th edition of D&D. The systems are simple and make their own sense within the game. Quite often, I rely on the player to know the effects of their magic or even their weapons. I did confuse them with a "scarecrow" which was uneffected by non-magical weapons and with a colossal armoured centipede which some of our more squeamish players were repulsed by.

Ah, success!

Into the Narrow Seas

 This past Saturday at the Hamilton Road Games Group, Andy set up a scenario that was very small and quite tricky. Only four ships of WWI vintage and a few shore forts, but it made for a great little scenario which ended up being played three times. We used Naval Thunder rules and the ship models were 1/6000th scale.

I'd be willing to bet that some of you already know what the scenario was, but I (not being wise in naval things) only realized what it was after a little coaxing and some broad hints.

the table, suitably decorated with a narrow mouth and some of the north shore

One of th shore forts. The "A" and "B" show the fields of fire for the guns mounted in the forts.

There were "dead spots" between the forts fields of fire, but the ranges of the batteries was 40".

Each fort mounted 13.2" guns for primary armement and 12" guns for secondaries.

The setting was the Bosphorus and the scenario was the flight of the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau. Only this time the Royal Navy figured out where they were going rather than holding to the belief that the two ship were going to interdict the French troop ships bringing colonial forces from North Africa to Metropolitan France. This was an incident I knew little about and I learned. The two ships were turned over to the Turkish navy and this caused a lot of good feeling toward the German Empire, since the British had kept/"commandeered"/stolen two battleships being built in British shipyards for Turkey just before the war started.
In our scenario, the two German ships are about to enter the narrows at Istanbul. They are being persued by the battlecruisers, HMS Indomitable and HMS Indefatigable. The three shore forts shown in the photos above cannot fire on anybody until one turn after the British open fire. The British ships set up 30" behind the German ships. To win, the British had to stop and/or sink the Goeben and lose no more than one ship.
In the first game, Derrik and I took the British ships (Indefatigable was mine) while Kevin and Martin took the German ships and Bear took charge of the shore forts. Andy refereed since he made up the scenario. Derrik and I set up widely seperated and did a stern chase for about three turns, then I opened fire. Breslau began to lay down smoke, steering left and right while Goeben ran for the end of the table. Since I had opend fire so early, I took a lot of damage from the shore forts as well as the Goeben itself. My rudder was damaged and I could only turn to starboard.

My command - HMS Indefatigable

the Goeben and the Breslau

The Breslau lays down smoke while the Indefatigable takes fire.

And more fire...

And more fire, until the rudder is disabled.

Eventually I took enough hits to sink and as the Indefatigable slipped beneath the waves and the Goeben made for a berth in Istanbul, we realized that we had plenty of time to play at least one more scenario. We realised that the shore forts were tremendously powerful so we reduced the efficiency of the Turkish crews and delayed the order to fire by allowing the forts to open fire d4+2 turns after the British open fire. This time, Derrik took the Breslau and Bear took Goeben. I handled the shore forts. Kevin and Martin took the British and began as far back as we did but kept their ships close together.

Like this.

They also held their fire until they were past the first two shore forts and were out of those fort's fields of fire. That left the third, which did some damage.

The British battlecruisers pushed forward at full speed in a tight formation.

Breslau laid down smoke again.

Smoke everywhere.

Although the light cruiser was able to hide the Goeben with smoke for a while,
the Breslau was sunk by the two British ships.

The two batteries in the third fort and the aft guns of the Goeben eventually pounded the Indefatigable to scrap. The rules allow for two sorts of hits: if your shells hit but you don't make the penetration roll, you do half damage (which wears down the ship). If your shells hit and you make the penetration roll, you do full damage and you roll on the critical hit table. That could start a fire, disable your rudder, start a flood, or on the roll of a 20 on 2d10, suffer an disasterous magazine hit which destroys the ship instantly. Kevin had numerous fires, flooding, and engine room damage. He did inflict some fire control damage on the Goeben, but that didn't keep the Goeben from reaching the end of the table and safety.
For the third game, Lyle and Dale took the British for a turn or two (they had to leave early.) This time all the ships started further outside the harbor in order to give the British more of a chance to catch the Germans before the Turkish fort guns could be brought to bear. Beth and I left not too long after that so I'm unsure of the out-come. It is a tough game for the British and I heard some talk of adding a third ship to the British flotilla. Still it made for a good game - a real barn-burner and a nail-biter that took all your attention for a rather brief time.

The Indefatigable under my command taking fire and showing a damaged rudder that would only turn to starboard.
I couldn't go straight or to port.

The Indefatigable slips into a watery grave, as it were.

One of the Turkish shore forts.
In the second and third scenarios, their fields of fire were adjusted, the gunners' efficiency
was reduced and the lag time regarding the orders to open fire was lengthened.

Kevin was captaining the Indefatigable when all these fires broke out.

You never know what you'll see in the waters around Istanbul.
A giant walrus makes an appearance... scouting for Godzilla, no doubt.

Skirmish gaming next week. I'll be busy elsewhere and won't be able to make the gaming.