I think I'm in love

Last night was game night at the Monkey Den -- the first in three weeks that wasn't snowed out.  We took a break from the RPG scene and gave my copy of Nexus Ops its maiden voyage.

In short:  it rocks.

In slightly-less-short:  What a delightful, delightful game.  I had high hopes for it, and they were met or exceeded.  This is pretty much exactly what I want to be playing right now.  It's light, but not flimsy; fast, but not frantic.  It's fun to look at, fun to play -- just fun.  I cannot imagine why this wasn't a huge commercial success.

I say all of the above even though I got pummeled last night.  Joe F. won with 12 VP's before anyone else had half that many (I think).  It seems like he was burying us under Special Mission cards right from the first turn.  I felt like I was doing OK -- I held the monolith most of the game -- but I guess I wasn't aggressive enough.

Anyway, I can't wait to play this again.  I think I'm going to try a two-player game with Mrs. Greywing sometime soon and see how that works.  I know it will be a very different experience with two instead of four, but I'm hoping we find it worthwhile.

Thieving monkeys

We kicked off a new Pathfinder campaign at the Monkey Den last night.  Joe is GMing the Council of Thieves adventure path.  This is our second attempt at an adventure path -- we started Rise of the Runelords a year or so ago, but decided to give that up in favor of Pathfinder Society.

I am playing somewhat against type and running a rogue in this campaign.  I say "against type" because I'm generally a game mechanics kind of guy (I'm a wargamer, after all) but I'm going to try to approach this as more of a role playing experience.  My character is an actor, and thinks of himself as such (rather than as a "rogue" or an "adventurer").  His highest stat is Charisma, and I'm planning on keeping all of his social skills (especially Bluff!) maxed out, even if I have to skimp on the thievery.  (I'll keep Perception and Disable Device maxed though.)  Again, this will be a new experience for me, so we'll see.

Our first session went pretty well, I thought.  We spent the majority of it fleeing through Westcrown's elaborate sewer system with a pack of Hell Knights on our tails.  We had a nice mix of RP (pre-sewer fleeing) and combat, so that was good. Joe has really outdone himself in one regard:  all of the combat action took place on elaborate 3D terrain that he bought from WorldWorks Games and assembled for this campaign.  I'm a huge eye candy fan, I admit it, so that kind of thing really adds to my enjoyment.

Despite what I said above about focusing on the RP rather than mechanics aspect of my character, I was delighted by the fact that I had a great night in combat.  I have a bit of a reputation for runs of less than stellar luck with a d20, let's just say.  Last night it was really clicking though.  It seemed like I was dropping a badguy on practically every turn.  Here's hoping that trend continues.

Speed kills

I ran six miles this morning.  Just under 58 and a half minutes.  And that has nothing whatsoever to do with gaming or this blog, but I'm extremely proud of it and wanted to write it down.

Back on topic.  My FLGS hosted a Flames of War "speed tournament" yesterday, and I took my trusty Russians.  The rules were straightforward.  The players each brought a fixed 600-point list (at least an HQ and one combat platoon; no tanks with top armour of 2) and the idea was to get in as many games as possible.  All scenarios were modified Free For Alls (only one objective on each side, half-width tables).  Wins were worth 3 points, draws 2, and losses 1.  There was also a scoring bonus for having a high winning percentage.

I put my list together relatively quickly.  I went with:

• HQ:  T-34/85 (with cupola);
• Combat platoon:  Tankovy company (5 x T-34/85, 4 x T-34/76);
• Weapons platoon:  Motorised mortar company (3 stands of light mortars).

That comes to 600 points exactly.  It's close to the simplest possible 600-point list I can put together, given my current roster of painted models.  I considered and discarded a couple of other options before settling on the list above:

• The simplest possible thing I could have done would have been to drop the mortars and add the tenth tank to the tank company (and give them cupolas).  More tanks = good, so I gave this very serious consideration.  In the end, though, I thought that the mortars would turn out to be worth the  one tank.  I figured they might have a shot of knocking out an AT gun or two.  Plus, I really like having a template thrower when possible, for psychological reasons if nothing else.
• Alternatively, I could have dropped the mortars, changed up the tank company composition a bit, and added tankodesantniki.  Now, I love tank riders.  Thematically, they're one of my favorite elements of the game, and I run them a lot -- even though I'm not entirely convinced that (a) they are worth it and/or (b) that I'm doing it right.  In the end, I decided to leave them home yesterday, in part because I didn't relish the thought of explaining their rules over and over all day.

There was a pretty good turnout, with twelve guys showing up.  Over a fairly grueling 6.5 hours, I got six games in, and went four up and two down.  That put me right in the middle of the pack in the final standings, which was, frankly, a little disappointing.  Here's a brief rundown of my games, first the W's then the L's.

WIN vs. German tanks.  Andrew had a platoon of Pz IVs and an 88.  This was the first game of the day for both of us, and frankly, I may not have been completely awake.  Totally static tank fight on desert board.  I stood and shot, he stood and shot, and in the end I gave worse than I got.  My mortars knocked out the 88(!), so they justified their place in the list right off the bat.  I'm pretty sure Andrew would have played me differently if we'd had a re-match, but, as it happened, I was happy to kick the day off with a victory.

WIN vs.  US tanks.  We played this one on a heavily forested board with a road running across it.  Scott had five Shermans and an infantry platoon.  He played very aggressively and tried to get his tanks in my face -- which I was more than happy to see:  I stood still and blasted him.  Scott finished second overall in the tournament, so I am proud to have won this one.

WIN vs. US armored rifles.  Back to the desert for this one, but on a different board with more hills and a wadi.  Aaron brought five (-ish?) Stuarts and a huge infantry platoon.  He tried to do an objective rush with the tanks, but five Stewies vs. ten T-34s is not going to be a winning proposition.  After his tanks were gone, I turned my guns on his infantry, and I have never ever seen such bad luck on save rolls.  He couldn't buy a roll over a 2.

WIN vs. German Fallschirmjagers.  This turned out to be my last game of the day, on another hilly, forested board.  Jordan (whom I had not met before and who was a super nice guy to play against) brought a couple of FJ platoons supported by two StuGs.  He played hyper-aggressively, stormtroopering his StuGs around the woods on my right flank and toward my objective.  Much like I said above, two StuGs vs. 10 T-34s is practically hopeless.  After they were gone, he got pinned down while trying to assault my tanks, and that was that.

LOSS vs. Russian tanks.  Clint's list wasn't quite a mirror image of mine.  He built it on T-34s, but brought fewer than I did.  He spent the rest of his points on tank destroyers and some light AT guns.  This was another very static slugfest, and, honestly, I had a chance here, but I couldn't pull it out.  On what turned out to be my last turn, I failed two morale checks to re-mount bailed-out tanks (failing re-rolls on both) and I had a feeling that was going to end up being the ballgame.  Clint is a very strong player (and a super guy) and I've never beaten him (0-3).

LOSS vs. German engineers.  This game was a real eye-opener for me.  Boone fielded a platoon of engineers and 4 big AT guns (not 88s, though).  I thought I was in great shape when I killed two guns and their platoon commander and he failed the ensuing platoon morale check.  He decided to use his CO for a re-roll (which I absolutely would have done too), and he failed that too.  So, not only were his guns gone, his company commander had run off with him.  Now, it's just a matter of me mopping up, right?

Well, not so fast, my friend (to quote a great American).  He had a bunch (3? 4?) of flamethrowers, which he had definitely told me while we were setting up, yet somehow I had completely (and I mean completely) failed to process.  So I moved my tanks up closer to the woods to start machinegunning his infantry, which I did ineffectively (dug-in, gone to ground veterans in the woods -- a tough nut to crack).  Next turn, he jumps all over me with the FTs, bailing three of the five tanks I had left at that point.  Then in the assault step, the defensive fire from the remaining two wasn't enough to stop his pioneers from assaulting and, of course, they roflstomped me.

I've never had my head handed to me by infantry like that before.  Not coincidentally, it was also my first experience with massed flamethrowers.  I'd be perfectly happy for it to be my last, too.


I could have played better -- a lot better -- in some of my games, for sure.  But, when all was said and done, I had a pretty good time and won more than I lost.  I'll take that pretty much every time.

Field testing the new T-34s (FoW session)

Since I finished painting my last batch of tanks for Flames of War, I was itching to get a game in with them. Luckily, one of the guys at the local store was able to play me this weekend, so I spent Sunday afternoon engaged in a bloody tank duel.

I've got my tank battalion finished now, so I can finally field 1,500 points. I field my guys as a fairly vanilla Late War tank battalion using the list in Fortress Europe. Here's what my list looked like for the game:

• HQ: Command T-34/85;
• Combat Platoon 1: Medium Tank Company, 5 x T-34/76, 5 x T-34/85, tankodesantniki;
• Combat Platoon 2: Medium Tank Company, 5 x T-34/76, 5 x T-34/85;
• Corps Support: Heavy Mortar Company, 2 platoons (4 stands) with observer rifle team;
• Corps Support: Guards Rocket Mortar Company, 2 platoons with extra crew (4 launchers counting as 8).

That came in at exactly 1,500. Now, I'm not for one second claiming that's a superbly tuned list or anything. In fact, I can practically guarantee that in a league or tournament situation, I wouldn't field exactly that setup. (The Katyusha battery in particular seems to be a little dodgy. While I love the idea of waves of rockets pounding the enemy strong points as a horde of tanks goes on the attack, the reality is that the Katys seem a little over-costed for what they do.) But, that's literally the only way I can get to 1,500 right now with what I own/have painted. So, seeing as how you go to war with the army you have, that's the crew that went to the store Sunday.

Alan, my opponent, also brought a whole bunch of tanks. He was playing a British tank company (or "armoured squadron," I guess?) out of one of the newer books, Hell's Highway (which I don't have). His force was rated as Confident Veterans (vs. my Confident Trained) and had a special rule where they got to re-roll failed platoon morale checks. He had a CO and XO in Shermans along with three Sherman/Firefly platoons. He also had one largeish infantry platoon and a couple of AT guns (direct fire only, so no template throwers).

We set up some terrain more or less randomly. There were a couple of small areas of woods and some hills along both short table edges. I asked Alan to pick a scenario and he went with "Free For All." Frankly, I loathe that scenario, which is pretty unfortunate for me, because it's pretty much all that the guys at the local store ever want to play. But, so be it; I was just looking for an excuse to put my guys on the table anyway. I rolled to be the "attacker," which is a complete misnomer in Free For All, since both sides have objectives to defend. I picked the table edge I was already standing behind and (pretty much following my standard approach) placed my two objectives about as far forward and as far apart as possible on Alan's side of the table, in open terrain. Alan basically reciprocated with his objectives, except that the one on my left was on the crest of a hill ("difficult going" terrain).

I deployed my mortars in a patch of crops (concealing terrain) more or less in the center of my deployment zone, my Katy's in the back right corner, and my two tank companies at the forward edge of my zone, more or less across the center of the deployment zone. Alan placed his infantry in a copse of woods near his (right) objective, his guns behind those woods with a clear field of fire on his other objective, and his tanks spread out across the width of the table.

My plans -- such as they were -- were to move the tanks on my right to hull-down positions at the crest of a hill along that edge of the table, to move the other platoon forward to the center of the table, and then to shoot anything that came into sight.

I rolled for first turn and started moving my tanks. Now, I don't mean to use this as an excuse or anything -- at my best I'm not that strong a player -- but this was my first game since mid-July, and I really felt rusty. As usual, I realized before the end of the first turn that I'd made a serious mistake in deployment -- this time it was in leaving too clear of a path between a couple of Alan's tank platoons and the objective on my left. Oh well, nothing to do now except hope that my center company would be able to get to good enough firing positions to make an objective run a costly proposition for him.

I had no shots in my first turn. Alan moved his tanks forward, including a couple of platoons on my left, toward the objective on the hill, and had a couple of shots but did no significant damage. On my second turn, my heavy mortars ranged in on one of his AT guns (the only thing they could see that was much of a worthwhile target) and knocked it out. Yay me! Except, that gun was also the only thing my rocket battery could see, and now they had nothing to shoot at. I probably should have fired the rockets first, because I believe they could have gotten the other gun under their template, but oh well. After that, my artillery was a non-factor for the rest of the game.

My hull-down tanks on the right opened fire on one of his platoons and killed the two they could see (one of which was the platoon commander) -- see the first pic, above. Their Firefly was still OK, though. Meanwhile, the situation on my left/center turned into a complete bloodbath. After a couple of turns, there were a lot of burning tanks. Both sides' COs ended up dead, but I came out ahead because all of Alan's tank platoons were left leaderless. Hence, he couldn't move the surviving tanks, and my objectives were safe. I moved the survivors of my left company onto his objective, and my other company (still at full strength) moved over the hill, finished off the remaining tanks on that side of the table, and headed toward the other objective.

On Alan's last turn, his surviving AT gun missed both shots at the platoon sitting on the objective (killing a tank would have forced a platoon morale check), and that was the ballgame. (Even if he'd managed to kill that company, I think I still would have won the game with my other company, after a turn or two of machine gunning his infantry.) So, while far from being my best effort, I guess a win's a win.

It was an odd, kind of herky-jerky game. I don't really feel that I played well enough to deserve the win, but enough things broke my way and that's how it turned out. Some lessons learned (or reinforced, as I guess I already knew all of this stuff):

• Soviet tank companies are unwieldy. When you're talking about ten tanks that can only move 6" and still shoot -- well, let's just say that you're not going to be dancing around the table with them.
• On the other hand, enemy tank platoons have a very pleasing tendency to evaporate in front of said unwieldy companies. Twenty main gun shots -- ten at AT 9 and ten at AT 12(!) -- is a lot of firepower. Putting that many rounds into a medium tank platoon (even veterans) is probably going to wreck that platoon.
• I have got to start doing a better job with deployment, especially in light of the first bullet point above.
• I hate Free For All.

Anyway, it was great to get a game in after such a long layoff, and hopefully I can get in another soon. (And, hopefully I'll play better in that one.)

Runebound at the Monkey Den

The Monkeys are generally an RPG group, but on occasion, we break out a board game. Last night, for instance. Only three of us could show up, and since that's not enough for a Pathfinder Society scenario, we broke out Runebound for the first time.

Runbound is quite likely my favorite board game -- but until last night, I'd only ever played it solo (using the "threat level" variant). I find it to be an exceptional solitaire experience, and I've played it literally a couple dozen times. I'd always wanted to play it multi-player, but I was a little worried how the experience would translate. It turns out, I found it very different with a couple of other guys at the table. And, to be honest, I think Runebound may actually work better as a solo game than multi-player, even though it wasn't specifically designed to be played solitaire. The sense of the building narrative is what I like so much about the game, and that specific facet of play is seriously undermined with other players.

I'm sure my opinion there is tinged by the fact that I got whomped. I was playing Ronan -- as usual, I zero-in on the ranger-archetype character. And (again) as usual, I got off to an extremely slow start with him. Meanwhile Red Scorpion (Joe B., in his first ever game) and Varikas (Joe F., who had played a few times before) were zipping around the board and making mincemeat of yellow and blue encounters while I was still plugging away on greens. What the hell even is mincemeat, anyway? And why do I always start slow with Ronan?

Anyway, despite the fact that we were playing pretty briskly (especially since it was our first time as a group), the hour was getting late so we decided that the first player to defeat any red encounter would be declared the Winner and Lord Sovereign of All He Could Survey. That ended up being Varikas, so, hooray or whatever for Joe F.

The game seemed to go over pretty well. I'm hoping it hits the table at the Den again soon.