Sometimes I do get some gaming in, but I'm unmotivated to write it up. Work has been tiring and depressing lately, and often when I get home or have a day off, I waste it (well, unless excessive reading doesn't count). A couple weeks ago I spent a Sunday at Das Krieg Haus - possibly for the last time, as the club is moving to a smaller space which will at least be closer to home for me. I got in a game and a half and have let the photos age long enough; let's see if I can muster up enough memory to do them justice.
The first is a Crimean War scenario taken from Wargames Illustrated issue 18, in which a British brigade held off a Russian division for some time among broken terrain. I was asked if Charge! would work for it, but given the figures available (we would need 32 to a battalion) and the genericness of the units, I doubted it. So we went with The Sword and the Flame instead, which has the great advantage of familiarity.
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On the right, the British position, as the Russians are
set up on the far side of the river. |
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| Regiments of twenty-four plus a gun each. |
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| Stolid Russian columns |
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| A handful of Russian cavalry |
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| I got a Rifle regiment to command. |
The Russian players started by sending their minimal cavalry up our left, keeping my partner busy whilst the infantry crossed the river. With 20" musketry (24" for my rifles) we could only respond with cannon for some time.
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| Laborious crossing. |
Here's where things really went wrong for us:
The two British regiments, on separate hills, were too far apart to support each other. When the Russians went for my partner in overwhelming force, there wasn't much I could do to help. I moved a bit down the hill as they got closer, but one of the columns moved aside to hold me off and my vaunted rifle fire didn't do enough damage even with close range cannon fire to assist. If I'd vacated the hill, I'd have been caught between by a Russian column.
The Russian objective was to take only one hill; for a fairer game it might have been both. Our opponents concentrated entirely on my partner while I took potshots at the rearguard.
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Here a column comes at me in "the old style", but my
dice failed me and I didn't do enough damage to make
them take a morale check. |
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| The British take the charge, despite high Russian casualties. |
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| Closeup CC. |
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| Russians hold the hill... |
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| ... Thanks largely to my immobility on the next one. |
"Oriskany Jim" has been demoing his own space game,
Darkstar, at the club for awhile, and this is the first time I got to try it with me and another Jennifer, versus Jim and Mark. It appears to be effectively WWII in the 26th century, as the sides are generally the same:
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A typical ship plan, in plastic
for wet-erase marking. |
Damage is straightforward; the blank squares are pure armor, but once two of them are destroyed, further hits on that row or column start taking out critical systems.
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The game is played on a hex-grid, and marked up like
a WWII battle-map to track movement. |
Actual physics are adhered to, in movement at any rate - movement points are dedicated to slowing, speeding up, or making turns, so momentum is important and can, for example, carry you into an opponent's line of fire if you aren't careful.
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Velocity is thus tracked; individual
ships move according to an initiative roll. |
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I command the American destroyer, which has two
banks of torpedoes (the right triangles at its bow). |
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This ship has taken a lot of
damage from head-on, and
deep enough to hit the bridge! |
I left early owing to another event I wanted to make, but the game was enjoyable enough and fairly easy to play with its designers right at hand.
So that's one day's gaming ... two weeks ago. Besides that, I've read as usual - currently some Charles Darwin, and Christopher Duffy's classic study of Frederick's army. I would like to get back to Charge!, but still have Kill Team stuff on my table. See you next time.
