First Game at Castle FusterCluck

Okay, so it's more of a basement than a castle, but it is dedicated gaming space with a permanent 5' x 9' table!

A couple weeks ago when playing Galactic Heroes at The Baron's, he asked what game I planned to be the first on the table in the new digs. I replied that I thought it would have to be a French and Indian War game, of course. I have been working on some woodsy rough terrain I started back in Minnesota in anticipation of said game.

During that game of Galactic Heroes someone mentioned Commands and Colors: Red Alert (fleets of spaceships); turns out Jay is a fan, too, and showed some photos of the game's miniatures he'd painted. I like this game for space fleet warfare and plan to use 1/2500 Star Trek models with "shield markers" in place of the game's units of multiple ships per hex. More here.

Where is this going? Well, a couple days after the Galactic Heroes game, The Baron said he wanted to play some Red Alert, so I invited him over for a game. Turns out the first game at FusterCluck would be the introductory scenario of Commands and Colors: Red Alert. 

Simple line-up: first player to eliminate 13 points worth of enemy units wins. Unit values range from 1 point for a Fighter up to 8 points for a Flagship.

 

I played the green fleet, The Baron red. I drew first blood with my Fighters but The Baron was flush with Star Tokens and good Combat Cards and soon the score was 12 - 10 in The Baron's favor - he just needed one more kill. That's when our Flagships went head to head and Fortune (the dice) tipped in my favor. My Flagship survived and the 8 points I won for destroying his ended the game.

 

We will definitely play more Red Alert. The game has a lot of depth and replay value including the supplemental unit types and scenarios from the original Kickstarter.

See ya! 
 

Cluck Amok Retired!

I made it. I'm retired. I'm three weeks into official retirement. Not much fanfare. . . I just stopped going to work. Still have some work to do on our little project ranch house and yard but now the plan is to get the "gaming life" back on track, too.

The first game I got to play. . . in retirement. . . was a little "Grim Dark" Sc-Fi skirmish action a la Galactic Heroes (Fistful of Lead) from Wiley Games. 

The Baron invited me over; his friend Jay was putting on a game featuring Crimson Fist Marines against Planetary Defense Forces (PDF) in a "defend the refinery" scenario. The Marines were superhuman in every way and the PDFs were Grunts that were able to respawn after being killed until the Marines destroy the Spawn Points. 

 

I led a unit of 3 teams of 3 PDF Grunts. 

 Here we are bunched up behind cover awaiting the Marine onslaught.

 

"Bunching up" turned out to be bad tactics. The Marines had grenades (who knew) and numbers weren't much help in melee, either. After dying, we "re-spawned" in a more spread out formation.

 

Spreading out was a better tactic to be sure, but in the end we gave up the refinery. Those Marines are superhumans!

Battles & Brews Again

 

While the outside game was going on - and it was WAY hot outside - I set up for Armoured Storm, which was a much easier and faster prospect than prepping for one of my F&IW games! We played a simple meeting encounter scenario with 3 players a side each commanding two platoons of 5 "early war" tanks each, with 2 HQ tanks to deploy at will; two flanking armored forces meeting head on.

Shooting range was the length of the 6-foot table but anything over 20" was only possible on a roll of "10" on a D10. . . and of course two of these improbable shots took out two German Marders in the first couple of turns! Afterwards, the shooting at long range proved completely ineffective and both sides closed to better the odds.

The British "Honeys" and the German PzKw IIs took the brunt of the damage dished out, the Honey platoon becoming the first Unit to be knocked out completely.

 

 After about two hours both sides had lost about a third of their tanks and decided to call off their attacks, satisfied with a "draw."

Armoured Storm is a fun little game, that could be bigger if you wanted it to be. It has simple intuitive mechanics with a system for setting initiative and orders for each turn that involves both sides and is almost a "sub-game" in itself. Give it a try - the price is right!

Battles & Brews

 

 I planned to put on a F&IW game at Battles & Brews this weekend and completed the bases on these Rangers a couple days ago to premiere them at said game. These are "repaints" - check them out here in the Wayback Machine. Then I hurt my hand and decided I didn't want to haul all the required terrain and heavy metal so. . . I am opting for a "lighter" game to make it easier on my sore hand. 

We're going to play Armoured Storm by author Daniel Mersey, of Lion Rampant fame.

 

This game will be "lighter" all around - way less terrain and tiny (MicroArmor) tanks. We played this once a couple years ago; here are some photos from that game that never made it into the blog.

 

The highlight of this game for me? I volunteered to command the weakest German tanks on the field, a platoon of PzKwIIs. We went "hull down in the pass" to protect our left flank and "brewed up" an entire platoon of Crusader IIIs that intended to roll right over us!
 

 

Maybe I'll see ya this weekend.

 

French & Indian War at March To Victory

  

March To Victory was a month ago; I ran a 54mm-scale game of Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles. In fact, I ran it three times! I decided to run a slightly smaller game than I usually do. . . easier and faster to set up and more amenable to finishing a complete game in a reasonable amount of time. The table was 5 feet x 6 feet and there were 6 units per side; the French Colonials and their Native allies on one side and the British and their colonial subjects on the other. The scenario came directly from the Big Battles rule book: "Scenario 4 - Hold for Reinforcements." The hill (high ground) was the objective for both forces. The Defender begins in possession of the hill with half their forces and are permitted to place their "hasty" fortifications where they want. The Attackers enter the table on their first turn on the edge closest to the fortifications. The remainder of the Defender's forces come onto the further edge on their first turn. Whoever holds the hill at the end of the game (nightfall) wins.

I did make one major change to the Big Battles rules. Extensive reading around the F&IW era has led me to the conclusion that though bayonet charges happened, melee as a result was very rare. Sometimes attackers could not be convinced to charge, and more often the targets of charges fled rather than face "cold steel." In my opinion, melee should be a rare event in this period. So, I added a test for charging into contact based on the Charge Table from my other go-to rules for the F&IW, Muskets and Mohawks written by Two Hour Wargames. We had 7 charges test over the 3 games and none of them ended in melee; in one the attacker failed to charge and in the others the defender fled before contact. Felt about right to me!

I changed my approach to unit traits, too. I used the Line Regular troops as the performance "baseline" and then added positive or negative traits to other units in comparison. I further added a Unit Leader trait to each unit rather than giving a straight-up morale/rally boost to try to give different units more "personality." For instance, Regulars have no traits of their own, but their Unit Leader trait is "Steady," giving them a shooting bonus as long as their leader is alive. Grenadiers, Highlanders, Light Infantry and Natives have additional/unique positive traits and Provincials and Militias have negative traits by comparison.

If you are interested inseeing these rule amendments, Wiley Games has a free PDF download here. Make sure you receive the PDF marked "Cluck Amok version 3/20/25." Give Wiley Games a shout if not and they will update the link.

Following is a brief description of each game with some photos. Enjoy!

Game One had the British defending. The hasty defenses were placed on the hill and manned by "green" Provincials. The British commander could have placed more troops behind the cover but chose not to, and being green (and rolling a 2 on the Charge Test!) were chased out of the defenses by a successful French charge. The British were never able to recover; French win.

 

Game Two had the British defending again. The same commander from the last game decided to place the defenses at the crossroad, manned by Light Infantry, and to try to hold the hill with his Regulars. The French Regulars assaulting the hill delivered more destructive volleys than their British counterparts and again, though the defenses were never taken, the hill was. French win.

We flipped the script for Game Three with some repeat players. The French defended, placed the defenses on the hill and packed it with Regulars. The British marched right into the teeth of the French Regulars behind the works and were mauled before they could mount a real assault on the hill. French win, as the defenders this time.

 
Everyone seemed to have fun. In fact we had some players come back for a second or third try! It was great to have the toys out again.

See ya!