Avalanche Press and WW2

Avalanche Press interrupted my focus of late on re-basing my French and Indian War models by releasing the long-awaited (at least by yours truly) third game in their Panzer Grenadier series trilogy of the North African Campaign of World War 2. An Army at Dawn - obviously a nod to the book of the same name by Rick Atkinson - lets you play out the end game in Tunisia in 40 different scenarios. If you own two earlier games in the Panzer Grenadier series, Desert Rats and Afrika Korps, you can play nearly 150 scenarios covering the whole campaign with all of the relevant forces. 

If you hadn't guessed, my interest in these boardgames is related to my collection of MicroArmor. Like ArkieGamer, I was considering Spearhead by Arty Conliffe (along with the Blaze Across the Sands scenario book) for my WW2 gaming, but when I found the Panzer Grenadier games, with single stands representing platoons (like Spearhead) I found a fun boardgame system that would convert easily to MicroArmor and 4" hexes. All but the largest scenarios will fit on a 5' x 9' table or smaller. I like hexes for this operational scale, as they provide an easy way to represent direct fire on individual units in a hex as well as "area bombardment" that effects an entire hex.

One big advantage of these games for me is the focus on scenarios - some are as small as a dozen units per side, permitting the game to be learned with small fast games, and permitting armies to start small and be built up over time.

You can download the Fourth Edition Panzer Grenadier series rules here if interested. 

See ya!

JoAnn Score and Book Likes

Score! Between half-off on "fall foliage" and a coupon for 25% off my entire purchase. . .

I scored enough pre-painted plastic foliage to dress up a table full of trees for only $9.00! The pre-painted part is super-sweet - I haven't seen these colors before - even a bit of "Fall creeping in" hues. Some Tamiya Flat-coat and we're in the forest-building business again.

On to the Book Likes. First up by Chris Webber: Gods of Battle: The Thracians at War, 1500 BC - 150 AD.

 Amazon describes it:

Herodotus described the Thracians (who inhabited what is now roughly modern Bulgaria, Romania, the European part of Turkey and northern Greece) as the most numerous nation of all - apart from the Indians - and said that they would be the most powerful of all nations if they didn't enjoy fighting each other so much. There may have been a million Thracians, divided among as many as 40 tribes.
Ancient writers were hard put to decide which of the Thracian tribes was the most valiant; they were employed as mercenaries by all the great Mediterranean civilizations. Thrace had the potential to field huge numbers of troops, and the Greeks and Romans lived in fear of a dark Thracian cloud descending from the north, devastating civilization in the Balkans. The Thracian way of warfare had a huge influence on Classical Greek and Hellenistic warfare. After Thrace was conquered by the Romans, the Thracians provided a ready source of tough auxiliaries to the Roman army. Chris Webber gives an overview of Thracian history and culture, but focuses predominantly on their warfare and weapons. The latest archaeological finds are used to give the most detailed and accurate picture yet of their arms, armor and costume. He identifies and differentiates the many different tribes, showing that their weapons and tactics varied. The resulting study should be welcomed by anyone interested in the archaeology and history of the region or in classical warfare as a whole.

This is a great "wargamer" read. Lots of primary source and archaeology used to describe how the Thracians fought and how they looked doing it. Recommended without reservation.

Next up, by Dr. Phil Sabin: Simulating War: Studying Conflict through Simulation Games.  

 Again, per Amazon:

Over the past fifty years, many thousands of conflict simulations have been published that bring the dynamics of past and possible future wars to life.

In this book, Philip Sabin explores the theory and practice of conflict simulation as a topic in its own right, based on his thirty years of experience in designing wargames and using them in teaching. Simulating War sets conflict simulation in its proper context alongside more familiar techniques such as game theory and operational analysis. It explains in detail the analytical and modelling techniques involved, and it teaches you how to design your own simulations of conflicts of your choice. The book provides eight simple illustrative simulations of specific historical conflicts, complete with rules, maps and counters.
Simulating War is essential reading for all recreational or professional simulation gamers, and for anyone who is interested in modelling war, from teachers and students to military officers.

This is an interesting read if the theory of game design interests you. The appenidx on probability and statistics using the D6 was useful for me. I might have named this "Designing Wargames for Non-Wargamers." I recommend it, but it's a dry read.

See ya!

Hunting Grounds: Games Three and Four at Recruits

Game Three at Recruits started at 1pm on Saturday afternoon. 

You can review the scenario here, the AAR of Game One here and Game Two here.

The Indians run and the Rangers give chase. . .

A tied Initiative roll brings on The Preacher (see Game Two AAR for the explanation).

The Indians make it into the woods "en masse" with the Rangers in hot pursuit.
 

The Rangers follow into the woods where the lessened visibility and the higher cover modifiers to shooting make it more difficult for both sides to hit their targets.

And the Indians scramble their way to a 2-point win! 

We had a lot of fire combat in the woods this game and a frustrated Ranger player wondered why his activated Fire combat was at a -3 Marksmanship roll because of the Medium Woods modifier and the enemy's Opportunity Fire was a -2, so the Opportunity Fire actually had a better chance to hit. I didn't have a good answer for him during the game but after some thought the rule makes complete sense to me. Here goes. . .

Opportunity Fire is permitted against a unit that moves 1/2 of its normal movement rate or more, at -2 if the firing unit has not activated this turn or -3 if it has, ignoring all cover modifiers. So why doesn't the woods always confer at least the -3 cover modifier? Opportunity Fire always ignores all cover modifiers. The target gets the full cover of the woods when stationary or moving slowly enough to be partially hiding behind the cover, but when moving more quickly is "less covered up" by the cover. So it makes sense to me.

Game Four started at 5pm that same afternoon and turned into another very close game with even more fighting in the woods!

The Rangers win by 2 points! 

I am very impressed with how well This Very Ground handled this straight-up skirmish game.

Another Recruits is in the books. See ya next year!

Hunting Grounds: Game Two at Recruits

Game Two started at 9am Saturday morning and deployments were similar to the previous game, including one unit of Indians that started in the farmhouse. We had one Indian player that had played the night before and his advice to his team mates was to start as close to the southern edge of the farmstead as possible. The player that deployed in the house ignored that advice. . . begin foreshadowing music. . .

You can review the scenario here and the AAR of Game One here.

And so the running firefight begins. . .

 . . . and the Indians finally leave the house hoping to get away before the Rangers can cut them off.

Then a tied Initiative roll triggered a Special Event; the re-roll going to the Rangers. The Ranger unit closest to an Indian unit is suddenly joined by "The Peacher," toting both a bible and a musket, adding an able body and commander-worthy Courage rating - to reflect the power of The Good Book - to a seriously depleted and grateful unit.

A second tied Initiative Roll went to the Indians triggering another Special Event. The Indian unit closest to a Ranger unit was suddenly seen to be leading a captive! Appropriately enough, this turned out to be the Indians that had been deployed in the farmhouse. . . and now we all knew what the delay had been about!

The Captive was worth 3 victory points to the side that had possession of her at game's end. The Indian owner immediately asked if he could "tomahawk her," in true stereotypical roleplay fashion, to deny the Rangers the potential points. I replied, "Of course," but he decided to wait.

A threatened charge by the Indians sent The Preacher and his Rangers over the wall but Ranger support provided covering fire that disrupted the Indians. While disrupted the Indians couldn't do any tomahawking. . .

And there was a chance that The Captive could be hit if the unit was fired on. . .

The game wrapped up when the last Indian holding The Captive was killed, after which the Rangers "rescued" her, while the remaining warriors left the field.

When we counted up the points we got a dead even tie! "Arrgghhh! I should'a tomahawked her!" Indeed, those three points denied the Rangers would have given the Indians the victory!

Sidebar. . .

On the table next door The Baron was running a game using wooden miniatures! Same era and figure scale as Hunting Grounds but with a very different aesthetic. Check it out here.

Next post: Game Three. Oh, and this is my 100th post to the Cluck Amok blog!

See ya!