Two-dimensional Banzai

I got around a bit on Saturday. I meant to start earlier and be even more adventurous, but this Saturday I needed a little more easing into the day than usual. I'd arranged with Dave Schueler to play Guadalcanal at Meeples Games in West Seattle, starting at 10:00, just when they open. Plan A was to go to 8:00 Mass at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle, then a bagel and coffee at Eltana Bagels. However, I was too lazy to get moving this morning, so I went with Plan B, which involved rushing out the door with barely enough time to get from Lynnwood to West Seattle.

Col. Ichiki was not entirely successful

The Guadalcanal scenario we played was the Battle of Alligator Creek. This was the first Japanese counterattack on land in the battle. Japanese destroyers landed an advanced detachment of about 900 men 21 miles east of the Marine perimeter. The intent was to pierce the Marine defenses and overrun Henderson Field, the Marine airfield (completed on what had been an unfinished Japanese airfield) that was the central point of the fighting on Guadalcanal. It had to have been conceived as a suicide mission. There was the whole 1st Marine division ("The Old Breed") landed on Guadalcanal. Even though its 11,000 men were spread out in a perimeter, there were 3000 Marines of the 1st Regiment on point at the Tenaru River. (The Marines names it "Alligator creek" even though it wasn't a creek and there were no alligators in it.)

The 900 men landed by the Japanese navy were supposed to be followed up by another 1200, but the commander of the Japanese troops, Col. Kiyonao Ichiki, was impatient to sweep away the Marines, whose numbers he greatly underestimated. Ichiki was a bit of a fire-eater. As a company commander in Manchuria Manchukuo, he was involved in the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident," which started the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45.

The Japanese attack started at about 2:00 AM with a rush of about 100 men over the sandbar at the mouth of the river. The Marines were dug in on the west side of the river with a 37mm anti-tank gun, well-supplied with cannister rounds for anti-personnel shooting, and a platoon of machine guns. This attack was wiped out by intense Marine fire. A second wave of about 200 men met the same fate.

Attack across the sandbar

At this point the Japanese stayed on the east side of the river and engaged in a firefight with the Marines until daybreak, when the Marine 1st battalion counterattacked in an envelopment that brought them south and east of the Japanese positions. Five M3 Stuart tanks trundled across the sandbar to join the fray and the Japanese troops were pretty much annihilated. In all the Japanese lost more than 700 men to the Marines' loss of 43 men. Col. Ichiki died in the battle, but it's not clear if he died in action or committed suicide because of his failure.

The Tenaru today. No sandbar and the runway of  the Honiara International Airport
 (formerly Henderson Field) extends right up to where the Marines were deployed on August 21.

The attack at the Tenaru was the ground offensive for Operation Ka, which was the Japanese riposte to American seizure of Guadalcanal. It was a complete failure. In his report to higher command, Col. Ichiki's superior admitted only that the attack was "not entirely successful."

The refight

Dave opted to play the Japanese, so I played the Marines. Initial set-up locations were determined by the scenario. The Japanese first wave was massed just east of the sandbar; my Marines were spread out covering the length of the river.

The scenario was 6 rounds with the first three rounds being night. Initial visibility for round 1 was 2 hexes. For rounds 2 and 3, we rolled a D6 with the result being the visibility for that round. I rolled a "1" on both turns. I was frustrated that my visibility was hampered, but the low visibility probably hurt Dave more than me. He had no recourse but to move up close, which gave me an advantage in close-range shooting.

The course of the game pretty much followed the historical fight, except Dave managed to overrun the 37mm gun position that covered the sandbar. I managed to take the position back in the next round, so it was a short-lived triumph. That was with the first wave. The subsequent waves that came on board rounds 3 and 4, did not make massed close assaults. My round 4 reinforcements came on the south edge of the board and by round 5, I had two Stuarts rampaging across the sandbar into Japanese territory.

It was touch and go for a while. Dave made good use of his little grenade launcher units. They don't have much pop, but they negate covering terrain. Combined with other units in a group fire, they can be very effective against units you thought were safely hunkered down in deep jungle. But Marine firepower won in the end. I lost 5 counters (both my 37mm guns plus three rifle squads), while Dave lost all but two of his units. I was lucky in my die rolls; Dave was lucky, initially, in pulling "no hit" counters for hit results, but his die rolls were pure poo.

It turns out, too, that we counted points wrong. The scenario gives 2 points to the Japanese for each Marine unit eliminated and 3 points for possession of each of the control hexes. That meant only five fewer points for me, which wouldn't have changed the outcome

Dave hadn't played the Conflict of Heroes system before. I hadn't played in a few years. Even then, there were some new rules for this expansion that took getting used to. Unlike previous games, the hit counters for the Japanese and Marines are different. The Japanese can have up to five "no hit" counters that do no damage (there were four in this scenario). The Marines have none.

Bushidō points didn't factor too much in the game. Positive points were gained for getting units across the Tenaru river and negative were incurred whenever a Japanese infantry unit started its activation not as part of a group action. Dave gained a few in the initial rounds, but then lost them again after his losses chopped up cohesion. He never fell below his initial CAP allowance because the Japanese don't lose CAP for unit losses, only the Marines do. (Too bad they don't have gung-ho points for the Marines...)

Closing thoughts

I like the nuances to the system for Guadalcanal. It's not a paradigm shift, but there's some adjustment to make if you've been playing previous Conflict of Heroes games.

The scenarios do a good job at making the Japanese behave historically. Had Dave been able to just sit back and engage in a firefight, he might have out-gunned me. But his need to get units across the Tenaru, perform group actions, and take (and/or hold) the control points forces him to move en masse and get in close. The limited visibility of three night rounds also inhibits his ability to sit back and shoot until he's lost enough units to give the Marine's a big advantage after their reinforcements come in. (Also, if he sits in place too long, the Marine artillery barrages can hurt.)

I didn't use my artillery well in the game. The first rounds I either forgot to plot a barrage or the barrage I plotted missed because the Japanese didn't wind up being where I'd plotted the barrage to land. The single success came on round 6 when Dave's remaining units were clustered around the control point in the palm grove on is side of the river.

The 37mm guns were pretty crappy. The game has a cannister card that gives the guns a little bit more effectiveness (but not much). However, the scenario doesn't give them. So the 37mm gun, which is the only unit holding the key bunker/control point has its wee +2 pop. In the hitorical accounts of the fighting, the 37mm guns shooting cannister did a huge amount of damage to the waves of attacking Japanese.

Well, finally

Last week, to my wee, humble doorstep came Academy Games' latest (last?) extension of their Conflict of Heroes series: Guadalcanal 1942 - The Pacific.

I was honestly on the verge of giving up ever seeing this. I'd pre-ordered it years ago, then pre-ordered it again (also years ago), then was contacted that my credit card info was out of date (the card had expired in the interim), then finally heard that it was shipping. Now it's finally in my hot little hands. Whew!

Was it worth the wait? Well, yes, but maybe not worth the anxiety (is anything?).

The game looks very nice. The artwork on the game components is beautiful, especially the map boards, of which there are four: a coastal board, a river board, a jungle board and a hilly board. There is also a sheet of double-sided overlays for two different river mouths (the Tenaru and the Matanikau), village buildings, jungle patches, and smaller hills.

The hex side markings blend in very subtly with the artwork on the boards. They're easy enough to see if you're looking for them, but disappear enough to give the impression of a free-form kriegspiel.

The counters are the standard big size, die-cut and double sided. The mix is mostly infantry and infantry support weapons. Each side has a few tanks: US M3A1 Stuarts and Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go and Type 97 Ch-Ha tanks. There are also US landing craft and an M3 GMC. Because I pre-ordered (twice), I got an extra set of counters that have the Marine 2nd Raider counters, US Army regulars and National Guard counters, another GMC, and two M2 .50 cal. counters. There are also some Melanesian police counters. The extra counters can be used in scenarios that are downloadable from the Academy Games website.

There was one hiccup in the box. The die-cut counters are easily removed from the frames, perhaps too easily. There were a lot of loose counters in the box. One counter, used to count victory points, got smushed on one side.

A bit worse for wear

Just a touch of diluted Mod Podge with a small brush, press the counter under some weight for a while, et voilá!

All better

The box also comes with an expansive counter tray that keeps everything in nice and snug.

The game is standalone. No previous CoH games are needed. The rules are the same as for the entire series except for the Bushidō rules. In addition to tracking victory points, the Japanese player tracks Bushidō points. The Bushidō rules are intended to encourage the Japanese player to employ historically aggressive Japanese tactics. Each scenario awards Bushidō points differently. For example, in some scenarios the Japanese player gains +1 Bushidō points for every unit he loses in hand to hand combat or to point blank fire. In another scenario, the Japanese player loses -1 Bushidō points for every counter that doesn't start its activation as part of a group move.

The effect of gaining/losing Bushidō points is to increase or decrease the the number of command activation points (CAP) that the Japanese player has available. There may be other scenario-specific affects of having positive or negative Bushidō points. It looks like an interesting rule.

With the amount of time (years!) that it took to get Guadalcanal released, I fear that Acadamy Games has moved on from this series. At one time, there seemed to be many extensions in the works: Normandy 1944, Blitzkrieg 1940, Crete 1941... None of that appears to be on the horizon any more. I'd love to see more extensions to the series, but given the time it took to release Guadalcanal, I'm starting to think I won't live long enough to see them (and I'm only 55).

As a pipe dream, it would be interesting to see Academy Games strike while the Pacific War iron is hot and do a Tarawa 1943 extension. I've long been fascinated by that battle and I think that CoH is a great system for creating some good scenarios for it.

I have yet to play a game of Guadalcanal, but I'm looking for the soonest opportunity (Dave Schueler are you reading this?).

KGC Blitz: Adapting PanzerBlitz situations to miniatures

I played my first game of Avalon Hill's PanzerBlitz when I was a lad of 10. My friend Richard's older brother went off to the army in 1970 leaving behind his brand-new copy of the just-released game. For Richard and me, being the kind of boys who liked tanks 'n' stuff, PanzerBlitz was nirvana. The counters had silhouettes representing specific tanks: T-34s, SU-100s, Panzer IVs, Tigers. For boys who liked tanks 'n' stuff, Tiger tanks were the apogee of our enthusiasm. A game of tactical armored combat on the Eastern Front 1941-45, could it get better than this? Even the box art was cool.

I played PanzerBlitz with Richard for the next year until he moved away, taking his copy of PanzerBlitz with him (but he left me his dog, Sparky, who was with us for the next 14 years). I got my own copy of the game, the revised 1971 edition, and continued to play it with other friends for years after that. Of the many games from my youth, few remain. Pride of place for those is my much-worn copy of PanzerBlitz. I even bought two more copies on eBay. One of which is the 1970 first printing with the glossy colored reverse sides of the counters: black for Germans and red for Russians.

All these years later—despite some glaring design flaws, such as "PanzerBush"—PanzerBlitz remains one of my favorite games even though it's been more than 30 years since I last played it with someone. (Also, you can easily adopt the opportunity fire and spotting rules from Avalon Hill's later games Panzer Leader and The Arab-Israeli Wars to fix the design flaws.)

Fast forward to now. I game with a group of people at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland, WA. One of the games we've play a lot is Kampfgruppe Commander II (KGC) using 15mm models and figures. KGC is a later development of the evolutionary strain of tactical WW2 rules that started with the "standard unit" concept in Wargamer's Digest magazine in the 1970s. WD had some rules in mind that never got published, but the standard unit concept was best exemplified in Frank Chadwick's Command Decision (CD) from 1986. Unlike most earlier WW2 rules, CD doesn't represent the tanks, guns, and troops at 1:1. In CD, each gun and tank model represents a platoon-sized unit (the standard unit). Infantry, mounted three to a base, also represent platoons. This is pretty much the same representation used for PanzerBlitz, except that in PanzerBlitz Russians units are company sized.

KGC uses the same representation as CD with the exception that Russian units are represented one level up to account for the smaller size of Russian platoons and the lower degree of tactical flexibility of Russian forces. For example, in CD the basic maneuver element for Russians is a company represented by two tank models or two stands of infantry. In KGC, the basic Russian maneuver element is a battalion of four tank models or four stands of infantry. In addition, mortar batteries and machine-gun companies attached to Russian infantry battalions are not represented as separate units, but just factored into the infantry fire value (at just +1 for all range bands). This difference matters for the conversion, as I'll address below.

Because the representational scale of KGC and PanzerBlitz are so similar, it naturally occurred to me that adapting PanzerBlitz to KGC would make for some good game scenarios. PanzerBlitz has 12 "situations" that represent distinct actions involving forces that could equal several battalions in size. My thinking has been that the situations in PanzerBlitz can be mined to create interesting scenarios for KGC.

In miniature gaming, being free-form in structure, scenarios are the key to enjoyment. Most of our KGC games have involved large forces in set-piece battles, such as the attack/defense of a position. We've played several games set in Normandy with scenarios drawn from Operation Epsom. Monty had pretty much all the tactical finesse of Douglas Haig and the Normandy battles in June-July 1944 were about as close to the Battle of the Somme as any other WW2 battles ever came (except maybe Kursk): a terrible expenditure of blood for gains measured in yards. The gist being that even though our games are played on a 60 sq. ft. table, the focus mostly comes down to an area about 12 sq. ft. where one side is advancing against an objective and moves forward no more than about 24" during an afternoon of gaming. What I want to do is get to games that involve smaller forces that allow greater flow. My whole PanzerBlitz adaptation idea, which has been kicking around in my brain for some years, is now a catalyst for this goal.

Conversion issues
Adapting the PanzerBlitz scenarios is not without its snags, however. There are several conversion issues that need to be addressed and some trial-and-error to go through in order to get things right.

Mapboard

One of the first conversion issues to address is the how the game boards in PanzerBlitz can be recreated on the tabletop. We use the extended scale in KGC, which comes to one inch = 66 yards (or 1.5" = 100 yards). In PanzerBlitz, one hex represents 250 meters (flat to flat). The conversion is that every hex is 4" on the tabletop. The three boards in PanzerBlitz are geomorphic. One board comes out to a table space of 3.4' x 10.8'. Most configurations in the PanzerBlitz situations require 10.2' x 10.8' of table space, which is about 40 sq. ft. larger than the space we typically use. In some situations, the board configuration is end on end, which means that we need a table that is 3.4' wide by 32.6' long. We don't have that kind of room.

Instead, we use tables that are 5' x 10' or 6' x 8'. (6' is the maximum width practically possible. The 3' stretch to get to the middle of the table is a strain as it is, given the middle-aged bellies we all sport.) To design the table space, you have to look at the configuration for a given situation and then mark out the salient features to use. This requires an elastic interpretation of the mapboard features. Some things have to be thrown out or morphed with other features. In short, the mapboard configuration should be an inspiration for the tabletop layout rather than a template to be followed exactly.

If you don't want to be inspired on a situation-by-situation basis, you can design modular tabletop sections based on the three boards and then configure them for the scenarios.

Unit sizes

German units translate very well at 1 counter from PanzerBlitz equals one tank model, gun model, or stand of infantry. Russian tank and infantry counters in PanzerBlitz represent companies for the same reasons mentioned above, although gun counters still represent a single battery, just like the Germans. The problem for converting Russian counters to KGC units, if you use the KGC organization for Russians, is that you wind up with four tank models or infantry stands for every three PanzerBlitz counters, which greatly reduces the effectiveness of a Russian force. In addition, because Russian battalions abstract battalion mortars, you need to leave off the Russian mortars when you convert. This significantly reduces the firepower of the Russian side.

It also poses a problem for Russian formations. A PanzerBlitz situation that calls for nine counters of Russian rifles, which is typical, equates to a Soviet rifle regiment. In KGC organization, that's a single formation of three four-stand infantry units plus regimental assets like a 45mm AT gun, 76mm infantry gun, and the regimental 120mm mortar battery. This organization puts too many eggs in one basket.

In KGC, a unit is 1 to 4 stands. A formation is 1 to 4 units. All the units of a formation need to stay within the command radius of the formation commander (8" to 15"). When a unit is attacked, a failed morale result can effectively put that unit out of action for a few turns, meaning that multiple stands are affected. The command/control structure in KGC is in stark contrast to PanzerBlitz where any counter can act independently and is usually attacked separately.

Adopting the CD organization for the Russians, addresses some of this issue. With the CD organization, the rifle regiment (represented by nine counters in PanzerBlitz) is now three formations. Each formation is three units of two rifle stands, plus MG assets, and an 82-mm mortar unit. Also, the regimental assets can be made available. The result is more tactical flexibility, more resilience, and more firepower.

Scenarios

The scenarios in PanzerBlitz are the main reason I got interested in the project. However, most scenarios provide a challenge when it comes to converting them to KGC. The forces for each side often come down to a collection of unit counters that don't conform to historical TO&Es. This is especially true for the Germans.

In most PanzerBlitz situations, the Russian forces conform pretty well to historical TO&Es and usually fit nicely into KGC formations. For example, in Situation 6, the Russians have the following:

Using the CD organization for the Russians, this works out pretty easily to,

• Four battalions of T-34cs (three two-stand units in each)
• Two SMG battalions (three two-stand units in each, plus an MG asset per battalion)
• A two-company recon infantry battalion (or split up into four recon infantry assets)
• Two batteries of 45mm AT guns (or two assets assigned to the SMG battalions)
• A tank destroyer regiment of SU-85s (two two-stand units)
• An assault gun regiment of SU-152s (two two-stand units)
• Two batteries on 76.2mm "crash-boom" guns (or used as off-board artillery)

For the same situation, the Germans have the following:

This is a hodge-podge and nothing translates easily to KGC formations. However, it was typical for the Germans to use kampfgruppe in many situations rather than the regulation TO&Es. To make sense of the situation's forces, you have to create ersatz formations with the mix you have. For example, you could give the Germans the following:

• A panzer kampfgruppe with a two-stand PzIV company and a one-stand Panther company
• An infantry kampfgruppe with one three-stand infantry company and a 120mm mortar (you could also add an MG asset)
• An antitank kampfgruppe with two 75mm Pak 40 batteries and a single Jagdpanzer IV stand
• A Flak panzergruppe with an 88mm battery and a quad 20mm battery
• Wespe and Hummel as off-board artillery batteries

Of course, the question is whether this provides adequate play balance.

Historical inaccuracies
The situations in PanzerBlitz are genericized scenarios based on historical actions adapted to a somewhat fixed mapboard using a limited counter set. There are bound to be inaccuracies. The game is said to represent the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945, but the situations mostly fall into the range of mid-1943 to mid-1944. As you research the situations—being an adult boy who likes tanks 'n' stuff with access to a lot more data—you realize that the game designers fudged a lot.

For example, Situation 10 is Prokhorovka, the climactic armor clash of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the southern salient at Kursk in July 1943. The Germans have a lot of Panzer IVHs and Panthers. In fact, the SS panzer troops had no Panthers at Kursk and the mainstay of their tank strength was the Panzer IIIN. In the same situation, the Soviets have SU-85s, which weren't available until later in 1943. In other situations, the Soviets have T-34/85s and the Germans have Jagdpanzer IV/L70s in 1943 scenarios, when neither of these AFVs were available at the time.

For any situation, you have to clean up the innacuracies, which may mean replacing some units with others that match the time frame or historical organization better.

Rules systems and play balance
Of course the rules systems also play a part in balancing the games. Between PanzerBlitz and KGC, the play balance of units is different. PanzerBlitz uses basic factors for attack and defense strengths, which are modified according to the rules' Weapons Effectiveness Chart. KGC uses to-hit and armor penetration values at various ranges and an AFV's defense against antitank fire is based on its armor value. In some cases, this means that some tanks are nearly invulnerable to some AT guns and some tank vs. tank encounters can be wildly lopsided despite a great numerical disparity.

For example, the Panther was probably the best AFV of WW2 (it says so in the designers notes for PanzerBlitz). The 75/L70 gun could slice through the best Soviet armor and the Panther's armor could bounce most shots from Soviet 76.2mm and 85mm AT guns except at close range.

In PanzerBlitz, the Panther has an attack value of 16 and a defense value of 12. The T-34c has an attack value of 12 and a defense of 9. This means that at a six-hex range, three T-34c counters firing together at a Panther counter have a 3:1 attack, which has a good chance of disrupting or destroying the Panther.

In KGC, it's not that easy. At the same range band (6 hexes = 24"), the 76/L42 gun of the T-34c has a 20% chance to even hit. The KGC equivalent of the three counters would be four stands, using KGC organization, or six stands, using CD organization. This means either four D10s or six D10s needing "2s" to hit. One hit may be possible, two lucky, three luckier, and four or more highly unlikely. But the number of hits is just a start. The penetration value of the 76/L42 at 24" range is a 6. The Panther's frontal armor value is 14. This is no penetration; however, KGC still gives any attacker a long-shot chance by making the maximum defense roll a "9." So, any unmodified defense roll of "10" counts as a hit. (I've grumbled about that a few times.)

By comparison, in KGC, the 75/L70 gun of the Panther has a 50% chance to hit and a 13 penetration value at the 24" range band. Against the T-34c's frontal armor of 9, this is an automatic penetration (no defense roll). In fact, even at the Panther's maximum range of 36", any hit is an automatic penetration against a T-34c.

All this means that in KGC, a single Panther has a good chance of standing off an entire battalion of T-34s, but not so much in PanzerBlitz. In some PanzerBlitz situations, there are up to 12 Panthers. In KGC, a force like that is nearly invincible.

As you convert the forces in any PanzerBlitz scenario, you may think there will be a huge disparity in numbers against one side or the other (though usually in favor of the Russians). You can address this disparity with the formation ratings, something that KGC advertises as one of it's strengths.

Postscript
This is one of the many draft blog posts I've had languishing for a long while in cyber-limbo. I had to post this because I spent so much time on it and I'd hate to see it never see the light of the Interwebs. It still has relevance to WW2 gaming on an operational scale; however, I must disclose that I sold off all my painted 15mm WW2 minis at Enfilade! 2014. I can't say that I regret having done it, but it makes completing and posting this article a bit poignant.

I still have a lot of unpainted figures (as in a lot) and models in boxes. If I don't sell them, there's a chance I'll revisit KGC or some other operational-level rules set, like Battlegoup Panzergrenadier from Partizan Press. I've had a copy for many years, though I've only played them once. There is also a second edition out. BGPG may make some of the scenario translation issues easier. I could also just bathtub the scenarios and do a 1:1 translation of units for stands for something like BGPG or Crossfire.

To Bottoscon and Back

I'm just back from my first trip to Bottoscon in Surrey, BC, home of the world's largest Canadian flag. Rob Bottos has been hosting this convention on his own at various venues in British Columbia for several years and it's starting to get a bit of critical mass. There were 79 pre-registrations and several more people showed up and registered at the door. We probably had just shy of 100 attendees over the three days of the convention. I heard about it for the first time at Dragonflight in August. With my renewed enthusiasm for boardgames, I jumped at the chance to attend a full-on boardgame convention of mostly wargames.

In the following months, I planned four games for the convention and wound up playing in an ersatz fifth. With the exception of Conflict of Heroes, all the games were fairly new to me, having had only a single/partial play or no play at all.

Photography disclaimer: My photographic equipment on this trip consisted only of my iPhone and iPad. Of the two, the iPhone is infinitely superior as a camera, poor though it is. The iPad is truly execrable and I only used it for Saturday night's game because my iPhone was recharging. I apologize humbly in advance for the photos that accompany this post.

Friday

I left home about 9:30 AM on Friday and zoomed up in about two hours. Apart from having to sort out having the bank suspend my card because of "irregular activity" (i.e., a cash withdrawal in a foreign land), I was checked in and ready to go by about 12:30. The convention started at 12:00, but I was one of the early ones. Even Rob wasn't there until after 1:00. My scheduled opponent for my first game, also an American from the Seattle area, didn't arrive until about 2:00. I wandered to the bar to drink a rather tasty Stanley Park 1897 Amber microbrew and then started an impromptu game instead against Kevin Deitrich (KC).

Game 1: Poland fights on!

A gallant TKS holds off the Wehrmacht

The first game was a Conflict of Heroes scenario from the Price of Honour expansion. I played the Poles and KC was the Germans. There were a lot of "armored" vehicles in the game, if the term really applies to the wee Polish TKS tankettes, all but two of which were armed only with MGs. I also had two Vickers E tanks as well as two platoons of infantry. KC had a company of German infantry plus some armored cars and a panzer platoon of two PZ IIs and a Pz III.

At first, the Poles held their own against the Germans, but German firepower and concentration eventually proved effective. I was leading on points until KC captured two control points and surged up to just a point behind me.

The first position—held to the death!

My TKS tankettes were all blasted away and one of my Vickers E's lost a duel with the Pz III. I had only my fall-back position, which was held by three squads, a 46mm light mortar, a 37mm AT gun, and my remaining Vickers E. KC had lost only two units by this time, while my dead pool was about a dozen. Grim as it seemed, I was still slightly ahead on points because my points were mostly scored by not letting my control points get taken. I still had two remaining and KC couldn't get to them by game's end. The Poles squeaked out a win on points by delaying their own destruction.

The last stand

Game 2: Manfred und Lothar sind tot!

The Conflict of Heroes game ended about 6:00 or so and a group of us trudged out for dinner. We got back in by 7:30 or so and went back to our gaming. Without a scheduled game to play, I got drawn into game of Wings of Glory run by Mike Owen. Mike is a true aficionado of the game and has collected and customized a large number of the available models, and has also made some paper models at 1:144 scale for the game.

The scenario pitted Raymond Collishaw's Black Flight of five Sopwith Triplanes against four Fokker Dr.1's of von Richtofen's Flying Circus. I flew Ellis Reid in "Black Rodger" and Marcus Alexander in "Black Prince." Rob Bottos flew the other three "tripes" in the flight. Mike and another player ran the Fokkers of Jasta 11.

Reid and Alexander on dawn patrol

I've never played Wings of Glory before, though I've seen it around for years. We played some Blue Max many years ago, but that was my only foray into WW1 aerial combat. I found that being a miniatures gamer gave me an advantage over the board gamers I was playing with. For most of them, all reckoning involves a hex or square grid, or some other demarcation that regulates movement. They regard free-form maneuvering of game pieces like hippies in a commune regard flush toilets: something to be eschewed. With my experience in naval gaming, it's sort of second nature to me to pre-plot free-form movement reasonably well so I don't wind up colliding with friends, enemies, or myself. I was able to keep out of the furriest part of the fur-ball and keep on my guns on my opponents.

Reid on Lothar's tail, givin' it to 'im proper!

I got a bead on Lothar von Richtofen early on and kept peppering him. I hit him several times, and Rob got at least one burst in him, but the damage was minimal all along—no explosion or heavy damage cards. It took several shots, but he eventually went down in flames after I got a last burst at him.

A few turns later it was Manfred's turn. The Red Baron had been hit more than a few times by Rob's planes, but I got a few in myself and got the last burst in that put him down.

Reid downs another Richtofen

We called the game just before 10:00 PM. I was about to turn into a pumpkin, having been up very early cleaning the house so the cat sitter wouldn't think I lived like a feral beast, then on the road for two hours.

As a bit of serendipity, Mike awarded me a Wings of Glory Duel Pack with Richtofen's Dr.1 and Roy Brown's Sopwith Camel in recognition of my success in my first game. The 1:144 scale models are very nice. I'm not sure if I really want to get into this system any deeper than my duel pack, but the quality of the already-assembled-and-painted models makes one think...

Saturday

I got up earlier than I wanted to on Saturday because I still needed to trim out some counters for the Chariots of Fire game I was playing that morning. I spent a good deal of time trimming little cardboard counters in the run-up to the convention. Every game has hundreds of them and it can take hours of tedious work with an X-Acto knife to get them game ready. After about an hour of trimming, I went downstairs and had breakfast with Wilhelm Fitzpatrick, my opponent.

Game 1: Arrows everywhere!

As it turned out we decided to play Devil's Horsemen instead, so I might as well have slept in. Both games are part of GMT's Great Battles of History (GBoH) series. They use similar rules—with which we were both largely unfamiliar—so switching from one to another was no problem. We played the Ayn Jalut scenario. I was the Mamluks attacking the rear guard of Prince Ketbugha's army.

Initial face-off of Mamluk advance guard and Mongol rear guard

The Mongols were fully deployed at start, while I had only a small advance guard. Though technically defending, Wilhelm attacked my advance guard of light cavalry right away to little effect. The game system allows for return fire and as he drew up his light horsemen to shoot at me, my light horsemen shot back to better effect. When I started bringing on the rest of my forces, Wilhelm used Mongol feigned flight tactics, which drew only a few of my units in—but not to ill effect. It turned out that he really just got his backs to me and I could shoot with impunity as unit after unit of bow-armed Mamluks came on the board.

The Mamluks come on

Wilhelm made a strong counterattack with his heavier units (all bow armed as well) that took out a few of my light horsemen. However, weight of numbers started to tell a bit and after two turns, I was starting to turn the Mongol flanks.

The GBoH system, like a lot of GMT tactical games, uses a continuation mechanism (called momentum in GBoH) that enables players to reactivate a group of units for another go in the same turn. Momentum can stretch a single turn out to multiple activations if both sides are successful in getting it. I was able to get momentum multiple times for my light cavalry, which enabled me to do a lot of shooting and maneuvering to bust open the Mongol right flank.

Arrow fire was significant in this game. Both sides are almost entirely armed with composite bows and we spent a lot of effort whittling away at each other. Rolling a "9" for shooting results in getting a Missile Low counter, which gives you one more shot before you're out of arrows. You can re-load your quivers under certain conditions, but while marked with a Missile No counter, you can't return fire. That, in turn, allows multiple arrow attacks with no possibility of reply. Units can wither and rout quickly that way.

We called the game at about 1:00 after just two turns—but a long play time, due to unfamiliarity with the rules and multiple momentums (momenta?). It was a good introduction to the system and has me more eager to play Chariots of Fire. I also have the Chandragupta game in the GBoH series.

Game 2: Bork! bork! bork!

After Wilhelm and I concluded our game, I laid out the board for my next game and went up to my room to chill for a bit. The game was scheduled to start at 6:00 and I planned to get dinner at about 5:00 in the hotel restaurant then meet up with Dan Owsen, my next opponent for our game of Nothing Gained but Glory. However, when I stopped by the game room around 4:30 I found Dan setting up the scenario, so we just played.

I was eager to try the Fehrbellin scenario. I'd read about the battle many years ago, but with the limited information of the pre-Interwebs age, I really didn't know much about it. That mystery made it all the more intriguing for me. To my knowledge, this is the only game to feature this battle, which marked the beginning of Brandenburg-Prussia's rise to great power status.

I played the Brandenburgers and Dan played the Swedes. The Brandenburgers have two commands: one small left wing under Derfflinger holding some small hills where the Brandenburg artillery is placed, and a huge right wing of all cavalry under Hesse-Homburg and Frederick William the "Great Elector." The Swedes were in three commands: two small cavalry wings under commanders sine nomine, and a center, under Waldemar Wrangel, consisting of several infantry regiments.

I came on strong maneuvering my right wing cavalry against Dan's left wing. There was a small gap between the Swedish left and an impassable bog. I shot for that gap with the hope of turning the Swedish flank and attacking the infantry line from the rear. It went well mostly for the first turns, but Dan was successful a few times in trumping my attempts at continuation, so I wasn't able to get as much into single turns as I wanted.

After about four turns, I wound up a victim of my own success. In GMT's Musket and Pike series, every combat results in a formation hit to both sides regardless of other outcomes. Winning two combats in a row, or getting a pursuit result for cavalry, renders a unit Formation Broken. Broken formations can't move and are penalized in combat. The only cure for a lot of broken formations is to rally. I had broken cavalry formations blocking any possible exploitation of the flank. I had to change my orders from Charge to Rally.

At this point, Dan changed his orders to Charge and the Swedish infantry smacked into the Brandenburg cavalry. It was a fright to begin with, but his attacks petered out and left him with a lot of shaken and broken formations.

The Swedish right attacks Deflinger's artillery

I returned to the attack after on turn of rallying to smack into some of the shaken Swedish formations. Attacking infantry frontally is a bit worrisome. Their firepower is formidable and cavalry, who can take only a few hits before they're in trouble—or gone, can be wiped out before they come to blows. I had hoped to avoid this, but I was mostly successful in pushing back, routing, or destroying several infantry regiments. However, my losses were too great. I wiped out the Swedish left wing cavalry and badly beat up the Swedish center, but I lost a lot of cavalry doing it. When the points were counted at the end of the game, it was a decisive Swedish victory.

Broken field in the center

Dinner was a Big Mac and fries delivered by Ralph Shelton and eaten in situ while the cardboard battle raged. We concluded about 8:00 and after wandering the game room a bit, I went upstairs and to bed before 10:00.

Sunday

After a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I set up for my last game. I played Wilhelm again in a game of Sun of York. I'd only played solo prior to this, so I was eager to see how a game against another player would go.

Game 1: "A Warwick! A Warwick!"

We played two games of the Tewksbury scenario. I was the Lancastrians and Wilhelm played the Yorkists. The first game ended quickly when I took the Yorkist center by storm. We wrote that game off as a learning experience and re-played the scenario.

Lancastrians push The Yorkist center and left in game 1

In the second game, I tried a few things to see how they work. I focused on outflanking the Yorkist right, but got bogged down. My attack resulted in a repulse and the death of the Earl of Devon. Being down one leader would require me to rely more on drawing orders cards to get anything done to resume or repair that battle.

Imminent disaster on the Lancastrian left

Wilhelm drew the "A Warwick!" card, which let him play a treason attempt at one against my unengaged leaders. The attempt was successful against The Duke of Somerset and not only did he turn coat, but all the units in his battle did, too. In one fell swoop, my entire right wing disappeared.

Note: My only exception to this is that the system has some leaders that are considered "true blue" and can't be effected by treason cards. Somerset should be one of these. Three Dukes of Somerset, father and two sons, died for the Lancastrian cause. As Beauforts, they were blood-tied to the Lancastrians and never wavered, even after the Yorkist triumph at Towton and during the long years before Warwick's treason gave the Lancastrian cause a brief resurgence.

Wilhelm advanced his left battle and won initiative on the following turn, which let him capture the battle before I could respond. At this point, he also came on with his center against my only viable battle led by the young Lancastrian Prince of Wales.

I played it badly and my center battle was taken, which lost me the game.

The end of Edward, Prince of Wales

Post-game analysis was split. Wilhelm is unimpressed with the game. I like it and think it bears a lot more play. The system has the advantage of being endlessly re-playable since no two games, even of the same scenario, will be the same. There are also, I think, a lot of yet-undiscovered nuances. In retrospect, I could have played better at the crisis point of game 2, which might have repulsed the Yorkist attack on my center, although the loss of my right battle would effectively pin my center battle to the rear protecting against a flank attack from the captured battle. I might have resumed an attack with my left. A lot depends on the cards.

I got a lot of compliments on my pimped-out game board for Sun of York. One gamer described the system as a card version of a miniatures game. That has me thinking about a way to represent the units in play as stands of figures. For example, knights, bellmen, etc. could be a stand of two or three figures with two square wells that would fit two small dice: one orange die for cohesion and one black die for ability. Missile units would have three dice wells: combat ability for battle and long range, and cohesion. As cards are drawn and units deployed, the stands are used instead. Leaders, too, would be on bases with a die each for leadership and ability. It would look great, but I would have to have a strong commitment to the game system to go through the work to pimp out the game even more.

Post mortem

I enjoyed Bottoscon immensely. Rob does a great job organizing the convention by himself. I registered, booked a room, and scheduled games in a burst of enthusiasm after Dragonflight. I went through a bit of waffling in early October, but pressed on nevertheless.

There were a several multi-player games at Bottoscon, which makes sense because you can draw a bigger pool of potential gamers. At miniatures conventions or events, multi-player games are de rigeur. However, board gaming is largely a 1:1 proposition. Except for the Wings of Glory game (which is basically miniatures), all my games were against a single opponent. I didn't fully wrap my head around that for Dragonflight. When hosting a game at Enfilade!, I design a scenario for "x" players and submit it. The game will fill through pre-registration or sign-up at the event and we'll run with however many players we get, even fudging things to get in more. In most cases, I won't play myself, just run the game for others. In the months before Bottoscon, attendees arranged multi-player or 1:1 matches beforehand. I went in knowing what and who I would play. It's a bit different from what I'm used to, but I like it.

It was ironic that almost all the gamers I played at Bottoscon are Americans from the Seattle area, which let me connect with a pool of local board gamers. I'm well aware of the miniature gaming community, so I'm glad to get more involved with a surprisingly large board game community, too.

The next boardgaming convention is Game ON! in February. Game ON! is another one-man show, run by Jeff Newell in Issaquah. I played World at War with Jeff at Dragonflight. Jeff's a big WaW fan and there will be a WaW tourney at Game ON! that I plan to participate in.

Getting involved in boardgame conventions is looking like it will double my convention time. I think that's a good thing...

Loot

Apart from the aforementioned Wings of Glory duel pack, I picked up a used copy of GMT's Crown of Roses. This game adds to my growing bloc of Wars of the Roses-themed games. It looks quite involved, but I'm eager to give it a go. I also pre-ordered Blood & Roses from GMT's P500. Ralph Shelton, the game developer, is a Bellevue local who was at Bottoscon. He says the game is "in-production" and will be released soon. Blood & Roses is game 3 of GMT's Men of Iron series and covers seven battles of the Wars of the Roses. I think this game is the first to actually treat WotR battles in a hex 'n' counter format, so I'm looking forward to it. I've seen images of the game boards and counters and it looks very promising.

Breaking news! I've just heard that Arquebus is the next new title for the Men of Iron series after Blood & Roses. I'm not sure what exact period this will cover, but my guess is that it will be the late, late 15th c. and early 16th c. I suspect we'll see Gonsalvo de Cordoba make an appearance.

Cats

Yes, the cats endured. They were well cared-for and happy Sunday afternoon to have their warm-blooded furniture/bipedal humanoid cat-minder unit back to love and torment. This is the first time I used a professional sitter instead of badgering family or friends into caring for the little munchkins. I see it as the future and the sitter from Fetch Pet Care was great.

Pimp my game: Sun of York

I picked up GMT's Sun of York this summer in the orgy of boardgame buying I did after Dragonflight in August. I'd seen the title back when it was on GMT's P500. I thought I got on the bandwagon then, but apparently not. For anything that's in pre-order, I don't hold my breath. Game companies' priorities change, designers and companies part ways, or a game takes a helaciously long, long time to develop (yes, I am referring to Academy Game's years-late release of Conflict of Heroes: Guadalcanal). After seeing Sun of York back then, I just forgot about it.

When I learned it was shipping, I didn't move on it for a while. It's a card-based system like Columbia Games' Dixie series. I liked Dixie when it came out and there was a lot of interest when it debuted at an Enfilade! long ago. A lot of the enthusiasm was for the artwork by Eric Hotz; every regiment at Bull Run, Shiloh, and Gettysburg had a card with color artwork showing the uniform of that regiment. I played a few games with Kevin Smyth, but it never caught on, mostly because we play miniatures and our boardgames tend to languish in neglect.

In my post-Dragonflight enthusiasm for boardgames, I started snapping up titles I'd been on the fence about and Sun of York was one of the first I picked up. The game is nicely done and there are hundreds of cards for the York and Lancaster sides. The cards represent the historical leaders, fighting units, terrain features, and special events (like treason, fatigue, etc.). As I wrote earlier, I had some custom dice made that I could use for Sun of York and Richard III to add a little red rose/white rose flavor. I also "sleeved" the cards for protection. Sleeves are sine qua non for CCGs because continued use will wear them out quickly. I probably won't use Sun of York that much, but it's nice to have protection.

Both of these customizations to the game components were pretty straightforward, but the biggest thing I wanted to do to pimp the game was make a game mat to play the cards on rather than just bunch them in ersatz areas. The big kicker to Sun of York, like Dixie, is that there is no board. The cards are played in areas that represent parts of the battlefield. In Sun of York, there are 13 areas that represent the left, center, and right rear for each side; a middle ground; and flank positions.

I saw some game boards online that I could print out in tiles and tape together, but I wanted something better. Being a miniatures gamer, I use colored felt for the tabletop as the substrate for the terrain. I figured I could use felt for a Sun of York mat that would look something like the fields of Old England. My idea was that each area would be a separate field and the line separating the areas would be hedges.

Ye Fielde of Battaille

I got a 3' x 5' piece of felt in "pickle green." It's a somewhat mottled medium green color that looks much better for wargaming terrain than a solid green. I chalked out the lines separating the various areas. I then started masking off some areas and spraying them with various colors of Design Master paints. The Design Master colors are flat floral and earth tones because the paint is intended for use with floral design. The varied colors would produce the kind of view you see when flying over fields rather than the uniform mottled green of the felt. After I painted several sections, I used Tacky Glue and model railroad flocking to make the "hedges" that separate the areas. I'm pretty happy with the result.

View from the Lancastrian side

The Yorkist advance into the middle ground at 1st Saint Alban's

"Hedge" details

Lancastrians hard pressed (will Somerset lose his head?)

Even though it's for cards, I get a strong sense a a miniatures tabletop from it. The cats like sitting on it, too.

From start to finish, the game mat took about four days to complete with an aggregate amount of time spent being maybe four hours. Spraying was quick and easy. The longest time was spent waiting for the Tacky Glue to dry.

I'm heading up to Bottoscon in Surrey, BC next weekend for three days of boardgaming. My pimped-out Sun of York is one of the games I'll be playing. The only thing I'm lacking now are deck-holders for the cards. The decks are huge and the sleeves make then very slippery. They tend too easily to slide around and become a big mess of cards on the table when they should be a nice crisp stack. A deck holder would constrain them and make them easier to manage. I have just the thing in mind, but I don't think anyone makes it. I see a custom woodworking project in my future.

Dragonflown

I spent the last weekend spottily attending the Dragonflight 2013 convention in Bellevue, WA. I've been a few times before, mostly to check out the miniatures scene, which is minimal. Dragonflight is primarily a boardgame and RPG convention. The latter just doesn't draw me in, but I am an aficionado of boardgames in general and of hex 'n' counter wargames in particular. So, early this year I pre-registered for Dragonflight and set myself to go and focus on the wargames opportunities.

I, Infidel

My first game (on Friday) was the Ascalon scenario from GMT's Infidel. This is the second game in GMT's Men of Iron series. I have the first game in the series, which I quite like. The game sequence uses a variable bound approach where a player activates a command and, after completing movement and combat for that command, can go on to activate another command and so on as long as they remain successful. I've resisted purchasing Infidel, but now that I've played it, I'm re-thinking that resistance. I have to admit up front that I played the Fatimids and got completely slaughtered by my opponent, Ken Cassidy. Ken played the crusaders and his knights just ate my lunch. Obviously I made mistakes, but in my own defense I have to state that Ken got five activations in a row right at the start. At several other points he got multiple consecutive activations, while I typically got only my free activation after Ken, rarely, lost an new activation attempt. Nevertheless, I thought it was a good game and the Men of Iron system plays very well and fluidly--even when you're just sitting there watching Godfrey de Bouillon mercilessly slaughter your elite Mamelukes.

Rob Bottos from Vancouver ran the Men of Iron event, which featured other players tackling the Bannockburn scenario from the original 2005 release Men of Iron. There was a possibility of playing a playtest version of the upcoming Blood & Roses. I've been a dilettante student of the Wars of the Roses since reading my father's copy of Winston Churchill's The Birth of Britain way, way back when. Instead, we played the Infidel scenario. I need to trouble Ralph Shelton, who helped run the Men of Iron event and was the producer for Infidel, for a Blood & Roses playtest opportunity. The game is scheduled for release in 2014 and I'm eager to give it a shot before then.

Men who shop

The rest of Friday was spent connecting with gamers and browsing the dealers. Since wargaming is a minority presence at Dragonflight, most of the wares brought by the vendors for sale were Eurogames, RPGs, and such. In my wanderings, however, I ran across the Greenlake Games booth and discovered IRONDIE.

These are very nice metal dice from Italy (apparently the designer does the metalwork for Armani belt buckles). There is a game system built around them, which looks worthy of exploration. I was attracted to them because of their heft. Being made of iron, a fistful of these are as heavy as a sack of nickels and they make a deeply satisfying thunk when they land in the dice box. I bought several of one type (the "smasher") in all colors. I also bought a couple of iron D10. (I used the bronze D10 in the Infidel game, not that it helped.)

Saturday, The War that Wasn't

I connected with Jeff Newell on Friday and arranged to play Lock 'n' Load Games' World at War series on Saturday. I ran across this series a few years back and it became an instant favorite. I used to play SPI's MechWar '77 back in the day (i.e., the 1970s) and this is an elegant upgrade to the Cold War hypothetical wargame. The game system is very playable and smooth.

We played two scenarios with me as the Commies both times. Jeff, being a former Army tanker, has an aversion to playing Ivan, which I was happy to indulge. Russian armor dies off like flies, but, like flies, there just seems to be a lot. It's a bit heady to set up a game with stacks of armor against a few platoons of Abrams tanks--even if by the end of turn 2 there are many fewer stacks of Russian armor and the Abrams are still there ready to knock you silly again on turn 3.

The first game was a small five-turn scenario from, I think, the World at War Compendium. It turned out to be a pretty tight game, which I might have won if I hadn't stuck my chin out by advancing my T-62s into a victory hex (one of three hamlets that the NATO player had to hold) while an Abrams had a bead on it.

Game two was scenario 1 from Eisenbach Gap, the first game in the series. I've played this before with disastrous results and I was eager to see if I could do better. I did, even though I didn't win. I was able to use my smoke and artillery to better effect and managed to take the larger of the two towns required for victory, knocking out a good bit of Team Yankee as I did. However, Jeff retained a nice kill-stack in the remaining town that I couldn't get to. The game board was littered with wrecks from both sides. Given the high death rate of the T-72, I call the result a morale victory.

I already had three of the games in the series (Eisenbach Gap, Blood and Bridges, The Untold Stories), but I was so inspired after Saturday's games that I ordered another three (Death of the 1st Panzer, Paris is Burning, World at War Compendium), two of which have already arrived in the mail (quick service!). I have a lot of counters to trim...

Gadgets and Gamers

One big advantage to attending Dragonflight was connecting with area gamers. Being a miniatures gamer, I'm not plugged into the board gaming community. There is less crossover than I would have thought.

I was able to get information about other events held in the Pacific Northwest that focus more on hex 'n' counter wargames. Rob Bottos runs Bottoscon in Vancouver, BC (Surrey, actually) in November. It's been going on for seven years and pulls in a lot of people. Jeff Newell runs Game ON! in Issaquah, WA in February. Game ON! features a lot of World at War play. I joined the Bottoscon Yahoo! group and am hoping to get connected with a regular, i.e., weekly or bi-weekly, gaming opportunity. I have a lot of games that need playing.

The hard-core gamers use large tweezers to manipulate their counter stacks. It looks pretty geeky, but when you've got stacks of counters in close proximity, it's pretty easy for fat-fingered gamers to knock everything asunder while attempting to move their pieces. The tweezers help. I haven't succumbed to lure of big tweezers yet, but Jeff Newell pulled out a gadget that got my attention. Behold the wonderous vacuum pen:

Using this wee suction device, you can easily pick up counters amidst the densest stack of cardboard heroes. I was so impressed, I whipped out my iPhone, searched the interwebs for a vacuum pen, found one on Amazon.com for $5.99 and ordered two. They arrived in the mail on Wednesday. O brave new world that has such technology in't!

I've also ordered more counter trays from Chessex and GMT. This assumes that I will follow up my new game purchases with the energy of actually trimming out hundreds of counters.

Even though I didn't spend a lot of time at Dragonflight, the experience was rewarding and I will attend next year and run an event of my own.