A four course Winter War meal

My weekend at Kinkkucon was spent mostly at playing Winter War games this year.

Advanced Squad Leader (The Borders are Burning)
 

This was a long Winter War scenario in which the Soviets must achieve a breakthrough in deep snow conditions. I printed out a winter version of the terrain boards for this game as the stock green terrain in ASL would have been a real immersion killer. The soviets opted to attack through the woods only and managed to slowly make their way through. In the end, they ran out of time and didn't get enough troops through.



Chain of Command

The first official outing of my Winter War figure and terrain set. There's still work to be done on terrain and the scenario, but fun was had. In this scenario, the Soviets attack a village defended by Finns. Playing as the soviets I tried to get a human wave going, but was shot to bits in the open. I still have some learning to do on handling green troops. Those 4 command dice and limited team activations make them hard to get going.


Jäinen Kuolema - Freezing Death

A Finnish production, this is a short wargame encompassing the whole winter war. It's a mix of a Card Driven wargame and block game mechanics (without the blocks). It felt overly simple and gamey. Not my favourite.


Red Winter (GMT)

A GMT production of the Battle of Tolvajärvi. We played the introductionary scenario and the two day scenario. This game is awesome! The mechanics are tried and true, but the scenario is one of the best I've seen with plenty of room to manoeuver and opportunities for different tactics.

ASL Pegasus Bridge scenario 1 and campaign start

I had the opportunity to play some ASL at this year's Kinkkucon. The scenario was PB1 from the Pegasus Bridge Historical Module. The module has scenarios and a campaign detailing the glider landing near the Caen canal bridge and the fighting that ensues. If you are unfamiliar on this famous D-Day action, check it out at Wikipedia.

The scenario we played starts at the very beginning. British troops land near the bridge on gliders and proceed to take the bridge from the poor-quality German troops guarding it under the cover of darkness. This was the first time we have used the glider landing rules, but more importantly, we have never played the night rules before. The glider rules are quite easy and you only have to do them at the beginning (and we still managed to make a mistake with them), but the night rules are much more comprehensive and dramatically change the way the game plays out. Not only is visibility limited, but units on the move might stray off course, get spooked and fire when they're not supposed to, or in the case of defenders, are not easy to get to move at all. Also, the rules concerning gunflashes, starshells and such are somewhat detailed. Still, we managed to play the scenario through in decent time and hopefully didn't make too many errors on the rules or learn them wrong.

We rifled through the Pegasus Bridge rules and the rulebook for information on where the wind was blowing at the start of the game but couldn't find it. We ended up randomizing the wind, which forced the British player to land his gliders much further away from the bridge than would have been the case historically. Later on we spotted the predesignated wind direction on a different scenario card than the one we played, but the damage was done. The British attack was delayed by about a turn because of this and made the scenario more difficult for him to win.

Here's the action. I've embedded the commentary in the images to make it clearer.

So, the British failed to take the bridge but then again, the Germans failed to retreat over it. We decided to have a go at playing a campaign game while we're at it and recorded all necessary stuff for later use. The situation as it stands is that the British player will receive some reinforcements in the next couple of games but the German player (me) will receive nothing until dawn. There's not quite a platoon of conscripts guarding the bridge from Cafe Gondree so it will be interesting to see if anyone is left alive after the next scenario. The Germans will get their payback come dawn though, I'm sure.

Two games in a week feels like luxury these days (ASL and Hail Caesar)

As the average wargamer often sports some grey hair in addition to a well earned beer belly, I suppose many of you have been where I am right now. Taking care of a small child seems to take a lot out of my hobby time budget. That's why getting to play on two days of the week when it's not a convention week seems like a rarity and a treat. On the other hand, I'm in a very nice place in my life right now as I have taken four and a half months off work to take care of my heir and give my wife a chance to return to her career a few months early. It definitely is a nice change of routine and I get to paint some figures during naptime if the house is in order (which it is not as I write this).

Now where did I put that mapboard...

The first game of this week was even more rare as I got to play a game of Advanced Squad Leader for the first time in little less than a year. ASL is one of those games that gets a pitiful amount of play compared to the amount of modules and expansions I have stockpiled. The phonebook sized rulebook just keeps scaring away any potential opponent recruits.

Anyway, we played PB4 - Killean's red from the Pegasus Bridge module. In the scenario, the Brits have taken the bridge and are sweeping a village nearby to get rid of some pesky snipers. The Germans get good sniper activation rolls but their troop quality isn't anywhere close to the British paratroopers. I'll just post a couple of pictures from the game to give anyone interested an idea on how it went.

Opening setup. The Germans have troops in two hidden hexes in addition to what you see.

After the British creep slowly forward the Germans are quick to give away their hidden troops' positions for easy shots. This enables the Brits to move with more confidence. They quickly advance and melee several German positions with success.

The British take the church held by the Germans. The sniper in the tower is taken out but the best British leader falls casualty in the effort.

The German resistance breaks and the British secure the village.

At the end there are no German troops left in the village.

The scenario went a bit too well for the British, and I checked the stats from ROAR where people can record their plays. The British have won roughly double the amount of games compared to the Germans in this scenario. It's definitely imbalanced though not impossible for the Germans. No Victoria Crosses for me for this easy win.

The second game of the week was a game of Hail Caesar. As you might have noticed I finally kicked off my Greek project. My opponent is also busy doing some Carthaginians, so I suppose we have some common ground to fight over in Sicily. We don't have that many troops completed and played just a small game with some empty stands and the few figures we had so I didn't bother with more than one photo. I used the Hoplite Greek list and my opponent used Early Carthaginian with a couple of Elephants thrown in for fun.

The match went pretty smoothly and since it's my second game of Hail Caesar, we got the rules running pretty quickly. I think the rules suit demo gaming pretty well as they seemed quite easy to teach, especially to someone familiar with Warhammer Fantasy.

The dynamics and the pacing of the game oddly enough remind me of Commands&Colors. It is improbable that a divisional commander is able to activate all his troops in a single turn and the turn might sometimes pass without the division doing anything. This leads to the situation where the general must prioritize which units he wants to move and try to keep a coherent line going knowing he'll probably fail a command check before everyone moves. This reminds me of C&C in the way that the battle sometimes develops quickly on one section of the field and remains static in another. The player can take care to try and even out the successful activations in the line but this can lead to losing the initiative in another portion of the field. The Move/Countermove dynamic of C&C seems to be present here. It will definitely drive players used to having full control nuts. For me, it's ok. I just have to adjust my tactics accordingly.

In the match, the superiority of the Hoplite heavy infantry versus the African medium infantry was clear. For our next match I think I'll switch to the proper Syracusan list to even things out a bit. That list has worse hoplites and a chance to field some barbarian mercenaries. Don't be fooled into thinking the Hail Caesar lists are balanced for competitive play as they are not. You need to work together with your opponents to get enjoyable games.

Warcon 2012: ASL, Musket&Pike and Force on Force

Warcon, a small con held under the wing of the Finnish boardgames association was held in the city of Tampere this year, and I was able to attend for one day instead of the full weekend. I wasn't disappointed though as I got all the games on my wishlist played.

Third Reich being played at Warcon. It seems Germany again makes the mistake of letting political leaders determine military strategy.

First I played a pre-con game of ASL with a local player at his apartment. Nearly all the games of ASL I've played have been against the same opponent I've learned the rules with, so there were some fundamental errors we had made in our interpretation of the rules, it seems. Anyway, the scenario was D - Hedgehog of Piepsk. The scenario pits an overwhelming horde of Soviet conscripts against a few German squads hidden in a village. The Germans are badly outnumbered but have off-board artillery and deploy hidden. I won the match pretty much by marching over the defenders with conscripts and engaging them in melee. Didn't seem very balanced but I had a good time and had a chance to repair some falsely learned rules. Here's some pictures with commentary in the images:

I said goodbye to my opponent and went to the Warcon venue. The previous years have seen the event held in a cramped space in Helsinki with little to none parking space and expensive lodging. This years' event was held in Tampere at a cafeteria of the local stadium and I found it had plenty of playing space and good parking. You could also sleep on the floor there if on a tight budget. An excellent choice! I hope the event will be organized there for years to come.

Napoleon's triumph.

An excellent looking Lovecraftian skirmish game.

Investigators!

Cultists!

Monsters!

A gloomy atmosphere in the countryside of New England.

My second game for the day was a prearranged Musket&Pike match. We played the battle of Breitenfeld, which was the largest battle of the 30 years war. I've only played small games before and this one was way bigger than the ones before. The Musket&Pike system scales well however, and moving tens of thousands of men was quite quick once you decided what to do with them. Commentary embedded in the pictures again, I think the situation is easier to make out that way.

 In a nutshell the Swedish attacked on the right half of the field with good timing and rolls. The Catholics had a hard time defending and their cavalry all but melted away. My opponent suffered from rotten rolls, but he could have pressed against the Saxon wing of the Swedish army more aggressively, as they were poor quality troops and collapsed as soon as he started attacking them. We determined the game was already decided at the end of turn 5 of 12, and called it a day. The Catholics had lost several units more than the Swedes, as well as their army commander. The Catholics still had a chance I think, but it would have been an uphill struggle, especially with practically no way of preventing the Swedes from rolling over their artillery (very costly in VP's).

Casualties of the day.

My last game for the day was a game of Force on Force. I've heard a lot of good things about the rules and I was interested to try them out. Luckily the local wargamers brought a demo game to the event and had time to play it with me.

The scenario was set during a fictional escalation of Cold War hostilities in Europe. Soviet forces attack a small village held by Dutch troops. Both sides had about a platoon of troops and the Soviets also had a platoon of armored troop transports. The goal of the Soviets was to take the crossroads and prevent the defenders from getting away.

Opening setup. Soviets enter from the roads to the top, bottom and right of this image. Dutch troops hold the buildings.

The Soviets advance in the cover of the woods.

Dutch snipers open fire on the Soviet squad on the road.

The APC's open fire on the building but are all but destroyed themselves by the return fire.

A firefight ensues on the streets. The Dutch evacuate the buildings and the Soviets occupy the vacated territory.

Situation at the end. The APC platoon is destroyed and the Soviet forces have suffered casualties while taking the crossroads. All Dutch units are incapacitated.

The game was quick to learn and fast to play, exactly what I like in a miniatures game. The rules we used were quite basic though, and I didn't see what "it" was that makes the rules so highly thought of. Probably I'd need a game with the advanced stuff to become a convert, but it was great fun nonetheless!

At that point the clock was past 3 AM, and I had to drive to a wedding in Jyväskylä the next day, so I called it a night. I had a great day of games and got plenty of ideas for future projects.

Red Winter in progress as I prepare to leave in the morning.