Warcon 2013

This year's Warcon (held in Tampere, Finland) was a treat as always. I managed to keep playing through the weekend with only minimal downtime and tried quite a few new wargames.

Sword of Rome

Sword of Rome is GMT's card driven strategy boardgame set in the Camillan period of Rome (I think). It puts the Romans, Gauls, Phoenicians, Samnites, Syracusans and Carthaginians on the board to solve their disputes with some dice rolling and maneouvering.

We played a four player game. I got the Gauls.

After some successful campaigning (looting the countryside that is) the Gauls threaten Rome herself. Brennus besieges Rome but is unable to make her surrender.

I neglect to protect my rear and the transalpine Gauls invade. The support of my home cities crumble and disaster is near.

With sage advice from an experienced player, I stab the Phoenicians in the back, claiming enough victories to resume control of my home territories.

In the end, the Phoenicians were totally wiped out and Rome was barely hanging on. After learning a valuable lesson on protecting my rear, I went on to grab a tiebreaker victory from the Greeks.




 Commands & Colors: Napoleonics

A quick filler game of C&C:N to finish friday. I don't remember the scenario but my brits and portuguese troops were soundly beaten.

Labyrinth: The War on Terror 2001 - ?

GMT's Successor to Twilight Struggle, Labyrinth is a card driven game where the United States attempts to stem the rising Islamist extremism in the Middle East and Europe.

I was a first timer playing versus someone who had played the game some times before, so I picked US because I thought it would be easier to play for the first time.

My opponent's opening play was to dump all terrorist cells in Afghanistan on the first round. He explained to me that the move was pretty much the best one could do in the game at this point. I responded by putting some boots on the ground and by overthrowing the Islamist regime.

My opponent then spread his cells to the neighboring Pakistan managing to overthrown the local government. I retaliated again by sending troops, but unfortunately not before the Islamists had helped themselves to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal!

The results were predictable. With a few moves I was unable to stop he moved his terrorist cells through Europe to the United States and blew up a nuke there. Game Over.

The game felt somewhat confusing and after the brief game I still don't have an idea on how to play or stop the terrorist infiltrators. I think I'll need a game or two more to wrap my head around the game.


Maria

Maria is Histogame's game set in the Austrian War of Succession in the 1700's. It is the successor of Friedrich and I have played it a few times now. It is one of the better three player wargames out there but not exactly balanced. Prussia wins often, France sometimes and Austria rarely. I was teaching the game to two new players so I naturally picked Austria.

After a traditional slugfest between Austria and France, the Austrians are left with little to pit against Frederick the Great.

The surprise comes from the French front, however as the Pragmatic army defeats the French and bring the game to a conclusion before the Prussians get a chance. This I've never seen before (although both Prussia and the Pragmatics are played by the same player)

Black Powder ACW

My first game of Black Powder and for me the main event of Warcon. We played the battle for the Wheatfield (Gettysburg) on a regimental level and fun was had by all. I'll write up a dedicated post on the game itself as it deserves it's own entry.

Epic Armageddon

My return to the grim darkness of the 41st millenium is in 6mm. A fellow gamer who has participated in some of my ACW games was happy to show me the ropes.

The Dark Angels and the Tyranids fight over a city on a not so grim and dark green planet.

The Marines capture a block while the Tyranids quicly capture most of the city.

*Scuttle Scuttle*

The buildings provide a good firebase

The tyranids charge the marine positions and reach melee range but are ultimately driven back.

The Marines take the city.

My opponent had put a bit more effort in his models than I had.

The game felt good and I decided then and there to expand my marines to a proper tournament sized army. I'm sure my opponent pulled some of his punches to spare the newbie so the next game won't be quite as easy.



Pax Baltica

I was interested to try this out. Another GMT game, Pax Baltica is a block wargame where two players play through the twilight era of Sweden as a great world power.

On the first turn the Swedes invade Estonia. This proves to be a mistake as the Russians are in range to counterattack and drinve them back into the sea.

Swedish armies are quick to raise but it takes time to get them across the Baltic sea. All invasion attempts are blocked.

The Russians can now spare some troops and invade my real life hometown in Finland.

The Swedish wise up and attempt a new invasion into the German territories, but Saxony has already gained too much strength and are more than a match for the Swedes.

The final battle ends with the Swedish king left alone on the field with one point as the attackers are forced to retreat. We call it a game at this point.

Either my opponent should have made a different opening play, we played the rules wrong or the rules are broken because it was next to impossible for the Swedes to gain a beachhead in the Baltics or in Germany. It's a fresh scenario though, not many GNW games around.



Commands & Colors: Ancients

I had just enough time left on Sunday to play a game of C&C:A. We played the battle of Marathon from the Greek expansion.

Opening setup. I got to play the Greeks.

With two consecutive "Order line" commands, I made simultaneous contact to the Persian line with all my troops.

The Persians line falters.

I add insult to injury with a card that allows me to hit with every unit adjacent to the enemy.

The Persian made a good comeback and only lost 6-5.

So, there it was, another thoroughly enjoyable con with lots of games to play. I'll end with some snaps from games I did not participate in.

Space Empires 4X

Red Winter

Europe Engulfed

Veli Veljeä Vastaan, a prototype wargame of the Finnish Civil War.

Manoeuvre.

Europe Engulfed, some 11 hours later.

Sword of Rome was really popular this year.

Nuklear Winter something something.

Sunday evening Maria

A session of Maria for this sunday with Hiluksi and Jerno, the same people I've played the last three matches with. Our main interest was to see if with the lessons we had learned earlier we could prevent Prussia from winning yet again. It all hinged on Austria's aggression level, but as we found out, there's some strategic tricks the French can perform as well.

The aforementioned trick was carried out on the first turn. France moved one of the the armies it had against the Austrians back onto the Flanders map to face off against the Austrians and the Pragmatic army there. The reasoning behind this was that the pressure against Austria in the "Austria Proper" area would be diminished, so Austria could dedicate more forces against Prussia. The French would also have a better chance against the Pragmatics in Flanders now. The manoeuver couldn't be done without the moving army ending up out of supply, but it was only going to suffer during one turn. This shift combined with the fact that the Pragmatics simply forgot to move their rearmost armies during the first turn meant that the French were controlling the tempo on the Flanders map. Since it was well into the second turn that anyone noticed the mistake made by the Pragmatics, we decided not to rectify, as the French had already completed their next move.

The Austrians had learned their lesson and started to accept minor defeats against the Prussians to slow them down instead of burning all their cards in the opening stages. This worked well enough, and the Prussian advance became sluggish. What the Austrians erred on however, was that they left too few troops against the powerful Bohemian army, which capitalised on the situation at once.

By the end of the first year, the French were in control of the HRE electorate and in a strong position on both maps. The Prussians all but controlled Silesia, but also the Austrians were still very much in the game at this point.

The second year began with an important political event, the Imperial election. This meant that at the end of the turn, either France or Austria would get a permanent victory point. France started with an all out assault on all fronts, since their hand was quite strong. They fought 6 battles that turn I think, with only one defeat. At the end of their turn they were only one point away from victory, and this point would be granted by the election, should it go to the French.

The Prussians and the Austrians buried the hatchet on one front. The Prussians gave way to the Austrians so that they could retake the critical electorate city of Prague to tip the election away from the French. This carried the game to the next turn. On this turn however, the French won the game as their military campaigns had been succesful enough to take a handful of fortresses without facing opposition on this last turn.

Endgame at the Flanders map. The Pragmatics went out of supply during the previous turn after a misplacement of their supply train. It did cost the French one army though.

During the game, the toughest fighting was between the French and the Pragmatics, each claiming victories against each other, and between Austria and Saxony (a bit of a suprise). Austria attacked Saxony at the end of the first year and they both burned through a lot of cards. Austria won in the end and destroyed the Saxon army.

The final turn in Austria. The Bohemian army marched unopposed taking cities left and right, winning the game for the French.

It was refreshing to see someone else than Prussia winning the game. The army shift by the French and Austria being more careful made all the difference. Maria has been criticised by many thinking that the role of Austria is simply to act as kingmaker, but it certainly wasn't the case here. Next time, I think it will be my turn to play Austria so it'll be interesting if I can come close to a victory this time.

Maria

Last night we played a session of Maria, a wargame covering the Austrian war of succession. The game is played with three players, one controlling Austria, one Prussia and one France. The Prussian player also controls the "pragmatic army", giving him an interesting role in the game. Prussia and France are allied against Austria but Austria and the pragmatic army are allied against the French! One player has the role of playing both sides, but since there is only one winner in Maria, the mechanic works quite well.

Austria ponders his predicament as France prepares to deal punishment in spades. (in spades, get it? Ha Ha.)

The game features the politics, movements and battles of the period on a very abstract level. Fuelling every phase of the game is the nation's hand of ordinary playing cards, which he must learn to use sparingly and effectively in order to win. Spend all your cards to win that one battle and you won't have cards left to buy reinforcements or have an effect on the political phase. Spending too much in any one area of the game leads to the other parts suffering.

In our session, the game was decided on the Silesian front. While on the Flanders front Austria was busy taking the undefended towns of northern France and the pragmatics fighting it out with France over the control of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrians were neck deep in trouble with the Prussians. In Maria, the map is divided into squares, each of which is marked with a suite of a playing card. This signifies the suite of cards which can be played in battle by troops fighting in this area. A boardgamey mechanic, but it forces the players to try and choose areas in which they  meet their enemies based on which suite their hand is strong in. As it happens, Austria's opening hand was weak in hearts, which was the suite on the area where the Prussian attack came through. Austria managed to slip with small casualties in the opening skirmishes, but lost two whole armies towards the end of the first year due to not being able to match Prussia in either forces or cards, and not being able to retreat to a more suitable area either. A large army under Neipperg was destroyed because Frederick the Great swung around his flank and cut off his line of retreat. In the end of the first year, the Austrian line versus Prussia was all but gone. This coupled with the effect that Austria fought a bitter battle against the French, burning a whole lot of cards in the process and thus not being able to buy much troops in the winter turn, meant that Austria didn't have much chances to block the Prussian advance in the next year. Two more turns and a couple of Austrian defeats later, Prussia won the game.

Austria and France deal more and more cards into the battle, burning through their hand.

The third session of Maria for me, and the third victory for Prussia. I'd say that the game is unbalanced but the talk on the Internets is that France has the advantage in the game. This leads me to think that Austria plays a crucial role in the game. If they are unlucky or too bold in the opening turns, they will give Prussia the advantage. In our games we have not yet learned to be cautious with Austria even though I think the best strategy for them is to accept small defeats in the first year and try to conserve their cards for a proper army. We'll just have to see about that in our next game.

As a boardgame, Maria is pretty unforgiving against reckless or inexperienced play. The game can easily be decided in one bad move or costly battle. As such, it isn't easy to get into, but the rules are simple enough. 

The end. The Prussian armies push the Austrians back, leaving the vital victory locations to Frederick.

This game was powered by Balvenie 14 yr. "Golden Cask" and Vat69. And beer.