Demo Games - SAGA AAR

As I mentioned last week, I'm here in Dublin for a study abroad program. I met up with Greg (quozl on several forums) after conversing with him over several emails, and he brought a pair of warbands for Saga to demo the game for me.

Both games were fought with the same scenario, which places a river down the center of the table separating the two players' warbands. There are only two places where the river can be crossed (which you'll see in the pictures).

My plan was to basically rush forward. Greg's Irish were a 'shoot-and-scoot' faction, as he explained it to me, with everything except the wolfhounds carrying javelins. While this makes relatively fragile in combat, Greg quickly demonstrated that getting into axe and sword distance of the Irish would be a gaunlet of flying pointy sticks.

With a 3-action combination on the Battleboard, the Irish javelins went from flying pointy sticks to being flying pointy sticks with heatseeking capabilities and exploding armor piercing tips.

The above is just such an example. The group of warriors crossing the river started at 8 strong, and and was reduced by have in a single turn. Of course, terrible dice rolling on my part didn't help at all.

The left flank was the first to fall, with my warriors and Hearthguard falling to sustained javelin attacks and with the jaws of wolfhounds clenched around their throats.

The right side didn't fair much better. The Irish Cuiradh (mini-warlords) and a unit of warriors did the same to my Warlord and his men as the Irish did to the vikings on the left. At the end it was a desperate charge by the Warlord that ended the game, with him falling victim to the Irish and looking like a giant pin-cushion. 

Greg asked if I was up for a second game, and I definitely was. So we reset the table and switched factions.

Wanting to try and copy Greg's tactics (the best sort of flattery) I placed a forest on his right which would allow me to throw javelins via my Battleboard (simulating the sneaky Irish fighting from rough terrain). Greg, on the other hand, found quite a powerful combination of actions that allowed his vikings to fly across the table - I'll be remembering that for sure!

I screwed up my deployment by placing my Irish within the Viking's movement range in the very first turn. Luckily I had screened my Hearthguard unit with my wolfhounds, which took the brunt of the initial Viking charge. Most of the action took place on my right, with the two Curaidhs and a unit of Warriors holding down the left (and being very important in the end!

The fighting on the right was fierce, with Greg slamming his vikings repeatedly into my own warriors. I wasn't as cunning as Greg was when he had the Irish, and so the Vikings tore apart my large Hearthguard unit and left only my warlord and a single dog. The dog didn't last long, and neither did my Warlord.

Incredibly, Greg had managed to save every single one of his units with just a single model in each, so he still had all 6 of his Saga dice in play. With only two Curaidhs and a unit of Warriors, I could only manage 3. Luckily, the Curaidhs could make a action for free on their own, so I could manage with two Saga dice for actions.

With the victory conditions for the game being the number of men you had gotten over the river, I realized with a quick count that if I could kill off the warriors awaiting on the opposite side of the river I could tie Greg's current score. I took a gamble and situated my Saga dice so I could effect some decent ranged combat.

With some lucky dice rolling, I managed to kill off the remaining vikings on the opposite side of the river. Greg and I decided to call the game at that point - I still had enough Dice and warriors left that if I holed up in the rough terrain of the woods Greg would have a tough time dislodging me, and I wasn't about to run up to the remaining Viking warlord and his surviving warriors to try and knock them out, lest they severely mess up my own few remaining troops.

And that was my first two games of Saga! I think I'm hooked - I'm already looking at picking up the Viking and Anglo-Danish starter warbands for myself...

Painting Update - FIW

I finally managed to finish up the full units worth of militia-type infantry for TVG, which means that with a few Indians to sprinkle in on both sides I'll have a decent amount of painted minis to have a game with.

They certainly are more colorful than their British counterparts. 

Sorry about the lack of 'pose' pictures like in the other post. I'll try to get them when I'm back in the states.

Oh, hang on, did I mention that I was spending 6 weeks in Dublin? Huh. Yeah, well, that's happening, so I'm going to try and keep posting while I'm here. I've managed to find Gamers World, the only independent game store in the city (and oddly located no less than a black away from the only Games Workshop location as well), and I've managed to set up a demo game of Saga with one of the locals. Expect that next week.

Also, I've only just realized that 4Ground came out with a set of North American settler cabins in 15mm. Pretty convenient, and they're nice looking to boot! Looks like I won't need their Russian cabins as substitutes, then.

Anachronism - Rules Review

I'm back!

Sorry about the lateness of this. The past few weeks have been particularly hectic for me. With the end of the school semester and planning for my trip to Dublin, I didn't have much time to do anything gaming related, and so the blog suffered. Now that I've adjusted myself to Dublin and have settled in a little bit, I can hopefully get a few posts in. Expect them to be a bit erratic, however, since I'm not entirely confident of my ability to produce content while trying to keep up with classes while touring as much of Ireland as possible.

As such, here's a mini-review of a little gem of a game I happen to enjoy.

Anachronism is one of those games I stumbled upon a couple of years ago, picked up a few items, and then promptly tucked it away in the closet. I found it again recently, and so have decided to pick it up again, especially since the cards are so cheap nowadays. Produced by TriKing Games from 2005 to 2007, Anachronism is a game in which players place the greatest of history's warriors against each other in quick, brutal arena combat.

The game's main component is cards - lots of them. There are five kinds of cards, and each player uses a 'deck' of five cards in a game. The most important of these are the Warrior cards, which act as the physical representation of your combatant in the arena. These also show your warrior's four stats: Life (hit points), Speed (how many actions they can take in their turn), Experience (mostly used as a tiebreaker, but can determine other effects), and Damage (how much damage they can do with a basic attack, i.e. one without an equipped weapon). Most Warrior cards also have some sort of special effect or ability that they may be able to do once a game, or may change how some cards or actions affect them.

The other card types are the various types of equipment that can be given to your warrior to fight with, and can be any combinations of Inspiration, Weapon, Armor, and Special cards.

The game takes place over fire rounds. The two warriors are placed in a 4x4 square arena on opposite sides, and both players take their other four cards and place them face down in a row. This is where the game gets interesting. In rounds one through four, a card is flipped from left to right. These cards determine a warriors initiative (who goes first in the round) and can have a number of effects, from adding combat damage, to repositioning warriors, to negating damage or other effects. Cards of the same type cancel each other, so you can't equip your warrior with four rounds worth of armor, for example. In the fifth round, experience determines initiative, and the warriors get one more chance to either kill his opponent, or finish with the most Life - the winner is the warrior left alive (obviously) or the one with the highest Life left.

Where the game really gets interesting is when you start switching cards up. Julius Caesar seems interesting enough with a Gladius and leather Lorica and worshiping Jupitor, but what if you gave him a Katana, Hoplite armor, and made him worship Loki? Even though its OOP, there are still enough cards floating around that a small collection isn't all that hard to collect. And they're cheap, too - 16 packs for $20 is the norm online. That actually gets you some 60+ cards to mix and match.

And these aren't cheap cards - in fact, they're so thick that they tend to warp a little from their own thickness, which isn't all that noticeable. A really cheap set of card protectors can keep them pristine and ready for play at any time.

So, that's Anachronism! If you can, grab a starter box and one of the later sets (which is when the cards starting getting better with more flavor). It's a cheap and fun little game to pull out for a quick match.

Painting Update - FIW, WWII, ACW

Ok, so I've been pretty terrible at updating on time for the past two weeks. I'm going to try and fix that.

Anyway, just another small update on what I'm working on at the moment.

It's combination of the last few tanks for my British force in 15mm (for Flames of War and, hopefully soon, Battlegroup Overlord), French, British and Indians for French Indian War in 15mm, and the last of the Union miniatures that came with the Battle Cry boardgame.

They're about 20mm in scale, and the detail isn't really all that great. But if the Generals and Cavalry are anything to go off of, then the Infantry and Artillery should at least paint up nicely. I'll have to get a game or two of this up on the blog - I have a small campaign going using the scenarios that come in the book. 

Morning Battle at Fox Gap - Regimental Fire and Fury AAR

One of the interests in military history I've always harbored has been the American Civil War. As I write this, 15mm Confederate troops and Union Iron Brigade infantry sit in the darkness of my closet, waiting for the time when my attention comes back to them. I even tried my hand at reenacting, which may have worked out had I not been the youngest member in the (tiny) group by 10+ years.

Luckily, I was apparently a decent enough guest during Ken's last game - he's the guy who ran the Battlegroup Kursk game I covered a few weeks ago - that he invited me back over to try out a scenario for Regimental Fire and Fury. RFF is the (obviously) regimental sized version of the originally brigade sized set of rules for running battles during the American Civil War. Ken was also kind enough to not only provide the terrain and models, but to turn back time in the solo game he had last week.

Now, for the scenario:
"The spring and summer of 1862 had seen the Army of Northern Virginia defeat two powerful Union armies, one under McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign and one under Pope in the battles near Manassas in northern Virginia. The defeated union forces had fled back to Washington and the security of its fortifications. The victorious General Robert E. Lee was then faced with an important strategic decision … how he and his soldiers would maintain the initiative and set the stage for a Confederate victory in the war.

Lee and the Southern leadership agreed that the best course of action was for Confederate
forces to carry the war north. So Lee took his soldiers across the Potomac and for the first time since the commencement of the war nearly a year and half earlier, led a Confederate army onto Union soil. However, almost from the start, things did not go as planned. The Union garrison at Harper’s Ferry did not flee in the face of the advancing Confederates, but dug in and waited for battle.

Additionally, McClellan used his extraordinary administrative talents to quickly organize the demoralized Union forces near Washington into a new Army of the Potomac. He then also moved to counter Lee’s invasion with uncharacteristic alacrity.

After crossing the Potomac River into Maryland north of Leesburg, Virginia, the Army of Northern Virginia continued north and captured Frederick. At this point, Lee divided his army with some troops marching to invest Harpers Ferry while others moved west across South Mountain toward Hagerstown … only D. H. Hill’s Division andsome of Stuart’s cavalry were left to act as a rear guard. Unfortunately for the Confederates, McClellan and the Army of the Potomac were now in pursuit and the Union forces marched toward Frederick and South Mountain in multi-corps strength.

On September 14, pitched battles were fought for possession of the three main South Mountain passes: Crampton, Turner, and Fox's Gap. By dusk the outnumbered Confederate defenders were driven back and McClellan was in position to destroy Lee’s army before it could concentrate. However, McClellan’s limited activity on September 15 after his victory at South Mountain condemned the garrison at Harpers Ferry to capture and gave Lee time to unite his scattered divisions at Sharpsburg."

Phew! That's a whole lot of words. Don't worry - pictures will be coming soon.

So how did the game go? In short, it was most certainly a lesson in how troop motivation and training is worth more than sheer numbers in an order of magnitudes. Ken's Crack and Veteran rated Confederates slapped around my Trained and Green Union troopers. This was truly a case of history being rewritten.

Battle at Fox Gap

The battle was mostly focused on the center of the hill, with smaller fights taking place on the left with the 23rd Ohio (and wasn't that a riot) and by the Martz house on the right. It was a pretty mobile battle, with both sides have taken the hill at one point or another. The Confederates made an amazing show of it, not only pushing their Union counterparts off the hill in an assault but then throwing back a counter-assault by a Union force that had them outnumbered 4:1. Col. Garland, defying history and living through the battle, led the Confederate troops brilliantly, dashing back and forth to keep his men steady.

On the left, Col. Rutherford B. Hayes led the 23rd Ohio into battle. Well, I use the word 'led', but to be honest the guy was either back at camp napping or hiding in the back of the whole scrum. In a fight against a bunch of hicks armed with smoothbores and hunting shotguns, the 23rd broke not once, but twice, leaving my left flank completely open! Ken's 5th North Carolina (a large Veteran regiment) never entered into combat for the entire battle, opting to instead have the dismounted cavalry show the damnyankees what's what. With such a poor showing, I don't expect Chicken Hayes to be running for President in this timeline.

On the right, the 30th Ohio, led by Col. Scammon, made their way towards the woods behind the Martz house, held by a single small unit of Crack Confederate infantry. In another amazing upset, the Rebs not only survived the 30th's fire (being outnumbered 2:1 none withstanding), but they managed to send back a withering volley of their own. The 30th, completely caught off-balance by the terrible damage done, panicked and ran for their lives. Luckily, Scammon managed to rally his men, only to have them run out of ammo while returning fire. Luckily, the appearance of Col. Cox and several fresh (if Green) regiments bolstered the attacking Union troops, and they tried their hand again at the offensive.

Unfortunately, with the appearance of new Confederate troops that mauled the regiment Cox had taken command of himself, the attack on the right bogged down. On the hill, most of the Union troops had run out of ammo, and the Confederates had fallen back to defensive positions covered by a few batteries of artillery. And with the 23rd in chaos again, I decided that it was best to pull back and let some other commander have a go at the Rebels. Ken and his Confederates managed to not only hold off the Union assault, but also gave the boys in blue a bloody nose they won't soon forget!

This was a number I would become familiar with over the course of the battle.

An overhead shot of the battlefield.

Another shot from a different angle.

The 23rd engage the North Carolinian cavalry.

Union troops catch their breath as the rebels advance up the hill.

The boys from Carolina hold their own against the Union troops.

The 12th takes a beating as they hold the top of the hill. 

But rebel yells echo loudly as the Union troops are forced to retreat after an assault.

The 23rd breaks and runs for it.

This leaves the Union left wide open!

The 30th engages, but is subsequently beaten back.

The 12th and supporting West Virginian cavalry exchange fire with Rebel infantry. 

Ken's right consolidates and takes a breather.

The Union gets some welcome reinforcements!

Wait, what happened to the 30th?

Hm. No, still can't see them. 

Ah. There they are.

Scammon tries to rally his men as the arriving reinforcement watch on.

The fresh regiments triple time into position. 

Hayes manages to get the 23rd to face the right direction again. 

Ken's line of battle is in pretty good condition compared to mine!

The 23rd gets stuck back in with the North Carolinians. 

On the far right, Col. Cox leads more Ohio troops to try and outflank the Rebel line. 

I try to repair my own line as the 23rd re-engages. 

The 11th Ohio swings into battle to reinforce the battered 12th. 

More Union reinforcements rush forward to get into battle. It's not enough, however. 

Hoping to press the momentary advantage, the Union troops begin to push back. 

The 23rd begins to waver again...

"Let's hope you guys have better luck than we did."

Rebel reinforcements finally arrive, and Cox stops his flanking maneuver to confront the new enemy. 

A late battle overhead shot. 

The 11th and 12th prepare to retake the hill. 

But the Rebel defenders push a force four times their number back. And to add insult to injury, they move back off the top of the hill of their own choice. 

Hellfire and damnation! Chicken Hayes and the 23rd are running again!

Scammon has his hands full trying to keep the Union line in order. 

But the Rebs fall back into defensive positions. Union officers decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and leave the field of battle for another day.