The Siege of the Emerald City - Wars of Ozz AAR

I was able to play in three full games while attending Fall In this year. Unfortunately my first two games on Friday were cancelled, and I slept poorly enough that I had to skip the first (I wasn't going to drive three hours to Lancaster on the same amount of sleep). 

So after wandering around for a few hours, I played in a siege scenario for Wars of Ozz, one of the newer sets of rules from Buck Surdu, miniatures from Old Glory, and setting from Chris Palmer (who was running the game). I'd seen the rules here any there online but hadn't had an opportunity to play, so I decided to jump in when I saw there was a spot open. 

Wars of Ozz takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic Earth that has ended up resembling the Oz of Frank Baum's imagination with a slight twist, like introducing 18th century technology.

Two brigades of Winkies with Skeleton and Dire Bear allies marched on the walls of the Emerald City. The defenders, two brigades of Munchkins, waited for the assault. 

Behind them, the perfidious Gnomes (or Nomes?), allies of the Winkies, had blown a hole in the walls of the Emerald City and came pouring out. Luckily, the Munchkins' allies, the Quadlings, had been garrisoned in the city and would counter the Gnomish ambush. 

I was commanding one brigade of Munchkins for the game, consisting of the named Zoraster’s Guard regiment, a Munchkin Landwehr regiment, a Heavy Cavalry squadron, and a light gun. 

I was facing off against a Winkie brigade which had a regiment of Skeletons, a regiment of close-combat infantry with spears, a regiment of Marksmen (the only Winkie regiment with guns), and a heavy gun. 

The Quadlings quickly advanced against the Gnomes, with two musket-armed regiments and a unit of Tin Woodsmen. To keep the Gnomes contained in the city, the Munchkins diverted a cavalry squadron to attack the Gnomish rear. 

The cavalry charge was successful, and the artillerygnomes were chases off. 

Meanwhile, the Winkies had moved their Marksmen to their far flank while their close-combat infantry concentrated on the center of the Munckins' defensive line. 

My Heavy Cavalry seemed reluctant to get stuck in the Marksmen, but they were at least keeping the musket-armed Winkies out of the fight. 

The Munchkin forces on the other side of the table were much harder pressed, dealing not only Winkie infantry but Dire Bears as well. 

The Quadling brigade was holding firm in dealing with the Gnomes, who had decided to continue pushing into the city rather than try and break out into the Munckins' flank. After taking a beating, the Gnomes began to rout back into the hole rather than run into any more of the Quadlings musket fire. 

My personal MVP for the game was this regiment of Munchkin Landwehr, who not only defeated the undead Skeletons but also held their nerve in the face of charging Winkies.

Wars of Ozz uses a very clever set of reaction charts that are different for each faction. A unit of Munckins, for example, is likely to fire upon a unit that fires at them, while Winkies are likely to surge forward into melee. This can be modified by the number of bases lost, or if a commander has joined the unit. 

There were several occasions when engagements (like the above) seemed to take a life on their own as units reacted to each other, devolving into a mess of melee, musketry, and eventually failed morale checks. 

The game ended with a victory for the forces of the Emerald City. While the Munchkins had been bloodied, they had rallied back into a defensive line while many of the Winkie units were routing. And the Quadlings were just waiting for the Gnomes to fully retreat before they could march out of the city to reinforce the Munchkins.

I had a great time while playing. The rules were easy to pick up and interesting to play, and the miniatures and table were fantastic. Chris ended up winning the "Pour Les Encourager Les Autres" award for the best game in the Friday night time slot, which was well deserved!

As no one plays in my local area, I only ended up buying a regiment of Munchkin Landwehr to paint for fun, in honor of the brave troops that served so well during the game. 

Painting Update - Strength & Honour Terrain

The blog has been quiet for a bit, but I'm back with some painting updates. 

 

I've been working on some terrain for Strength & Honour. Korhyl makes some great city tiles that are the same size as in-game units, so I bought two of them. 

I also purchased a set of the farms/villas for more, smaller built-up areas. 

Strength & Honour uses camps, and while the 2d paper printouts are nice, I do prefer 3d versions. This half of a Roman cmoamp is perfect for using either out on the frontiers or deal with civil wars. 

 

 

And finally, I also completed a couple of generic wagon circles for any non-Roman opponents.

Failure to Launch - Castles in the Sky AAR

For Septembers SJGA club meetup, I offered to run an intro game of "Castles in the Sky", one of Osprey's newest entries in their wargaming rules series. 

The scenario was an ambush set in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese players needed to escort, or protect a dreadnought (with no weapons), while the Americans needed to destroy it. 

I let the Americans set up one of their squadrons in a cloudbank on their half of the table as an ambush that would be spotted when the Japanese came within short range distance of it. They chose the center cloud bank.

The Japanese players led the dreadnought around the left side of the table, directly towards the American's ambush spot. 

Long range fire didn't result in much damage, but did put friction on both sides (the ruleset's way of messing with command and control). 

The battle quickly turned into a giant furball as the Americans sprung their ambush.

Unfortunately, the previous turns had taken so long that we had to end the game before there was any decisive results, which was discouraging. Unfortunately I think the game failed to impress.

Observations that I made:

+The group liked the core mechanics of the game

+If the players knew the rules, it would have gone better, instead of a single turn taking an hour or more.

-Players thought I started the fleets too far apart, which did keep the action from happening earlier on. I probably should have started both sides closer by 6"-12", maybe even closer.

-There were too many ships for too many new players. I probably should have only had them running 3, or even just 2, ships each.

-I needed something other than dice to indicate altitude. Chits would have been a better choice.

This project will probably get shelved for a while. 

Painting Update - Castles in the Sky

Here's a look at the Japanese fleets for Castles in the Skies (which I had just finished on the day of the club game).

The Japanese first squadron consisted of a Yamashiro-class battleship, two Akeshi-class light cruisers, a Nagatsaki-class destroyer, and a Mikasa class frigate.

The second and third Japanese squadron consisted of a Yashima-class battleship, a Yakumo-class heavy cruiser, a Nagatsaki-class destroyer, and a Mikasa class frigate.

The objective of the game was for the Japanese to defend a Shinano-class dreadnought that had inactive weapons. 

Painting Update - Castles in the Sky

There's no after action report this week, so let's take a look at what I've been painting: 

I've been working on a club game with the somewhat new rules for aerial naval combat, "Castles in the Skies." I decided to put together two fleets, split into three squadron for a six-player game. 

The first American squadron has a Lincoln-class battleship, a Lexington-class battlecruiser, a Brooklyn-class destroyer, a Decatur-class Frigate, and a Saginaw-class frigate.

The second American squadron has a New York-class battleship, a Maryland-class cruiser, a Brooklyn-class cruiser, two Decatur-class frigates, and a Saginaw-class frigate.

The third American squadron has a Maine-class battleship, a Maryland-class cruiser, a Brooklyn-class cruiser, a Decatur-class frigate, and two Saginaw-class frigates.