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| Vickers HMG |
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| 2" Mortars |
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| 3" Mortars |
Sunday, 22 February 2015
More Vickers
Continuing to build my UK Western Desert forces, I bought a GHQ pack, UK-71, Individual Heavy Weapons. Unlike the plain vanilla UK pack, this one has a dozen Vickers machine guns, which is good. However there are no loaders supplied; the same is also true of the 3" mortars, where there are 18 models, each with one crew. There are a few officers pointing, and men prone with binoculars, who can be used to add a few figure to the bases, but they still look bare. These weapons should have 2-3 man crews. You also get plenty of Bren gunners and ATRs, which are fine - I am keeping these to add variety to the infantry bases.
Sunday, 8 February 2015
Vickers
One small gripe I have with GHQ is that their packs of UK Infantry Heavy Weapons are missing the Vickers HMG that is so characteristic of British infantry forces. The other Infantry Heavy Weapons packs - Desert, Sikh, Paras, Aussies - all feature plenty of them - eight I think. But if you want plain vanilla British HMGs, there is only the "Heavy Weapons" pack. This is one of the old style packs, with the whole crew moulded as a lump on the weapon, and in addition you only get four HMGs, along with four mortars and two ATRs. This is poor value, and in addition I don't like the style of those old packs (they were apparently created for Avalon Hill to fit with ASL).
So I have gone to Adler for a pack of HMGs (and a pack of 3" mortars as well). Adler are nice figures, the equal of GHQ in most cases, though a few of them have rather large heads. Good value too - the HMG pack had 12 guns in action, with three crews each, plus another 12 4-man crews advancing carrying the guns and ammo.
So I have gone to Adler for a pack of HMGs (and a pack of 3" mortars as well). Adler are nice figures, the equal of GHQ in most cases, though a few of them have rather large heads. Good value too - the HMG pack had 12 guns in action, with three crews each, plus another 12 4-man crews advancing carrying the guns and ammo.
Saturday, 7 February 2015
Blitzkrieg Commander II
A couple of YouTube videos piqued my interest, and I had another look at these rules. I bought the first edition about ten years ago, maybe more, and now I have purchased the second edition as a pdf. These rules are derived from a fantasy set called Warhammer (from Games Workshop), and the defining feature is the command system. Fighting units are activated to move or fire by command units rolling 2D6 to beat their "command value" - usually between 6 and 10. A commander can activate the same group of units several times - each subsequent command roll has a penalty, so it gets harder, but it is still possible to activate units several times in a turn. Famously in Warmaster a chariot unit could fight its way from one side of the board to the other in a single move. On the other hand if the command unit rolls high on its first try that is it. Sometimes the GHQ can intervene, but usually it means the units don't move at all that turn.
While it is good that commanders cannot plan everything without risk, this system seems to me to have a bit too much friction in it, too much variability, and while we can all point to cases where units spent an entire battle failing to move, this puts this rule set on the "gamey" end of the spectrum for me. However it is well written and flows smoothly, and the support is good, particularly the on-line force generator, which makes it very easy to create a force to any points value, and then print out the necessary information to play the battle.
I set up a battle, an assault by British troops (3000 points) on 2000 points of Germans in October 1944 (the force generator allows you to specify the date and limits the unit choices accordingly). Two infantry units supported by Cromwells advanced frontally, while another group of infantry and Churchills executed a flank attack. Both sides had off-board artillery, but this is rather ineffective in these rules - unless the observer is very close to the target there is a substantial drift which means that your shells are quite unlikely to hit their target. Plus, artillery can only fire once per turn. Much more effective is direct fire, especially as units can fire several times if the command rolls are good. German anti-tank and infantry guns dominated this game, knocking out three Cromwells out of four, plus a Challenger, and several infantry units - the central thrust by the British was almost completely stopped. The flank attack was more successful, getting in among the Germans, and killing a Hetzer and a couple of infantry units. However they were under constant fire from the PAK and iG guns on the hills, and this was too much to overcome. In BKC each force has a breakpoint (roughly half its unit count) and when this is reached it has to start taking a command test at the start of each turn. The British reached their limit of 13 units long before the Germans were close to theirs (7) and after a couple of turns the British failed a roll, and the game was over.
My feeling about these rules, as I have said, is that they make a good game. The mechanisms are very simple and consistent, with a single process for attacks of all kinds. There is very little need to refer to the rules during the game, and the printed unit sheets give all the numbers needed - a good set for a fun battle in a club, for example. But I didn't get much of a feel for the scale or nature of the battle. The game has two scales, units can represent platoons or squads, without any changes at all, and I think this indicates my point - they feel like game counters, rather than representing any specific historic unit. So I will use these rules for a fun game, but probably not for campaigns or to re-fight historic battles - they don't feel right for that.
While it is good that commanders cannot plan everything without risk, this system seems to me to have a bit too much friction in it, too much variability, and while we can all point to cases where units spent an entire battle failing to move, this puts this rule set on the "gamey" end of the spectrum for me. However it is well written and flows smoothly, and the support is good, particularly the on-line force generator, which makes it very easy to create a force to any points value, and then print out the necessary information to play the battle.
I set up a battle, an assault by British troops (3000 points) on 2000 points of Germans in October 1944 (the force generator allows you to specify the date and limits the unit choices accordingly). Two infantry units supported by Cromwells advanced frontally, while another group of infantry and Churchills executed a flank attack. Both sides had off-board artillery, but this is rather ineffective in these rules - unless the observer is very close to the target there is a substantial drift which means that your shells are quite unlikely to hit their target. Plus, artillery can only fire once per turn. Much more effective is direct fire, especially as units can fire several times if the command rolls are good. German anti-tank and infantry guns dominated this game, knocking out three Cromwells out of four, plus a Challenger, and several infantry units - the central thrust by the British was almost completely stopped. The flank attack was more successful, getting in among the Germans, and killing a Hetzer and a couple of infantry units. However they were under constant fire from the PAK and iG guns on the hills, and this was too much to overcome. In BKC each force has a breakpoint (roughly half its unit count) and when this is reached it has to start taking a command test at the start of each turn. The British reached their limit of 13 units long before the Germans were close to theirs (7) and after a couple of turns the British failed a roll, and the game was over.
My feeling about these rules, as I have said, is that they make a good game. The mechanisms are very simple and consistent, with a single process for attacks of all kinds. There is very little need to refer to the rules during the game, and the printed unit sheets give all the numbers needed - a good set for a fun battle in a club, for example. But I didn't get much of a feel for the scale or nature of the battle. The game has two scales, units can represent platoons or squads, without any changes at all, and I think this indicates my point - they feel like game counters, rather than representing any specific historic unit. So I will use these rules for a fun game, but probably not for campaigns or to re-fight historic battles - they don't feel right for that.
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| From behind the German lines. The British flank attack can be seen arriving top left |
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| The British flank force is advancing, but the rest of their units are in trouble further back |
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| The British main force. The Cromwell unit is reduced to one tank hiding in the centre wood |
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| Flank attack. The Hetzer in the field is suppressed. |
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| Near the end. The flank force has lost a Churchill and several infantry units |
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| Final positions from behind the British flank force entry point |
Saturday, 24 January 2015
Proper Shootouts
As I hinted in the previous post, I decided that playing a battle against 28 Apaches was not what I wanted from my Wild West game, whatever the dice suggested. So it turned out that Mandingo was sick when that patrol set off to the isolated blockhouse in the Wyoming desert, and Spring 1876 instead found him in the tiny frontier town of Sick Dog's Paw.
The first encounter was a Gunfight type 1 (G-1) which means a one-on-one shootout in the classic High Noon fashion. Rolling my opponent and the location I found that Mandingo had been challenged by an Outlaw in the Saloon. The outlaw had taken more redeye bourbon than was good for him, I assume. Rolling on the NPC table I found that the outlaw had a rep of 4, one less than Mandingo.
The shootout starts with a Draw test - each side rolls a number of D6 equal to their Rep, trying to get 1,2,3 as successes. As a Gunfighter Mandingo gets an extra die, so he rolled 6, Jake (the outlaw) rolled 4. Jake rolled just one success, while Mandingo got 4 - so he had three more successes. This means that the victor has "Got the Drop", and normally that gives the slower party a roll to see if he surrenders, or tries to carry on with the draw at a disadvantage. However Gunfighters (and outlaws) are different - if they get the drop they don't mess around with anything as chivalrous as letting the other fellow surrender, they just shoot. Furthermore, if any of their dice have rolled 3, as was the case here, then the opponent is Obviously Dead (which means what it says). So Mandingo emptied his gun into the upstart (and now late) Jake, and returned to his drink.
Later, we had another gunfight, and again we rolled a G-1. This time it was outside in the street, and the opponent was another Gunfighter. Indeed this would be a tougher test - rolling for the NPC we found that Mandingo faced an opponent with the same Rep (5) and Toughness (4) and a higher Sand (5).
So both sides rolled six dice in the Draw Test (Rep of 5 plus one for being a Gunfighter), and both scored two successes. This meant that they had both drawn and fired with no effect, and the game now proceeds to "normal" turns. In addition anyone who rolled a 1 on any of their dice would have emptied their gun - and this applied to Mandingo.
In the first turn they rolled for initiative, and both scored 4. A tie means that neither side can fire or move, but they can reload. This of course was exactly what Mandingo needed, and he duly did so.
Now on even terms, they rolled again for initiative. Mandingo scored 6, his opponent (Clint) scored 2. So Mandingo had the initiative, but it was not as simple as that. The winner can only take actions with characters whose Rep is at least as high as the initiative roll. In this case, with a roll of 6 and Mandingo's Rep of 5, that meant he could not take action, and it passed to Clint.
Clint now fired, two shots with his pistol. Adding his Rep to a single D6 he needed to score at least 8 for a hit, but two 2's meant two misses. Mandingo now needed to take a "Been Shot At" test, and being a Star (i.e. a main character) he was allowed to choose his reaction - so he chose to fire back.
As before there were two shots, adding Mandingo's Rep of 5 to a single die roll - and in this case adding another one because Mandingo has the Crackshot ability. He rolled a 6, and the total of 11+ meant that he could choose the hit location. He picked the head, but Clint had a "Been Hit" test with two rolls against his Toughness and passed them both, so it was just a graze. Mandingo rolled again, and again scored 11+. This time he picked the gut as the hit location, and Clint only passed one of his two rolls. That meant that he was out of action, and Mandingo had won.
After the fight Mandingo rolled for possible stat advancement and by scoring a 6 hs added one to his Sand score (Sand is effectively Nerve, or Coolness - a combination of courage and quick decision making).
My verdict on these fights? - "now this is more like it". Both of these engagements felt as they should, as simulations of the somewhat cinematic scenarios. In the first a foolish outlaw challenged the gunslinger and it was all over in a second - one roll of the dice, literally. In the second fight it was closer, two evenly matched opponents exchanged rapid fire until someone found the killing shot. All quick and clean - this is the sweet spot for these rules.
The first encounter was a Gunfight type 1 (G-1) which means a one-on-one shootout in the classic High Noon fashion. Rolling my opponent and the location I found that Mandingo had been challenged by an Outlaw in the Saloon. The outlaw had taken more redeye bourbon than was good for him, I assume. Rolling on the NPC table I found that the outlaw had a rep of 4, one less than Mandingo.
The shootout starts with a Draw test - each side rolls a number of D6 equal to their Rep, trying to get 1,2,3 as successes. As a Gunfighter Mandingo gets an extra die, so he rolled 6, Jake (the outlaw) rolled 4. Jake rolled just one success, while Mandingo got 4 - so he had three more successes. This means that the victor has "Got the Drop", and normally that gives the slower party a roll to see if he surrenders, or tries to carry on with the draw at a disadvantage. However Gunfighters (and outlaws) are different - if they get the drop they don't mess around with anything as chivalrous as letting the other fellow surrender, they just shoot. Furthermore, if any of their dice have rolled 3, as was the case here, then the opponent is Obviously Dead (which means what it says). So Mandingo emptied his gun into the upstart (and now late) Jake, and returned to his drink.
Later, we had another gunfight, and again we rolled a G-1. This time it was outside in the street, and the opponent was another Gunfighter. Indeed this would be a tougher test - rolling for the NPC we found that Mandingo faced an opponent with the same Rep (5) and Toughness (4) and a higher Sand (5).
So both sides rolled six dice in the Draw Test (Rep of 5 plus one for being a Gunfighter), and both scored two successes. This meant that they had both drawn and fired with no effect, and the game now proceeds to "normal" turns. In addition anyone who rolled a 1 on any of their dice would have emptied their gun - and this applied to Mandingo.
In the first turn they rolled for initiative, and both scored 4. A tie means that neither side can fire or move, but they can reload. This of course was exactly what Mandingo needed, and he duly did so.
Now on even terms, they rolled again for initiative. Mandingo scored 6, his opponent (Clint) scored 2. So Mandingo had the initiative, but it was not as simple as that. The winner can only take actions with characters whose Rep is at least as high as the initiative roll. In this case, with a roll of 6 and Mandingo's Rep of 5, that meant he could not take action, and it passed to Clint.
Clint now fired, two shots with his pistol. Adding his Rep to a single D6 he needed to score at least 8 for a hit, but two 2's meant two misses. Mandingo now needed to take a "Been Shot At" test, and being a Star (i.e. a main character) he was allowed to choose his reaction - so he chose to fire back.
As before there were two shots, adding Mandingo's Rep of 5 to a single die roll - and in this case adding another one because Mandingo has the Crackshot ability. He rolled a 6, and the total of 11+ meant that he could choose the hit location. He picked the head, but Clint had a "Been Hit" test with two rolls against his Toughness and passed them both, so it was just a graze. Mandingo rolled again, and again scored 11+. This time he picked the gut as the hit location, and Clint only passed one of his two rolls. That meant that he was out of action, and Mandingo had won.
After the fight Mandingo rolled for possible stat advancement and by scoring a 6 hs added one to his Sand score (Sand is effectively Nerve, or Coolness - a combination of courage and quick decision making).
My verdict on these fights? - "now this is more like it". Both of these engagements felt as they should, as simulations of the somewhat cinematic scenarios. In the first a foolish outlaw challenged the gunslinger and it was all over in a second - one roll of the dice, literally. In the second fight it was closer, two evenly matched opponents exchanged rapid fire until someone found the killing shot. All quick and clean - this is the sweet spot for these rules.
Thursday, 22 January 2015
Circle the wagons - both of them!
So finally I have painted up the Apache attackers, and bought and painted the two wagons I needed to play the holdup. I am using the Six Gun Sound (SGS) rules from Two Hour Wargames, though I have bolted on the In Sight reaction rules from the free Chain Reaction ruleset from the same company. That set is more recent than the SGS rules, and they say they plan to issue a new version of SGS soon. The Chain Reaction rules do seem to handle group encounters in a more understandable way.
Anyway my hero (or Star) is Mandingo, a Gunfighter character with stats of Rep 5, Toughness 3, Sand 4. In Spring of 1875 he is drifting in Wyoming, and has an encounter when a pair of wagons he is escorting is ambushed by Apaches. As well as Mandingo and two wagon drivers there are four Rangers in the escort, and the Apaches brought nine warriors with assorted weapons. All these things - type of encounter, size and number of each side and the detailed stats of each character, are rolled up on tables in the rules.
The Apaches were in three groups of three - in the picture one group is out of sight in the foreground. Mandingo was at the rear of the wagon train, with the rangers on either side. The Apaches moved forward under cover of the hills, until the group to the rear right of the wagons came over the crest and into Mandingo's sight.
One of the features of SGS is the exchanges of fire - two enemies don't just have a shot at each other - they blaze away and take reactions until one or the other has to stop - through being knocked down, forced to duck back or running out of ammo. This works well in small encounters, but can get confusing where substantial groups meet, as you have to follow one exchange down to a conclusion, and then go back "up" to run the next exchange. It gets particularly difficult when one man can fire at two or more opponents - this triggers "Been Shot At" reactions from each target. As I said I switched to the reaction tests for groups from Chain Reaction, which is a little simpler.
So, Mandingo fired at two of the attackers, and missed both. One ducked back behind the hill, but the other fired at Mandingo - and missed. Mandingo then fired back again and wounded him, knocking him out of the fight. Next the third Apache took his shot at Mandingo and again missed, and after another exchange the Apache was hit in the head and killed outright.
The second Apache group came over the rocky hill to the rear left of the wagons, and this time two of the rangers as well as Mandingo were involved. An Apache with a bow did some damage, killing one ranger and wounding Mandingo in the leg. In further exchanges the attackers were all killed, but not before Mandingo had been hit again, in the arm, and put out of the fight.
The fight went on without him as the third attacking group came over the hill, but despite losing one more ranger the defenders, including the two wagon drivers, comfortably finished off the rest of the Apaches.
The SGS rules include recovery from wounds, and it took until the following Spring, 1876, before both wounds were healed. Because he finished Out of the Fight Mandingo didn't gain any points towards a Rep increase. In the Spring phase Mandingo found work as a Ranger in Wyoming, and I have rolled an encounter with him and six companions attacked by 28 Apaches. I am minded to re-roll this - that is more like a small skirmish battle than a Wild West gunfight, and it's also not in the sweet spot for these rules, IMHO. (Plus, I only have eight Apache figures). So it may turn out that Mandingo wasn't in the Ranger platoon which fought the Apache after all, and we'll have a proper gunfight instead.
Anyway my hero (or Star) is Mandingo, a Gunfighter character with stats of Rep 5, Toughness 3, Sand 4. In Spring of 1875 he is drifting in Wyoming, and has an encounter when a pair of wagons he is escorting is ambushed by Apaches. As well as Mandingo and two wagon drivers there are four Rangers in the escort, and the Apaches brought nine warriors with assorted weapons. All these things - type of encounter, size and number of each side and the detailed stats of each character, are rolled up on tables in the rules.
The Apaches were in three groups of three - in the picture one group is out of sight in the foreground. Mandingo was at the rear of the wagon train, with the rangers on either side. The Apaches moved forward under cover of the hills, until the group to the rear right of the wagons came over the crest and into Mandingo's sight.
One of the features of SGS is the exchanges of fire - two enemies don't just have a shot at each other - they blaze away and take reactions until one or the other has to stop - through being knocked down, forced to duck back or running out of ammo. This works well in small encounters, but can get confusing where substantial groups meet, as you have to follow one exchange down to a conclusion, and then go back "up" to run the next exchange. It gets particularly difficult when one man can fire at two or more opponents - this triggers "Been Shot At" reactions from each target. As I said I switched to the reaction tests for groups from Chain Reaction, which is a little simpler.
So, Mandingo fired at two of the attackers, and missed both. One ducked back behind the hill, but the other fired at Mandingo - and missed. Mandingo then fired back again and wounded him, knocking him out of the fight. Next the third Apache took his shot at Mandingo and again missed, and after another exchange the Apache was hit in the head and killed outright.
The second Apache group came over the rocky hill to the rear left of the wagons, and this time two of the rangers as well as Mandingo were involved. An Apache with a bow did some damage, killing one ranger and wounding Mandingo in the leg. In further exchanges the attackers were all killed, but not before Mandingo had been hit again, in the arm, and put out of the fight.
The fight went on without him as the third attacking group came over the hill, but despite losing one more ranger the defenders, including the two wagon drivers, comfortably finished off the rest of the Apaches.
The SGS rules include recovery from wounds, and it took until the following Spring, 1876, before both wounds were healed. Because he finished Out of the Fight Mandingo didn't gain any points towards a Rep increase. In the Spring phase Mandingo found work as a Ranger in Wyoming, and I have rolled an encounter with him and six companions attacked by 28 Apaches. I am minded to re-roll this - that is more like a small skirmish battle than a Wild West gunfight, and it's also not in the sweet spot for these rules, IMHO. (Plus, I only have eight Apache figures). So it may turn out that Mandingo wasn't in the Ranger platoon which fought the Apache after all, and we'll have a proper gunfight instead.
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
More for the desert
Keeping the painting table warm, I have done a couple more packs of British desert tanks from GHQ - UK-30 which is the Crusader III with the 6pdr gun, and UK-39, the A-13 Cruiser tank with the smaller 2pdr. Both slightly earlier in the desert war, and as always with GHQ, very nice models which paint up well.
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Wagons Roll
As I mentioned last time, the ambush which I rolled for my first encounter involves my hero guarding two wagons against Apache attack - the problem was that I didn't have the wagon models. So I ordered a couple, with some crew and mules, from Dixon's, and last week they arrived. I built and undercoated them on Friday, and in a marathon session on Saturday I pretty much painted them all - just a few bits to finish off and now they're ready. So the sixguns should be blazing very soon.
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