DBA at Dave's June 15, 2013

Dave A. had his annual DBA at Dave's tournament. Dennis, our game master of ceremonies picked Book I armies this year. With a twist! Everyone would need an ally! I teamed up with none other than Dave, himself! I brought I/52b Early Hoplite Greek - Spartans and Dave brought I/52d Early Hoplite Greek - Theban. We opted for the (limited) flexibility the Cv and Ps from Dave's army gave us. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the Horde option. We had the phalax thing covered.

Our first match was against Gary and Pete's doubled up I/26 Achains. Lots of chariots. There is not much you can do with 20 elements of Spears. We tried to cut the game board as much as possible. We lined up against the gentle hill to the right.

Pete split off his chariots and Psiloi, trying to flank our left. Dave ran his Cav out of our middle. It served to distract their other flanking move.

These guys were having dice trouble. Which is hilarious when Pete and Gary get going. Pete kept getting 1's. His chariots and Ps were stuck in place. We slowly marched across the field.

 We tied up the right for awhile. Pete was still stuck on the left. We edged closer. Die rolls were favoring us. It let us made that loonnnnggg march at 200 paces a shot. For some reason, I don't have a shot of the end of the game. They one. They got in our camp. They flanked us on both sides. It gave us ideas for the next battle though.

 The next game was against Mike and Ron. Mike had I/19 Mitanni and Ron had I/52f - Athenians. More Greek on Greek fighting. We tried to embrace a modified "turtle". We basically had the same board layout. We set up like this:

x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x x x
x x x x x x

The plan was to stay small and see what they did. And then expand out.

Mike's Mitanni's goes for the flanks. We continue to spread the phalanx. Dave sends his Cav out to their flank, again, to distract.

I break off a couple of stands to protect our camp. Dave's Cav starts pushing back a chariot. I can see now that we should have put the camp in the middle of the board. Mike's line is fractured. 

 The chariots and psiloi come in. The Spartans hold and they start to gain ground on the flank. Always watching out for the pushback kill. Dangerously enough in a double line.

The battle for the camp starts here. That side of the board quickly devolved into a hot mess. Pushing and shoving with Dave's General. In the camp, out of the camp, zone of control of the camp. 

The Spartans split. Main line deals with the Chariots. Small group on the Psiloi. We push Ps back. Hard to kill. 

Spartans are doing what they do. Kicking butt. I press the chariots. I am doing well against them and decide to re-form the line.

 We ended up losing this one but it was CLOSE. I took out 6 of Mike's Mittani. They had our camp and took out Dave's General finally.

The team battle was interesting. I liked the learning experience. Spartans our tough. I think the next time I play them, I am just going to string them out and forgo the double rank (only against Kn and Sp). That seems to be the only way to protect the flank. I need to learn to use terrain better.

Battle Report: Bolt Action Sunday, April 21, 2013

Jon L. and I got in a game of Bolt Action on two Sundays ago. It was Germans vs. Americans for a "Control the Crossroads" scenario. We rolled for table edge, we ended up ignoring one half of Jon's table.

At the end of turn 1, I had deployed on the southern road into the town. I had an armored car make it all the way across the crossroads and start executing a K-turn. My goal was complete fields of fire on that road. My PAK team was set up on the right house in the foreground. I had placed the motorcycle with sidecar to block anything coming out of the fields/bocage to its left.

And Jon had come in from the western road. Notice Jon's Stuart in the middle of the road. He has mortar and machine guns on the hills looking down into the town.

Turn 2: I continue deploying. I have a squad in the house on the left with a panzerfaust thinking about that tank in the front yard. Armored car is right where I want him. MG team in the middle of the road controls that side. Infantry next to the MG is going to sprint across the crossroads next turn and get into the house on the far left. This all starts to unravel when the mortar team at the bottom of the page and the squad in front of it start taking fire.

Jon moves up. He pushes his infantry forward on both sides of the road. The Stuart and supporting teams open up and start dishing out pins and deaths.

I pull a squad back to defend the rear. You can see the pins stacking up on the one squad. Mortar team is almost dead. The squad with the pins was funny, the kept successfully promoting new leaders. It lent itself to funny jokes in bad German accents. :)

Jon has two squads in the foreground. They are causing a lot of trouble. The motorcycle with sidecar is dead. Such a cool model but I find that the jeeps and the motorcycle are quick to die. Jon has also moved into the house on the top of the picture. 

Only one picture for this next round. Armored car starts hitting the Stuart. That's it really.

Pak is KIA. Every one of my units has a pin marker. Not good. Plus side is that the MG in the road is just waiting for the unit in the far house to pop out.

Stuart taking hits. One stinking pin marker on one of the two units in the woods to my rear. 

The armored car destroyed the Stuart. This was the one bright spot of the battle. There was also a point where the Stuart FUBARed and killed one of Jon's infantry. That effectively DOUBLED my kill count. :(

Jon broke from the woods and just tore me up. I pulled the armored car down to try to help. It didn't. The rout was on. Americans take the crossroads. 

All in all, I do like this game. I like the rule set. Not overly complicated. I think I had a decent plan. I left the motorcycle exposed. That was a mistake. I maybe should have brought the Pak up instead of leaving it behind. Hard to tell. Bad die rolls and a couple of pins and it starts to go bad in a hurry.

Battle Report: Bolt Action January 20, 2013

Jon L. organized a Winter Games Day at his church in Henrietta yesterday. I got in another fun game of Bolt Action. We played a 2 on 2 game. I brought my American Airborne supplemented by another airborne unit of Jon's. My partners had British troops. We were playing against Gary C. and Bo as the Germans. The scenario was for the Germans to "hold until relieved" the crossroads in the middle of the town. Here's a shot of the initial deployment:

My forces are deployed on the bottom quadrant (if you will). Bo had an infantry unit hiding in the leftmost house on the far side of the road. There is an observer and a MG team in the right most house on the far side of the road too.

We essentially played two games on the same board. We weren't really all that integrated in our attacks. It was me against Bo. My plan was to run around the left flank, let my mortar team do its job and then clear houses and Bo's mortar.

Turn 2 or 3 on the right. I have a command stand on the corner of the near house. These are working as observers for my mortar. I have an MG team in the house too. Infantry is in cover except from the mortar. Mortar mechanics are interesting. It takes a 6 to hit the first time. If the target does not move it goes to a 5 and so on. If you hit, from then on, it hits on a 2. As long as the target doesn't move.

I think I missed a picture. My mortars hit. Bo's mortar kept missing. I hit the house with Bo's infantry. Resulting in a pin marker. Pinning is a dynamic part of the rules that can be your friend or enemy. You have to rally from it. And you take -1 penalties for every marker when shooting. Bo took out my MG team in the house. My infantry teams landed some hits. I effectively took his team  out of commission. I kept the pressure on.

This is a close up of the current turn. Bo did manage to take out some of my Airborne. But I continue the press.

You can see the pin markers stacking up on Bo. The funny side action is in the foremost house on the right. Bo ran a command section at my mortar. They are between the houses. I moved a bazooka team into the house. They are literally right on top of Bo's unit. Neither of us could hit each other! It was funny.

I missed another shot here. I took out the unit in the house finally. Bo actually rolled double 6s which is a FUBAR role. The unit ran from the house into the crossroads and were cut down by my allies. I also took at a MG team that Gary backed out of the house. Another instance of getting some pin markers down. I took out the mortar team. Then I started running towards the crossroads. This was the final turn. We actually failed the objective. We did not take the crossroads. I needed another turn.

I really like this game. 2 on 2 bogged down a little bit with the dice pulls. We could have easily played it as 2, 1 x 1 games. I am really looking forward to playing this more.

AK47 Battle Report: November 10, 2012

I got together with Gary, Mark and Mike on November 11, 2012 to play AK47. Gary had cooked up a scenario for us that allowed me to bring my US Marines. We basically ended up playing two 2 on 2 games on the same table. (Gary's table is about a football field in length).

I am still very much in the learning phase of AK47. This picture shows me trying to correct my mistake of driving into the town. I could have easily gone toe to toe with Gary's Africans but do to my stupidity with movement, I spent a lot of the game inching my way across the table.

The picture on the right shows my continuing blunders with movement. I went up on the hill on the left. My strategy from the jump was flawed. Take the hill. Take the town. It should have been, take the fight to them. Go AROUND the hill and the town. Gary blew up an infantry stand with an artillery strike. My Abrams tank was a reserve unit and I tried to get him into action as quickly as possible.

Here comes Gary's horde. They finally make it across the river. I am still trying to get my Bradley's out of the town. Gawd.

I did NOT get any pictures of the corner to the top left of these pictures. I actually had a helicopter on the board that spent a lot of time trying (successfully) to light up one of Gary's infantry stands.

Just in time for the time clock to expire, I finally start doing some damage. The Abrams is hammering away. The humvees are too. The Bradleys have caused a rout. It was not looking good for Gary's troops. :)

I definitely want to play on a smaller table. 3x3. Maybe 4x4. I really like the AK47 rule set. I love the random chaos it creates. I want to amp that up by closing the quarters a bit.