Miniature Wargaming with Spudnick: December 2016

Thursday, December 29, 2016

AAR: Iron Cross: Mobile BBQ Grilles.

It is nice when my wife has a break from teaching for the holidays, since it has given us more time to play games and see friends (Not particularly in that order). But since we were expecting company later in the day, a quick game of Iron Cross was easy to pick up to take up and hour of waiting.
At first, it was going to be my platoon of Panther tanks versus my wife's two British platoons. Then, I realized that this is an Iron Cross game where the violence is quick and painful. There tends to be a lot of amazing kills. So I added a Marder III and two Stug III G's to even the odds. This was a good decision, because we traded tank for tank every turn with the exception of the last. I only won based on my two tanks coming out on top after two turns. It also, helped that my command tank lived where hers did not! Below are the photo results of the game.

The battleground.

Another view.

And yet, another view.

A Marder III and a Stug III take positions in a hedgerow to fire at the unsuspecting British.

Incoming British armor in the German sites.

A Panther tank moves in.

One of the Panther buys the farm from a firefly shot.

The wall of British armor.

Seeking revenge, a Sherman VC Firefly is destroyed.

The Command Panther moves in.

This Marder III is still trading shots!

The Command stays out of sight, since Panthers are not that save with front armor as other game systems.

The other Firefly is taken out! Things are looking up for the Germans.

Or not!

The British are taking out just as much armor as the Germans are.

Burning hedgerows.

More British tanks burn,

The Command tank is needed to take action, since Cromwell tanks are killing as well as the Sherman Fireflies.

This Cromwell tank drives up to threaten the surviving Stug III, since it has no targets left.

It does not make it, nor the last tank!

Monday, December 26, 2016

AAR: Muskets & Tomahawks: Our First Game.

It took a little bit of motivation, but Kalissa and I finally got around to playing Muskets and Tomahawks. This game has peaked my interest, despite usually playing WW2. Unlike your typical infantry tactics of the days of Napoleonics, there were a lot of guerrilla warfare tactics versus the line up and shoot tactics of the day. This period has interest me, since it has a lot of historic flare. There were more skirmishes than battles, and anything goes! The first time, I saw the game Muskets and Tomahawks, it was the first game I saw that was card driven. Though, I only saw it the one time, I thought is was a clever way for a game to go. That, and the fact my wife was into it, for the random events. She loves random events, In this game we witness a few years back, there were some rather funny random events. Most notable was the evil bore that killed several men in several random events. I kept saying that maybe you should get out of that field, it does not like you!
Either way, it took us awhile to get around to buying anything with this game. The reason for this was that Kalissa and I had yet to graduate into other games from our normal games of Flames of War. It took me getting into 28mm scale and real terrain building, did we both look into other games. The whole Osprey Publishing revolution of rule books did not help! It took my wife getting various deals to find the rules for less than $20 with the cards. Then, we made it a point to find figures for it. We discovered a few Warlord Box Sets that were metal that we picked up cheap at the vendor hall at Historicon 2016. It just took me until a couple of days before this post to actually paint them. I am aware that I am a slacker!
For our first game, we decided to role for sides. I only had paint the Native Americans as any tribe and the French Marines. We also have some British Regulars, but we found that we were able to make list for the other two, but need more British to make another. Deep down inside, I believe that Kalissa was looking to play as the Indians. She played a game of Muskets & Tomahawks at Historicon that was sponsored by the H.A.W.K.S. Gaming Group. She ended up completing her mission with no casualties. And I know shoe originally wanted to play them, because she designed the list for them as "Elite Wilderness Badasses" This says a whole lot about her designing the French Forces. They seem to be the "Coke Zero" of awesome! I can believe she wanted to roll off for them!
For the summary of this game, we rolled to play a scouting mission that was completely in my favor. Both forces has to explore each corner of the board and just withdraw to the end of our table. Of course, this did not sit well with us, so we added side plots. I can't remember what Kalissa's was, but mine was that my leader had to kill six members of the opposing team. Knowing Kalissa, we could not keep the random events out. Unfortunately for her, not a single random event went in her favor. This even resulted in a "night game!" My only losses were the melee we had in the dark that I did not have to do, but I wanted to see the mechanics of the game. Either case, the Natives won, and the French reported back that that area was, indeed, hostile!

The Board.

The otherside.

Another view.

French Regulars running through the woods.

Native "hidden" markers. We played this wrong, since I could have had two additional "dummy" markers to fake out the enemy.

Natives moving up!

French Scouts take the farm.

A Closer look!

After fighting the woods, the French Regulars make it on the road.

The Indians reveal themselves with gunfire!

For some reason, Kalissa had the officer travel alone.

A random event turns things dark for the French.

More gunfire erupts, but they are wasted shots.

These guys decide to withdraw, since they cannot make out the targets in the farm.

And the French cannot see back!

The remaining men after a road assault against the French Regulars.

Anger Shots!

A new leader shows up!

The Indians withdraw.

Ending Shot.

Friday, December 23, 2016

AAR: Bolt Action: Romanians, First Blood.

It is fun to make this post sound like the Romanians were a bunch of little "Rambos" taking out anyone who blinked wrong. This was truly not the case! The reason could be as simple as a comment made during the "wives dueling" game. One of my fellow wargaming buddies mentioned wanting to be "a fly on the wall" for my wife and I's next game. I could not see the reasoning in this, since she lost a game running my troops. In a sense, she was going to win the game losing or not. If she won, she won! If she lost, my troops lost, since they were not hers, she won! However, I guess that did not matter for the next game. A bigger gamers' myth exists out there to explain my Romanians losing: they were freshly painted!
There might be a few out there to cry out "Shenanigans!" on such an excuse. Honestly, I have no idea why the new stuff always does shitty. I think there are a combination of reasons that lead to these landslide losses when it comes to new troops on the field. One, they are "green" troops despite rating them as high as "veteran". Two, the whole myth in your head about "new" psychologically distracts you from playing good. Three, you chose the army, instead of the army choosing you. This actually happens in real history! Four, you do not know the "special rules" for the new troops. Five, all of the previous reasons are a bunch of "bull", you just need a reason for your bad rolling day!
New, old, worn out, or peed on, the results of a game and new stuff just happen. And if you are really peeing on your miniatures, you a drunk and had too much at the club. Rolling at that point is besides the point! That fact is that there is always going to be that memory of a bad game with a newly painted army. I think humans tend to be negative by nature. Despite nearly every miniature newly produced on the table, I can say I have had one individual miniature that made a winning difference that was new. That was my German Neferwerfer 41. That thing killed like crazy! It killed so well at a convention game that it was the most hated unit in three out of the four games! So the myth is a myth, if not common.
In the case of the Romanians against my wife's American infantry, it was a slaughter against them. In the defense of my new army, I did do some bold moves against my wife. I flanked two units against her infantry when I know she loves assaults. The good news was that I killed one squad of infantry and her Sherman tank, The bad was the loss of all of my core squads and a mortar round killed my Panzer IV G. I guess the tank hatch was still open! To add insult to injury, my wife decided not to chase after me, since she knew she was winning. Why risk that? We played one more turn just to see if I could kill that silly bazooka team that was going to go after my Panzer IV that died. If I had pulled it off, it would have been a "Draw" instead of a "Loss". Hopefully, they will do better next time. Below was the show. Enjoy!