State of Play: Undaunted conclusion, more Bolt Action, and Caesar!

   

 

It’s been a good week for gaming. On Monday T and I were slated to play the third of our French and Indian War games. That evening I got a late text from T saying he was still at work, but nonetheless keen for a game, and would be around closer to 10:00pm. I’d already set up F&IW, but which the best will in the world, could not see us finishing a game starting that late (unless by some miracle of the dice I could pull a points victory in the first year; doubtful at best).

Postponing another 6x6 game to an undetermined future date, I broke F&IW down again, and set up a very recent acquisition, Caesar! (PSC Games, 2022). On the box, it boasts “Seize Rome in 20 minutes!” It didn’t disappoint.

I’d only read the rules that afternoon, and decided to shoot it for a “Stripped Down for Parts” post, so the game hadn’t as yet even made it into the Wardrobe of Regret. It just took a few minutes to punch (very good, if simple, components), and set up the board. The game is all about placing influence to gain favours and control territories. The players take turns placing influence tokens on the borders separating provinces. The tokens have a symbol that has to match the type of symbol (crossed spears, Sword, Shield or Ship) on that place on the board, with the line across the token matching the line of the border. The two values affect influence on each of the provinces on either side of that border (a province will have three to six such token places.

When a province is closed off by influence at every shared border, whoever placed the last token claims the yellow which will give you an extra benefit of some kind (a third token in your draw, an immediate second go, etc.). The winner of the contest for the province (whomever has the most points accrued on the inside of the borders) places one of their markers onto the space vacated by the Province Bonus token. The game ends when all of the provinces have been claimed or one player is out of their coloured markers. Whoever has the most markers on the board wins.

Pompey victorious

In spite of being relatively simple and fast-playing – seriously, even counting the rules explanation before we began, the whole game still came in at under half an hour – Caesar! is a challenging puzzle of a game. I understand that this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it you like this kind of game, it’s a perfect palate-cleanser for between more serious games or a neat little filler game for those early finishes.

I like to think that I have a good brain for these kinds of games, but after my two-minute run-through of how it works, T proceeded to wipe the floor with me, handed me my hat, then did a little dance on my freshly-filled grave (see photo for the sad end of Caesar and the shrouding glory of Pompey). I think a rematch will be required in the near future.

 

I had some time on Wednesday and so did B, so we caught up for a tutorial game – two games actually – of Undaunted: Normandy. B was new to the series but recently acquired Undaunted: Stalingrad (Osprey Games, 2022). B has a good mind for rules,  and I don’t think he would have had any problems diving into Stalingrad on his own, but having said that, I struggled a little with the concepts and terminology of the Undaunted series on my first excursion, so I was happy to help him out. As a bonus, the game would count as a 6x6 tick and my sixth Normandy game (closing out my first chosen game, only half-way through the year).

We actually played two games; Scenario 1: Le Reye, which is the perfect introduction to the basics of the game, how pieces move and interact, scouting and the importance of drawing new cards, shedding Fog of War cards where you can, and maintaining Rifleman squad cohesion. Needless to say, B won his first outing quite handily by pinning my second Rifleman squad before I could secure one last point.

A close-run thing.

We broke for lunch, then I set up Scenario 5: Crossing the Vere. This is interesting because I think it’s the first scenario where not all your assets appear on the board (or in your deck) from the get-go. And there is some true asymmetry to the scenario with each side having differing objectives. B’s GIs had to take (control) the two bridges crossing the Vere River, but first they had to scout all the way up to the river, then get their Riflemen across a coverless stretch, all the time taking fire from my Riflemen and whatever else I could bring to bear (did I mention my German forces had a mortar?). It’s a good combined arms scenario for both sides, and became a gruelling slug-fest as we each managed to take out (pin) one of the other’s Riflemen squads, but ultimately B, managed to get his surviving squad to the second bridge and used an inspire action to flip the tile from Scouted to Controlled, taking the bridge and the game. Nonetheless a satisfying game.

That night I was back again at B’s for kind of a re-run of last week’s Bolt Action (Osprey Games, 2012) scenario; same set-up of terrain, but different troop dispositions. The Americans, played by K, H and D, had between them three rifle squads with attached LMG teams (one held in reserve), a bazooka team, a single Sherman, and an armoured car (a Greyhound, I think) for their platoon command. The Germans (B and myself) had an anti-tank gun sighted for the main road into the town, two MMG crews, and a sniper team in the belfry of the Church, all set up on the table already (in defensive posture), with two rifle squads, our platoon command in a staff car, and, in place of the lethal Panther from last week, a rather under-armoured open-back Marder self-propelled anti-tank gun (potentially lethal, but unlikely to survive a real exchange). The snipers and two MMGs were already in place as provisional defensive measures, while everything else was set up to come on as reserve units

Suppling suppression fire.

The Americans called in an artillery barrage to “soften up” their target. The barrage took out the MMG team holding the German’s right flank right off the bat. The GIs then concentrated their attack on that flank, bringing the majority of their forces over the now covering-fire clear field as quickly as possible to try to take that objective (the stout red building on the outskirts of the town, and hereto the German force’s defensive anchor-point).

It took some time for the German reserves to make their way up to where they could do any good. One squad edged their way up to the red building, hoping to gain occupancy before the Amerikanisch soldaten could arrive. The other squad cautiously made their way straight up to the hedgerow opposite the church (centre), and began laying grazing fire on the GIs near the red building, who were being supported by the light cover of the Greyhound. The brave Marder crew brought their machine around into the open, putting a round through the Greyhound’s thin armour, only for it to explode harmlessly some distance away, but shaking the crew terribly.

Just another manic Marder.

Meanwhile, the German command group brought the staff car to a row of houses marking the as-yet undisturbed left flank of the German defence and entered the furthest-most house, the one with a view of the road leading into the town, and, having committed all their resources to the present altercation at the other end of the town prepared to make a desperate stand against the anticipated flanking attack from that direction.

The two American squads moved quickly to secure the church and the red building, their respective targets for the action. Before they could secure the red building, the seasoned soldiers of the second German rifle squad launched a melee attack. Taking some losses, they nonetheless overwhelmed the American invaders (in Bolt Action, a melee action is an all-or-nothing affair, with the laurels going to whomever has the most hits; at three-to-two the Germans lost a couple of men, while the whole US squad was either killed or captured). The other American squad had also reached their objective, the church, and secured the chapel. At this point the anti-tank gun – which had yet to see action – sprang to life, its crew swinging the gun around and firing into the church. The high-explosive shell penetrated the building before exploding, sending shards of pews and soldiers flying, and killing three instantly (and collecting a couple of pins). The German squad behind the hedgerow, then opened-up with small arms, taking down another two. As the light was failing (and the hour at the table was getting late), the game was called at that turn, the last action being the American reserve squad entering the town at the end of the street from the desperate command group, laying in ambush. B adjudicated a marginal victory for the Germans; the Americans in the chapel were in no state to hold on to their prize, and while the fresh Reserve section would likely have been able to wrest control of the brown house at the far end of town from the command group (outnumbering them five-to-one), it would have been too little, too late.

There are no atheists in a foxhole.

Another satisfying game, although it didn’t feel quite like a victory. There are a lot of pluses to the Bolt Action system, though. I like the activation mechanic of drawing a marker cube from a container (in our case, an oversized coffee mug) containing one such cube for each of the units of both sides. The cube drawn activates a unit of that side, then at the end of their activation, the cube is placed with the order played face-up, filling its second roll as a reminder which units have acted that turn (run, advance), or if they are on a reactive stance (ambush). Osprey Games cut their teeth on miniatures rules before branching out into board and card games, and their experience shows in games like this.

All in all, a good week for gaming. After missing out on a 6x6 game on Monday, I was good to get a game slot ticked off with Undaunted: Normandy, and I got to play a brand-new game – Caesar! – in record time from receiving it in the mail. It was a week of losses and near-defeats, but it was a lot of fun. Life is good.