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.

State of Play: French and Indian War (2/6) and a return to Bolt Action

 

 

Our regular Monday game was moved to Tuesday night this week due to T having a work commitment, which was just as well because I approached the game with a clearer head than would have the previous night. Nothing self-inflicted, just recovering from a nasty cold.

This week we returned to the French and Indian War, 1757-1759 (Worthington Publishing, 2020) one of my declared 6x6 games. Once again, I deployed as the French, T as the British, and once again it was a tight match. We ended up playing through the full three years (early winters each, so no bonus turns) All the first year and into the second, T played a very aggressive game, as my settlements in the western interior fell one by one. The only thing that slowed his progress was the arrival of winter (end of 1757).

I have seen the enemy, and he wears French cuffs.

I realised between last week’s and this week’s game that there were a couple of things that we did wrong; In the first game I attacked Halifax from Louisbourg when I shouldn’t have been able to, T holding the control of the Atlantic at the time. The game wasn’t so close that the extra two points would have decided it, but this time I quietly took control of the Atlantic uncontested while T went on his eastern rampage, and held it for the whole game. I took Halifax legitimately at the end of the second year, wintered there (I was unable to place reinforcements there as all hands were needed to shore up the fort defences at the other end of the board), and pushed on to Boston at the beginning of my spring offensive. This blunted T’s anticipated push in the centre somewhat – Boston could not fall to the dirty French – and he diverted troops back along the southern coast and we-took the city two turns later, then pushing on to dive me out of Halifax. But had he not been provoked to defend his western cities, T was set to push through my brittle defence of Forts Carillion and Frontinac, which would have almost certainly cost me the game.

The British march on Le Boeuf in force.

The other thing we had missed in the previous week’s game was winter attrition. At the end of the yearly cycle (the beginning of winter), any troop numbers in excess of the VP value of the settlement in which they are located must take a strength reduction of one point, two if it’s an occupying force in an enemy settlement (the first irregular unit gets a pass on this, since they’re used to the harsh winters). We both took penalties to our troop strengths in the west; T took the bigger hit, but her could afford to. At the end of the second year, with an eye to the turn track, I managed to maintain all of my units at their current strength, while T took reductions to a couple of Militia units (men going home to be with their families, no doubt). 

The Marines take Hampshire unopposed

The third year was a stalling exercise for my side. Scoring rounds occur at the end of each year. VPs are gained on a simple metric of one for each enemy unit taken out of the game (scored immediately) and how many enemy locations you hold – the ones where you actually have troops positioned – at the end of the year (the step before winter attrition). If one side has a clear ten-point superiority over the other, the war ends that year. If it runs to the third year, the onus is on the British to gain that ten-point lead, or victory defaults to the French. I didn’t mind relinquishing Boston and Halifax, because those forcing T to regain them meant two crucial turns, he couldn’t attack anywhere else, as well as tying up a not-insignificant portion of his resources. At the end of 1759, T did have a lead on me, but by the fourth turn of that year, there was no way he could come back to take victory. France prevailed, and the fur trade was maintained (a little longer). But we did manage to trim about forty minutes off the playing time from last week.

The final scores.

Wednesday night saw the group fighting in western France, circa July 1944. I believe B had a scenario set up for Bolt Action (Osprey Games, 2012; three buildings (including a magnificent cathedral with a removable roof-piece, roughly in the centre of the play area, with the two roughly numerically even sides, seasoned SS troops who had been recuperating in France after service on the Eastern Front, and D-Day-bloodied US infantry, converging on the town in the hopes of capturing the key locations. The Germans had a Panther tank in support, and the Americans had two Shermans (known colloquially among the German anti-tank teams as “Tommy-cookers;” true, as it turned out).

"I see the little silhouetto of a tank..." 

Sides were drawn mostly at random – K had a particular desire to play the Germans, while the other spots went to H, D and myself as the Americans, and B taking up the other German units.

Advancing with caution (and armour support).

The tone was set for the six-round match by H bringing the first Sherman up on the very first order, only for the Panther to edge froward along a road intersecting the main street of the town and putting it out of action with a single round. The second Sherman came up nearly in line with the smoking hull of the first and fired on the Panther, but failed to penetrate its thick frontal armour. Both sides’ units moved forward in a rush, and with the second round heel would be unleashed…

"Tommy-cookers"

On the Americans; drawing the first activation, K brough his Panther to bear on the second Sherman and dispatched it with ruthless efficiency. Thinking it would be unsporting to concede defeat then and there, the Americans fought on bravely but in vain; we inflicted some losses on the adversary, gave him pause in places, but the will (and canny die rolls) of the Germans carried the day.

I do like the initiative mechanism in Bolt Action; one special Order dice for each unit in a draw cup, and with each dice drawn, that side chooses which unit to activate next, leaving the Order dice face up next to the unit as a reminder of both it’s activation and what it was trying to accomplish.

Fierce house-to-house fighting.

My own gaming time will be reduced for a month while I attend my civic duty. I’ll try to take the opportunity to finish some reviews I’ve begun. Until next time.