GamesReport 29-Jul-12: A Few Acres Of Snow AAR

AndyA and I met up this evening for his first game of A Few Acres Of Snow, by Martin Wallace. I've played this a number of times face-to-face and many more times online through Yucata, so the balance of probability was strongly leaning in my direction. 

First contact was between Kennebec and Fort Halifax

That being said I'm a huge fan of the game and eager to share that experience with new players whenever I get the chance. 

I spent a good 30 minutes walking through the rules and then guided him through the first few turns to make sure that he felt comfortable with the options available.

AndyA - British / GaryG - French 

Game On!

Money, Money, Money...

During the early game I settled Kennebec threatening to raid Fort Halifax / Permaquid / Deerfield with Indians, but he managed to shore up Fort Halifax pretty quickly and made Kennebec and Quebec vulnerable to similar counter raiding actions. 

The British concentrated much of their early actions in building up cash reserves and using it to buy new empire cards (Rangers, Home Support etc.). 

This money was under a constant piracy threat from the French around Louisburg and gradually through spending and piracy the British coffers ran dry.

The British port of Halifax falls to an Indian raid

By turn 13 the British had settled both Halifax and Fort Beausejour opening up new raid possibilities between these colonies and the valuable French Port Royal. I had become a little complacent and despite taking my first cube (from Halifax), I left the 3VP Port Royal unprotected for two turns. The counter-raid however didn't happen and I got away with it, but it could have been a costly mistake on my part.

This proved to be a bit of a wake-up call for me and a turning point in the game. Both decks were getting unwieldy and needed more than a little thinning with the governor cards. I purchased a settler card and began a program of upgrading settlements so that I could dump the location card through my governor. Soon I was down to only 3 or 4 disks remaining, whilst AndyA still had 8. 

Niagra, Presqu'ile and Detroit. Key expansion for the French

This deck thinning was coupled with a westward push to settle Fort Niagra, Fort Presqu'ile and ultimately the hugely valuable Detroit. 

The British had little in response, although they did settle as far as Cumberland to the west and threatened Indian raids along that side of the board. 

The final French play

It was all too little too late and I managed to close off the game by upgrading Fort Niagra and using up the last of my disks.

Scores  

AndyA - British 43 

GaryG - French 63

Final Thoughts

A hugely enjoyable game as always, but over-confidence on my part would have proved costly against a more experienced player. AndyA played very well for his first game and picked it all up very quickly indeed. Hopefully he now has a taste for the game and is already thinking about what he could do differently next time. 

Ultimately, AFAOS is a game that offers many strategies, but doesn't often reward you for trying to encompass too many of them into one game. 

Cheers again for the game Andy!

AAR - ASL SK1 Scenario #S1 - Retaking Vierville

ASL Starter Kit #1 (MMP)

This is the first in a series of ASL Starter Kit after action reports (AARs) and is based on the Allies trying to take the town of Vierville in northern France.

Retaking Vierville

Attacker: German (1058th Grenadier Regiment/919th Grenadier Regiment/6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment) (GARY)
Defender: American (1st Batt. 506th PIR, 101st Airborne) (ANDREW)
Turns: 5 Players: 2 Germans (twyearling) and Americans (Blaze) OBA: None Night: No
Vierville, France 1944-06-07

RESULT: German victory. (GARY)

Background

Why is Vierville important?

Vierville is along the main route from Utah Beach to the German position at St. Come du Mont. At the end of D-Day St. Come du Mont is still a German strongpoint. This game takes place on D-Day+1. Vierville is necessary for control of the road and to allow the movement of troops and equipment inland. To take and hold St. Come du Mont the Allies must control Vierville.

A map of the area surrounding Veirville

Objective

Prevent any good order German squads from occupying objective buildings, marked with red dots on the map below, at the end of the game.

The Troops

US 101st Airborne - These are elite troops equipped with automatic weapons and smoke grenades. They have excellent firepower but limited range. They may split up their fire between adjacent enemies and are good at assaulting positions.

German Grenadiers - These are either first or second line troops with good morale. They have average firepower and average range. Troops from the 919th Grenadier Regiment are not as accurate at greater ranges. They have limited availability of smoke grenades.

German Fallshirmjager - These are elite troops with excellent morale equipped with automatic weapons. They have good firepower but limited range. They also have good assault capability and smoke grenades. They have good leadership.

Order of Battle

US 1st platoon - 3 squads, 1 half squad, senior NCO. Begins in town.
US 2nd platoon - 3 squads, senior NCO. Enters from the right hand side on turn 1.
US 3rd platoon - 2 squads, NCO. Enters from the right had side on turn 2.
US 4th platoon - 2 squads, 2 half squads, experienced officer. Enter from the right hand side on turn 3.
German 1st Grenadier platoon - 3 squads, senior NCO. Enters from the bottom on turn 1.
German 2nd Grenadier platoon - 3 squads, junior NCO. Enters from the top on turn 1.
German 1st Fallshirmjager platoon - 3 squads, senior NCO. Enters from the bottom on turn 2.
German 2nd Fallshirmjager platoon - 2 squads, senior NCO. Enters from the bottom on turn 3.

Victory Conditions

No good order German units should occupy hexes with red dots at game end

Okay, I'll try and describe the last turn...

I (playing the Germans) needed to protect hex L3 as my objective was to have a working order unit in one of the red dotted hexes in the map below (L3, M4, N6 or N5). Going into the last turn I was moving first and tried to get as much support to L3 as I could. Unfortunately Andy had the roads pretty well covered and the single units I sent out were getting cut down as soon as they ventured into the streets. Finally I elected to position units at positions A and C to cover my beleaguered unit at B. I was fairly happy with the result as I had three strong corridors of fire (blue arrows) covering the streets around L3. Taking a deep breath I prepared for Andy's final attack. He needed to force me out of L3 to claim victory himself.

Despite continuous America assault, the Germans hang on!

Moving single units to use up my defensive fire looked to be working well, but this was leaving a wall of residual fire markers (the red flashes) along main street and cost Andy a number of morale checks. Still, as the dust settled, he managed to get three fairly strong units into building hex M4 and ready for the close assault to L3.

My remaining units in L3 were pretty badly shot up, having been in melee fighting for most of the game. Now they had to withstand one final assault and this came down to three American close combat rolls (All 3:1 ratio so looking for 7s or less due to a CX modifier). The Americans needed three successes, but ultimately didn't get any and the Germans held their ground winning the scenario. Phew!

A First Look At Combat Commander: Pacific

Combat Commander: Pacific

I'm spoiling myself a little this month having bought my second new game, Combat Commander: Pacific, a GMT release.

World War II is one of my favourite periods in history to wargame and the Pacific is one theatre that I have yet to play in in any boardgame beyond Memoir '44.

I'd expected to get there with ASL, but didn't get past Starter Kit scenarios, which don't currently cover PTO. With Combat Commander: Pacific I hope to have struck a balance between rules accessibility (which full ASL for PTO doesn't have in my opinion) and an engaging PTO experience.

CC:P is a standalone product and the third volume in the series behind CC:Europe and CC:Mediterranean. It has been published with a refined and updated rule-set and on the whole received positive community reviews (gaming gang / bgg).

CC:P Big Box

The box is a big one when compared to my other GMT titles, probably to hold the three decks of cards included. The full contents list is as follows:

Six thick paper double-sided maps. (17" x 22")

352 large counters. (5/8")

280 small counters. (1/2")

220 cards - One U.S. fate deck, one Japanese fate deck and one Commonwealth fate deck.

CC:P Counters

A 32-page rule book.

A 32-page play book.

A display track.

3 double sided nationality cards.

2 player aid cards.

CC:P Box Contents

Commonwealth, Japanese and U.S. fate decks

Fate cards represent the heart and soul of CC:P as a card-driven wargame which uses no actual dice.

A Sample U.S. fate card

Actions/Orders can only be played via in-hand fate cards, whereas other required "events", "random hexes", "sighting marker movements" or "dice rolls" are covered by drawing a fate card from the required deck and taking the result directly from that card.

e.g. Here a dice roll request would be a 1:6 and the event would be Medic.

I'm looking forward to giving combat Commander: Pacific a run out, although for now it's probably behind FAB Sicily in terms of play order.

Battle Pack #4 - New Guinea

As with previous volumes in the Combat Commander series, CC:P has had an expansion released, Battle Pack #4 - New Guinea. I've ordered a copy from Boardgame Guru.

> Further scenarios for CC:P also appear in the latest C3i magazine.
> The GMT listing for CC:P, including living rules and the VASSAL module, can be found here.

> A full list of Combat Commander scenarios can be found here.


As always too many good games and not enough time to play them! Until next time good gaming!

Update 01/08/12

A quick update as the Battle Pack #4 - New Guinea arrived today. It includes six new maps and fourteen new scenarios themed on the contrasting coastal and highland fighting in New Guinea between January '42 and July'44.

New Guinea: Battle Pack #4

Posted with Blogsy

KoffeeKlub Evening 29th of July

A Few Acres of Snow

Medal hopeful, Mr Bingers is making a dash for the Olympics this week. A man down, KoffeeKlub's featured game will be the 2-player A Few Acres Of Snow, by Treefrog Games. As usual we'll be in Whitehead Primary School on Sunday 29th of July 2012 from 7-11pm.

Unusual Cups

Our coffee of the week will be a Papua New Guinea roast served in our unusual porcelain cups. 

Join us if you can, everyone is welcome!

GamesReport 22-Jul-12: Caylus Magna Carta

AndyA - Holiday Snaps

With AndyA (aka "Captain Pugwash") back-from-sea, we opened up with Caylus Magna Carta, a light Eurogame from Ystari Games. I've been a big fan of Euro-style games ever since I picked up a German version of Settlers of Catan back in the late 90s. Indeed for a number of years during my time with BGA, a local gaming group currently based in Bangor (County Down), I collected few other types of games and added the likes of Notre Dame, Auf Heller Und Pfennig, El Grande, Euphrat & Tigris, Ra, Thurn Und Taxis, Lost Cities, 6 Nimmt! and many more to my collection.

It all started in Catan

Great gaming years, but ones that drifted as board gaming became more mainstream again and so-called Ameri-trash titles caught my eye. I still have most of my old Euros and hope to continue drip-feeding them into KoffeeKlub's line-up in the coming weeks and months.

Caylus Magna Carta

Caylus Magna Carta (CMC), set in 1289 and themed around building a new castle for King Philip "The Fair" and is a lighter version of the Caylus board game. Whilst the theme and mechanics are similar CMC uses cards to represent the master builder's (players) progress in creating infrastructure along the road to support the castle being built. Like many Euros, CMC distills the actual building of the castle into a player drive for prestige points which can be gained from constructing new buildings, providing "batches" (1 stone + 1 food + 1 wood = 1 batch) of goods to build the castle and using effects from buildings already in play.

CMC: Food, Wood and Stone

Players begin with the same deck of buildings, drawing three random cards at the beginning of the game. Actions can be used to place workers on existing buildings, draw new cards, build new buildings from your hand (adding them to the road), building prestige buildings or passing out of that round. Once all players have passed they can pay to move the "Provost" (in pass turn order) up to 3 spaces along the road in either direction. A worker on any building beyond the Provost does not have an action this turn, so this can be a nice little way to mess with your opponents. Nice!

CMC: The Road

End-game is triggered once the last prestige point token has been claimed and the final prestige point totals are calculated for each layer to establish a winner. Careful resource, buildings and worker management are necessary for victory.

CMC: Player's Buildings

Our game went very smoothly and after a 20 minute rules walkthrough we kicked-off picking up the flow of play pretty quickly. In the end the final scores were pretty close...



Caylus Magna Carta: GaryG scored 48 points and was awarded 3 beans. AndyA scored 46 points and was awarded 1 bean. GaryB scored 39 points.

I like CMC, but feeling that it's play-time is a little too long for what is essentially a light Euro. Great to get it played again after so many years on the shelf.

For our last hour we drank coffee, chatted and played Bluff, which always raises a laugh or two.

Bluff: GaryG had two wins and three second places scoring 7 beans. GaryB had 3 wins and 1 second place scoring 7 beans. AndyA had two wins and 3 second places scoring 7 beans. Honours even.

Great gaming guys cheers!

Posted with Blogsy

GamesReport 18-Jul-12: Buccaneer

Buccaneer

Our regular RPG night was postponed this week, so Wednesday evening saw an impromptu meeting of the KoffeeKlub. On the table were Race For The Galaxy (RFTG), by Rio Grande Games and Buccaneer, by Queen Games.

Race For The Galaxy

We opened the evening up with RFTG, which has already seen a number of plays in July. if you want to see a little more detail on this game check out our 8-Jul-12 Gamesreport. This was Trev's first game of RFTG which is always a steep learning curve for the new player. Hopefully we covered the rules well enough to smooth out that experience.

In the end GaryB's game engine was a little more matured than either Trev's or my own and he ended up being the only one to build a "6" cost development for bonus end-of-game scoring. I really like the different strategies that RFTG offers and hope that Trev enjoyed it enough to want to pl;ay again at some stage.

Stacking Pirates? Ooh ARRR!

Our second and final game was Buccaneer, a lighter offering from Queen Games. In Buccaneer each player controls a number of different pirate counters and uses them to create a pirate crews strong enough to take on the ships on offer.

Ship Ahoy!

Each crew is generally made up of pirates from different players and once a ship has been taken players get booty depending of where their pirates sit in the stack.

Buccaneer comes across as a very light, almost play-it-with-your-kids type of game, but there is definitely enough strategy in there and for adults to enjoy as well.

Thanks to Trev and GaryB for a fun night's gaming.

KoffeeKlub League:
Race For The Galaxy - GaryB was awarded 3 beans and GaryG was awarded 1 bean.
Buccaneer - GaryB was awarded 3 beans and GaryG was awarded 1 bean.

KoffeeKlub Evening 22nd of July

Caylus Magna Carta

This week at KoffeeKlub our featured game is Caylus Magna Carta, by Ystari Games. We'll be in Whitehead Primary School on Sunday 22nd of July 2012 from 7-11pm.

Moka Pot

Our coffee of the week will be a Percol Colombian grind brewed up in our Moka Pot. Please join us if you can, but be aware, coffee makes me nervous when I drink it. Mmm.