Thursday, June 22, 2017

Mid-Week Board Gaming

Scott, Josh and Mike stopped by last Thursday for an evening of board gaming. The game this night was Tiny Epic Galaxies. Although the box is small, the game is quite dynamic with plenty of inter-player interaction. I had a lot of fun even though I was last place both games. I'm looking forward to playing it again - highly recommended.

We're getting the band back together again. The four of us used to game regularly every Friday evening for several years, but life, children, careers, got in the way. Now that life is settling down for most of us we're looking to make this a more regular thing.

Monday, June 19, 2017

June 2017 Northern Conspiracy Game Night

Last Friday I ran a game of Iron Cross at our club's game night. This was a revised version of my 'Race for the Radar' scenario that I ran in February. The OBs were tuned and reduced to three players per side. Both sides got the hang of the rules quickly and played well. The hero of the game was definitely Art's SdKfz 222 armored car. That unit took out a Sherman, a Stuart and a Vickers MG team. Art was also the 'rally-master' CinC rallying several German units from the brink of elimination with great company morale checks.


















Charlie ran an Austria vs Bavarian napoleonic game with his rules, Napoleon's Rules of War.






Peter ran a game of "800 Fighting Englishmen" (Large Scale Sword and Flame). Scenario was based on Khartoum.




More great photos and an excellent write-up of Charlie's game can be found on Ed's blog here.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Robbie-Con 2017

This past weekend a bunch of us drove up to the green mountains of Vermont for a weekend of gaming with our friend Robert (pictured left in the blue shirt). Robert rents out a function space and a bunch of his friends travel up for a weekend of food, miniature and board games.

Bob and I arrived before the others, so I broke out Age of War, a game that travels with me wherever I go in my RV. It's a fun quick filler game of dice rolling with a Samurai conquest theme. Everyone led at one point in this game with me eventually stealing the win with a quick grab of a 2nd monopoly. I'm mentioning it here because from there on I was on the other side of the coin.

 
After a nice dinner we played a game of Hannibal at the Gates 2nd edition hosted by Bob using his beautiful Roman and Gaul armies. This was a close-fought game with the Romans pulling out a win at the end. During the fight I thought it was going poorly for the Gauls, but in the end the units lost showed it was much closer. The other Gaul players did much better than I did in this one.

The Roman players - ready to show the Gauls how things are. All photos show Bob's beautiful new fur table cover.












Saturday Morning Robert put on a French vs. Allied game using his Napoleonic rules which are in development. To the left my opponent for the game was Ed of Ed M's Wargames Meanderings blog. You can read his post about the weekend on his blog here.

I had an advance 'forlorn hope' command caught unaware by the allies. My job was to hold until relieved. All in all I lasted a while before finally being dispatched by both Ed's Prussian guard and Mike's light cavalry who flanked me and attacked me from the rear.  The French guard, never made it to my aid - stopped in its tracks by a Russian massed battery supported by Bob's infantry. Fun game and Robert's rules are really shaping up to be fun and getting more refined with each game.
















The final game for me for the weekend was Ralph's X-wing 'wormhole' extravaganza. We had more people than table space so on the fly Charlie and Mike came up with a fun idea - put two round tables together and put a wormhole where they join. Ships that crossed the wormhole entered the other table on a randomly selected edge position.

This was a fun learning game for me only being my second game. Ralph held out well with his Imperial strikers vs. Ed and I, but on the other Table Charlie got out matched by Bob's Tie Fighter swarm and Mike's advanced Tie Fighters.









I had a long drive home in my RV so I left after dinner, but the rest of the guys played a final game of The Grizzled after I left.