Remembering PRESTAGS

The Return of PRESTAGS?

I opened the latest Strategy and Tactics last week and the map reminded me of something!

Of course prettier, but structurally just like PRESTAGS. The leader counters are reminiscent, though again prettier.

The archer and artillery had similar factors, but the absence of skirmishers (on of my favourites) was noticeable.

The combat results table was different, but not completely so - more like an evolution.

The title of the magazine - Fight the Fall. It features two battles from the end of the Roman empire. Desperate times for everyone, but the empire no longer represented anything worth saving: much the way Spetz sees 21st century capitalist democracies.

PRESTAGS Gold Medal

Many thanks to my fine friends who celebrated my birthday with me on Zoom.

Chinese food and Charddy was compulsory.

A PRESTAGS gold medal goes to Python for the best Charddy quaff.

Constantinople - Strategy and Tactics 318

Constantinople arrived in my mail box a couple of months ago in the traditional large Manila envelope with the "Do Not Bend" label that means "YES"! I was busy with dignity at the time so only had time to read the articles. (Good articles on the Thirty Year War and the Judean War of independence - that features at bit in the weekday masses of late.) However, the game is a solitaire game so I just had to give it a go. I mean - who keeps a wargame unpunched?

I like a game that is not just military. In this game, you can build improvements like fortresses and monasteries. These improve your future defence and your income - get those boys away from women and other distractions and they become quite useful.

Interestingly, in this game you can also improve yourself via cost times luck, you can increase the defence of your capital,  you military, popularity and statecraft. You lose it all if the Baliseus dies, it all goes back to the start again. But the era was like that, so fair enough. I really like the map of Constantinople in background.

By the roll of the dice, there are three barbarians active at the start of the scenario: The Lombards, the Syrians and the Mongols.

I have the Lombards covered with a general (Strategos) and a thematic army. (The provinces are replaced by themes in 7AD, and each has its own army that costs a motza if they move outside. Note the arrows - you know where the barbarians are going to go - the rules say "Generally, barbarians in the era kept to certain invasion paths". Makes for a perfect solitaire game - not much thought on how to move the bad guys - and where not to build your monasteries!

On the other side of the map, I have no-one! I'll have to rush the Emperor there! Probably Antioch first and then the Mongols. The fortresses (red hex lines) should buy me enough time!)

The maps and counters have a nice feel - I think this is a good game. I am disturbed by the artists understanding of Greece though - not even close! (Corinth is south of Athens, and far from Themopylea. I suggest the game designer meant Thebes are Argos!)

As different from my youth, technology today allows me now to watch the cricket while playing a board game!

I love the marriage between great board game design and portable cricket screens - they both move at about the same speed!

Pathetic!

Gamers View of the Battle of Marathon

I have long loved the simplicity of PRESTAGS: learn one - play them all - but have hated the way quality equates to stacking levels. it is so hard for a side to win when stacking levels are against them.

Marathon is an exception - while the Greeks have superior stacking, they cannot use it without being outflanked. History tells us they spread their centre and left their flank solid for fear of the Persian cavalry. However, the unexpected nature of their attack meant that the cavalry could not mount or deploy, so games tend not to show them.

The Field of Glory battle has a huge screen by comparison (and the problem of exciting computer games - sometimes you forget to move some pieces)

You can hover over the units to see what they all do

You can see how the the game is based on miniatures

Contact takes a few turns while the Persians decimate the ranks. (The Yellow 9 over the Greek line shows the damage.)

At contact, things look equal, with only a few units disrupted.

John Michael Young knows these hoplites will get quickly shot to pieces in  this game, so has a special rule that the archers cannot fire in the first turn. The results are telling - the Persians are 8 down on the panic level of 31 after the Greek charge.

After a few turns, the Greek centre routed off the field

However the wings are telling a the Persians crumble.

The flanks turn on the Persian centre and the Greeks just snatch victory by 60-49

 

The end

• 
• 
• 
• 

The PRESTAGS game was much shorter. The centre just held, but the right wing destroyed the Persians in front of them and turned on the flank. The left wing of the Greeks was mauled as the map allowed the Persians to play some archers and follow up with a Barbarian Infantry charge. Small comfort and the battle was lost.

In the final analysis, both are games and want to give either side a chance. The computer game is beautiful to look at and has lots of special units for you to study. It was a near victory for Greece in the end. If the Persians had a human player, they perhaps would win. I don't see how the Persians could beat a mildly competent Greek played in PRESTAGS, but perhaps a thin veneer of militia at the front and the archers behind could do it.

Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea - Summary

I restarted the scenario with my new learnings of what to do and what to avoid. This time I got quite close to a historical result - the Persians were largely driven off and the Western Empire is in shambles. This was not the result of any game balance - just the luck of the cards. The Visigoths got good cards and gave the Romans a civil war, rise of piracy and several civil disturbances. While they held Rome, they are now fatally weakened and will collapse next turn.

Having a number of settlements (not cities) away from the front make a big difference to your military strength, but these too are vulnerable to certain event cards. Keeping your treasure and cards intact for the combat period is also very important. The event cards are very significant - to the point where I feel I am a captain trying to sail a ship through a tricky gale of cards, rather than an emperor having a plan that has a few event speed bumps to negotiate.

The solitaire system makes for a very challenging game. However with only stylised cultural traits, it lacks the detail to give you the feel of being a late Roman Emperor. Good gaming for mates, but just a game rather than a simulation.

As an FMW game, I think it will be great. It does have the ability for us to play as allies against the AI, but I think it would get nasty quickly as we accidentally fire some event cards at each other. As the VP scale shows who is winning at each point, I think we would quickly slip into balance of power play.

Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea

My first thoughts were: "Hmmm, a bit light on". Where is the geographic features, where are the trade goods, where is Gaul, Brittania, The Black Sea or Persia, where are the phalanxes, legions or triremes? You are presented with a map of the Mediterranean, lots of little discs (50 each) and some intriguing playing cards.

The game is played in Epochs: Bronze Age, Iron Age, Age of Empires and Fall of Empires, and each Epoch lasts 2-4 turns. Definitely finishable on a Boyz Weekend. There are ten possible starting cultures, each with their own benefits. These benefits means that each player will play their own style of game.

The game is played for victory points which are awarded for a combination of culture, wealth, victory and luck of the card draw. At first glace, it appears to be a reboot of Civilization: there are wonders, cards, and cities are build by stacking armies, and who ever goes first gets clobbered. Also NO DICE!

However, the cards are used in a Yugioh (Dueling Monsters) style where they influence each other and provide a interesting variety of effects. However, they can also be used to aid in combat, so you can surprise by saving them for the big battle.

I have set up a solitaire scenario - divided Rome facing Visigoths and Persians. The invaders are controlled by the AI - a sheet of 50 odd priorities, miost of which do not apply, so it is pretty easy to use. And surprisingly hard to predict. The Visigoths didn't go to Rome first - they when to Iberia to get that gold, bypassing my Limitaini!

In the East, things got hairy with a huge barbarian invasion of a cusp in my empire making the Persians hard to get at.

While I cleaned up most of the Visigoth invasion, I forgot about the sea. Next turn, they were in Rome and with a lucky card draw, the eternal city fell.

And was looted

Now we need a PWWWW

FMW Ready

I saw this in a P500 list early last year and thought "Perfect for an FMW".

After all, who does not want to be Troy and drive a shaft deep inside the Wooden Horse!

What looks intriguing is that we can all ally and play the system!

Counter of the week: who doesn't want to play a blasphemy card in the middle of a hard battle!

GAS Time?

There was no turn this morning, so I was poking around a few sites on the web. I found this beauty:

This Peloponnesian was my introduction to the study of Ancient History. Up to that point, I would read bits, like the short paragraphs crafted by John Michael Young above each PRESTAGS battle or the articles in S&T. It start for me with this.

These photos were taken by a gamer who blogged about it - a best of all - they can read!

Better still they can read French.

This is a typical GMT game with beautiful maps and counters, like we are used to at FMWs.

It seems to have everyone you expect - from Pericles

to Spartans!

Of course, this is just a game, what about Gear. I noticed this in one of the photos - a dice throwing machine!

A perfect game for an FMW, you ask. No. I find this part mind blowing:

However, I cannot buy this for myself - because that would be selfish. Usually Deano of Pip would buy games like this for me. I need a new dog!

The reader will note that this post does not have large slabs of plagiarised text: it is 100% Pure Python.

That is not a watch...

It does not even tell time! (https://www.prestags.com/2019/06/fabulous-1980s-tech.html) This is a watch!

I sometimes wonder that if the Amish did not exist, Spetz would found them, with 1980's tech (enough to have Empire playing on a Mac Classic) and 1950's theology (only Catholics need apply). Just because the tech is old, it does not mean it is the height of good design - it was just the best we could do at the time. Just like counters and hex grid maps are pretty cool and still have a place in the mouse of one of the readers of this blog, they are not the final word on wargaming.

Just because you have the inferior Russian jets in this counter mix does not mean you ignore all possible future improvements. uyou play on and flan for the FUTURE, because the FUTURE is coming much sooner than the PAST!

Watches can show world maps, modern or old these days. Does it make them less virtuous? No, but they can and will get better. And if you want your watch to tell the time, and now just dumbly show it, you should be allowed to say "OK Google, what is the time?"

 

World at War - Operation Typhoon

I undertook a New Year's Resolution to write in this blog once a week. My resolution is clearly in tatters, but am I a quitter? If I fail, do I throw my hands in the air and curl into a ball? No!!! That is for the likes of Puti and The Chump. I grit my teeth so my tears do not impact my gasps and press on. Here is my February post!

World at War is a Strategy and Tactics offshoot that focuses solely on World War 2. Perhaps a bit boring at times, I took up the subscription last year after a stressful work project, it does contain a few gems.

Operation Typhoon is solitaire game of the final German advance on Moscow in 1941. As you advance towards Moscow, you roll a die to find our what is in each hex. The forest and clear hexes are easy with never more than two rifle divisions in a hex, but the cities and the fortresses are nasty.

The game requires you to form pockets and eat the Soviet army in bites. This was the dominant German doctrine at the time. You can see a pocket forming above. Stalin required all soviet units to break out of pockets. So when this pocket formed, the German 2nd Army faced a break out of 8 rifle divisions, 3 brigades and a Katusha rocket launcher. My units took some damage but held on. Closer to Moscow this is going to get nasty!

The counters are quite simple. All German units have the same movement according to their type. Soviet units just appear when the game system opts to hold a hex. Here are the best units on the map.

I am a quarter way across the map on my first turn. The Fuehrer will be pleased. What could go wrong?

Combat is simple. Each point gets a die roll, so the big Panzer division roll 7 dice each combat, and cause mayhem. I have found four die but I need to find more. While the sheer number of die rolls means you do not have Brendan Mahoney moments, it does make the game very noisy.

I'll have to finish the game quickly. Given what The Chump is up to, I might need to get the Iran solitaire game out quickly!

What were they thinking?

2017 was a very good year for me at the office. I had successfully brought my Manila posting to the originally requested outcome and received my best bonus ever for my development work. I had also written a product that falls into the top five best products I have ever written - largely unsung at the time, it has become a major selling feature late last year. In recognition of my hard work, I knew a deserved a lovely piece of crockery in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the kitchen is brimming with lovely pieces of crockery such that they have overflowed into the dining room cupboards, which are also now full. This left me on the horns of a dilemma, so I had to go with my third option (the second being membership to the art gallery, but when would I find the time!), a subscription to everything coming out of Strategy and Tactics press, at an eye watering US$1000 for two years.

Reviewing it now, I think it was a good decision - I had many evenings of pleasant reading and some great maps and counters to review. From top to bottom:

• the venerable Strategy and Tactics, now up to issue #314,
• Modern War, that provides interesting insights into the current tensions of the world, mostly from a military perspective, which you rarely find the in the news
• World at War, which tries to be S&T but for only World War 2, so perhaps the least interesting of the set, but perhaps the most believable of the games
• Strategy and Tactics Quarterly, the new kid on the block, with a lot of articles on just one topic, no games, but a poster.

A feast of new games, and the anticipation of finding room in the attic for 18 more in 2019. I have failed in one respect, I have not punched the counters of any of them last year. I resolve to so this year. Let the readers of this auspicious blog pausing their eating and spider hunting to hold me so accountable.

The observant would ask why there is a gap? The answer is simple: if a US Civil War game arrives in your mail box, there is a board room I know of where it can be swapped for a Scotch, for some people simply cannot have enough US Civil War games!

And the winner is

I think the best read of them was the Quarterly of Caesar, and how a Roman of modest means, but the highest ambition, can break into the Cursus Honorum. (The article on that was fascinating - young aristocrats were expected to move from government post to post building up an understanding of how the Roman state worked until they reached the role of consul. It gave the state a large pool of experienced leaders to fall back on in times of emergency, and something to consume the energies of the young. The article went to far as to suggest that Rome's resilience during the second Carthaginian War was due to this.) The poster showed Caesar's marches during the Gallic Wars and the Civil war, and is on my wall.

The magazine about Stalingrad was a close second. I do not read a lot of WW2 history, but had heard of this one (and watched the excellent "Enemy at the Gates" with Spetz). Stalingrad was never the objective of the the drive into the Caucasus. The original plan was to get close enough so Germany artillery could interdict the railway and interfere with Stalin's transfer of troops and oil. One of the reasons given for the diversion was that Hitler had become a drug addict. There was a doctor for the German elite who used to mix his own remedies for the wealthy who felt they had lost their vim. These remedies contained stimulants and narcotics. Hitler had appointed him as a personal physician at the time, and soon developed an obsession that a capture of Stalingrad would equate to a defeat of  Stalin.

It was matched with a World at War article where you can attempt to replay the the campaign. You have all that lovely oil to the south and boring Stalingrad to the north. However, the action chits you have to pull each turn keeps pulling you south. I like the action chit idea as it adds a lot of colour to otherwise boring Panzer corps and Guard armies.

An honourable mention goes the World War 3 Quarterly for all the bits that happened when I was little that nearly resulted in me not growing big. I am still reading that one.

Puti-phobia

Puti features in two of the Modern War series. There is much interest in his possible future actions, but the general consensus is that he is more interested with disrupting the US Hegemony to create a series of Russian based alliances, than territorial acquisitions. There is more fear about these alliances backfiring and drawing Russia into a war they did not intend and the US into it. This game, Puti Moves South, looks at the Stans south of Russia and north of Persia and Afghanistan. There is oil and gas there that mostly travels through Russia so disruption to that supply could draw in the Russian army. Interestingly with this game, at the start of each game you roll a die for each power to decide whether it is in the Russian Coalition or US/NATO aligned. Every game would be very different. The latest Modern War, The War on Terror, does the same in the Middle East. It means that every play of the game would be quite different. I think this is one of the games I should set up.

Rise of the Solitaire games

Six of these games are solitaire. I should set up a few this year. I have played a couple in the past, but the issue is that there is no marvellously clever play you can make to give you the game. You are grinding through taking objectives that weaken the strength of the enemy play system, while having some flexibility for random events. That said, I should try them as some game systems are brilliant. Perhaps there is a new John Michael Young other there.

The most intriguing of the game is submarine warfare in the Pacific. Unlikely the Atlantic, submarines featured in navel battles. This game lets you play as the Japanese or the US.

Perhaps this article is better named "What was I thinking?" I stand deprived of a new piece of crockery in my kitchen by pure obsession!

 

Did Paul cancel his S&T subscription too early?

The other possibility is that she-who-must-be-obeyed advised him that he did not need any more American Civil War games. It is possible that a man can have enough American Civil War games? What if a man is no longer a man? Is this the game that finally reveals the unstoppable spirit of the south?

The force pools look pretty equal. The map looks pretty comprehensive. It also works with a bottle of single malt scotch!

It could be that the scope of play is more than Paul can imagine:

Perhaps Paul does not believe there is anything more to say on the American Civil War after S&T #43, or that Joseph Miranda cannot design a wargame.

Of course the true answer is that Paul does not like games where the Union wins by losing some battles at the start!

If work actually does suck, perhaps Paul needs a reward; a light. But more likely, he now prefers the punishment of work against the ambiguity of an unowned wargame!

Nasty start

Kansas and I were defeated by the AI in ATG last night. He managed to increase his production out of our reach and we had to fold. In our next game (you get through ATG games quite quickly), I am China (blue, centre) and he is Russia (purple, north, and we are trying to deal with the Arabs (aqua, east) and the Japanese (brown, west). The Japanese attacked me right away, but fortunately the Arabs are quiet. I have the benefit of militia, so I am not fighting, just flooding the front with Militia and infiltrating everywhere (aka Chinese offensive in the Korean War). However, when the Arabs get involved, I will be in serious trouble!

Kansas in trouble again

I think Paul used to have a rule: "Never play Python when he has cavalry." He needs to explain that rule to Kansas. This attack has gone three times better than I expected. My plan was just to shell the city so that it stopped producing. I have now cut the supply lines to the city and if he does not have some off map reinforcements, it is going to fall.

What is clever about ATG is that capturing an enemy city does not make me much stronger as the enemy populace refuses to make weapons of war. Thus you do not steam roller in this game. I have done well because while the Chinese strength is militia, the Confederate strength is in rangers - elite infantry. I can turn any flank I want, but I can't hold against a human wave attack. However, if the human wave has no ammunition, I am in with a strong chance. And if they lose this much of their army, its good night Kansas.

In the south I tried an experiment of putting a smaller number of rangers into armoured cars. This lets me concentrate on a small part of the line and then pour reinforcements through. That has gone very well and Kansas will lose badly here if he chooses to defend the centre.

Who wants to give it a go?

My Indulgence

Let me humour myself and greet the readers of this blog. They may recall a set of analysis articles I wrote just over a year ago on the Australian designed World in Flames. Well, I indulged myself last weekend during the anniversary of D-Day sale and purchased the digital version. They have tried to remain as true to the game as possible, and I have to admit that I am impressed.

There is no AI, and the map is a bit more dense, and you are less motivated to study the rules (vs just trying things), but you can get through a few turns every evening and it is quite compelling. There is no PBEM feature, but no matter as my friends are illiterate, and it would not work that way with constant back and fro during the turns (air intercept and escort, advance and retreat after combat etc.). There are a number of players on line looking for competitors, but I have too many gaming commitments right now, so I just relax with a glass of wine when there are no PBEM turns and do a turn or two of this ((playing both sides).

Above is the start of WW2, the invasion of Poland. You get the same beautiful counters with nice detail on what they are, but you never knock them all over or have to clean them up because company is coming over!

But you have the whole world and it fits on one desk!

Even the parts you will never play on

 

 

Why Paul must open the latest version of S&T

In the boring brown package, you will find...

...your best friends, the losers,...

...your worst enemies, the winners,...

...and a map showing Washington oh so very close!

Hasn't counter art come a long way since our youth!

Christmas in the Mediterranean

With Christmas duties out of the way, I headed off to enjoy the contest for he Mediterranean between Rome and Carthage.

"Pax Romana" is a beautifully made game with a focus on playability over historical realism. It pits four powers, Rome, Carthage, Greece and "the East" (an amalgam of Diadochi powers) in a contest of supremacy that includes conquest and the building of cities. Rome starts off weak but has a lot going for it. Greece and the East are far more cohesive and effective than historically, but as a game it plays well, gives the players lots of interesting choices and "just works" in the way that "Space Empires" (the game from our last Boys Weekend) did. It would be a good candidate for our next Boys Weekend, if we get tired of intra-galactic space.

I chose the most historical of the scenarios for my first attempt: Carthage against Roma. It took me a few goes to ensure I have a full grasps of the rules: Carthage fell too quickly the first time and then Roma as I missed subtleties.

You can see Pyrrhus on the right of the image in Greece about to land to the aid of the Greeks against the Romans. In Africa, the Carthaginians have subdued the Numidians and are starting to expand into Spain.

As play began, Pyrrhus was blown off course sailing from Greece. Roma tried a preemptive strike which saw it suffer a repulse on the walls of Tarentum. Then Pyrrhus finally arrive and fought his way unopposed through Capua, Roma and into Cisaplina. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians took advantage of the chaos to consolidate with a town building program in the Sicilies.

The Roman attempted to retake Roma but were short of cash and could not muster the right dice rolls. The turn finished with Carthage on top.

The next turn Roma built legions to finish off Magna Graecia and the Carthaginians made an attempt to dominate Spain. The Romans succeeded with the former while the Carthaginians had to contend with a slave revolt in Africa, so only managed a toe hold in Africa.

In the third turn, Rome was finally ready to take on Carthage in Sicily, but again were plagued by bad die rolls. Carthage on the other hand went through Spain easily so continued through southern Gaul and into Cisalpina. At the end of the turn, the Roman position was pretty hopeless. Particuarly as the Carthaginians hold another "Soldier of Fortune" card (= another Pyrrhus type army in Italy) to enhance the pain.

Good game! For solitaire play you do need more realism, but I can see the fun in this. Although I was mostly watching the cricket, three turns (each with 8 operational phases, called Activations) took almost three hours. The right length of a lazy post Christmas day.

Good dog!

I was delighted to find a present under the tree addressed to me from the dog! Even better, when I opened it, it was just the present I wanted.

Anyone can have peace at Christmas time provided they have enough legions under their command!

When life serves you lemons...

you play a wargame!

I find myself home alone for Christmas for reasons too depressing for this blog. I could mope, or I could set up a big war game. And what better topic than the worst bad day in history.

It started off quite ordinarily for Xenophon, an Athenian mercenary working his craft for Cyrus, a prince of Persia. He had a battle to fight. But as a Greek Hoplite fighting a Persian horde twice the size of your army, it was probably equivalent to a Sydney to Canberra drive for us. You had to be careful, but you would probably arrive safely.

Xenophon was careful, and he and the Greek Hopiltes won the battle - twice - once in each direction. You had to be there to really understand it, but think of a wheat harvester. It drives down one row harvesting wheat, and the turns around and comes back through the next row. They probably would have done a third row, but the Persians were sick of the battle by that point and didn't hang around for an encore.

Unfortunately for Xenophon, Cyrus thought he was Alexander the Great (60 years early) and when he saw the Persians crumble, decided to charge through the chaos and kill the opposing king. He didn't bother with his helmet, took a javelin to the throat and game over player one. With the death of Cyrus, none of the other Persians wanted to play King Maker any more, so the 10,000 Greeks found themselves 800 miles into hostile territory.

Xenophon thought he could turn this around and had himself elected as a General. (I know that if the Aussie diggers got to vote on who the generals were, there would be a lot of great haired idiots launching the next attack at Passchendaele!) He lead the boys home through a number of hairy episodes and made Carrhae look like picnic, and even managed to write a book about it.

If he can do it, so can I!

What to do on a quiet Saturday morning in Manila?

Well, I was hoping to play a few turns, but it takes three to tango.

My plan B is to attempt to sail a 1980's Nimitz class carrier force though hostile Soviet fleets. I received this almost a year ago from S&T, and thought this trip would be a great chance to try it out.

So here is my counter of the week.

I'm back

A man has to do something when he gets no turns and has had to leave his wargame collection behind!

World in Flames (5th Edition) - After Action Report - Part 1

Paul was right - this quiz answer was a strategic level WW2 game.

Australians Create Great Games Too

After finishing Crimea, I thought of other games I had which had great counters too. This one came to mind that I bought ages ago - World in Flames - about 1995 I think. I don't recall why now, because WW2 is not my period, but I did play it solitaire a bit at the time (as I had lost track of my wargaming friends by that time). I really like the plane counters that they provide that show the different types available.

Clockwise from the top left are air-air strength, naval attack, strategic bombardment and ground attack. The circled number is the range. (The arrow for the French bomber means that it can double its range if it halves its strengths.)

This game has a number of nice touches.

• When you purchase a unit, you draw it out of a cup, so do not know if it will be a hero or a goat.
• Your high command has to decide whether to focus on navy, land or a combination. This requires compromise.
• After each attack, land units are flipped over unless they achieve a break through. However, a general can flip them back (just once per turn) into active mode so they can exploit situations.
• Very different naval, land and air combat systems

Best of all - it was designed by the "Australian Design Group". They are not as prolific as John Michael Young, but they have a few winners

September 1939

Germany has just declared war on Poland and Britain and France have declared war on Germany. The Soviet Union has agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. (Click the map to expand.)

 

Germany had the first impulse and launches an land impulse. It attacks towards Lodz and infiltrates elsewhere. The  German Airforce supports the panzers while the Polish airforce does its best.

The French and British respond with a daylight strategic bombing of the German factories.

The results are mixed - the British bombers are mauled, but the French get through to their target and remove a production point from the Germans. Using the Maginot Line as a base, the French attack Saarbrucken and shatter the German position there.

The Germans, unfazed, enter Warsaw and Poland surrenders. Before they do, the Poles launch some desperation attacks and destroy some of the attacking formations. The French attack again towards Cologne, but some unstuck and take heavy casualties. 

The turn ends surprisingly early as a heavy winter comes early. (Global CO2 concentrations had little impact on the weather 80 years ago!) The toll has been high.

At the end of the turn, your production plans for the next turn are laid out. The Germans go for boots on the ground, the British for their navy and the rest a bit of mix. These are placed on a chart that shows when they arrive.

Despite the onset of winter, the Fuehrer demands the recapture of Saarbruken. The Germans throw 6 corps at it and their Stukas. The French are smashed and the remaining forces return to the Maginot line. They retaliate with another strategic bombardment, this time at night. The fighters duel for the sky, so the bombers have to abort.

The campaign season comes to a close with nothing further than the Soviets quietly taking the Baltic States. Everyone is too busy to complain!

Winter 1939-1940

By the roll of the die, a very severe weather takes place - so heavy than in January no air operations are permitted. All that happens for the next few turns is rebuilding armies and upgrading airforces. The French, British and Germans need more pilots. The Italians and Russians follow suit because it seems like a good idea.

And ditto the next month

The winter continued into March/April and the high command convinced the Fuehrer to wait.

Finally in May the weather cleared. Germany promptly declared war on Belgium and the Netherlands

 

Related articles

Crimea - Part 1 - Battle of Alma

Storm in a tea cup

My wife is wondering where her tea cups have gone!

With the end of the Crimean warn, it is time for something different. This game requires all reinforcements to be picked at random. Any guesses as to which one this is?

Crimea - Part 3 - Battle of Balaklava

After two months of reinforcement and replacements,. the Russians were ready to attack the siege lines. The Allies had made this difficult by fortifying the heights of the Tchernya River (that were unoccupied at this time historically). It did leave their lines extended, but was telling the their victory in this battle. At stake was the survival of the British army - if the Russians controlled road to Balaklava, most of the British army would be out of supply. (The Russian dared not go into Balaklava because of the British fleet's devastating fire-power, but they did not need to - they just needed to have the road in artillery range.) The Russians attacked with three divisions of infantry and two of cavalry.

The opening fire was very inauspicious for the Russians - a right fiasco. The river attack was driven off and the rest ineffective.

The Allies responded by moving up their troops and with the Charge of the Light Brigade- the 8-8 in the middle of the photo, also the "Counter of the Week". (Same valley as the historical charge, but much more effective! They attacked two regiments of the Russian 10th infantry and drove them off, although with losses.)

The second Russian fire phase drove off the Turkish defenders to the south, while the British 4th division drove off the remainder of the Russian attackers.

The Russians advanced to the edge of the Balaklava road - all they needed. The French and English counter-attacked. The French second Cavalry brigade charged the Russian left flank.

The next fire phase saw massive casualties on both sides. The Allied morale held, and the Russians retreated except the 12th division, which drove back the Cavalry screen. As you can see, the number of demoralised Russians grows. This is their biggest problem: they cannot sustain an attack for long as losses generally demoralise their troops.

The Russians were driven back in the south with heavy losses, but advanced again in the north. Given the river was secure, the British fourth division came down from the hill and hit the Russian right flank.

The next fire phase again saw heavy casualties with most of the Light infantry division destroyed along with several Russian regiments. Both sides were just abut finished, but the Russians still held the crossroads. The Allied had the French 2eme division coming up fresh.

The French attack turned the tide, supported by the British Heavy Brigade (cavalry) drove off the Russians. Most of their forces were disrupted, but they launch one last attempt at victory

The 61 Don Cossacks charged the fourth division causing casualties. However, the Russian soldiery had had enough, and almost all the remaining foot soldiers broke.

The Russians withdrew towards their supply lines, and the British Army was saved. However, the cost was for the Allies three divisions of infantry and two of cavalry, and the Russians two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry.

The Allies have a choice, try an attack on Sevastopol with their weakened forces while the Russians are retreating, or try a hard counter-attack on the Russians to destroy their army. Whatever they choose, Winter is Coming! (Winter will put most of their units out of supply with attrition taking a toll. Historically, this is what nearly destroyed their army.)

Game Design Workshop know how to present a game

The second war game I ever purchased was also of the Crimean War. This was around the time Malcolm Fraser defeated Gough's government, forcing my family to move to Sydney in search of work. (From memory, the options were Sydney, Munich or somewhere in the US.) I spent many a long evening in Sydney honing my skills on this on this campaign. There were some wargamers at my new school, but there were more interested in the technical efficiency of the treads on a Tiger tank.

I vaguely recall that I chose the game because it was close the Napoleonic (there is an Imperial Guard!) and had a very high rating in an S&T magazine at the time. I chose wisely!

This game attempted to solve the grand tactical problem by creating a number of maps that were joined by Line of Communication Boxes. There are rules for fighting in those boxes, but the point is that only skirmishes happened away from the cities and towns. This allowed for more terrain detail on the parts of the maps that battles happened on.

As you can see below, it is still just the the Crimean peninsula, with maps for Sevastopol, Simferpol, Ketch and Evpatoria. There is also a box for Odessa, but no map although there was action there at the end of the war. (It was an Allied invasion against minimal defence just to force the Tzar to some to the table. The war was over by then.

What I particularly loved about the game was how they portrayed the differences in the armies. The French went for strong melee, the English from strong firepower and the Russians for big guns covering hordes of serfs.

 

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Also, I loved the set up that let you see everything laid out but also ensured you did not have the niggle of wondering if a piece was missing.

What is particularly charming about this game is how it is two games in one. Once the strategic moving finishes, the units all move around (one hex per turn) fighting a tactical engagement, but I'll need to get the pieces on the board to demonstrate this.

This will be my next cab off the rank.

Back to the cold war

I recall Angola as a frequent topic of conversation at Uni between conservatives vs the socialists plus anti-aparthied activists, but I never really new much about it. It looks like S&T has given me a chance to learn some more. It seems fitting with the South Africans over here giving our cricket team a good working over. As always, modern counter art continue to impress, despite the fact that I can't see the detail any more, every with glasses on, until I snap it for the blog.

Counter of the week - Napoleon advances on Vienna

Napoleon can be seen leading the army of Italy. The army is somewhat spread out to reduce attrition, with cavalry screening. In the bottom left, a French garrison holds Triest with a single fleet. In the bottom right is a demoralised Austrian army (under the grey demoralisation marker) that did not get out of the way fast enough. Bellegarde stands in Vienna with two corps, but is strongly advising the emperor to seek terms.

Below is my favourite section of the rules. I think I might just avoid dimissing my admirals.

Google suggests:

He should pick a new counter fleet and assign the same number of step losses that the admiral dismisses. The latter is then replaced in the reserve.

I think John Young would have loved the internet. So too his rules would have!

Who am I?

I have had a long dig to find this in my collection. It comes from 1996. (Paul can guess to current year quizes too quickly.)

A counter set that could give Smaug a run for his money

The latest S&T has units with some of the biggest combat factors I have seen. This team could even give Smaug from the "Battle of the Five Armies" solitaire scenario a scare. (I think it had a combat factor of 100, and I'm sure a musket ball is close enough to an arow.)

The way the counters are printed are innovative; every even row is printed upside down. This avoids colour bleeding from the top of units to the bottom.

The question is, can you guess the period and the battle/war they relate to?

Here is a huge clue (and some rather nice counter art)!

 

Who am I?

I am from a wargame set in a hypothetic future.

These counters only get involved from a random event

Special points if you can tell what this counter does.

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No score on this quiz. Perhaps I should give a point for trying, but the clue was a hypothetical future, and ol' Sadam is very much in the past now. It is a game is posited on a future drive by Israel into Lebanon to attempt the same thing they have just tried in Gaza; to stop the rockets. Irsael have an elite force and can go anywhere they want, but the longer they take with worse their PR becomes. Hezbollah have an elite guerilla force, underground fortifications, sponsorship of Syria and lots of annoying rockets. (The number of the left is convential strength, the one on the right guerilla strength, which can be enhanced by dispersing the unit.) I don't think I'll play it - a bit depressing really.

Oh, and the "deck of cards" was the random events picker. Rather than rolling die, you pick a card at random from a deck. If you do not have one, you can use the chits.

Who am I

I am on the latest Strategy and Tactics issue. Below are my mates. Who am I and what era?

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The Answer

 

Coincidence or destiny?

I am thinking it would be a good idea to play a couple of games of Space Empires on our boys weekend because:

1. Whereas it takes 2-4 hours to play Space Empires, the Empire game we started last boys weekend ran for several weeks after.
2. Turns are much shorter, perhaps 2 minutes a turn, versus 20-30 minutes an empire turn.
3. The first 15-20 turns can be performed simultaneously - its takes about that long for our empires to get into contact
4. It has something for each of us: expand (Peter), exploit (Python) and exterminate (Paul), with exploration for all of us.
5. Destiny!

Destiny you ask. Well, I had a look inside the Space Empires box this evening thinking about if I should suggest this, when I saw there was a black on red counter set, and yellow on green counter set and a yellow on blue counter set, just like the colours we are used to in empire.

The only reason not to play Space Empires is that only one of us knows the rules, so I thought to devote my blogging over the next two weeks to cover the strategies the rules suggest, so after a quick overview on Saturday morning, we can give it a go.

The Opening

The opening moves in Space Empires is pretty standard whatever your philosophy is: You need to explore and colonise all the safe space right away. On the starting board there are all these unknown counters face down. The ones with the player colour start near their home world and are mostly safe. (Their scientists have been studying the near by systems with telescopes for centuries, so their are no nasty surprises.) So with your starting scout ships you can just scoot around all these and build an empire in about 10 turns. (We all move simultaneously at this stage.) At the end of the opening, we have an income of 65 and are powerful enough to take on the nastiness of deep space.

    What Peter starts with: Planets = Great, Minerals = Good, Asteroids and Nebulae = Boring, Black Hole = Bad

Three turns into the opening, and important decision arrives, what to research first. If the barren planet turns up right next to your home world, the answer is easy - Terra Forming (payback, about 6 turns). Otherwise, you need to think about having big ships, strong ships, fast ships or special explorers. You can't have everything, and they are many choices that leave you on the wrong end of scissor-paper-stone when you meet the aliens. In the Doomsday scenario, I went for big ships with extra strength, as I knew the enemy was coming to me, so movement was less important.

Middle Game

In the middle game you enter deep space and set up bases there. You can expect to lose ships to nastiness, but on the flip side can find more planets (but you will need terra forming) and super cool space wrecks, which can save you a motza in tech. There is also the other players.

Contact with aliens (aka mates) is always surprising. You do not know what tech they have researched (except move tech when they first move two spaces) until the first battle. Your first thought will be "OK, I'm stuffed", but a great admiral will turn an enemy's strengths into their weaknesses. If they have better ships, head into a Nebula or Asteroid field  where ship class drops to E. If they have better Attack or Defense tech, asteroids or nebula respectively negate that. If they have better movement tech, head straight for their home world where maneuver means nothing.

For extra fun, decoy ships cost almost nothing. Force the enemy to guess which cup has the pea!

The End Game

I have never played an end game, but I think it will be fast and nasty. it all comes down to taking our the home world, but a small fleet of destroyers can do this just as well as your main fleet, so the alien might think he is doing really well the turn before he loses.

Next Issue

The exploring game...

Paul has been very naughty!

Paul lashed out and bought me an utterly awesome birthday present. (I will overlook him having two months of excuses before handing it over.) I think it takes counter of the week . This is the Theban Phalanxes from the Battle of Lectra. It was one of the first documented echelon attacks (where your best units attack while you refuse your weaker units forcing the defender to decide if it is worth leaving a prepared position to get at them). In it, the Thebans stacked their best units 50 men deep (rather than the more usual 12 men deep). At the front of the column was the Theban Sacred Band, where every man fought shoulder to shoulder with their lover, so retreat was never an option. Amazingly, the Spartans held for a few seconds when this juggernaut hit their lines.

However, I can't punch these out yet as I have not finished my blog on the Battle of the Five Armies. I will even have to delay that to deal with other naughtiness from Paul, in Empire and on this blog.

THANK YOU FOR A FANTASTIC PRESENT!

 

Can you guess what the topic of the latest S&T is?

I think this counter might just beat Paul's awesome efforts from earlier

The same game also has the best runner up counter, or should I say counters, since if you have a good counter, you need more than one...

And to avoid a futile early guess, it is not George W Bush's war on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

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I'm impressed that Paul is having a go at this, because it is quite tricky. Here is a big clue:

The coffee is hot and the board is set up...

Do you see the display on the bottom right? That is the fire range of the Galleasses. The Holy League has six, the moslems have none. The three little displays show the firing range of the rest of the fleet. On the left hand side you see the set up zone for the Holy League. The pairs up the front are the Galleasses being towed by Galleys. Basically, you get a Kill Zone in the front of the battle where the Holy League dominates. On the wings, there is great mayhem, as in the actual battle, where the Moslem galley superiority gives them a slight edge over the greater use of gun powder by the Holy League.

So who wants to punch the counters?

Nomination for Weirdest Counter

I would like to nominate this counter from "The Three Days of Gettysburg" (GMT Games) for the weirdest counter award:

Just in case you don't believe this is a real counter, I include the section of the countersheet:

In this game and more noticeably in the 2nd edition (2000) version of this same game there is another weird counter: "Harry Flashman". This counter deserves an award for "Best Fictional Counter".

This is because Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008), but based on the character "Flashman" in Tom Brown's School Days (1857), a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes (1822–1896). The character appears in a series of twelve books, collectively known as The Flashman Papers.

The designer of "The Three Days of Gettysburg" is wargame design legend Richard Berg, whom boardgamegeek.com describe as a Flashman fan. The inclusion of this counter is a great example of wargame humour.

PRESTAGS Counter of the Week (2): Elephants

Welcome to the PRESTAGS counter - the Elephants.

OK, I know it has not been a week since the post about Swordsmen, but I'm getting in early in case I miss a week later. Plus, I want to beat Maurice to the Elephants because I just know they will be his first pick for counter of the week (not that there is anything wrong with multiple posts about the same counter).

The Elephants are only in one PRESTAGS game: Spartan. I have always been amused that this counter is so unique that it was used in the summary advertising for Spartan:

For those fans of Roman history who remember Hannibal and his elephants: the battle of Zama (202 BC) can be found in Spartan and not Legion along with many other Roman battles. What are the special rules for Elephants?

Well, the first thing to remember is that Elephants "are peculiar" (like Maurice) and they "run rampant in the first Friendly Movement Phase following their involvement in any form of combat" (like Peter).

Yes, the Elephants rampage, and I think this is historically accurate. At the battle of Magnesia (190 BC) at a crucial moment the Syrian elephants stampeded through their own ranks, and so assisted the Romans to defeat Antiochus. And thus all of Asia Minor was lost to the Romans. This famous battle (and the battles below) are of course all scenarios in Spartan.

The Elephants didn't always spell doom for their own side. At the battles of Heraclea (280 BC) and Asculum (278 BC) King Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated the Romans both times with Elephants in his army. Pyrrhus only narrowly defeated the Romans at Asculum and he mourned "another such victory and we are lost". Hence the expression we still use today: a pyrrhic victory.

If you like to play Alexander the Great, you can have a crack at the Elephants on the opposing side in the battle of Arbela (331 BC). This was one of history's greatest battles, where Alexander's force of 47,000 Macedonians defeated a massive hord of 250,000 under Darius III. I can barely imagine what this incredible army of 250,000 in the ancient world must have looked like, especially to the Macedonians lining up against it.

In the case of Elephants, overall I think it is "with friends like this, who needs enemies".

PRESTAGS Counter of the Week (1): Swordsmen

Welcome to the PRESTAGS counter (or unit) - the Swordsmen.

The Swordsmen unit represents at least 100-125 men, and is the only military unit to appear in all five of the PRESTAGS games. The leader counters 1 to 4 are the only other counters in all of the games.

Not surprisingly, the Swordsmen unit is at the heart of the third (and middle) PRESTAGS game: Legion.  In the Roman civil war scenarios, most of the counters are Swordsmen. These are some of my favourite scenarios, and the ones I remember most.

I think the Roman Legionary epitomises the Swordsmen. When I see the SD counter, I think Roman Legionary (and the occasional Centurion).

Do not be deceived by the apparent 'spears' in these pictures of Roman legionaries. They are the Pilum, a heavy type of javelin used for throwing and for pinning the shields of enemies. In most periods of Roman history each Legionary carried two. But at heart, the legionary was a close quarter swordsman, and the famous Roman short sword was designed to both slash and cut, and to stab. In disciplined ranks, the Roman swordsmen were deadly.