It Never Snows

 

No play this week due to holidays. But i Have fun at home by clipping and arranging It Never Snows (BGG page) from The Gamers and published by MMP. This is a game from the Standard Combat Series depicting Market Garden operation.

There are many candidates to play this game so I hope that we will try it in the near future.

Here are some pics of my storage solution. In just two counter trays (from GMT) i have managed to fit all the counters. I have made 2/3 separations in the trays to alphabetically arrange Germans by KG.

And everything together:

Combat Commander, Scenario 40

 

Last session, Ramon and I were giving a try to the biggest and bloodiest scenario in Combat Commander. We have played Scenario 40, Into the Breach, that deals with the fighting at Barrikady Factory in Stalingrad.

Scenario is played in Map 34, mainly dominated by a big building (Barrikady Factory) withother factories in the surroundings. Set-up is quite original as both players must draw for a random hex where to place groups in an alternating order. Rubble hexes are also placed at random at the beginning of set-up. This is the result of our random draw:

The Germans (me) are mainly placed in the factories of their side but a few groups have achieved to deploy inside the factory. Interestingly the three German HMG (red circles) are inside the factory and I placed them into rubble hexes looking for machinegun nests (fields of fire indicated by red arrows). I was also fortunate as I've managed to have most of the other squads well grouped and mostly (just but one) into command radius of any leader (yellow circles).

On their side, Rusians are spreading inside the factory. A few units are placed in other factories. Infantry guns are back in the first row of the map with difficult lines of sight. Also there are many units out of command in the middle of the factory. German leaders are indicated by orange circles.

An important rule in this scenario is that factory has an inherent hindrance of 3. Victory conditions stablished that Germans should look for having more units than russians inside Barrikade or for exit units off the map.

So first plan for Germans was to eliminate Russians units that could interfere movement inside the factory. With the HMG I have tried to break as many russian units as possible to facilitate the advance of my backwards groups.

An interesting situation has produced at the left side of the factory where we can see that German may try to capture a fortified position with a quite open field of fire. For Russians, he concerned first with the germans HMG, trying to kill that in Objective 5, and, second, to put into command their dispersed units at the front of the factory (calling back the leader outside)

Initial movements:

In the left, Germans did not take the bunker position. Blaze was declared at the HMG nest hex and they retrated, missing their nice sight. Look at the two Ampulomet nicley placed.	In the middle, Germans slowly advance to get LOS into the barrikade. However they could not avoid that Russian leader moved out of this building.	In the right, we have seen clos fighting between Rifle squads on both sides. German quality makes the difference in absence of Russian numerical superiority.

A few rounds later, Germans achieve to replace units around the bunker and Pionier succesfully attacked it.	At Objective 5, an horde of Militia Russian troops assaulted the HMG nest to destroy it.

This is the overview of the battle at this point. Without opposing fire, German decide that it is time to move his two remaining groups into the factory.

At this point, Sturm reinforcements arrived and German player decided to deploy them in two groups, left, and right to support main assault into the factory.

Now, German is heavily placed into the factory and, in the view of German Flamethrowers, Russian commander panicked and gave order to stablish a new defensive position back in the factory.

Sturm entered factory:	Russian placed a new defensive line:

However, unstopped outside of the factory, now it seems to late to avoid the enormous push of Germans. Moreover, russians get outflanked in his left (right in the pics) and Germans have found a freeway to get units off the map, directly towards the Volga!!!

At this point of the fight, it was late in the afternoon and we have agreed to stop the scenario. Russians were still leading by two VPs and had 1 more unit inside the factory but probably it would end in a German victory. Nevertheless, we friendly accord a stalemate.

This is the final position:

My impression is that this is a way too big to play with CC. I prefer scenarios with a smaller number of units. Initial set-up is original and funny and gives a lot of reproducility to the scenario but it consumed too much of our playing time (total session was less than 3 hours).

Twilight Struggle and OCS

 

No more Combat Commnader play this week. Unfotunately, our working schedules were incompatible and Ramon and I will not meet today to play. But I was playing against Jordi a game of Twilight Struggle as he was released from his OCS- Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II match.

I was playing as American and Jordi leaded the Russians.

He had a very bad time from the very beginning as his card hands did not allowed him to stablish a heavy world wide domination. American got scoring cards in Asia and Middle East and managed to get an early advantage of 4-5 points. In Europe there was heavy fight for France when Russians played De Gaulle in secound turn. Early war ended with Americans leading the scoring track and Russians racing in the space.

At the beginning of Middle War, Soviets began an attempt to dominate Africa but again Americans got the scoring card and, by playing succesful coups they managed to minimize the effect on VPs.

 

More fight has been seen in France where we even need to down the markers to 1 when we got 9 influence points there (and we raised again to 8 ). In Asia after an initial push of Americans, Russian turned the continent with several coups in the Southeast and the play of Indo-Pakistani war. Centroamerica was following Fidel and Che doctrines whereas in SouthAmerica, US had strong followers in Brasil, Venezuela and Argentina.

So we have entered late war with soviest leading space race and a neat American advantage in VPs. Then, I played wargames to give russian 6 Vps and end with a US victory by 2 VP.

Some pics also of the GBII game with Germans already at Bryansk:

A year playing ... (and III)

The other monster game played at the club was not a game but a series of games: Operational Combat Series (OCS) by The Gamers. The idea came as a few buddies in the club decided to play Case Blue, the monster game about the fights in the steppe of Army Group South from 1941 to 1943.

Not only is a monster (2800 counters) but it is also a hardcore wargame (combat, movement, supply, air support, and all this stuff...). So, first thing before to be involved in one of this overwhelming campaigns is to get the feeling of the game and learn the rules. Possibly everybody agrees that Tunisia is one of the best for this introduction into the series. And this was the campaign played by Mateo and Jordi as Allied against Alberto who lead the Germans.

And some pics:
While these guys were playing their monster wargames we have fun playing some sessions of "lighter" games
Manifest Destiny by GMT

of course, one of our favorites, Dominant Species by GMT games


and, for Ramon's pleasure (thanks for the pics), Puerto Rico

Finally, just to mention that i have continued my task on introducing games to my 9-year-old kid and besides the usual sunday gaming sessions at home we had a funny afternoon at dad's club where everybody was ready to play Formula D with us.

Now, he wants that dad builds a tower dice for him. But that is the task for another year...

A year playing ... (part II)

 

Following with the summary of our plays last year. Jordi and I have played (quite intermitently) a game of Paths of Glory. This is a card-driven game that simulates the First World War. It is considered one of the best CDG games and in spite of being 14-years old is still at wargame #2 in BGG.

This helped me to better learn the game rules and to feel the game from the point of view of Central Powers as I was playing Allied against Alberto by vassal (see our AAR in http://aarbyvassal.blogspot.com.es/).

I have managed to take Belgrade but Jordi sent some Russian Armies to crush Bulgarians and free again the Balkans. I did not achieve any strong push in the West and in the East I could advance in the North but my South flank was very thin. When Italy came into war I sent a few German Armies there (static solid trench line in France) and made some attacks. Finally, game ended in a agreed stalemate.

Some pics from the early stages of the war:

Another game seen in our tables during 2012 was Space Empires: 4X. A game where you build your empire, explore the surrounding space, colonize planets, build an space army and finally try to destroy your enemy. Personally I find the first half of the game (economy, exploration) very appealing and well done. normally I lose some interest when coming to war and combats.  But it is a good game.

Some pics: