Hobby Update: Boardgames - Europe's Agony; Battle Ravens; Achtung Spitfire! & Squad Leader

Although I haven't been doing much blogging recently, I have been doing a reasonable amount of gaming.  For some reason what I have been doing hasn't really lent itself to reviews, AARs or analysis, so I thought I would just summarize my recent activity here, as a marker for myself as much as anything.

Thirty Years War

 The main gaming with miniatures has been more horse-and-musket gaming with Simplicity in Practice: I will deal with that in a separate post.  Boardgame-wise, the main focus has been on playing Thirty Years War: Europe in Agony:

 As far as Thirty Years War games go, this one seems to have been reasonably popular and supported.  A couple of rules questions were answered on the BGG forum quite quickly after I posted them, so some people are definitely still interested.  I am still feeling my way through this game, not so much for the rules as for how the basic strategies of the game work.

Showing the scope of the game - the play area is bounded by Holland - Brandenburg - Franche-Comte - Hungary.  That covers the majority of the Thirty Years War theatres with the remainder being handled by cards.

The area around Bohemia, Austria and Hungary sees a lot of action early on, as the Imperial forces try to defeat a powerful rebellion in Bohemia and a less powerful rebellion in Hungary.

Bavarian forces face some relatively weak opposition around Ulm, but intervening here will cause a negative political reaction in Germany; plus, do these troops need to be sent to Vienna or Prague instead?

Spinola's Spanish are the single most potent military force in existence in Europe at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. Combat in Holland is slightly abstracted by the way and uses a card-driven set of events rather than the usual battle/campaign/siege model in the rest of the game.

My first few games (covering the early years of the war) have been good fun and have shown considerable promise for use as the 'engine' for my proposed Thirty Years War re-fight.  Some very rough, initial observations:

1 - The initial set-up (both in the published game and in the many proposed variants - there is too much chance of easy Protestant dominance in the published set-up, and the variants still seem quite generous to me).  The slight worry here is that the number of forces on the board at the beginning of the campaign are pretty small and the rules quite attritional, so it is very easy to get into some quite odd and one-sided situations very early on.  I don't know how much I should worry about this, but it is noticeable.  Contrast this with the game in the last campaign: Caesar's Gallic War.  That game had some similarities in terms of mechanics, but there was very little Caesar or Ariovistus could do in the first turn to achieve a large degree of dominance.

2 - Sieges seem quite easy to succeed in.

3 - Battles in the game system can be quite mutually bloody: I got three total mutual destruction results in the first three turns!  Nothing about the odds involved makes me think that this would be a real outlier result.  I would be surprised if miniature games replicated those kind of loss levels, so I wonder if that would change the dynamic of the game too much.

4 - The card play is quite important for the strategic framework of the game (new powers intervening, support from foreign powers, generals being recalled, and so on).  There has been some scepticism online about how much some of the cards will get used, although playing solitaire with single sequential draw, it hasn't been too much of an issue in practice for me.

So, some things to think about, but all looking very promising as a game in its own right and as a workable campaign engine for re-fighting the Thirty Years War in 2022.

WW2 Air Wargaming

The air wargames The Portable (Air) Wargame & Achtung Spitfire! have both got to the table recently.  Nothing much to say about either of them: the former is my simple, flawed but IMHO quite enjoyable variant of the air rules from Bob Cordery's Developing the Portable Wargame.  The latter is a comprehensive but for my tastes over-complicated and slow game of WW2 air combat; however, it does seem to produce pretty accurate results and has some great scenarios in.

This is probably the single wargames scenario that I have played the most: two Bf109Es with a slight height advantage take on 3 Hurricanes over France, March 1940.  It is such a great test scenario for WW2 air combat.

The historical result again in this one: one of the 109s is shot down, whilst one of the Hurricane's is damaged (the second 109 escaped easily after this image).

Another great favourite of mine: a simple solo scenario, with PO Richey in the the Hurricane trying to shoot down a lone Dornier 17 at low level in France...

Having damaged it earlier, Richey lines up for one last attack before the Dornier escapes...

And on this occasion, brings it down - just!

The two scenarios above are really good for testing purposes, because they can be played out with Achtung Spitfire! and then compared with simpler sets of rules to see if the simple rules allow things which are simply impossible in AS.  If that happens, it is probably time to change the rules to bring them back to AS outcomes, without introducing AS complexity.  That is basically why I have played them so often!

The third scenario: Blenheim IFs patrolling over France...

About to tangle with Bf110s. Eek!

I think...flying the Blenheim IFs in this one is always going to feel a slightly masochistic exercise...

I often think of this engagement when I hear/read someone riffing on "it isn't the equipment, it is the pilot/crew/soldier" a bit too hard...

Anyway, like a pack of hounds on a wounded fox, the last Blenheim IF goes down...

The same again, but with a larger (double-size) scenario, six Blenheim IFs against eight 110s.

Anyway, all very interesting with AS! and very fun with my much slimmer rules. I must get those rules properly written up and posted (although to be fair, they haven't evolved that much since I last put them up); I am experimenting with some slightly different numbers though, and using d10 rather than d6.

WW2 Tactical Ground Combat:

On a nostalgic whim, I asked for a copy of the classic Squad Leader for Christmas:

I don't think I have much particularly interesting to say about this at this time, except that the basic rules and structure came back really quickly, even though I can't have played for well over 20 years; and that it really was good to get back to Colonel Berki and his boys braving the German machineguns!  Entirely coincidentally, Henry Hyde (from Battlechat podcast, although this particular comment was on a Patrons only Patreon-Q&A session) mentioned that he too had recently bought a copy on a nostalgic whim, although in his case he doubted he would ever get it to the table...I have managed to overcome that particular hurdle, at least.

The initial attack goes in, and despite the usual losses, Berki and some of his riflemen have managed to get across the street...

Lots of fighting across the board now...

 

I didn't take any more pictures of this one, but you get the idea!  I loved it, and have played the Guards' Counter-Attack a couple of times now.
 

Battle Ravens:

Over the Christmas holidays, I also managed to get out Battle Ravens, finally.

This one definitely falls on the 'game' rather than 'simulation' side of the fence: to be honest, one could replace the counters with warriors on for a few different coloured stones and it would work just fine as an abstract boardgame.  The mechanics are really good, give an exciting game and my 11-year old grasped this one without any dramas.  Highly recommended as a game, although it isn't going to replace Comitatus, Dark Age Infantry Slog or even DBM for the wargamer of the period!

Very nice board and counters.  The paper figures are in exactly the same style as the Peter Dennis 'paperboys' which have been doing the rounds for the last few years, and none the worse for that.

Portable Air Wargame - Galland's First Kills

For my next play test of Bob Cordery's Portable Air Wargame, from his Developing the Portable Wargame, (the last one is here), I again used a scenario from the Achtung! Spitfire boardgame (and the map and the counters).

This secnario took place on 12th May 1940 and featured the first air-to-air combat kills of legendary Luftwaffe pilot, Adolf Galland.  In the scenario, Galland and his wingman have bounced a formation of six Belgian Hurricanes.

Aircraft Stats:
Bf 109E-3: SPEED: 7 DAMAGE: 4 WEAPONS: 1 red (i.e. a cannon), 2 white (i.e. machine guns)
Hurricane: SPEED: 6 DAMAGE: 4 WEAPONS: 4 white

Both 109s start with 3 energy points to reflect their greater starting speed and altitude.  The Belgians were surprised and must simply move forward on their first go.  The Germans choose whether to move first or second.

As a "getting back into it" game, there was only one additional rule that I was trying out here: an "Immelman".  Aircraft can reverse facing if they move forward for half their speed (rounded up) first.  They cannot fire during or at the end of this move.

The Battle:

Galland and his wingman (bottom) have bounced the Belgian Hurricane formation and attack, damaging two of them.

That woke them up!  The Belgians break right, with the exception of one that uses an Immelmann.

Galland follows the Belgians around, picking a new target and converting some of the energy into speed to get in close...another Hurrican is damaged.

His wingman, cutting inside Galland's turn, takes on a front quarter attack on one of the damaged Hurricanes...

Which goes down!  Belgian morale fails at this point, and it turns into sauve qui peut...

The Belgian fighters scatter for cover

Galland's wingman cuts loose and pursues a Hurricane...

...perforating his fuselage...

...but the Belgian pilot escapes!

More Hurricanes fleeing for safety...

The Hurricane leader escapes...

But Galland gets into position and puts further holes into the Hurricane...

Who also escapes!

Game Notes: A fun, quick game which reminds me how much I like the simplicity of Bob's game: it is quick enough to retain the feel of a fast dogfight.  Or bounce, in this case.  The basic mechanics are still intuitive enough to memorize and just play.  The Immelmann change seemed to work okay too.  The stat advantage to the 109 seems justified.

Historical Note: The scenario is very sure that the victims were a formation of Belgian Hurricanes but other online information indicates that the victims were RAF Hurricanes. 

More Portable Air Wargames Development

I have been doing a bit more messing around with Bob Cordery's Portable Air Wargame from his Developing the Portable Wargame book.

For these next games, there were three areas I wanted to look at: turn sequence, "energy" as combination of altitude and speed and gunnery.  The challenge would be to introduce more realism without upping the level of complexity more than a smidgeon.  In particular, book-keeping has to be not increased passed the level that already exists within the game.

The scenario I have used for all of these games is another one taken from the Achtung! Spitfire boardgame.  This one features a trio of Hurricanes that have bounced a larger formation of Bf110Cs.

The Forces:

RAF: 3 x Hurricane Is
Luftwaffe: 6 x Bf110Cs.

The first thing I looked at for the scenario was the flight characteristics of the two aircraft compared to the vanilla totals in the rules.  In the original rules, single-engine fighters are much better than twin-engine fighters.  However, the actual Bf110 had certain advantages over the Hurricane: it was faster, and arguably better armed.  The Hurricane was much better at turning, it had a very low wing-loading (usually the best indicator).

So for experimental purposes, I re-did the statlines thus:

Bf110 SPEED: 6 DAMAGE: 4 ARMAMENT: Front-Firing 2d6 (red), 2d6 (green); Rear-Firing 1d6 (green)
Hurricane SPEED: 6 DAMAGE: 4 ARMAMENT: Front-Firing 4d6 (green)

The red and green dice are to modify damage.  A red die represents 2 cannons, and a '6' means 2 damage points are scored rather than 1.  This greatly increases the chance of doing some severe damage for cannon-armed aircraft.

At the time of the combat, the Hurricanes were moving much faster and had a height advantage.  To account for this, I gave the Hurricanes 3 energy points to expend and automatically had the first turn.

First Combat:

The Hurricanes (bottom-right) closing in fast behind the Bf110s (left)

The 110s

And the pursuing Hurricanes

The Hurricanes expend some of that extra energy and close-in fast to shooting range

"He who gets in close shoots them down" - Sailor Malan

The 110s break hard and turn towards the incoming interceptors

Something was bothering me soon after this, so I abandoned it.  I think it was rolling for the turn sequence.  The 110s had got the next turn and were thus able to immediately close back in on the Hurricanes.  I couldn't find any way of rationalizing this.  So I decided to reload and not roll for turn but follow a straightforward IGOUGO sequence, with the bouncing Hurricanes moving first,

Second Battle:
 

Once again, with feeling.

Naturally, the first turn plays out pretty much the same

The 110s turn and face

Much better this time: the Hurricanes get in amongst the 110s

Some 110s are in a position to trade shots

As the flanking 110s break hard to try and get into position (left)

The Hurricane leader is clinging hard to the tail of his target

The leading rotte of 110s are in trouble (bottom) but the remainder of the 110s are getting back into position (centre)

The first Bf110 goes down (bottom-right)

The furball continues, the Bf110 leader perhaps surprisingly has suffered only a little damage

The Hurricanes choose honour over, some might say, sense and they make their next pass head-on into the 110s (centre) - "a bold move" in the face of the 110s cannons...

The 110s make a pass then break, considering that they are not in the best position to engage

And it is throttles down for safety

The Hurricanes pursue...

Some good shooting by Hurricane 3 shoots down another 110

The rear 110s are not in a good position...

But they keep their speed up and keep on going...

The Hurricanes are not giving up, but their tenacity is outstripping their accuracy...

The 110 leader escapes the Hurricane leader

The 110s clear the map.

So, more good games - quick, but full of excitement.  The changes seemed to work quite well and make good sense without introducing complexity.  I have been most pleased with the rules for cannon and the rules for energy. I have separately explored the idea of aircraft being able to gain energy by abstractly simulating climbing and it worked...okay.  It hasn't thus far made that much difference though, so I am unsure whether it needs to be adopted.  The IGOUGO does work better I think for air-focused games, but would probably not change the ground rules to go with it: i.e. if playing with aircraft over a land battle, keep on rolling for initiative.

One area that I am interested in exploring is manoeuvring.  I am thinking of changing the turning circle of some aircraft so they have to go two hexes straight before changing facing.  I am also thinking of not charging aircraft for the changing of face, which would enlarge turning circles.  This seems possible without complicating matters too much.  It is changing speed and altitude that really add complexity in air combat games, hence my desire to avoid at all costs.

Anyway, more on this soon.