Next X Wing game

This Sunday I'm putting on an X wing game for the club, the game is Napoleonic 15mm. In preparation I have finally put all the ships into foam travel boxes, which are a mixture of KR Multi Cases and Figures in Comfort. The mixture of boxes is not by design, just what I have. The KRs were  purchased for my Full Thrust fleet and transporting 28mm skirmish forces for whatever period. I cannibalised the skirmish box taking the flat sheets to use to provide tops in my oldest of Figure in Comfort boxes. Now that is all done I can take any or all of my Star Wars toys to game.

My KR boxes are the cardboard versions and stack nicely, my Figures in Comfort are plastic cases which are sturdy but don't stack so well when you carrying them. Clearly if you use the handles on the plastic cases there's no problem.

So the gear is ready what to play. This is the question bouncing round my head. I've still to sort out the cards and assemble the manoeuvre dials which may dictate which ships get left out.

I'll have 4 to 8 players to cater for. If you've not guessed I provide all the ships and umpire. We've learnt from previous X wing games and other aerial combat games is that in an afternoon's play everyone loves a grand melee.

Personally I like a bit of a story to a game to give it purpose and that then gives me the ideas of which ships to use. Another consideration is that although I may know Star Wars backwards and it's canon and now non canon expanded universe not all my players do. So the ships need to familiar.

My thoughts so far for a scenario are:
Han and Chewie in the Falcon leading a small group of freighters via an old smugglers route to a planet blockaded by the Imperials. There aim is to get past the blockade and deliver much needed supplies to the rebels on the planet. They will be supported Luke and some of Rogue squadron.

The Empire is stretched thin by the rebellion and is using mercenaries to assist with the blockade and they are watching the smugglers route. They can call on Imperial support. That may include Darth Vader.

I think that gives me enough background to play each faction. I just need to make the forces balanced or not (queue evil umpire cackle).

Conwy Wargames Club Rapid Fire game Feb

Pete put on a 20mm WW2 Rapid Fire game using the Ponyri scenario in the Russian Front 3rd supplement (blue cover) p35.

Pete supplied the majority of the Russians with some reinforcement from Dave. The scenery were a mix of Dickeys', Daves' and Pete's. I supplied the Germans, with some reinforcements from Gaz.

The Scenario

The Soviets held a fortified line anchored on 2 hill in front of Ponyri. Their aim to stop the Germans breaking through.

The Forces

Germans - me, Gaz, Chris and Tony

1 508th Grenadier regiment

1 artillery regiment

1 nebelwerfer battery

1 654th Heavy Anti tank battalion - 2 x Ferdinands

1 x FW190 plan arriving turn 3

Soviets - Ian, Alex and Dickey

1023rd Rifle Regiment

Anti tank regiment

122mm Howitzer battery

Katyusha battery

Sturmovik plane (should have been a LA-5N but we didn't have one)

The Game

Soviet first line defences

Soviet 2nd line

The German's decided this is where they'd break through ignoring the other hill.

View towards the Germans

The Sturmovik 

Soviet 2nd line

Germans ready to go

Turn 1 German move

Turn 2

170mm pretending to be a 150mm

The best looking artillery on the board

The Grenadiers' integral artillery deploy

Gazs' nebelwerfer

Getting closer. For the majority of the game the Germans and Soviets failed to spot each other, and if we did both sides failed the artillery communication check. Mainly due to my error in reading the rules and telling everyone we can only call in artillery on a 1 or a 2, rather than the 3,4,5 or 6 we should have been using. 

Soviets wait patiently for the Germans to get closer. About now we realised that we'd made the board 2.5ft larger than the scenario asked for. When you moving at 6" that's a lot. Oops. My fault again as I added the extra table to get the right length - 8ft. Then we all set up the terrain up to use all the table length. If I hadn't added the extra table we'd been a foot short. Oh well.

Once we'd sorted all our errors out our dice for both sides was appalling. We couldn't spot. We couldn't hit anything. Rockets deviated in to unoccupied areas. The planes turned up on turn 3. The Sturmovik saw off the FW190, and in turn was seen off by the German AA. Both sides therefore failed to rain death from above. In the last 2 turns things suddenly changed. 

The Soviets on the target hill were near 50% casualties from concentrated artillery, nebelwerfer and mortar fire requiring reinforcement from the other defended hill. After repeated failures with trying to lay a proper covering smoke screen the Germans chanced a dash across open ground and the 1st battalion was cut down but still going forward as the game ended. 

On the whole an unsatisfactory game all round, but one of many 'if only' moments. Now that we've dissected where we went wrong, among which included needing to know the rules better, I'd play it again. The correct size board and the easier ability to call in artillery would have given us the game we expected where artillery did the hard work to enable the infantry to win the objective.

On a positive the company was good and the game looked great.

Conwy Wargames Club Feb Saga game

Dave commanding Viking and Pete with Strathclyde Welsh fought it out last Sunday. The Welsh trashed the Vikings.

Pete's warlord

Dave's warlord

All the figures were Petes'.

I caught up with Dave later and he commented that both he and Pete agree that the rules favoured the Strathclyde Welsh. Specifically Pete had the majority of his units off board that allowed him to earn more fatigue tokens to place on the Viking units which they themselves had no real counter. These 2 sides will be fighting again.